Archive of Our Own ^beta

Teaser:

London, 1883

William knew sulking wasn't very manly, but he couldn't help but resent the way he'd been ordered to accompany Darla. He sulked all the way during the hansom ride. He hadn't even been told where they were going. And he couldn't stop thinking of what Angel might do to Drusilla. Nothing good. Drusilla was his, dammit.

The hansom stopped. It had been a clear cold night, but now it was raining. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Was that a castle? He'd never seen a castle like that in Hammersmith.

Darla sat and glared at him until he realized he was supposed to hand her down. He alighted, the sudden rain lashing his face, and circled around. He opened the door for Darla, who handed him a large umbrella. She couldn't have given him that before? Still, he held it up for her and helped her down. She looked mighty fine for a great-grandmother, younger even than he himself. Off-putting, though. A vampire would mount anything that moved, but the look from Darla's eyes made his cock bloody well wilt. Like sticking your pisser in a viper's nest.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Darla quirked an eyebrow. "We're having tea with a friend. Or perhaps an enemy, but let's not quibble."

See, that's how he was treated. Like a child. In their eyes he was less than three years old, and the thirty human years he'd lived didn't count for anything.

An ill-favored, hunchbacked servant opened the door to them. Darla deposited her calling-card on the silver platter, and they were led straight to the drawing-room.

William fidgeted as Darla sat perfectly straight-backed, not that her corset would allow her to slouch, as servants bustled in and out with cups and saucers, cakes, teapots and hot water. Who were they visiting? Was she actually going to drink tea? Darla? The mind boggled. Only the freshest, healthiest blood for her usually. William didn't mind tea, at least it made you warm if you couldn't have blood.

The servants fled. A soft tread could be heard in the hallway. A man entered, tall, pale, with long straight hair, worn loose, not even in a queue.

No, not a man. A vampire. William wasn't so new that he couldn't sense that.

"Darla, how delightful!" the vampire said in a thick Slavic accent. Darla allowed her hand to be kissed. She briefly closed her eyes, and when the man released the small white hand, it showed two pinpricks of blood.

William looked askance at Darla. He'd never gotten a taste of her blood. Who was this? Someone important.

"William, darling, this is Lord Dracula, the scourge of Transylvania."

William rose and made a short bow. "Milord."

"Well," Darla said. "How unexpected, a visit from you and your castle."

"A sudden whim, my dear, a delightful whim."

"My master would like to know how long you are visiting. There are limits to his hospitality."

"How crude and direct," Lord Dracula said. "Negotiations before tea?"

William was enjoying the snub to Darla's manners very much. She wasn't the grand lady she was pretending to be, he knew it.

Lord Dracula poured. William drank, but Darla and their host refrained.

"Perhaps some sweeter refreshment?" Dracula offered.

"That would be acceptable," Darla said.

Dracula snapped his fingers. A little maid entered, not even ten years old.

"Stand before the lady," Dracula instructed.

Darla bent forward and took a few dainty sips from the little neck. William hoped he'd get some, but experience led him to believe that he probably wouldn't. Drusilla had promised him he would be free and wild and joyful, and with her, but instead he was like the youngest, stupidest son of the family.  Surrounded with new and different strictures, but strictures all the same.

"Tell your master that although I respect the line of Aurelia, a vampire of my stature does not bow before him, who has lost his human visage and yet gained no special powers."

Darla sat up straighter. William listened avidly. The Master, who he'd not yet met, was much revered by her, although Angelus grumbled and groused when he was spoken of.

"Aurelius, you mean," Darla said, a tiny frown flickering over her brow. She didn't like to mar her smooth skin with any lines, however temporary.

"Your master is misinformed. Or perhaps he'd prefer the true origins of his line to be forgotten? I know who Aurelia was, and what she was to our kind."

Lord Dracula waited. He wanted something from Darla, or the Master, but William didn't know what. Darla didn't give an inch.

"Thank you for your hospitality," she said frostily and rose. "Remember the courtesy you owe my Master. Come, William."

William followed, seething on the inside. He wanted to know what Dracula knew about the illustrious line of Aurelia or Aurelius, which Darla and Angelus boasted about ad nauseam.

As they exited the castle, a bat flew by, dislodging Darla's hat and making William duck reflexively.

"Tsk," Darla said. "Cheap showmanship."

"What do you mean? Is that?"

"Yes."

"Can you change into a bat? When will I be able to change into a bat?"

"Oh hush, child. Leave me in peace, I have a headache."

One day, William vowed, he'd wrest the secret of bat flight from Lord Dracula.

ACT I

10.1

The returning heroes' flight had been delayed, so it was past ten when Buffy, Angel and Spike arrived for a debriefing at Giles' home.

“Good heavens,” Giles said, “you three look terrible.”

He ushered Buffy inside, and urged her toward the most overstuffed and comfortable chair in the flat. She perched in it, sitting bolt upright, not letting her back touch the upholstery. “Sorry,” she said. “It itches. And by ‘itches’ I mean if you showed me a backscratcher, I’d get to work and probably wouldn’t stop before the middle of next week. Or possibly New Year.”

“Ditto here,” Spike said in a gravelly voice.

Angel, too, was nodding.

“Can we come in?”

The two vampires were still standing just outside his door. Yes, it was a petty indulgence, not inviting them in, and Giles was honest enough with himself to know if it had only been Spike, he wouldn’t have done it. But when Angel was concerned, he was jolly well going to let him fret in the hall for a bit. He made a show of thinking it over, until Buffy kicked him lightly and he said, “All right, all right. Come in.”

They trooped over the threshold, both looking considerably bedraggled. Much like Buffy herself. Giles really had no idea how they’d managed to get through customs in their state. He also hoped they hadn’t noticed Illyria on their way in. He knew she was lurking on the street outside, perched atop the roof opposite in a gargoyle attitude; he’d spotted her insectile outline earlier.

“Can I see the wounds?” he asked.

Buffy twisted around, crossed her arms over her breasts and shrugged down the spaghetti straps of her blouse, to let him examine her bared back. He’d never seen such wounds on a Slayer before - puffy and red, with no sign of healing. Why hadn’t the swelling, at least, gone down?

“Was there poison on the weapon?”

“Not unless you count ink maybe,” Buffy said. “Connor was in bad shape, he was all over it. Black ink.”

Giles stiffened. “Did you bring any of it away?”

“No. Angel’s friend Lorne didn’t let us. He was pretty adamant on it.”

“Wouldn’t even let me take pictures of the books,” Angel muttered.

“Where’s Connor now? Did you leave him at a hospital?” Giles looked again, more carefully, at the wounds on Buffy’s back. Yes, they seemed mystic in origin, in that they hadn’t already healed; just as importantly, they weren’t random cuts. This looked like a sigil. “I need to sketch this.”

“No, he headed to Cambridge, he wasn’t actually hurt.” Angel pulled out his phone. “We do have photos of the wounds. Here. I’ll send them to you too.”

Giles sighed. His phone did not have video capabilities, he was fairly sure. Would he have to get used to a new one? Why couldn't technology move at a more pleasant speed? “Tell me everything that happened.”

He examined the pictures on Angel’s phone, while Buffy and Angel took turns telling the story. Spike contributed very little. “So they kicked you out,” Giles concluded when they were done. “Empty-handed.”

“But with mystery code messages on our backs,” Buffy said. “Which, oww.”

“Three mysterious runes. I really had hoped for more, given that Angel and Spike are Aurelians and an Aurelian library ought to welcome them. But they must be important if the Library saw fit to send you home with them. We'll get our best linguists on it at once. Let’s see your back, Spike.” Spike’s back looked worse than Buffy’s, the cuts still leaking red, but then vampires were constitutionally weaker than Slayers. Angel’s wounds were little better. Definitely, though, this was writing. “You didn’t get my warnings.”

“Which you could have given us before we left, not after we’d arrived and it was too late.”

Giles ignored the quite deserved reproof. Nothing he could do about it now. “Our research matched what your Pylean demon told you, that nothing should be taken away from this library. Would we be able to send a second expedition, do you think?”

“No,” all three chorused, loudly.

“Ah.”

“Those books were ultra creepy,” Buffy added. “By the way, Giles–” she was staring at Giles’ wall “--what’s with your brand new murderboard?”

“What? Oh, that.” Of course she would have seen it, he should have anticipated as much. Covered it up with a sheet or something. “It’s not a murderboard, I’ve just been assembling my thoughts, I-I found putting up notes and connecting them was … helpful, really.” And decidedly easier to do here than in the hubbub at Slayer HQ.

Maybe he’d gone overboard. But all he’d had on that wall before had been a rather ugly painting by a former lover, and frankly he could claim that as an excuse. Removing it had been a relief. Now the entire wall was, yes, rather a murderboard, pictures, copies of documents, pins and red yarn. So many open questions. Why had the Slayers gotten Slayerlust and why had it stopped? Who was Flavio Lupazzi? What exactly had happened in the Deeper Well? And the most recent, most worrying question: why had they not been able to find Faith's replacement? Was it true that the new Slayers weren't being called? 

Buffy went over and stood in front of the wall. “It’s definitely a murderboard. There are so many mysteries, huh? Who poisoned your pen, huh. The Well fiasco.” She sniffled and wrapped her arms around herself. “Poor Willow … My axe.” There was a picture of it up there, with notes on the two theft attempts. “Dana–” She tapped the section of wall where Giles had pinned up a picture of Dana’s death scene. “Are we any closer to knowing who killed her?”

“No, it’s a dead end.”

“She didn’t put up a fight,” Spike said unexpectedly. “Could smell there was just her blood, and just in one spot, no other damage. Can’t tell me that girl wasn’t able to defend herself.”

“Maybe she was drugged?” Angel said. “Or surprised somehow. By someone she trusted?”

“Please don’t suggest it was Andrew.”

“Point taken.”

All they had done for the past months had been to react, and patch up, and hurry. Problem had piled upon problem until there was no time to find solutions. Now they had to deal with deciphering the marks on Buffy’s, Angel’s, and Spike’s backs. Yet another urgent question. The mysteries never seemed to stop coming.

“Why’s Dawn up here, though?” Buffy said. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Her name’s there because she’s still a Key, according to Illyria.” Giles refreshed his cup and sipped thoughtfully. “It’s probably not significant. But I wanted to be thorough. There is one name that keeps cropping up, though, and that is where you come into play, Buffy. Flavio Lupazzi. You know the man, and forgive me for saying this, why were you so enamored of someone so obviously suspicious in so many different ways?”

“Hey! You don’t get to critique my love life! I’ve always fallen for shady characters, the shadier the better.”

“True. Your judgment has always been tragic in that regard.”

“... but you didn’t need to agree so quickly, Giles.”

He glanced pointedly toward the two vampires, who both spoke up simultaneously, “Well, you and Angel here–” and “You did date Spike–” and then both shut up and looked anywhere except at Buffy.

“I rest my case,” Giles said. “Buffy, you had the good sense to break things off with Lupazzi. I was going to ask if you still trusted him enough that you thought you could ask the man some questions. If he’s innocent, he might be a welcome source of information.”

“He’s definitely not innocent,” chorused the vampires, again simultaneously.

“I don’t know. He may be the harmless international Lothario he appears on the surface. I do know Wesley is coming to London this week and I’m counting on learning more from him, but meanwhile investigating the Immortal seems in order. Could the three of you undertake that?”

“Are you insane?” Buffy said. Her glance slanted toward Angel and Spike, who were both nodding enthusiastically yes yes yes . “The three of us could not and I repeat emphatically not .”

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“Shut up, boys. I could, maybe. I know Flavio still has a pretty soft spot for me, I could still maybe wheedle something out of him … maybe over a nice dinner ...”

“We’re leaving now,” Angel announced. “Since it seems no one wants us for anything. Come on, Spike.”

“I’m staying,” Spike said.

Angel snorted, strode to the door and let himself out.

“What I meant was we would be like the Three Stooges investigating Flavio all together,” Buffy said plaintively, “not, like, me Sherlock and you two Watson and … Curly and Moe. We aren’t detectives. Giles, your Scotland Yard wall is impressive and I can see we’ve got a lot of work ahead and I will be your donkey willingly. But I’m basically a zombie with my foot in my mouth right now. A zombie donkey. Can we carry on with this tomorrow? Please? I need to slather analgesic cream on my back and then sleep for about eleven hours. Or at least get some fresh air.” She made a face. “I just remembered I haven’t even checked into a hotel yet. Or got my axe back from you. It’s still safe, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. Do you want me to fetch it?” While she’d been in Spain, it had been in his kitchen cupboard, warded to the nines. 

“Later. Can I collapse in this nice chair here and sleep and then we can carry on with everything tomorrow?”

She was wearing that woebegone face that always made Giles melt. “Of course tomorrow. But you don’t have to sleep in a chair and get up later with a stiff neck. Or bother with a hotel. You have a flat, courtesy of the Watchers.”

It had been a coup, tracking down the many Watcher-owned properties dotted around London, which were like Giles’ own flat, leased to him for life without rent but due to revert back to Watcher control once he passed. Since the First Evil slaughter, there were a dozen such properties vacant in the city. Giles had taken great pleasure in picking out the one he thought Buffy deserved to have. Bless her, she’d earned it, how many times had she saved the world? He held out the keys and a note with the address now.

Buffy took them and then spoiled the moment by squirming all over and reaching around to rub her back.

“Sorry, Giles. I really gotta get some itch ointment.”

“It’s a couple of tube stops away,” Giles said. “Or a long walk. Stop by a chemist on your way.”

She dragged Spike out with her and Giles stood in the doorway and called after them: “And Spike, go wherever Angel went and let Buffy sleep!”

He shut the door with relief.

Peace and quiet, at last. God, he needed a fresh pot of tea. He thought Buffy looked better today. In spite of the deaths that had hit her hard - Faith, Willow - it seemed as if some kind of burden had lifted off her shoulders. He wondered what it had been.

He missed Willow, a lot. And not just on a personal level. She and Andrew were the ones who joked and brought some lightness to the offices of Slayer.org. He missed Faith too, though it surprised him. The new Slayers were good girls and it was Giles’ job to look out for them, but most of them he didn't particularly know. Not like Buffy. “Buffy …”

“The Slayer-king?” said Illyria, behind him.

Giles started and almost fell over. There she was in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed and her head tilted in inquiry. “My heart! Illyria! Were you here all along?”

“I did not want them to see me."

Peace and quiet for less than two minutes. Giles squeezed the bridge of his nose, and went past her into the kitchen, to put the kettle on.

She followed. Of course she followed. Never mind, he poured her a cup alongside his. She looked very outré, holding it suspiciously to her blue-tinged lips. She said, “It is never pleasant when a trusted minion deserts. But it is as it was when Wesley died, that I should have shrugged my shoulders and turned away, and yet I am seized by a spasm.”

“Wesley isn’t dead. He survived the cataclysm."

“He did not. I saw him die.”

“But he’s alive,” Giles said blankly.

Wesley was certainly alive, and probably in London by now. Giles had been meaning to ring him up and arrange a meeting.

Wesley. Out there in the other room, Wesley’s name was pinned to the wall, because of his odd behavior at the Los Angeles memorial service. There, Giles had gotten the strongest impression that Wesley had been warning him about the Immortal. Without actually being able to say anything, which had been the biggest warning of them all. What had Wesley wanted to tell him? Giles should definitely have already arranged that meeting, but so many other things had come up.

Something about his gut told him that Flavio was important. A threat. And connected to Wesley. Was Wesley under a spell? But the Immortal famously never used magic. Was that a cover, or was something else going on?

Lupazzi. A name that meant 'of the wolf'. And then one's thoughts immediately returned to Wolfram&Hart. The Immortal kept turning up everywhere, connected to so many things.

Three dead Italian students in the Well.

The final drawing Dana had made before her death, of a man in a stylish yet old-fashioned hat. 

Everything kept coming back to the Immortal.

10.2

Angel got a text from his lawyer, solicitor he should say, the moment he pulled the door of Giles balti-smelling abode shut behind him. One of his old homes had been vacated and cleaned for him, and if he wanted, someone could be there with a key within the hour. Great news. He was thoroughly sick of the beige hotels Giles had them staying in, sick of Spike's proximity, and now that he was thinking of it, sick of trekking all the way to bloody Leytonstone.

Maybe he should have the solicitor find a better space for Slayer HQ, somewhere closer to London center.

He boarded the Central Line and sat grimacing over his phone, trying to get a picture of the house. Why was that so hard? Someone should just photograph the whole globe and put it online. So you could see where you were going.

A text. He hated getting texts. Who'd text him? Hopefully not Giles, telling him to get back for an emergency. He was done being heroic for the moment. His back still ached and itched, and he just wanted some peace and quiet. Clearly now that he was through adolescence, he'd shot right through into early middle age.

Ah. It was Connor. The skin on his forehead smoothed out and his cheeks pulled into an involuntary smile. Connar had arrived safely in Cambridge. Connor texted him! Connor wanted to talk to him! He was a happy man.

He started to text back. Why were his fingertips so thick? Why did he make so many spelling mistakes?

Angel looked up just in time to exit at Bank&Monument. While he was waiting for the train to arrive, he caught a flash of movement from someone getting off the escalator and swinging onto the westbound platform.

Had that been a black cloak? He wanted to go back to his conversation with Connor, but something about it nagged, and nagged, until he put his phone in his pocket and ran after the black cloak. Had he seen it swirling into the train that was about to leave?

He had to be sure. He swung himself through the already closing doors and found himself in a jammed carriage full of tired looking people. Of course this was an older car which didn't have easily accessible connecting doors. He was just going to have to be on the lookout at the next stop.

Angel positioned himself at the doors to be ready for the black cloak to exit. Meanwhile, he racked his brains. Why had he found it so important to follow that elusive glimpse? Where in his past had he seen this before, and what did it mean to him?

Monument passed without incident, Cannon Street, Mansion House. He was starting to doubt himself.

At the last moment at Blackfriars the black cloak jumped off the train and ran for the escalators. Angel just managed to squeeze himself between the closing doors and ran after. Where had he seen that set of the shoulders before? The man loped easily up the escalators on the right, passing everyone and leaving Angel behind, panting, feeling large and bulky and out of shape. His back burned and he realized he hadn't fed in two days. He'd never catch up with the cloak like this.

As he swiped his Oyster card, he caught the hooded figure standing just around the corner of the exit. Another dramatic swirl and cloak was off. Did he want Angel to follow him? Angel should have stopped and thought, because he knew he'd seen that figure before, but running and ducking and dodging left no room for calm deliberation.

Who was it? He knew him, he knew it.

Angel still pursuing, the black hooded figure fluttered over the bridge and turned left on the footpath along the Thames. Where were they going? It was the middle of the night, not a lot of people around, except for a brief burst of laughter and beer smell as he passed an old pub. So old he vaguely remembered hunting there. Thundering along the footpath, with every now and then a glimpse of the black cloak under a street lantern.

Where were they going? The cloak turned right, running towards a giant building. The power station, Angel remembered dimly. The old, ugly power station from the late 19th century had been rebuilt into the new ugly power station. And then he saw the pennants announcing exhibitions. Right. It was the Tate Modern now. He'd been meaning to visit.

The night turned from lightly cloud-covered to dark and ominous. Rain began pelting down, and thunder sounded in the distance. Great. Angel blinked to get the rain out of his eyes and saw that the Tate Modern had disappeared. In its place stood a rain and windswept gothic castle, all turrets and pointy windows in dark stone. You could practically hear the ominous music starting up.

The cloaked figure stood leaning against the doorjamb of the monumental entrance, one of the doors wide open. Seeing the man fully in the flash of lightning, Angel recognized him at last.

Dracula. With his bloody castle.

This time he'd kill the bastard. With a growl, he sprang forward and with a mighty leap and arms outstretched for Dracula's throat, jumped inside.

10.3

“So tired,” Buffy sighed as they trudged away from Giles’ building. 

“Yeah me too,” Spike agreed. “M’ back bloody hurts, it does.”

"I saw you and Angel drink all that blood!"

"Yeah. Didn’t help though."

"Also, you look like a doofus in that airport T-shirt," Buffy said, twirling her stake and throwing him a look.

"Oh thanks, make fun of the wounded vamp, will you?" He'd kind of wanted some time alone, to think over Angel's revelation that he and Buffy had broken up. But when Buffy invited him to walk her to her new digs, he couldn't resist. He never could, could he?

"Let's take the tube, Buffy, it's a twenty minute ride versus a three hour walk."

"Three hours?" Buffy squeaked. "Why is London so big?"

There was no answer to that. Spike took them to the tube entrance and in silence they caught the Northern Line Southbound. He really hoped Giles would find headquarters that were a little bit more central, now that they had found the Council money.

"I miss Sunnydale. I knew where everything was, where the creatures were going to be…" Buffy sighed.

"We need to change trains here, love."

Buffy rolled her eyes but followed, trusting him to know the way.

The night was quiet, for London, that was, which never completely shut down. But no vamps, or even demons, so far.

"Did Angel dump you?" Oops, he hadn't meant to say that.

"What? Exactly the opposite. Did he tell you that?"

"No, it's just the way he said it that gave me that feeling. That ponce."

"I let it go, because I didn't want to call him out in front of Connor, you know. But I totally dumped him. On the plane, you know, when I switched places with Giles."

Ah. That explained a lot.

"But why?"

"Jeez, Spike, will you let it go?"

"I wanna know. Because." He couldn't quite formulate a reasonable because, but of course he knew why.

Buffy shrugged. "It was a mistake from the beginning. I'm not that 16-year old anymore, he's not the same guy. It was a pipe dream, we're different people now and we didn't mesh at all. At all. I just waited to break up with him until after the funeral to not stir things up."

Spike could have exploded, he got so hot under the collar. And him without a circulation, mind. Was he even mad at Buffy, or just at himself? For only realizing when he was falling to his death, or so he thought, that he loved Buffy? For not doing anything about it for two years?

"I-" he began, but then a vamp and a victim tumbled out of a garage box. Buffy staked the vampire with her left-hand stake without breaking stride.

"You were saying?" she said.

"I don't remember what I was going to say." Spike stepped over the stupefied victim to rejoin Buffy.

"It's fine," she said and companionably hooked arms with him. "No need to say anything. I'm fine, I'm a grown woman who doesn't need a man to be complete."

That was him put in his place, alright.

He snuck a glance at Buffy. She was frowning and grimacing at the same time. "What's wrong, what do those faces mean?”

"A, my back hurts and itches at the same time, and B, I had a foot in mouth moment there. I didn't mean I wouldn't be open to a new relationship, you know? I'm young, I want to embrace life to the fullest. You know?"

Spike wished he still was that hapless vamp without a soul he used to be. He would just have hit her a couple times, thrown her against a wall, and her reaction would have let him know if it was going to be fighting or fucking. Life wasn't so simple now. How did you let the girl you liked know you liked her? He'd been horrible at that when he was alive. Buffy had not responded well to his attempts at normal human dates.

He sighed.

"You can have the next vamp, sorry," she said. "That was greedy of me."

"No, that's okay, love. Eh, Buffy."

"I don't mind it when you call me that.'

"It confuses me, though."

A few hundred yards of silence, only semi-awkward. This time it was Spike who took the first vamp as they jumped out of the bushes. Well, they might as well get in a little light patrol as they went. Buffy staked the next two.

"Vampires, really not much of a challenge anymore," Buffy said with a sigh.

"I could still give you a run for your money," Spike said, stung.

"Yeah, but you won't, will you? We're friends now."

Yup, friends.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah. It's that building."

A nice Gregorian-looking building. They entered a lobby, which had an actual concierge. Spike's expectations for the flat went up quite a few notches. There was a lift, even.

“Look. Here's your door."

He took a look at the tarnished name plate and burst out laughing. “Buffy, guess who used to own this flat?”

“No, who?”

“Quentin Travers.”

Buffy gagged. “No. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

All he could do was laugh.

Buffy hefted her new key-ring. "I was gonna say TA-DAA, but now I’m just gonna say what-the? But, whatever." She opened the door to a dark, musty hallway, found the light switch, and froze. 

Spike, too. The hallway ran for at least fifteen yards, with four or five doors opening to each side. Darkly figured luxurious carpet covered the floor, the walls were hung with expensive paintings. At the far end, where the hallway opened out into maybe a ballroom or something, enormous windows shone with starlight and London skyline. Besides the paintings there were dozens of ornamental weapons gracing the walls, swords, pikes, bits of armor.

"Wow. What the hell place is this? Was ol Quentin related to Prince Charles or something?"  Buffy peered at a painting of horses and hounds. "Jeez this is one ugly piece of art. Let's toss it."

"You're probably better off selling it, love. Looks like a Stubbs.”

Buffy returned relentlessly to her former subject, at the same time as she was running a finger over the expensive wainscoting. "Hey, I was thinking about Dracula. Because of you guys in the coffins, ya know?"

"Dracula? He's really not worth thinking about," Spike said. " Who cares about that ponce?"

"It's not him I care about, but what he knows," Buffy said. "He said I didn't know who I was, what I could do. I think he meant that Slayers were made from demons, you know? When I went back to the First Slayer dreamtime with the shadow puppets?"

"Yes, my memory is fine."

"Do all vampires know that, what Slayers are made of?"

"No, I honestly never thought about it. Just some mystical thing, you know?" Spike shrugged. "What's bothering you about it?"

"Then I was, okay, that happened, it sucks, I don't wanna be part demon, let's move on and kill some ubervamps. But now I'm thinking, that black slithery thing wasn't like any demon I've ever seen. It was floaty, you know? Like a silk scarf in the wind. You ever seen a demon like that?"

Spike looked at her, Buffy being all thoughtful and serious. It looked good on her. "I haven't. I hadn't, I should say. You never told us about what kind of demon it was. Black and slithery. It reminds me of the ink stuff in Lorne’s library. And the Aurelian library in the altworld. There was a thing there, Illyria ate it."

"Jeez, does she always eat her foes? We found her in the Well, you know. Eating the giant demons that killed all the girls. It was gross. She was smacking her lips, the slime was all over her."

Spike didn't want to talk about Illyria. "She's a former Old One, they eat each other, who gives a toss. And, um, full disclosure, I broke up with her.”

“Huh,” Buffy said. 

That wasn’t quite the reaction he’d been hoping for. “It wasn’t, you know, an equal relationship. Or a relationship at all, actually. Kind of glad it’s over.”

Buffy was silent for a moment, but then she returned to the former subject. "Okay, so that's one thing. Weird demon. Then, how did Dracula know about it when normal vamps don't? I mean, he’s not one of you Aurelians or anything, but he knows stuff. Stuff you don’t. And he can turn into vapor and bats. Not at the same time, but you know what I mean."

Spike wished she hadn't just ignored his revelation.

“Yeah, I do. Again I ask, who gives a toss?"

Buffy spread her hands wide. "Because we are facing a huge foe. If Flavio is our foe, that is. We might need allies. Maybe Drac knows Flavio, they're both very old–”

“Sure, they know each other,” Spike said, jolted by a memory. “Met ‘em together back in 1916. Darla’d known them even longer, they were all old friends.”

10.4 

Malaga, 1916

Spike watched from inside as Darla stood on the balcony overlooking the olive orchard. The early morning sky was flushed rose, the sunrise imminent. He'd watched her do this every morning since they'd arrived here in Spain.

The sun's fiery rim plopped over the horizon, and still Darla didn't move. Smoke rose from her black mantilla, draped just so over the black clothes.

Before she burned, before he could blink, she was inside, smiling that secret cat-smile that he loved and hated.

The mantilla fell into ashes around her, and disdainfully she stepped over them. Darla did not clean up after herself.

"Why, granny, why?" he said. “Flirting with the sun’s more my thing than yours.”

Darla's finely drawn eyebrows rose. "None of your business, Willy."

"It's Spike," he said.

She shut her boudoir door in his face.

Spike lingered for a moment, then shrugged and went into his and Drusilla's darkened bedroom. Drusilla was already asleep, not in the least interested in sunrises and daylight. She was a creature of the night, counting the stars, or trying to prick more holes in the sky with her nails. It didn't seem to bother her that it didn't work, or that he'd explained to her that stars were far-off suns.

A burst of voices woke him up. Drusilla's side of the bed was empty. Had she gone to Angel again? He couldn't understand it. Abandoning him, a slayer of Slayers. He dressed hastily and went out to the drawing room.

Bloody Dracula was there, as well as another – what? Not a vampire, but not a human, surely? Why would anybody be talking to the food? Was that who Darla had been waiting for?

"William!" Angel said with that false smirk of his. "Meet Lord Dracula and the Immortal."

Spike nodded to Dracula. "We've met." He held out his hand to the Immortal, a tall, immaculately dressed man with Mediterranean features. He seemed to exude a glow, as if he'd been polished and lacquered.

The man smiled urbanely. His hand was warm, and Spike felt blood pulsing through it. Human, then. But something more? His body reacted to the pressure against his palm with an electric prickling, a prelude to arousal. Well, he wasn't averse to fucking the food before he ate it, but somehow he doubted that the Immortal was on the menu. Immortal, what did that mean, was it literal?

He flicked a glance to where Drusilla and Darla stood simpering and wafting their fans. What on earth? He'd never seen them look like that at him, or at Angel for that matter. The three male vampires might have been so much chaff in the wind for all the women were concerned.

"A pleasure to meet you," the Immortal said.

"Ah, Italian?" Spike answered. "Fled the conscription, eh, not prepared to fight for your country?" He bit his lip. The same could be said about him. England had joined the Allied Powers to fight Germany and the Austrian Empire, the Central Powers. They were in Spain not only for the weather, but also because the country had remained neutral during the conflict.

"When I was born, there was no such thing as Italy. Or the Roman Empire. I could go on…" Again that flicker of white teeth. Spike had never seen anyone over the age of twelve with such perfect teeth.

Also, he'd met vamps before who'd said they'd witnessed the crucifixion, but he'd never believed them. His command of Latin usually ousted them as frauds.

"Where were you born, then?" Spike asked.

The Immortal wafted implausibly perfect manicured fingers. "Somewhere near Persepolis, not that it was called that then. Not that you would know it. Nothing from that time exists anymore. The written word did not exist."

The Immortal turned slightly away from Spike and advanced on Darla, but Spike's curiosity wasn't satisfied. "Why do they call you the Immortal? Because you haven't died, yet, or because you are unkillable?"

Spike got a distracted smile. And no answer.

The flirting, or maybe it was negotiating, began. That was clear. What was not clear was, who was negotiating for what? What were Angel and Darla after? And what Dracula, and the Immortal?

This was light skirmishing, no serious effort, no serious wounds. But gradually, a pattern started to emerge. Dracula wanted some information, and the Immortal didn't want him to have it, but he wanted something else. And both thought that Darla, as the oldest person here, would know it.

More and more wine was drunk. Hard liquor was consumed. Vampires could get drunk, eventually, and Spike had no reason not to. He didn't have any dark secrets to blab, which was rather sad, if you thought about it.

At some point, a naked Immortal was stretched out on the bed, with Dracula, who wisely kept on some clothes over his dead-white body, Angelus and Spike in various stages of orgiastic dishabile arrayed around him. The ladies had withdrawn.

The immortal naked was a sight to behold. There was no tan inch of him that didn't glow, or wasn't perfect and inviting in every way. He was by no means unalluring to Spike, but he had his sights set on going after Drusilla, wherever she was. But the Immortal intercepted Spike and drew him down for a kiss. Such a kiss. All the while also fondling him and in between kisses feeding him sweet, strong Spanish Orujo. Spike succumbed to the blandishments, his head fuzzy and his cock on fire.

Amazing things were going to happen, although he wasn't quite clear on with whom and to whom.

And then he woke up half-naked, chained and incredibly hungover in a stable. Next to Angelus. With Darla and Drusilla laughing at him, clearly having had the night Spike thought he was going to have.

But as he remembered this with some annoyance, he realized he'd never found out what Dracula and the Immortal had wanted from his vampire family. Or if they'd gotten what they wanted.

10.5

Willow had staked herself out one of the many luxurious yet tasteless guest bedrooms in the Immortal’s London house, which had all the character of a high-class hotel without, oh, concierges or bellhops or other guests. A five-star hotel that nobody wanted to set foot inside. That made it a good place to scheme, nobody to interrupt or spy on her. As far as she had observed, Flavio Lupazzi himself was living in a world so far up his own ass that he didn’t even see anything except his own reflection in the mirror (and the mirror was up his ass too). He wasn’t paying any attention to little ol’ her.

Okay. Let the man preen. All the easier for her to find wriggle room.

A shame that right now her wriggling was more like a mouse pinned under the Immortal’s immaculate heel, than the mighty Willow of yore.

So far she’d scoped out every book in Lupazzi’s library and carried a fair number of them back to her bedroom, decorating every corner with them. Stacks of books. Big improvement. Willow didn’t think Lupazzi quite grokked how fast she could read. He reminded her of her elementary school teachers, who had also underestimated her and after a while shown a tendency to gather in little clusters at a safe distance from Willow, whispering frantically. She fully intended to reduce Lupazzi to the same state. A frantic stunned retreat would be perfect.

He’d stolen her magic. He hadn’t confirmed this in words, just smirked ambiguously when she raised the subject, okay, accused him outright, but anyway, anyone who could smirk ambiguously deserved to get his, and Willow would see to the getting. Stat. He’d discover how good she was at being Vengeance Girl. Not for nothing had she palled around with Anya for all those years. He’d see. He would.

Now she sat in her bedroom lair doodling carelessly on her borrowed books. She was going to draw a tiny eye on the spine of every book she handled, and leave them all over the mansion, oh yeah, in every single room. Meanwhile her tiny air force of flying crayons was flitting everywhere, surveilling. Take that, Flavio Lupazzi!

Willow had almost fallen out of her chair when her crayon spies spotted Wesley and Faith.

What the hell had happened to the two of them? Willow knew she’d been out of the loop for days now, but this was dire. Faith had died, that much was obvious. Well, Slayers died all the time (in her teenage years Willow had sometimes wept herself to sleep because she’d gone Unchosen, why Buffy and not Willow, why why why, but nowadays she thanked God everyday that she wasn’t a Slayer) but now Faith was Lupazzi’s zombie (with Slayer strength, though, probably - it was scary). As for Wes, it was a plus he was no longer the bowtie-sporting embarrassment she remembered from their Sunnydale days, but a minus that though now more like the Marlboro Man, he was also now clearly Lupazzi’s slave.

Slave. Or puppet. Or zombie, like Faith. The point was that the Immortal had the both of them, they were his, he owned them. At least Wes still had his mind, even if he didn’t have free will. Faith had neither. Alas. And Willow, number three, had her mind and her free will, in theory.

Wesley had been dismissed by Lupazzi and left the mansion, going beyond Willow’s reach. She was still kicking herself over not being fast enough to plant a crayon on him before he left. The poor schmuck. That silent-scream-of-anguish expression he’d worn still gave her the chills even though that was now hours ago.

Lupazzi had also left, not by the front door either; he’d just vanished. Hm.

Faith still sat sagging in an upstairs room, blank face staring at nothing. Just where Lupazzi had planted her before he left. She was breathing but if she had anything left in her noggin besides the zombie necessities, Willow hadn’t observed it.

Willow had one of her crayons on the floor under an ottoman with a good view of the whole room at ankle level. This was mostly because she couldn’t bear to look at Faith’s empty eyes anymore.

She made the crayon scoot forward a bit and nudge Faith’s foot, but there was no response.

Another crayon, this one stationed in the mansion’s kitchen, suddenly went on alert. Oh yeah. There came Lupazzi again.

Geez, he was the master of sudden appearances. Didn’t believe in doors but there he was, shrugging out of his $5000 overcoat, hair perfect under his fedora. Who wore a fedora these days anyway? If the Immortal had a sartorial weakness it was that he was decidedly old-fashioned. Willow embraced the thought; as far as she’d seen, it was the only sign that Lupazzi could have weaknesses.

He laid a valise on the dazzling marble kitchen countertop, opened it and glanced nonchalantly up at Willow’s spy crayon, and said, “Come join me, bellissima. We must talk.”

Busted!

In her bedroom 50-odd rooms away, Willow leaped like a deer, a book tumbling from her lap. Her fingertips went numb and her vision tunnelled. All over the mansion, her spy crayons plummeted and went dead. She only talked a good game when Lupazzi was elsewhere; when he addressed her in that voice, all reason fled and nothing remained except blind funk.

She hated him, hated him, hated him. She almost ran to get to the kitchen and join him. Just as ordered. Like Wesley and Faith, she was his slave.

When she skidded into the kitchen, he had picked up her lifeless crayon and snapped it in two right across the magic eye she’d drawn on it. He held it out and Willow accepted it meekly like the coward she was. “One understands that in your current state, you crave the illusion of control,” he said, “but never forget whose collar you wear, my kitten.”

“You talk just like a Bond villain.”

“And though I am prepared to indulge defiance, I will not brook disobedience. Remember that also, always.”

“Yes sir,” she muttered, caving.

“Ah, better. Please sit. We must discuss my plans for your future.”

Willow sat.

So of course like a psycho control freak who got off on humiliation, he turned away and let her stew, taking vials of that black whatsis out of his valise and holding them one by one up to the light. After checking each one he returned it to the valise, sliding it into elastic loops on black velvet. Five tiny crystal vials, each full as could be. That was a pretty good harvest, he usually didn’t come home with more than two. Whatever the stuff was. Willow had no clue. She really wanted to know, though.

He treated each vial like diamonds and gold. Wherever he stole it from, it didn’t come easy, and no wonder. It had no taste on her tongue but what it could do! The stuff was miraculous. She really longed to get hold of one of those vials, pour it out and go crazy with a lab set.

“Where are you getting that?” she asked for the umpteenth time.

“Shh, shh.” He unstoppered the fifth vial, tilted it against a finger and captured a drop of black goo, which he held out to her. “Time for your medicine.”

Willow couldn’t help it if a thrill ran through her as she leaned forward and let him feed her his mystery drug.

“Do you take it too? Is that why you keep collecting it?”

“Ah, those endless questions, such an elephant’s child.” If he patted her on the head, she was going to upchuck. Lupazzi returned the vial to his valise, saying, “I know you have discovered the safe where I keep these, that you have been snooping and prying at the locks. It is natural, I do applaud your curiosity. But refrain.”

It looked like he was going to tap her reprovingly on the nose and Willow scooted backward as fast as she could. She wasn’t going to call it a scurry but it was a scurry, no denying it. Lupazzi chuckled.

“Human curiosity is one of your kind’s most admirable traits,” he said.

“So you’re not human,” Willow blurted.

“I think everyone already knows as much, though most do not think about it. Nevertheless. No matter how much you crave more magic, stay away from my safe. I use it only for temporary storage, indeed if you got in, you’d find it is almost always empty. And you must only consume the essence in minute doses. More would only cause … ugly consequences. Including the permanent loss of your magic.”

He wasn’t chuckling now. He looked Willow straight in the eye and her heart bounded with fear.

“Permanent,” he repeated.

“Permanent?” she squeaked.

“It would never make you like me,” Lupazzi warned.

The fucker. The stupid fucker. He thought she wanted to be like him? Willow lowered her gaze meekly and sat huddled, while Lupazzi strolled around fixing a couple of coffees in tiny classy demitasse cups, outlining just what she would and wouldn’t do once he let her out of his mansion. What she could and couldn’t say. How he wanted her to spy on the Scoobies for him. “Return when I call you to take your medicine. If you do not, you know what will happen, your magic draining inevitably away. Also, you will find yourself unable to tell anyone about me, no matter if you speak or if you write, if you’re cunning or simply direct. Prove it for yourself if you must, but all attempts will fail.”

Oh yeah?

“I’ll call you when it’s time for you to come home to me. Do not disobey.”

“I won’t,” she muttered.

“You are very powerful and so I must make these precautions. Prove yourself to me and I’ll show you how to teleport as I do, so you can come and go more freely. I can teach you many tricks you don’t dream of, you know. Only behave, and follow instructions. Off you go, I have work to do.”

Dismissed back to her room, she slumped down on the sumptuous canopied bed (ack, it was like being held prisoner in the Albert & Victoria museum) and listlessly examined her snapped crayon. Couldn’t be fixed. She let the crayon drop and then ground it into an indelible wax mess on the silk rug.

Damn his promises. She already knew how to teleport! She’d show him.

Wait, he’d just been stupid. He’d given away that she could learn his teleportation method. So it was connected to the black goo drug he was giving her, ninety-nine percent sure it was; given that he didn’t seem to be lying about despising magic, the black stuff was how he did tricks. If there were methods of using it, Willow was the right gal to figure them out.

Her magic was at its fullness right now, nothing like if she was in her right self but more than enough, but she knew it would tick away second by second and within a couple of days she’d be just a normal girl again.

Her stomach heaved at the thought and she rushed for the bathroom, where she threw up the dregs of Lupazzi’s perfect coffee and then spent about an hour boiling herself in the shower to get clean.

And blow-drying her hair afterward, she chose a single hair and stored a speck of her magic in it. Like charging a battery. Let’s see whether the charge would hold, whether she could draw upon it later. Whether Lupazzi would notice and stop her. She left the hair tangled among other hairs on her brush, then stopped and thought that also, she could draw upon the charge in other people.

Now she felt a little better. Time to hit the books again.

ACT II 

10.6

In Quentin Travers’ old flat, Buffy opened door after door, trying to find rooms with a normal function, like a bathroom or kitchen, or a bedroom. All she found were bookshelves and desks and weapons and ugly art things. How many studies did one man need? How many books? Probably all council related magic tomes. She should call Giles to have them all taken away, tomorrow. But you know, once empty, she could have a walk-in closet, a dojo with training equipment, and eh. Well. Guest rooms, maybe.

Yes, bedroom, finally.

It was large, and full of lots more ugly furniture and carpeting and wainscoting and way, way too many drapes. She surveyed the whole effect. It was bad. Creepy grandpa vibes. She was prepared to sleep on the bed, but only if all the other furniture went away.

"Spike?"

"Present and accounted for," came the muffled answer. Footsteps came her way.

"Spike, I found the bedroom. Let's get all the stuff out of there."

Spike came in and looked, a smirk on his face. "I suppose he never married."

Buffy shivered. "Don't make me think of that man and sex in one sentence. Yuck."

Spike strode to the windows and looked out. "You know what? I think that dark patch over there is Highgate Cemetery. Right on your doorstep. If that isn't homey…"

"Nice," Buffy said, but she was really too tired to be overjoyed at the thought of a convenient slaying location. "Help me clear this junk out."

"But where should it go? Every room is chockfull of mahogany already.”

"I don't care. Out of here. I can only sleep here if all his smelly old man clothes and garbage are gone," Buffy said.

"Fair enough."

They hauled everything out and stripped the bed.

"Did you find clean sheets anywhere?" Buffy asked.

"There should be a linen closet or an airing cupboard or something."

More words Buffy had never heard out of Spike's mouth before. Domestic words.

They found a walk-in closet, in a room with no windows. The smell was horrendous. Tweed and cigars and old man aftershave. "But you know," Buffy said, "Once this is all gone, this would be a great room for a vampire to sleep in."

OMG, what had she said? Would Spike take it as an invitation?

Well, it had been one, sort of. Although, she had to admit, the walk-in closet was not where she wanted Spike to sleep. If she was totally honest. Phew, it was hot in here. Not to mention stuffy.

She determinedly didn't look at Spike. After a pause, she heard him walk off.

"Linen closet, full of linen. The man has enough sheets for an orphanage."

"Take the bottom ones, please."

Buffy wrestled with the duvet and the pillows, while Spike put on the bottom sheet.

His hands smoothed the white sheet out, carefully and thoroughly. Over and over. Strong, broad hands, no longer wearing black nail polish. It had been a long time since he'd worn that, she realized. Probably for her. So many things he'd changed about himself for her.

What was left of the original Spike? What was left of the man she'd had so much, such hot sex with?

The strong pale hands, smoothing out the sheets, taking such good care so she would sleep on perfectly smooth sheets.

Strong hands.

Buffy put her hand on top of Spike's. A tanned, little hand compared to his, but equal in strength.

Spike turned his hand to grasp hers and straightened up. Somehow they had ended up standing quite close together. Next to the bed.

His eyes were still blue. His lips still luscious.

Buffy was quite sure she hadn't moved, but she was standing against Spike now, just her head bent backwards to still look in his eyes.

His lips. She was going to kiss them. She couldn't wait for him to make his move. Almost there. If she moved very slowly, she wouldn't break the spell and he wouldn't recoil from her as he had lately.

Her heart was galloping, and she knew he must hear that, he must feel that and still he didn't move away from her. A good sign. She was breaking out in a sweat, oh god, she hadn't showered since Spain and –

A telephone rang. Who cared, she didn't need to pick up Quentin Travers' stupid old-fashioned man phone, no sir. More interesting things to do.

Spike moved his head to lay his cheek against hers. His breath tickled her earlobe and she was so gooily melting. "It's your phone, love.”

The spell broke.

Buffy stood panting, confused. Her bag. Where was her bag? Somewhere in this warren of rooms, where had she put it?

Spike handed her the bag. His hand brushed hers and she was this close to manhandling him onto the bed. No effing phone call was going to distract her now.

"Hello?"

"Buffy? Oh thank god, nobody is answering their phone. This is Lucille. " No, it was past midnight, of course nobody was answering their phones. Why on earth had she answered hers? That's what Slayerettes on duty were for, to take care of things in the middle of the night.

"There's a castle in London," the breathless, very young voice said.

Buffy waited for more. That was news? London was full of old buildings, right? "So?"

"A new castle that wasn't there before!"

Her lust-addled brain moved into higher gear with a groan. "Oh. This castle. Is it a dark and ominous castle? Is it raining on this castle?"

"It is, it’s raining, all of that, how did you know? We saw Angel go in and he hasn't come out. Me and Aisha, I mean. We think that's bad."

Was it? Surely Angel could handle himself?

She put the phone against her chest. "Spike. Does Angel know Dracula? Is he a match for him?"

Spike grimaced. "Drac's a slippery bugger, always wafting himself out of reach. So, probably not."

Buffy put the phone to her ear again. "We're on it. Good call. Where is the castle exactly?"

The Tate Modern, whatever that was. "Spike, take us to the Tate Modern!"

Spike considered. "Cab, I think."

Half an hour later, they were in front of what Spike assured her was a gigantic mid-century power station turned museum, normally, but now was a medieval, many-turreted castle on a hill, wracked by rain and wind. A pair of very young Slayers lurked in an alley entrance nearby. When they spotted Buffy and Spike they waved and ducked back out of sight, probably returning to their patrol. Oh, to be that young and blase again.

If they knew what Buffy knew, they’d be a lot more interested in that castle. Which was exactly the same as the castle she remembered from Sunnydale. She wished she had her axe though, but it was languishing in a cupboard in Giles' apartment. 

"Deja-vu all over again," Buffy muttered. "Dracula." Her hand found the faded scar on her neck.

Spike grabbed her hand and pushed her to a streetlight to have a look at it.

"What the hell!"

"Come on, you never noticed that before?" Buffy was secretly enjoying being handled by Spike. A lot.

"Hmph."

"Is there any way to do this strategically?" Buffy said, looking desperately for another entrance than the one big obvious one. Where, you know, the misty, batty vampire would be waiting for them?

"Nope."

"Break out the stakes then."

Buffy took one step forward, stake raised, but the world became blurry. It was as if she was walking back, getting back into the taxi, finding the flat, returning from Spain, going to Spain, faster and faster and faster until the world slowed.

It was dark, and the night was mild, like early September in London. But something was different. Buffy inhaled the air deep into her lungs and then she knew. Sunnydale. The air dryer, tinged with salt and exhaust. She was home! She turned to Spike.

"We're in Sunnydale!" they said at the same time.

Buffy laughed. "That's impossible, right? Did we time travel?"

"Shush," Spike said. "Look."

They might have been in Sunnydale, but Dracula's castle was still there.

"Let's go in anyway. Come on!" But she couldn't move. She could only stand here and feel homesick and watch the stupid castle.

"People are coming."

Buffy's mouth dropped open. "That's Xander. Younger Xander.”

Spike put his hand on her shoulder. "And stranger still, that's younger you."

It was Buffy herself. She eyed the lilac leather pants. Now gone forever with Sunnydale itself. Had they been a fashion mistake or not?

"I remember this," she said. "When Dracula came to town and Xander was under his thrall."

"And you weren't? I can smell his bite from here." Spike's tone was acerbic.

"Jealous?" Buffy said, trying to make light of it. Spike had never even tried to bite her. Angel had. Drac had. Spike hadn’t. She'd never asked why, or offered him her neck.

"You know what's worse, though?” she said. “I drank his blood. Did I ever tell you that?"

Spike looked aghast. "What? Were you nuts?"

Buffy shook her head. "It gave me a flash of insight into my own power. The darkness of it. Now I know what it was, but then I had no idea. Oh god!" An idea had struck her.

"What?"

"What if talking about Dracula made him come here? Did I call him? Oh no!"

"Prolly not, love. Look who's here now," Spike said with a smirk. "Soldier Boy."

Buffy felt like smirking herself. Spike still couldn't resist a dig at Riley, the boyfriend long vanquished and moved on from. "Wait, why are we standing here gawping? We know this stuff. We don't care. I know exactly what I want to do," she said and turned away. "I wanna see Mom."

Spike looked stunned but followed at once. "Yeah. Of course. Let's go."

But they couldn't move away from their spot. Ahead was only darkness, and no matter how much effort she put into it, her feet didn't carry her away from Dracula's castle.

"I hate him," she said. "All I want to do here is see Mom, and he won't let me."

"Hm," Spike said. "But what are we here for? Is he showing us this on purpose? In fact I wonder if–"

The answer came driving right up. A shining limo drew up right in front of them, and the driver opened the door for none other than the Immortal.

He flicked something off his camel hair coat and strolled whistling up the stairs to the entrance door without noticing the onlookers.

"Whaaat! Drac and the Immortal are besties?" Buffy said. "They're in cahoots, they must be."

She grabbed Spike’s wrist and they tried to run after the Immortal, but again they were locked in place.

"Drac’s showing us this, he wants us to know it," Buffy said. "But why?"

Reality flickered and time ran forward. Once again they stood in London, but still in front of the castle.

"Now we are bloody well going in!" Spike roared and sprang forward.

They ran up the stairs and kicked in the door. It hadn’t been locked and swung open easily. Oh yeah, as if that was ever a good sign.

"Welcome, friends," Dracula said, smiling, and Buffy went straight for his throat.

He just became mist and evaded her. Spike sprang at him, with ditto result.

“Bastard!” Spike said. “And what’s this with the Immortal?”

Dracula smirked. "What did you think of that little titbit of information? Please, stop all this waving about, sit down, and we'll talk about it."

10.7

Wesley stood on the steps of his childhood home, head down. All he had to do was knock on the door. Nothing more. Everything around him was familiar and reassuring, nothing had changed since he’d been sent to California, and he’d been so cocksure and puffed up with pride then - it seemed centuries ago - smug in the glory of winning a field assignment. Watchers dreamed of being assigned to Slayers. They competed for the honor. Or they had, back then, and Wesley certainly had, but look at him now … a living example that all earthly ambition came only to death and rot.

When his orders from Council had come, he’d celebrated with champagne. He remembered Mother, in her best hat, raising a glass to him (Father had been called away to Genoa that week, and Wesley had, frankly, been relieved at his absence) and predicting great things. In the sunny kitchen of this very house, so long ago.

Why couldn’t he even knock on the door, today?

He raised a hand, and imagined the flesh sloughing off his knuckles and all the white bones sliding away as his entire arm decomposed, leaving a wet smear on the wood panelling. No. No, that wouldn’t happen. If he turned the doorknob, he would not dissolve into a gory puddle on the steps. It only felt that way.

Back in LA, he’d dreamed of this moment. At Faith’s memorial he’d been surrounded by warm and sympathetic fellow humans, and he’d thought of his mother then. Mother loved him. Anyone who could love Father was surely capable of loving Wesley, no matter his many faults. Mother would welcome him. Being with her, maybe pretending to be a child again, forgetting his failures, he would take the first step toward healing. He’d hoped. He didn’t need to be Sisyphus. He could shrug off the stone he carried.

Then of course Flavio Lupazzi had shown up at the memorial service and started the boulder rolling downhill again.

Lupazzi had dismissed him from his mansion, and hadn’t even bothered to insult him with any parting commands. It didn’t matter that Wesley had no instructions, by now he knew the rules very well. He was to continue play-acting through his days, and if he tried to tell anyone what he knew … what he’d seen … what had really happened to Faith …

He’d be unable. Try hard enough, and he’d fall to pieces like the rotting corpse he was. Then be put back together and have to carry on willy-nilly. This would probably continue for the rest of Wesley’s days. There would never be an escape.

Vaguely he wondered if suicide would even work for him anymore. Probably not. What bullet to the brain would kill him? He was already dead.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Faith again, listing sideways on a chair in Lupazzi’s mansion, eyes falling mindlessly shut. She had barely noticed Wesley, back then; she hadn’t remembered him, hadn’t known her own name. Hadn’t been bothered that she had no memories. She had only roused when Lupazzi spoke. A Slayer under Lupazzi’s control, and Wesley could only speculate as to what for.

He had something else to think about. Someone had been spying on Lupazzi with magicked-up crayons. Who? Who would use a crayon in such a way, anyway? Was there a demonic nursery hidden away in Lupazzi’s mansion? Was he holding children captive? The mind boggled.

Maybe he could find allies there. Maybe they’d help him rescue Faith. He had to keep moving forward, through day after day, and the first step was here. Surviving the obligatory visit to his bereaved mother. He shut his eyes briefly, and knocked.

No sound came from the other side and he imagined that Mother was absent. Having tea with a friend, perhaps. Traitorous relief rose in his heart. Then died, as he heard footsteps, a familiar voice calling, “Coming!” and the door was flung open and Mother said, “Wesley! At last.”

“Mother!”

Halfway through her welcoming hug, she pushed him away with a frown. “Bit whiffy,” she said.

He shrank back. “I - I’m sorry. I should have phoned ahead. I can come back at a later time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She caught his hand. “In you come. Your friend’s already here. Pardon the mess, the movers have tracked up everything. They won’t be around with the vans until tomorrow though. I’ve marked the boxes you’re to take away, everything from your old bedroom.”

The hall had been stripped bare, even the floorboards bare and rather dirty. Packing crates were stacked almost to the ceiling. “You’re leaving,” he said stupidly.

“Of course I am,” Mother said. “I’m going home to Land’s End. Just as I’ve always wanted.”

Of course. Father was dead. She’d always hated London. Why would she stay?

“Watcher’s Council is taking the house back. I told them Roger’s ghost will probably haunt whoever gets it next.”

Her tone was brisk. But she looked twenty years older; she wasn’t without a heart, when Wesley looked in her eyes he could see stark grief. She deserved comfort from him, her only son, but what could he offer? Nothing. She might as well be on the other side of a glass wall.

She took an almost-imperceptible sniff in his direction, let go of his fingers and marched away. “Come along. I made them leave me a table and chairs, so I could at least have tea. Let’s not neglect Mr Giles anymore.”

“... What?”

In the kitchen, indeed, the table and a couple of chairs remained (though precious little else). Giles sat at the table, holding a teacup. “Wesley, my dear chap,” he said.

Wesley wanted to run away but his feet seemed to have rooted to the parquet.

Numbly, he let Mother push him into a chair, bustle about with the teapot, then take a perch opposite him. “Mr Giles was the only one from the Watcher’s Council kind enough to offer condolences in person. I’m really very grateful for that.”

“It’s nothing,” Giles said. “Wesley, you look dreadful. Are you ill?”

He had completely forgotten that he was to phone Giles.

“Never better. I’m home, aren’t I?” If you forced a smile, people could hear it in your voice. “It was just an exceptionally bad flight.”

“Jet lag, yes. I hate the transatlantic crossing. Abominable. My condolences over your losses again, old chap.” Giles glanced toward the oriel windows, with their lovely view of Mother’s garden. Floods of sunlight warmed the kitchen; those wide windows and their garden view were one of Wesley’s most enduring childhood memories. Another distracted glance at them from Giles. “Does sound carry through those windows?”

“As I remember, yes. Why?”

“Nothing. I … I came round in the hope I’d find you here. There’s a matter I’d like advice on, though - maybe– And she made some absurd claims about you.” Giles shook his head. “Anyway, I needed to remind you of the valuable documents you couriered over for us.”

What documents?

“What?”

“Wesley, don’t you remember? The Xibalba scrolls.”

Which were back in his apartment in LA, where he’d left them. Again, he’d completely forgotten.

“I … I …”

This couldn’t go on. He had to tell Giles everything. Warn him about Lupazzi. Somehow. He had to find a way to get the words out. But if he spoke, he’d transform into a rotting corpse, as he had with Faith in LA, and when he revived, no one would remember the event. Faith hadn’t, and she was a Slayer, resistant by nature to most supernatural influences. Giles was glancing toward the oriel windows again, and Wesley automatically looked that way too. He set down his teacup with a clink that rattled the saucer.

“Is that–?” he said.

He and Giles both looked pointedly anywhere except into the garden.  Mother was back to bustling around the kettle and teapot, and hadn’t noticed.

“That was rather what I wanted your advice on,” Giles said. “I seem to be haunted, and I don’t quite know what to do about it.”

Indeed. Haunted by Illyria. There she stood in the furthest corner of the garden, green shadows cast over her unnaturally immobile form, like a peculiar statue gone truant from a fantasy art show and now discovered eerily lurking under the privets. She was staring straight at them.

“She also said some rather strange things about you,” Giles said.

Wesley knew exactly what to do.

He opened his mouth, forced a croak out of his throat, began saying, “I have to warn you about the Immortal,” and the world went dark. When the lights came on again he was lying on the kitchen floor with his chair overturned beside him. Mother stood over him, open-mouthed. Giles had started to his feet but was now looking about hesitantly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Mother’s face was covered with tear-tracks but she only seemed befuddled and a little annoyed now.

“What just happened? Why did you fall down like that? Get up at once, the floor’s not clean.”

Wesley could only feebly smile. “It’s all right, Mother.”

“Why did I come here?” Giles said. “I seem to have thought …”

“You should go.”

“But …”

“No, go,” Wesley said. He shook Giles’ hand. “Thank you so much for coming. But now you ought to go back to HQ. And good luck …” … with Illyria. But he didn’t say that aloud. He only presumed that Illyria would tell Giles exactly what had just happened.

“Thank you. Hm, I feel dizzy. But I don’t know why.”

“I’m sure it will all come clear,” Wesley said, and for the first time, felt a speck of optimism.

Let Illyria explain.

If anyone was resistant to Flavio Lupazzi’s powers, she would be.

He hoped.

10.8

Angel drifted.

A thousand nights of solitude, or that was what it felt like, as he lay in his iron coffin on the ocean floor, somewhere off Santa Catalina Island. It hadn’t been far from shipping lanes, but what he remembered most wasn’t the big container ships surging powerfully over where he lay, but hearing laughter and happy voices from pleasure craft motoring by. Women’s carefree giggling. The lilt of children. He had been starving but what hit him hardest was the loneliness, the longing. For his sins he had been exiled. He could never go home again. 

It wasn’t sensory deprivation. No, he could hear so much, the pings and hollow groans and shufflings of the ocean floor and the distant song of whales, and the life above the waves. High up there, gulls flapping and screeching to mark the daylight hours. Even they made him ravenous for blood. He would gladly have torn off their heads and drunk from their gushing necks as if they were swans in a park and he didn’t care that made him a monster, not anymore. Oh, he could hear it all. Every night the squawk of seabirds gave way to the piping of bats on the wind, and then eventually distant music from the city drifted to Angel. Blaring car horns. Human voices calling him to wake.

“... Angel … Angel … where are you …”

Connor.

He vaguely groped around the iron box’s confines. It was pitch black in here of course but the surfaces he touched didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t cold. What? His ocean coffin had been so chill all his limbs had numbed. After a mere week he hadn’t been able to lift his hands anymore. Moisture had condensed on the lid and fallen in sudden splashes that hurt his skin like the points of needles. When a drop fell and splattered on his cracked lips, it had been the most exquisite torture imaginable.

He had stored up the thought of that for when he got loose and sought vengeance but underneath, he’d known he wouldn’t be free until decades passed, until the iron corroded and fell to pieces around him. Not till then. And by then everyone he knew in LA would be dead. Out of his reach.

But he wasn’t cold anymore, though he still couldn’t see. His fingers fumbled across smooth, polished wood, no nails anywhere that he could maybe dig his fingernails under and pry out, but he lay on velvet and softness, a pillow under his head, what was this? It was his iron coffin. It was not. It was. His head rolled back and forth and his ears filled with those ocean sounds again but his hands weren’t numb. No, he estimated 63 degrees Fahrenheit. The hell?

“Tsk.”

No. Now all the cacophony of the ocean rushed into his ears and the bitter chill stiffened his limbs, and he smelled the iron coffin rusting in minute increments around its rivets. That smell was an even worse torment than the dripping water on his lips, because it only served to remind him of blood. Sometimes he was so desperate that he managed to sit up and lick the damp iron surface, just for that mocking taste.

He would hunt down the ones who had put him here, turn them to vampires and then spent a few decades happily teasing them with pure water that could never nourish them and the tantalizing scent and taste that were not blood.

What he actually knew would happen was that the coffin would leak and slowly fill with salt-water, after which he would not drown - vampires did not need to breathe - just float helpless in his undersea prison forever. Because by then, the sand of the ocean floor would drift over him and bury him beyond all hope of rescue.

“Dad?”

Connor’s voice! Angel’s arms flailed. He kicked and roared and twisted, rolled himself into a ball and then kicked again, both feet hitting the coffin wall solidly. The wood boomed. Hurried sounds reached him from without, footsteps running toward him, a fist coming down with superhuman strength. Really, Connor was like a Slayer in his strength, a male Slayer.

Sending Connor away to grow up untroubled with human foster parents, remembering nothing, had been the best decision Angel had ever made. How pure the happiness he felt at that thought. It could almost steal his soul away. Wait, that hadn’t happened yet, had it?

He slumped back in confusion but the coffin lid lifted and light burst upon him, and there was Connor leaning in to smile at him and say, “Dad. Found you. At last.”

Angel held out his arms and his son rushed to hold him. That scent that was only Connor came as he buried his nose in his boy’s hair.

“Tell me who I am,” Connor whispered.

“What?” Though he didn’t actually care.

“Teach me my heritage, Father.” It sounded like a plea. No, a command. Not like his boy at all. Connor backed off a bit, biting his lip, looking conflicted. “Aren’t I an Aurelian? Like you and Mom?”

“Don’t even mention Darla. And you aren’t a vampire. You’re better than that.”

When had Connor ever called him Father? Dad was what he called Angel.

“Who are you?”

“Tell me our family’s secrets.” That wasn’t Connor. Angel knew it wasn’t. But Connor’s face filled his vision, vamping out into brow furrows and hungry fangs, he could hear how his son didn’t breathe like a human boy anymore. Angel’s hand rested over Connor’s unbeating heart. Connor smiled down at him, game-faced. “Don’t you remember? You turned me yourself. You promised once I was a vampire, you’d tell me everything that Aurelia herself knew.”

Aurelia? Who the hell was Aurelia?

“You’re not Connor, you’re not my boy!” Angel shoved with all his strength, intending to punch his hand straight through this stranger’s heart and out of his back, after which he’d question the imposter under torture and then rip his head bodily off once he’d got answers, but. All that happened was he found himself lying flat on his back again, in a coffin, looking up at … someone ...

He couldn’t move. Not even one finger twitched. “Tsk tsk,” said the voice which wasn’t Connor’s. “Well, stew in there a bit longer, until you’re more cooperative.”

“Dracula?”

Angel recognized that suave voice, every bit as obnoxious as the Immortal’s. They’d met a few times while he was Angelus, mostly through Darla who had a tendre for the poseur. Himself, he despised Dracula for a lightweight.

The coffin lid slammed down and then there was only darkness and the ocean sounds and scents and tastes. Then confusion and dreams, though he tried desperately to hold on to the ebbing memory of Dracula’s smile. So confident. He’d learn better, Angel would never give in. Wait, give in to what? Who had he been talking with? What had it been about?

Angel drifted, and forgot.

And drifted.

ACT III

10.9

Spike wasn't paying attention to what the shifty bugger was saying. He kept his stake ready and every time the mist of Dracula particles threatened to solidify, he pounced.

To no avail. He'd never fought Dracula before, because Angelus and Darla had told him not to. No point, they said. He'll just evaporate, they said. And they’d been right.

At last he stopped, panting, resting his hands on his knees.

"Any luck, love?" he said.

Buffy came to pant next to him. "No. I winged him a coupla times, but he always comes back. I remember that from last time. Super annoying. I even think he's gotten a little bit faster."

She looked tired again. She'd been too sore and itchy to sleep on the plane. And then hiking all over London, schlepping big ugly furniture, making up the bed…He still didn't know what he would have done if Buffy's phone hadn't rung. Would they have made love? Or would she have used him for sex and relaxation again? His heart said love but his heart was a fool, their history together had been all about sex. Nasty sex. There had been no happiness or tenderness in it. The memory of her scent, her heart beating double time, kept distracting him from staking Dracula.

"I practiced," Dracula said. "Knowing I would meet you, or your successor, again."

Dracula gestured to the table with its straight-backed, ornate wooden chairs. Fake medieval, Spike would bet. Too shiny.

"Let us sit down and talk like civilized beings. Spike, you know I've always been a friend to you and all the Aurelians. And now we have an enemy in common. Don't we?"

Spike sat on the edge of the table. "Friend, eh? To a bunch of murdering, soulless vampires. Like yourself. I'm different now."

"The demonic grapevine told me. Interesting choice, certainly after watching Angel wallow in misery for a century."

Spike gritted his teeth. "Get to the point." Buffy stood so close to him that her sleeve brushed his jeans leg. Not now, Spike.

"Common foe, don't get distracted. I'm talking about the Immortal, of course."

Buffy's cheeks heated up. Spike could see the red from the corners of his eyes. Was she embarrassed about having dated another evil guy? He couldn't think that, he wasn't evil anymore. But he didn't want her to be embarrassed about him.

"What do you mean, foe? You and him were closest buddies, last time I saw you. Close, naked bum-chums…"

Buffy choked.

He patted her shoulder, without taking his eyes off Dracula.

"That was a century ago, my dear William," Dracula said, unperturbed. "Things change. Just like attitudes to sexuality change. Did you realize, Buffy, that Spike here was so homophobic?"

"No I'm not," Spike growled. "Just never liked you."

"Wasting time here, children. Let me get to my point. I could be a valuable ally. Because of my past association with the Immortal I know things. Things that might be to your advantage to know. In return, you give me access to the secrets of the Aurelians. And the Slayers."

"Suppose I'd be entertaining that thought, which I'm not," Spike said. "What kind of secrets are we talking about?"

"Why and how did Aurelia die? How are Slayers made?"

Buffy scoffed. "Ha. I thought you knew all about Slayers. "Your powers are rooted in darkness. You think you know ... what you are ... what's to come. You haven't even begun. Find it. The darkness. Find your true nature." I quote."

"That's verbatim, isn't it? Those words must have been very important to you," Dracula smiled.

Spike's thoughts exactly. He'd always avoided looking at Buffy's neck, at the bite there, not wishing to be reminded of Angel. But when she told him Dracula'd bitten her there as well in the flat, he hadn't really believed it. But now he did. What the effing hell?

Dracula held up his wrist, which showed a similar scar. "I too, cherish our memories."

"Buffy’s already learned what her origins are, you ponce, so what are you wittering on about?" Spike said. He sounded a bit more agitated than he'd intended to.

Dracula burst out laughing. "Ooh, is our little William a bit upset? What's going on here?" He sniffed ostentatiously. "Oh, hilarious. Such longing." He slapped his thighs in mirth and then just as abruptly sobered up. "This only illustrates my point. How close our powers are. And don't you find it curious that the only vampires you are truly attracted to are Aurelians? Hm? Did you know who Aurelia was?"

Spike had calmed down. Whatever Buffy had done was history. No use getting upset about it. Because let's face it, on her end there were hundreds of people, including children, that he'd killed that she could get upset about. And she didn't, not anymore. So he better bottle up. "Barking up the wrong tree, mate. You should have asked Darla or her bloody Master. Never was interested in all that so-called glorious vampire lore. All that is, is dressing up what vampires really do namely, kill, steal and rut."

Dracula sighed. "Why do only the ignorant survive, one wonders? Modern times are horrible. All right, one more gift before I torture the knowledge out of you."

He swept a black-cloaked arm and once again time started to buzz and roil and wind back. This time it took a lot longer. What was the ponce going to do now? Show Buffy one of Spike's worst kills?

Finally it slowed. Buffy threw up a little. Spike handed her a breath mint, one of the dozens of slayer supplies he carried around in his pockets. Mints, tissues, penknife to sharpen steaks, cash, oyster cards, sunscreen, comb, hair tie. You never knew.

This time they were somewhere Spike had never been before. Never smelled anything like it, even. It was cold, and although it was still light, the sun had dropped behind  faraway mountain ridges. Their slopes were covered sparsely with fir-like trees, and below them in the valley a river glinted.

"Where are we?" Buffy asked. "Or should I say, when are we?"

"Dunno on both counts, love," Spike said. He knelt and sniffed a bit of crumbly orange soil. "I'd say somewhere in Southern Europe, but it's so cold. It's as if I smell ice."

Buffy turned all the way around, slowly, scouting for something more interesting than landscape. "He sent us here to show us something. Where is it?"

"There," Spike said. "People."

People running fast, in a tight knit group. Men, older people, children, women carrying babies. But not ordinary people. Very short, dirty people in animal skins with thick beards and lots of tangled hair.

They ran past without seeing Buffy and Spike. Buffy gaped.

"My guess would be, the ice age?" Spike said. These people wore clothes, however crude they looked, and had spears with stone points attached to the wood with what looked like thin hide ropes. And possibly some glue.

The group huddled down just below them in a juniper thicket, hushing the children, clearly afraid of something. Spike assumed that he and Buffy would shortly see what they were afraid of. The people, in spite of their rough attire and unkemptness, looked just like normal everyday people. Well, short everyday people but a haircut and a visit to Target and they’d blend in seamlessly. He'd always had vague images of brute-visaged monsters with clubs. Maybe that was Neanderthals, though.

His earlier guess of Southern Europe seemed to be confirmed, although they were quite dark-skinned for Mediterraneans. He remembered reading that light-skinned people had only emerged after the ice-ages, when humanity had reached more northern climes.

"Your ancestors, Buffy," he said.

"And yours."

Yeah. He'd been human once.

"Maybe that river is the Tigris, or the Euphrates," he said. "Present day Iraq. The cradle of Western civilization."

Buffy shrugged. "What's that," she said. "There over the hills?"

The river below them ran between a line of low mountains, and a dark cloud seemed to boil up behind the eastern ridge.

Spike peered. A cloud? It looked more like a giant tumbleweed rolling over the top of the mountains. But it moved at great speed, much faster than any tumbleweed would ever move.

And it must be bigger, if he could see it from this far off. Much, much bigger.

He looked at the huddle of people below him. They had covered their eyes and hunkered even closer. This must be what they feared.

Spike couldn't think of any natural phenomenon that would produce this. A tornado or dust storm wouldn’t move like this or look like this. The ball of roiling tumbleweed was so close now that he could make out individual tentacles.

For a second, a trilobite shape with dozens of tentacles wrestled itself loose from the fight but was dragged in again. There was something with wings, too, and something seething with mouths and eyes.

"What the hell are those?" Buffy said.

"It looks like Illyria's original form," Spike said. “Three of ‘em?” He remembered the gigantic Old Ones in the altworld, beings bigger than cities. "But how could Old Ones be here, at the same time as modern human beings?"

"Modern?" Buffy said.

"Genetically identical to us, with clothes and weapons and fire. I thought the Old Ones had died out eons before we evolved."

"I am a bit vague on how long an eon is?" Buffy said. "Like a million years?"

"Point still stands," Spike said. "Buffer, they're coming closer."

"Sometimes you sound like Giles," Buffy said, and it seemed like she approved.

The three Old Ones rolled into the river below them. They were so large that every detail of their bodies was now visible. Two of them, twisted grotesque shapes, seemed to be fighting the trilobite-shaped one. And it was losing.

With a crack so loud that it boomed back thrice from the mountain slopes, the two broke the third one’s back and tore off its tentacles. They lifted the remnants of its torso up and smacked it down only a few dozen yards away from where Spike and Buffy stood.

"Is this Illyria?" she whispered. "Are we seeing Illyria vanquished?"

"Illyria was locked up in the Deeper Well," Spike whispered back. "Not killed like this. I think."

The maimed, broken thing beneath them was not dead yet. It was still gigantic, even without its tentacles, and its moaning and thrashing were loud enough to kill anyone in the vicinity. The people huddling in the coppice broke away screaming, hands over their ears. Some of them got caught as the Old One thrashed out its life and died.

Finally, it stilled. From the corpse rose a gossamer silk scarf, blacker than night, rippling and snaking into the sky, as if it was reaching for something. And then it found what it was looking for.

It dove down like a spear and thrust itself into the open, screaming mouth of one of the women, who'd fallen in her mad scramble to get away and had broken a leg. A moment of stillness, an agonized look on her face, and then the woman exploded. Literally. In a rain of blood and guts and bones.

The black silk scarf pulled itself together again and now pursued the other remaining people from the little band, running away as fast as they could while holding babies and carrying grandmothers on their backs.

The black rippling thing had apparently learned from its mistake because now it grabbed three young men, causing them to drop a baby, a child and a grandfather. It wrapped around them and dove down into their panting mouths.

The three boys screamed and thrashed and writhed. Blood slicked their backs and burst from their eyes.

Buffy gripped Spike's hand so hard he heard his bones grind.

It was gruesome. Why was Dracula showing them this? What exactly were they seeing?

"It's like the original Slayer being violated," Buffy whispered. "It's horrible. But these are not Slayers."

The young men quieted and began to help each other up. In fact, they looked a lot alike. Maybe they were brothers. The three of them fell back down on their knees and lifted their hands to the sky and bellowed something in eerie unison. A prayer or a curse? A glint of moonlight fell on the middle one's face.

In spite of the thick unruly beard and the mane of hair, the fine and regal profile was very familiar.

"Fuck!" Buffy and Spike said simultaneously.

It was the Immortal.

10.10

Back at Slayerette HQ, Giles mulled over his visit to the Wyndham-Pryces. He should have been more forceful, should have demanded an explanation from Wesley, but he’d been shocked by the poor chap’s haggard appearance. Besides, Wes had just lost his Slayer and his father in a single fell blow. One couldn’t begin barking questions and orders under the circumstances. A little gentleness was surely called for. Although he really ought have asked Ms. Wyndham-Pryce for her moving company’s phone number.

“Oh, my aching back.”

“Quit bellyaching, McAllister. We’re all just as sore as you.” Robson caressed the cover of the old book he had just taken down from the corner shelves. “Ah, the Haylukt volume five. Isn’t this the one with the account of hunting demonic yak on the Roof of the World?” He wrapped the shabby book lovingly and stowed it in a crate. “I was entranced by it when I was a boy.”

“Weren’t we all?”

Slayer Qing He and her Watcher, Woods. Giles warmed himself with the memory, briefly, then roused. “Wait! Put it in this box, Robson. I’ve got the rest of the Haylukt series in there.”

“Right you are.” Robson hurried over.

Giles rather regretted the decision to move operations to the old Watcher HQ. Were they reverting to the patriarchal model that had failed them, the old days when Watchers wisely guided Slayers and Slayers obeyed without question, humbly grateful to die for the cause. Maybe those days had never really existed. If they had, he wondered how humanity had even survived. Look at now: thanks to Buffy Summers, there were thousands of Slayers all over the world, an invincible army.

A dwindling army. He frowned at Andrew, who had ferreted out the bad news about that. But he shouldn’t blame the messenger.

Anyway, they were packing up the cramped Leytonstone office and moving back into more commodious Watcher digs in the City. It was going to be strange walking through those old rooms again as the man in charge, instead of a mere field operative with a sullied reputation. The man who had let Buffy Summers get out of hand. Giles snorted to himself. He’d thank any Watcher existing to do better than he had. He closed up the book crate he’d just filled and nailed the lid shut for safekeeping. Then hefted it on top of a stack of similar crates.

“I’ll get Illyria,” Andrew said brightly, looking at the stack.

“You’ll use your muscles, boy. Stop trying to wiggle out of the hard work.” Robson piled three crates into Andrew’s arms and sent him staggering toward the street stair. “We could use a break, I think. Anyone for Balti?”

There was a general movement toward the stairs. It was lunchtime anyway, or close enough. Giles would remember the Balti shop with regret, when they finished moving out. He promised himself to take Andrew and Dawn back regularly for lunches. Connor, too.

Connor and Dawn turned up just as he thought this, leaping up the stairs like antelope. “Andrew’s such a wimp,” Connor said. He picked up an entire stack of crates with one hand.

“Where’s Illyria?” Dawn asked.

“The curry will bring her out of hiding,” Giles predicted. Five-alarm-fire curry was the latest human custom to win her favor. He supposed that was predictable. Although she’d also shown a taste for roofing tar.

“Curry! Yum! Is it lunchtime?”

“Come along, come along, you don’t want it to get cold, do you?”

Dawn and Connor clattered down the stairs. Illyria meanwhile appeared as if by magic in a doorway. “Rupert Giles, you will buy me prawn curry today. It is my desire.”

“I expect Robson’s already ordered it.” 

She stalked silently past him, nodding.

Like a coward, so far he’d avoided confronting her over the strange episode at Wesley’s family home. What had happened then? Giles still doubted his own memory. He’d gone to meet Wesley and take delivery of the Xibalba scrolls, that was right. And question Wesley about the Immortal. They’d been on safe ground, in a house that had been Watcher-warded for decades. It should have been fine to have a conversation there.

Wesley hadn’t acted as if he thought it was fine. He’d seemed haunted and terrified. As jumpy as if Flavio Lupazzi was standing right there in his mother’s kitchen.

Then … what had happened?

Giles shook his head. His memory blurred at that point. Something occult had happened.

“Illyria, wait a moment.” The others had all gone, he and Illyria were alone. She paused with her back to him, not favoring him with even a glance over her shoulder. Her arms were crossed and her back was as stiff as a steel lance.

“Illyria? What’s wrong?”

Oh, he knew what it was, he’d forgotten to say please. She was so prickly about such little things.

“Do you dare ask me the wrong question? Again, Rupert Giles?”

“Illyria,” he said, making it sound as humble as possible. “Please favor me for a few moments.”

She deigned to turn her head slightly. Her profile was all a frown, though.

“You fail to remember,” she said, “my warnings about Wesley.”

“That he’s dead? But Illyria, we both saw him. He’s certainly alive. I’ve seen him a number of times since Angel’s team took down Wolfram&Hart …”

“Not ‘Angel’s team’!” She wheeled, confronting him. “I am no mere junior team member to a vampire! If I cooperated with Angel, it was as equals, and he was grateful.” (And didn’t ask her to carry furniture for him, Giles deduced.) “And when I tell you Wesley is dead, believe my words! Why would I lie?”

Yes. Indeed. Why would she?

“But you won’t explain yourself,” Giles said. “All you do is hint at mysterious things nobody else knows. How can I believe you?”

“You should know me,” Illyria said haughtily. “As a king, I know much. You put up that wall of pictures and questions at your flat, you have spent hours trying to unravel the mysteries around you, but you never asked me what I knew. I could have saved you all your misery, if you’d only thought to ask.”

“All right. Illyria, god-king, I humbly beg of you. What do you know that we need to know?”

“I will not say,” Illyria stated, and turned her back again.

Giles could have sworn and thrown his glasses on the floor, but he didn’t. Close thing, though.

“Illyria, please .”

“First, you must be mine. You must pledge yourself. I require it. Once you do, I will tell you everything.”

“Eh, what?”

“You must vow to be my Qua’ha-zahn, Rupert Giles.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Giles said, flummoxed.

“This is a strange world to me,” Illyria said. “A god-king once, I have been reborn into this era, which I barely know. I am drowned in the ocean of humanity … which I should have drunk down and made my wine … I should have a place here, a kingly throne maybe, or maybe not, but I should not be a … a stranger, a beggar at humanity’s threshold, never able to step in or step back, lost in this world of yours. I need a guide. A high priest. A Qua’ha-xahn. You will be my Qua’ha-xahn. It’s decided.”

“This is very sudden.”

Stall, Giles, stall. He needed to think.

“It is not sudden. I have been walking alongside you for days now. Favoring you above all others. You should have taken the hint.”

“And if I say I’ll be your … Qua’ha-zahn … you’ll tell me what you know about Wesley?”

“Wesley is unimportant. But yes. All the things you need to know.”

She strode to him, looking him in the eye (easy, since she was taller than him now) and put a hand on his shoulder in a comradely way she’d never used before.

“You will not merely be chattel. I will cherish you, I will protect you, share with you all the glory and power of my days in this world. As I conquer, so shall you conquer. All men shall envy you, Giles. Only give me your loyalty, and you will never regret it.”

He shut his eyes, totally at a loss.

“Where’s your blue giantess, Rupert? We have another load of crates ready.”

Giles looked around. She was gone.

10.11

The vortex sucked Buffy and Spike back to Dracula's castle. As they stumbled out of it, they found Dracula at the ornate table, sipping a goblet of what probably was blood, his feet resting on a big oblong chest. Or coffin.

"Who's in that?" Spike said. He sniffed in that direction. "Is that Angel?"

Dracula smiled and knocked on the lid. There was no reaction.

"Let's not bother about Angel. You didn't know what I showed you. I know many more things. I could help you, I know Lupazzi is your enemy." He quirked his closed lips at Buffy.

The teeth, she thought. He can't make his teeth human anymore. Really, what was strangest was his human face. The Master had been ancient as well and looked like a wrinkled Gremlin who'd been snarfing mommy's lipstick.

"Your face, Drac," she said, playing with her stake. "Is that an illusion? Coz I know what really old vampires look like. And that's not so enticing to us innocent maidens."

Spike snorted. She elbowed him in the side.

Dracula set his goblet down with a smack. Good thing it was gold, not glass. "Can we get back to the important subject? It’s not that I don't usually appreciate the quipping, but I'm bored now. The Immortal. Your enemy. My enemy. And what's more, he was Aurelia's enemy as well. Aurelians have access to arcane knowledge, I know that for sure. Aurelia herself told me. So, give up the posturing and share with me."

Buffy shrugged. "Spike's the Aurelian, so...."

Dracula threw her a dark look. "That's what you think, eh? If only you knew. William the Bloody? What say you?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "Still a resounding no. We don't want to be your friend, and we've got enemies enough."

Dracula hissed and swung his cloak over his face. Uh-oh, another vortex of time travel? Buffy lunged but fell headlong into thin air. "Shit, where...."

But the vortex had grabbed her. "Spike!" she yelled. "Where are you?" She didn't want to be alone in the past or the future or wherever Drac was sending her.

She couldn't see Spike through the whirling and sparking of the vortex, but at the last possible moment she felt his hand in hers and she yanked him close. "Stay with me Spike," she said. "Jesus. Don't leave me alone."

"Never," Spike said, and they locked eyes.

The vortex dumped Buffy and Spike in a hollow, echoing space. Buffy jumped up, ready to defend them, but the place was empty. It was like a warehouse, with high rafters, a steel staircase, crates and other big tarped shapes lashed to clamps in the floor.

"We're on a ship," Spike said.

Buffy took a 360 of her surroundings. There was no movement, no sound. "A ship at anchor? It's so silent."

Spike frowned. "You're right. Let's have a look around, we must be here for a reason."

"Maybe Angel is here? There could be a coffin."

They nosed between the stowed cargo, but the crates were tightly stowed. And there was no reaction to their knocking on crates and calling out for Angel.

"Let's search the rest of the ship," Spike said.

They made for the stairs.

The door at the top of the stairs swung open. "You there! Freeze or I shoot!" a loud voice said. In English. That was a relief, at least they weren't back in prehistory again.

But, huh. They hadn't been able to interact with the previous vortex 'episodes'. They'd been invisible.

"Can you see us?"

"Hell yeah. Hands, people, hands." A big burly guy trained a big burly gun on them.

Spike snarled and sprang. A shot rang out and Spike went down at the foot of the stairs.

Buffy knew the gun wouldn’t kill Spike, but her pounding heart feared otherwise.

"Fuck, Jayne, watch the cargo!" another voice said.

The guy descended slowly to their level. Behind him were a tall black woman, also armed, and two more men. All armed.

Buffy swallowed. They were too far away to be jumped. Spike, eyeing the guns trained on Buffy, stayed down.

"How did you get in here? Did you stow away?" the big man said.

"Impossible," the brown-haired man in the tight pants said. "I personally checked every bit of cargo."

"Yeah, Mal, like the time the doctor brought his sister aboard? That kind of personal check?"

"Aw, shut it. Look here. How did you guys get in here? Did the Alliance drop you on the hull? How?" Mal said.

Buffy didn't know where to start. My vampire enemy dropped us here via his time vortex?

"We, eh, we just climbed up the anchor chain," she said. "There was no watch."

"Anchor chain?" The men exchanged looks. "Just where do you think you are?"

"On a ship," Buffy said. "In the cargo room, or whatever you call it."

"It's a boat all right. In the cargo hold, all right. But do tell me how you spotted that anchor chain. Did you swim to it? Or did you have a boat of your own?"

"We, ah, jumped to it from the dock?" Buffy could tell that they didn't believe her for a second, but she couldn't put her finger on what exactly she was missing.

"And how did you get to the dock?"

"We walked?"

"Walked. From where?"

"London? The Tate Modern?"

"Tallest tale I ever heard," Mal said. "See, we're in space. This is a space boat. So there is no walking or docking or anchor chains or seas or swimming. You get it? And I've never heard of the planet London."

Space? Nothing Buffy saw looked particularly spacey or futuristic. Just people in ordinary clothes and a nondescript cargo hold. Where were the silver suits and the phasers?

"London is a city on planet Earth," she said. "In the country of England. Which you ought to know since you're speaking English."

The men smiled grimly and spoke words in another language.

"That's Mandarin," Spike said. "Can I sit up? This floor is a bit uncomfortable."

"You speak Chinese?" Buffy said.

"No, but I know it when I hear it." 

Buffy had a secret little revelation inside her head. If Drusilla hadn’t killed and turned Spike, Spike would have been a Giles. Ha! She loved that idea. Maybe she’d buy him a vest and some fake glasses to polish.

"No chitchat," the big man said.

"Okay, I like a weird story. Give me your weapons, and I'll let you talk more," Mal said

Buffy fished her stake and her spare stake out of her pockets. Spike did likewise, grimacing against the pain in his shoulder. Another hole in that nice coat of his.

The smaller man patted them both down and gave Mal a nod.

"Pointy sticks?" Mal grabbed one. "Made out of wood? What the hell for?"

Buffy and Spike exchanged a glance. Be honest or what?

Buffy smiled and said, "It's to take out vampires."

The men looked baffled. "What's a vampire?"

"A creature that drinks human blood and can't be killed by other means," Spike said.

"A Reaver? A Reaver kills just fine by gun," the big man said.

"That is a load of bullshit you're giving us," Mal said. He seemed to be the leader. "A little riddle for me to solve, eh? Jayne, you and Wash go check the hull, see if we can find their ingress. Zoe, you're on the guy, I'll take the girl. To the galley."

The men would need to get close to them. Buffy would be able to take them easily. But did they want to, or need to?

"Let it play out," Buffy whispered to Spike. "We gotta be here to learn something Drac wants us to see, right?"

Spike nodded and went meekly ahead of the tall woman Zoe, holding his shoulder. Mal grinned at her and gestured her to go ahead. Buffy was pretty sure she could take them, but decided not to.

She just had to keep her eyes and ears open for the things Dracula wanted her to see. It wasn't the spaceship, she was pretty sure. It all looked so ordinary, just cheap furniture and poky hallways and rooms. Like a cargo ship. It was disappointingly un-Star Trek like. Not that she was a big sci-fi fan, but being friends with Xander had left many pockets of useless knowledge scattered throughout her brain.

Oh wait, she had a question. "What's today's date?"

"September 2nd, I think?" Mal said.

"The year."

"2517," Mal said. "Funny question. What date do you think it is?"

"2005," Buffy said. "Funny difference, huh?"

"Hell yeah. You said you were from Earth-That-Was?"

Buffy craned her neck to look back at Mal. "That sounds dire. What's going to happen to Earth?"

"Everything, I guess. Wars, pollution, ecocide, you name it."

"No apocalypse? Can you name a date?"

"Centuries ago."

"Not in your lifetime," Spike called out from ahead. As if he could know that.

"You hope," Buffy said. "Maybe in yours, though." She didn't want to think about that. Getting old, with or without Spike. Spike surviving without her. Bah.

They entered a kitchen. A cosy, if threadbare situation with a lot of chairs. How big was this crew?

"Sit," Mal said.

They sat.

"And now beyond the bullshit, please. Are you Alliance?"

"What’s an Alliance?" Buffy countered.

Mal shifted in his chair. "Okay, let's try this first. My name is Malcom Reynolds, this is Zoe Washburn. We're the captain and crew of the cargo ship Firefly. You?"

"Buffy Summers."

"And?"

Buffy threw Spike a hard stare, wanting him to not say William the Bloody.

"Spike."

"And what are you two doing here?"

Buffy would have preferred to speak the truth, since that would be easiest to remember. But how? "We are researching a person of interest. A contact of ours sent us here to learn something about him."

"Sent you here how?"

"A time vortex."

"For God's sake. Okay, learn what about who?"

"He's called the Immortal."

Mal guffawed. "Cool nickname. Really old guy?"

Buffy spread her hands. "He doesn't look it. But he could be, who knows?"

"I met him a hundred years ago, and he still looks exactly the same," Spike put in.

Oh Spike. She'd been so careful with her words. Why had he said that?

Mal's eyebrows rose. "You don't look a day over thirty-five, yourself."

Spike looked vaguely offended.

"Okay," Mal said, "there are two conclusions I could draw from this. A) you are bullshitting me, B) you're insane."

"Or C), deluded," Zoe put in.

"I concede to C," Mal said. "I mean, 2005, vampires, immortals. It's ludicrous, and also seems pointless. You know? Why not think up something more plausible?"

"We believe it's the truth," Buffy said.

Mal put his face in his hands. "I give up."

"We could ask the doctor to check their sanity," Zoe suggested.

"We could. But would I do something different, if they were insane, from if they were sane? Gonna go with my gut on this one. They're weird, possibly crazy, but not dangerous. What do you say?" Mal asked Zoe.

Zoe studied Spike and Buffy in silence. "I don't know about not dangerous. But I think not to us. So let's go with the flow. They're here anyway, although I have no idea how, but let's hear more of the story. Who knows."

Buffy's spine sagged a little in relief. The moment she relaxed, a huge yawn split her face. God, she hadn't slept in, what, two days now? At least the overwhelming itch in her back had subsided to a general ache, which meant she was finally healing. Thank God.

A girl in dirty coveralls came in. "When were you going to let me know about our guests? Who's cooking tonight?" She looked Spike up and down with so much frank interest that Buffy had to fight an urge to go stand between them and warn her off.

Spike winked at her.

More people drifted in as the cooking started. Buffy could barely keep her eyes open but when a heap of good-smelling Chinese food was set in front of her, she woke up and started eating.

"He doesn’t have a heartbeat," a girl's voice said.

Buffy grabbed her chopsticks in a fist and turned to check out the new danger.

It was a young girl, Dawn's age or so, with a strange look in her eyes, staring at Spike.

"Easy with the chopsticks, tiger," Mal said and took them away from Buffy.

"What do you mean, River," came from a slender dark-haired young man that Buffy hadn’t even seen coming in. So much for vigilance. She must actually have nodded off at some point.

"His body is still. Nothing rushes or beats or grows!" The girl was growing agitated and climbed on the kitchen counter, grabbing a wooden spatula.

Now River was a danger. How had she known to go for wood?

The young man whipped out a stethoscope. Was he the doctor?

"That's easily solved," the doctor said. "I'll just listen to his heartbeat. Might as well look at his wound." He looked pointedly at Jayne.

Spike stood up. "Better not. I don't have a heartbeat."

Now everyone grabbed for their weapons, but Mal gestured them to stand down. "So what are you? An alien? What do you use for circulation?"

Spike sat down again. Buffy let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

"I suppose you must meet a lot of aliens here in space," Spike said. "But I used to be human, until I was changed into this."

The doctor was sidling closer to Spike, clearly fascinated by this idea. "Changed how? Virus? Radiation? What happened?"

Spike exchanged a glance with Buffy. "Tell them?"

Buffy grimaced. "Might as well? I mean, they're not our enemies, we're in their spaceship, why not own up to everything?"

"It'll sound insane."

"Who cares, at this point?"

"Go for it, then."

"Have you guys heard of Dracula, the vampire?"

The reaction was mostly shrugs and headshakes. “Vampire nonsense, again?” Mal said.

"Wait, I have," the doctor said. "When we were doing Earth Literature at school. It's a book."

Spike sighed. "He's real. He's a vampire, our enemy. I'm a vampire too, hence the no heartbeat. Buffy here is a vampire slayer."

Zoe huffed. "Well. You are consistent in your madness."

"We're looking for our comrade Angel."

"Angel. Like Spike, huh? Another vampire?" Mal said with heavy irony.

"Yes."

"Don't vampires drink blood? Human blood? And sleep in coffins?" the doctor said. "At least that's what the book said..." He trailed off at Mal's look.

Mal shoved his plate away and yawned elaborately. "Bored with the repetition of so much nonsense. We'll set you down tomorrow on Hangzhou moon. I'm off-shift now, I suggest you two idiots find a place to sleep as well. Inara's away, take her bunk."

Mal took off, still yawning. Zoe and the blond man started clearing the table. The girl Kaylee went over to them. "I don't think Inara would appreciate strangers sleeping in her bed. You can have mine, and I'll sleep at Inara's. C’mon, let me show you where."

She did. Buffy looked around the tiny room. Oil-stained clothes were strewn everywhere. Not that she cared. The idea of finally getting some sleep was overwhelmingly attractive.

"I'll be in this chair," Spike said, tossing a heap of clothes onto another heap. "I'll go take another recce round the hold later."

Buffy looked at Kayle's bed. Sleep. Delicious sleep. "Do you believe we're in the future? In a spaceship?"

Spike rapped his knuckles against the wall. "It seems likely. What other explanation could there be?"

"I don't know. Dracula devilry?"

"Yeah, possible. I wish we had some kind of magical protection, like the tablets we had in the monastery."

Buffy gently moved her aching back. "Not that much protection."

"Let me see your back then. There was a doctor on board, you know?"

Buffy yawned. "Maybe tomorrow. For now I just want to sleep." She tossed off boots and not so fragrant socks, her hoodie and fell backwards into the bed. Sleep now." She wiggled to the far side of the bunk and patted the pillow beside her. "You too."

"That's an awfully narrow bed, though. Is it wise?"

"Spike, we slept in one bed for weeks. We can do it. You need your strength. I might need your strength. Hop in."

"It was days." Spike still hesitated.

"In, now! I'm so tired.”

Spike made a tiny move.

"Yeah, not with the boots. Or the coat. Or the belt. Off, off, off."

Spike inclined his head and took the offensive objects off. He lay down, very deliberately keeping distance between his body and Buffy's.

"Good night," she mumbled.

Spike didn’t answer. He must already be asleep.

10.12

 “So this is where they went?” Giles said. He looked around the innocuous tarmac of the Tate Modern entrance. A lorry rumbled past on its way around to the back, cars honked out on the street, pedestrians flocked across the zebra crossing as the light changed, everything seemed quite normal. He certainly didn’t see a rain-lashed medieval castle.

“Yep, yep.” Lucille and Aisha nodded vigorously in tandem.

“And it was a castle.”

But of course the girls knew a castle when they spotted one on patrol, just as they’d know a stray dinosaur roaming the streets. Or a leshy or giant. During the leshy outbreak of last January, the two of them had done signal service, though it had all happened out in the fenlands. With most of the London Slayers dead at the Well, Lucille and Aisha had come down to the city to fill in. They were new to London, but not prone to wild exaggeration.

He really needed to be back helping direct the movers. If any of those books got damaged …

No. Concentrate, Giles. Buffy and Spike had followed Angel into a mysterious castle in Southwark, and vanished. It all sounded rather like a Doctor Who episode.

“It was a Howl’s Castle,” Aisha insisted. “It moved.”

“Could be a TARDIS,” Lucille said.

“Rather my own desire,” Giles conceded. “But I think I know what it really was.”

He’d tried to ring Buffy, but in vain. Never mind, if anyone could take care of herself in what was probably Dracula’s castle - a circumstance that Giles himself was unfortunately familiar with - it would be her. And she had Spike with her, if that meant anything.

“I want it to be a TARDIS. In disguise? Camouflage. Nothing else it could be.”

“No no no no, it’s a moving castle, don’t be crazy, Lucille.”

“You two have spent much too much time with Andrew of late. Why is it easier for you to believe in aliens than in Dracula?”

“Not aliens!” Aisha said, wide-eyed. “Magicians, that is more likely than aliens, magicians is most likely.”

“Anyway everyone knows Dracula’s a myth!”

“You certainly never heard that from Buffy.” He really had no idea what a Howl’s Castle was, and he didn’t want to ask. “Very well, the two of you stay here in case the … disappearing castle … reappears.” How he hated himself for having spoken that sentence. “I’ll have Andrew stay with you for backup.”

At this point Andrew popped out of the Tate entrance, saying, “No signs of anything being stolen, and the curators don’t report any suspicious lurking silver men.”

Yes, it was definitely Andrew’s influence that had the girls leaping to conclusions about aliens. “Just keep an eye on the site,” Giles ordered, “and if - or when, I’m guessing - the castle reappears, call me. Don’t go in. Andrew, you are definitely not allowed to go in, I don’t want you Renfielded. Understood?”

Andrew stuck out his lower lip, but nodded.

Giles set out toward Blackfriars. It wasn’t a long walk to Carey Street, and he felt more fresh air would do him good.

He’d already tried calling both Angel and Spike as well as Buffy, several times, but none of them were answering their phones. Hm. He vaguely remembered Spike having a history with Dracula. He’d said so. They must have met in the eighteen-hundreds or early nineteen-hundreds, though Lydia had never documented any such thing.

He decided he was perturbed about all this, but not alarmed. True, it had been several hours, but Dracula wasn’t a serious opponent. Buffy could handle him. She had before.

At 51 Carey Street he found the predictable chaos. The moving van had delivered the books and other valuables already, but of course his fellow Watchers were now engaged in a spirited debate over shelving. Here at what had been the Watcher headquarters of old, of course there was already a formidable occult library, and properly shelving the additional collection he and Andrew had gathered would probably take weeks. Maybe months. Still, these quarters were infinitely better than the Leytonstone address. They had an entire building to themselves here, not to mention the underground passage to the Hunterian Museum, which had been unofficially run by the Watchers for over a century; it was so useful to have access to the equipment there, both medical and otherwise.

“Giles!” McAllister shouted the instant he stepped inside. “Tell them they’re not to put any unchecked boxes in with the Crowley Collection!”

Certainly not. Good lord, there might be an explosion.

“I like this building,” Illyria said, three inches from his left ear.

“Don’t do that!” How did she keep doing that? Never mind, he didn’t want to learn that she could become invisible now. “And don’t destroy anything. Or touch it. Or eat anything, even if it looks edible.” He had better never take her into the Hunterian. There was that back room with the mummies and the mermaids in alcohol …

His phone rang. Buffy at last? But no, it was an unknown number. So probably not. Which was a firm maybe. He crossed his fingers, and answered.

“G-Giles?” said a familiar voice.

His heart stopped.

It couldn’t be.

Willow’s voice.

He stood there clutching the phone to his ear, Illyria next to him glaring with sudden suspicion, and tears prickled in his eyes; he dug after his handkerchief, he needed to blow his nose. How unromantic the most beautiful moments in life were, really. It was definitely Willow’s voice - definitely the girl herself, now saying, “Hope that’s you on the other end, you’re quiet as a zombie, Giles, sure hope you’re not a zombie …” - though, how? How was she alive? But he didn’t care, not while she prattled on in her unique way, absolutely Willow, there was no mistaking her: “Walked in circles for like fifty years, then when I finally got out of the Well my car’d been towed, did you do that Giles? Anyway here I am, except here’s not here, obviously, here’s empty with nothing to see but a To Let sign, you’ve obviously moved house, so where is here now? Could be anywhere! Where are you?”

“We’ve moved back to the old place. Willow, we - I - we all thought you were dead! What happened to you?”

“Lost, lost, lost,” said Willow’s voice, mournfully hollow. “Lost for days. Wait, what? You’re back at the Old Boring?”

“I can’t say,” Giles said from his heart, “Willow, I cannot say how welcome your voice is. Come straight here as fast as you can. Are you all right? Were you injured?”

“Let’s just say that if anyone tells you to always take the lefthand turn in a maze, you’d better spit in their eye. Because it’s a snare and a delusion.” A deep sigh came over the phone line. “I’m sooo empty. Gonna grab me some hakka and home in on you like a missile. See ya.” Click.

He lowered the phone and wiped his eyes. Then his glasses.

“Who was that?” Illyria demanded. “Was it the Slayer-king? You have deep feelings for the Slayer-king. If Buffy has made you weep, I will be your defender.”

Buffy. He had to tell Buffy. He needed Buffy on the line immediately.

For the twentieth time, he called Buffy’s number, and almost tore out his hair when no answer came. 

Where was the girl?

ACT IV

10.13

Buffy woke up. It was the middle of the night. The most wonderful feeling glowed in her chest, like the soft pops of soap in a bubble bath, like falling asleep on a sunny afternoon, like waking up on the morning of your birthday.

That must be it. Mom and Dad would want her to wait in bed until they woke her and she pretended to be surprised. She curled her toes in utter delight. She lay with her cheek smushed against her shoulder, and every slow breath stirred the tiny hairs on her upper arm like a summer breeze.

She was warm, she was safe, she was loved. The skin of her cheeks pulled against the fabric of the pillow in a smile.

Slowly Buffy became a little more awake. She remembered she wasn't five anymore, and her parents were dead, and she was not in Sunnydale. It didn't matter. The feeling persisted.

It was happiness.

She was in someone else's bed, in a spaceship, and that large hand cupping her breast was Spike's. They lay spooned together under the blankets, every inch of them as close as they could get. It wouldn't have happened if she'd been awake, she'd have been too conscious of past mistakes, too afraid of using Spike again.

But her body had no such qualms. It knew what it wanted and with her brain asleep, it had gone for it. And the same must be true for Spike. He, too, might have held back when awake. But his sleeping body had known, just like hers, what it needed and had snuggled as close as it could get.

Buffy put her hand over his. It was warm from lying on her breast for hours. It was perfect. The perfect moment. She didn't need any more than this feeling of utter peace and happiness and warmth. She was just going to sleep some more and bask in the stillness.

She closed her eyes.

Spike stirred slightly, his hand squeezing a little bit, his hips shifting against her ass.

Hm. Well.

Actually, she might need a little bit more than just cuddling. She turned around and slipped her leg between Spike's, her hands against his chest.

"Spike," she breathed.

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, but his eyes flickered behind closed eyelids and she figured he was dreaming. She put her hand on his cheeks, her lips against his.

"Spike." She wanted to say something sweet, but what? Sweetheart? Darling? Babe? None of them felt right.

"Spike," she whispered again.

She felt the brush of eyelashes against her cheek and then surprisingly warm lips against her. "Buffy," he breathed.

Those were the only words needing to be said.

Skin slid over skin, hot over warm, hard over soft. Breath like honey, skilful fingertips plucking the strings of her body.

Spike's tongue, his fingers, on all the places only he knew how to touch. Buffy remembering how it felt to hold him in her arms, only everything was different now. Soft, sweet, slow. New. Better.

Setting her heart on fire, not just her body.

She muffled her cries against his neck, not wanting to wake their hosts.

Afterwards she didn't want to let go of him and burrowed against his body as close as she could get.

The feeling she'd woken up with remained golden and glowing. She was warm, she was loved, she was safe.

10.14

“Still nothing?” Giles said to Andrew, on the phone.

He called to mind everything he could remember about that time in Dracula’s castle, years before. It all seemed so dreamlike now. The details were hazy; immediately after, he’d done some cursory research on the ancient Transylvanian vampire, but most of the Watcher sources contradicted each other. In that, Dracula was much like the Immortal, on whose history no two sources agreed.

And though at first he’d been inclined to scoff, Buffy was still missing. She hadn’t strolled out of nowhere dusting Dracula’s ancient ashes off her knuckles. Angel also remained missing, and Spike. Was it a coincidence that they’d just returned to London with mysterious glyphs cut into their backs, and now all three seemed to have been kidnapped? Yesterday he’d felt himself on the verge of solving so many mysteries but today, he was further from answers than ever.

“Keep watching,” he ordered Andrew.

“Aye aye sir, maintaining surveillance, mon capitaine.”

“Just don’t go into the castle if it rematerializes. If you see a trio of beautiful women beckoning you, call for help. And for God’s sake, if you feel like eating any insects, flee the vicinity immediately.”

Giles stowed his phone and told himself he wasn’t allowed to use it as a crutch. Willow was more important now. She’d be here any moment. He looked down the street, across the heads of crowds of preppy students with practice briefcases hurrying back and forth (during his years in California, half the neighbourhood had been bought up by the London School of Economics) and fought the impulse to pace. If he went inside and stationed himself at an upstairs window, he’d be able to see further. No, that was ridiculous. Where was the girl?

Buffy, Willow … girls gone missing. This was his life. A flurry of young Slayers came out of the Carey St doorway behind him and giggled past, talking about late lunch and how sumptuous Watcher HQ was, how they’d never seen anything like it. Giles looked forward to all his fellow Watchers discovering their sacred club premises now belonged to the Slayers, to enjoy as they pleased. Young girls turning the library upside down at will and ordering the older Watchers around as carelessly as they wanted.

“The witch is taking her time,” Illyria observed.

“She said she needed to eat something along the way.”

Giles’ stomach rumbled.

“Her story is suspicious. You know this too, I see it in your face. What happened to her in the Well, that she has vanished for all this time? You must question her carefully.”

He closed his eyes briefly, several rejoinders coming to mind, but in the end he said nothing. 

“You have not yet given me my answer, Rupert Giles.”

“I’m still considering the implications.” Ie, a diplomatic no. One which didn’t result in an Elder God-sized tantrum.

And here came Willow, at last, at last. A belated Willow trudging through the swarms of LSE students. A bedraggled Willow, bearing a tray of take-out coffee, her face brightening as she saw him and made a beeline in his direction. “Giles!”

“Willow. Thank God!”

He could barely believe in her. Willow, alive, truly alive. In a month full of tragedies and mysteries, here she was, the only bright note: Willow, returned.

He was trying to be cool and stoic about it but she put down her take-out tray so hard it almost slopped everywhere and flung herself at him, clutching him and almost wailing. “Giles Giles Giles!”

“My dear girl.” Giles didn’t know when he’d last felt so moved. He hugged her back, almost knocked his glasses off, took them off completely and stowed them in a pocket, and they hugged again. When she finally let go, he put his hands on her shoulders fondly and gave her a little shake. “My dear Willow! You look completely done in.”

She did. She was wearing the same outfit she’d had on when she went into the Deeper Well, and she looked as if she’d dragged them through a hedgerow, everything ripped and torn, deep circles under her eyes. And tear-stains, fresh ones. “Can we sit down somewhere?” she pleaded. “I lost my boots and had to walk forever barefoot. Blisters on top of my blisters. My feet hurt so much!”

Giles ushered her into the Watcher building. The lobby had plenty of comfortable chairs. It was also currently empty, so it offered privacy - well, almost. Willow whispered, “Why’s Illyria here?”

“Never mind,” Giles said, exchanging glances with Illyria. Illyria narrowed her eyes and moved back a few (grudging, he was sure) steps.

“This is for you,” Willow said, pathetically offering him coffee. “Apology Starbucks exactly how you like it. For my sins of tardiness and incommunicado-ness and having lost my phone down the Well-ness. So so so sorry.”

She slumped into a chair, took the other cup from the tray and drank it down in one long draft followed by a sigh.

“We thought you were dead, Willow.”

“I get that. I just didn’t …”

“Your parents held a service for you. Buffy was devastated. Completely devastated. I assume you already called your parents?"

Willow looked guilty. "I don't know what to tell them!" she wailed. "I thought maybe you could..."

Giles put on his glasses and looked over them. This side of Willow, the side that liked to take the easy road, was not his favorite. "Really, Willow. You must do this yourself, you know you must."

"It's just – I thought I'd call you first, at least you'd understand. I'm too tired to wrestle with my mother's ideas about the world. You know my mother...."

Giles did. Not an easy woman to deal with. He relented. "Perhaps Xander can help you with her. Buffy will be so happy that you're back. That you’re not dead. Buffy’s in London now, actually, I’ve been trying to get her on the phone–”

“In London?” Willow looked around as if she foresaw Buffy leaping at her out of every doorway.

“Yes, but she’s out of phone range at the moment, but I expect her back any time. You have no idea how much has happened in your absence.”

“What?”

How to begin? Faith. The other dead Slayers. The rest of it - oh, no, Dana too. So much to say. The mysterious sigils carved in three backs, Buffy, Angel and Spike.

Once he told her, she sat there looking stunned for several moments, then wordlessly held out her hand. Giles handed over his now-lukewarm apology coffee. Willow drank it.

The different expressions warring in her face were hard to parse.

Illyria was lurking in the middle distance now. Giles had noticed her turning back a couple of Watchers from the doorway, with a tact he hadn’t expected of her. Sometimes she seemed to understand far more about humanity than she claimed to. Or perhaps it wasn’t tact, but another kind of emotion particular to Old Ones. Well, right now he needed to keep his focus on Willow.

Willow whispered, “Faith. Dana?”

“And so many others,” Giles said.

She just shook her head.

“You need to tell us exactly what happened to you in the Deeper Well. Every detail, no matter how small. Now, while you still have it fresh in your mind.”

Willow whispered something he couldn’t catch.

“What’s wrong, Willow?”

She came to with a jump, and at once began to babble. “I get it that it’s been days, weeks, but it feels nothing like so long to me. Just hours I guess, or at least a day, but time’s subjective and so yeah, subjective. Okay, I accept it that it’s been a lot longer than a day, but– Dana’s dead? And practically every Slayer in London? Eaten by Cthulhus.”

“By eldritch tentacled monsters to be precise. Giant ones. Much like Faith’s fate.”

“Faith,” Willow said again. She bit her lip. Her hands jerked aimlessly, as if she was about to wring them in her lap, then she went still and just seemed to be waiting for Giles’ next question.

“What are you lying about?” Illyria said, suddenly standing right over her.

Willow flushed magenta. “I’m not lying! Giles, why is she accusing me of lying? I really really did get lost in the Well and I don’t even know where in the Well I got lost, that’s the literal definition of getting lost I guess, but still. Didn’t meet up with any giant monsters, I just … kept going round and round … I’m so tired. Giles, I’m desperately sorry, but I can’t do this right now. I need to go home and sleep for maybe a year. I’ll call you.”

“Willow, dear child–”

Willow stood up jerkily. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked out, leaving Giles at a complete loss.

Her face had been so dejected. Stopping her would have felt like assault.

“She was certainly lying,” Illyria said, head to one side. “You also know this, I see it in your eyes.”

Yes. He had to admit it. Nothing about this made sense. Oh, Willow. What was going on?

And yet … the important thing, the only really important thing, was that she’d come back to them, alive. He told himself that, firmly. He’d get the real story out of her in time, he was confident of it, and if he didn’t, Buffy would. All mysteries would be solved in the end. Take the win, Giles.

“And now you must give me your answer,” Illyria said.

“What?”

Illyria stood in front of him, staring directly in his eyes. She held out her hands.

“Answer now, because you are surrounded by mysteries. I can help you unravel them, there is much that I can tell you, but how can I, when I don’t know whether you’ll be loyal to me? I know so much. I must hold my tongue, though, because loyalty goes both ways. Say you’ll be mine and then I will also be yours, all my power and knowledge at your service. You will be the first of my new kingdom. Soon the first among legion, as I gather my armies. Say it now. Say yes.”

“No,” Giles said.

She looked as if she had a roar gathering inside her, something like an earthquake and world-destroying asteroid impact combined, but it never came out. She swallowed it, and drew back her hands. Her expression of stark enquiry never changed.

“Because of Buffy,” Giles said weakly. No, wait, that wasn’t a weak answer, it was the best possible answer. “Because I’m Buffy’s Watcher. As long as I live, my duty is to her. Ask someone else, Illyria - I’m not the one you want.”

Illyria blinked slowly. “That was the wrong answer.”

She strode out.

Giles sat down and put his head in his hands.

10.15

Spike woke up with his nose in Buffy's neck. It was a good thing he didn't need to breathe, because he wanted to savor the moments before she woke up. Never in his whole long life, not even yesterday, had he expected to be lying in bed with her like this. Relaxed, loving, wanted. There was no danger of him being kicked out or kicked somewhere unpleasant.

He'd hoped, he'd yearned, but finally he'd accepted it would never happen. Turned his back on her. And now, almost too fast for him to comprehend, they'd become buddies and partners and boom, lovers. The most amazing thing that had ever happened to him.

Maybe he wanted her to stay asleep in case this was another bitter deception. Did he? No. He was sure of her. She'd only said one word the whole night, but he knew she loved him. He'd felt it.

He was pretty sure he didn't know how to act around her once she woke up, but presumably he'd get used to it and wouldn’t prance around like an utter prat around his first ever girlfriend. He could play it cool. You know, if she wanted him to.

Buffy sighed and turned around in his arms. The smoothness of her skin would never cease to amaze him.

"Hm. Spike? What time is it? Do we need to get up?"

Time. What was time in a spaceship in the future? As if he had a clue.

Her stomach growled.

"That sounds like it's breakfast time, love. Let's get up and find some for you."

"No, let's stay here, it's so nice, I never want to get out of bed."

Spike could feel a silly grin stretching his cheeks. She was so cute like this.

Someone rapped on the door. "If you want sausages, better hurry!"

That sealed it. Spike climbed out of bed, regretfully. He was as warm as if he'd eaten four virgins. Although he probably shouldn't mention that to Buffy.

"Out of the nice warm bed, into the nice warm kitchen for breakfast."

He put on his T-shirt, wincing as the still-open wounds on his back pulled.

"Buff? How's your back?"

"Achy. Throbby." A tiny smile. “I’d forgotten.”

"We'll ask that doctor if he's got some magic future ointment.”

They ate breakfast with the sleepy crew. The lack of small talk, not to mention interrogation, suited Spike just fine. Last night's memory was so vivid and Technicolor, not to mention the sound effects, the scents and the tactile sensations, and yet so dreamlike, that he couldn't help but relive them the one moment and the next steal glances at Buffy, to see if she was still there.

Every now and then her hand snuck to his leg and squeezed him. It was real. It had happened. He knew he should be thinking about their situation and how to get out of it, but he couldn't focus on anything but Buffy. Her heartbeat, her breathing, the warm scent of her skin.

How had it happened? What had changed? He hadn't been wooing her or trying it on. Just fighting together and being there. Had that been enough? Was that what she really wanted?

He rubbed his brows to get himself together, but the movement of his arms chafed the tender wounds on his back. He must have winced, because the doctor was looking at him.

"You all right?" the doctor said. Spike couldn't remember his name.

"Not too bad, thanks," he answered. He never wanted a doctor to get his hands on him, certainly not one with all kinds of future equipment. "But maybe you can have a look at Buffy's back? It's not healing too well."

"Let's go to my examination room," the doctor said.

The girl River trooped after them as well.

Spike grimaced as he saw Buffy's back. It hadn't healed near as much as a Slayer’s ought to, and the wild slashes looked inflamed at the edges. Last night he'd refrained from touching her back, and she from touching his.

"What happened to you?" the doctor said. "When did this happen?"

"Was it yesterday?"

"Two days ago," Spike said.

The doctor tutted. "This isn't even scabbed over. Still some seeping."

"Maybe the ink blade was poisoned," Buffy said. Her nose wrinkled. She'd remembered it was Connor, but there was no Angel here whose feelings could be hurt. Angel, who they'd been looking for and hadn't found. Shit. This was not like them, to half forget a comrade.

River stood behind Buffy and stared at the sigil on her back. Her eyes looked far away into something beyond Buffy. "It's not complete. Can’t read it unless I see the whole design. Is there more?"

Spike turned to her. "What? Can you read it? What does it mean?"

"It's not complete," River said in her singsong voice. "Where is the rest?"

Spike painfully shrugged off his ripped duster and lifted his T-shirt up. "Here's another one."

River came to stand so close to him that her warm breath tickled his skin. "It's not complete, where is the rest?"

"If you have a piece of paper and a pen, I can draw the third one."

Spike sketched Angel's sigil from memory. River snatched it out of his hands and held it up next to Buffy's naked back.

"Stand beside her," she commanded.

Spike did, bemused but willing to humor her. It might yield something useful.

"Ah!" River said. "Now I see it. Intertwined. Can’t be read unless you see all three. Three warnings. Beware the Dragon, Moon Reversed, Return Home ..."

"What’s that mean?" Spike said. 

The doctor meanwhile circled around him and patted ointment onto his back. He’d already done Buffy. "I never know what River means," he said.

"Pfft," River said. "He would if he listened. You will if you listen too. I’m not your enemy, I’m trying to help. Find your enemy!"

"If you’re talking about Lupazzi, isn't that just what we've been trying to do?" Spike said.

"Not so fast," River said. "These things are like garments; you've got to try them on and see if they fit. Maybe: to reverse the ascension of the dragon, turn back time. Or go back in time."

"We did go back in time and watch the Immortal's origins," Buffy said.

"At least now we know what the sigils mean,” Spike pointed out. If she was right. Though how the hell would a girl from the future be able to interpret sigils of ancient writing?

The doctor and River wavered before his eyes. What was that? Was the spaceship doing something?

Spike milled his arms to keep his balance and moved towards Buffy, who'd only just put her blouse back on. "Buffy!"

He stumbled and fell against the big table in Dracula's hall. What the hell? Where had the spaceship gone, the doctor, River?

"Buffy?"

"Right behind you," she said.

Dracula solidified behind the table, standing on the coffin against the wall. The one he'd been sitting on earlier, the one that smelled of Angel.

"Well, that was enlightening. Now I know what message the Aurelian Library sent you. You too also know its meaning, in token of our alliance, Slayer. And I have to say, I also appreciated the side show." He nodded towards the table. "I do believe those scratches are from your nails, Buffy."

Spike was too angry to move. He felt as if he’d turned to ice. Dracula had been there? Meaning, everything had been an illusion? For what purpose?

Buffy growled deep in her throat, as if she were the vampire and not Spike. "What are you saying? How could you have been there?"

"My dear Buffy, there was no there. Did you not know I am the master of illusion? If I can make myself disappear, it is not hard to make other things appear. Like a spaceship out of a rather charming television show, one I unexpectedly enjoyed. And a private little bunk. I must admit that was unexpected. But well, vampires and Slayers, you know what I mean…”

Spike sprang, game face down and claws out. His boots and claws hit nothing. Of course.

Bugger. The captain had taken their stakes and knives. No, Dracula had, pretending to be a spaceship captain. It boggled the mind.

Dracula appeared near the door. Was there even a door, was everything here an illusion?

Spike ran towards the coffin and kicked it. "Angel!"

No answer.

"Soon enough you’ll weary of simple William here and come to know what I can offer you, Buffy,” Dracula said suavely. “We will appreciate each other. Today you’ve helped me; in return I have shown you a little bit of the Immortal's beginnings. It is a tale that was told to me by Aurelia herself. Preserved by the line of her sires, which goes back beyond history. I shall give you one more thing. Find out who was Aurelia and much shall become–"

The outer wall and castle gate turned transparent, showing the Thames River at dusk. Through them strode Illyria.

She grabbed Dracula by the ears and tore him in two like a piece of cloth. She then stepped through him like a door, and he disappeared. A rain of dust trickled down around Illyria's enormous spike-heeled boots.

Around them, the castle shimmered and dissolved. They were standing just inside the entrance of the Tate Modern, surrounded by startled bystanders. "Slayer King," Illyria said, striding towards Buffy as she spoke. "I will have your Qua’ha-zhan. Yield him to me."

"Buffy, is Dracula dead," Spike said urgently, as he and Buffy danced back from Illyria. "Really dead?"

"I think so,' Buffy said. "I could always still feel him hanging around just around the corner of my sight, you know? What's a Quaqua? I never had a ducky."

Illyria swung at Buffy, but she had still room to retreat, so she did.

"It's like a high priest and chief librarian," Spike said. "I think she means Giles."

"What the what? She can't have Giles! He's my Watcher!"

Illyria's fist sped towards Spike's face, faster than empires and more solid.

10.16

Angel turned restlessly in his sunken prison.

How long had he been at the bottom of the sea? Angel figured it had been years, by now. Sometimes awake, at other times unmoored from himself, floating in memories that became more ragged over time. Just fragments of lost yesterdays now, flapping in the wind like a tattered shirt.

But something had changed. He felt it. Off beyond his coffin’s walls, there were shouts and crashes, and the coffin itself felt different. Wood, not iron; it thumped instead of booming, and was that satin lining against his palms? But it had to be just a dream. More hallucinations. He knew where he was, sunk under the ocean, sealed away until the iron rusted decades hence, nobody to come to his rescue.

His arms fell, limp. Angel sighed and shut his eyes.

10.17

Buffy watched Spike drop. He didn’t dive or dodge, just let himself go boneless and dropped under Illyria’s punch. Then came up in game-face and kicked her hard. It should have sent her flying but Illyria merely swivelled and swatted him casually aside. She didn’t bother looking at him. Buffy realized with a sinking heart Illyria's attention was on her the whole time.  Goddess battle time? That never went well. Not unless she had her troll hammer back it didn’t.

Here came Illyria’s fist at her now.

Buffy twisted and the fist skidded along her cheekbone. Dizzy stars spun as the world went all-hurty for an instant, but actually she’d had worse, plenty of times too. Hm, how fast was the goddess? She’d watched Illyria spar with Spike but that had clearly just been playtime. This felt serious. “Let’s talk?” she tried.

Illyria showed her teeth.

Right. Mucho serious with a side of murderousness. No way to tell what had caused the change since Illyria didn’t seem inclined to exposition. Buffy got her fighting balance under her, and started to back away. And maybe it was a good thing none of them were carrying major armament, since if she did happen to have her troll hammer - or her axe! - chances were Illyria would want to take it away from her and then start swinging at all the historic landmarks.

She grabbed Spike by the hand and ran for the doors.

Looked like it was just after sunset. This was absolutely the worst time and place for a slamdown. Here on the riverside, on the esplanade, that footbridge right ahead and all London spread around them, with a clear view to that big old cathedral. St. George’s or whatever, St. Paul’s. St. Paul’s for sure, she was sure she’d got that right, point to Buffy for that, but still a lot of people out enjoying the evening, which was point against. All these relaxed happy people. Unaware, at ground zero. With volcano Illyria about to go Pompeii on them.

Behind them the entire north face of the Tate shattered, all that massive slab of architecture giving way and cascading down like a mountainside, as Illyria strode straight through the building, unslowed.

Broken glass glittered, falling like stars. All the happy relaxed innocent bystanders started screaming and running instead - good thing, very good thing, at least that much was going Buffy’s way. However Illyria was definitely serious, in fact though she wasn’t bothering to hurry, her expression was still murder-on-a-face. Buffy started to feel pretty serious herself.

Now a running fight in the heart of London under a super view of St. Paul’s didn’t seem like the best idea, but the Thames itself, that looked promising. People to the left and people to the right but of course not out there on the river. A couple of boats, but at a decent distance. Way off to the left, that big bridge, Blackfriars or whatever, if this was Sunnydale or even Rome then Buffy would know all the street names so much better but whatever, Buffy was going to knock Illyria right into the middle of the Thames and see if Old Ones could breathe underwater.

She kicked a lamp pole, bent it in two, snapped it off and got a good grip and then Illyria hit her with one of the Tate doors.

Buffy went down. Ow. By the time she got herself back on her feet, pains shooting across one shoulder and down her back, Spike was fighting Illyria almost right on top of her. They weren’t an even match, Illyria still had the damn door and was going all baseball bat with it, swinging hard and vengeful, turning it and jabbing with the edge, basically going to town. It slowed her down though. Spike was taking advantage, wasn’t letting her hit him. He rolled under Illyria’s roundhouse swings, once leaped straight up and over a swing with his coat flapping like wings. He seemed to be talking the whole time but Buffy couldn’t catch any of it, it was all directed at Illyria.

Buffy panted. Her back felt on fire. This early in what seemed likely to be a major battle, not good boding-wise. Spike seemed to be maneuvering Illyria around. Once he got her where he wanted her, he waited until she finished a big swing with the door. It was flat-face between them, Illyria holding it like a shield. Illyria was probably about to run at him with it, battering-ram style. Spike hit her instead boots-first in the dor with what looked like everything he had.

The caroom of water as Illyria went into the river made Buffy want to cheer.

Spike beckoned her. It wouldn’t be long before Illyria came back up swinging, Buffy guessed unhappily. “Run?” she suggested.

“Which way?”

All the ways were bad ways, leading to major property damage and loss of life. They couldn’t fight here. Hiding seemed a better option. Hide until the god-king got over her snit and stopped wanting to kill them. With luck Illyria was pinned under the weighty door at the bottom of the Thames but Buffy wasn’t betting anything on it.

Right then a thin streak of blue shot upward out of the river, another waterspout going up in its wake, and Illyria landed on the far bank. The whole river was between them. Illyria shook herself, rolled her shoulders, faced them across the width of the Thames. Cars were piling up on the street behind her, crashing into each other, horns blaring, people fleeing. A cop car swerved around a corner with all its lights flashing red and blue, sirens wailing, and Illyria casually picked up a Honda by its hood and swatted the police car into the river. Then hurled the Honda at a pretty building, taking out the entire second floor.

Buffy was by then halfway across the footbridge, Spike running right behind. “Lead her away!” she shouted at Spike. “It’s me she wants!”

Illyria had spotted them. She disregarded the cars and turned their way. Good. Buffy put her head down and concentrated on speed. With Spike at her side, she swerved and took off in the direction of Watcher HQ. That was ground she knew, where she could find hiding places. Also find lots of fellow Slayers in case hiding didn’t pan out. Sprint Buffy sprint!

Sirens and tumult from across the Thames, more sirens and tumult on this side. And Illyria in pursuit, bam bam bam.

Buffy and Spike ran.

Illyria caught up among the big ol’ courthouse buildings. Buffy knew them because she always mistook them for Windsor Castle and Giles always laughed at her about it. A mighty crash shook the street ahead and Buffy was almost hurled off her feet. Spike held her up. And there Illyria was, a blue fashion disaster amidst Godzilla-style rubble, concrete and masonry dust filling the air. Big blue eyes staring accusingly straight at Buffy. She’d stomped straight through a building again like a kaiju and cut them off.

Buffy moved sideways, knowing Spike would be doing the same in the opposite direction, opening up space between them. Damn, Buffy’s back throbbed. It had been hurting bad for a while now but she hadn’t had time to notice. The wounds from the Library were opening up again.

“We almost lost her,” she muttered.

“Close but no cigar,” Spike agreed very low from off to her right, and yes, he had moved to exactly where she’d thought he should. He raised his voice. “Hey Blue. I get that you’re hot for a Wes replacement but we’re on the same side, remember?”

“We are not,” Illyria stated. “I am on my own side, no one else’s.”

“Yeah, well, Rupe’s not on your side,” Spike said. “He’s on ours.”

“You have missed my point. Your side will be vanquished in the war to come. I intend to salvage what I can before the destruction begins.” 

Spike went at her at that point, straight for her throat, but Illyria moved at the same time and it wasn’t with any stately regal stride either. Blue streak met black vamp streak and then Buffy reached them and threw her steel pole at Illyria’s chest.

The pole went straight through the center of Illyria’s chest, right through that fashion-disaster armor. Really. Those clothes. Day in day out always the same, gross, and also, overdressed much? It was a night club look, not an evening by the river look. So what not to wear.

Focus Buffy!

Illyria staggered. Her boobs heaved. Blue ichor spurted.

Then she said, “You are all so small.”

She gripped the steel pole and yanked it out. The wound sealed over instantly and Illyria blurred back into action, swinging the pole, hitting Spike. Spike flew backwards and cratered a wall. With his back. He made a harsh noise as his spine hit masonry, cracks spread behind him, and Buffy oofed in sympathy even while she was sprinting toward Illyria.

The pole came flying at her and she dived under it, catching it in passing. She spun it and thrust. Illyria had already leaped aside, landing next to Spike. Now she held Spike tight against her, one blue arm across his throat.

Spike hung in her grasp, pawing at nothing. His feet bobbled unsteadily across the rubble.

“Let go of him!”

Illyria shook him, casually, then slung Spike away like a rag doll. He went into the same wall again and this time Spike and the entire building both went down pulverized with a boom. Three storeys of historic masonry and a turret. Oh, Spike. Poor Spike. Illyria barely looked that way, showing no concern. Buffy rushed toward Spike.

She wanted to stand over him and fight to the end but all there was, was a pile of stone ten feet high. No sign of him fighting his way out from underneath. “Spike!” Buffy clawed at masonry blocks.

“Come, Slayer. Let us end this properly, you and I.”

“Illyria!” That was Giles’ voice.

He was coming toward them from somewhere, other Watchers with him, some gripping weapons. They appeared through the haze of historic-London-landmark dust, and there were Slayers with them too. Lots and lots. Giles held his hands outspread in a peace gesture though. “Illyria,” he said again.

Illyria glanced toward him, but her expression was pretty hostile.

She said, “My Giles. You brought this upon your daughter. I was always the more worthy choice, my Giles.”

All Buffy wanted was to dig Spike out, but she couldn’t risk that now. She stared at Illyria and Illyria stared back.

Then flicked another glance at Giles. It happened so quickly, Buffy wouldn’t even have spotted it if she hadn’t been watching with eagle eyes. Definitely during actual battle action she would have missed it. That was a flicker of emotion on Illyria’s usually impassive face too.

Illyria shifted her weight slightly, inclining toward Giles.

Giles’ crew of Watchers and Slayers looked ready to attack but Illyria ignored them totally.

Giles said, “Stop this, Illyria. We’re not your enemies.”

“If you are not with me,” Illyria said grimly, “it means you are against me.”

“If I’m not with you, it doesn’t mean a thing,” Buffy said, “not one little thing, all it means is I. Don’t. Care. About your beef.” She was getting seriously mad now, boiling mad actually, because what she needed to do was dig for Spike and Illyria was in the way of that. “Also means if you keep picking a fight with me, then you’re making me into your enemy, so there. Logic.”

“If I feared you, that threat would carry more weight.”

Yeah, well, Illyria had her there, Buffy thought as she took in the Godzilla-rampage scale of wreckage surrounding them.

Illyria had a little smile now, like she knew exactly what Buffy was thinking, and yes she probably did know. “No city worth its history should be without a few ruins.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Buffy straightened. “So come over here and help me dig Spike out.”

“What?” Illyria tilted her head in surprise.

“You heard me. Enough with this. Come help rescue Spike, you buried him, you help un-bury him, got that?” Buffy had a nice big ol’ block of wall in her hold. All this time she’d been gently rocking it loose from the monumental pile of wreckage. If nothing better worked, she could throw stones at Illyria. Throw rocks till the cows came home, yeah, that was it. Till the cows came home or maybe Spike emerged, whichever. She wanted to giggle, but the joke wasn’t funny, not really. She wanted to cry.

She was gonna go with her inner cavewoman and throw rocks until the big dinosaur opposite was vanquished.

“I am your future!” Illyria picked up a bigger block and slung it.

Fast as that. Buffy was smashed backward right in the middle of winding up for her throw, Illyria’s block hitting her like an explosion. Wind blasted around her, she hurled through the air, and then she hit something and the world blotted out in pain.

When she got her wits back she was lying flat and hurting everywhere, and Illyria’s spike heel boot came down on her throat.

The god-king stood over her, about twelve feet tall, looking down and shaking her head, not gloating over her victory but just matter-of-fact. Like Buffy had never had a chance, even. Illyria said, “Alas, that it came to this. But if it consoles you, I regret your death.”

Buffy got both hands around Illyria’s ankle and wrestled mightily with it but it didn’t move even a smidgeon, and she knew this was the end, she was done. 

“Illyria!” Giles said from somewhere close. “Stop! Stop!” Then: “I’ll be your Qua’ha-zahn!”

“It is too late,” Illyria said. “If it requires death-threats to your beloved daughter to bring you to my side, what’s the point? So I fail.” Her shoulders slumped and suddenly she looked tired and old, even while looming over Buffy, also through a lot of Buffy-pain not to mention Buffy-choking and strangulation. “I could not achieve the loyalty even of one man. I am not worthy of you.”

“Illyria.”

“What?”

Giles approached, cautiously. When he was close enough he crouched and put a hand on Illyria’s boot atop Buffy’s throat.

Illyria was trembling. Buffy could feel it. The god-king’s foot on her throat didn’t relent, though. Illyria looked at Giles with a proud and haughty expression, like someone waiting to be hurt again. Even through her agony, Buffy could see how smart Giles was, putting himself lower than Illyria, like a supplicant. Suggesting Illyria had the power.

"Illyria," Giles said. "I am your Qua’ha-zahn. Accept me."

Illyria hesitated, but nodded. “We will do great things together.”

She took her foot off, and Buffy rolled over and clutched her throat and maybe gurgled a bit, but mostly she was thinking about Spike.

“Dig him out,” Giles ordered Illyria, pointing at the pile of rubble. After a second Illyria started moving rocks. Oh, good. If she was gonna be on their side, they’d have Spike out in a jiffy. Buffy made it woozily to her feet and joined in. Also she thought she could hear a faint Spiky-groan coming from under the wreckage.

“Did we find Angel yet?” she whispered at Giles.

“No,” Giles whispered back. Weirdly, he looked really happy. “But you’ll never believe who else turned up.”

10.18

Angel shoved at his coffin lid. Just for the hell of it, not expecting a result. There must be hundreds of thousands of tons of seawater pressing down on that lid.

The lid popped open easily. He saw starlight and the jagged edges of a wrecked roof and drifting clouds of brick dust. It was a warm evening somewhere, somewhere? Didn’t smell like any Californian dockside. He heard shouting, sirens, boots running on asphalt. Nobody near him, though.

"This one's alive!" someone shouted, some distance off. “Get paramedics!”

Angel sat up warily but nobody was looking his way. As if he was invisible. Unimportant.

He turned a full circle to get his bearings. Nearest to him, some giant lumpen building that looked a bit like a museum and a bit like a power station. Hard to recognize right now though since it was broken open like an eggshell. Major damage everywhere, British bobbies, ambulances, people rushing around. Ahead, a slender white bridge over a river, and there…aha! The bulge of St. Pauls' cathedral. London.

Things fell into place. Dracula. He'd pursued Dracula into his castle that had been…. right about here. And then he'd been imprisoned in this coffin for years, and now he was out. Had nobody bothered to look for him? Had nobody missed him?

That hurt. A lot, actually. Not even Connor? Had Buffy actually forgotten about him? Things had been a little strained since their brief relationship, but this was just brutal.

Well. If nobody cared about him, he wasn't going to care about anybody. He could be perfectly happy alone.

Angel threw a last look at the coffin, and walked off.