Chapter 1
They caught me in Spain during the war.
Was a bit drunk at the time, so all I remember is meeting this bloke in a bar who invited me to, uh... a party, and the next thing I know, I'm in a cage somewhere in sodding Germany with white coats and swastikas as far as the eye can see. Wasn't the only one they caught - the place was like a demon all-sorts. Lots of vamps, a couple of fyarls and polgaras, even a few bigger demons. Humans too. Never saw them myself, but I could hear them sometimes. Crying. Begging. Praying.
The scientists kept us weak, don't know how exactly. There was always enough to eat, always enough fresh blood except when they were doing some "Let's see how long you can starve a vamp before it dusts" experiment, so it wasn't like they kept us in hunger.
And it was always human blood. Didn't much think or care about it back then, but... yeah.
Anyway, the thing is, they were stupid, the scientists were. After they stopped with the prodding and poking, it didn't take me long to find out what they wanted of us.
It was all about the blood. They thought they could control us, thought that if they kept us weak, they could make us into their little bloodhounds who'd smell out the traitors in their super buddies club. Stupid gits. Didn't realise I don't need fangs to kill, can just as well do it with my brain. You don't need to be a demon to be a monster.
So I smiled, and talked, and knew my Nietzsche. Bowed and heiled like a good little nazi. After a while they'd start tossing me a fag or two whenever they passed by, gave me a bit more blood than the other vamps, let me hang around unchained when the other beasties were locked up. 'Cause we were all mates, see, all part of the same happy superman family.
Then one day I turned to one of the soldier boys and said to him, monster to monster: "You know, your mate there smells a bit funny".
S'Like Yoko and the Beatles, divide and conquer. Had half of the guards in front of the firing squad by the end of the week.
In the end I nicked one of those suicide pills they were carrying around those days and dropped it in the coffee pot. Grabbed a coat and boots off one of the stiffs and walked out. Kicked over a can of petrol and set the whole fucking place on fire.
"I'm glad you're here, Giles," Crowley said as soon as he opened the door. "I've been asking the Council to send someone here for weeks now, but they keep ignoring me."
Crowley was not a particularly large man; shorter than Giles and a bit round at the waist, but by no means fat. He had salt and pepper hair and was either young-looking for a man in his sixties or prematurely aged for a man in his forties, Giles really couldn't tell. He was dressed in a frayed tweed jacket and kept nervously twiddling with his wire-rim glasses as he ushered Giles to the living room. Giles followed, taking in the shoddy apartment, decorated entirely in dull brown with books and weapons covering every available surface. The place smelled like mildew and cough drops and Giles prayed he'd never end up like Crowley.
The watcher moved a battle axe and a pile of dusty volumes from a dull brown chair to a equally dull brown table and gestured to Giles to sit down before clearing a seat for himself as well.
They had hardly settled down when a little boy - the Slayer's son, Giles realised - ran into the room carrying a colouring book and a box of crayons and, after giving Giles a curious look, climbed into Crowley's lap.
"Say hello to Mr. Giles, Robin," Crowley said to the boy with a smile, "He's come all the way from England to help your mother."
Robin gave Giles another curious look and then muttered a quiet "Hello". Giles wasn't certain if he was expected to reply or not. He ignored the boy's stare and turned to Crowley.
"You said on the phone that you had problems. What kind, exactly?"
"Vampire problems," Crowley said, and in his lap Robin made a stabbing motion with a red crayon before returning to his colouring. "For the last three weeks Nikki has been followed by a vampire. At first I didn't think much of it, assumed it was simply some random vampire looking to better his position in the demon world through taking on a Slayer, but I did some research nevertheless, just in case." Crowley paused for second before continuing, absentmindedly stroking Robin's hair. "The description Nikki gave me of the vampire fits the description the Council records have of William the Bloody."
The watcher said the name as if was something Giles should immediately recognise, but despite his familiarity with occult texts, Giles had never much bothered with vampire lineage, knowing that after "that unfortunate affair in London", as his father insisted on calling it, he would never be assigned a Slayer of his own.
Crowley noticed Giles' confusion and gave him the same fatherly smile he'd given to Robin.
"One of Angelus' line," he clarified, "Sired by Drusilla and though his deeds are not quite as notorious as those of his grandsire, there is one thing that makes him worth of note - he is one of the very few vampires to have managed to kill a slayer."
"And you think he might be after Nikki now?"
"I'm not sure. I checked with the Council and the last verified sighting of William the Bloody is from the fourties in Spain. As far as we know, he was dusted during the war. Also..."
Crowley fell suddenly quiet, absentmindedly turning his glasses around in his hands for a second before taking the crayon from Robin's hand.
"Mr. Giles looks a little thirsty, Robin. Be a good boy and fetch him a soda. Take one for yourself as well."
Robin nodded and dropped on the floor. Crowley waited until the boy had disappeared into the kitchen before turning to Giles again.
"Because if it were William the Bloody, Nikki would already be dead."
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
"The first night Nikki saw the vampire, she naturally tied to kill it and very nearly succeeded. It was only the distraction from a police officer who saw the fight which allowed the vampire to escape. After that the vampire has not approached Nikki, has not made any contact except by following her on her patrols. Nikki insists that it is nothing, but as it has been going on for several weeks, I am starting to worry. Why would the vampire not try to attack her? Why is it acting so strangely? And I'm starting to wonder if it's-"
"A trap? A bait or a distraction of some sort?"
"Yes," Crowley replied. "If the vampire truly is William the Bloody, then it must be after something more than just killing Nikki, maybe taking her captive for some reason or another. Or perhaps we are only meant to think that we are dealing with William the Bloody and someone else altogether is behind all this. Someone like the Scourge of Europe himself."
Crowley gave a short humourless laugh when he saw the stunned look on Giles' face.
"Oh, the Council still insists that Angelus has been dead for more than half a century, but I have my sources, and according to them, Angelus is not only very much alive, but has also been seen in New York quite recently."
He sighed.
"So we now have not one, but two dead Aurelian vampires roaming around New York and at least one of them has his eye on my Slayer. You understand why I might be more than slightly worried."
Robin returned from the kitchen with the drinks and as Crowley turned to thank the boy, all the tiredness and despair seemed to suddenly disappear from his eyes. He helped Robin climb back into the chair to continue with his colouring before addressing Giles again.
"Nikki should be back from patrol soon. When she returns, we can put our heads together and start planning on how to handle this thing. You have a place to stay, Giles?"
Giles nodded, wondering if manic depression was a career requirement for watchers.
"Splendid!" Crowley announced with far too much enthusiasm. "I'll make some tea for us while we wait for Nikki."
Crowley stood up and headed towards the kitchen but stopped as he passed Giles, laying a hand on the younger man's shoulder.
"Oh, and Giles," he said with a somber tone, "I know what they say of you in the Council. That you've been playing with dark magicks and killed a man. I'm guessing that's why they sent you to me, actually, considering that I've had my own quarrels with them. But the fact of the matter is that we all have our sins to carry and as long as you're here to help Nikki, I don't really care what you did and who you used to be."
Chapter 2
The vampire was waiting for them where Nikki had said he would be, by a church that she passed every night on her way to patrol. He was easy to spot; perched on top of the tall gatepost like a living gargoyle, his pale skin and white hair almost glowing in the light of the moon.
He was watching the church, almost as if guarding it, but when Nikki and Giles reached the gate he turned his face towards them, tilted his head and smiled to acknowledge their presense. The smile was nothing but teeth, and made cold shivers run down Giles' spine.
Nikki gave Giles a questioning look but he gestured her to continue and took his spot in front of the church. Far enough so that the vampire could not reach him with one leap yet close enough to be able to study the creature better. He'd never been this close to a vampire - other demons, yes, but not vampires - and found the human face of the creature disconcernting; far too reminiscent of Randall still looking like himself when the summoning spell had already gone horribly wrong.
The vampire ignored Giles, his eyes following Nikki as she walked down the street and it was only after she had disappeared around the corner that he looked down at Giles.
"They sent you here to kill me?" the vampire asked with a hint of a smile, standing up to his full length, his long black coat falling around him like leathery wings. "Though shouldn't that be the girl's job, her being the vampire slayer and all."
Giles said nothing, only wrapped his fingers tighter around the stake he was holding, his other hand slipping to his pocket to find the bottle of holy water.
The vampire was looking at Giles intently, his fingers drumming against his thigh, clearly expecting some kind of a reply. He waited for a few more minutes for Giles to acknowledge him before growing bored and starting to pace the length of the stone wall.
"It's right sexist, you know, not letting blokes be slayers" he said conversationally, and then stopped his pacing long enough to flash Giles a wolfish grin. "I bet it was some dirty old man who came up with the whole thing. Just wanted to get his paws on some pretty little bird. Would've probably been boys if he'd been a poof."
Another grin, even more lecherous than before, if possible.
"That why you're here, slayer boy? Scoring some points to get a girlie of your own when Foxy Brown kicks the bucket?"
Despite everything, Giles was starting to find himself fascinated by the restless creature pacing on the wall. He was feeling slightly giddy from the adrenalin coursing through his veins, from the exhilarating danger of standing less than a stone's throw from a real live vampire, while at the same time the scientist part of him was already writing a thesis on vampire behaviour. But most of all he was fascinated by the fact that there seemed to be something odd about this particular vampire, in the way he would occationally stop and look at Giles as if expecting him to do something.
"And speaking of which, what happened to Watcher the Older? Got a shipment of Earl Grey from ye old England and died of excitement?"
So Giles remained silent, mentally taking notes of the vampire as it continued to taunt him from its watchpost.
After his intial conversation with Crowley, Giles had made some research on William the Bloody, and although the physical description fit, Giles had difficulties believing that this indeed was the same beast that had killed a Slayer some eighty years earlier. The vampire was English, yes, North Londoner by the accent, but nothing in his demeanor suggested that he would be almost two hundred years old like the Council records claimed. Surely a vampire as old and dangerous as William the Bloody would be more menacing than this hyperactive Monty Python reject.
Not the notorious William the Bloody then, he concluded, but simply some copycat - which, of course, did not discount the possibility that Angelus was behind it all.
The vampire, who in Giles' opinion seemed to be far too much in love with the sound of his own voice, was now sitting on the gate post, studying Giles with his head slightly tilted, obviously annoyed by Giles' refusal to acknowledge him.
"Don't they teach you English in Watcher School anymore, slayer boy? They hiring mutes now?"
The vampire leaned forward and gave Giles a curious look, restlessly tapping the granite with the heel of his boot. "Parlez-vous Francais, perhaps? Sprechen sie Deutch? No? Well, that's good, can't stand the bloody bastards." He gave an odd little smirk and then added, "Would've killed you faster than you could say 'lederhosen'."
Giles was starting to wonder how long they could continue their one-sided conversation and if the vampire's plan all along had been just to keep Giles occupied and separated from Nikki. Which, of course, was a ridiculous thought considering that all the other nights Nikki had been patrolling alone, but still, suddenly "Let's just go there and see what happens" did not seem like such a brilliant plan.
"Well, you're no fun," the vampire said abruptly, almost pouting, and interrupted Giles' train of thought as he leapt down in a flurry of leather. The vampire landed in a crouch just a few feet from Giles, fingers briefly touching the ground before he stood up and started towards him in a slow swagger.
Giles backed away without breaking eye contact even though he knew it probably only worked on bears.
For the first time Giles could see the vampire properly. Ripped jeans and t-shirt underneath the leather coat; bleached white hair and heavy make-up. A safety pin pierced through one scarred eyebrow.
He looked barely older than Giles, in his late twenties at the most, and for the briefest moment Giles felt sorry for the man who had died for this creature to be born. Then abruptly the vampire's face shifted; flesh, bones and skin reorganising into the visage of a monster, transforming from an angel to a demon in a recreation of Lucifer's fall. And Randall's.
"Why are you here?" he said, reaching to touch Giles' leather jacket. "You don't look like a watcher."
Giles took a quick step backwards to escape the vampire's fingers but he was faster and caught the collar, pulling Giles closer. "And you don't smell like one either." The vampire let out a short nasty laugh, flashing his fangs. "Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class?"
Giles blanched and the vampire laughed again, easily stopping Giles' stake before it came anywhere near his heart. The holy water was just as useless as the vampire swatted the bottle from Giles' hand almost absent-mindedly.
"You're out of your league, slayer boy," he finally said, and let go of Giles' jacket. "Go back to your books like a good little watcher and leave the killing for the girlies.’
The vampire started towards the direction where Nikki had gone, and when Giles took a tentative step to intercept him, only flashed Giles a mischievous smile and leaped back up on the gatepost.
"It was nice talking to you, old chap," he said in an exaggerated upper class accent, posing on top the post, "but I really must be off now. Mother is expecting me."
For a moment an odd expression flashed on the vampire's face, as if he himself was surprised of having said what he did, but it disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared. He gave Giles one last theatrical bow and disappeared into the shadows as if he had never even been there.
Giles stared after the vampire for a few second before letting the stake fall from his trembling fingers.
"Bloody hell."
When I walked out of that place, I was so weak I could barely stand. Don't know what those leeches did to me, but it took me a better part of a decade to get my strength back. But the coat, the one I took from the ober-bloody-stormtrooper, you got something like that, that's all people see. Could have looked like a bleeding fyarl and they still would have let me through the gates. Just pulled the collar up and tried not to trip over my own feet. 'Cause it's all about the costume.
'Course, it didn't hurt that half of the building was already up in flames.
I drained the bloke I took the coat from. He was still alive when I got my chains off, curled on the floor moaning, looking like he had snakes for guts. Could smell his fear from across the room. He was the big boss man around the place, all master race this and pureblood that, but when I looked at him lying there, crying and begging and praying, he was no different from all the poor sods who'd been fed to me while I'd been there.
So I told him... told him "You all taste the same, mate" and ripped his neck open. Thought that maybe they'd drugged the blood they'd fed us, and his'd make me better again. Not one of my better ideas, I grant you, what with having just poisoned the bloke with cyanide myself.
I got maybe two miles down the road when the poison kicked in and the fairies started dancing. Few miles more and my legs gave out and all I could do was crawl under some rock before I passed out.
Don't know how long exactly I hid there. Could have been days, could have been weeks. Fed on whatever small and crunchy made the mistake of crawling in there with me until one night, right after sundown, I woke up to a sound of talking coming from the road.
At first I thought it was the super squad coming after me, but then I realised that they were speaking old mother tongue.
They almost shot me when they saw me - had forgotten I was still wearing the coat and boots, see, - but I told them I'd gotten them off a Nazi I'd killed. Told them I was just a poor young lad caught behind the enemy lines, please, sirs, I cannot go out at days, I've been hiding in the caves and now the sun hurts my eyes, please, sirs, I just want to go home to my mum, God save the King and all that rot. As far as plans go, that was one of my better ones.
Chapter 3
The next night, the vampire was gone.
Nikki walked to the high stone wall and leaned against it, hunching deeper into her duster to keep warm in the cold and foggy night. "Maybe he got bored," she suggested, fingering the cross on her neck as she scanned the street. They had already rounded the church twice without as much as a glimpse of the vampire, and were now back by the gates again, trying to look inconspicuous as they waited for him to appear.
Giles shrugged noncommittally and dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, offering one to Nikki as well.
She declined and tugged her hands under her arms. "I mean, I'm bored already and we're not the ones who've been hanging around the place for the last two weeks."
Giles didn't reply, just let the smoke in his lungs warm him up as closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the sleeping city. The low hum of the late-night traffic and the electric howl of an ambulance passing a few blocks away, like blood and adrenaline coursing through the city's veins. The clubs, the streets, the people and the music. It almost felt like coming home. He briefly wondered if that was why the vampire had also picked the city before he remembered that the demon's choice of locations had more likely been inspired by the location of the current slayer than the event calendar at the CBGB.
He opened his eyes again, and glanced upwards at the church looming over them. But why the church, why this particular place.
"Why this place, d'you think?" he asked idly, just thinking aloud rather than really expecting an answer.
Nikki pushed away from the wall, pulling her duster closer around herself as she did, and walked to Giles.
"Beats me," she said, picked the cigarette from between his lips and took a long drag. "You think he might have been buried there?"
Giles shook his head. "No, he sounds English."
"Yeah, well, so does that guy who lives below Crowley, but I think he's just gay."
Giles rolled his eyes at Nikki and then took a few steps back to get a better look over the wall. There didn't seem to be anything special about the church, nothing that would interest a vampire. Nothing except...
"That's it, I'm not gonna just stand here all night. You coming?"
Giles didn't reply, his attention now fixed on the church. The gates were closed and the windows dark, and although he did not expect the place to be bustling with activity this late after dark, there seemed to be an odd aura around the place as if it wasn't just empty but abandoned. Dead.
He was about to ask Nikki if the church was usually open to the public at this hour but, when he turned to her, he found that she was already heading down the street.
"C'mon," she called over her shoulder, gesturing him to follow. "I'm not going to let some skinny-assed vampire keep me up all night, no matter how many slayers he's killed. I'm taking Robin to the dentist in the morning and I want to get at least a few hours of sleep before that."
Giles gave the church one last glance before jogging after her.
As it turned out, William the Bloody was not the only missing vampire and after two hours, one mugger, three homeless men, one suspicious police officer and zero vampires, Nikki and Giles had to admit their defeat.
"It's been like this for a while now," Nikki explained, when they had finished their patrol of the disappointingly demon-free cemetary."There used to be a lot of demons around here, but ever since that vampire started following me around it's been all quiet." She absently kicked a clump of dirt into the yet another recently disturbed but empty grave they had found and then sat down on the gravestone.
Giles crougched down to pick up a sharp piece of wood he spotted on the ground. He tossed it to Nikki. "You think your secret admirer has something to do with it?"
Nikki rolled her eyes at his comment as she caught the makeshift stake. "He's not my secret admirer," she said, and gave the stake a cursory look before tossing it back. She stood up and tucked her own stake to the waistband of her jeans. "And if there's nothing here for me to kill, I'm going home even if it means having to listen to Crowley's lecture about the duties of The Slayer again!"
They were just crossing the street in front of the church when it started raining. It was only a few stray drops at first, prompting them to walk faster to reach home before getting wet, but they had barely passed the gates when the skies opened with a clap of thunder loud enough to make the earth shake. Nikki cursed, glancing at Giles, and without a word they both turned back towards the church to take shelter under the arch of the gate.
The wind was picking up, and the freezing cold rain lashed down almost horizontally, easily soaking Nikki and Giles to the bone even under the cover of the archway. Giles tried to wrap his coat tighter around himself, watching Nikki do the same with her duster, and hunched deeper into the corner.
"We're going to catch pneumonia if we stay here," he shouted to Nikki, his voice almost drowned by the clamour of the wind knocking down a trashcan and chasing the metal cover across the street. He pushed the gate experimentally and muttered a quiet thank you when he felt it open without resistance. "Let's try the church. If the doors are open, we can take shelter inside."
They ran across the flooded churchyard, finding the heavy mahogany doors already slightly ajar when they reached them. Giles raised his hand to knock, but Nikki stopped him, shook her head and gestured him to step back as she pushed the door open herself.
Giles found himself oddly disappointed when the door swung open without a sound, lacking the ominous creak with which his imagination had already supllied it. The inside of the church was equally disappointing . The open doors revealed only darkness except for the dim glare of the street lights which illuminated the stained glass windows. Giles leaned forward and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to see beyond the doorway, wondering if Nikki's Slayer powers included night vision. She gave him a wordless look which told him to watch her back and then stepped inside.
Nikki didn't seem to be able to see any more than Giles , but he noticed her tense when she crossed the threshold into the darkness. Clutching her stake in her right hand, she reached back and knocked on the door with her left. "Hello? Anyone there?"
Nikki's voice echoed in the empty church, receiving no reply except for the rhythmic tattoo of the rain drops hitting the roof. She stopped right outside the small circle of light created by the open door. Giles could vividly imagine some unseen monster suddenly reaching for her and dragging her into the darkness. He didn't dare say anything, though and, when she gave him a quick glance and a nod to let him know that there was no danger, he simply followed her into the church.
They found the first body just a few feet from the doors.
Nikki almost stepped on it, letting out a small yelp when her foot slipped on the blood and then catching herself as her boot touched the mass of flesh and cloth. Giles reached to steady her before she fell, but when a flash of lightning illuminated the church and the corpse in front of them for a few fractions of a second, he found himself drawing support from Nikki instead.
The body was that of an old man, lying face down in a pool of blood. He was reaching towards the doors which, Giles noted, were covered in bloody handprints on the inside, as if he had been trying to escape when he had been killed. One of his arms was missing and his neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, the scratched and bruised face frozen in a mask of horror.
Giles gagged, covering his mouth and nose with his hand to block the overpowering stench of fresh blood. Over the white noise building in his ears, he could hear Nikki swear, and when he looked at her, he could see she too was pale and breathing heavily, clutching her stake so tightly he was afraid she might snap it in two.
"I'll see if the killer's still here," she said hoarsely and headed towards the altar.
Pushing down the nausea, Giles reached down to check for a pulse on the body, knowing very well that he wouldn't find one. But it was the only thing that he could think of, the only thing he could do for the poor man. He was still crouching on the floor when he caught a glimpse of a foot between the pews. Unable to trust his legs enough to stand up, he crawled towards it on all fours until he saw the second body lying in a heap on the floor.
"Christ, there's... there's another one!" He shouted to Nikki, taking support from the wooden seats when the nausea threatened to overtake him again. There was no answer from Nikki and worried, Giles looked up only to find her standing in the faint light of the windows near the altar, staring at something that he could not see. He stood up and ran to her. "I said there's anothe-"
His first thought was that it couldn't be a human. Shouldn't be human.
Giles found himself cursing the dim light cast through the stained-glass windows, at the same time too faint to banish the darkness hiding the beast who had murdered the people, and too bright and revealing to hide the sight now before his eyes.
There was blood everywhere. A dark pool around the twisted lump of cloth and bones; bright red splatters all around the altar; bloody handprints creating a desperate path across the walls and the floor.
The body was shredded and missing its head, but from the few blood-stained pieces of white cloth still attached to the severed neck Giles could tell that the victim had been a priest. He swallowed down the bile and leaned to a pillar for support.
"Do you think it's him?" Nikki asked flatly, still staring at the body as if mesmerized.
Giles wanted to nod, but didn't, afraid that if he moved too fast, he might throw up. He carefully turned his head away from the body and focused his eyes on the large cross on the altar. "Should we call the police?"
Nikki shook her head. "No. If he's still here, I want-"
A sudden crash from the outside made them both jump. The hollow echoes had barely died when Nikki was already heading towards the doors.
"Stay here," she told him over her shoulder, her voice steady and commanding again, the slayer in her overriding her shock. "Find a phone and call Crowley. There could be more than one vamp around so we'll need all the help we can get."
The heavy doors slammed shut behind Nikki, leaving Giles alone in the dark church. He remained completely still for several seconds, listening the rain and thunder outside, before heading towards the back of the church to find a phone.
When he came back, he immediately knew that something was wrong.
Giles froze at the door, once again listening carefully for any sounds which might betray the monster that he knew was watching him from the shadows, but all he could hear was the steady pattern of the rain.
From the corner of his eye he caught something moving near the altar, but when he spun around, desperately trying to remember what had happened to the stake he had been holding when they had entered the church, he saw nothing but the shifting shadows created by the flickering candles. Lightning struck again, illuminating the church for less than a heartbeat, immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder. With the shadows momentarily banished by the light, Giles could see that he was alone.
Giles let out the breath he had been holding, and then, trying not to make any sudden movements, scanned the church in the dim light of the candles until he spotted his stake. It was lying on the ground near the main doors where he must have dropped it when he had kneeled down to check on the first body. He took a step towards the entrance but froze in mid-movement when he finally realised what had been bothering him. The candles had not been lit when he had gone looking for the phone.
"Fee, fie, fo, fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman."
Chapter 4:
The voice was rough, barely more than a whisper, but the acoustics of the church were enough to carry it across the room even over the sound of the rain beating on the roof. It was coming from the direction of the altar, but even with the candles burning it was still too dark for Giles to see where exactly. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then called out into the darkness, cursing the slight tremor in his voice. "Come out where I can see you."
There was no answer, but then the shadows by the baptismal moved and William the Bloody stepped into the light, his appearance now horrifyingly true to his name. He was wearing the same clothes as the night before, the same punk regalia and the same World War II era leather coat with the nazi insignia still intact. But when Giles looked carefully, he could see that the coat was now soaked in blood like a butcher's apron, a rain of red droplets falling down on to the floor at every move. The vampire reached the circle of candlelight and Giles could see that his white hair was also caked with drying blood, and crimson splatters covered his face and hands.
The demon’s hoarse voice when he spoke again sent cold chills down Giles' spine. "Did you come here to kill me?" He stopped when he reached the large cross on the altar, and gave Giles a curious look, his fingers absently ghosting the fine filigree work on the stone. The cross seemed to fascinate the vampire, because before Giles had a chance to reply, he turned his back to Giles to face it, spreading his arms and tilting his head back as if to embrace something that Giles could not see.
Giles had never been a gambling man, but with the vampire's attention momentarily diverted elsewhere, he took his chance and scrambled across the aisle to get to his stake. He grabbed the weapon on the run and then spun around to face him again, fully expecting to find the demon standing right behind him. To Giles' surprise, however, he had barely moved and was still standing in front of the cross, now absentmindedly licking the blood on his hands as he watched Giles like a cat watching its prey.
Giles' hands reflexively tightened around his stake as he suppressed a shudder, half hoping that Nikki would come back to rescue him, half wishing that she would keep the hell away from the church. And somewhere at the back of his mind was a small voice praying that the blood on the vampire's hands did not belong to Nikki.
"Why did you do it?" Giles asked, to buy some time to gather his thoughts even though the answer the question was obvious. Because he could. Because he was a monster.
The vampire said nothing, but the hand on his mouth went still at Giles’ words. His brow knitted in a confused frown, and ignoring Giles, he slowly looked down at the bloodied hand. An almost nauseated look flashed on the demon face and Giles jumped when he suddenly moved towards the front of the altar. Giles took a hesitating step backwards as William the Bloody marched to the baptismal font, looking for all the world as if he was about to wash his hands in it. For a moment the his left hand hovered just above the surface of the holy water, but then he jerked it back and spun around to face Giles again, as if only now even realising that he was in the church too.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" he asked, but then shushed at Giles before he could reply. "It's still here", he whispered urgently, making a sweeping gesture that ended with him pointing at his own head. "Or here. Can't tell anymore."
Giles could feel the few stray splinters on his stake dig into his palm as he clutched it in his hand. Later, he would blame the adrenalin; blame the intoxicating feel of danger that made his blood hum with power as he ignored the voice at the back of his head shouting "Kill him, you berk, he has you under a thrall" and started towards the altar.
The church was quiet but for Giles’ own footsteps and the sound of the vampire rambling to himself as he paced the length of the altar. The rain had stopped, and the wind died down, but while the storm had calmed, Giles could feel the pressure of the storm in the air, the electricity making the hairs on his arm stand on end. Eye of the storm, he noted absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving the vampire.
Halfway down the aisle he stopped, raising his stake. He nervously licked his lips and addressed the vampire again, his tongue so dry he could feel it sticking to the roof of his mouth at every word. "Who's still here?"
The vampire stopped pacing and gave Giles a curious look. "The beast," he said with a tone of voice that one might use when talking to a child, and then let out a desperate laugh. "And it's looking for you."
Giles felt the knot in his gut tighten as the vampire tilted his head and smiled, human lips curling to reveal a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. The demon’s eyes flashed into gold and he took a step backwards, a man-eating Cheshire cat merging into the shadows until all that was left were two pale yellow points of light, gleaming in the darkness.
Giles blinked, and eyes gone.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, the adrenalin finally giving way to fear. Giles swore under his breath, and keeping his eyes fixed on the spot where his assailant had last been, began to slowly retreat back towards the doors. There was a quiet thump from behind him, and he spun quickly around, only to face the empty aisle. Then a flicker of a movement just outside his field of vision, a crack somewhere near the altar, a lonely footstep between the pews, but no matter which way Giles looked, no matter how fast he twisted and turned to catch the source of the sound, the vampire remained invisible.
Outside, the storm began to pick up again.
"Giles?"
Crowley must have entered the church through the back door, because when Giles turned around, he found the older watcher standing by the doors to the sacristy. Giles opened his mouth to warn him, but the words died on his lips when he caught the slightest movement from the corner of his eyes and then heard the vampire’s voice right next to him.
"And from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil," the vampire recited, the words hissing between sharp fangs. A lightning struck again and like a phantasm William the Bloody appeared between the pews only few yards from where Giles was standing. “Spare us, good Lord.”
There was a deafening crash of thunder that made the whole building shake. And the vampire lunged.
There was a very early memory that Giles had – old enough that he wasn’t certain if he really remembered it himself, or if it was just something that had been told to him – of his father taking him to the Council training facilities to teach him about vampires. That was how deep the training went, right to his core. Some would have called it a calling. He himself had called it a burden when he had packed his bags and eventually found himself crashing on the floor of Ethan’s small London pad.
But it was there, in his blood and in his spine. Head and heart. Cut off the head, put a stake through the heart. Fire, sunlight, holy water.
And as the vampire leaped at him, Giles realised it had all been for this very moment.
He was distantly aware of the clattering sound the stake made as the vampire tore it from his hand and sent it flying across the pews, when suddenly there was a loud gunshot that left Giles' ears ringing, then another, and he had just enough time to wonder why Crowley would be trying to shoot the demon when he heard a loud thump from behind him, followed by the soft bang of a tranquilizer gun being fired. For a fraction of a second Giles stared straight into the inhuman golden eyes just inches in front of him, but then the vampire stumbled, crashing into Giles, and brought them both to the ground.
“Are you all right?”
Giles pushed the unconscious vampire off him with shaky hands, and then tried to get up himself, but his arms were trembling too hard to support him, and so he just lay on the floor, waiting for his heart to slow down. When he looked up, he saw Crowley standing above him, holding an old revolver in one hand and the tranquilizer gun in another like John Wayne in tweed.
"I didn't want to waste the tranquilisers," Crowley said, wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve. His face was pale but blotched with red from the exertion, and his hands shook when he put down the weapons and reached down to help Giles stand up.
He didn’t look at Giles, just muttered "Too close for comfort," his eyes locked at something right behind the younger watcher.
"Why-" Giles started, but fell quiet when he turned around and saw what Crowley was looking at. Lying on the ground, just a few yards from where Giles had stood, was the body of a large polgara demon, its claws dripping with blood.
Of course, my luck being what it is, turned out that the blokes were watchers. A special group of Twits in Tweed smuggled behind the enemy lines to stop the demon army the soldier-boys back at the lab had been planning to set after the allied troops.
They sussed me out before I had even chance to finish my story, caught me with crosses and nets and chained me to tree.
Mind you, I'd still been having tea parties with the Queen of the Fairies just a few days earlier, so it wasn't as if it was a fair fight. I'm just saying.
Anyway.
They kicked me around a bit, asked a few questions, but they didn't dust me – that being obvious seeing that yours truly is still very much in the land of the living undead - and finally decided to take me with them as a guide, seeing that unlike the Council of the Bloody Useless, I knew where the lab was.
‘Cause the thing is, the world was all fucked up back then. You got Mickey Mouse selling war bonds and Donald Duck dropping bombs in Japan, and in those days even the Council of Wankers would leave a vamp alive just because he spoke Queen's English but threaten to shoot a bloke at sight for wearing the wrong uniform. And that's what got the buggers killed in the end.
And no, I didn't kill them, so you can bloody well stop looking at me like that.
After the body of the dead polgara had been disposed and the first rush of adrenalin had worn off, there was a small argument about what to do with the vampire.
Giles suggested sending him to the Council to be interrogated but Crowley declared that he'd rather dust the vampire and take the chance with Angelus than do that. Nikki in return refused to have the demon anywhere near Robin, vetoing Crowley's idea of having him chained up in the watcher's spare room.
Which was how the vampire suspected to be William the Bloody ended up chained in the bathroom of Giles's apartment.
They arrived at Giles’ place well after three in the morning, tired but giddy. The still unconscious vampire was wrapped in an old rug that Crowley had liberated from a dumpster and smuggled up through the fire escape with Giles carrying one end of the vampire and Nikki the other, both of them making bad Godfather impressions, much to the annoyance of Crowley who was keeping watch. When the vampire was finally safely chained in the bathroom they celebrated their successful hunt by sharing the contents of Crowley's flask before the watcher finally ushered Nikki out of the apartment, reminding her of the dentist’s appointment Robin had.
He stopped at the door, though, and patted Giles awkwardly on the shoulder before pulling him into an equally awkward hug.
"You did good, son," Crowley said and then followed Nikki out.
Giles' good mood wore off the moment the door closed behind Nikki and Crowley. Left alone in his cold and quiet apartment, he found himself unable to stop thinking about the dead bodies at the church. He shuddered at the thought, the sickening stench of the blood permeating his clothes and hair turning his stomach. When he closed his eyes he could still see them, the mangled remains of the priest and the parishioners, and the bloody-faced vampire lunging at him.
He shook his head to clear it, and as the images faded away he stripped off his clothes and put them in a plastic bag, making a mental note to throw them away the next day. What he wanted was to take a long bath and to just let the water wash away the blood on his skin and in his mind, but with the vampire in his bathroom, he had to settle for pouring himself a glass of whisky before going to bed.
It was almost dawn before Giles finally fell asleep, and the blood followed him to his dreams.
He could smell it, even through the herbs and the incense, as he stood by the protective circle and watched Randall thrash and struggle within.
There was a deep gash on Randall's forehead where Ethan had hit him earlier, and blood was flowing sluggishly from the wound, making strange patterns on the wooden floor as it fell down in heavy droplets. Without taking his eyes off Randall, Giles returned to his place between Deirdre and Ethan who were already chanting as the thick black candles they were holding spluttered and flickered in the magically charged air.
On the other side of the chalk circle Philip was kneeling on the floor, drawing runes with the blood drawn from the cut he had made on his palm with the ceremonial dagger. When he was finished, he looked up and nodded. Giles opened the scroll he was holding and began to recite the spell.
He had barely reached the end of the first line when Randall began to scream.
The sound was inhuman, like something being torn right out of Randall rather than anything that could be produced by the vocal cords of a human being, and Giles had to fight the urge to cover his ears to block it. He paused for a second, casting a glace at Ethan, and then took a deep breath and continued reading, saying a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening.
Giles could feel Eyghon's power in the room, heavy and dark, could feel it ebb and flow in Randall's veins (in his own veins) as they slowly drew the demon out of the struggling man. The ritual seemed to last forever, Giles’ voice growing weak and raspy as he recited the lines over and over. Then suddenly he felt the power fade, and as it did, Randall's struggles grew weaker and weaker until he finally collapsed limp on the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Giles finished the line he was reciting and stopped. On the floor Philip looked up and when Deirdre nodded in agreement, pressed his bloody palm to the floor and smudged the symbols to end the spell. For a few seconds they were all still, their eyes fixed on Randall who lay on the floor, unconscious but alive. Ethan was the one to finally to break the silence when he suddenly howled like a madman and pulled Deirdre into a hug.
"Did you feel it?" he shouted at Giles over her shoulder. "Did you feel it? That was bloody brilliant. It was like-"
Ethan's voice was drowned under the sound of Randall's laughter.
It was the blood, Giles realised, watching in horror as Randall rose from the floor with unnatural grace. The blood from Randall's wounds must have affected the binding spell somehow. Ethan let go of Deirdre and pushed her towards the door. On the other side of the circle, Philip reached for the ceremonial dagger.
"Fools!" Randall growled, and a gust of wind tore the knife from Philip's hand, embedding it to the wall behind Giles. "Weak, ignorant fools!"
The candles spluttered and went out, and there was a moment of black stillness as if the whole world had suddenly ceased to exist, before the light returned as the still-hot wick of one of the knocked down candles ignited the spell ingredients spilled on the floor from the ceremonial bowls.
Deirdre began to scream.
The flickering light of the small silver-blue flames made the world seem unreal; jerky and almost monochrome like watching an old black-and-white movie.
Heedless of the flames, Philip grabbed one of the smoldering bowls and flung it towards Randall, but the demon swatted it away like a fly. Ethan followed his example and lunged towards the discarded dagger embedded to the wall, but again Randall was faster, and reached of the circle, grabbing Ethan by the neck. He clutched the man to his body like a rag doll and turned to face Giles.
As he moved closer, Randall's face shifted, the human features melting away until what was left was a mockery of a man, scaly and horned and mottled with blue and grey.
"You're out of your league, Rupert," he said, and stepped out of the circle.
There was something heavy on Giles' hand and when he looked down, he realized that he was holding the ceremonial dagger Eyghon had torn from Philip’s hand. He had no idea where it had appeared, only that he was now holding it, the jewelled handle slippery of his own sweat and someone's blood.
Ethan went limp in Randall's arms, and without thinking, Giles plunged the dagger into the demon's eye.
Giles woke with a gasp.
It took him a while to untangle his legs from the sweat-soaked sheets as he struggled to sit up, his whole body shaking feverishly and his heart pounding in his chest like it was trying to escape. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, but when he reached for it, his hands trembled so much that the glass slipped his fingers and shattered on the floor.
Giles stared at the shards blankly for a few seconds and then rubbed his hand across his face, trying to will the memories away. Even awake he could still smell the blood, could still hear the screams and feel the bone and flesh give away under the blade of the dagger. Sighing, he crouched down on the floor and began to pick up the shards.
It was only a few minutes later that he realized that the screams and the sounds of struggle were not inside his head but were coming from the bathroom.
Chapter 5
You go read the books the Council has on vampires and they all say that you can't feel without a soul. Can't love, can't be hurt, can't be afraid. Can hate, though, apparently, which just goes to show that it's nothing but bollocks what they have written there.
They broke my spine once, the scientists did. Strapped me down to a table and the next time I woke up, I couldn't move. Guess they wanted to see how quickly I heal. Or maybe they did it just because they could, because I was there, like the sodding Mount Everest.
And yeah, I get the irony, so no need to roll your eyes at me.
Should be thankful that I can't remember most of it, I suppose. Was drugged out of my skull half of the time, but every time I woke up I had to check that I still had all my parts with me.
And I...
If you ever mention this to anyone, I'll rip your spine out through your eye sockets and feed it to a hellhound, but yeah, I was scared.
The vampire was having a nightmare.
Giles leaned to the door jamb, still shaky from his own restless night, and watched him writhe and twitch in his sleep. It was a ridiculous thought, of course, because what would a monster have to fear. Nevertheless, for all appearances the vampire seemed to be still asleep, caught in some horrific dreamscape, and again Giles was touched by a sudden flash of pity towards the demon.
There was a part of him that was wondering how much of the human was still left in the vampire, but even as the thought surfaced, he could already hear his father’s stern voice in his head.
“None,” it replied. "There is no humanity left in that creature, no matter how deep you cut."
And yet Giles could not help thinking that perhaps there was some small part of the man still left and it was that remnant of the immortal soul that he was now seeing - imprisoned within the animated corpse and distressed by visions of all the sins it had committed.
When Giles took a step closer, he saw that the vampire was wearing its demon face, and for a moment he was tempted to reach down and touch it, to find out what that monstrous mockery of a face would feel like under his fingers. Would there be any warmth in it, would it feel like human flesh, or would it be cold and dry like the scales of a snake. Curling his fingers to a fist to resist the temptation, Giles took a step back again before calling out.
"William!"
The vampire started awake at the sound of his name, immediately pressing against the wall like a dog expecting to be kicked. Giles made a mental note that he was breathing - panting, almost as if in pain - even though it was unnecessary, as he stared at Giles, confused human eyes looking from the face of a demon. Blue eyes, Giles noted, and a scar slashing across the left eyebrow, and he idly wondered if it would remain when the demon put on its human mask. As if to answer Giles' thoughts the vampire shook his head, and with a crunch of shifting bones and flesh, slipped back to his human guise. And while the scar did remain, the blue eyes which had been his most human feature turned cold and hard, fear and confusion fading away as if humanity had not been the only mask he had put on.
Giles took a step forward, his curiosity again getting the better of him. "Are you William the Bloody?"
"Are you a wanker?" The vampire replied, and then continued before Giles had a chance to get a word out. "No, wait, rhetorical question, no need to answer."
Without a second thought Giles closed the distance between him and the bath and backhanded the demon, watching the bleached head snap back and hit the tiled wall with a wet crack. The vampire looked dazed for a few seconds, shaking his head to clear it, and Giles shuddered inwardly at the rush of adrenaline released into his veins by the act of violence. But then the vampire looked up, lips twisted to a feral grin, and snapped at Giles' hand with a flash of fangs. Giles jerked back and he let out a mocking laugh.
Restraining himself from hitting the demon again, Giles fisted his hands, pressing his nails to his palms to keep the tremor from his voice.
"Are you William the Bloody?" He repeated.
"Yeah, I am," the vampire finally replied with a sneer. "Mr. Bloody, William The. In the flesh."
He looked at his bound hands and then back at Giles.
"Would shake your hand and do this all proper-like if I wasn't a bit tied up at the mo." He ran his tongue across his lips to catch the few drops of blood left by Giles' backhand. "And it's Spike, actually, if you don't mind."
Giles couldn't help thinking that Spike’s bravado would have been far more convincing without the faint tear tracks still visible on the vampire’s face.
He sat down on the toilet seat, just beyond Spike’s reach. "Those people at the church, did you kill them?"
For a fraction of a second Giles saw it again, that odd, almost pained expression he had noticed on Spike’s face the night before.
"No," Spike replied tightly, then corrected: "I mean, yeah, killed them, the whole lot. Was feeling a bit peckish." He looked Giles in the eye, as if expecting something of him.
"Liar," Giles replied, cringing at the childish retort.
Spike just tilted his head and smiled. "Among other things."
Having said that, he closed his eyes and leaned back, looking like he had grown bored of the conversation. Giles couldn’t help flinching in sympathy at his slight grimace of pain when the bruises left by Giles’ punch touched the wall.
The silence didn’t last long. After a few minutes, Spike opened one eye to a slit and gave Giles a sidelong glance. "So... Going to kill me then, are you?"
And there it was again, that blasted humanity that Giles kept catching in the vampire’s eyes and voice, unearthing memories that he would rather have remain buried. He rubbed his face and stood up to leave. “Not if you keep quiet while I try to get more sleep.”
Behind him, Spike struggled with the chains until he was able to stand up. "You bloody bastard,” he snarled. “I don’t care if you kill me, just don’t fucking play with me.”
Giles ignored the vampire and headed towards the door.
”Oh c'mon, I don't have all day here, you know,” Spike shouted after him. “Don't they teach you anything in watcher school anymore? If it helps, it's the pointy end that goes into the vampire." There was an odd note in his voice again - half sneer, half something else, something that Giles didn’t even want to recognise.
He turned around and walked back to Spike, grabbing the bloodied shirt and smashing the vampire against the wall. “You don’t deserve to decide what happens to you.”
To Giles’ disappointment, Spike didn’t even flinch. "Don’t get so bloody righteous with me, watcher,” he said with a cold smile. “I'm not the one with a man chained to his bathtub."
Giles could feel a headache building behind his eyes, razor sharp like the blade of a dagger. "I think you're forgetting something, William."
"And what's that, boy?"
"You're not a man."
Giles let go of Spike’s shirt, letting the vampire collapse back to the floor, and walked out of the bathroom without looking back.
Interrogating Spike turned out to be far more difficult task than Giles had expected, with him alternating between denying ever having even known Angelus to confessing everything from the massacre at the church to the Kennedy assassination. Two frustrating days later Giles was no closer to knowing why Spike was in New York.
"Crowley just received a message from the Council. The wounds on the bodies were consistent with a polgara attack."
When Giles entered the room, Spike raised his eyes from the heavy grimoire he was reading - originally aimed at Spike's head to put an end to a 3 a.m. performance of the Best of British Punk after Giles had forgotten to feed him - and adjusted his chains so that he could sit up properly.
Giles fought the smile tugging his lips. Sitting sprawled against the wall with a book in his lap, Spike looked almost human, reminding Giles of Ethan and those rare quiet nights spent in their ratty flat, listening to Cream and reading old magical tomes. The good times, before it had all gone to hell.
Absently rubbing the crook of his arm, Giles ignored the memories and sat down on the toilet seat. "Why were you at the church?"
Spike just shrugged and put down the book, completely failing to notice the sharp look that Giles gave him when he folded the page to mark the place.
"Did you know about the demon?” Giles continued, resisting the temptation to yank the book from Spike’s grasp to unfold the corner. “Is that why you were there?"
"No, if I'd know, I'd-"
"You'd what?"
Spike shook his head. "None of your concern," he muttered and opened his book again.
"You've been killing the demons, haven't you? Nikki said there haven’t been nearly as many vampires around as usual since you turned up."
Spike shrugged.
"But why? Was it because of territory?"
Seemingly engrossed in reading the concordance upside down, Spike remained silent.
"Crowley may be against it, but I’m not above sending you to the Council to be dissected."
Spike’s hand froze in the middle of turning the page. For a few seconds he remained completely still before raising his eyes. The look on his face brought cold chills down Giles’ spine.
"Just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to be Batman.” Spike’s voice was steady, but Giles noticed the slightest tremor in the white fingers curling around the edges of the book. “Can’t a bloke do good around here without getting the third degree?”
"And the church? Were you guarding it?"
"The priest was a decent one, all right?" Spike gave Giles a pointed look. "Not all judgemental like some people. Always had a cuppa for me if I wanted to drop by to talk about-." He lowered his eyes again, absentmindedly running his finger across the spine of the book. "About things."
“About the state of your immortal soul, perhaps?” Giles suggested mockingly, but his insult was half-hearted.
There was no reason for Spike to be telling the truth, but Giles couldn’t help wanting to believe him, couldn’t help wanting to hold on to the hope that the world wasn't divided into killers and saints. To even contemplate it fought against everything he had been taught to believe in, but his threats of sending Spike to be dissected aside, he couldn’t help wondering how much good a vampire working for the Council could do.
He cleared his throat and reached to take the book from Spike. "It occurs to me - and I realize this is completely against your nature, but... I... Has it occurred to you that there may be a higher purpose-"
Giles didn’t have a chance to finish his thought when Spike interrupted him in mid-sentence by bursting into hysterical laughter.
Chapter 6
"Has it occurred to you that there may be a higher purpose to all this."
It was one of the junior watchers who said that to me - a young bloke, barely off his mother's tit by the look of him. They were all like that, the lot of them, either too young to know their arse from their elbow, or old enough to have forgotten which was which.
Mind you, it was like that everywhere at the time with all the real men off to fight the jerries for the king and country.
The kid was the one usually stuck on vampsitting duty, and I used to chat him up to out of sheer boredom. He didn’t have half bad taste in music and I guess the old geezers were getting on his nerves as well, and most night we just sat by the fire, smoking and talking and annoying the other watchers.
So, anyway, one night Pitt the Younger is listening to me tell him about the time I visited China, when suddenly he asks me if I believed there was a higher purpose to me getting caught. Told me he’d give the old boys a good word in my behalf if I came back with them to help the Council. I laughed at his face, of course. Told him I cared sweet FA about the lot of them. Evil, remember? And then I told him what I did to the Chinese slayer.
That was the last time I spoke to him. Few days later I found out I wasn’t the only beastie drafted to help in the war effort.
The watchers had made a deal with some of the local rallosh demons. Nasty buggers, all teeth and claws, but the poor sods thought they could control them. Of course, their idea of controlling the demons involved more inviting them over for a cup of Earl Grey and a nice chat, and less beating them up with a sledgehammer, which is pretty much the only thing that can get through the skull of a rallosh demon.
The boy, the one who'd... he was the first to go. He was guarding the perimeter when the demons ripped through the wards, just few yards from where I was chained. He just stood there, frozen, when the first demon grabbed him. Was still clutching his stake when they tore off his head, and threw it into the fire.
They demons left me alone when they smelled I was a vamp. One of them even unchained me out of some sense of inter-demonic co-operation. I didn't go and join the fun and dismemberment, but I didn't... I didn't care, really. Just sat there and watched as the demons tore the watchers to pieces.
"We will eventually have to stake him, you know."
Crowley's voice startled Giles from his thoughts. When he looked up, he could see Crowley sitting across the table, engrossed in an old leather-bound book, and for a moment he thought he might have just imagined the watcher's words. It wasn't as if the thought hadn't already crossed his mind more than once.
"I know what you're thinking," Crowley continued without looking up from the foxed pages. "You're trying to come up with a way to keep the vampire alive. But you have to remember that even though he looks like a man and sounds like a man, he isn't one. The man he used to be is long dead, and the creature you have chained up in your bathroom is just the monster that killed him. There is no humanity left in him to deserve your pity."
He closed the book and looked Giles in the eye. "That... thing has probably killed more people than the Third Reich. Killing it will not make you a murderer."
"It's not pity," Giles said testily, half annoyed by Crowley's patronizing tone, half embarrassed that the watcher had guessed his thoughts. "I only think that it's a waste to let an opportunity like this pass. Surely the council could find use for a captured vampire, especially one as old and famed as William the Bloody."
"Oh, they would," Crowley replied, his voice suddenly growing cold. "More easily than you'd guess."
He gathered his books and papers and stood up to leave like he always did when the conversation turned to the Council. Giles felt a sudden surge of rebellion and instead of just letting go as usual, he stood up and rounded the table. "Then why not contact the Council and let them know that we've captured him?"
A hundred avoided conversations on the matter and finally Crowley snapped. He slammed his books to the table, knocking down his mug of already cold tea. "Because I will not have some poor girl die when the Council decides to use William the Bloody in a Cruciamentum!"
Giles flinched back at the watcher’s fury. "What-"
"Don't ask, Giles. You will sleep your nights better if you don't know. But be certain that you will find out if they ever give you a charge of your own."
Crowley rescued his papers from the approaching puddle of tea, and returned the books it to their place in the shelf. "You're young, Rupert, and naïve. The Council is doing God's work but that doesn't mean that they don't sometimes use the Devil's tools.” He glanced over his shoulder to give Giles a stern look. “We will not discuss this matter any further."
"What about magic? Could we use magic to interrogate the vampire?"
Giles wasn't sure why he was doing it - if it really was pity, or just a desperate attempt to atone for past failures - but he knew that he was well past the point where he could give up. There were rumours, he had found out when doing research, of a gypsy magician in Romania who had somehow managed to tame a vampire's demon, and Giles could not help wondering if by saving Spike's soul he could save his own as well.
"There are spells that could work," Crowley said carefully, but Giles could see his eyes light up at the prospect of research. “The rite of Askar is known to work on demons, but we are lacking important ingredients that can only obtained during summer time. As for the other truth spells…"
He ran his fingers across the dusty spines and picked one book up, but didn't open it. "No,” he said, shaking his head. “A spell of that calibre would require an experienced practitioner of magic to perform it. I have friends in the coven in Devon, friends I would trust my life to, but they are loyal to the Council and would be obligated to report to them. And since neither you nor I have the capabilities required to master the spell... I'm sorry Giles."
Giles sat down, leaned back and closed his eyes, trying not to remember the look on Randall’s face when Eyghon took over him.
"I think I may know someone who could help us."
The rest of the war is just a blur. I wandered around, from continent to continent, looking for something, don't rightly know what. Was back in London on VE Day. I killed three people that night. An old woman, a soldier with a gimpy leg, and a little girl in a red dress. Funny how you remember some, but not others.
And I remember thinking that their blood tasted like ashes.
Don't know if it was because of something the Nazis did to me, or if I'd just finally inherited Dru's madness, but when I left the watchers' camp, I could feel something missing. It was like... like having a word right on the tip of your tongue.
At first I thought I was just missing Dru. I hadn’t seen her since we were separated in Spain, and I thought that if I found her, she could fix me, if anyone could.
Asked around for a bit ‘till I found out that she was still with Darla, then followed their trail half-way across the globe before I finally caught up with them in Paris.
She was waiting for me, of course. Sitting on a park bench in the Tuileries Gardens, her arm around some poor sod who'd probably tried to jump her. But then she saw me, just looked at me like she didn't know me, and walked away.
Crowley picked up the glass bowl on the table and studied its contents. “Are you sure he cannot lie once he’s under the spell?”
“No, he can’t.” Deirdre replied curtly, a hint of annoyance in her voice for having her skills doubted. “He can’t lie, he can’t remain silent, he can’t do anything that I don’t want him to do. I could make him do the hustle, but I’d rather just get the information you need, and go back home to my fiancé.”
She glanced at Giles who mouthed a silent thankyou to her.
Deirdre seemed to have aged twenty years in the eighteen months – only months, Giles had to remind himself, even though it felt like centuries – since he had last seen her. There were lines around her mouth and eyes, and few stray grey hairs were already visible in her tightly bunned hair. When she had answered the door of her small apartment in Boston – looking half glad, half terrified by the sight of him – he had barely recognised her. But later, when they had sat at the table in her kitchen, forgotten mugs of tea growing cold in their hands, he had finally looked her in the eyes and recognised himself.
It was there, neatly hidden underneath her stories of her new life in America - the fiancé, the job in a bank, and the church reserved for a summer wedding. And Giles resented her a little, for being able to hide it so well when he felt like the whole world knew what he was.
“He doesn’t know I’m a witch,” she had told him, her eyes begging him not to ask her what she knew he was going to.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” he had replied, and found that it was.
Giles pulled the last knot tight, and stood up. Spike was sitting in one of Giles’ kitchen chairs, heavy ropes securing him to his place. His eyes were closed and his head bowed, and Giles felt a surprising pang of guilt at having fooled the vampire into drinking the blood Crowley had drugged. He walked round the chair and took his place in the circle.
“Are we ready?” Deirdre asked, and when both Crowley and Giles nodded, took a handful of red powder from the bowl Crowley was holding and blew it on Spike’s face. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the vampire stirred.
As Deirdre recited the incantation to start the spell, Spike sat up slowly, his eyelids fluttering for a few seconds before he opened his eyes.
Crowley gave the bowl in his hands another suspicious look, seemingly having decided that the vampire had already lied by not reverting to his demonic form, before addressing the vampire. "Are you the vampire known as William the Bloody?"
"Yes."
"Where is Angelus?"
"The Poofter?" Spike scoffed. "Haven't seen his royal foreheadedness since he ditched us during the Boxer Rebellion."
Crowley glanced at Giles, and then at Deirdre. She frowned and gestured him to continue.
"And Drusilla and Darla? Do you know where they are? Have you been in contact with them?"
"No, she... no."
“Are they here, in New York.”
“No.”
"Then why are you here?"
"Don't have anywhere else to be. Not since..."
"Not since what?"
For the first time since the beginning of the spell, Giles could see Spike trying to struggle against the magics. He closed his eyes, his mouth forming a tight line as he resisted the spell. Giles gave Deirdre a nod and she dropped a pinch of herbs into the bowl Crowley was holding.
“Not since what, Spike?”
Spike looked up, and when Giles saw his eyes, he suddenly knew what was wrong with him. Suddenly it all made sense – all the stories in the books he had researched, of spells used to tame vampires, to restore them. He gripped the edge of the table for support as everything he had ever been taught, everything he had ever believed in, suddenly came crashing down and smashed into pieces.
"Not since I asked for my soul back."
The glass bowl slipped from Crowley's fingers, breaking into thousands of shards as it hit the tiled floor.
"Dear lord."
To be continued...