Soul Searching

By Hesadevil

Prologue

The alley behind the Hyperion Hotel was awash with freshly spilled blood, the rain sluicing it into the gutter in torrents. And still they came; wave after wave of seemingly unstoppable demons bent on destroying the pitifully small band of figures fighting with their backs to the wall. As each line fell, another replaced it; a never ending horde clamouring for annihilation.

In the sky above, the dragon screamed, its jaws peeling back revealing a deep maw containing neither flesh nor bone, but pure darkness. With a roar, the thing that had assumed the dragon’s form, spewed forth, fracturing into three parts, each rolling away from the battle and up into the storm that accompanied it. As they did so, a figure plummeted to the pavement, still clutching the sword that had dealt the dragon the mortal blow. Crumpled on the gore soaked ground, Angel raised his head briefly and blinked the blood from his eyes before losing consciousness.

Above the rooftops, three clouds, blacker than the rainstorm that had heralded the beginning of the conflict, billowed and grew, changing shape, reforming and finally solidifying in the forms of a wolf, a ram, and a hart. The rain stopped. Something worse replaced the storm. Fog, rolling in from the direction of the bay, bringing with it the faint metallic odour of dark magic. As the fog thickened, it grew colder, blacker, and foul-smelling, turning rapidly into smog, the kind that conceals, smothers, binds and kills.

Gunn was the first to fall, unable to hold off the attackers he could no longer see. Illyria was next; cursing the loss of powers she once had to sense and anticipate the enemy. Spike continued to fight on a while longer, his heightened vampire senses guiding his moves. But he was alone and eventually, overcome by the sheer numbers, he too fell and was buried under a mass of blood-hungry demons.

…………………………………………………………..

He knew she was there before he saw her, sensed her before he caught her scent above the acrid smell of the corpses that pinned him to the sodden pavement. Before she grasped his arm and hauled him to his feet, he could taste her fiery anger punching its way through the suffocating clouds.

Spike opened his swollen eyes and grinned at her. "The Big Poof had a plan after all then." He scanned the alley for signs of the others. "Did he make it?" he asked her anxiously, still searching the battleground. “Where is he?”

Spike turned back to face the slayer but she had thrown herself into the fight before she'd heard his question. There were other girls fighting alongside her, skilful and strong, slicing heads from bodies with apparent ease. Illyria was with them but, even so, they were outnumbered. As quickly as they sent a demon to its death, another took its place.

Spike gazed at them in awe, feeling as if he'd died and gone to heaven. He rubbed his face, feeling the blood welling from fresh wounds, wincing in pain as he gathered his strength to fling himself back into the fray. "Not heaven then," he muttered.

As he turned to join them, a sudden blast of power threw him to the ground; the heat singeing his coat, adding further to the damage it had suffered from the dragon’s fire. He watched with amazement as the demons stopped their attack, responding to some unheard call to retreat. He saw Illyria turn her attention to the Slayer who had led the counter-attack. She held out her leather-clad arm towards her and pulled it back rapidly as it drew sparks from the power-shield that surrounded her. The demons silently disappeared into the fog, which quickly turned back into mist before dissipating altogether. The rain returned, a fine drizzle at first, then gathering strength, cascading in icy sheets, from a sky that gradually brightened with dawn’s imminent arrival.

Spike lurched painfully to his feet. "Where’s Angel?" he shouted. "We have to find cover."

Illyria continued her scrutiny of the woman who had earlier pulled Spike to his feet. "Your leader is there," she said. Without changing the direction of her gaze, she pointed at a battered figure slumped in the Hyperion’s rear entrance, cradling Gunn’s head, shielding him from the worst of the rain.

Spike strode over shrugging his singed duster off his shoulders as he did so. He held it out to Angel. "Here, use this," he said softly. "Is he going to be OK?" Not waiting for an answer, Spike’s eyes swept the alley once more. "How’d you pull this off?" he asked, indicated the girls standing before them. "Put out a 911 call while you were airborne, did you?"

Angel frowned and glanced beyond Spike at the slayer who held Illyria's attention and was running towards them "Buffy . . .she . . ."

Spike never heard the rest of Angel’s explanation. Strong hands gripped his shoulder and swung him round. He was pulled into an embrace that would have done serious damage to a human body and his lips were assaulted by a passionate kiss. His blood sang in response and he leaned in, opening his mouth, welcoming the tongue that caressed his. The soft moan that greeted his response shocked him into breaking the embrace. His eyes flew open and stared into the green ones of the slight figure that continued to grip his arms like a drowning woman clutching at her rescuer.

"Bloody Hell, Slayer," Spike gasped. "What’d you do that for?" He glanced over his shoulder at Angel. "You saw that, right? She kissed me. You really should keep a closer eye on your bird, mate. She’s loopier than Dru ever was."



Chapter 1: Soul Sensations

The entrance lobby of the Hyperion bustled with activity and at first glance, it looked to be in total chaos. People hurried in from the street carrying toolboxes, cooking utensils, armfuls of bedding, and camping cots. The stuffy air smelt of dust, sweat and blood and was laden with soft cries of pain as the injured called urgently for assistance.

In the midst of this, Buffy moved through the room with calm efficiency, directing the first-aiders and indicating where supplies should go. As more bloodstained slayers were ferried in through the front doors she allocated places in adjoining rooms according to the severity of their injuries. Illyria followed her progress, observing from a distance as she checked each new arrival. Twice she stepped into Buffy’s path and received an icy glare, to which she responded with a slight, quizzical tilt of her head.

"Will you back off?" Buffy snapped.

"I wish to observe," replied Illyria.

"Well do it somewhere else – like Texas."

Illyria ignored her, instead looking over her head towards the doors as Angel and Spike appeared, carrying Gunn between them on a wooden board. They moved slowly, taking care not to jolt their injured comrade.

Buffy took one swift look at Gunn, and pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket, flicking it open with a snap. She punched a number into the keypad. "We need the Crash Team," she said briskly. She glanced at Spike and tears welled behind her eyes. "Hyperion Hotel, 4121 Wilshire Boulevard." Without waiting to hear further questions, she closed the phone and bent her head to a wounded girl at her feet.

Illyria switched her attention to the two vampires, though her eyes remained fixed on Buffy. They were nursing injuries of their own. Spike’s duster was in tatters; the charred remains hanging from his shoulders like paper streamers. His black T-shirt was stained and gashed and his face was a mass of purple and black. Several deep gouges on his forehead showed the beginnings of healing but the dried blood on his eyes and cheeks bore witness to the savagery of the demons who had felled him.

Angel’s injuries were less visible, but he moved stiffly with a pronounced limp on his left side. He shifted the weight of the board onto his right hip, wincing with each painful step.

"What were you playing at?" he hissed.

"Told you, she started it," snarled Spike.

"Not that!" Angel spat in response. Illyria noted that as he spoke, his eyes flicked over to where Buffy was still crouched beside the young girl. She was tight-lipped, her tear-streaked face bleak and closed.

Illyria stepped closer as Angel lowered his voice to a whisper. "You’re tearing her apart, Spike. I know we agreed to move on, but what you just did is too much. Even for you."

Angel gestured with his head at a vacant spot on the ground and he and Spike carefully lowered each end of the makeshift stretcher to the floor. Spike squinted at Angel through blood-caked lashes. "What’re you on about? That dragon venom’s affected your brain, Grandpa’."

"It’s not me that’s affected! This is the woman you said you loved. If this is an example of the way you treated her when . . . "

"Loved? The Slayer! Me?" Spike’s yell cut Angel off.

All activity in the room ceased as people turned their attention to the two vampires standing face to face, noses almost touching. Illyria’s swift, noiseless glide away from them went unnoticed in the hushed stillness that followed Spike’s outburst. She observed him from a distance, waiting for the storm she knew was gathering in his mind, to thunder its presence.

Gunn’s low groan, and an accompanying growl from Spike’s stomach, broke the silence. "Look’s like Chuck’s done for," Spike muttered, glancing down. His stomach gave another rumble. "And I’m feeling mighty peckish."

Buffy slowly got to her feet, glared at Spike, and crossed the room towards the entrance, as the distant sounds of sirens heralding the arrival of ambulances grew louder.

Angel tensed in alarm as he saw ridges beginning to appear on Spike’s forehead, but before he could move, Spike backed rapidly away from Gunn, colliding into Buffy in his haste to put distance between himself and the injured man.

Buffy pushed him aside, her grazed knuckles leaving droplets of blood on the shoulder of his duster. "Better keep out of my way, Spike. I'm not gonna take this much longer."

Illyria focussed on Spike. She could feel his confusion, reading it in swirling patterns of colour, pulsing round his body like a light show accompanying a symphony orchestra. She reached out and touched his mind with hers, probing it to reveal his thoughts and feelings.

Spike closed his eyes, the wave of emotion rippling across his stomach, leaving the muscles tight with tension. His nostrils flared at the familiar scent, Buffy’s scent: sweat and blood mingled with the sweeter, lighter perfume of Jasmine.

That smell.

Unbidden images flashed through his mind with the instantaneous hardening of his penis; Buffy, naked and moaning with pleasure beneath him; a tiled floor; a torn bathrobe; hands aflame. With the images came an aching sense of loss and desolation, washing over him in painful waves. He swallowed hard and opened his eyes, struggling for a quick rejoinder to Buffy’s words that never came. Instead, he found himself staring into Illyria’s glacial eyes, hearing her speak, though her lips never moved.

"The price you willingly paid is high, vampire." Illyria’s voice echoed in his head.

Spike blinked with surprise. And suddenly, she was gone, resuming her place in the centre of the room, motionless and silent once more.

Angel, too, was watching as the warring emotions danced across Spike’s face. Horror, pain, desire, need, and guilt, in quick succession. He grasped Buffy’s arm as she moved past him. "Buffy . . ."

She jerked away from his grasp. “Not now, Angel,” she said stonily. "There’s more important things I have to do."

"You are coming back?" Angel frowned, lowering his voice. "There’s something wrong with Spike." He gestured at the blond vampire who swung his head from Angel to Buffy, frantically searching their faces for reassurance.

Buffy snorted. "You just figure that out?"

"This is serious." Angel glanced again at Spike who was inching further away from Gunn. "I think a demon took a chunk out of him."

"He’ll have to wait his turn," Buffy replied coldly, avoiding Angel’s eyes.

She swung the doors open, revealing the Crash Team. They moved swiftly into the room, carrying drip stands, IV bags, coolers, and medical bags.

"There’s your patient." Buffy gestured at Gunn. "There’s a room out back all ready." She pushed the doors wide open, and left without a backward glance.

Angel gave Gunn's hand a reasurring pat as the medics carried him away, then hobbled painfully to where Spike sat slumped against the reception desk with his knees drawn up, his head resting on them underneath folded arms. He placed a hand on Spike’s shoulder.

"Spike. What happened?" he asked softly.

The younger vampire mumbled something unintelligible and shrugged Angel’s hand off.

Angel lowered himself carefully to the floor, rested his head back against the front panel of the desk and sighed wearily. They sat together in silence, watching as the room gradually emptied, leaving Illyria standing alone in the same spot from which she’d watched Buffy leave the hotel.

"You’re a bastard!” Spike’s voice shattered the stillness. “A manipulative, self-centred, prancing, do-gooding, Nancy Boy . . ." The tirade came to a sudden halt.

"Feel better now?" Angel asked, studying Spike’s face for clues.

"No," Spike pouted. "I’m not done yet." His face creased with a sudden spasm of pain. "God, I’m hungry. All this fresh on-tap human blood sloshing around, you’d think I could have just one little sip." He inhaled deeply, then tensed his jaw and stared at his Grandsire. "Angel, what’s wrong with me?"

Angel regarded him for a long time before answering. Something in Spike’s storm-grey eyes warned him to tread carefully.

"That’s what I’d like to know," he replied finally. "Are you sure you haven’t taken Andrew’s advice too much to heart? Moving on’s one thing. But I’m seeing denial here. You loved her Spike. You got your soul back for her."

Spike’s shoulders slumped even lower as he let his head fall back into his hands. "But I don’t remember."

"You don’t remember . . .?" began Angel.

"Hang on!" Spike’s head snapped up. "Soul? Don’t be bloody stupid. I haven’t got a soul." He pulled himself onto his feet and strode angrily away, stopping beside Illyria who remained still and quiet. "You're the soulful one. I’m as soulless as the Ice Queen here."

Angel hauled himself up, slowly levering himself upright with the aid of the counter top. He limped painfully towards Spike. "As if I haven’t enough to worry about, I now have an amnesiac second-in-command on my hands," he thought despondently.

"No soul? Then how do you account for not being able to drink human blood?" he asked.

Spike’s response was instantaneous. "The chip."

"And why are you here helping me?" Angel raised his eyebrows.

"Because . . ." Spike stopped, narrowing his eyes. "That a trick question?"

Angel changed tack. "If you never loved her, why did you help Buffy in Sunnydale all that time?"

Spike didn’t answer. Instead, he began pacing the room, his face contorted with the effort of trying to recall the events of the past five years.

Angel was unsure how far to push Spike but he pressed on. "And why did you stay with Dawn after Buffy died?"

Spike ceased pacing. "Nibblet," he breathed. A painful vice clutched his chest as more images crowded into his mind; the feel of Dawn’s arms as she clung to him on the back of a motorcycle; her standing in the doorway of his crypt; "If you wanted to hurt Buffy -- congratulations. It worked."

Angel noticed Spike’s unease but continued his attack. "And why did you stay to die at the Hellmouth when Buffy told you . . ."

Spike’s fist slammed into Angel’s jaw, sending him reeling backwards into Illyria. "That’s enough," he snarled. "No more mind games. I . . . She," he struggled for control. "There. Is. No. Soul. Couldn’t love the Slayer. Right. Wrong. All wrong." Spike backed away from Angel and faced the wall, running his hands along the torn wallpaper and mumbling softly to himself.

The entrance door opened quietly and Buffy stepped inside; Lorne stood grim-faced behind her. Illyria was still contemplating the spot Buffy had vacated earlier. A flash of acknowledgement passed between her and Lorne and she shifted the focus of her attention from Spike to Angel.

"This Slayer is the One," an icy voice said softly in his ear. "And so it begins. It was not a demon that removed part of your comrade,” she said. He gave it freely to help another."

Angel caught the slight motion of Illyria’s hand in front of his eyes before the light from the room faded. The ground slipped away from under him and he felt the vertigo he’d experienced on the dragon’s back. He tried to shake his head in an attempt to clear it, but his muscles wouldn’t co-operate and he felt himself leaving his body and floating in the darkness.


Chapter 2: Lost Souls

Three clouds loomed on the horizon. Shaped like warships, long, broad and dense, with anvil-shaped prows. They streamed closer, blackening the entire sky, hurling down salvos of heavy rain and stinging hail. The wind was a solid wall of sound, pounding a counter-rhythm to the percussive shocks crumpling the sky. Lightning tore at the graphite heavens, ripping them apart. It seemed that Nature in all her wildest fury was hell bent on destroying the rook as it soared above the city. Yet this weather was no natural phenomenon, the Storm Fiend was fuelled with anger, brutal and feral, and it burnt the air with each lightning flash. The stench of sulphur lingered, despite the driving rain, thudding down relentlessly in implacable volleys; Ares’s warrior-archers’ aim deadly, sure and true.

“You must witness certain events as they happened if you are to understand and accept the journey that lies ahead.” Illyria’s voice said from somewhere inside Angel’s head.

He opened his mouth to speak, struggling against the confines of the body in which she’d trapped him. “Illyria? Where am I? Where are you?” These were the words that echoed through his mind. What he heard was the rasping sound of rusty metal on metal, ending in a vaguely familiar ‘cack cack’.

“To fight is futile.”

Angel had looked on the world with eyes that were not his own once before, when the Darkness that was Acathla swallowed him. Then he’d been left with a lingering image of Buffy, the sword with which she had just run him through still in her hand. He peered through the downpour, more or less certain now that he was airborne, and a reluctant passenger with Illyria, within her Spirit Guide.

As he relaxed, Angel could feel the whip and wire of the air through his feathers, the sting of each hailstone on head and beak and wing, as they rode the switchback of the spirals and curves of storm-tossed thermals. No city lights guided their way as the rook plunged through the tumult, spiralling downwards, riding the waterfall thundering to the streets below. Angel tried bracing himself for a rough landing, forgetting for an instant that he was not the one in control of this borrowed body, straining to see through the blackness that accompanied their descent.

Slowly, the light returned and with it, the realisation that he was no longer part of the bird that stood watching him, head cocked, blue eyes glittering.

“A power such as I have not enjoyed since my Wesley robbed me of it, will guide you now, half-breed. My task is done,” croaked the bird with Illyria’s voice. And with that, the rook lifted its wings and beat the air twice before disappearing in a flurry of ebony and purple-black velvet.

Angel blinked and stared at the man in front of him through Lorne’s eyes.

“You don't trust me. You don't think a man can change?” Lindsey grimaced up at him.

“It's not about what I think. This was Angel's plan.” Lorne’s voice replied solemnly. Angel flinched, knowing what was to come.

Lindsey smiled at him. “I could sing for you,” he offered.

“I've heard you sing,” Lorne’s weary voice replied.

Angel looked down at Lorne’s hand, holding the gun he himself had given him. He smelt the cordite of the explosion, watched the bullet making its way, in slow motion towards Lindsey’s heart.

“Why-why did you...?” Lindsey gasped.

“One last job,” came Lorne’s toneless response. Angel’s thought joined him in perfect harmony. “You're not part of the solution, Lindsey. You never will be.”

The dying man slid down the wall, his words coming in painful gasps. “You kill me? A flunky?! I'm not just... Angel...kills me. You don't... Angel...”

“But I just did,” Angel told his closing eyes.

---------------------------------------------------

Lorne swung the car into the slow moving traffic, wiping the condensation from the front window with the sleeve of his jacket. Angel watched the driving rain and listened to the squeal of the windscreen wipers as they tried valiantly to clear the deluge.

Angel’s mind screamed in pain at the newsreel of visions that flooded in causing Lorne to pull over and stop the car, his hands shaking on the wheel; Fred, holding Wesley’s body, crying “My love. Oh, my love”; her hand smashing Vail’s skull into thousands of fragments; Fred, in Wesley’s arms, “Why can’t I stay?”

More events crowded into Lorne’s mind, threatening to overwhelm Angel; sounds and sights he could almost touch. Conflicting memories warred with one another: Spike crashing through the observation window of the training room, a circle surrounding the hieroglyphs from Illyira’s coffin, Wesley, holding a crystal aloft; Connor, lying bruised and bloodied on a sofa in Spike’s office. Angel’s mind screamed for emptiness. Those things never happened. His soul writhed with guilt. He hadn’t saved her. He’d let her die.

Lorne rested his head on his trembling arms and sobbed. He was shaking so violently that Angel could feel his own consciousness colliding with that of the Pylean. He battled furiously to take control but felt Lorne’s will slip from his grasp, as more apparitions flooded in; Illyria, crouching beside Wesley’s lifeless form, keening, “What dost thou behold, fair light? But thou dost smile and depart. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Heimdall’s soul arise!

‘Cordellia’s visions.’ The thought struck Angel like a physical blow. She’d passed them to Lorne. ‘Impossible!’ She’d given Angel the single gift that had enabled him to take out the Circle of the Black Thorn.

Illyria appeared before them, blue hair streaming in the wind and rain. “Turn the car around,” she commanded. “There is more yet that you must do.” As she dissolved back into the storm, Lorne turned the key in the ignition and spun the car through a U-turn, ignoring the oncoming traffic and leaving a line of rear-shunted cars in his wake as he sped back towards the city.

The Merc squealed to a halt across the path of hooded figure hurrying away from an apartment block. The headlights caught a flash of white hair as the monastic robe was discarded. Spike’s face was bloody from battle but he crouched in defensive mode, ready to face whatever emerged from the car. Angel watched him visibly relax as he recognised the former Karaoke Host.

“Lorne! Thought you’d quit. Didn’t think you went in for spectator sports.”

“Need you for a solo spot before the main act gets underway,” replied Lorne. He glanced anxiously at the sky. “Don’t have much time.”

Angel observed the incredulous look that passed across Spike’s face and he gave Lorne’s consciousness a metaphorical kick. “Tell him what’s at stake,” he clamoured silently, as Spike turned to make his way towards the Hyperion.

Lorne gripped Spike’s arm. “It’s Fred,” he said simply. “I know where she is.”

Spike lowered his eyes as a grimace of pain flared across his face. “She’s dead, mate,” he said softly. “Dead and gone.”

The thunder rolled across the sky, increasing its cacophony with each jagged burst of lightening. Lorne stared at the blackness over their heads. “Never knew there could be so many shades of black.”
‘A thousand shades of black
But the same rule always applies
Smile pretty, and watch your back,’ he crooned.

Lorne’s singing ended abruptly and he fixed Spike with a resolute stare. “Sparrow lied!” Lorne drove the word through gritted teeth. “ Fred’s soul couldn’t be destroyed, any more than yours or Angel’s could. It’s out there, Spike. And I know someone that’s willing to do a deal. Another little bird brought a message from The Powers.”

“Why me?” asked Spike. “What have I got that the Powers want?”

“Nothing that’s of value to them. That’s not the way it works. They’ll grant a favour for the right price.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“Something important to you.”

As Angel waited for the rest of Lorne’s explanation, the light faded once more and he felt himself swept into the air and dumped unceremoniously back into his own body in the Hyperion’s reception area.

---------------------------------------

Lorne waved sheepishly at him from behind Buffy. “Hi Big Guy,” he smiled. “You all caught up, courtesy of Little Miss Blue Eyes?”

Angel looked at Spike who was standing beside the staircase with his back to the wall, pulling at a cigarette as though his life depended on the fumes he inhaled. A clatter from the head of the stairs drew everyone’s attention. Looking dishevelled and bloody, but very much alive, Wesley stumbled into view and half-fell down the first few steps. His gaze swept the room below, as if searching for something or someone. It stopped at Illyria, who raised her head regally to meet his stare.

“I . . .” Wesley began, his voice cracked and hoarse. “Fred’s room. It contains something important, something I can’t read.” He paused. “The walls, they . . .”

Wesley sat down abruptly and Illyria appeared by his side, though no one saw her move from her place below. “We need someone with powers greater than those that remain to me,” she said.

“What you need is a Witch.” Buffy’s voice sounded a clear clarion call to action. “Fortunately for you, we already have one of those.”



Chapter 3: Soul Trader

Spike ground the stub of his cigarette into the wall beside him, the ash leaving a dark smudge, like old blood, on the marble. Threads of pink and rose ran though the cold stone, and he marvelled at how they mimicked the veins of the human body. He traced a finger along a thin capillary. The need for blood, to rend, to kill, was primal and all this waiting around amongst the injured was stretching his thin patience.

He forced the feeling down, resisting the urge to feed and pushed himself off the pillar he’d been leaning against in frustration. Restlessness drove him, to move, to do something. His duster hung in useless tatters from his shoulders, flapping as he searched the ruined pockets for the crumpled cigarette packet.
Spike’s anger flared for an instant. He tore off the remains, taking a moment to gaze at it sorrowfully. 'Another coat down', he thought, what else had he lost?

A movement from inside the doorway turned his attention to the two figures that had just entered. What had Lorne said to Angel?

‘All caught up now?’

Spike looked to his grandsire for an explanation. What he saw in his face was something akin to concern, concern tinged with respect. Spike snapped his head back in surprise. Nothing made any sense. He pulled another cigarette out of the pack, lighting it as he stared at Lorne, who was peering anxiously at him over Buffy’s shoulder.

“Thought you’d quit,” Spike remarked,. “Thought you wanted me dusted,” he exhaled a lungful of smoke in Buffy’s direction. He moved across the lobby to the forlorn man on the stairs. “And I thought you were dead!”

Wesley raised weary eyes to meet Spike’s. “I . . . ,” he faltered, “. . . rather think I was.”

Spike lowered his gaze; unable to endure the pain and sorrow he’d glimpsed in addition to his own fierce sense of loss. A flare of ice blue from Illyria’s hand re-ignited his anger. With a snarl, Spike sprang towards her. “You! What did you do?”

Illyria didn’t flinch. Instead she raised an arm and drew the mark of the sigil from her sarcophagus in the air between them. “By the power of the Illuminata, admitte. By the soul of The Watcher Heimdall, admitte. By the power of all that was Illyria, God-King of the Primordium, admitte.” The diamond she held in her hand glowed, flashing fire of blues and golds and amber in a dancing, spinning spiral throughout the room, freezing the moment for everyone; for everyone except Spike.

******************************************

The colours darkened, as they threaded their way through his nostrils, into his ears, filling his eyes with blackness.

‘A thousand shades of black
But the same rule always applies
Smile pretty, and watch your back.’

Lorne’s voice crooned somewhere in the distance.

“They’ll grant a favour for the right price.”

“ . . . something important to you.”

The diamond sparkled in space before him, banishing the darkness, replacing it with a purity of light that robbed him of all vision, engulfing him in a white glow that filled him with a sense of peace he’d never known before. He was standing, alone, in a room, or at least he supposed it was, he could feel no breath of wind nor hear any natural sounds. Spike stared, sightless, into the vast white space stretching before him towards infinity. “A thousand shades of white,” he thought.

“We like to maintain a balance,” a disembodied voice sussurated somewhere above him.

“Which is the reason we invited you here.” A second speaker, more masculine in tone, joined the first.

Spike searched for the source of the voices but could see nothing. Sheer, unfathomable cliffs of pure chalk stretched up as far as his eyes could discern. There was no ceiling that he could determine, no doors or windows.

“Yeah? How come?” he asked, feeling his way along the nearest wall, fingers probing for some indication of a way out but finding none. He felt remarkably unconcerned; all emotion seemed to have slipped away with the darkness.

“The Old One was never meant to leave the Deeper Well.”

“Thought it was part of her million-year plan.” Spike squinted into the profound light. It flowed from the origin of the voices like a river, its blue-white waves flickering, effulgent, as they glided onwards.

“The Keeper of the Well was chosen to thwart it.”

“The Wolf, Ram and Hart sought to make use of it for their own purpose.”

“They intervened.”

“And denied us one of our Warriors.”

“Fred.” Spike’s emotions crashed back with an intensity that threatened to crush him.

“Where is she?” he snarled.

“Where the one who is needed by Illyria had found her.”

“And so we will restore him to guide you.”

“So what now? You want my soul? This going to be a Warrior for a Warrior sort of deal?”

The first voice ignored Spike’s question. “Anyanka was correct. You should not have been allowed to do it. But we were curious to see what would happen, why such a creature as you would seek a soul.“

“And so we did not interfere.” The second voice added.

“Afraid to get your lily white’s dirty?” Spike sneered.

A wave of absolute coldness blasted him from his feet. So intense was its fiery ferocity, it burned where it touched him.

“Angels are terrible things, my Spike. Demons of the light they are, with steel tipped pinions.”

A sudden fear grabbed Spike as he recalled Drusilla’s words. “Like you could have stopped me!” he growled into the void above his head.

“Defiance. We know this. We understand this.” The feminine voice replied evenly.

“But the love that drives you. That we cannot comprehend. Nor would wish to.” The masculine one added.

“What do you want, you clapped out pair of stereo speakers? demanded Spike. “Need me to tweak your woofers to restore your balance?”

“You rightly fear us. Just as Illyria’s subjects once feared her.”

“What we seek as the price is more precious to you than even your soul.”

“It is the key to unlocking that which should not be opened but shall be.”

Something inside Spike fractured and flew into hundreds of pieces, each one tearing him in a different direction, allowing the turmoil that had been threatening since Buffy kissed him, to finally overwhelm him. And, as it did so, the light splintered, prisms erupting in multiple rainbows of colour; and time returned.

************************************

“Key – what key? I’m not a sodding key.” Spike was swept along on the floodtide of memories released by the word; lying bruised and bloodied in his crypt; Buffy turning to leave; “what you did, for Dawn and me, that was real. I won’t forget it”; standing on a bridge with Angel staring into a hole in the world. Spike reeled backwards and fell to his knees, clutching his head in both hands. “Too much. Too much!” he cried, thrashing against the stairwell in an attempt to drive the images from his brain.

Buffy’s strong hands gripped his, gently pulling them away from his face and replacing them with her own. She cupped his cheek and stroked it. “Spike, stop it,” she said gently. “What do you remember?”

Spike leaned into her hand, feeling its warmth, savouring the tenderness of the caress. He felt a soft beat pulsing against his skin, heard the sound of blood pumping through Buffy’s wrist. He licked his lips. God he was so hungry. Just a taste, that’s all he needed. It wouldn’t hurt.

He shook his head violently and tried to pull away. “I don’t hurt you.”

Buffy took his hands in hers again. “Spike, Look at me. I can help you.”

Spike wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I could never ask. Not after . . . I’m a bad man.”

“No! Spike, I’ll help get you through this,” she reassured him. She released his hands and got to her feet, gazing down at him in admiration. “I know what you did. Lorne told me everything.”

Buffy gestured to Angel. “. “I’m through with working blind. We need to get cleaned up, and bring everyone up to speed,” she said suddenly business-like again. “You!” she rounded on Illyria. “Why are you here? Aside from getting in my way, what is it you do?”

“I have chosen to observe.”

“’You observe? What kind of answer is that?”

“You have power. You would give your advantage away. Yet you choose to fight. I wish to understand this contradiction.”

“Understand this. I am not your experiment.”

“You are arrogant. My pet chooses well.”

“Your ‘pet’? Wesley?” Buffy laughed.

“My Wesley is my guide to humanity’s stinking chaos. I chose the white haired one to be my pet.”

“Spike is not yours to choose.”

“He has made his choice.”

Buffy bit back a rejoinder. Illyria was right. Spike had made his choice. It was up to the rest of them to make sure that it hadn’t been in vain. “Lorne,” she called down the stairwell. “Take Wesley where you can watch him and this . . . “ she waved a hand at Illyria, “new blue breed of Watcher.“ Buffy took Spike by the elbow and encouraged him to stand. “Need to find you something to eat,” she said softly.

Angel took Spike’s weight on his shoulder and together he and Buffy helped him down the staircase. “So, he said, “you going to let me in on your next move?”

“Please, Angel. Don’t start with the ‘it’s my town’ crap. This is too big. It’s gone global.”

Angel grimaced at her, shamefaced. “I wasn’t gonna . . .”

Buffy shrugged her acceptance of the unspoken apology “I think it’s time we joined forces and shared what we have. You have Willow to thank for anyone on your team coming out of that alley alive. You can do that by agreeing to listen to whatever she and Giles come up with when they get back from their planning meeting.”

Chapter 4: And by and by my Soul returned to me

The harsh neon light glinted off the implements hanging from the ceiling, accentuating the grime that covered everything else in the Hyperion’s kitchen. The blades sparkled, throwing sherds of brilliance into the gloom below. Someone had cleaned and sharpened them. Why? Angel stared at the rack. Two vacant hooks. He narrowed his eyes in thought

The kitchen floor was covered in recently delivered boxes, most of them empty. Angel had agreed that the Hyperion was to be the base for the combined Slayer/Vampires-with-souls operations and he’d offered to help Buffy unpack, stowing provisions in places she couldn’t reach, glad of the thinking space the activity afforded.

“Top cupboard, first shelf.” Buffy handed him a box of chocolate chip cookies.

Angel opened the cupboard door and found a place for the box beside the peanut butter variety. He had to admit, if only to himself, that he was having difficulty adjusting to the idea of working with her. He’d become too used to running his own team and didn’t yet know how he was going to handle moving aside from the position as sole leader.

And then there was the problem of Spike. No one knew how the loss of his memories of loving Buffy would affect him in the long term. Nevertheless, Angel marvelled yet again at the speed of Spike’s apparent recovery. During his disintegration in the lobby, he’d been barely coherent. Now, less than 30 minutes later, after a shower and copious mugs of blood, he was back to his old acerbic self – almost. With Buffy’s arrival in the kitchen, he’d disappeared into the walk-in larder and was rummaging through the freshly stocked shelves.

“You see that?” Angel whispered to Buffy. “How does he do it? Thirty minutes of screaming and yelling and he’s coping with major memory loss. Six weeks crazy in a school basement and he deals with having a soul!” He stared at the larder door. “It took me decades.”

“It wasn’t that easy, believe me,” Buffy replied. She raised her head from the carton of supplies. “And why did no one tell me he was back?”

“Before or after The Immortal?” Angel retorted. “He said he’d contact you when he was ready. I guess by the time he was, it was too late.”

Buffy flushed and they stood in silence for a while avoiding one another’s eyes.

“He never even called,” Buffy said finally. She placed the empty box inside the stack heaped beside the rear exit and turned to a pile of freshly washed Tea Towels. With a deep sigh, she began folding them, piling them neatly on the counter.

"Neither did you," replied Angel, watching the displacement activity in which she was engaged. "All I got was a 'no one trusts you’, from Andrew."

"Taking over Evil Inc. What was I supposed to think?" Buffy argued, smoothing the white and blue-checked cotton in her hands. “Besides . . .” She paused. Angel’s scowl reminded her of their last conversation about her feelings for both vampires. “He didn’t believe me, you know . . . at the Hellmouth.” She lowered her eyes, hiding the tears that were forming.

Angel’s face softened. “He did,” he said quietly. “But he didn’t want it to affect what you were going to do.”

Buffy pursed her lips. “Deciding what was best for me?”

Angel folded his arms. “If you believe that, then you really didn’t know him all that well. He came close to killing me over you after he recorporealised.”

Buffy looked up. “Yeah?” she said, hopefully. “I mean . . . not the killing you, obviously. Not that I haven’t come close to doing that myself a couple of times . . .”

Angel noticed the fleeting expression of optimism. “Maybe we should send him away?”

Buffy’s face hardened. “Not gonna happen. Not again.”

“Buffy, you’ve seen what happens to him when you’re around. When someone loses his memories, he becomes a different person. I know all about that.”

“No! We need him here.”

“Wes needs him here. We need you . . .”

“Shit!” The sound of breaking glass from inside the larder accompanying Spike’s expletive brought their squabble to an abrupt end.

“What are you doing in there?” Angel called to Spike.

“Finding something decent to drink,” came the muffled reply.

“You won’t find anything in there,” Angel dropped his voice “I hope.” He turned anxiously to Buffy. “He heard us. Tell me you didn’t stock up on drink.”

Buffy scowled at him and opened her mouth to respond, closing it again immediately as Spike emerged from the larder clutching a dusty bottle.

Angel recognised one of Wesley’s finest malts, a present from the Old Country he’d said it was; to be opened on a special occasion, like a wake. “Spike, before you open that and get thoroughly drunk, how much do you remember now?” He tried the diplomatic approach.

Spike perched on the edge of one of the kitchen work surfaces. “It’s coming back in short bursts,” he said, unscrewing the cap of the single malt. “Like the bloody trailers for Passions. Only making even less sense.” He laughed and took a swig from the bottle. “Bloke burns up saving the world just to be brought back and for what?” He stared into the space over Angel’s head. “Some tin pot god’s idea of a joke, that’s what.”

Buffy folded the last item and picked up the pile of towels in front of her. Spotting a door marked ‘linen’, she crossed the room and paused in front of it. She swung her head back towards Spike.

“You don’t remember why you fought for your soul, but you remember saving the world?”

“Don’t pick and choose the episodes, Slayer, the reruns schedule themselves.” He took another gulp of whiskey. “’Sides, not altogether convinced about the soul-having. Don’t feel any different.” He looked over at Angel. “As flies to wanton boys are we to the' gods; they kill us for their sport. Well sod that.” He stared at the linen in Buffy’s hands. “You doing the housekeeping now? Thought we had minions for that.”

Buffy bit back a response and opened the linen closet, clamping the towels under her chin with one hand and reaching for the light switch with the other. As she groped along the interior wall, a figure, clutching a knife, launched itself at her from the gloomy depths.

Before Angel could move, Spike launched himself from the worktop, pushing Buffy out of the way and sending the man sprawling onto the floor with one swift blow. Spike's hand automatically clutched at his head. "No pain!" he cried.

He flashed a look at Angel who smirked an 'I told you' at him.

"No chip. Right," Spike chortled. He offered his hand to help Buffy to her feet but withdrew it rapidly before she could take it.

Angel hauled the man up off the floor by his collar.

"What the hell are you doing in my linen closet? Our linen closet," he corrected swiftly at Buffy’s raised eyebrows.

“I . . . I was hungry. I found some food and was . . . ”

"Looking for napkins?" Angel finished threateningly.

The man’s face contorted in fear and he shrank back into his jacket, flinching in anticipation. Angel released his grip but stayed close, towering over the lightly built figure.

The man relaxed slightly. "Hey Man, I thought this place was deserted. Needed a place to hide when all the craziness started." He swung his head to each of them in turn. “You’re that Mr Angel guy. I d…d…didn’t know this was your p…p… place, I swear,” he stammered addressing Angel.

The double doors swung open and the man gasped fearfully. Illyria, still bloodied from combat, strode towards him, carrying a meat cleaver.

"Oh God, Oh my God. I'm gonna die," he squealed, sinking to the floor and covering his head with his arms.

"I am no longer your god," Illyria hung the cleaver on the ceiling rack and regarded the figure cowering at her feet, coldly. "This one is of no consequence. I would not waste the edge of a fine sacrificial blade on one such as he."

"He just tried to kill Buffy. That's worth a lot of consequences," Spike responded. He glanced up at the utensils hanging from the stainless steel hooks. “Sacrificial blades? Is that what they are. And here’s me thinking Cheffie used them to slice and dice for the casserole pot.”

Illyria regarded him coldly. “I know nothing of this ‘casserole.’ My Wesley does not regard it to be of any import. He merely asked that I return the blade to its keeper in the room of the sacrificial furnace.”

"You're them,” the man gibbered. “ But I'm not the one you want. I don't know where he is. I don’t know anything!"

Spike grabbed the man’s arms and peered into his face. "You're what's'isname from accounts, Miser Maurice, yeah that’s it." He grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him to his feet. "You owe me money, Mo!"

"You know him?" Angel asked incredulously.

"Yeah, played poker with him enough times to know he's a lying bastard. He knows plenty."

Spike pushed Maurice over to Angel who flattened him against the fridge door.

"Does he now?" Angel said morphing into gameface. "Now isn’t that interesting. Talk to me!"

Maurice choked, and paled at the sight of Angel's vampface. "They'll kill me if I tell you."

"I'll kill you if you don't." Angel shoved him hard against the refrigerator, denting it with the ferocity of the impact." So what's it gonna be, Maurice? Now? Or maybe later, depending on how fast you can run? Your choice."

Maurice swallowed nervously, and swung his head from Angel to Spike to Buffy and, finally Illyria.

"They're after the boy.” Maurice lowered his eyes. “Connor."

Angel recoiled at the name and dropped him. Maurice seized the opportunity and made a dash for the rear door. Spike started after him but was stopped in mid-stride by Angel’s voice.

"No, Let him go." Angel intoned flatly slumping against the fridge.

Spike frowned. Something about the name resonated against the back of his skull. "Who's Connor?"

Angel didn’t answer, looking instead at Buffy who had moved to his side.

Illyria broke the silence "The one who binds Angel to this world."

Spike studied Angel’s face. The look of desolation and despair was familiar somehow but he couldn’t recall when he’d seen it before. He clenched his jaw in frustration and turned his attention to Buffy. Her freshly washed hair fell to her shoulders, soft and golden, a glowing curtain caressing her features. Her face, bruised and battered still, bore the scars of the recent battle; a Warrior. Spike’s expression softened as his heart gave a lurch. God she was beautiful. He closed his eyes for an instant against the rising tide of confusion that swept towards him on the sentiment.

He swallowing hard, driving the sensation away, and opened his eyes. "Thought that was the Slayer," he said hoarsely.

Buffy smiled sadly. "No. Not me, Spike. Angel's son."


Chapter 5: A Never Dying Soul to Save

The fog had returned to Los Angeles, first to the bay, where it flowed under the pier across the eddies, and swirled on the remains of the ebbing tide; into the docks, where it rolled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollution of the dirty city. It lay out on the yards, hovering in the stacks of the cargo ships, drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. It crawled into the eyes and throats of the matelots loading the last of the containers onto an ocean bound carrier; streamed into the stuffy cabin of the skipper, asleep on his bunk, the afternoon siesta a preparation for the long night-watch ahead. Fog everywhere, searching, probing, slithering towards the city on the humid air, hunting an enemy, driving the daylight before it to a premature dusk.

The oppressive heat squeezed itself between the thin cracks of the window blind of the hotel room, the last beams of sunlight reduced to thin slivers in the dust-laden air. Illyria watched the motes glimmering in the shafts of light as they made their way towards the motionless figure seated in the armchair. Even on a stifling, unhealthy afternoon such as this, the blinds were closed and the room lit by candlelight until the electricity could be reconnected, no necro-tempered glass here to protect those for who the sun was a lethal weapon.

Spike lay sprawled on the small bed beside the wall, his arms across his eyes. Whether he was asleep or not, the other occupants of the room couldn’t tell. He'd arrived earlier for 'a little chat with The Green Man' who watched him anxiously for further signs of the instability he'd displayed in the hotel lobby. Throughout their conversation, Illyria and Wesley remained silent; each locked in an internal discourse of their own.

Illyria reached out and placed a hand in the stream of shimmering specks filtering through the blinds. She watched as the beam disintegrated, scattering glistening atoms across the surface of her leather clad arm, light sensitive particles travelling along the neural pathways, stimulating electrochemical activity inside her head.

"I am constrained by this shell, and yet I still perceive that which beyond the cognisance of the swarm of misery that is humanity." She stared into the space between her and Wesley. "Wretched vermin parasites breeding in these ruined shelters that are no more than prisons for ones such as I. You shut yourselves inside . . . in cages of bone, in rooms of brick, with mere slats of lense and glass through which you attempt to discern reality. "

“You lied to me.” Wesley spoke for the first time since Spike had entered Fred's old room.

“Is that not what you asked?”

“You said we’d be together . . . that I’d be where she was . . .” Wesley stopped, his voice breaking into a soft sob.

“ You returned to her place here. Surely this is where she is to be found?” Illyria crossed the room and contemplated the wall beside the bed. "These walls confine you, just as this bag of sticks stifles the glory that was once mine." She frowned in concentration as the thin mist obscuring her vision cleared. “There are hieroglyphs, impenetrable and meaningless to me, a web designed to deceive and entangle." Her head twitched, so imperceptibly that Lorne, watching her as closely as he did Wesley, missed it. "Hypermassively parallel-processed by human neural nets, causally dislocated by the logic paths that must traverse Ant Country, and therefore cannot be mapped."

Wesley's eyes opened wide and he looked at her for the first time.

"Illyria?" He rose from the chair and joined her beside the bed, peering into her eyes, searching for evidence of what he’d heard in what she’d just said. "Fred?" Wesley narrowed his eyes and turned from her to study the wall instead. "What do you see?"

Illyria swung angrily on Lorne, still seated in the chair opposite the one Wesley had vacated. “How can I be restored to where I wish to be when you have returned my guide to me unable to help himself,” she asked, her normally icy tone replaced by one that struck him with the ferocity of the thunder lurking outside the window in the oppressively humid air. “Humankind evolved from vampire-like parasites, insects that feasted on beings greater than they, their senses centred on blood and taste and feelings.” She turned to Wesley once more. Your sensory experiences confuse and conceal, just as the fog that moves towards us screens and filters, denying you clear sight of what you seek."

At the word 'vampire', Spike sat up and watched the fog, slipping into the room along the fading rays of sunlight, the luminous grains twirling like a movie projector, whirring in undifferentiated phosphor-lit blankness, performing their destiny. The image transported him to another place, another time. There a calculated nostalgia engine discharged its contents, memories of an earlier media era, one of bright bulbs, photochemical emulsions, reflective surfaces, and dust motes swirling into life, into light. There, where Drusilla made him, before the first film projector ever created the magic, his destiny was revealed.

"I see you. A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory. That and burning baby fish swimming all around your head."

Spike turned his head away from the ghostly figure of Drusilla forming in the mist gathering in front of the window. He scanned the wall, his face contorted with the effort of trying to catch a memory just beyond his reach. Something about Fred and these walls.

"No, not these walls, the other walls!" Spike vocalised the flash of intuition, to capture it, record it in the memory of the others so that it might not be lost again.

The first roll of thunder struck the window, causing it to rattle in its frame. All eyes turned from Spike as a second percussive shock shook the walls. The sound of raised voices, swiftly followed by the crash of a door slamming in the lobby below drove Lorne to his feet and out onto the landing outside the room.

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888
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"That was close. Too close. One more red light on Wilshire Boulevard and I'd've been the main course on Big Bad Wolf's dinner table," gasped the slight red-haired figure leaning against the entrance doors, hugging a backpack to her chest.

"This one brims with power." Illyria's appraisal carried a note of envy. "She will rend in two the curtains that cloak my Wesley's vision.

Willow glanced up at her, giving Lorne a small smile of recognition as she did so. "Hi all," she said shyly to the crowd that had gathered on hearing her dramatic entrance. She handed Buffy her backpack. "You should lock the doors," she said rapidly, "and the windows. 'Cos I'm pretty sure I was followed from the airport, and whoever it was that was after Angel . . . they're really pissed at me."

At a signal from Buffy, several slayers hurried to do as she'd asked. As the final bolts slid home on the main doors, there was a thunderous hammering on them from outside.

"Let me in! Let me in!" a voice shouted.

Willow pursed her lips. "Oooh, I know this one," she quipped. "Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin," she yelled at the door. She raised her arms and began a defensive spell, "Enemies, fly and fall. Circling arms, raise a wall . . ."

"I'm not the enemy." The frantic response interrupted her spell. "Tell Angel, I got down off the fence."

Angel appeared at Willow's side and began unbolting the door.

"What are you doing?" Buffy grabbed his hand to prevent him opening the final deadlock.

"It's Whistler," replied Angel. "He's on our side - usually."

Buffy raised her eyebrows and held her hands up in surrender. "Your house, your decision," she said evenly. "But if he starts with the cryptic comments again, I get first shot at him, right?"

Angel gave her a lopsided grin, opened the door and dragged Whistler inside. " Willow, you can carry on," he said, keeping a firm grip on his unexpected visitor.

" You mean start again," grumbled Willow. " The spell's been interrupted." She raised her arms once more. “Enemies, fly and fall. Circling arms, raise a wall. Caerimonia Minerva, saepio, saepire, saepsi.

The bolts flew back into position as the first wave of the hail struck the windows, washing the fog away, but leaving the air only marginally less humid.

Illyria made her way to the foot of the stairs and regarded Willow with a slight tilt of the head. "Why do you persist in this deceit?" she asked. " You have no need of words. The barrier was raised even before you spoke. Your power lies beyond speech, beyond thought."

Willow glared at her. "TMI," she said stonily. She gestured at the young slayers. "The children need the illusion of the ritual."

"You would resort to riddle to confuse me, just as the walls are beyond my ability to decipher them." Illyria moved to stand in front of her, their faces mere inches apart. She reached a hand to touch Willow's head but withdrew it as if stung by something invisible to all but the two of them. "This power. It is that which protected the one called Buffy in the mighty battle that should have been our last." Illyria bowed her head slightly. "In this time, in this place, truly, you are what is needed."

Whistler gave a slight cough. "You going to introduce us?" he asked, shrugging Angel's hand off his shoulder. "Name's Whistler. Some weather we're havin' huh?" He removed his fedora and scoured the lobby. "You got any coffee?" he asked Angel. "I could murder a dog."

Angel shot Buffy a warning look as she moved towards Whistler clenching her fist.

"You didn't come here to sample the 'cordon bletch'," Buffy snapped. "So why don't you tell us why you're here and I won't have to punch you on the nose."

Whistler ignored the threat. "You done good," he told her. "And you," he turned to Angel, "you ain't doin' so bad either, all things considerin'. Nice recovery from the mess Holtz left you."

He swaggered over to Spike, who had joined Lorne and Illyria. "But you - you traded the one thing you had goin' in your favour."

"We don't need this," Buffy's voice cut across the flow of Whistler's monologue. "You got somethin' to say - say it. Fast. Willow . . ." she made a door opening motion.

Whistler grinned at her. "You're still really mad at me for being right about Angelus and the sword, aren't you?" He turned to Angel. "You gonna let your ex throw me out and risk losing a lead to the one person who can make a difference in all this?" He walked around Angel and Buffy, glancing at the others as he did so. "Gotta say. Not the smartest move setting up camp here. Didn't take too long to find ya'. How long d'ya think it'll take The Forces to send in Quroroß?"

"Never heard of him." Spike spoke for the first time since Willow's arrival.

"Keeper of the Gate, he who will open that which is Pulon Odoß. ‘Then the Old Ones will walk once again, where we walk now. When the stars are right’ or, more precisely, 'when the spaces between the stars are more wide' and chaos will prevail." Wesley made his way slowly down the stairs, an open book in his hand. “We must find the other Keeper, the one who was charged with closing the Gate here on earth." "Willow," he said nodding at her. "I believe we have need of your considerable talents."


Chapter 6: In Your Patience Posses Ye Your Souls

Illyria watched the end of the blind cord swinging against window frame, caught in the slight flow of evening air blowing into the office behind the Hyperion's reception desk. Silence hung heavy in the room and, despite the small breeze, stillness pervaded the small space, as though time was holding its breath.

Click.

The early afternoon had witnessed a flurry of activity following Whistler's evaluation of the hotel as a location for the joint-headquarters. A series of phone calls to Giles instigated the swift evacuation of the injured to a 'safe' wing of the local hospital; they also brought disappointment for Buffy when Giles told her he couldn't leave Cleveland any time soon.

Spike's remark "Good thing too," had resulted in a shouting match that exhausted itself only when Angel steered the debate about Giles' merits as an ally around to possible alternative accommodation. Illyria knew that Spike wasn't ready to offer his basement flat, not yet at any rate. She judged he couldn't bear the thought of being cooped up in a small space with The Slayer until the turmoil in his mind had settled into something less traumatic.

Click.

Buffy glanced at Angel, opened her mouth to speak and closed it again swallowing hard. Only Illyria noticed the way she flexed her fingers, extending and curling them into her palms, regaining the control she'd lost in her argument with Spike.

Click

Buffy returned to the maps that she’d been studying, piecing together information Whistler had given her with Angel’s knowledge of the sewers and new intelligence from Giles. She was searching for a route that would take Angel, Spike and Illyria from the Hyperion to the ruins of Wolfram and Hart with minimal risk from whoever, or whatever, had followed Willow from the airport.

Click.

Illyria shifted her attention to Angel. He sat beside Buffy, motionless and expressionless since his diplomatic diversion of Spike's ill-timed outburst. He hadn't mentioned his own pressing desire to begin searching for Connor. Illyria was intrigued by his restraint.

Click.

A moth flew in through the open window, and battered itself ineffectually against the lampshade in an attempt to reach the light. Illyria inclined her head towards it and listened to the rustling of the wings. "I still hear the song of life," she mused, "in the movement of living things and in the passage of linear time" She turned her head towards Lorne. "But no longer the sound of the green. That has passed to another."

Rustle.

Click.

Lorne’s eyes flicked towards Illyria. He gave a small nod of acknowledgement before grimacing in recognition of his new role.

Click.

Rustle.

The moth veered away from the light and made its way back towards the open window. It faltered for a moment before negotiating its way across the window box full of dandelions and chickweed. Lorne watched the insect's progress. How swiftly the weeds had colonised and dominated the tiny space, once tended by his own hands, bent on bringing order and light to the darkest corners of the city that had adopted him. Fear and uncertainty pulsated from the former Karaoke Host as he wondered if he was really cut out for the task with which the Forces of light had entrusted him.

Click.

A sudden movement from Spike broke the stillness. He tapped his fingers rapidly on the desk in front of him, before jumping to his feet. He began to pace. Like a caged animal, his loping, feline stride measured the breadth of the office again and again, impatient for escape from its confines.

"Haven't they finished up there yet?" he asked jerking his head in the direction of the upper floor. "You'd think Glinda and Head Boy could have worked something out by now. How long've they been at it?" He grasped Angel's wrist and peered at his watch.

Angel snatched his arm away. "Quit complaining, Spike, they'll be finished when they're finished."

"Well, why can't we go do something while we wait?" Spike shot a glance at Angel. "What about that boy of yours. Doesn’t he need finding before Evil catches up with him? You finished that route, Slayer?"

Angel stiffened and looked across at Buffy. She rose wearily to her feet and moved towards the door. “I need to check something with Giles before . . .”

A loud crash from the upper floor was followed by the sound of splintering glass. All eyes swung in the direction of Fred's room directly above their heads, bringing to an abrupt end to what Buffy was about to say.

"Sounded like the window," observed Spike.

"Uh - do you think someone should go . . .?" Lorne asked rising from his chair.

"Wesley said they'd call if they needed help," Angel replied. He cocked his head, straining to hear for any signs of distress through the ceiling.

**********************************************

"Sorry!" Willow grimaced at Wesley. "The opening spell kinda rebounded on the window."

Wesley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Not to worry," he said kindly, "I have every confidence . . ."

"This is not the kind of stuff I'm used to dealing with," Willow said solemnly. "There's more here than just concealing magic. There's some kind of manipulation of time going on. This is big, cosmic stuff. I don't think I'm going to be able to break through by myself. I'm not even sure I should try." She cast a sympathetic glance at the former watcher as he sank forlornly onto the bed. He clasped his hands together on his knees.

Willow sat down beside him and touched his shoulder gently. "I know what it's like," she said softly.

Wesley raised his eyes and looked at her for an instant before staring at the floor once more.

"To lose someone, just when you’ve found them again," Willow went on. "It's the most terrible thing in the world. And you'd do anything, even go against the forces of nature, anything to get them back. But you can't . . ."

"Fred wasn't taken by natural forces." Wesley cut Willow off and looked at her steadily this time. "She died horribly, and slowly, and . . . bravely, by the design of a merciless mystical being."

Willow examined the walls again. "I can sense something there," she conceded, "but the way through is blocked. I need more to go on." She paused, unwilling to broach a subject that had once been so painful between her and Buffy. "Do you know where you went," she asked finally, "when you were dead?"

Wesley reached for the book that lay beside him on the coverlet. "I was only gone a little while," he answered. "It was dark. There wasn't a sense of being in any particular place," he gazed at the walls, "more a sense of not being finished, of having something that needed doing, if only I could remember what. A voice called me into the light, naming me 'Heimedall', telling me my work was not yet done." He gave his head a small shake and sighed again. "And then I was here, in this room, clutching this manuscript."

Willow twisted her head trying to read the cover. "May I?" she asked holding out her hand.

Wesley handed her the leather-bound tome. "Watcher's Diary," Willow read aloud. "Observations of the Soul named Heimdall - crossed through - Wesley Wyndam-Price - substituted." Willow blinked slowly. "Interesting. Do you remember writing any of it?"

"I haven't had time to go through it all yet," Wesley replied holding his hand out for the book's return. "The final sections are in my handwriting; the research I undertook at Hamilton's suggestion, just before Angel decided to take out the Circle of the Black Thorn." Wesley opened the volume at the first page. "But there are many more contributions by many different hands, beginning with Heimdall's own; the one I read aloud on the staircase."

Willow squinted at the archaic print Wesley held before her. "It's not in English!" she cried. "Why is it never in English?"

Wesley gave her a lop-sided grin. "A cynic would say it's the Powers' way of leaving us open to being misled, but I rather think it's because the writer wasn't an Englishman."

*****************************************

"Wyndam-Price is so easily deceived." In an upper room in City Hall, Rutherford Sirk looked down at the Eleanor Chambers fountain in the square below. "There really was no need to remove him from Wolfram and Hart to mislead Angel about the Shanshu. Price would have misinterpreted the text we provided himself if his previous track record is anything to go by." Sirk turned round and addressed the figure seated at the table behind him. "What do the cards reveal about the other vampire with a soul, now that the Senior Partners have shown a renewed interest in gaining his services?"

A thin, lace-clad hand turned the first card in the centre of the Celtic cross pattern. "The King of Cups. My naughty boy, what have you been doing since I lost you?" Drusilla smiled vacantly up at Sirk. "I lost three Daddies. Did you know?" She swayed in her seat, moving to an unheard song. "Three Daddies," she intoned. "The second one killed my first Daddy. And then I lost the 'Our Father' to the darkness." Drusilla picked up the next card. "Hm - mm," she giggled, "then I lost my boy." She turned the card. "Queen of Swords. Naughty girl, she stole both my boys away. The Father, the son . . ." she paused. "I forget what comes next."

A flash of rainbow-coloured light from the square below caught Drusilla's attention and she wandered away from the table to look out of the necro-tinted window at the fountain. It formed a dandelion-clock pattern in the centre of the marble circle, throwing rainbows into the sunlit spray. Drusilla clapped her hands excitedly. "Oooh, such pretty flowers! I used to play with the dandelions when I was little," she said. "Me Mum told me not to bring 'em indoors; they'd make me pee the bed, she said." Drusilla laughed and began to sing "Piss on Lee, piss on Lee. Dunno why she called me Lee though, my name was . . ." she stopped again, staring into Sirk's eyes until he was forced to drop his own and turn from her. "I forget, " Drusilla continued brightly. "Daddy made me forget so many things. Grandmother says it's 'cos he was jealous. Jealous of what I could see. But that's not why." She began to sway again to the soundtrack in her head. " I used to play ever so many games with flowers, with my Sweet William." She began to sing again. "Mummy had a baby and its head popped off." She raised her thumb quickly and snapped the flower head off an invisible dandelion with her nail. "And now all the family is lost, and Princess is all alone.”

Sirk frowned and appealed to his colleague. "Remind me again why we need this lunatic's help," he murmured.

"The body that has commissioned the rebuilding of Wolfram and Hart's operation here in LA is in receipt of intelligence that suggests William the Bloody is in a vulnerable state at present and she," the speaker gestured at Drusilla, " is best placed to take advantage of that vulnerability."

"In other words, you're not telling me," Sirk said haughtily.

"Mr Sirk, you are here as caretaker until a suitable replacement can be found to the former CEO. Your job is to oversee operations, temporarily, without asking questions. You will be suitably rewarded, and, believe me, you are much better off not knowing certain things."

"Oh, I believe you, Councillor," replied Sirk. "I just don't know if I should trust you."

"Better not," was the enigmatic reply.

*******************************************

"It's not that I don't trust you.” Buffy glared at Spike. “Giles can cope without me. He's got Andrew."

Spike snorted. "Just because the little squirt found the balls to double cross us once, doesn't mean he kept them. Giles is right, if there's trouble in Cleveland, you should be there."

"Oh so all of a sudden Giles is right? What happened to ‘That Wanker’? Or ‘Mr Needs-Someone-Else-to-Do-His-Dirty-Work’?"

Angel stepped between the combative couple. "We can't stay here," he said evenly. "The team needs organising somewhere else. Giles suggests Cleveland."

Buffy turned her scorn on Angel. "When did you get so reasonable about agreeing with Giles?"

"When you got so blinkered about the difference between what you should do and what you want to do!" Angel shot back at her.

Before he realised what he was doing, Spike sprang to Buffy's defence. "That'd be round about the time you sold everyone out for Connor," he said, spinning his Grandsire round to face him. "Yeah," he sneered at Angel's look of surprise, "Lorne filled me in on a lot of things."

Angel's shoulders slumped in defeat. He glanced at Buffy from under downcast eyes. "I'm sorry."

Buffy reached out and touched his arm. "It's OK. I understand. If it had been Dawn . . ." she trailed off and cleared her throat of the emotion that had built inside her. "That's why I understand that you have to stay and look for Connor."

Illyria plucked a dandelion flower from among the majority that had run to seed. She examined the petals. "Dents de Lion," she announced. "The flower is well named." She turned towards the three figures standing before the open window. "My Wesley will not leave the room until the riddle of the walls is solved. The Red Witch has pledged to help him. I will remain alongside my guide to this world."

Lorne levered himself from his chair and approached the former God King. "And I should stay 'til the last curtain call," he said, his voice trembling a little, "and as long as the hooch lasts in the bar, I'll mix up the best bunch of cocktails to see me through the run." He threw an arm over Angel's shoulder. " Why don't we send Whistler and the slayers over to Giles? Whaddya think, Big Guy? "

"Once he's told us where we can find this 'mysterious one who will make a difference'." Buffy picked up Lorne's lead eagerly.

"In the meantime, what say we go sift through the wreckage of the offices formerly known as Wolfram and Hart, as planned, and see if we can pick up a lead on your boy?" Spike offered Angel the only sort of apology of which he was capable. "'Sides, I need to replace the coat," he indicated a heap of leather in the corner waste bin. "Seem to remember a promise of ten from our Italian friend with the double helping of bountiful assets."

"I marked the route on this." Buffy handed Spike a sheet of paper. "I’ll make a start on Whistler while you guys are across town,” she said opening the door. “Bountiful assets?" she whispered to Angel as he headed for the rear exit.

Angel shrugged "Search me."

*****************************************

Back in Civic Hall, Drusilla turned the next two cards in the cross. "The Ace of Cups - Love! My sweet William told Daddy ours was a forever love." She gazed wistfully out of the window. "It was 'til she came and stole him away." She pressed her hand to her heart as she looked at the second card. "Seven of swords." She sighed and ran her hand along her cheekbone and across her brow. "My poor boy. Someone's stolen away his love, tisk, tisk. How will he live?" She turned the next card and gasped with pleasure. She clapped her hands with delight. "The Devil! Oh joy, my Spike will come home, back to the dark, to Princess.”


Chapter 7: Soul Unto Soul Glooms Darkly

Buffy was taking a coffee break, having temporarily given up trying to find Whistler in the labyrinth of the Hyperion’s corridors. She sat alone in the hotel entrance lobby, listening to the young English slayer who had disappeared into the kitchen earlier in the evening, to ’do a spot of baking’ to satisfy her sugar craving. As she worked, the girl was singing along to her CD player, with a sweet, pure, but untrained voice. Buffy caught snatches of songs, none of which she recognised, each time the girl passed near the doorway.

The smell of warm baking wafted into the room as the kitchen doors swung open with the final words of another obscure piece of Brit Pop.

“Ta da!”

A plate bearing pieces of moist cake, a strong scent of lemon drifting upwards from the gleaming icing along the inner edge of each slice, appeared on the table in front of Buffy.

“Lemon Drizzle, courtesy of Jane Asher – and my Mum’s Red Cross parcel,” said the young woman, with a tinkling laugh. “Thought you’d like some with your coffee.” She indicated the pot Buffy had made earlier.

Buffy smiled up at her and, noting the CD headphones still firmly clamped in place, just nodded her thanks.

“You girls mind if I join you?”

“You sure your name’s not Wimpy?” Buffy asked without looking up. “You do that appearing thing anytime there’s food.”

Whistler grinned at her and poured himself a mug of coffee, its comforting aroma mingling with the tang of lemon. “Been called a lot of things in my time,” he chuckled. “Wimpy ain’t one of ‘em. Don’t know as I see myself as side kick to no guy wearin’ a sailor suit and eatin’ leafy green stuff.” He gestured at a small potted plant standing beside the crockery and wrinkled his nose. “That,” he shuddered “gives me the creeps.”

Buffy followed the line of his outstretched arm. One of the slayers had placed the plant there to ’brighten the place up’ before the evacuation of the injured had begun. It seemed innocuous enough; a few delicate lilac flowers, purple-streaked at the centre of each of the five petals, perched precariously atop a multitude of tooth-edged leaves. Buffy pulled the triangular label from the compost and peered at it. “Pelargonium citrosum. Water regularly. Do not overwater,” she read aloud. “Leaves may be used to add flavour in baking, beverages and salads.” Buffy shot Whistler a questioning look.

“Salads,” he replied by way of explanation. “One of the Dark Side’s inventions.” He helped himself to the largest slice of cake and settled into the armchair beside her.

*****************************

In the gloom of Civic Hall, Drusilla waved away the minion offering her a tray bearing a crystal decanter of blood. “Take it away,” she said stonily. “Got no use for blood when there’s seeing to be done.”

She turned away from the window, leaving the view of the darkened city streets and moved back to the table upon which the Celtic cross of tarot cards, five of them still face down, lay. “What will the future hold for my boy now that his love’s been taken from him?” She selected three cards and held the first to the lamplight. “Three of Swords. Sorrow. Poor Spike, I can feel his loss, it aches and burns inside like hunger.”

*******************************

In the square below her, Angel, Illyria, Spike and Lorne emerged from one of the many underground passages Buffy had marked on the map. Spike paused and narrowed his eyes as he searched the mid-floor windows of City Hall.

“Spike?” Angel stopped walking and turned to face the younger vampire.

Spike shook his head. “Nothing. Thought I felt . . .” He shook his head again. “’s nothing.” He stared at the fountain in the centre of the square. “Why’s this called Dandelion?” he asked peevishly, gesturing at the centrepiece.”

Lorne stepped beside him. “The patterns it makes when it plays,” he explained. “Like a giant seedhead.”

“Yeah? Well, looks like someone knocked the head off now,” Spike retorted, his eyes drawn back to a window as a shadowy figure moved deeper into a room and an unseen hand drew the blinds. “Dru had one of those fly-catchin’ plants once. Kept it as a pet. Lived longer than anything else ever did.” He dropped his gaze from the fourth floor offices. “Why dandelion?” he asked, returning to the topic of the fountain. “Why not something – I dunno, less weedlike?”

Lorne noted the increased agitation in his voice. “Someone wiser than me once said that ‘weed’ is just a word for ‘plant in the wrong place’.”

“Words!” spat Illyria. “They spew from your mouths like vomit, pouring from your very entrails filth that conceals true meaning.”

Spike turned his head and frowned at her. “Thought you’d all done with the muck metaphors, Blue. What brought that attack on?

Illyria surveyed the buildings surrounding the square, lifted her head and sniffed the air. “My nostrils are filled with the scent of reeking dung hills and puddles of piss.”

Spike surveyed the surrounding buildings. “Got that right,” he snorted. That’d be the seat of government over there, where they’re full of it.”

Angel shot him an irritated glance and scanned the deserted street anxiously. “Let’s get movin’. Less time we spend out in the open, the better.”

“Not much further,” Lorne added, folding the map and putting it in his pocket. That way.” He pointed eastwards across the square.

“Time is not our ally,” agreed Illyria, moving swiftly ahead of the others in the direction Lorne indicated.

*********************************

Buffy reached out and touched one of the geranium leaves, crushing it between thumb and forefinger, releasing a barely perceptible odour of fresh citrus.

“What did she mean?” Buffy asked, bringing her fingertips to her face and breathing in the scent.

Whistler looked up from his plate and tilted his head at her. “Pardon me?”

“Illyria. She said Connor binds Angel to this world.”

“See,” Whistler took another bite of lemon drizzle, “so long as the kid is safe, Angel’s willing to go out fightin’.” He considered the statement for a second “If he knows the kid’s in danger, he’s gonna stay put.”

“What’s he like - Connor?”

Whistler swallowed the remaining mouthful. “Better ask the man himself. Ain’t my place to say.”

“Where is your place?” Buffy held the cream jug out to him.

Whistler shook his head. “The big shake-up happenin’, forces gatherin’, Dark Alliances bein’ made like you never seen before.” He reached out for another slice of cake. “Decided to even the odds for the Light a little.“ He paused and watched as Buffy poured herself more coffee, added cream and stirred it slowly as she waited for him to continue. “Your guy knows all about choosing sides.”

“Angel?”

“Your other guy. The one who don’t know why he made the choice in the first place now.”

“Is he still my guy?” Buffy asked ruefully, watching the cream swirling in spirals on the top of the dark aromatic liquid.

*******************************

Drusilla turned the next card. She gasped at the image; fire crowned a tower crumbling from the force of a lightning strike. Two figures hurtled to the rocks below, falling from the disintegrating keep. “My poor boy’s world is turned all upside down.” She began to croon softly to herself, her hand worrying her brow. “Poor little lamb who’s lost his way. Baah, bahh.” She raised her head, looked towards the window, and lifted her eyes to the sky she knew was there behind the drawn blinds. “Princess will help you, my darling. Help you find your way back to what you really are.”

*******************************

“He’s still who he is,” Whistler told Buffy, “but with a chunk missing from his memory, all bets are off about who he chooses next time. This is a whole new ballgame and I ain’t seen no rules posted.”

“How about you, Whistler, whose rules are you playing by?”

“I don’t play by no rules. Strictly freelance. Always have been – ‘til now.”

Buffy stared into the remaining dregs at the bottom of her coffee mug, now cooled to murky mud coloured sludge. “Then why hide what you know – about the one we need to find?”

“Gimme a break. I ain’t used to this, I’m usually the one doin’ what you’re doin’.

Buffy raised her eyebrows at him over the rim of her mug.

Whistler wiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand and gave her a small sheepish smile. “To keep me safe, I guess.”

Buffy rose to her feet and crossed the room to the window and gazed out into the darkness. She stood for a moment before turning and looking steadily into his eyes, folding her arms as she did so.

“C’mon,” said Whistler anxiously. “How long you gonna keep me around once I hand over the goods? Guy like me – short, no negotiable skills? What else I got? There ain’t no place for me.”

“We could find you a place,” said Buffy, returning to the table and plucking the remaining cake from Whistler’s plate. “Mmmmm,” she murmured, biting into the icing, “lemony.”

*******************************

Upstairs in Fred’s room, the aroma of peppermint with sharp, more acidic undertones, pervaded the air. Willow, seated beside the window, her laptop open in front of her, closed her eyes in concentration. She’d placed candles beside Wesley, coloured lights, crème de menthe darkening to deeper blue, yellow gold paling to lemon, resonating the soothing perfume emanating from their depths.

“Are they working?” asked Willow.

“What?” Wesley looked up from his books; tiredness etched across his eyes which were deep in shadow.

“The candles”, Willow indicated with a flick of her head, her eyes firmly closed.

Wesley ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. “I do seem to be feeling a little less . . .”

“Angry?” Willow supplied the word.

“Conflicted, I was going to say. But as to deciphering the book.” He sighed heavily. “I seem to have lost . . .”

The computer gave a single beep. Willow scrutinised the monitor and smiled. “I kinda missed this,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, “hitting the research with a Watcher.”

“Have you found something?” Wesley asked, rising to his feet.

“Only the Wolfram and Hart LAN,” beamed Willow, unable to keep the pride from her voice.

“How on earth . . .” Wesley strode across the room and peered over her shoulder.

The monitor screen was empty, save for the intertwined letters WRH forming part of a logo, a crest bearing a Yale rampant on a black background.

“Easy as nailing jelly to a tree,” grinned Willow.

Wesley raised his eyebrows quizzically and examined the screen. “I’m not familiar with that page. Can you go in deeper?”

Willow’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Shouldn’t take too . . .”

“Wait!” cried Wesley. “Go back. Let me see that image again.” He returned to the table, picked up the Watcher’s Diary and carried it back to Willow. He studied the logo carefully, then flicked through the pages of the book. “There,” he said, showing Willow a page upon which was a drawing of the same mythical creature as the crest on the webpage. “Ram’s horns beneath a pair of antlers, body of a stag, the head and feet of a wolf. “It’s like no Yale I’ve ever seen before.”

Willow studied the page, scanning the ancient text for signs of Wesley’s translation. Faint pencil marks in the margin indicated he had at least made a start on this section of the manuscript.

“Where’s your notes?” she asked, anxiously.

Wesley rifled through the loose sheets stuffed into the back of the book. “Yes,” he smiled triumphantly. “Let me see . . . many armed powers . . . alliance . . . ah, here it is. ‘Oh accursed letters, combine in one all ages past, and make one live with all. Make us confer with those who are now gone. And the living dead unto counsel call.”

“A Super Power? Like Super Buffy.”

Wesley gave her a quizzical look.

“The – uh - adjoining spell,” she stuttered excitedly, “when me, Xander, Giles and Buffy made a combo-Buffy to fight Adam.

“Seems like,” agreed Wesley. “But that’s not all. There’s worse.”

“Worse than combo-evil?” Willow paled and smiled bravely. “What could be worse?”

“I’m not exactly sure about some of the references in the next paragraph,” Wesley confessed. “I’d like to work on it a little longer. In the meantime, try going deeper into the new website and see if you can find any personnel lists.”

**********************************8

Angel stared up at the gleaming blue glass tower. He’d stopped so suddenly that Spike careered into the back of him.

“Watch it!” Spike snapped “Hand signals next time, Gramps.” When Angel didn’t respond, Spike followed his gaze upwards. “Well,” he said, eyes opening wide. “Looks pretty upstandin’ for something you said was fallin’ down round your ears.”

Angel frowned and searched the front of the building. The entrance doors sported new glass, etched with what looked like a family crest. He moved closer and examined the shield, tracing the lines forming the Yale rampant; ram’s horns, antlers, wolf head, and claws, with his fingers.

“New tenants done a spot of renovating already?” asked Spike peering into the darkened atrium.

“New improved old ones.” Angel replied, pointing at the crest.

“Looks like they used up all their energy on the bodywork,” said Spike. “Inside’s like a war zone.”

“Any sign of life?” asked Lorne nervously.

Spike rattled the doors and cocked his head, straining for sounds of alarm from within. “Nope. No way in, either. Back door?”

Angel nodded.

Minutes later, they emerged from the empty underground car park into the ruined interior of the reception area. They picked their way gingerly across the rubble, probing forward by torchlight. Fallen masonry cast long shadows ahead of them, magnified in the arc of their beams.

Lorne looked around nervously and flinched at a sudden noise from beneath the pile of splintered wood and plastic that had been Harmony’s desk. He relaxed slightly as a rat skittered out from beneath the debris. “I thought they were the first to leave,” he joked.

“That’s ships, not evil corporate headquarters,” replied Spike, squinting into the gloom. “Besides, this one isn’t sinking. Not if the quickfit job outside is anything to go by.”

Angel paused and sniffed the air beside another heap of fallen plaster and wall cladding. “D’you get that?” he asked.

The slightly sweet smell of decay that permeated the room was stronger now. Illyria stooped and picked a broken flowerpot from the pile, a broken geranium head clinging stubbornly to the jagged edge of earthenware. Bright splashes fell slowly to the floor, drops of blood-red petals drifting across the grey grime. “Men’s lives are as brief as the flowers,” she mused, “destined all too soon to putrefy into the stink of flesh.”

Lorne clamped a hand over his nose and fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, overcome by the stench of faeces and urine; and something worse. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” he moaned.

“You ’d think they’d clear the rubbish in here before waxing the bodywork,” observed Spike. He heaved a chunk of the Wolfram and Hart sign clear of a pile of twisted metal, revealing Hamilton’s body beneath.

The foetid smell of rotting meat stung Lorne’s eyes and he moved swiftly away, fighting the bile that rose in his throat.

“Go see if my spare coat’s still in the training room,” Spike called to him. “Air’s prob’ly fresher in there.”

“I shall accompany you, Green Demon,” declared Illyria, striding after Lorne “There is something I also wish to find - for my Wesley”

Spike crouched down beside Hamilton’s body and turned the head to one side to examine the neck. “Took a good chunk out of him, Peaches. ‘S that how we got ‘supercharged Angel the dragon killer’?”

Hamilton’s eyes flew open. “Only temporarily,” he sneered. “Whereas with the Senior Partners, it’ll be a permanent arrangement courtesy of Management.”

“You say something?” Angel called from his old office doorway.

Spike recoiled at Hamilton’s words. He staggered backwards as Hamilton’s body rose from the floor and stalked away into the dark.

“Spike?” Angel hit the security lighting switch and hurried back to where he could see Hamilton’s body lying motionless and silent.

Spike looked around wildly. “He spoke to me. He’s not . . .” His eyes focused on the corpse beside him.

Angel swallowed the knot of concern forming in his gullet. “Shadows. Your mind playing tricks.” He held out a hand and hauled Spike to his feet. “Stay close.”

He led Spike back to the CEO’s office and cleared a space on the sofa, brushing rubbish and dust aside with a sweep of his hand.

“It never ends, does it?” Spike said morosely as he stared at the dirt. “Is dust immortal, then?”

As he spoke, the few remaining airborne particles began spiralling upwards, swirling and glinting in the glow of the subdued lighting, taking shape, solidifying into a slender female form.

Drusilla’s voice floated from the dusty mirage, twirling a bright yellow dandelion flower between her fingers. “Golden lads and lasses must, as chimney sweepers, turn to dust,” she sang.

Spike leapt to his feet and grabbed at her. “You’re not her!” he snarled, as his hands passed through her laughing image.

“No! I’m really not.” Drusilla giggled. “You know who I am, William,” she growled, morphing into vamp face. “Don’t you remember?”

“No, I don’t!” Spike yelled. “I don’t remember.”

Angel gripped his arm. “Spike. Concentrate on my voice. There’s no one here.”

Spike yanked himself free from Angel’s grasp and sprinted from the room into another office. He stumbled over an obstacle lying just inside the doorway. Angel, following close behind, steadied himself against the door at the sight of Eve’s corpse.

“I thought she’d left,” he murmured crouching beside her.

“She’s real? She’s not another . . .?” Spike asked shakily.

Angel examined Eve’s head and neck. Her engorged face, the eyes bulging, was tinged blue, the eyelids sprinkled with showers of tiny red pinpricks. Angel raised one of the lids; the lining was similarly marked. “Real,” he confirmed. He gently lifted Eve’s chin and studied her neck. “And strangled.”

Spike stepped closer and tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as he tried to recall Eve’s features without the discoloration of the beginning of putrefaction. He shrugged, sniffing loudly in an attempt at bravado he no longer felt. “Beady little rat-eyed snake caught in her own trap. No loss. However she snuffed it, we’re well rid of her. ”

“Wrong again, Champ.” Eve’s voice grated inside his head. Her battered corpse rose in front of him. Spike shrank away from the hand that reached for his face. “I’ve still got my eyes on you. You’ll never be rid of me. I will never leave you.”

Eve’s form faded, dissolving into a transparent phantasm that regenerated into that of another. Spike closed his eyes, shutting out the image of the woman he’d once loved for so long.

He could not block out her voice, despite clamping his hands over his ears, nor the chilling message it carried. “I will never, ever leave you, my darling, deadly boy.”

Angel pulled Spike’s hands from his head and dragged him out of the door. “We’re leaving. Now!” he barked.

***********************************8

A gaudily coloured angel, cheeks bulging with the effort of sounding the last trump, called the souls of the world to judgement on a scrap of card on a table in the dark.

“Choose my side, my William,” Drusilla chanted into the black of the night. “This time, choose me."


Chapter 8. The Soul of the World is Abroad Tonight

Angel hurried through the ruined reception area, pushing Spike in front of him, barely keeping them ahead of the vibrations that accompanied the creaking and groaning emanating from deep inside the the building. As they raced along, the debris at their feet dissolved into puddles of ooze and slime, which, in turn, evaporated on the waves of fiery darkness that swept behind in the vampires' wake.

"Stop shovin'," Spike snarled as they reached the elevators.

The buckled doors of the nearest compartment shuddered as a ripple of energy shook the steel back into place and the doors swished apart.

Spike jerked his head in the direction of Angel's old office. "What was all that about?"

"A warning," replied Angel.

Spike indicated the lift. "And this?"

"Power display."

Somewhere in the depths of the infrastructure, the girders shrieked their complaint as the wreckage was replaced. A new company sign, bearing the same crest Angel had pointed out at the entrance, materialised over a refurbished reception desk. The walls bulged and heaved, rippling and rolling as an unseen force twisted its way through the building.

Spike stepped through the doors and held them back to allow Angel to enter. "Warning? Of what?" he asked.

"You should ask from whom, not of what, William. But then you always were a little slow on the uptake." Darla's honeyed voice slithered out of the dark corner of the newly restored elevator.

Spike caught Angel's slight intake of breath as he felt his way along the side walls, tracking a spattering of minute droplets, to where Darla stood watching them, a small mocking smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

Angel fingered a small, red sticky patch with his fingertips. "Blood," he said. "Fresh." He rubbed his index finger and thumb together and lifted them to his lips. "Connor's."

The dim emergency lighting faded for a second and was replaced by the full dazzle of the spots recessed in the ceiling.

Darla smiled and stepped towards Angel. "Well done, my love."

"Where is he?" Angel demanded.

Spike raised his eyebrows. "You can see her?"

Angel ignored him and moved closer to his former lover.

Darla smiled once more and disappeared through the closing doors. "My darling boy. I told you I had nothing to offer him." Her voice hung in the air. ". "I trusted you to take care of him. But you're too busy protecting everyone else."

Angel leapt for the doors but the lift was already in motion, moving upwards towards the Training Room. He smashed his fists into the metal and slumped back against the wall.

Spike ran a hand over his hair and sighed. "I don't know what the buggery is going on." He paused as another tremor shook the building, and the lift slowed. He waited; expecting Angel to prise the doors apart before the automatic device had time to activate. Spike tried the glass half-full approach. "But he's probably OK," "I mean, you'd've known if his body was down there."

Angel stared glumly at him. "Maybe," he said finally. "Let's find the others and get out of here."

"That's your answer to most of your problems." Darla fell into step beside them as they raced along the corridor. "Leave them behind." She turned towards Spike. "Whereas this one . . ." She left the sentence for Angel to fill in the "he never knows when to quit," for himself.

An undulation in the floor ahead of them forced Angel to slow the pace and he allowed himself a glance at Darla. She rewarded him with a simpering look from beneath her lashes accompanied by a stream of whispered accusations. "You could have tried harder," she complained. "Our child - he's the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing." She laughed. "And he'll destroy you."

Spike growled. "Knock it off, Grandma,"

Darla sighed and smiled condescendingly at him. "You were nothing but trouble since the day Drusilla brought you home; with your grand ideas and poetic notions. And what became of them?" she asked softly, morphing into Spike's sire. "You're as lost as Daddy is now."

…………………………..

Drusilla gazed up at the night sky. The glow from the city lights all but obliterated the narrow sliver of the moon, a silver crescent of the waxing goddess of love. The penultimate tarot card lay on the table beside the others; a wheel suspended on the back of a demon, riding in the heavens; at each compass point the four elements: earth, water, fire, air.

"The battle isn't over!" she exclaimed.

"Tell me something I don't already know," Sirk sneered. "How do we persuade him to come to us?"

"Hmmm." Drusilla whimpered as she made her way back to the table. She drew a card from the deck to clarifiy and frowned. "The Sun. I see another standing in our way. Chosen."

"The Slayer?" Sirk asked.

Drusilla shook her head and closed her eyes. "The sun kills our kind. But this one doesn't judge. Angel uses it. It holds the power of life, of the earth." She rose to her feet and swept towards the door. "I must go to Spike. This one blocks my boy's way and confuses him."

"I was rather hoping you'd be here when we took delivery of the package," Sirk remarked.

"Don't open it without me. We'll have a party when I get back; a party, with cake and dollies." Drusilla stepped into the corridor and clapped her hands together, summoning a group of vampires from the adjoining office.

"Ta ta," Drusilla called, as she glided towards the elevator. "Such a pity you don't want to come. We're going to have such a lovely game. 'Boys and girls come out to play, the moon does shine as bright as day'," she sang as she waited for the elevator to arrive.
…………………………….

The door to the Training Room swung open and Lorne peered out, looking nervously up and down the corridor. He clung to the door post as another convulsion shook the building. The walls realigned themselves as he watched, acquiring a new cladding of composite material to replace the damaged décor.

"That was some weird trip up here," he called to Angel. "Did the whole building just regenerate? Or was it just the elevators?"

Angel shrugged. "Find anything?"

"This," replied Lorne, holding out a leather duster for Angel's inspection. "And it's not the only one." He stared at the walls, shuddering as they completed another bout of twisting and bulging. "I don't know much about the cloning of office blocks, but this coat's sure been busy breeding. There's a whole pile of them writhing about in there."

Lorne held the duster out towards Spike. "Uh, mission control to Blondie Bear," he called in response to the vampire’s blank stare.

"So lost," whispered Drusilla's apparition. "And cursed. Like Angel."

Spike growled softly at her. "Nothing like Angel. Fought for mine."

"The Angels whisper to me, my William," replied Drusilla. "Angels with tongues of dark flames . They tell me to bring you home."

"Spike!" Angel gripped Spike's elbow. "Don't listen. It's not Dru."

Spike wrenched himself free and swung the duster over his shoulders plunging his arms into the sleeves in one savage movement. "Think I don't know that!" As his fingers emerged from within the coat, Drusilla faded and disappeared. "Well." Spike blinked. "If I knew that was all it was gonna take . . ."

Angel interrupted him and addressed Lorne. "Where's Illyria?"

"She headed for Wes' office," Lorne replied, "right after she picked something up from the observation room floor." He held out a hand towards Spike. "She said it's yours."

Spike frowned at the wristwatch Lorne offered him. "Don't recall ever having one of those," he said peering at the face. "It's cracked." He slipped it over his right hand, fastening the leather buckle tightly. Spike shook his arm, in an attempt to revive the mechanism. "Reckon the battery's dead."

The building shook once again, rocked by a surge of power that tore its way through the electrical system, killing the lights.

"Everyone OK?" Lorne asked anxiously.

A grunt from Angel, followed by Spike's incredulous gasp, reassured him they were.

"Look." Spike's voice rang with a note of wonder.

In the corridor ahead of them, a shape was forming, a silver light covering the unmistakable frame of a woman. Her body, clothed in phosphorescent light, danced to some unheard music, leading the way, guiding them towards the staircase.

Lorne was the first to speak, his eyes misting with tears, his voice choked with emotion. "Fred."

Fred's lithe form moved gracefully towards Wesley's office, twirling and pirouetting in time to the music only Lorne could hear. He hummed the tune for Angel.

Angel gave a small smile. "Copellia. Dance of the Hours."

…………………………………………………………

Willow yawned and slumped in her seat.

“Damn!” cried Wesley.

“Did I yawn at a bad time?” asked Willow. “Because I don’t think my body’s taking orders from my brain any more.” She gestured at the monitor. “Timed-out.”

“No, no, it wasn’t you,” Wesley reassured her. “I think I’ve found the reason this passage didn’t make sense when I first translated it.

Willow scooted her chair closer to the table.

“See. Here. ‘ekarAj' a Sanscrit term. It means ‘alone visible’, or ‘shining alone’. But, it can also refer to the ‘only king or ruler’. ’And in the age when the dragon is slain, time shall be no more.’ I think that’s fairly self-explanatory,” Wesley explained.

Willow nodded her understanding.

Wesley continued. “Thus begins the final battle. The fight will be terrible for the soul of the Whole World is at stake.’ I’m reading that as worlds beyond the confines of this one.”

“Another Apocalypse? Pffft – easy peasy. We can do those with our eyes closed.”

“This one will be worse,” said Wesley grimly, staring at the text. “And all the beasts shall be as one and shall rise anew when the darkness sweeps over the realms of the earth."

"But that's just repeating the super-combo-evil thing," said Willow.

"Not quite. There's more," Wesley said patiently. "The Forces of Darkness will use any weapon; the ekarAj - or dark Prince - will form an alliance with them to retrieve that which was stolen.”

“How is that worse?” Willow asked.

“Illyria.” Wesley ground the name between clenched teeth. “God King of the Primoridium, whose power I stole to save her life.”
………………..

The final card of the tarot reading lay face uppermost. Sirk peered at it. "The lovers," he read. "Love." he said wryly, "The root of all evil."
……………………………..

“See, that didn’t hurt at all.” Buffy gave Whistler one of her most beaming smiles and poured him some freshly made coffee.

Whistler cringed. “I ain’t felt this bad since I had my wisdom’s pulled.”

“So, let me get this straight. The Gatekeeper – he isn’t really dead?”

“He’s dead all right. Angel snapped his neck. But he’s The Keeper. The Battlebrand. Immortal. Still got a job to do.”

“And Spike’s the key to finding him.”

“That and other things.”

“Wesley’s resurrection?”

“That for one.”

“And the other?”

“Illyria. More specifically, her body’s previous tenant. The Warrior who holds together the worlds of science and magic.”

“But why . . .?” Buffy paused and considered her choice of words. "If Drogyn's immortal." She flushed slightly, then continued. "Why Spike for the student exchange programme, if this guy's still available for work?"

“Why’d the Powers choose Spike?" asked Whistler reaching for his coffee. "One word. Passion. His love’s total. It’s what drives him.”

“I remember the passion,” Buffy said softly. “I missed it after the soul.”

“Lose the memory of his love for you, there’s a void screaming to be filled.” Whistler picked up a knife and began cleaning under his fingernails with the blade. “He loved Fred – not the same way as you, " he added hastily. "‘It’s what drove him to agree to the exchange."

"For Drogyn?"

Whistler shook his head. "For Wesley.” He looked Buffy in the eyes for the first time. “The Powers don’t care much ‘bout the love. They play by their own rules. Spike was the price. Only they know why, but The Forces of Darkness are gonna be mighty interested in . . . .”

"Illyria," said Willow breathlessly.

"Huh?" Buffy swung her head towards the staircase that Willow had descended at reckless speed. Wesley followed at a more measured pace, carrying the manuscript and translations.

"Buffy, you have to go and warn Angel. Illyria's in cahoots with the other side." Willow grasped the arm of Whistler's chair for support and bent forward to ease her laboured breathing. "Guess I'm a little out of condition."

"Stay here," Buffy ordered. "I need you to protect the hotel." She sprinted towards the door. "You'll slow me down," she yelled in anticipation of Willow's protest.
…………………………………….

Illyria stared into Fred's face as she sank down into the classic pose of the ballerina signalling the end of a dance. "The shell. She unravels the mystery of time with the dance. The steps guide the way to that which my Wesley bade me seek."

Illyria followed the direction indicated by the outstretched leg and arms to Wesley's open office door. She stepped inside just as the others reached Fred's disappearing image, and made her way towards a box stowed underneath a pile of books in the corner of the darkened office.

Spike was the first to arrive at her side as she plunged her hands into the cardboard container. "Time?" he asked, squinting down at her as she brought out various objects scrutinising and discarding each one in turn. "Got anything to do with this?" he held his right wrist towards her.

Illyria gripped the two items she'd selected from the pile and gazed at his watch. "Probably," she said. "But only my Guide to this contradictory world may tell us of the significance of a stuffed fertility symbol and a box fashioned of plastic and glass."

Spike peered at the two items she held out for his inspection; a soft toy rabbit and video camera. He bit his lip in concentration then looked again at the box. "Fairly sure Wes stashed some of Fred's things away, but don't recall her ever having a camera . . ."

The office gave another heave. With it came new sounds; voices calling greetings to one another; the familiar swish of elevator doors opening; the staff returning to the office block.

"Time we were leaving," Angel called from the doorway.


Chapter 9: Love Bade Me Welcome; Yet My Soul Drew Back.

The security lights in Wesley's office dimmed, flickering on and off for a second before going out. Menacing sounds of gurgling and clanking coming from the heating system grew quieter and the whole building held its breath as if waiting for something. Spike hugged his duster close and narrowed his eyes at the sounds of the elevator doors opening and closing as the power alternated between failure and the back up system. His face was lit by a dull red glow from the PC monitor on the desk beside him. The scarlet background of the Wolfram and Hart Yale screen saver cast an eerie, bloody haze onto his skin, flushing it with an appearance of warmth; a direct contradiction to the ominous chill that had descended on the room.

Angel stepped back into the doorway. "Illyria, we need to move now!"

“You desire to leave and track your son, vampire.” Illyria challenged him, “but I will not leave yet.”

"Why the bloody hell not?" Spike asked, looking anxiously over his shoulder towards the corridor at the sound of approaching voices. He tensed, preparing himself for battle, then frowned as he recognised Wesley's voice coming from just inside the doorway.

" Yes, he is a bit jumpy. He's realised Nina is developing feelings for him," said Wesley, his transparent form emerging from within Angel's solid one. He moved towards his desk, a shaft of light emanating from somewhere high above his head cutting a bright swathe through the glowering luminescence of the secondary lighting.

Spike's eyes widened as he saw another shape pass through his Grandsire and follow Wesley across the room.

"Well, took him long enough." Fred grinned at Wesley.

Spike shook his head in disbelief, closing his eyes to shut out the image of the one woman who had been his friend without asking for anything in return. There was a hole in the world, he remembered. And he still didn't know why, but there was a hole inside him too, and he felt it where his heart hurt.

"He can be rather dense," Wesley agreed returning Fred's smile.

Fred lowered her eyes and smiled at him again, glancing shyly from under her lashes. "Um... by the way, my car is in the shop again, and I was thinking..."

" Of course." Wesley rose from his chair, freezing in place as he offered Fred his arm.

"What the . . .?" Spike spluttered.

"Time is shifting, unravelling, reforming; an occurrence that one such as I would have controlled rather than been at its mercy." Illyria examined Fred curiously. "That such a weak thing should hold mastery of its mystery is unthinkable, and yet my Qwa'ha Xahn chose her knowing her to possess a great power."

Lorne moved closer to the former God-King. "Angel's right about needing to move." He glanced nervously towards the door where the sounds of early morning cleaning staff could be heard clattering their way towards Wesley's office. He gestured at the objects in Illyria’s hand. "My not quite dead sixth sense tells me you're holding what Wes sent you here to find. So unless you're planning to hand it over to someone el. . . . "

His words were cut short as Illyria gripped him by the throat with her free arm and stopped the air to his windpipe. "You dare presume to question my loyalty?" She lifted him into the air. "Have I not said I will stay with my Wesley until he has solved the riddle of the walls?" Illyria cocked her head, listening to the faint sound of a phone ringing from the direction of Harmony's desk as the chaser system began its 'after hours' round robin calling. “The vampire needs something before he leaves.”

As if on cue, Harmony’s phone ceased and the one on Wesley's desk began to ring.

“Is no one goin’ to answer the bleedin’ phone?” Spike complained. He glared at Wesley who remained immobile, oblivious to everything and everyone around him. He peered into Wesley’s eyes. “No one’s home,” he said finally, reaching for the handset.

“This collision of times has served its purpose,” Illyria observed.

Spike rolled his eyes at her and held the receiver out toward Angel. “It’s for you. Some bloke called Reilly.”

Angel moved swiftly to take the phone from Spike’s outstretched hand, carefully avoiding Fred where she was standing motionless and silent, frozen in time, as she turned to leave the office. Angel's voice was cheery but his face remained solemn. “Mr Reilly. What can I do for you?”

All attention focused on him as he stiffened at the response. He turned toward the window, gazing out into the black night, letting Mr Reilly’s words sink in, confirming the fears he’d felt when he first smelled Connor’s blood in the elevator.

“No. I haven’t seen him, not recently.” Angel swung back towards Lorne. “Take this down,”

Lorne pulled a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and scribbled the number Angel called to him.

“I’ll contact you as soon as I find him.” Angel spoke reassuringly into the mouthpiece. “You did the right thing in calling me.” He placed the receiver back in its cradle and slumped onto the edge of the desk.

“Well?” Spike was the first to speak.

That was Connor's father."

"His father? Thought you were his fa . . ."

"His adopted family were attacked the same night we fought in the alley," Angel said solemnly, ignoring Spike's interruption. "Connor escaped and drew the demons away from the house. He said he'd try to find me. They've not heard from him since and he's not answering the messages on his cell phone." Angel stared out at the city skyline. "He came back here, in the hopes that I'd survived somehow." He turned back to the others and for once, his face betrayed the agony he felt. "He didn't know where else to look."

Lorne glanced nervously at Illyria. "Uh, Llyri, don't take this personally, but I really think we should go."

"There is nothing further I need here," she replied haughtily.

At her words, Fred and Wesley faded away and the sounds of a vacuum cleaner hummed and whirred its way down the corridor as the cleaning staff clattered towards them. As they reached the CEO's reception area, distant voices called 'Good morning Mr Angel', but there was no one to be seen, the foyer was deserted.

"This too is another time," Illyria commented as they passed Harmony's desk. "It approaches rapidly, catching up with us. Soon it will be in line with ours."

Lorne hurried to keep pace with the former God King. "How do you do that?" he asked hesitantly. "Wes said you'd had all that time altering stuffing knocked out of you."

"That was then," Illyria replied enigmatically. "This is now."

Spike raised his eyebrows and gestured at three figures materialising in the middle of the empty space in front of them. "You sure about that, Blue? Looks like we're about to have another attack of instant replay."

Hamilton, Wolfram and Hart's snappily dressed liaison to the Senior Partners lay crumpled on the floor. He pulled himself to his feet and strode towards Connor, throwing him effortlessly into the elevator doors.

"Connor!" The third figure rushed towards the boy.

"Let me say this as clearly as I can." Hamilton blocked Angel's way to his son. "You cannot beat me. I am a part of them. The Wolf, Ram, and Hart. Their strength flows through my veins. My blood is filled with their ancient power," he sneered condescendingly."

Angel smirked at him. "Can you pick out the one word there you probably shouldn't have said?" He vamped out and threw himself at Hamilton, biting him savagely. He drank deeply, holding on tenaciously as Hamilton struggled hard to free himself from his grip.

"Hey!" yelled Spike. "I take it all back. You do get the poetry."

Finally, Hamilton pulled Angel's head away from his neck, and threw him across the room.

Angel rotated his body in mid air and landed neatly on his feet. "Wow," he said appreciatively, wiping his lips, "you really are full of it."

Hamilton swung at him again, missing as Angel ducked to avoid the blow.

"What was that you were saying about ancient power?" Angel asked.

Hamilton threw another punch but Angel caught his arm and hit him in the ribs. Hamilton swung with his free arm, striking Angel in the face and receiving a whack to his own in return.

"You don't really think you're gonna win this, do you? You don't stand a chance. We are legion. We are forever." Despite the battering he was receiving, Hamilton's arrogance showed little sign of diminishing.

Angel struck him hard in the face. "Then I guess forever . . ." He punctuated his words with another thump. " Just got a hell of a lot shorter."

Lorne closed his eyes as Angel landed one more punch, shutting out the sight but unable to block the sound as Hamilton's neck broke under the onslaught.

Connor staggered over to his father. "Is he dead?"

"Yeah, he's dead."

The windows started to crack and the walls began falling apart as the building shook and rumbled again.

"Uh, that's not good, is it?" asked Connor.

"You said it Bubba," said Lorne, grasping the edge of Harmony's desk for support.

"Wolfram & Hart. Looks like they're taking the gloves off," Angel told Connor.

Connor appeared eager to continue fighting alongside his father. "What do we do?"

"You go home." Angel responded firmly.

“Huh?”

“This is my fight.”

“That's some serious macho…”

"Go home...now."

"They'll destroy you!" Connor yelled over the noise of a falling concrete beam.

"As long as you're OK, they can't… Go."

“Now isn’t that interesting." Spike snorted and pointed an accusing finger at the real Angel. " It was you put ideas in their head.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than Spike regretted them. One look at Angel's face told him he'd already worked out who it was gave Wolfram and Hart the perfect weapon to hurt him. Spike swallowed and stared at his boots. The sounds of falling masonry and shattering glass stopped and the vibrations in the floor stilled. He saw another pair of shoes materialise next to his.

"Naughty Daddy. Tried to keep him away from me. Baby brother needs his sister to take care of him," Drusilla whispered in his ear. "I'm coming for both my pretties. Soon, my sweet."

"Can't hear you," Spike moaned, clamping his hands over his ears. A hand gripped his shoulder and he looked up to see Lorne's worried face peering into his.

"Are you still with us, Champ?" Lorne asked gently. "The big fight's over. Our guy won. Two knock downs and a submission."

Spike looked blankly at him and nodded. They made their way over to where Illyria waited beside Angel who was punching the call button repeatedly on the new control panel on the elevators.

"I may have been mistaken about the violence being over." Lorne observed.

"There's scuff marks and another trail of Connor's blood," Angel retorted. "Looks like he was taken not long ago, while we were in Wes's office. If we get down there fast, we may have a chance, trail's still fresh." He jabbed at the button again. "Come on, come on," he muttered.

"You cannot be sure when it occurred," said Illyria. "This time is not yet ours."

"Gee, you ever considered going into motivational speaking?" Lorne snarled at her. "There's a director's chair for 'pushing people over the edge' with your name on it."

Illyria looked at him uncomprehendingly. "You talk in riddles and confuse me. I wish to return to Wesley." She stepped through the opening doors and turned her face to the wall, staring at her own reflection in the polished surface.

They rode to the ground floor in silence; three comrades in arms, each enclosed within his own mind, separated by uncertainty, guilt and confusion; three comrades in arms and a former God King bereft of power and searching for the meaning and purpose of her continued existence.

Lorne watched Illyria warily, unsure of her motive for helping Wesley, trying to work out where he fitted in the puzzle. Angel studied the signs of a struggle in the compartment and replayed Darla's accusations of neglecting their son. Spike, still shaky from the encounter with both Eve and Drusilla's apparitions, battled with the desolation at having lost part of himself.

As they emerged from the elevator, four vampires hurried out through the entrance doors, dragging an unconscious Connor between them. Angel sprinted across the lobby and out into the street, reaching it just as Connor was thrown into the back of a parked limousine.

"Go back to the hotel," Angel called to Lorne and Illyria. He chased after the car, which squealed away down the road and disappeared in the early morning traffic.

Spike trailed behind the rest of the group. He was so caught up in trying to suppress the images of the spectres that had assaulted him earlier, that he almost fell over Illyria as he left the lobby. She stood on the entrance steps watching Angel racing down the street in pursuit of the car.

"Hey! Watch it Blue," Spike protested.

Illyria slowly turned her ice-cold stare on him. "I have no need to watch anything here," she intoned. "I have need to return to Wesley with the things he bade me find." She strode away in the opposite direction to that taken by Angel, leaving Spike alone on the stairs with Lorne.

"I'll go with Her Iciness." Lorne flashed a worried look in the direction Angel had gone. "Maybe . . ."

Spike sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I'll go - do - whatever it is souled-vampires do for fun these days." He could feel a presence somewhere in the landscaped grounds and he didn't want anyone around when he finally confronted who it was that he knew was there waiting for him. "You go do…," he waved Lorne away. "whatever. I'll be fine." He turned to face the dark as Lorne hurried after Illyria. "Fine if your definition of fine includes not knowing what the buggery's goin' on most of the time," he added under his breath.

"You always look fine to me," Drusilla purred from the within the gloom beyond the streetlights.

He'd known she was there even before he’d seen her silhouette hesitating in the shadows; sensed her even before he caught her scent. His eyes flashed golden as he inhaled the unmistakable corrosive odour of defiled innocence. This was no First-fuelled apparition; this was the real Drusilla, waiting for him, come to claim him again. And his demon rejoiced.

She was as magnificent as he'd remembered, wearing a floor length coat of deepest night. Beneath it was a flame-coloured dress; swathes of silk licking her body as the shades of red and orange shimmered in the glare of halogen. A bunch of Sweet Williams sat in the lacy bodice of the gown, and a choker necklace of jet gleamed at her throat. This was his black beauty, the face of his salvation, the one his soulless self had claimed as his forever, his destiny.

"I dreamed about you; your glory, your destiny, my Sweet William."

"Don't believe in destiny. Make my own," growled Spike, pushing his demon down.

Drusilla walked slowly around him and began to sing.

"What did I dream?
I do not know;
The fragments fly like chaff.
Yet strange my mind
Was tickled so,
I cannot help but laugh."

"You're off your trolley," Spike sneered, backing away from her. "Mad as a bleedin' hatter."

"Don't be cruel, pretty Spike," pouted Drusilla. She giggled and moved closer. "You used to like my little songs." She placed her hand above his heart. "Said they told you things." She stared down the empty street. “Angel. He never liked them. Said they made him sad.” She closed her eyes and hummed to herself. “He was in my dream as well. Hmmm. He was flying ever so high. Flying towards the sun.

There was an old crow
Sat upon a clod;
That's the end of my song,
That's odd,”
she crooned.

“What’re you doing here, Dru?” Spike asked gently, his face softening.

"There you are my Sweet William," Drusilla cooed, opening her eyes and pulling the bunch of pinks from her bodice. She held them out to him, smiling. "The life that I have is all that I have. And the life that I have is yours.”

Spike shivered and pulled her into his arms, holding her close against his chest; finishing the rhyme as he did so. "The love that I have of the life that I have, is yours and yours and yours." He drew his head back and gazed solemnly at her. "Why're you here Dru?" he asked again. "Why now?"

"I wanted to see my family again," she murmured softly as she caressed his cheek. "You all left me."

He closed his eyes and rolled his neck, shuddering at the familiar tingle of pleasure at her touch. But something inside grated at the insinuation beneath her words. He flared his nostrils and pushed himself out of the embrace. "You left me!" he stormed, his anger rushing to fill the empty void at the centre of his pain and confusion. "For a chaos demon!"

"But I came back. A girl can only stand so much being alone, Spike. I missed you." She nuzzled his neck, inhaling his scent, drawing a nail along his cheekbone, and opening a thin red gash. She smiled at the sight of the blood seeping from the wound and falling in tiny droplets to the steps. Her eyes flared yellow for a second as she trailed her tongue along the wound, but the instant she tasted his blood she recoiled away from him, clutching her throat, her eyes wide with horror. "It tastes of the dawn!" she gasped, her eyes wide with horror.

Dawn! Spike clenched his jaw against the remorse flooding into the the desolate place beneath his heart, and bit back the tears welling behind his eyes. He felt his soul scream in protest at Drusilla's contact, searing and scorching him as his veins ignited in a fiery reproach at her attempt to reclaim her wayward child.

'The dawn comes sneaking up when it thinks I'm not looking *," Drusilla moaned. "Why did you let them do it, my love? I don't understand," her sorrowful voice broke through his torment.

"Do it?" Spike forced down the pain and struggled to regain his balance.

"Curse you, like they cursed Angelus," she spat. Her distress was rapidly replaced by disgust.

"Nothing like Angel." Spike glanced upward at the lightening sky and frowned. Dawn was approaching. He looked down the street for signs of the others. "Not a curse."

"Then why? Why would you want such a nasty thing?"

"Fought for it. Won it fair and square." Spike muttered. He was no longer listening to her but searching within himself for the memories he'd given away.

Drusilla gave a small whimper. "Sweet William died for me today, I'll die for him tomorrow. Rosemary scents the tomb I've made. Rosemary for remembrance." She crushed the blooms in her hand and let them fall to the ground. "These flowers are all wrong."

"Right thing to do." Spike wiped his hand across his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear the fog of forgetfulness. "Did it for . . ."

"For her. I see it. You did it for her," Drusilla said angrily, realisation flooding in as she watched him. "Your face is a poem. I can read it. " She glided closer, closing her eyes and sweeping her hands round his head in circular motions. “But there now, they've all gone, the burning baby fishes, almost as if they never had been. You’re free of her.” She clasped her hands behind his neck and stroked his cheek. "You belong to me."

A hand grabbed her shoulder, swung her around and threw her away from Spike.

"He belongs to no-one." Buffy snarled.


Chapter 10: No Coward Soul is Mine

The Los Angeles skyline heralded the dawn in its own inimitable way. Its signature display of garish pink and gaudy lilac clouds soiled the inky blues of the disappearing night, masking ugly reality with pretty colours from a child’s painting box. Invisible tendrils of poisonous intent snaked upwards from the factories, domestic boilers and vehicle exhausts, intertwined with the ostentatious evidence of man’s corruption in the city below. The golden glow of the life-giving sun struggled to break through the thinning cirrus, glinting and dazzling from glass towers, growing in strength and intensity as it drove the darkness from the streets.

"Do you think something went wrong?" Willow peered anxiously through the blinds covering the glass on the Hyperion's entrance door. “They should be back by now.” She turned towards Wesley who sat dozing in an armchair at the foot of the staircase. “Maybe Buffy didn't make it in time?"

"In time for what?" Whistler asked as he entered the lobby, clutching yet another mug of coffee and the last slice of lemon cake.

"Didn't you hear what I told her about Illyria?" Willow frowned at him. "You were right there, doing what you're doing now. “ She pursed her lips in disapproval and glared at him. “ Which seems to be the only thing you do 'do' around here."

Whistler brushed the crumbs from his jacket and leaned on the reception desk. He picked up the research papers Wesley had brought down from Fred's room and gestured with them.

"Been thinkin'. This pitch 'bout Illyria bein' the one doin' the deal with the Dark Powers?" He sniffed and pushed the book towards Wesley's end of the counter. "Not her."

Wesley sat up straight and reached for his translation notes. He peered at them, squinting in the dim light. "It must be her," he argued. "The Dark Prince."

Whistler pushed himself away from the counter and squatted down beside Wesley. "Sure, she's evil, but only in a 'want to destroy the whole human race and rule the world again' kinda way. But God-King don't equal Dark Prince. It also don't say she's on the side of 'evil' in the next big fight. In fact," he stood up and walked towards the door, raising the window blind and looking out onto the street, "it don't say she's on any side."

"And just what makes you an expert on all this?" Wesley demanded.

"Because I'm a former fence-sitter who recognises a fellow …," Whistler chuckled and paused for effect, "fence sitter. And I know a thing or two about Gods. Worked for enough of them in my time. Gods aren't big with the alliance makin'. Besides, she ain't one of them any more and she's still learnin' how to go about playin' with others. But one thing for sure, she's on no-one's side but her own. If you ask me …"

“No one’s asking you,” snapped Wesley.

“Figure of speech. Pardon me for speakin’ out of turn. But, as a bettin’ man, my money’s on somebody else teamin’ up with the Forces of Darkness. Someone who’s lookin’ to get what’s theirs back.”

Willow thought for a moment. “Ooh, oooh, I know." She opened her laptop and pulled up the Wolfram and Hart Website. "Here." She turned the screen for Wesley to see. "I found the Wolfram and Hart personnel lists like you asked and see who takes over today as the new CEO."

"Wolfgang Hartram?" Wesley's spine tingled as a wave of fear flushed beneath his skin. "And all the beasts shall be as one and shall rise anew when the darkness sweeps over the realms of the earth."
-----------------------------------------------------

A swathe of sunlight crept along the pavement, slowly closing the gap between the shadow cast by southern face of the office block and its entrance doors. In the shade afforded by the ambulatory, Drusilla faced Buffy, her eyes blazing with hatred and malevolence.

“Foolish girl. You think it’s that easy? You have no idea who you’re dealing with, no understanding of what it is to be a vampire.” She moved deeper into the shadows, inching closer to Spike as she did so but never dropping her gaze from Buffy.

“Lots of merry games we've played. Of them we've had enough. And now I think that we will try. A game of Blind Man's Buff.”

She pulled a handkerchief from her bodice and held it over her eyes for a second, then flicked a challenge with it against Buffy’s cheek. “William is my knight, my Champion, he belongs to me in a way you can never comprehend. You think you were even the love of Angel’s life, the one that brought him true happiness?”

“Don’t you bring Angel into this! It has nothing to do with him.” Buffy slipped her hand into her pocket for the weapon she carried.

“Stupid child! It has everything to do with him. He didn’t need you to fulfil his destiny, Grandmother was the only one who could do that. His humanity always belonged to her.”

Drusilla turned her gaze on Spike. “Don't you tumble over. Catch whom you can. Did you think you'd caught me? Poor blind man!”

She held her hands in front of her face, briefly making a fan with her fingers before snapping them towards Buffy in a gesture of dismissal “ You should have let him kill me when he offered it to you,” she hissed. She held out the handkerchief towards Spike. “Come with me, my love. It’s time for you to claim what is yours.”

Buffy raised her stake and lunged towards Drusilla. “Maybe I did make a mistake. Once! Not gonna repeat it.”

She drove the wood towards Drusilla’s heart in the same instant that Spike stepped into the gap between them. The stake pierced his ribcage, missing his heart by the merest fraction.

“Spike!” cried Buffy, reaching for him.

“Still can’t do it, can you Slayer?” Spike pulled the stake from his side and groaned. “Can still hurt me though, grant you that.” He fell against Drusilla and closed his eyes against the pain.

Drusilla hooked his left arm across her shoulder. . “You had your chance,” she spat at Buffy. “You didn’t play fair. Kept changing the rules. It’s my turn to play again now.” She glanced over Buffy’s shoulder to where Angel was making his way back along the shaded side of the street. “Blindfold Molly, turn her round. Now then, away you go! Angel won’t want you. He’s playing a different game.”

As Angel reached the paved terrace, the main doors of the tower block flew open.

“And one man lay in another's way,
Then laws were made to keep fair play. Ta Ta.” Drusilla trilled.

A whirling maelstrom of darkness surged out, swept her and Spike into its centre and sucked them inside the building, slamming the doors shut again in its wake. Buffy threw herself against them, heaving with her full strength in an attempt to force them open.

“Angel!” she called. “Drusilla’s taken Spike. He’s …”

Angel didn’t wait for her to finish. He threw himself into the glass panel only to ricochet off it perilously close to the sunlit edge of the terrace. “Force field,” he said unnecessarily as Buffy helped him to his feet. “We’ll never get in past that.” He frowned slightly at her. “What are you doing here? I thought you were organising the evacuation to Cleveland.”

Buffy stared morosely past him towards the building that was denying her access. “I was. I mean I have.” She shook herself slightly and refocused on Angel. “We’d better get under cover.”

Angel led the way round to the back to the car pool entrance, which was open in readiness for the early arrivals. “There’s a way to the underground passages from here, “ he explained, “if security doesn’t spot us before we can get to it.” He peeked inside. “All quiet. Now, explain why you’re here.”

Buffy followed him into the parking area, checking warily around her as they made their way cautiously towards the access to the lower level. “Willow wanted to warn you about Illyria. Wesley thinks she might be working for the other side to get her power back.”

Angel folded his arms and smiled slightly. “And you didn’t think of using one of these?” He produced a cell phone from inside his jacket and waved it in front of her eyes. He flipped it open and dialled. “Lorne. Illyria with you?” Angel deliberately kept his voice light, not betraying the anxiety he’d felt at hearing Wesley’s message. “No, I didn’t catch it. She was right about the time thing. It disappeared as soon as it reached Culver.”

Buffy tugged his sleeve and gestured towards a door, with an inquiring glance.

Angel shook his head in response. “No. Literally, disappeared.” he continued into the phone. “Lorne, where are you headed? Back to the hotel. That’s good.” He stopped, focused on the noises coming from the lift shaft beside them, snapped the phone shut and pushed Buffy into the back of an empty vehicle.

------------------------------------------

Lorne raised his eyes to the sky and grimaced at the sight of the gaudy sunrise. “Don’t they realise what they’re doing?” he asked Illyria.

His companion ignored him and strode on rapidly, forcing him to increase his pace to keep up with her.

“The air.” Lorne waved his arms over his head in demonstration. “It’s killing people.” He stepped out of the way of an old woman busily restraining a small dog from dashing across the busy junction ahead of them. “And animals.”

“I see no weapons of air,” Illyria stopped and scanned the skyline.

“That’s just it,” Lorne complained. “They’re invisible. And strictly speaking they’re not weapons. Not like…” he paused, steeling himself against the anguish of recollecting what he’d done at Angel’s request. “Not like pulling the trigger of a gun on a living human being, no matter how low down and dirty he might be.”

Illyria moved on again, at a slower pace. “How do these invisible weapons kill?” she asked, scrutinising the pigeons attacking the remains of someone’s discarded burger bun. “I see no injuries, no blood.”

“That’s the problem,” Lorne grumbled. “Can’t see the damage until it’s too late. It’s all hidden, festering, destroying from the inside ‘til a body can’t take any more and just gives up.” He pointed at the rose bushes outside the BBQ Restaurant. “They look healthy, don’t they? But they’re fed poisons to keep them looking that way. And next year – there’ll be new ones replacing the ones that got canned.” Lorne wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Everything’s expendable. Everything and everyone.”

Illyria paused for a second and tilted her head towards the shrubbery. “I no longer hear the music.” She repeated the lament she’d uttered on the loss of her powers. “Yet you, a mere minion, have that which was ripped from me. You hear the song of the green.”

Lorne sighed. “I am the song, Evita. That’s why they chose me.” A faint warbling of ‘If I ruled the world’ emanated from within his jacket. He reached inside and pulled out his cell phone. “Angel! We were just talking about you. You catch the car?”

----------------------------------------------------------------

The soft glow from two shell-shaped wall lights shone against the art deco panelling. Beneath them, two tall stemmed glasses stood beside a single red rose, the honey coloured liquid they contained hazily duplicated in the mirrored table top on which they rested. Spike pulled himself to his feet and gazed around the room into which he and Drusilla had been deposited by the sinister whirlwind. The gold plaster bands running up the walls and across the ceiling, the crimson curtains covering the windows and the deep blue carpet decorated with a pattern of red and gold swirls were all familiar; images and textures from another time and place.

The arm of an old fashioned gramophone swung across its turntable with a metallic ‘clunk’ and dropped onto the waiting disc. Drusilla picked one of the champagne flutes from the table and swayed towards Spike as Sinatra’s voice wafted softly from the speaker.

“I’ve got you under my skin.”

Drusilla offered the delicate crystal to Spike, leaned back across his outstretched arm and reached for the second glass.

“I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.”

“Do you remember?” she purred, placing her arms round his neck and moving sensuously against him, grinding her hips on his in time to the rhythm. “Dancing in the dark?”

“So deep in my heart, you’re really a part of me.”

“We feasted on lovers that night.” She pulled him closer, turning him away from the mirror and the lamps.

“I’ve got you under my skin.”

“1936. Chicago. The Lake Theatre. I remember.” Spike murmured, pushing himself out of her embrace. “A bird sang it in the film.”

Drusilla drained her glass, replaced it on the table and held out her arms towards him. “Everything you ever wanted can be yours now, if you’ll dance with me once more.”

“I’ve tried so not to give in.
I’ve said to myself this affair never will go so well.”

Spike looked around the room again. On the surface, it had all the appearance of a typical pre-World War II hotel suite, taking much of its inspiration from cinema decoration and interior design.

“But why should I try to resist, when darling I know so well,
I’ve got you under my skin.“

Yet from the 1920’s Art Deco lighted Coca-Cola mirror, to the onyx clock, the room screamed ‘fake’. Spike examined the glass in his hand and shook his head.

“I’d sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near”

“You think I ever wanted any of this?” Spike swept the room with a wave of his arm. “I never wanted this.” He set the glass carefully beside its twin. “Sorry Dru. Guess you don’t know me as well as you thought.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t,” said a voice from the doorway, “but I do.”

“In spite of the warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats and repeats in my ears.”

Spike flinched at the sound of his own voice and turned to face the adversary whose plans had been thwarted with the help of an amulet and an army of slayers.

“I know exactly what you want, and who it is that’s always been in your way, always been your problem.” The First-Spike swaggered into the room, taking up position beside an art deco lamp and addressing the scantily clad bronze figure posed against the fanned glass shade. “You are, ya ponce! You’re my problem. You got it too good. What do I get? Bloody well toasted and ghosted is what I get innit. It’s not fair.” The First-Spike looked into Spike’s shocked face and grinned. “That about sum it up?”

“Toasted and ghosted!” Drusilla laughed and clapped her hands, delighting in the rhyme. “Oh Spike, you always say such pretty things.”

The First-Spike snorted. “Pretty? Pretty dim more like.” His features began to dissolve; the hollows beneath his cheekbones filled out, the eyes darkened. His entire form twisted and grew, re-shaping and morphing into that of Angelus.

“Well, you’re new, and a little dim. There’s no belonging or deserving any more. You can take what you want, have what you want.”

“Don’t you know little fool, you never can win.
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.”

“You’re not him, nor me. You can’t touch me any more,” Spike snarled. “I know what you are. You’re The First.”

“That’s right,” The First-Spike drawled. “And if anyone knows all about you, it’s me. What?” He chuckled at Spike’s scowl. “You thought Slutty the Slayer’s plan got rid of me?” He shook his head. “Just slowed me down a little. Took out some of my boys and killed my main man.” He smirked and gave Drusilla and approving glance. “Got me a new one. Hell, got me a whole new gang all neatly packaged in a fresh body just waitin’ to be filled with nummy badness.”

The lights dimmed, the walls heaving and shuddering like they’d done the night before.

“Just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin.”

Spike reeled against Drusilla as the floor undulated to the final bars of the song, the fading music giving way to the less melodious sound of a ringing telephone. He regained his balance, grasping the edge of the reception desk that replaced the mahogany bed in the centre of what had been a bedroom.

“He’s just arrived. Yes sir, I’ll send him through,” said a familiar voice from the other side of the counter.

“Ow!” Spike yelled. The ivory horn of a tiny figurine pierced his hand, impaling itself deep into the flesh.

“Spikey,” Harmony greeted him with a bright smile.

Spike raised his head. “Harmony. You look …” he groped for the appropriate words, swallowing the horrible feeling of déjà vu that assaulted him as he surveyed his surroundings. “Smashing.” He tugged at the unicorn, wrenching the horn from it as he pulled it from his palm. He placed the broken parts on the desk with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about the piece.”

Harmony tilted her head at him and smiled again. “Surprised to see me? I suppose Angel told you he’d fired me? But it didn’t matter, because the references he gave me were the best. Not that he should have fired me because I’d never have betrayed him if he’d had more confidence in me. It wasn’t fair.”

Spike shook his head in disbelief. “I really must be in Hell this time.”

“Not Hell,” The First-Spike whispered in his ear. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Well? Hello! What are you waiting for?” said Harmony. “The Boss is waiting.” She pointed at the office door. “I suppose you want her to go with you?” she jerked her head in Drusilla’s direction. “I can’t think why? I told them so, but of course no one listens to me. After all, what do I know? I was only the last real girlfriend you had after she dumped you.”

Harmony’s prattle faded into the background as Spike drew nearer to Angel’s old office. The door looked the same as it always had. Didn’t it? He closed his eyes and concentrated, bringing images from the depths of his memory. He opened them again and stared at the door. There was a difference; a nameplate bearing the words ‘C.E.O. Senior Partner, Wolfgang Hartram’.


Chapter 11: Then began the tempest to my soul

Sunshine flowed along Wilshire Boulevard, fathomless power telescoped in invisible streams pouring across office windows, hotel entrances and car windscreens; the light running down the glass, exposing hidden grime, stains, and imperfections.

Lorne followed Illyria onto the sunny side of Wilshire Boulevard. He surveyed the highway and lowered his head at the sight of his reflection winking back at him from the freshly waxed bonnet of a car idling in the rush hour traffic. He peered at the ghostly image and grimaced.

“Can I be any more conspicuous? Because nothing says ‘look at me’ like a pair of crimson horns with this suit. Better get out of the spotlight before the audience starts throwing critical reviews at us.”

Illyria regarded him coldly. “You wish to blend, to be unobserved, to be what you are not. The white-haired one told me I should do the same to move among humans.” She threw her head back. “I will assume the form of the one whose soul you seek.”

“Over my dismembered green corpse.” Lorne gripped her arm. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on you to make sure we both get back.” He scanned the street. “But I find myself unable to perform a similar costume change being temporarily without a convenient telephone booth. Besides, there’s a less painful way, for both of us. Down here.” He pulled her towards the underground car park of the Best Western Hotel.

“You dare presume…” Illyria began.

“Stow it Prima Donna. And start learning some new songs.” Lorne gritted his teeth at the harshness of his words. ’Whatever happened to Caritas?’ He maintained his grasp of Illyria until they reached the cover of the concealing darkness in the sewers beneath the city.

“I would know more of this keeping of your eye,” Illyria shook Lorne’s hand from her arm. “The pledge you have made to another, to act as my jailer. From whence did the calumny originate? An insult so great cannot be disregarded.”

Lorne said nothing and plodded on through the shadows, head bowed.

“Your courage sits comfortably upon your shoulders,” Illyria observed. “Yet you tell me it came at too great a price. Much has changed since the days I first inhabited this shell, when you wore a clown’s mask to hide the terror you felt.”

Lorne paused at an intersection of interconnecting tunnels. He studied both paths for a few moments, then without a backward glance, he urged Illyria forward with a wave of his hand.

“Yes, much has changed. Yet things remain the same, ” Illyria said, following him into the dark.

---------------------------

Under the recessed illuminations at Wolfram and Hart, sunlight tresses caressed cool, pale skin, a fraudulent simulation of an innocence and warmth that no longer existed. Blue eyes stared out of the pallid face into dark eyes curtained by midnight tresses. Black eyes returned the blue-eyed stare with calculated concentration; manipulative malevolence and mercurial madness revealing nothing of the ruined purity once resident within.

Harmony shifted under Drusilla’s gaze. “What are you looking at?”

“Poor Goldilocks.” Drusilla reached out and fondled Harmony’s hair, letting it flow through her fingers like strands of silken thread. “No sleeping in Blondie Bear’s bed for you. She let Harmony’s hair fall and smiled at her. “You know what they say about natural blondes?”

“Now look here…” Harmony moved to Drusilla’s side of the desk and folded her arms.

“Do you know how to play Cat’s Cradle?” Drusilla asked her. “Your new lover does.”

“Lover? Oh, you mean Hamilton? He’s not my … Hey! How did you know we…?”

“I. See. Things.” Drusilla spoke as if explaining something to a dull child. “He’s got everyone’s strings all tangley. They’ll not make the church now.” She patted Harmony’s head. “Run along little girl. And be careful, that one’s not your special playmate any more. The beast has claws that catch and jaws that bite.” She mimicked a snapping mouth with her hand and turned her attention to Spike standing in front of the office door. “Something wicked this way comes,” she giggled, trotting over to his side.

Spike reached for the doorknob, then pulled back as the door opened and a tall figure came out into the reception area.

“Walk with me.” The new CEO - Marcus Hamilton’s animated corpse - brushed past him and strode towards the lifts.

Spike was still gaping when the dark whirlwind swept them into its black maw.

“You’re the dodgy preacher’s replacement?” he yelled above the roaring commotion of the gale.

“Hardly.” Hamilton’s measured tones, as cool as ever, possessed new harmonics, intimations of the multiple entities inhabiting his body. “A certain tenancy arrangement suits our purpose for the time being.”

Drusilla threw back her head and laughed, turning in the wind, her hair streaming, her long black coat flapping in time to the beat of the storm’s blasts.

“What’s with the tempest?” yelled Spike, holding the coat tails of his duster to stop it flying off into the maelstrom.

“Old habits die hard,” Hamilton’s impeccably manicured fingers straightened his tie before waving into the torrent of air swirling around them. “I never did understand the appeal of new technology. The cannon was a great improvement on the ballista, so they tell me, but I could never see it myself. A well directed lighting bolt doesn’t have the tendency to backfire on the one aiming it.”

The hurricane vanished, revealing Angel’s penthouse suite bathed in morning sunlight.

“But I haven’t brought you up here to talk business.” He paused. “That’s not strictly true, I have.” He held out a hand. “Wolfgang Hartram.”

Spike ignored the proffered hand and regarded him coldly, clenching and unclenching his fists, digging his nails into his palms. “Three in one, eh? Neat trick! Been done before of course,” he sneered.

Hartram lowered his arm and glanced at Drusilla who stood gazing out of the window, pressing her face to the glass and murmuring softly.

“It was sunny when Mummy played,” she said dreamily. “And the daisy-chains were jewelled crowns in my hair.” She turned her face towards Spike, her cheek caressing the pane, revelling in the glow. “Until Daddy brought the darkness.” A thunderous frown circled her brow. “And the screams.”

“Dru.” Spike held out his hands to her.

“No! The Angel beast must suffer as I did,” she raged. “Anne. My sweet little bird. Butchered her singing he did. Twisted the song. Made it bleed. All my playmates gone.”

Spike pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair. “He can’t hurt you any more,” he soothed.

“But he can. He does. Every day he does. No more quiet. No more peace. No more stained light. He took that last. A demon dressed in an Angel’s robes stealing my precious secrets in a holy space. His place wasn’t there!” Drusilla raised her face to Spike’s and fixed her eyes on his. “You can make it better.”

Spike clenched his jaw. ‘Bloody bastard Angelus. Should have let you die.’ He shook his head. “I can’t. I could never... Not like that.”

Drusilla pushed herself out of his embrace. “Not that ,silly boy. You're not listening - nor seeing yet neither.” She wagged a finger at him and turned to the window. “Lovely view,” she said brightly. “I can see the whole world. And all the others.”

“Darla was all about the view, not me, Pet,” Spike reminded her.

“All those little ants down there; just waiting to be covered in honey,” Drusilla continued. She whirled to face him. “You can make me a new playmate.”

“Want me to turn someone for you? Spike tilted his head, frowning his concern. “Not sick again are you?”

“Course not.” Drusilla’s smile faded. “Want to play our little game. Taking Mummy’s chair, sleeping in Daddy’s bed.” She grinned. “Eating baby for porridge.”

“Can't see what you’re gettin’ at here, Dru.”

Hartram walked over to the window and looked out towards the mountains. “You can see for miles on a clear day. See everything as clear as day, rather, from up here.“

“L.A. days aren’t exactly noted for their clarity,” snorted Spike. “And I seem to recall your predecessor being blinded for a time by the murky light this view offered.”

Hartram turned slowly and looked at him, studying his face, noting the tension in his posture and suspicion in his eyes. “I don’t believe the vision was any clearer in that dingy basement flat of yours.”

“Visions!” scoffed Spike. “Depends who’s having ‘em and what he says he’s seen. Only ever met one bloke who told the real truth an' even then had a job winkling it out of him. So, no. I don’t believe in visions. Don’t hardly know what’s real any more, let alone trust fata morgana.”

“This is real.” Hartram swept a hand around the suite and gestured at Drusilla twisting her hair into knots and humming to herself. “Why choose the mission impossible when you can have …?”

“You think I aim too high?”

Hartram circled the room, pausing in front of the sofa. “In one sense, not high enough.”

Spike narrowed his eyes. “I’m listenin’.”

“Everything you really want is within your reach?” Hartram gestured at the suite. “This apartment …”

“You already tried the ‘temptation on the mountain’ ploy with Angel. Not biting.”

“We were mistaken in him. He didn’t have what it takes. You and Drusilla are all that’s left of the once invincible Aurelius clan.” Hartram raised his eyes to the ceiling and placed a hand on his breast. ”That was after the Great War, of course. Before that you vampires were nothings. When demons ruled …”

“Oh put a sock in it, Frankie, you sound like the Blue Queen.” Spike sank onto the sofa and folded his arms behind his head. “Not talkin’ ‘bout Angel’s Ancestors any more. Back to me getting’ what I want.”

Drusilla drifted over from the window and lowered herself onto his lap. “I know what you want. Love. It’s what you’ve always wanted. No one loved you. Not until I found you. ”She wrapped a hank of her hair around her wrist and glanced suggestively towards the bedroom. “Nor since, neither, my Dark Prince.”

“Mother,” he stammered, pushing Drusilla onto the floor. “She loved me.”

“Didn’t she just!” First-Spike materialised at Drusilla’s side. “Hot demon Mama just gagging for it. And how did you repay her? Oh, that’s right, you killed her – again.”

“You already played out that hand,” Spike snarled. “Got a fresh deck now. No more ‘poor maidens’. Seems I’m missing that Love card.”

Drusilla stretched out her arm. “Ooh, Spike, what a pretty evil you make.” Her hand passed through the incorporeal form and she giggled. “Tingles.” She crawled back onto the seat and ran her fingers through Spike’s hair. “Remember how we used to tingle?” she whispered.

Spike stared at Drusilla. “My Black Beauty,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her hair. He swallowed and closed his eyes. “I remember.”

“Be nice to get physical with a woman again without that pesky conscience getting in the way, wouldn’t it?” Hartram moderated First-Spike’s line.

Spike looked wildly from Drusilla to Hartram to First-Spike who was now deep in shadow in the entrance to the bedroom. He gripped the edge of the sofa, flexing the muscles in his legs ready for flight.

Everything you ever wanted is here for the taking. “Drusilla’s – charms for want of a better word…” Hartram continued.

A shaft of sunlight blinded Spike for a second, pinning him in place. ‘No! Gotta stay. I know I do. What I need is here. Have to stay for a reason. Just can’t see it yet.’

“You can see for miles as clear as day from up here,” said First-Spike echoing Hartram’s earlier words. He swaggered across the room into the sunshine and studied the city streets. “Or look down on everything; everything and every one. You’d never be beneath anyone ever again.”

‘Another fine mess you’ve got me into William - you and that poet’s soul of yours.’

“I mean, honestly, where has all that moon and June stuff ever gotten you?” First-Spike leered. “Always chasing the wrong woman. Not one of them ever saw the real you.”

“Except me”. Drusilla rested her head against Spike’s, her hair falling across his face, obscuring his sight for a second, and filling his eyes with the image of another dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty.

‘And Fred’. The one woman he’d not set his cap at. She’d seen him all right. He could never fool her with any of the ploys he used on the others. She was the reason he was here, why he’d sacrificed his most precious memories without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Focus. Spike. Got a job to do here.’

“Yeah,” he drawled. “Not one of ‘em. ‘Specially the Ponce who used to run this joint. Thought he was King of the Castle. Thought he deserved…” he paused for effect, “everything more than I did.”

“He had it handed to him, didn’t he? Every. Time.” Hartram’s voice cut through the coagulated sticky mess that was Spike’s brain like citric acid. “Ever wonder what the price was this time?”

‘Now we’re getting’ to it.’ Spike leaned against the backrest and stared unwaveringly at a spot over Drusilla’s head. “I’m listening again,” he said evenly.

“Memories. That was the price. Thinks he’s better than you and yet he traded other people’s memories - of his son.” Hartram responded in equally moderated tone. “But of course you already knew that.”

Spike remained motionless. Whatever else he might have wanted of Angel’s, right now the ability to conceal his thoughts and feelings was something he wished he’d practised sooner.

“What you don’t know, and neither does he come to that, is that when he signed away the Shanshu for membership of the Circle of the Blackthorn…”

“It’s such a luscious secret. Can I tell?” Drusilla interrupted.

Hartram nodded his permission.

“It was Grandmother’s gift. She always did give lovely presents. All in such delicious wrapping.”

Ice coursed through Spike’s veins. Darla? What had she said to Angel in the lift?

Drusilla held a hand to her head. “I see it. Angel’s destiny all packaged up and damaged ever so sweetly. It’s bleeding now. She licked her fingers. A new playmate for me.” She touched Spike’s chest with her fingertips. “For you to give me. Make Daddy suffer as I do.”

“Angel’s humanity?” Spike’s voice cracked. “You see Connor?”

“Of course I see him.” Drusilla’s administered a sharp slap to Spike’s hand. “Pay attention to Mummy!” She pointed at the television screen across the room.

Spike followed the direction she’d indicated and recognised Connor’s beaten form lying bound and blindfolded on the small narrow bed of a sparsely furnished basement apartment. He lowered his eyes from the screen and shook his head.

Drusilla lifted his chin. “Don’t cry, my darling. It’ll only hurt him for a moment. Then he’ll be yours forever.”

“All Angel once had is yours for the taking.”

Hartram’s stately voice brought Spike back from the precipice. Choking down the bile that rose in his throat, he rose from his seat and forced himself to smile.

“That’s the plan then, is it? To hit Angel where it hurts him most.” He smirked. “I like it.”

“Drusilla, this suite, the cars, the power, his Shanshu. Yours and yours alone.”

“Cars? There’s cars as in plural? Lead on Macduff, I fancy a little test run.”

Hartram lead the way to the lifts. “We’ll take the elevator this time, if it makes you more comfortable.” He indicated the call button. “You can drive.”

---------------------------------

In the dimly lit backseat of the Bentley, Buffy struggled ineffectually against Angel, trying to shift his body, which was pinning her against the back of the driver’s seat.

“What the hell ….”

Angel covered her mouth with his hand. “Sshhh,” he whispered.

Buffy heard the ‘ping’ of the lift arriving, followed by the soft swoosh of its doors and a familiar voice echoing through the garage.

“You little beauties! All of you. All mine.”

“And mine. You won’t forget Princess when you’re King, will you?”

“Never, my sweet. You shall have your pick of the finest carriages and the flunkiest minions.”

“I think you’ll find some additions to the collection that will suit all your needs,” said Hartram. “They were selected specifically with you in mind.”

Spike chuckled. “Let’s have the tour then Jeeves. I fancy taking my time getting to know some of these ladies.”

“The limousine range is this way,” Hartram’s voice barely concealed his anger at being treated as a servant. “As for taking your time. The offer we made is for a limited period only. No sampling the goods until the contract is signed.”

“Thought it was my time now?” replied Spike. “You know the time, the window of opportunity you missed back in Sunnydale when you sent that amulet you meant for Angel to wear?”

Angel tensed and grabbed the door, growling softly and slipping into vamp face. Buffy grasped his hand and squeezed a warning, huddling down beneath the level of the side window and holding her breath as the sound of Spike’s boots came closer.


Chapter 12: His Soul Thou Canst Not Have

Lord of himself, though not of lands; And having nothing, yet hath all.

The smooth stream of blue hummed softly against Willow’s skin. Azure currents flowed into hazy sky, collided, mingled and parted again. Deep aquamarine surged against sanguine, fought the dark undertow, finally giving way to the barrier blocking its progress. Willow ran her hands along the broad sweep of turquoise, following the contours of the channel, riding each wave as it swept alongside the snaking arterial conduits bordering its edge, shuddering to a halt at the cliff where terrazzo met carpet. Reflected lamplight glowed, pooling in mini swirls amid the flow and tow of the undercurrent. The young witch closed her eyes and followed the ocean blue streaming across the centre of the reception area, her breath escaping in short gasps as she fought the source of power.

“I know you’re here,” she ground the words through clenched teeth.

“Willow?”

She didn’t pause, her fingers buzzing at each marble chip beneath the deceptively smooth surface.

“Whoah!” She recoiled, shaking her hands. “There’s something here. I knew it! Memories in the fabric of the building,” she explained turning towards Wesley, “they sang to me.” She grasped his outstretched arm and stood up, brushing the dust from her skirt with her other hand. “. “I can feel the things that happened on the second floor. Maybe the walls can be persuaded to do the same.” She glanced towards the spot just inside the entrance and concentrated “There’s remnants of dark magic, very dark magic - there.” She pointed to a here. There's a pentogram for… ”

“For opening the portal to Quortoth,” Lorne finished breathlessly for her as he burst through the front door.

“Are you sure?” Wesley asked. “I don’t remember…”

“It all went horribly wrong. “You were busy having your throat slit at the time.” Lorne glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I feel a spot of déjà vu approaching.”

“Is Illyria with you?”

“She is.” Illyria appeared from behind Lorne her glacial gaze fixed on Wesley. “She feels the need to do violence against the traitorous minion who dared question her motives.” She tilted her head and looked from Wesley to Willow. “Which of you gave voice to such a calumny?”

“Neither of us.” Wesley’s cool reply met with a blink of surprise from Willow. “The Watchers’ Diary suggested the Dark Prince might be you. I presume we were mistaken in our interpretation.”

“Show me,” Illyria commanded. “I would know my enemy that I might remove the deceiver’s tongue from his head.”

Willow suppressed a giggle. “Strictly speaking, it’s his pen you should remove not his tongue. Or maybe his quill.” She turned to Wesley. “Did they have quills back when?”

“Illyria,” Wesley soothed, “the Watcher’s Diary was written by many scholars who sought only to bring light in a world of darkness born of fear and ignorance. Its earliest recordings were entered long after you were laid to your rest in the Deeper Well.” He thought for a moment. “And yet you may hold the key to our understanding of them.” He pointed at the objects in Illyria’s hands. “Just as you hold the key to our understanding of the secrets locked in the walls.”

Illyria studied his face. “Your apology is acceptable.”

“Um. Did I miss something?” Lorne cupped a hand to his ear. “Or is Little Miss Blue Eyes learning to pick up on subtext? I’m detecting a change of key and whole new musical repertoire with the lack of the royal ‘we’ in the lyrics.”

Wesley gave a small smile. “She’s adapting.”

------------------------------------------------------

Spike stopped alongside the Bentley’s rear window, took a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

The familiar smell of tobacco wafted in through the partially open rear door, mingling with the expensively fragrant aroma of new leather; a patina of power protected beneath pale layers of costly cosseting and lengthy lubrication processes. Buffy pressed a hand to the pristine, white side panel to steady herself, but slid slowly down the smooth, supple fabric. Her other hand gripped the edge of Angel’s coat which she’d grabbed to prevent herself falling out when he’d released the door catch. The surface bore witness to the life of the garment’s owner; rain, sweat, and blood, old stains maiming its hardened black exterior. The crazed grainy texture caught the skin on her fingertips, bringing memories of another leather coat to which she’d clung in an attempt to save herself.

Drusilla watched the lighter flame flickering in the slight breeze drifting in from the street, gazing at its centre as the colour fluctuated on eddies of air. She snapped her head towards the side window and snarled. "A Fiery Angel comes again."

"What's that, Pet? "Spike closed his lighter and fumbled the attempt to pocket it, allowing it to fall to the cement floor. It sounded a metallic note as it struck and bounced beneath the Bentley. He bent down to retrieve it, nudging the door closed with his head.

"The Angel Beast… " Drusilla's voice was drowned by the squeal of rubber on tarmac heralding the arrival of a black limousine followed by a sports saloon. They purred past the vampires and parked on the opposite side of the garage alongside the performance cars.

Spike scanned the line of vehicles. “An S Series Jag !" he whooped. "Now that’s more like it. C’mon Dru, you can play with the limo after we get you a driver flunky.” He gripped Drusilla's elbow and propelled her along in front of him.

The soft swish of leather, the familiar creak of boots, together with the echoing clack of heels, signalled Spike’s movement away from the Bentley towards the recent arrivals.

Buffy exhaled, pulled herself onto the backseat and squinted through the tiny, darkened rear window. "What now?" she whispered.

"We wait and see how this pans out before we make our move," Angel replied softly.

"And that would be…?"

"Shhh!”

Three burly figures, two tall, one much shorter, climbed out of the Jaguar. Their matching designer suits marked the vampires as members of the exclusive club of hired muscle beloved of the underworld. The short man took a briefcase from the boot of the limousine as the liveried driver opened the rear door and stood back, face impassive, keeping a watchful eye on Spike and Drusilla.

Wolfgang Hartram stared at his temporary replacement emerging from the back of the car. “Why are you here?”

“Breakfast meeting. You wished to be kept fully informed of our progress and," Sirk raised the briefcase he’d been handed, for examination, “security matters.”

Hartram frowned. “Breakfast meeting? It slipped my mind in all the excitement.” He gestured towards Spike and Drusilla.

“Don’t tell me the delightfully shallow Ms Kendal omitted to flag it in your diary.” Sirk smiled wolfishly. “I felt sure she’d cater it perfectly. I was looking forward to very best America has to offer, some nutritionally defective carbohydrate and caffeine.”

He turned his attention to Spike who was making slow progress towards them dragging a reluctant Drusilla behind him. “William the Bloody," Sirk called across the parking bays.

"The Fallen Watcher Bastard Misleader." Spike nodded in recognition.

" So we meet again. A little prematurely for the order of play.” Sirk shook his head at Hartram. “You really are out of touch.”

“You forget yourself Mr Sirk,” said Hartram.

“Really? Do remind me, for the sake of our guests. Just who exactly is it I went to all that trouble for? Three former powerful demons banished to another dimension with the fall of the Old Ones with the advent of man's supremacy in this one.”

"And now we are here. What's to stop us killing you where you stand and re-possessing our property?" Hartram adjusted the cufflinks beneath his sleeves, revealing a flash of crimson brilliance against pristine white crispness.

"Merely the fact that you're…" Sirk paused. "What's the quaint expression of which Americans are so fond? 'Out of juice'. All that dimension hopping. And the battle. Not to mention single-handedly rebuilding Wolfram and Hart headquarters - metaphorically speaking." Sirk raised an eyebrow at Spike. "They do know how to use metaphor after all, although I doubt they're aware of it."

"Ladybird, ladybird fly away home. Your house in on fire and your children are gone." Drusilla whimpered. "Daddy burned them."

"Whereas working with your paramour was a very interesting experience," Sirk observed. "She knows all about imagery. After all she is a metaphor."

He stepped towards Hartram. “You didn’t really think there wouldn’t be a price to pay for what I made possible do you?”

The suited minions moved closer together, forming a protective circle around Hartram.

"Relax boys. I hardly think Mr Sirk is here to cause us any real trouble. He merely wishes to barter a higher price for services rendered."

Sirk shifted the case from one hand to another. "Partly," he admitted. "And to ensure that things I contrived to put in place continue to operate smoothly until completion of the contract."

"You may have been invaluable in arranging our safe passage here, but we no longer require your presence for our continuing tenancy. We will have little trouble relieving you of our property which you held only temporarily to assist you in your work."

Sirk hugged the case to his chest. "My work," he sounded each word slowly, "is the result of decades of study and careful meticulous planning." He shot a suspicious look at Spike and Drusilla. "I'd hate for all that scholarly endeavour to turn to ash because someone didn't heed the warning about careful timing.”

"Time. All in motion. In the stars." Drusilla groaned.

“Quiet Dru. Want to hear what the man has to say.” Spike pulled her further away from the Bentley.

Hartram motioned the vampires away. “I’m sure we can come to an amicable arrangement.” He turned towards the door to the stairs, then stopped. “After I’ve rested. I think I’ll take the elevator.”

“And the books?” asked Sirk.

“Can wait.”

“My payment?”

“That too.” Hartram waved a hand in the direction of the cars. “There might be a bonus for a job well done. Have a look round. Pick something for yourself.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

A slow grin spread across Wesley’s face as he watched Illyria and Willow, heads bent together over the Watchers’ Diary.

“Two powerful beings forming an uneasy alliance in search of the Truth. Fighting for the common good. Their only weapons their incisive intelligence and the ability to cut through the crap,” he quipped.

Willow raised her head and smirked at him. “Careful,” she said. “You’re beginning to sound like Andrew. And we all know where that leads.”

“Lunch bags with Union flags?”

Willow rose from her seat, her expression softening. “Feeling all redundant?” She gazed into his eyes. “Or just ‘beyond tired’? When did you last sleep?”

Wesley rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Feels like a lifetime ago.” He sighed and gestured at Illyria. “And, yes, feeling somewhat like the proverbial spare at the wedding.”

Illyria closed the book and looked at him. “You speak in riddles again.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a hard habit to break. I’ll try to cut down on the metaphor.”

“Metaphor. This is a beast with which I am familiar. The Witch and I wrestled with it continuously in the Codex.”

“As I suspected,” Wesley muttered. “The problem - was in the translation or my interpretation?”

“Neither, actually,” said Willow.

“Then I don’t understand.”

Illyria nodded her assent that Willow explain further.

“I’m not sure I do, completely. But the Cliff Notes’ version? The Watchers’ Diaries were written over time. What came as news to me…” Willow bounced excitedly from foot to foot. “And this is so cool – each time a passage is interpreted, it is literally re-written in light of the ‘time’ in which it’s being read.”

Wesley frowned and picked up the Diaries. “You mean, re-interpreted?”

“No. Re-written. It’s like a historical document chronicling events and when someone from a later era reads it, they perceive those events through the filter of the age in which they live. You know, like ‘slavery is bad’ nowadays so the President apologises to the Africans who were brought here centuries ago.”

“Judging earlier generations’ behaviour by today’s standards? But that’s just bad history!”

Willow glared at him. “Don’t make me repeat the ‘Indians’ – ‘Native Americans’ discussion I had with Giles. I’m trying to explain what Illyria knows about the texts.”

“Sorry,” Wesley apologised again. “Where does that lead us?”

“Apart from opening all sorts of interesting doors on how to approach prophecies? Not a lot.” Willow smiled weakly. “There was a passage indicating the Dark Prince might be Spike. Or Drusilla. Not sure which.”

“We have deciphered a passage pointing to the White Haired One,” said Illyria

“Uh oh.” Lorne peered over the rim of his cocktail glass. “Do I detect a return of the Royal Deity?”

“We, as in Illyria and me,” Willow explained handing Wesley a sheet of paper.

"Though much was taken, much abides; and though
He has not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth, that which he is, we are –
Champions of the Light, one equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Wesley considered the translation. “Not the Dark Prince,” he concluded. “But leading the way to what we seek.” He pulled Lorne’s glass from his reach. “What did Angel say was happening over there?”

The phone on the reception desk began to ring.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hartram held the lift’s ‘door open’ button as he listened to the conclusion of Sirk’s summary.

“The second stage went without a hitch. The boy’s safely tucked up.”

“Safe? Angel’s already looking for him,” Spike scoffed.

“He can’t possibly know that….”

“Witnessed the whole snatch ‘n’ grab scene.”

“That’s not possible, you were all in the alleyway when…”

Hartram stepped back out of the lift. “Yes. Let us in on how precisely that could have happened.”

“Whenever the Ice Maiden’s around, time goes all wonky. We got the action replay a couple of hours ago.” Spike released Drusilla and moved closer to Sirk. "Seems your calculations were a little off," he challenged.

“It’s of no consequence. He’ll not find the boy.”

“What? Puttin’ him in my old basement flat’s hardly the work of the Brains’ Trust, “ Spike jeered. “First place he’ll look now that I’m here getting the temptation on the mountain treatment.”

“Give me some credit for having input into selecting a secure place, “replied Hartram. “He’s not at your apartment.”

“Looked like it to me. Same ‘this-isn’t-a-home-it’s-just-a-room’ décor.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. You should know that. It’s near enough for frequent family visits, far enough to let one of the cars show you what it can do.” Hartram eyed Drusilla maintaining her watch on the Bentley. “Take the lovely Drusilla for a short family visit.”

Drusilla scowled and continued to stare at the rear window. The darkened security glass revealed nothing of the interior. "One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead men got up to fight," she chanted.

Spike scrutinised the group of vampires lounging on the bonnet of the Jaguar. “I thought you said no trial run ‘til I’d signed up for the duration.”

"Back to back they faced each other. Drew their swords and shot one anotherr." Drusilla continued the children's paradox rhyme and gave Sirk one of her vacant smiles. "I think the boys are going to fight," she said cheerfully. "But I know how this ends. If you don't believe the story's true Ask the blind man, he saw it too."

Sirk watched Spike nervously, and began edging towards the bodyguards.

Spike tilted his head at Sirk. “You sure Drusilla was the right one to recruit me?”

"I can't begin to tell you the pleasure I had working with your lady, William," Sirk began unctuously.

"It's Spike. To you." Retorted Spike. He pulled Drusilla into his arms. "What does he mean 'working with you'?" he growled. “Since when?”

“Done it before.” Drusilla said as she wriggled free. “Not with him. Dry old stick.”

Spike snorted. “Not exactly known for your good taste, love.” He glanced at Sirk. “S’pose he’s not too bad, relatively speaking. Seem to remember a Chaos Demon listed on your bedstead notches.”

“She never learned to distinguish business from pleasure, our little Drusilla.” The First-Dru materialised beside Hartram. “Such a precious one. We’re…” She paused, searching the neon strip lights for inspiration. “So completely compatible.”

Drusilla cocked her head to the side and approached her mirror image. She prodded First-Dru’s chest with her index finger, watching in fascination as the digit disappeared. “It’s me. And it’s not me.” She clapped her hands excitedly. “Oooh, a riddle me ree!”

“Is this thing really necessary to the next stage?” asked Sirk. “She’s hardly reliable. I recall that leading to some very nasty consequences involving many of your key players last time. Had it not been for Angel’s timely intervention…”

Drusilla lunged at Hartram, talons flashing, slicing through his jugular. “You!” she shrieked. “You made him do it. Setting us all aflame.”

Spike gripped her arms and pulled her off.

Hartram took a handkerchief from his top pocket and pressed it against his bloody neck. “Thank you. But there was no need. Really.”

“What were you sayin’ about weapons backfiring? You really should have done your homework on this one. It’s not so easy to pull her strings.” He turned Drusilla to face him. “What’s it feel like bein’ a puppet Dru?”

Drusilla went limp in his arms. “Need a Knight to cut my strings.”

“There are no puppets here.” Hartram dabbed his wound, wincing slightly.

Spike narrowed his eyes. “It was you in the dragon suit then? Why didn’t you finish Angel off?”

“There were other matters demanding our attention – that now require my presence again.” He stepped into the lift. “Don’t let the vampire leave until you’ve signed him up,” he ordered.

“What am I signing up to – exactly. Not going blindfold down the same road Angel did. Need the fine print spelled out.”

“There have been various translations of the Shanshu prophecy. All of them wrong,” began Sirk. “The interpretation of one word ‘iri’’ – ‘becoming’ – or ‘made manifest’. Wyndham Pryce was mistaken not once, but twice. It can, indeed mean ‘live’ but his interpretation of ‘become human’ is, like so much of his work, flawed. The true meaning of ‘become’ carries the same significance as the Biblical reference written long afterwards.”

Hartram held out a hand towards First-Dru. “And the Word was made flesh.”

“You quoting scripture again?” Spike sneered. “Must be a little of the pain-in-the-arse padre left in you after all.”

“Nothing at all actually,” replied Hartram. He offered his arm to First-Dru. “Come, my dear. It’s time to have a little more of you inside.”

“Still don’t know what I’m expected to do,” Spike told the closing doors.

“Angel unknowingly signed Connor away in his misguided attack on the members of the Blackthorn,” continued Sirk. “He merely removed the middlemen. And he provided the means by which the Senior Partners could take a more hands-on approach in this dimension. In effect, he fast-tracked their plans for the vampire with a soul.”

“Angel?”

“He made it possible for them to take it to a new level. But it’s no longer all about him.”

“You walk in worlds others cannot comprehend,” Drusilla crooned stroking Spike’s face.

“Angel made it possible,” Sirk continued. “You re-wrote history when you fought for your soul.” He stepped further away from Spike. “I’m surprised Giles didn’t take a greater interest in it, but then as far as I know, he wasn’t aware of the Shanshu Prophecy. Whereas Wyndham Pryce really should have known better.”

“Prophecies. Nothing but chimera.”

“You may be right. But others believe differently,” said Sirk. “And belief is a very powerful motivator. It can make people behave quite irrationally at times.”

“Like me not buying anything that I’ve heard since this place swallowed me into its belly?” Spike laughed.

“Something like that,” agreed Sirk. “You needed much more work. Weren’t nearly ready to be seduced. Pity” He shrugged. “Boys!”

Drusilla’s head snapped round towards the sound of Angel and Buffy bursting from their hiding place as the vampire bodyguards leapt to attack Spike. “Angel,” she snarled. “Come to spoil. Come to take what’s mine. Why won’t you stay with me Spike?”

Spike grabbed Sirk’s briefcase and walloped him hard with it, sending him flying into the nearest minions.

“You just don’t get it do you, Dru? I never wanted what Angel had. I only ever wanted what was mine.” He leapt the fallen bodies and sprinted towards the Jaguar.

Buffy took out the third vampire, dusting it with one flowing sweep of her arm. Angel lunged at the driver, sending him sprawling against a pillar. The man curled protectively, clutching a broken wrist and whimpering softly.

“Human!” Angel backed away.

“Still needs immobilising,” said Buffy, knocking the man out.

“Angel. Get Dru,” Spike called as Drusilla disappeared through the exit door to the stairs. “Too late!” He jumped into the Jaguar, threw the case on the passenger seat and gunned the engine.

Sirk and his companions struggled to their feet.

“Well get in!” yelled Spike drawing alongside Buffy and Angel. He slammed the gearshift into drive as they tumbled in and floored the accelerator, scattering the minions as the car roared out of the garage and into Washington Boulevard.

“Oh well,” Sirk grumbled, brushing dirt from his trousers. “Time for Plan B.”

“You thought I’d gone over, didn’t you, you Git!” Spike snarled at Angel. I could feel you. So could Dru. Just when I was getting your boy’s location out of Sirk. Your timing always was lousy.”

“What? My timing is not lousy…” protested Angel. “And I didn’t think you’d…” He pulled the briefcase out from underneath him and passed it to Buffy. “ Why’d you grab the case?”

“Dunno. Something needing security at Evil Inc? Figured it’d be useful.” He checked the rear view mirror and jumped the red light at the junction. “Better get on the blower, Slayer, and have the Witch work a locator spell.”

Buffy flipped open her mobile and hit a speed dial key.

“Willow? Buffy. Need you to do something.”

Spike checked the rear view mirror again. “So far so good,” he murmured.

“Hang on, I’ll pass you to Angel.”

“You need something of Connor’s?” Angel thought for a second. “Closet in my room. You’ll find a dismantled crib. And there should be some stuffed toys. Will that do?”

Spike looked under the sun visor towards the sky as the whirr of helicopter blades grew louder. “Anyone see something we should be worried about?”

Angel closed the phone, reached over Spike’s shoulder and grabbed the wheel, steering the car onto the pavement.

“Everybody out. Now!”


Chapter 13: And there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.

The ebony aircraft cast a hostile shadow on the street below, a massive mechanical dragonfly venting invisible venomous fumes into the already polluted atmosphere. Malevolent wings gouged the air relentlessly, twin scimitar blades slicing in syncopated rhythm while a single multi-facetted glass eye searched the ground for its prey; the smoky tints of its exterior revealing nothing of the occupants of the craft.

Spike shoved Angel’s hands away from the steering wheel. “Hey! Back off, backseat driver.”

“I said. ‘Everybody out’.”

Spike squinted under the visor at the sun. “What the hell for - to get flambéed out there?”

“No. So we don’t lead them back to the hotel,” Angel said through gritted teeth.

“Didn’t you listen to a word Shortarsed Wimpy was sayin’? They already know we’re based there.”

The helicopter hovered lower over the middle of the road ahead of them.

Angel gestured at it. “You got a better idea, Einstein? You think they’re gonna ask us to come peaceably with our hands up? They’re human. We’re dead.” He adjusted the wing mirror and scanned the pavement. “Unless we take to the sewers.”

“This baby can outrun them,” argued Spike checking the road behind. “Quick U-turn and we disappear.”

“Until we reach the next junction. Where we stop.”

“And they spot us from the sky again. Focus, Spike. Bright red, non-disappearable car. Eye-in-the-Sky. Psychopathic crew.” said Buffy, waving a hand at the helicopter landing in the road ahead.

"Right. Focus." Spike checked the slow moving traffic in the rear view mirror. "What d'you have in mind then?"

"We're parked on it," said Angel. He turned to Buffy, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a metal bar. "I need you to buy us a few seconds of non-frying time." "Use this to open the drain and get inside. Think you can fool them into thinking we're making a run for it?" he asked Spike.

Spike grinned and spun the car through 360 degrees, burning rubber onto the paving slabs. The helicopter took off again; its Cyclops eye watching for any movement that would indicate the direction the Jaguar was going to take.

Buffy leapt from the rear seat clutching the briefcase and prised open the manhole cover set in the pavement close to the car's rear wheels. "Now!" she yelled dropping down into the sewer.

Spike reversed the car until a front wheel touched the rim of the open drain. He flung open the driver's door and, hitching his duster over his head, followed Buffy into the underground passageway. Angel climbed over the gearshift, nudged it into drive, hit the accelerator pedal as he rolled out, and slid headfirst down the inspection shaft. The Jaguar moved slowly forward for a second, its near-side wheel spinning ineffectually inside the open manhole before coming to a halt with a mighty groaning of metal on metal as the rim jammed tight. The car collapsed sideways, its alarm shrieking in outrage at the severe list to port that threatened further injury to the suspension.

In the darkness below, Spike winced at the sound of the damage. "That was no way to treat a lady," he complained. "Cars are just like women. You have to treat 'em right or you'll never get the performance you want out of 'em."

"Shut up about the car, Spike," Angel growled. "We're not far from the entrance to the hotel basement. It's this way. " He strode ahead of Spike. "Tell me what went on back there. Was that Hamilton we heard?"

"Yeah." Spike cast a final glance up the drain shaft and walked slowly after Angel.

Buffy picked up the briefcase and followed them both. "Who's Hamilton?" she asked.

Angel ignored her question. "But he's dead. We saw his body in the rubble."

"We also watched as said rubble got the makeover to end all makeovers." Spike rubbed the tips of his slightly singed hair. "Hamilton's changed his name. It's Wolfgang Hartram now. He's the builder and decorator responsible for the renovations. You should see that place now it's finished. All brand spanking shiny and new."

“Like the shiny new car you thought would make such a good getaway car?” asked Buffy. " A state of the art Jaguar worth…” She paused. “A lot. And red - not what I'd call a good idea."

“No. Your idea of the perfect getaway car was a Winnebago. And look where that got us. Stuck out in the middle of the desert surrounded by rejects from Python's Holy Grail who were trying to kill us all. Spike shook his head. "Bad choice. I knew I should have nicked the Porsche."

“You remember all that now? And you don't remember…? Never mind. What is it with men and fast cars?”

Spike whirled round to face her. “Yeah, I remember. That. And the fact that you always were a bossy, whiney little thing. And you're still at it.”

"When you two have finished your little spat," Angel called as he placed his hands on the iron rungs of a ladder set into the wall, "it's this way."

-------------------------------------------------------

Angel stared at the golden particles glistening under the dormant power of the locator spell, the ghostly outline of a pentangle glowing faintly in the middle of the circle of sand.

"This can't be good," he said scanning the deserted reception area.

"Is it worse than reckoning taking out the Black Thorn was a good idea?" asked Spike.

Angel glowered at him.

"You heard Hartram, Angel. You signed away the Shanshu, gave them a blank cheque as far as Connor was concerned and all we got in return was to take out the middlemen. Now we're facing the Senior Partners up front and personal. And not just them."

"Let me guess," interrupted Buffy. "They brought a backing group?"

"Worse," replied Spike. "The Terrible Triplets got themselves wired into Hamilton's former premises and fitted with long life batteries in the form of your friend and mine, The Hellmouth Ringmaster."

"The First."

Angel stared glumly at the sandy outline. "You think the locator spell backfired?"

"Oh yea of little faith." Willow emerged from the elevator struggling under the weight of her backpack. "It went just fine. Apart from the bit where the pentangle started showing me bits of your Pylean adventure. I think it got its dimensional time lines crossed." She grinned over at Buffy, her smile fading rapidly as she noted the tension pulsating in waves from both Slayer and Vampire glaring at one another beneath the curve of the main staircase.

"So you found Connor?" Angel licked his lips nervously. "Is he…"

Willow dropped the backpack to the floor and opened the front pocket. "He's alive," she said reassuringly. "He's not far from here and there are no demons with him. Yet." She pulled a sheet of paper out of her bag and called to Buffy. "You didn't bag Drusilla?"

"She got away," said Angel taking the address from her. "And is probably on her way there right now." He pulled his mobile phone from a pocket and speed-dialled Connor's number. "Connor's cell phone," he explained, hitting the loudspeaker button. The phone was answered on the fourth ring.

"Connor?"

"Connor can't come to the phone right now." Drusilla's unmistakable London accent reverberated through the lobby. "He's all tied up at the moment," she giggled. " His Daddy is too busy to take care of him. Always too busy taking care of everybody else. And he doesn't have a real Mummy, poor boy, nor even a pretend one made of wizard's fairytales. It's going to be such fun being a Mummy again. Can't talk now. I have so much to do, Ta Ta."

Spike clenched his jaw at the sound of Drusilla’s voice and dropped his eyes from Buffy’s, bringing their staring contest to an end. She touched his elbow lightly. “Spike. It’ll be all right,” she murmured gently.

“No,” he replied. “It won’t.”

Angel crossed the lobby to the reception desk and dialled the number Lorne had noted on his message pad after Mr Riley's call.

"Mrs Riley. It's Angel. I've found him." Angel paused frowning. "Angel. Of Wolfram and Hart. Your husband called earlier about your missing son, Connor." Angel listened to the speaker on the other end of the line for a few more seconds. "My mistake. Sorry to have troubled you," he said quietly before dropping the receiver back into its cradle.

"What's up?" Spike shook Buffy’s hand off his arm and crossed the room. He picked the number off the floor where Angel had dropped it. "Wrong number?"

"Wrong everything. They've never heard of me. More important, they've never heard of Connor." He looked into Spike's eyes. "They have no son. The wizard's fairytale memories are gone."

"Another side effect of taking out the Black Thorn?"

Angel shook his head. "No," he said slowly. "The Rileys still had their memories of Connor until a few hours ago. This is deliberate. Part of the plan."

"I was part of the plan." Spike shot a glance at Willow. "But Drusilla put a stop to that by getting their time lines crossed. Question is not what have they got in mind for the boy, it's what're you gonna do to stop 'em?"

"Stop Drusilla, you mean." Buffy joined the two vampires and sank into a chair beside them and handed the briefcase to Angel.

"I should have killed Dru a long time ago." Angel's weary voice echoed Spike's earlier thoughts. He stared unseeingly at the briefcase.

"But you didn't. No use cryin' over spilt blood, mate. Open the box and see what we got. Bound to be useful."

"Saddle up, amigos. The posse's heading this way," Lorne called from the doorway of Angel's office. He hurried over to the entrance doors and opened them. The sound of approaching helicopters mingled with the noise of traffic on Wilshere Boulevard. "You hear that? They're closing in." Lorne closed the doors and locked them. "Whistler gave us the address of the Hole in the Wall before he left for Cleveland with the others."

"He didn't need much persuading," Wesley added from the staircase. "Buffy did a fine job on him before she charged off to rescue you both from Illyria."

"We needed rescuing from the Queen of the Blues? First I heard of it. And why're we de-camping? What about your walls?" Spike asked Wesley.

Illyria appeared from behind Wesley and held up a small camera. "We no longer need them. We have this machine that allows us to travel back in time and freeze it whenever we wish."

"Courtesy of the Qwa'ha Xahn's evil plan to return Illyria from the other time line," added Wesley. "Knox made a video of Fred's work on the walls in her room."

"Other what?" asked Spike.

"Long story," said Lorne returning to the check in desk. "Part of the lost memories, you should be getting back any time now."

"I'm not holding my breath," replied Spike. "Seems there's been too much messin' with folks' memories goin' on of late."

"That's just a side show to the main action that was the Watcher Willow and Illyria combo playing at this morning's matinee performance." Lorne hauled a battered Gladstone bag out from under the counter. "That was an experience not to be missed."

"Like watching paint dry?" Spike drummed his fingers on the hard shell of the briefcase and nudged Angel's shoulder. "C'mon, Broody Pants. What're you waitin' for? Open the bleedin' case. Sirk didn't bring beer to his breakfast meeting."

Wesley placed the two small suitcases he'd carried downstairs on the central seating island. "Rutherford Sirk was there?"

"Buffy'll fill you in. While we go find the lad," said Spike, impatient for more action. "Seems Connor is the Shanshu the Prophecies were wittering on about and he’s definitely in need of a bit of ‘White Knight to the rescue’ action. But not before His Moodiness opens the…"

Angel clicked the metal clasps and raised the lid.

"Books!” Spike's disappointment was palpable. "More work for you Watcher types. Right. Let's be off."

Wesley picked one of the tomes from the case. "I know these." He fingered the cover, tracing the curl of a ram's horn etched in the leather. He opened the book, then placed it face down on the reception desk and reached into the briefcase for the second of three.

Spike peered at the Ram's head cover and turned the first page. "Didn't take you long to get through it then?" He flipped through the blank pages that made up the volume.

"This doesn't make any sense." Wesley's face creased in concentration. "Three books. The Wolf. The Ram. The Hart. A triptych. Each linked to the others. They're meant to be read as one continuous text."

"Except that's the one thing they're decidedly lacking." Spike sighed. "S'ppose I was wrong about them bein' important then?"

"And all the beasts shall be as one and shall rise anew when the darkness sweeps over the realms of the earth." Willow gazed at the cover illustrations. "I know why the books are empty."

"Of course." Wesley beamed at her and turned to Spike. "These are not important…"

Spike shrugged. "Can't win 'em all."

"They're crucial," Wesley finished. "Spike. I think you just gave us our first real break and probably a way to finding a weapon with which to defeat Wolfgang Hartram."

"After we get Connor." Angel's tone was firm. "Buffy, Spike, Illyria, get whatever you need from the weapon chest in my room. Wes, you go with Lorne and Willow to Whistler's safe house and work on whatever it is you need to find that weapon."


Chapter 14: Put your Ear Down Close to Your Soul and Listen Hard. (Anne Sexton)

The smell of fear and sweat mingled with the metallic undercurrent emanating from the rumpled linen heaped on the single bed in the corner of the sparsely furnished apartment. The last rays of the sun bleeding through threadbare curtains spilled flushed veins of jagged light across dusty floorboards. A mirror on the wall above the bed, danced to the rumble of evening traffic, palpitating the bloody message on the glass. Angel moved closer, his footsteps echoing across the hollow space.

Invitation to a Birthday Party. RSVP Miss Drusilla xxx

"No sign of life," said Spike, emerging from the bathroom area. He scanned the drab room. "Not exactly Dru's taste in décor. She was always one for the height of fashion - circa 1890."

Angel stared into the mirror, its only reflections those of Buffy, Ilyria and a hand-written note stuck to one corner of its murky surface. He slumped onto the bed and plucked at the dingy blue blanket, inhaling the lingering scent of his son's suffering. "Why did he do it? He must have known it was suicide. Going back to Wolfram and Hart."

"I'd do it. Right person. Someone I loved." Buffy glanced at Spike, then dropped her gaze as his head swung towards her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Spike frowned.

"Just recalling something someone said to me a lifetime ago." She flinched as Angel's fist smashed the mirror, sending shards flying.

"I was supposed to be the one who died," Angel snarled. He held up his hand and inspected his bleeding knuckles. "He'd be safe if I'd …." He stared unseeingly at Buffy. “If you…”

"You saying this is all my fault?" Buffy stepped closer to Angel. "That I should have listened to Giles and stayed away from that alley?"

“If the cap fits, Blondie …” Spike picked the scrap of paper from the floor, shook it free of splinters, read it and handed it to her. "If it hadn't been for you, there never would have been any 'miracle child' in the first place. “

“What?” Buffy swung round and stared at him.

“Angel would’ve kept the Shanshu for himself, ‘stead of trading it away for…”

"Spike!" Angel silenced him with a glare as he moved towards the door.

"No. Let him finish." Buffy grasped Angel’s arm and swung him to face her.

"You didn't tell her?" Spike shrugged. "Another lost memory. Lot of that going 'round.” He knelt beside the bed and checked underneath. “Thought the dragon cured you of that."

"Now's not the time," Angel muttered.

"And just when will that be?" Buffy held Angel's arm tighter. "Look at me, Angel. We don't do secrets any more. There's too much at stake."

Angel hung his head, wrapping his bleeding hands in the grimy sheet, his blood darkening the stains already there, merging with Connor's.

"It was a long time ago. An accident," Angel replied. "You don't remember because the Powers That Be turned back time." He averted her eyes. "Just for a day, I was human."

"And you gave it back?" Buffy asked quietly.

Spike came up from underneath the bed and brushed the dust from his hair. "Yup. For you." He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Can't think why he'd do a thing like that."

"You haven't changed as much as you think, Angel," Buffy said shaking her head. She gazed at Spike as he rummaged in the battered bedside cabinet. "Whereas …" She clenched her jaw. "But none of that matters now."

Angel licked his lips nervously and continued staring at the blood stained sheet.

"Do you think he's dead?" asked Buffy softly.

"She wouldn't make it that easy for me," replied Angel. "I've been a guest at one of Drusilla's 'Birthday Parties' before."

“Nothing here to pick up on,” Spike complained, emerging from the cupboard's innards. “Dru’s getting’ better at this little game.”

Angel got to his feet, folded the sheet neatly and laid it on the grey pillow swatch. "She learned from the best," he said flatly. "Angelus…" He paused. "I taught her the divide and mislead."

"She must have gotten very good to mislead Willow," said Buffy. "And who's she dividing?"

"Don't know yet," replied Spike. "Everyone thinks Dru is just barking. But there's more to her than that. She knows what she wants - and how to get it. Always has."

He led the way from the apartment and out into the Square. Civic Hall glowered in the rapidly falling gloom of evening, casting its oppressive shadow across the three figures following him.

"We should call Willow. Have her get a new fix on Connor." Buffy reached for her mobile.

Spike's head jerked up towards Civic Hall's upper floors. "Dru!" he yelled, sprinting for the entrance.

"Connor!" Angel ran alongside him.

"Huh?" Buffy hesitated, snapped her phone shut and joined the dash for the door.

Illyria remained motionless, staring at the open window on the third floor, listening to the sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The boardroom was unrecognisable, altered not only in content and decoration but in size and shape. The corporate need for order and utility metamorphosed to one of stuffy, cluttered antiquity, reeking of a confusion of dark secrets, forbidden pleasure, and claustrophobic propriety. Each surface was swathed in exotic fabric, heavy tapestry curtains shaded the window, antique rugs from the Levant covered every inch of floor. A small side table, flanked by a pair of upholstered armchairs, occupied one corner of the room. At its centre, the conference table displayed all the accoutrements of a Victorian Parlour at teatime. The accessories of formal council gatherings were gone, the crystal decanter replaced by a teapot, gleaming and winking its silver plate in the candlelight. Tiered stands piled high with fingers of shortbread and iced fancies jostled for space beside platters bearing Victoria sponge cake. Delicate china plates, their painted blush roses hidden beneath lace doilies perched alongside matching cups and saucers whose tiny spoons waited for the mistress of the house to begin the ceremony.

Drusilla stood beside the open window, fingering the ribbons of her bonnet with pale, thin hands, gloved once again in black lace. She twitched the curtains aside and gazed into the square below, watching the shadows lengthening as the sun sank behind the towers of Los Angeles. And as she watched, she sang a lullaby.

" Toora, loora, loora
Toora, loora, li
Toora, loora, loora
Hush, now, don't you cry "

On a chair beside the table, Connor strained against the ropes that bound him, gasping into the cloth tied across his mouth.

Drusilla crossed the room and removed the gag, sliding it down to circle his throat, caressing his jawbone with the tip of her finger. "Heard that before, have you? Memory is such a horrid child. She torments us with words and sounds and smells."

She tilted her head at some unheard noise and pulled the chair round to face the door. "They search for her. The one who was present at your first birthing. But she's lost. Just like you were when Daddy…" She turned her head towards the window. "They're coming for you now," she said, beginning to dance, undulating with the melody of the new song she sang. "Born of the dark waters of the daughter of night. Dancing without movement into the pale light.* You're a miracle child. Did you know that? That's why there's blancmange for your tea."

"Stay away from me crazy lady. My folks'll have called the police by now," croaked Connor

"That boy doesn't exist any more. You're already forgotten. Tinkered memories for tinkered souls." Drusilla reached out and smoothed Connor's damp hair.

He flinched and tried to move away from her but the restraints held him tight against the backrest.

"There, there, pretty little brother. No need to be afraid." She loosened the gag from around his neck. "It's them as is afraid of you. Always was. Right from the beginning." Her hand dropped from the silky fabric and gripped her temple. "Always will be as long as you have that nasty thing inside you. That's why they want me to…"

She stopped, turning towards the sound of running feet in the corridor outside. A chill descended on the room, the wind gusting through the open window flinging cards from the side table onto the floor

“I felt you burn at the Hellmouth.”, she said to the figure who appeared at her side. “You said we were forever.”

“And so we are, my sweet,” First Spike purred in her ear.

“Not the same,” pouted Drusilla. “I can’t feel you at all.” She pushed a hand against his chest and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"But you can, Pet. I'm inside you. Always have been. Making you feel." First Spike's fading form re-materialised as First Drusilla. "Come now, we've neglected our Birthday Boy too long."

Drusilla turned her attention back to Connor. "Yes, tell Mummy what it is that frightens you, and she'll make it all go away…"

The door burst open and Spike crashed through, battling against three burly demons.

"You're not my mother. Go to Hell," spluttered Connor.

"That isn't polite," Drusilla chided. " We have guests for tea. No time for travelling."

Spike careered into the table. Porcelain smashed to the floor and tea spewed through the air as he thrashed and kicked his assailants. Remnants of spongecake smeared from the bottom of his boot across a demon's face.

At the head of the table, Rutherford Sirk slumped against his neighbour, the red slit at his throat dripping gore into the empty teacup wobbling precariously on its rim in the saucer in front of him. Three Wolfram and Hart employees lay dead on the floor, their overturned chairs still warm and sticky with blood.

"Boys and girls come out to play, the moon doth shine as bright as day." Drusilla chanted.

"Ummph." Spike grunted as a demon backhanded him into the wall. "It's still daytime, Dru."

Drusilla moved from Connor's side and shoved Sirk's body from the chair.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer fella," Spike commented as Sirk's cadaver thudded onto the rug.

Drusilla nudged the corpse with the toe of her high-buttoned boot. "This one wanted manners. Put his napkin back on the table and would leave his fork down on my freshly starched linen. And Mr Hartram was most insistent he be punished for his earlier indiscretions." She sat in Sirk's chair and reached for the overturned teapot. "You're early," she remarked. "The tea is not yet drawn."

"Still playing dollies?" Spike sneered nodding at the other deceased tea party guests. "Thought you'd outgrown all that."

“We don’t grow, Spike. We grow neither old, nor do we change. That is not our fate.”

“I did. ’Sides, don’t hold with fate…”

Three demons attacked in unison, kicking him to the floor.

Drusilla tutted her disapproval and waved the demons away from the fallen vampire. "Cheek. We punish that. How's the boy ever going to learn manners? "

She picked up the first card of four cards strewn at her feet and turned it in her hand. "Three of Swords - reversed. Hmm." Drusilla stared at Spike's prostrate form. "Poor William. A knight there was, and that a worthy man. You can't do it, you know." She stared at the door. "We have to wait for Daddy. He's late."

From outside the room, the sounds of scuffling and thumping grew closer. Buffy's unmistakable grunts of exertion combined with demonic snarls and the crack of bone on bone. Drusilla set her face in a welcoming smile.

Angel and Buffy were dragged into the parlour, each in the secure grip of a group of vampires.

"Illyria!" Spike called to the figure standing watching from the doorway. He struggled groggily to his feet, his temple streaming blood.

"This is not my fight. It suits neither my purpose, nor that of my Wesley."

"Why the Hell did we bring her?" Buffy squirmed in the grasp of her captors whose beefy chests and thick necks strained against the constraints of tight-fitting waistcoats and starched collars as they fought to control her. The demon leading the group glanced at Illyria.

"Same reason we agreed to wear these stupid suits?"

Drusilla looked up from the cards and regarded the former God King curiously. "The Bringer of Chaos," she murmured. "Trapped in time and yet timeless."

Illyria returned her gaze with cool indifference. "I do not acknowledge this fate. There are things I would learn from my Guide that will free me from all constraints." She stepped into the room, ignoring Spike's fight, the desperation in Angel's eyes.

Drusilla picked the other cards from the table and crossed the room, stepping over bodies with a graceful raising of her gown. "The vastest things are those we may not learn.+" She circled Illyria, fixing her eyes on the glacial blue orbs regarding her own dark ones. "We are not taught to die, nor to be born. Nor how to burn with love.+"

Illyria clutched her chest.

"Ah. There she is. Hidden but yet out of reach. " Drusilla smiled. "How pitiful is our enforced return to those small things we are the masters of.+" She held out the first of three cards for Illyria's inspection. On it, a crowned woman held up a sword with one hand and beckoned with the other, as if encouraging one of her subjects to approach. "A woman who has suffered deep sorrow and loss, but has gained wisdom. One who has overcome adversity at the hands of men." Drusilla's gaze remained steady. "But which woman - and which man?" she asked with a sly smile.

"What is that to me? I am no woman though constrained by this puny form." Illyria waved the card aside. "If your power be as Seer, I would have demonstration of its strength."

On the other side of the room, Spike lashed out at the nearest opponent, breaking a heavy dining chair across his head, shattering the wood and dancing out of the trajectory of lethal splinters. He shook the blood from his eyes and scanned the room, grimacing as a pair of vampires peeled themselves away from restraining Buffy and joined the group attacking him.

"You don't want demonstrations," he gasped. "Dru's not working solo." He picked up a broken piece of chair leg. "C'mon boys. Who's first for a spot of gone with the wind?"

The vampires circling Spike hesitated. One adjusted his cravat, bowing slightly. "Awaiting your orders, Miss Drusilla."

First Drusilla sashayed towards Spike, thrusting her hips provocatively. "I've been wearing faces in the strangest places, just to make a dream come true." She turned and grinned maliciously at Buffy. "You see my Sweet William? His flower is the strangest thing I've seen. It's had its share of rain. Now it needs some feeling to light it's fiery flame again."

"He's not yours," said Buffy. "He'll never be yours."

"But one cruel lie and it could die," finished First Dru. She gestured at the demons guarding Spike. "Kill him."

Buffy thrust her elbow into the face of the demon on her left. As he staggered under the blow, she broke his grip swung her arm low and punched the other in the groin. She sprinted away from them, grabbed another chair leg and ran towards Spike.

He was a blur of motion; black leather, white hair, and fangs whirling amid the as the vampires attacked in unison. Spike twirled, coat tails whipping. He executed a low spinning hook kick. One of his assailants flew over the armchair. Spike dived for the gap. The rug slid beneath him, propelling him into the table.

"Free the boy!" he yelled to Buffy before he disappeared under a mound of First-fuelled demons.

"Can't save 'em all, Buffy," First Drusilla jeered morphing back into First Spike. "Who's it gonna be? The vampire or the boy?"

Buffy swerved away from the vampires, concentrating instead on The First's smirking image. "Get. Out. Of. His. Face," she grated.

"Or you'll what?" First Spike leered at her, tongue grazing his bottom teeth. "No Slayer army. No amulet. No white magic." He watched his vampire hoard sweep the remains of the tea party from one end of the table and hoist an unconscious Spike onto the soiled lace.

"Picked the wrong side again. Knew it'd be the death of me one day." First Spike chuckled as he disappeared.

At the other end of the table, a lone tarot card lay face down amid the carnage. Illyria turned it over. An angel, stained with blood, sounded the ending of a life in a single trumpet call.

"There is an angel calling them to judgement," she remarked. "I would know what this means to you and your First Dark Lord."

Drusilla left Illyria's side and stood in front of Angel. " I was your slave, now you are mine. I am Time, I am Time." She opened her eyes wide. "Everyone's here. And the cake's been cut. Now's the proper time to blow out the lights." She grasped Angel's hair and wrenched his head back as he bowed it away from her gaze. "And you shall watch."

"Quantity T is equal to the difference in time – it is the proper time between events, measured by the clock." Fred's quantum reasoning sounded stilted in Illyria's clipped tones.

Drusilla clutched her head and staggered across the room towards Connor. "The wise woman is midwife both to birth and death," she moaned. She raised Connor's head and turned his neck, staring at Angel with the golden eyes of a vampire. "Time runs out for life. Dandelion clock ticking. Souls like seeds drifting”

"No!"

Angel's cry galvanised Buffy into action just as the leading vampire pulled an axe from the weapons sack at his feet and raised it above Spike's head. She picked a broken chair leg from the floor and launched herself at the axe-wielding vampire. She struck hard, deep into his heart, catching his weapon and sweeping the others into oblivion with swift precision. As the last one crumbled into dust, she dropped the axe and gently lifted Spike's head.

He groaned, wincing as she brushed a lock of blood-soaked hair out of his eyes, and grinned at her. "Take it we won then?"

She turned to where Angel knelt at Drusilla's feet; the guards forcing his head up to watch her. "Not yet. Angel needs rescuing."

Spike raised himself into a sitting position, swung his legs over the edge, and slid onto the floor. "In that case…" His knees buckled and Buffy caught him in a tight embrace. "I'm no soddin' use," he finished, throwing an arm across her shoulder. "But give me a bit of time and I will be."

A leather-clad hand touched his wrist. Illyria stared at his watch and then into his eyes. "This is the proper time," she intoned, tapping the watch face. "And I must be within its limitations, for otherwise I shall no longer be." She turned and looked at Connor. "Its measure lies with the vampire's child."

She strode across the room and wrenched Angel away from his guards, smashing the first with a backhanded blow and raising the other by the throat with one hand. Illyria moved through the room like a blue whirlwind, staking vampires and crushing demons beneath her slight form.

Drusilla hissed and released Connor's neck. "Interfering Missy," she snarled.

Angel lunged at her seizing her head between both hands. "I'm sorry," he mouthed at Spike.

He twisted his hands and her neck cracked.

He lay her inert body gently on the ground and embraced Connor. "I thought I was going to lose you again, " he said, untying the ropes from his son's arms.

Connor shook the circulation back into his wrists and beamed at him. "Not that easy to get rid of." He nodded at Drusilla. "Who was she?"

"Someone I should have killed a long time ago," Angel replied. "But it's not for me to do now." He took the stake Buffy handed to him and offered it to Spike. "It's up to you, Spike."

Spike looked from Drusilla to the stake resting in his palm. "She said I couldn't do it. That we had to wait for you." He swallowed and raised tear-filled eyes to Angel's. "It's Drusilla," he choked. "My Dark Princess."

"She's not yours anymore."

Buffy's voice opened the sluice gates on the dam holding back Spike's grief. "What do you know?" he rounded on her, eyes streaming. "All she ever wanted was to be loved. Our love was forever."

"When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul. Then you have lost your soul." Illyria held out the note Angel had removed from the mirror earlier that evening. "This I know. Wesley demonstrated to me at his death."

Spike stared at her for an instant, then plunged the stake into Drusilla's heart, closing his eyes against the sight of her disintegrating form. He sank to his knees in the dust and wept.


Chapter 15 - Bright Shootes of Everlastingnesse.

Westminster Chimes resonated through the silent room, a musical prelude to the proclamation of the hour by the ornate mantle clock. A circular mirror on the wall above the fireplace threw reflected candlelight back into the room. Across the top of the clock-face, a bronze angel draped his right arm over the shoulder of a classically attired woman. She regarded him with concern, supporting him and gently caressing his cheek with an outstretched hand. The angel's wings trembled with each vibration of the mahogany overmantle shelf as the brass hammer rose, fell, and struck.

"This artifice is but an imperfect measure of your linear time," said Illyria. She stared at the images reflected in the gilt-framed mirror and tilted her head. "The glass is not sentient. And yet it lies."

Angel scrutinised the mantle-piece. Matching candlesticks stood at either end, each bearing a small dog lying atop a matchbox holder, its head raised towards the crook of the looped handle. Angel picked up a ceramic spill-holder and rotated it in his hands, tracing the outline of the wounded stag leaping away from the hound snapping at its heels. Placing it beside a plump shepherdess cuddling a newborn lamb, he turned back towards the ruined parlour. "She must have had it made to remind her of home." He glanced at Connor who was picking his way across the mess on the tea table, loading a plate with what he could salvage from the carnage. "Her human home."

Connor swallowed a piece of cake. "She forgot to feed me a lot of the time, but she did a great job with this stuff," he said indicating the furnishings and ornaments. "But why a vampire would want a mirror? I thought you didn't have a reflection?"

"Look again, Miracle Child," commanded Illyria.

In the tarnished surface, three ghostly images were barely recognisable as Buffy, Connor and Illyria, while five bright spheres glowed brightly, flickering and dancing in the soft light. One rose as Spike pulled himself to his feet, another was immobile on the spot where Angel stood squinting at the glass, and a third, beside Illyria, shifted and pulsated when she moved, as if tethered by an invisible cord.

"Souls," breathed Buffy. She gazed at Spike and reached out to touch him. "I can see your soul."

Spike snarled, morphing into gameface as her fingers brushed his arm. Buffy blocked a punch that never landed as he lunged forward. The demon leading a new assault from the corridor exploded as Spike drove the stake with which he'd just killed Drusilla into its heart.

"Weapons!" Buffy yelled, diving for the bag at her feet. She threw a stake to Angel and the three of them formed up to face the oncoming attack.

Spike grinned at her. "Just like old times. The three of us together again. Fightin' the good fight. All for one. One for …."

"Not really," Buffy threw him a glance. "Nowadays I find it almost impossible to dislike you."

"Connor. The door," Angel grunted, dispatching the two demons on either side, with a rapid double-strike to his left and right.

Connor hurtled through the fight, rolling to escape injury from blows from above. He shoved the door shut, forcing the next wave of security guards back into the corridor, and twisted the key. The satisfying clunk of the deadlock bars died away as the last of the demons drifted to the floor as fine particles.

Buffy pressed her ear to the heavy wooden door panel. "I think they've gone."

Connor frowned. "Maybe they went for another key?"

Spike stiffened at the word and backed away.

"They do not need a key, child. For just as they cannot enter, neither can we leave," said Illyria.

"We're trapped?"

Illyria pointed at the mirror. "There is another doorway."

Connor moved across the room to stand beside her. "You mean like a secret passage?"

Buffy snorted. "I don't think so, junior. This isn't D&D."

Spike raised his eyebrows. "Oh no? Look again, Blondie."

Buffy wrinkled her nose in concentration as she searched for concealed mechanisms and hidden doors.'

"Not there." Angel took hold of her elbow and propelled her closer. "There." He pointed at the glass. "What do you see behind us?"

She stared for a second, swung round and checked the room, then replied. "Something impossible. Or magical. Or so straight out of Wonderland that if I see a bottle with a label saying 'drink me', I think I'll pass."

In the reflection, where earlier there had been only a few battered items of heavy wooden furniture, two metal doors towered over the room, reducing everything else to pieces from a doll's house. 'A hairline crack ran between the glowering gates, smoke curling out from within, water dripping from the top, droplets channelling down millennia-old verdigris.'

"You know that's gonna make one hell of a screech when it opens." Spike took a cigarette from a pack and lit it.

"But where does it open to?" Connor asked.

"Where Wesley would return me, if he could." Illyria's fingers searched the edges of the mirror. "Where I would gladly go but for Winifred Burkle's resistance."

Connor spun round and looked at her closely for the first time since she'd entered the room. "Fred! " he gasped. He grasped Illyria by the shoulders and shook her. "What have you done with her?" he demanded.

Illyria swatted him away with a flick of one arm. "She is still here, the one who witnessed your birth, her soul tethered to the shell she once owned. I did nothing. My Qwa'ha Xahn chose her as the vessel that I might return to claim my kingdom."

"And that turned out so well." Spike ground the cigarette butt into the carpet and strode over to the mirror. "So if this is the way to…" he waved his arms in the direction of the mountains, "wherever, how do we get out of here? I mean we're ok." He gestured at himself and Angel. "We can go for ages without feeding, but you lot need regular refuelling." He glanced at Illyria. "Not sure about you, Your Chilliness. Never did understand what Wes said about your metabolism."

Buffy shook her head. "Connor asked the right question a while back." She lifted the mirror from the wall. " What would a vampire want with a mirror?"

The fireplace swung outwards revealing a narrow staircase lit by wall-lamps.

"Escape route." Spike nodded and pursed his lips. "Dru never ceases to amaze me." He chuckled softly and turned to Angel. "Hey, remember the time she…"

Angel stopped him with a look that said 'not now', and started down the staircase.

Spike sighed and took one last look at the dust that had been Drusilla.

"You can bring me back," First Dru whispered in his ear. "Wolfram and Hart brought Darla back. It's so easy." She wove her body round his, sinuously, seductively, snakelike.

"Spike!" Buffy called from the doorway.

"They can help you make me human again, my William," said First Drusilla. "We can be as we were when we first met."

"But you wouldn't be my Drusilla," Spike whispered gruffly as he went through the exit Buffy held open for him.

As he passed her, Buffy reached up and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "What you just did for everyone." She paused and gazed at his face. "I think I'm about to repeat myself here, and you look a whole lot better than you did when last said this, but… I won't forget it."

Spike hung his head and closed his eyes. "I remember," he said softly. "Glory." He grimaced, struggling to grasp the fleeting memory. "No." He shook his head. "It's gone."

"The memory?" Buffy released his face. "Or why you did it?"

Spike laughed. "Yeah. That's exactly how it happens. I can find the whats but not the whys." He jerked his head towards Illyria. "Like Blue there. I see what she's carrying, but don't understand why she's carrying it."

"You have not evolved very far, vampire. Still stupid as you were when crawling in the dirt beneath my feet." Illyria held the mirror close to her breast. "Your salvation was to be found with this once all-powerful Slayer. Mine rests with one whose power has been handed down through generations of….

"Give it a rest, can't you? An 'it's important' would have done."

Spike took the remaining steps two at a time, bounded onto the sidewalk, and bounced off the rear door of a waiting Mercedes. He grinned through the window at Angel and Connor. "We still got connections then?" He opened the door, and stepped aside for Buffy and Illyria to squeeze in beside Willow. As he climbed into the passenger seat beside Wesley, he tapped Lorne on the shoulder. "Home, James, and don't spare the horses."

Lorne shot him a rictus of a smile. "Um. There'll be a little deviation involved."

"Deviation?"

"Wesley and Willow need to do some ….um ….shopping."

Spike raised his eyebrows.

"Not shopping," said Willow brightly from the back of the car. "More browsing."

"At the museum," Wesley added. "We've just come from the movies. A very educational series of films by the late Mr Knox and his associates."

---

"Stop! Rewind. Now forward a little."

"There. Can you go on closer on that?"

"Sure." Willow's hands flew across the keyboard. "I just have to save this… to here. And open it here." She looked up at Wesley. "Which part of the screeencap do you want?"

"The wardrobe door. I think I see something…. Can you take me in closer?"

Willow frowned. "More equations. Fred was big into space-time theory by the looks of things…. Whoah! That’s familiar."

Tiny cursive script forming a shell-like pattern curled around round the equation in the centre of the frame.

"The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood," Wesley read aloud. "St Augustine, I believe."

"No. Something Spike's big on. It all comes back to blood."

"Why can't I stay?" whispered Wesley.

"Here?" Willow looked round the room in confusion.

Wesley wiped a hand across his eyes. "That was the last thing Fred said to me."

"I'm not sure I'm getting the connection."

"It was Fred's blood that summoned Illyria," Wesley replied wearily.

"I think my brain fell out somewhere along the way," moaned Willow. What with the Hole in the Wall turning out to be Spike's apartment and the real Hole in the Wall blown apart by those Wolfram and Hart commandos from the helicopters."

"That Whistler guy could make it big in showbiz. " Lorne called from the kitchen area. "Knows when to throw the audience a line. Smart too. He figured we were under surveilance."

Willow stared glumly at the frozen image. "And now Fred going all freakily mystical in the middle of some really hard science." She looked up at Wesley. "Lorne filled me in on Illyria's summoning, but are you sure these films are the key to finding Fred?"

"A key. We just need to know where to look for it." Wesley tapped the monitor. " Go back to the other video. The one that shows Illyria's sarcophagus."

Lorne appeared carrying three steaming mugs and set one down beside Willow. “Here you are my little pumpkin pie. Coffee fit for the casting couch of ‘Heroes’,” he said cheerily. "Strong and hot.”

Willow cupped her hands round her mug and took a sip. “Ugh! And naked,” she sniggered. She rose from her chair. “This needs lightening up. And I need to stretch my legs. Any cream in the fridge?”

“Oh, don’t go there. Spike’s been gone from this place a long time. Anything he left behind will have grown hundreds of legs by now.” He leaned towards Willow and touched arm, nodding towards Wesley. They watched him fast forward the film clips, muttering softly to himself, scribbling and making sketches in a battered notebook.

Lorne’s smile faded. “I suppose we should….”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

“Found it,” cried Wesley.

Willow and Lorne returned to the table and the three of them watched as camera panned slowly across the top of the stone coffin, pausing for a close-up of the nautilus-shaped iris at its head. Wesley quickly drew its outline before the film moved to the next shot. A hand reached out, removed the fossil, and passed it off-camera. The screen blanked for a few seconds. Static covered it for a few more.

"Pack this carefully." Hamilton's voice was faint but clear. "And send it to the Museum. We don't want the Stone of Time falling into the wrong hands."

"The museum it is then." Lorne picked a set of keys from the table. "Need a chauffeur?"

"Take the shortest route," replied Wesley. “Via Civic Hall.”

To Be Continued...