*****

Rupert Giles had the bluest eyes on earth, Angel thought when he awoke one afternoon and found the Watcher in his office. Those lovely blue eyes would have fit perfectly well into the erotic dream Angel had been having when a pileup in the intersection below his office window had led to multiple sirens and minimal sleep. Angel stood in the doorway for a moment and watched them, Giles's sandy curls bent over the desk close to Wesley's smooth dark hair. God, they made a pair. Angel could imagine one in each arm, the warmth of them, the taste of their skin....

It was if they felt his eyes on them. Both heads swivelled to look at him. Wesley looked as if he'd like to hide under the desk, but Giles, ah, Giles met Angel's eyes and smiled a challenge. Oh, this could be magnificent. This could be sex of a truly epic nature. This could be....

This could be truly embarassing. It had been way too long since Angel had got laid, if he was fantasizing about Giles.

They were still watching him, rabbit and raptor, watching him watch the Watchers.

"Morning," Angel stammered.

"Good morning," the others replied in unison.

"Angel," Wesley said, a tone of babble still coloring his voice, "what do you know about something called a nonbound vampire?"

"Unbound," Angel told him, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "A vampire is bound to his sire for as long as the sire lives. When the sire is destroyed, the childe is unbound. Free will sets in again."

"The prophecy specifically says not bound," Giles said. "It implies that there's only one, as well."

"Is there another way to make a vampire?" Wesley asked.

"I don't know of one."

"Presumably there would have to be," Giles said. "How else were the first vampires made?"

"Demons," Angel said. He didn't understand the mechanism, himself, and he wasn't interested. His kind was here, and that was all there was to it. "What prophecy?" he asked, not because he wanted to know, but to deflect the Watchers. They both loved to tell a tale.

"Someone else is out to conquer the world," Giles said, rubbing at his temple. "I wonder why they all feel the need to come through our Hellmouth? At any rate, there's a prophecy about this one, and how it's to be defeated:

Cold is flesh but hearts are bold,
Three great vampires our future hold,
The soulled one shall smile when the mad one is made whole,
And the one not bound shall lead us home."

"Atrocious rhyme scheme," Wesley said. "Whole and home, indeed."

"There's more, but that's the gist," Giles said. "We thought of you and Drusilla, of course."

"Yeah," Angel replied, "and I can guarantee you that I will smile, if she ever... recovers. That's not going to happen, though."

Giles smiled again, challenging again.

"Perhaps not, but the coincidence is remarkable. We wondered if you could lead us to the third party, the one not bound."

Angel sank into a chair and sipped his coffee. "Can't you guess?" he said. "I would think it would be obvious. I mean, I only made the three of them, and Penn is gone."

"We had wondered if Drusilla didn't make Spike," Wesley said. "They're so close, or they were."

"Drusilla did well to make it through the day," Angel laughed. "She couldn't keep a canary alive, much less a new Childe." He frowned. "But she did, didn't she?"

"I'm not following you," Wesley said. "Did you make him, or did she?"

"I'm not getting out of telling you this, am I?"

The Watchers just looked at him, waiting.

"All right. All right, but remember, this wasn't me. This was Angelus, and... well, it's not something I'm particularly proud of, and... okay. What happened was this."

*****
Part 2:

"When one of us makes a childe," Angel said, "we pass the next six weeks or so together, feeding and... having sex, and forming a bond, and by that you bind their will, and they can't resist you.

Well--you've heard part of this before, I know--a hundred years or so after I was made a vampire, I came on a young woman, one dear to her father's heart. She was beautiful and good and devoted to him, and everything he wanted her to be. Well, I did for her. I killed her family and made her what I was, and spent a couple of decades doing vile things to her just to hear her tell me she loved me for it.

I said I made her what I was, but I didn't. I couldn't. I could hold her will like a butterfly alive on a pin, battering its beautiful wings until it beat itself to death, but I could not make her evil. I couldn't keep her from loving, either, because that was as natural to her as breathing had been before she met me.

She had a good eye, I'll give her that. Him she took up with was some back-alley trollop's by-blow that had grown to a petty hoodlum, but he was a thing of rare beauty. Even alive, his body was alabaster, every tiny muscle limned with moonlight. He was not over-gifted with brains, mind you, or he'd have stayed well clear of Drusilla, but she loved him, and he loved her, and sometimes from half a street away I could feel her pressing her body against his living flesh to soak up the warmth.

Well, we couldn't be having that. I caught them one night at one of their trysts, white sheets and candlelight and his mouth on her breast. God, but he was beautiful. But as I've said, he was no genius. He told her to run--told Dru, my Dru to run from me. Of course, she couldn't. She couldn't even speak. I pushed him down in her lap and slid my fingers into his ass and he squealed like a pig. He was incredibly tight, and hot--it was like working my fingers in and out of a furnace, and all the while he's babbling for Drusilla to be away, but he's got his arms locked around her waist. Not that she was going anywhere. She had barely enough control to pat him on the shoulder, and that surprised me.

Sometimes I still dream of the next bit, just of the pure visual image. I slid my hands over the warm skin of his ass cheeks, cherishing the smoothness of them, and then pressed them apart and set the head of my dick against his hole. I was already leaking, and when he felt that bead of moisture against his sweet little pucker I thought he would climb the walls. I put just the head in at first, and watched myself pop the rim of it back and forth past his sphincter. It was almost too good. I made myself stop, be still, be motionless with the head of my prick stretching his glorious ass, and I spoke to Drusilla.

"You've done it again, you silly bitch," I told her. "You've killed him. I'm going to fuck him silly and drain him dry, and it'll be your fault."

"No."

I wouldn't have thought him able to speak. No matter. I sawed my cock in and out of him, and he screamed and burrowed into Dru's lap.

"Say it again," I told him. "Let her hear you beg!"

"Not... her... fault!"

The impudent little slut! I rammed my whole length into him, and heard him scream as something tore. It didn't matter. His remaining lifespan was measured in seconds. I humped him hard and fast, pushing toward my climax, ignoring Dru's fingers smoothing limp blond hair off her lover's face. I waited until I felt the first surge rising, buoying me up, and then I sank my fangs into his neck.

It is the most fantastic thing there is: orgasm with warm sweet blood in your mouth. It's like something picks you up and shakes you, and you lose your grip on everything in the world except the pulse in your cock and the one in your mouth. I let the sensation sweep me into absolute ecsatsy, knowing nothing at all outside my own body.

And in the midst of all that, didn't the little sod bite me?

If I'd known him, I might have been expecting it. Spike never was one to miss even the smallest chance. But I didn't know him. I didn't even really know myself.

For instance, I didn't know that I couldn't control two children at once. Not in the middle of a quantum orgasm. I collapsed against Spike's back and heard a snarl above me. I rolled off him and saw Drusilla crouching over us, naked and game-faced, hissing like some fury out of the Grammar School classics.

I could have taken her, of course. I could have taken her with two fingers, if I hadn't been recovering from the kind of sex that alters your world-view. I could have taken her, but I didn't. I staggered out, and heard the door bolt sliding behind me, and I didn't see either of them again for nearly a year.

"And so I never bonded with Spike. Drusilla may have done, to some degree, but Dru isn't his sire. Spike hasn't had the... the bondage experience that the rest of us go through. I mean, I showed him some things, later, and I pushed him around, but he just let me because Dru couldn't fight me. That's the only control I have over him."

The Watchers were still staring at him, Wesley pale and shaken, Giles with silent fury caged behind those blue eyes.

"This is Spike we're talking about," Angel reminded them. "William the Bloody? The guy who stocked his larder by hanging live people from railroad spikes driven through their shoulders? This is Spike!"

"Yes, it is," Giles said, "and I think he's the one we need to deal with." He gathered his things and started out of the room, but stopped beside Angel.

Kiss me, Angel willed. Fall down on your knees and swallow my dick whole. Giles just looked at him, and the image changed. Angel could see himself face down on his bed, his bare butt in the air and the tip of this man's cock nudging against his ass.

Giles smiled, and walked out the door.

*****
Part 3:

Three dead hens lay in heap of bloody feathers beside the altar. One by one he lifted their warm hearts from a silver plate and traced a different symbol on each: stake, then diamond and finally a coffin, and then replaced each in the dish. He sprinkled them with mugwort for visions and ivy for the bond, and then he gathered himself and said a Word. When the glare died he scooped up the hearts and dropped them into the glass container, the first two beating madly, the last gray and still. Smiling, he capped the thing, sat it in place and turned on the blender.

"That," he mused when the three hearts had turned to one smooth liquid, "should take care of that problem."

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

Cordelia Chase had had some mindbending sex in her time. She had had orgasms that tied her whole body in one tight knot and then blew it to the furthest reaches of the universe. She had thought she knew what sex was all about.

This, though, was better than sex. This was sheer paradise with her fingers tangled in bleach-blond hair whose owner was applying his agile tongue to the tender bits between her legs with devastating effect. She ground herself against him, babbling words she didn't know in a voice that wasn't hers, until she teetered on the edge of ecstasy.

And he stopped.

She whined in protest and met his eyes with a reproachful look, and gods, but it was Spike, Spike with her juices smeared all over his face and his pupils dilated until there was only a rim of blue around the dark center, and his hand pumping at his magnificently rampant manhood.

Okay, so she should stop reading those trashy novels, but right then it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the ache inside her and the warm male body that slid upward over hers until that beautiful shaft was poised against her.

"Yes?" he said. "Princess?"

She wrapped her legs around him and drew him inside her, and screamed as her spasms rocked her against him and around him and up and down that glorious burning maleness. It twitched inside her, once, and then again, and then pumped in a steady rhythm, filling her with seed so hot it almost burned within her. When it was over he sagged against her, and through his sighs she could feel his heart still hammering like a thunderstorm as his mouth sought her breast like a child seeking comfort.

Spike's heart. She felt Spike's heart beating.

Just as she was beginning to get a handle on that, the door flew open and Angel loomed over them.

"Silly bitch," he growled.

Cordelia heard someone screaming, or something, but when she sat up, it was only her alarm clock, beeping in the warm California dawn.

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

Willow could have slept for another couple of hours with no problem at all. It was, after all, a Saturday, and she had nothing planned all day except making some cookies for Giles, who had been a little down ever since he got back from Los Angeles. Willow could have lived without being awakened at six in the morning by her roommate's screams.

Still, it was Buffy. She should be used to it. She slid across the floor and put her arms around her friend, and Buffy woke.

"What is it?" Willow asked. "One of your dreams?"

"I think so. God, it was... we've got to find Spike."

"You dreamed about Spike?"

"He'll know what it means."

"Spike will know what your dreams mean?"

"Yeah," Buffy said, wriggling out of Willow's grasp and reaching for her clothes. "Don't look so strange, Will. He always did before."

*****
Part 4:

"Did they feed you, then?" Spike asked the Watcher.

Giles had the flu. He had thrown up everything he'd eaten for four days, except for a few things that had come violently out the other end. He had sent the Scoobies away with orders not to come back as long as he was contagious. The world was not going to be destroyed because Rupert Giles had infected its last defenders.

Unfortunately, the Defenders wouldn't leave him by himself when he was ill. They'd left Spike behind. Xander had dared Giles to infect a dead guy. Right now, Giles wished he could. At least if Spike didn't feel well, he might sit still.

"Come on, then. What d'ya fancy?"

"I'm not actually hungry at the moment, Spike."

"You should eat, you know. Get your strength back. Lemme see what's in here. You ever get any Weetabix?"

For a few blessed moments, Spike was gone, although a curious stirring in the kitchen did nothing to still Giles's apprehensions. Then came the sound of the doorbell, and Spike walked past the open bedroom door.

He was wearing Olivia's apron, the one with the ruffles. The door squeaked open and there was muffled conversation before it closed again.

"Package," Spike said, and tossed it on the bed. "I signed your name."

Giles rubbed his aching eyes, donned his glasses and looked at the thing. It was brown paper, apparently cut from an old-fashioned grocery sack, and wrapped with what seemed to be yards of strapping tape. The address....

"Spike! It's for you, and next time you sign my name to anything...."

"Yeah, right. Think they'll mistake you for the Duchess of Kent?" The vampire set a tray on the bed beside Giles. There was tea. There was toast. There was a scrambled egg, and Giles's favorite flavor of jam. "First things first. Eat."

"Aren't you going to open your package?"

"Wonder what's in it?"

"There's a boxcutter on my desk. You could use it, if you wanted."

"Yeah, and you could eat something. Go on."

"Spike...."

"Could be dirty pictures, or a new CD. Could be parts for me car. We'll never know, though, unless...."

Giles picked up a triangle of toast and nibbled. Spike went for the boxcutter.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Giles asked him when he returned.

"Scramble eggs?"

"Wheedle."

"I had some few decades of practice, didn't I?" Spike stood the box on end and sliced through each layer of tape separately, playing it out until Giles had eaten the egg and most of the toast, and then he ripped the paper away and tossed the lid aside.

"Speaking of...."

"What is it?" From the box Spike lifted an antique china doll.

"From Drusilla?" Giles asked. Spike peered into the box and extracted a card. His eyes widened as he read it. "What does it say?"

Spike handed it over. There was a printed address in Los Angeles, and then a handwritten scrawl.

"By Thursday dawn," it said, "or she goes to the sun."

*****
Part 5

"Wesley?"

"What's wrong, Cordelia?"

"Nothing. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

"So you just came in to say 'good morning?' Then why is your expression that of the priest come to tell a mother her infant has been selected for sacrifice?"

Cordelia laughed in spite of herself.

"Do you know that expression particularly well?" she asked.

"All too well, actuallly. Why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"

"What do you know about Spike?"

"You should talk to Angel."

"No!" The force of her refusal startled her.

"Cordelia?"

"I can't. Wesley, I had a dream."

"As in, a vision?"

"I think so, but... Spike was in it, and Angel, and Angel... hurt him, and then he bit him." She closed her eyes, but couldn't shut out the vision of poor Will's eyes glazing, and his blood flowing down his neck from Angelus's fangs. She's dipped her fingers in it, tasted it. Sweet and rich, almost chocolate, where she touched his face it left red trails....

Wesley had come round the desk and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Perhaps you'd better sit down," he told her. She sank into a chair just as the door opened to admit Angel, who carried the day's mail and a package wrapped in brown paper.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Cordelia," Wesley told him, "has had a disturbing dream."

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

"They're not going to be rich, are they?" Spike asked Willow as she spooned the cookies out on a baking sheet. "He's kept some light stuff down, but...."

"It's just the little lemony ones with the brown edges that he likes so much. It'll be all right. His fever's almost gone."

"He should stay the bloody hell away from Los Angeles. He catches something vile every time he's there."

"We're not going to let you go alone."

"She'll have you, you know. Even if we get her away from whoever it is, you're still just livestock to her."

"If they even have her. Anybody can buy a doll."

"It's one of hers," he said. "I got it for her in Berlin, just before that idiot shot the bleedin' archduke. Gods, how did they...." He closed his eyes and pressed a fist to his mouth.

Willow set down the bowl and put her arms around Spike.

"It'll be okay," she told him.

"Red...."

"Shhh. It'll be okay."

He brushed the hair aside and ran his fingers down her neck, feeling for the pulse spot. Willow didn't object. She never did. She's told him flat out, if he could figure a way to do it she'd feed him. That chip was a wonderful thing. If you couldn't bite, the humans came over all solicitous and just bared their throats and offered them up, for all the good it did. She wasn't even frightened, now, when he kissed her there. Her heartbeat was slow and sweet, just under the skin, fluttering against his lips. He snaked out his tongue and flicked it against her neck, and his balls grew taut against his body as his hidden fangs began to itch.

"Spike." Her fingers combed through his hair, traced the contours of an ear, brushed across an eyebrow. He could do this. He really could. She would give him her blood, give it freely, and he would bask in the sweet warmth of it. His cock was fully erect now, straining against the denim toward her sweet, sweet body. It was going to happen this time. It would happen. He would... he would.... he threw back his head as his fangs erupted, picked Willow up and sat her on a vacant bit of counter. Her fingers were on his face, fondling it, memorizing this other Spike to whom she had offered herself, but he pushed them aside and laid his fangs against her neck.

Then the headache hit, and he staggered backward into a chair, still holding Willow tightly. The impact drove her against him, against his mouth, and she squealed as his fangs broke the skin.

It was like breaking through a wall. Her blood gushed into his mouth, and after the first mad draught he settled into a gentle suckling, cradling her against him as he fed until the first pangs in his head warned him he'd taken as much as was safe for her. Again he licked her neck, kissed it, pressing his lips against the wounds until they closed, and his face relaxed into human form.

"Sweet," he said. "Thank you."

"Yeah, well, next time maybe we'd better plan this a little better." She laid a hand against his damp jeans. Gods, he'd come in his pants.

"Precious." He kissed her forehead, leaving a red print of her blood. "This is just perfect."

"Is Drusilla going to think it's perfect?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if she cares anymore. Oh, precious, I've ruined your shirt!"

"It's okay," she said, twisting to inspect the bloodstains. "You're right. Nothing matters. This is perfect."

"Willow? The perfect cookies are burning."

*****
Part 6

The walls were dripping. Not with blood, not with sewage, with yellowy mucus that stank of liquor and tobacco and a very bad cold.

Okay, Buffy was in somebody's sinuses. This was cool. She had had stranger dreams than this. She could deal with the scent of the stuff, and the pine stuff they used in the toilet down the hall with the scent of body waste under it, and the hint of fresh air from further away.

She was in someone's sinuses, dreaming in Techni-Odor. She could smell the man before she saw him, gluttonous cravings and dripping cock and socks that needed changing.

"You're dead," she said as he loomed over her. "You know that, right?"

"If I were dead," he told her, "I wouldn't need your family." His eyes swept over her, and he massaged the swelling under his trousers. Enough of this. Buffy gathered herself and lunged. Well, she tried to lunge.

She was literally nailed to the floor, with one spike through both wrists. For the first time she became aware of the burning sensation, as if her arms would go to ash. The man knelt over them, laughing.

"Seems to be just right," he told her. "I was forever doing computer models of how fast the silver would burn as opposed to how fast you heal." He yanked her arms so that the nail bit into fresh flesh, and she thought she could smell the burning. It was the scent that brought tears to her eyes, she told herself. The scent was just too strong. She felt him brush her legs apart, felt the grimy fabric of his trousers against the inside of her thighs. Perfect. She'd kick his fool head off--except that there was a shackle around each ankle, and she only managed to do more damage to her wrists.

"Pretty thing," he said, stroking between her legs with deceptive tenderness.

Then she smelled something else--demon. The aroma rushed into the room, followed by a frantic young geek in a cheap suit.

"He's here," the geek said.

"I told you not to...."

"HE is here. He wants to speak to you."

While his attention was on the geek, Buffy spat in her assailants face. He slapped her backhanded as he climbed to his feet.

"Bitch," he muttered. "when I get back I'll lube your sweet ass with holy water and ream it out with a silver wand."

"I hope it's bigger than your puny dick." That earned her a kick where her spine joined her skull, and a few moments of blessed oblivion, When she came to, the geek and his master was gone.

The room wasn't empty, however. She couldn't see anyone... she could crane her neck enough to be sure of that... and yet she felt their presence, a little girl sobbing softly, and someone else whispering comfort.

"Can you help me?" Buffy said. "Just get me out of these shackles, and I promise, he'll never hurt any of us again. Please, can you just unchain me?"

No matter how Buffy pleaded, there was no answer.

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

"Cordy?"

"Angel? Where's Wesley?" She sat up in Angel's bed, where she'd been deposited for a nap after telling last night's dream.

"Gone to the bookstore. He'll be right back."

"Okay."

"Cordy? Did it happen again?"

"Yeah."

"Is she all right?"

"She never was before." The vampire winced, and Cordelia almost smiled. "Come on, Angel. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out whose head we're in."

"Oh. I...."

"For what it's worth, I don't think you did it this time."

"I did it. If I'd left her alone Dru would have had a normal life and a family and been in that heaven she was so sure of for a minimum of seventy-five years. Whatever she's going through now, I did."

"I thought she was going to be a nun."

"That was after. They thought she'd be safe from me there, but there's nowhere that's safe. Not just from me. There's nowhere anywhere that's safe for any of us."

Cordelia laid a hand on Angel's arm, but said nothing.

"Are they hurting her?" he whispered. "Is it very bad?"

"On a scale of one being a mosquito bite and ten being rebar in the stomach? It's not too bad. Buffy was there, trying to kill something."

"Trying to kill what?"

"I don't think she cares." Angel smiled, one of the rare smiles that could light up a whole room. It ended abruptly when Wesley clattered in, his arms full of books, and Cordelia was told to relax while he and Angel did their research.

She was glad of it. She didn't want to tell the rest until she'd had time to think about it. She could still hear the child's voice, babbling terrified in her lap.

"I tried to be good. I tried not to cry. He won't love me any more if he sees me cry. If I loved him it wouldn't hurt, so why does it hurt? Why?"

"Poor sweetie." The girl might have been four or five. "Where does it hurt? Show me, and I'll kiss it and make it better."

"It's not allowed," the child answered. "Just Angel can kiss me there, and not at all if I cry. He won't love me if I cry."

"I love you, sweetie," Cordelia told her, and kissed the top of her head. "I love you lots and lots and lots."

*****
Part 7:

They took Xander's van to Los Angeles, speeding through the dark night. Buffy drove, because if she didn't she might nod off, and she didn't want to dream. She didn't want to find herself in the body of a psychotic killer that she'd done her best to stake. She didn't want to find any tiny shred of sympathy for Drusilla. Spike and Willow were curled together on the bed in the back, with the big square BandAid almost blazing against Willow's skin. If Spike didn't have time to betray her, Dru would kill her. Buffy's best friend was a goner.

Giles sat at the other end of the bed, a book open in his lap with the ridiculous little light Buffy'd given him for Christmas clipped to it. His fingers traced Willow's ankle, seemingly of their own accord, just maintaining contact. In the passenger seat, Xander was watching Buffy.

"What are we going to do with her when we get her away from this guy?" he asked.

"We're not going to get her away," Buffy said with a surreptitious glance to the rear. "We're going to stop whoever's hurting her, and we're going to make sure she never gets hurt again."

"Buffy...."

"We're going to make sure she never hurts anyone again, Xander. That's a good thing, right?"

"I guess so."

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

Angel's life was going from bad to worse. First the pansy-assed Watcher had made him confess that he'd made a Childe by accident and then had him taken by someone who couldn't hold two knitting needles together, much less a family of vampires. Now he had to look Spike in the eye while the rest of the Scoobies laughed behind his back. What kind of a vampire was he?

What kind of a person was he? His Childe was held hostage in some sort of dungeon being tortured by someone else!

What kind of Sire was he? He should have bonded with her. She should have been his favorite, his bride, his companion on a thousand dark runs through the nightbound city. He should have fed her his own dark rich blood to heal her ills and nourish her into a strength rivalling his own. He should have loved her. Instead, he'd picked her mind to pieces, and now someone else was grinding her to powder.

His reverie was interrupted by the aura of yet another vampire, one he knew all too well. He could feel Spike's presence from blocks away, feel the car draw up outside and the gang climb the stairs. It was so strong that he almost missed the other, Willow. She had Spike's mark on her, now, his scent. He shouldn't have minded. He'd never been more than casually attracted to Willow, until now. But Spike was his Childe. What was Spike's was Angel's, and suddenly Angel wanted Willow, very much. With an effort he tore his gaze away from her neck and found himself looking into Giles's eyes again.

Oh, no. Why couldn't he escape this fantasy? Angel saw himself on his knees, gazing up into those same icy eyes with that same expression as he swallowed the whole of the Watcher's prick. Gile's hands cupped Angel's face, caressed it, touselled the dark hair. Giles's skin was so very soft under Angel's hands. Sweet gingery pubic hair brushed Angel's face as he swallowed the very last bit of cock, and then his mouth was flooded with strong, salty come, full and overflowing....

"Angel?" Buffy was looking at him. They were all looking at him, at the rampant erection that had crept up on him when he wasn't looking. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Cordelia's having a nap. I'll just wake her, and then we can talk."

*****
Part 8

Tara stood on the library steps squinting in the bright sunlight as an ice cream truck rolled through the campus, bouncing its tinny tune off ivied walls. Yeah, ice cream. Or maybe sherbert, in this heat. She dug in her purse for change as she walked down the steps.

There was no reason for her to be surprised that it was Anya driving the truck. She knew Xander was in L.A. with Willow and the others. She knew their finances didn't allow for days off. They were paying more interest on that broken down ice cream truck than Tara was on her credit cards. Anya handed a raspberry sherbert out the window and offered Tara a ride back to the dorm.

"Did you see Willow before they left?" she asked. "I mean, after...."

"She called me," Tara stammered.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it. At least she bothered to call."

"I don't know what it means."

"What what means?"

"That Spike bit her. I mean, does that mean that they're together now?"

"Pretty much."

"Oh."

"But it doesn't mean she doesn't want you. One person can't feed a vampire. He may want you."

"Huh?"

"Only if you want to, though. It works sort of like orgasms. In fact, there are usually orgasms involved."

"How do you know all this?"

"I was the Payback Kid. I was a revenge demon. You'd be surprised how many of these relationships have someone involved that think someone else's penis should turn green and fall off."

"Green?"

"Yeah, mostly. You want another sherbert?"

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

To tell the truth, Wesley was a bit in awe of Giles. Here was a man who had been a success as a Watcher, and then had walked away. Never mind that that wasn't how the Council had it. Wesley could tell the purse from the sow's ear, and he knew how much credit to give the official story.

He also knew that he'd just seen the man face down a powerful vampire. Okay, Angel had a soul, and Giles had Buffy and Spike at either elbow, but Angel hadn't been looking at Buffy and Spike. A vampire fascinated by a Watcher was a marvel not heard of anywhere in the Chronicles. The books didn't say anything about that massive erection Angel had been sporting, either. A vampire lusting after a watcher. Wesley didn't know whether to laugh or run for cover.

He did, however, know what he had to do.

"Giles? There's something I think you should see."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I've a great deal on my plate just now."

"That's just it. Something doesn't add up. There's something about this entire situation that's terribly wrong."

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

It had never particularly liked humans, particularly not Americans. Americans were about ninety-eight percent cholesterol, and the rest was toxic additives. It much preferred third world magicians who'd made slight errors in the circle. This one, however, hadn't made any errors. He smelled particularly awful, and his pronunciation was atrocious, but he had the technique down pat and he knew exactly what he wanted.

"It is as you wished," the magician said. "The Slayer and her ilk have been lured away from the Hellmouth at Sunnydale. Pass your minions through when you will, once you've fullfilled our bargain."

"You'll get your reward when my people walk in their rightful place again. Or have you claimed it already?"

The magician threw back his head.

"I have had nothing from you."

"You have had your pleasure with a daughter of Hell. Don't deny it. You reek of vampire. You sought her bed and left it alive. What other reward could you want?"

"Nothing, so long as you are content that I go immediately to the Slayer and tell her all I know. You will keep our arrangement, Millefleurs. You will do as you agreed."

The demon bounced off the barrier formed by the magic circle, gnashing his fangs in fury.

*****
Part 9:

A vampire had the hots for Giles.

He had been in some pretty strange situations, sexually, most of them involving tantric magic and Ethan Raine, in varying proportions, but everything that had ever lusted after him had been pretty much human. That was if someone as amoral as Ethan could actually be considered human. The sex had been grand, though. Ethan had wanted Giles on top of him, bending to kiss him while he buggered his ass. He said it made him feel safe. It had been such a tender feeling.

"Here it is," Wesley said, setting an ancient tome on the desk at which Giles was sitting in the here and now. "Look here." A slender finger traced a block of text. Slender like Ethan's. Giles donned his glasses and forced his attention to the book, and frowned.

"Perhaps it was simply a different scribe."

"Look at the serifs. See? That particulay sort of roundhand didn't come into use until a century later, and that was in Scandanavia. And it's the only piece in the book in that particular hand. The rest is era-appropriate."

"Someone went to the trouble of taking a medieval grimoire apart, inserting pages and then putting it back together?"

Wesley nodded. "And what they inserted was our prophecy of a non-bound vampire."

"So does that mean it's a load of rubbish, then?" Spike was standing in the doorway behind them, sipping at one of Angel's glass beakers of blood. Giles thought he preferred mugs. That way he couldn't see the contents.

"You told him?" Wesley asked.

"I didn't want him running off half-cocked because of this other situation, not if he's important to us."

"Oh, that's comforting!"

"Spike...."

"It's not though, you know." The vampire took another sip of blood.

Giles couldn't find words to trace that leap of logic. Wesley found them for him.

"Not a different situation, you mean? You were lured to Los Angeles, and the prophecy brought the rest of them with you."

"We'd have come, anyway." Giles groused.

"And they've still got Dru," Spike said.

"Yes," Wesley mused. "Why bother with poor mad Drusilla? There's something we're still not getting."

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

This was not a warehouse. This was a shack in what had been a pasture, which had been used to store hay. Then the owner had brought in a bulldozer and turned it into a dirt bike track. He would have dozed the house, too, but Anya had offered him a few bucks a month in rent. There was neither heat nor A/C nor running water, and the only reason there was even electricity was to run the freezers.

The freezers were Riley's job. Two sixty cubic feet antiques rescued from the Salvation Army, and he was to keep them stocked with ice cream truck goodies, and stay there at night, and he could live rent free and not worry that the government might be looking for him.

Sometimes he thought he'd rather deal with the government. He'd been a graduate assistant in psychology, for heaven's sake, and as soon as he took that degree he would have entered medical school. He's already been accepted, and then this had to happen.

Stacking Nutty Buddies in the freezer wouldn't get him a psychiatric residency at Bayview. It wouldn't even get him his next meal, and with Giles unavailable for mooching, he didn't know where it was coming from. Maybe he could snitch something out of the next case.

The next case was banana pops. Rethink that.

In the case after that something was moving. Rats in the ice cream? Anya would have their wholesaler for lunch. She was horribly set that Xander would make a success of this business. Perhaps Riley should just get rid of the rodent, and avoid her catfit. He wondered if rats were truly edible. An army trainer in survival school had said they were. Anything was possible.

Riley found a sturdy stake to serve as a club and approached the box. It was still, now, but he could hear something inside it, something that knew it was being hunted. He reached with the end of the stake and tipped the box over. Blow Pops went everywhere, and a sleek black form streaked directly toward Riley.

It was not a rat.

*****