Prague, 1935
Disclaimer: Henry Fitzroy belongs to Tanya Huff. Her"Blood Ties" series of books aired as a TV series on Lifetime this year, so you can get Henry in two forms. Spike and Dru belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, even though I sometimes wish they were mine.
They entered while he was sitting in a dim corner of the pub. He was pretending to sip at a mug of beer while keeping an eye out for something to eat. It had been two days since his last meal, and he was hungry. There were only two of them, but they walked in with the kind of self-importance that had heads turning around before their owners were even aware there was something to see.
She was pale and beautiful, with the proud carriage a queen should be so lucky as to possess. Her cloak billowed around her like a royal train, and she glided through the room as if the other patrons were invisible. She seemed unaware that the days of royalty were largely over, even here in the heartland of Europe. Her companion swaggered by her side with the smug arrogance of a pit bull who walks through a world full of cocker spaniels. He stared round, spoiling for a fight, and the locals quickly dropped their gazes in order not to meet his challenge.
The male's hair was dyed black and the clothes were much different then when he'd seen them last, but the watcher would have known them anywhere.
Sweet saints singing and Mary mild! Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII of England, 400-ish-year-old vampire and practicing Catholic, quickly pushed back his chair. He hid his face in the shadows of the corner, already knowing it was too late for concealment.
There were two general ways a vampire could choose to move through the human world. Henry practiced the first: that obscurity was the safest route to a long and satisfying existence. He had four centuries behind him to prove his way worked well. These two were of the opposite opinion.
The Whiskered Boar, which had the deafening roar of a jam-packed pub in full evening swing, slowly trailed into a deafening silence. The patrons, tough city labourers already well-sloshed on tankards of beer, tried to gape at the female out of one eye while keeping the male in wary view with the other.
Not at all conspicuous, Henry growled to himself in disgust. They were only an accordion player, a few elephants and some fireworks short of a civic spectacle.
The female spoke, in a soft Cockney accent that brought Henry home to the poorer streets of London. "My Spike, we 'ave interrupted the party. I told you we was late."
Spike swept a look around the room, watching with great amusement as gazes were hastily dropped into mugs of beer. "It's not a party without us, love," he told her in sharply-enunciated City-London made lazy by a mocking drawl. "Besides, it was you had us stop for dinner on the way."
"I was 'ungry," she replied, her gentle voice as compelling as Spike's carrying one. "Food 'ere is so 'olesome and 'ealthsome—like 'applesauces and stews and sausages. We shall get round, red cheeks; and live in a gingerbread 'ouse; an' a litt'le bird shall jump in and out of the clock and sing us the 'our."
As her dreamy voice stopped, Spike picked up his cue. They were playing, as always, to the room. It didn't matter that no one else spoke a word of English.
"Everything shall be just as you want it, pet," Spike assured her, looking as though he very badly hoped someone was stupid enough to try and make things otherwise. "Now then, how shall we celebrate our first evening in jolly-old Prague?" Spike was a parody of light-heartedness; his perfectly innocent question dripped with menace. Hands on his hips, he took a slow survey of the inhabitants of the room and raised his brows at his companion. "Perhaps you'd care for a drink."
Henry, sitting hunched into his collar in the corner, gave a soundless sigh. All vampires suffered from acute cases of melodrama, but these two made him feel as decorous as his long-dead Great-Aunt Etheline by comparison.
The female clapped her hands together unexpectedly, causing everyone in the room to start from the lulled daze her presence and voice had instilled. She took up her companion's idea with delight, crying animatedly, "A toast, my Spike! A toast to old friends!"
She was very unsettling, particularly as it wasn't her intention to be.
"Any particular mates in mind Drusilla?" Spike drawled.
Dear Lord in Heaven, here it comes, thought Henry in his corner.
Drusilla was suddenly on the move, circling Spike playfully. "An 'appy place is dear Prague," she said. "A countryman 'ere to give us welcome; to show us the sights," she teased, a secret in her smile.
Spike grinned, turning his head to track her progress. "A bloody Limey amongst all these schnitzel-eaters? Good news indeed!" he said. "Tell us who it is, love."
Drusilla pressed a thin finger to his lips. "A secret it is, sweet William. A litt'le bird jumped out of the clock an' told me." Looking pleased as a young girl, she moved closer to speak slyly into Spike's ear. "Whisper, whisper, whisper…."
The two broke off laughing, sharing a private joke.
"But how do we look this bloke up?" Spike asked, his arm around Drusilla's waist drawing her close.
Drusilla looked at him wide-eyed as he smiled down at her. "We shan't," she said.
They kissed leisurely in front of the silent room of watching people; a kiss that had the locals blushing and the bartender muttering about "the damned French." Henry was completely annoyed by the time—finally!—the kiss was over. With his family, he'd seen more than enough exhibitionists making inappropriate displays of public affection in his childhood—and didn't that just bring back some lovely memories he'd hoped were long gone. He had no patience with self-indulgent attention-seekers who loved causing scenes.
Spike was waiting expectantly. "Well, Dru?"
Drusilla pulled out of the embrace with a smile that showed very white teeth as she gazed out at the room. "'E is 'ere!" she said in a self-satisfied way.
"Here my love! You don't say," drawled Spike, making a poor job of pretending to be surprised. He started to prowl the room, speaking with mock sincerity: "In this very pub, and not the decency to give us a 'Hello.' I think my feelings have been hurt." Spike attempted a wounded look here to show just how hurt his feelings were. "What kind of mate would be so rude? I can only think of one. A real wanker he is."
Henry had had enough. They were toying with him like two cats with a mouse. He was a vampire, not a rodent. He was not to be toyed with. He stood up, moving from the shadows into the bright centre of the room.
"Your eyesight is terrible William," he told Spike, voice clear and ringing. "I've been sitting here the entire time—if by "Limey wanker," you were referring to me. I'm sure you never would have spoken ill of me had you known I was right here listening," he added dryly.
"Hah!" Spike exclaimed in triumph, having flushed out his prey. He pounced on Henry and threw an arm, ungentle even by vampire standards, around his shoulders. Henry did his best not to hiss.
"If it isn't the good Prince Hal," Spike mocked. "Fancy meeting you in Prague."
"Quite," said Henry. "Don't call me that."
"A real charmer, our Prince Hal," said Spike, oozing fake warmth. "Those poncy manners of yours are as polished as ever."
Drusilla wandered up and silently extended pale fingers for him to kiss. Henry did so—pointedly using his poncy manners—with his best court bow. Drusilla inclined her head regally in approval.
"Isn't this cozy," Spike approved. "Old friends reunited, and all that rot. Let's have a drink, shall we? For old times' sake."
It was not a friendly request, nor was Henry's presence optional. Henry could take one of them out in a fight, but not both at once. There was also the watching room of humans to consider. He gave in to the inevitable.
Henry made his way back to the small table he'd occupied before being discovered. He handed Drusilla into her chair before taking his own. Drusilla sat straight-backed and graceful, her skirts arranged smoothly around her. Spike turned his chair around with a thumpand slouched comfortably along the back. The barmaid hurried over to take their order.
"What will it be?" the girl asked in Czech.
She was young and plump. Drusilla stared at her neck. Spike stared at her breasts.
Henry hurriedly told the barmaid that drinks were unnecessary and gave her a 10-groat piece when she glared, blaming him for his companions' behaviour. Immortality was not looking kindly on him tonight. This is what comes of giving the lower classes access to the afterlife, Henry thought darkly.
The comfortable hum of the pub started up again, more subdued than before, as Henry eyed his companions unenthusiastically over his untouched mug of beer. Even for vampires they were dangerous. They were barely a century old; young and wild. They had no sense of discretion, trusting their superior strength and immortality to keep them out of trouble. Not that trouble was something that happened to them. Trouble was what they gave other people. Often, and in large amounts.
The hair on the back of Henry's neck was prickling uncomfortably, and he tried to avoid directly meeting Drusilla's eyes. She had the dark, intense stare of a hypnotist. He'd heard that she had unusual abilities that had no origin in vampirism. Rumour said that she could read minds, receive visions of true events to come and bend others to her will with the strength of her gaze alone. She was also as bats-in-the-belfry insane as a heroine in a Shakespearean tragedy and completely unpredictable.
Spike was every bit as bad to deal with. For all that he pretended to be a thug, Spike was far from stupid. His favourite pastimes were winding people up and watching them explode, finding out the rules in any given situation in order to break them and beating the living daylights out of anything that moved. He was a vampire in love with his violent nature. He fought for the sheer hell of it, enjoying the thrill and the blood. Henry had seen him put his fist through a man before. Through, as in, out the other side. Spike and Drusilla were loyal only to one another and their extended family, and not at all fussy about whether they killed humans or vampires. Henry tried to keep his contact with them as limited as possible. He'd thought they were safely away in China.
"I thought you were in China."
Spike raised his brows skeptically. "Missed us, did you Hank? I'm touched. I never would have guessed it from the way you were avoiding us a few minutes ago."
Henry clenched his fangs. It would be a very bad idea to lose his temper.
"Where is the other half of your gang, if I may ask? Two of the Musketeers seem to be missing."
Spike spoke carelessly. "Angelus bit a gypsy girl in Roumania, the stupid wanker, and got himself saddled with a soul. Darla took off soon after. Not that it matters. We don't need them, do we love," he said, turning to Drusilla.
"My poor Angel," mourned Drusilla.
"A soul!" Such a thing should be impossible.
"Yeah mate, a real, bleeding soul," said Spike. "That Know-Bugger-All Angelus, always getting in my face about taking too many risks, goes and pisses off a whole tribe of gypsies. Everyone knows the gypsies know how to look after their own. Made him all broody, the soul did," he said pensively. "Put him right off his food."
"What a pity," said Henry, thinking the opposite.
Angelus was without question the most vicious vampire Henry had ever come across. Uncannily perceptive of other people's thoughts and desires, Angelus possessed enormous strength and the beautiful features that gave him his name. He used his abilities to torment and terrify in a way that went far beyond what was normal for a vampire hunting its prey. He chose his victims carefully and took cruel pleasure in destroying their minds and souls before he finally killed them. It was common knowledge that on becoming a vampire he'd slaughtered his entire village—parents, siblings, relatives, friends and neighbours—to the very last person.
Angelus was a strong and persuasive leader, a rare occurrence among solitary vampire kind. Henry had always worried about the bad influence of Angelus on the vampires who followed him, particularly the pair facing him now. Angelus had raised Spike and Drusilla after their change, which probably explained much of their wildness and careless cruelty. If getting a soul had taken Angelus off the hunt and away from other vampires then Henry was glad, though he couldn't help but wonder in what state the soul in question was. If it was Angelus's soul, cracked and tarnished wouldn't begin to describe it.
Drusilla suddenly stood up, sparing Henry from having to produce some insincere condolences about Angelus's strange fate. She lowered herself gravely down until she was lying next to his mug of beer on the table and started doing a languid backstroke.
The locals were openly staring and Henry, hating his too-fair skin, knew he was blushing. He waited vainly for Spike to exert some sort of restraint over his lover. Spike met his frantic glare blandly, looking as relaxed as though this were everyday behaviour. For all Henry knew, it very well could be.
Damn Spike! He was enjoying this. The best part of outliving his family by several hundred years, as far as Henry was concerned, was that he got to choose who he associated with, thereby avoiding this kind of aggravation in his life.
How to dissuade a crazy vampire? Henry tried. "Madam," he addressed her, as he'd been raised to be polite to women no matter what the circumstance, "Madam, if you fancy a swim, the Vltava is only a short distance by foot from this place. Perhaps you would care for a stroll along the riverbank. It's quite beautiful in the moonlight."
Drusilla ignored him. Ginevra had always told him that he was an ass when it came to speaking to women, even for an ineloquent Englishman. Ginevra had never seemed to mind very much.
"Are you propositioning my lady?" asked Spike meaningly, choosing to read all sorts of filthy innuendo into offers of walks in the moonlight by banks of foreign rivers.
"I am doing no such thing," snapped Henry, temper fraying. "Here's a proposition: why don't conduct your lady off the table and into her chair, before she starts singing sea shanties!"
"Don't give her ideas," said Spike contemptuously. In a quiet voice, he said "Mind the beer, pet," and reached across Drusilla to take the full mug before she could knock it with an elbow.
Drusilla switched her stroke to something resembling how a frog might swim, if it swam on its back. Henry dodged a flung hand that narrowly missed his nose.
Spike brought the ale, flat now, up to his nose to sniff curiously. "Pah!" He made an awful face. "What do they put in the brew here?" he asked loudly. "Horsepiss?"
Spike tipped the mug sideways, slowly and deliberately pouring the entire drink on the floor. To a person, every last Czech in the room stiffened in outrage.
This was bad. Central Europeans made a religion out of their beer. There were fierce rivalries from country to country, province to province, and city to city over who produced the richest ales, the darkest stouts, the sweetest golden honey-lagers. For a foreigner to treat the local drink with such disrespect was asking for broken bones in a back alley, or getting thrown in the Vltava at the very least.
Henry hissed "Keep it down, can't you," at Spike, whose mood had turned black and hard.
"I always knew you were a tosser, but since when have you become such an old woman?" Spike turned to address the tense room, managing to make his meaning perfectly clear despite the language difference. "They're all sheep" he said, loudly and provokingly. "Nothing to worry about. Even for you," he added venomously to Henry.
What came back from the room was a sort of sub-vocal growl, silent but felt like thunder in the air.
Spike actually cheered up, clearly thinking he'd managed to stir things up to the point of an actual brawl, but the labourers weren't having it. Even drunk, they weren't fools enough to take on a man who was so eager for a fight. No doubt they were thinking up ways to ambush him with clubs when he left the bar later on. If so they were in for a bad time.
Spike sighed and slouched back onto his chair, sullenly saying "Sheep." He reached inside his black coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches.
Henry looked on in utter amazement as Spike lit one up and started to smoke.
"What?" Spike demanded.
Henry stared. He considered "You're a vampire, the nicotine has no effect," as well as "How affected can you get?" and further discarded "Smoking those things will ruin your health," because of course, they couldn't literally kill him.
When he could safely open his mouth and speak with a level voice, Henry went with "Of all the human habits you could choose to take up William, why you picked that filthy one is beyond me."
Spike took another drag and smirked. "I'm blackening my lungs to match my black, black heart."
"What colour is mine?"
Drusilla had been lying quietly the last little while with her head hanging upside down off the edge of the table, dark curls just brushing the floor. Henry kept expecting the blood to rush to her head, against all logic, but her face and neck stayed the palest white, like fine lace.
"As black as tar, my love," said Spike easily. "The twin to my own."
"How lovely," she said, sitting up in one slow, langourous motion. "I like them red and 'ot: just plucked from a chest and steaming in the 'air."
Drusilla stood and slid lightly onto Henry's lap, stroking thin fingers through his hair. Henry stiffened and held still. He could feel her carefully tended nails, sharp daggers, moving against his scalp, and her breath warming the skin over the pulse in his throat. The locals, having previously pegged Drusilla as not-right-in-the-head, now mistakenly decided that Oh, she was that sort of woman. Curiousity satisfied, they went back to their drinks, ignoring them.
"What pretty hair," she said, still stroking, "like sunshine and roses."
"If you like that sort of thing," said Spike, looking bored and sulky.
"Poor pet," Drusilla said soothingly. "Lost 'e is, and doesn't know it. A creature 'oo doesn't like 'is own kind."
Henry stared with mounting horror. Her still, dark eyes were looking through his smooth and pleasant face as though it were no barrier at all.
"There, there," she told him, "all alone they left you, didn't they? It weren't their fault, silly things. They went out quick as candles burning away; not meant to last in the dark. Not like you and me."
And just that easily Henry was caught in a sticky web of memory. His senses rushed together dizzyingly and fragmented into strands. He heard a woman's laughter, warm and infectious; a snatch of violin song, high and treacherously complex; he saw a weary man sitting in a priest's black robes, old and impossibly beautiful, his conversation lit by bright eyes and punctuated by long, graceful hands. Ginevra... Niccolo... Franz. So many years spent undead, and in all that time there were only three humans Henry had trusted with the true knowledge of what he was. Brillant, beautiful mortals; he'd twined his life around theirs until they were taken from him far too soon. The warmth he'd felt in their company was like the memory of sunlight on his skin from a time when he had still been human and the day innocent of any ill-intent toward him.
Henry struggled to pull himself back together, but he could only guess what his expression gave away. Drusilla was peering at him with the detached concern of a child who'd poked a bird's nest with a stick and unexpectedly gotten broken shells and gory splatters of yolk on the ground. Spike for once looked thoughtful rather than hostile.
"You turn to humans for love?" Spike asked curiously. "It sounds a tad problematic. Aside from the temptation to eat them all the time and the way they break so easily, it'd be about as rewarding as loving a fruit-fly I should think; the life span's a bit limited. By the time you can remember their name they've dropped dead of old age on you. Better to choose someone who'll be with you from Change till Apocalypse," he said, eyes on Drusilla. "Someone who won't get squeamish at your table manners."
Henry didn't reply. It was commonly known that a vampire could become enamoured enough of a human to change that human into a vampire, of course. This was traditionally how vampires came into being. But for a vampire to love a human: that was rare. As far as Henry knew, he was an oddity. He couldn't be sure. It was not something he discussed with other vampires, on the rare occasions when he was unable to avoid their company.
"Better to forget what you were," Drusilla crooned in his ear. "Find a new family to love you."
And that was all Henry needed to snap himself out of foolish regret.
"One family was more than enough," he said coolly, "in my past life or this one. And I'll thank you to stay out of my personal affairs. They are not open for discussion."
"Get off your soapbox Prince Hal," Spike said, amused. "It's nothing to me if you want to date your dinner. Tell us Hank, what's it like to love a human?"
"I should think you'd be able to answer that on your own, William," Henry said pointedly. "Or can't you remember the inspiration for your verse?" Before Spike had staked the last vampire who'd been so imprudent as to bring up his human past, there had been rumours of some very bad love poems.
Spike scowled, hating any reminder of the human he'd been. "That was a long time ago. Any rate, it's nothing like this."
"No," said Henry shortly, "it's not."
"Hush," Drusilla chided, getting up to twine her arms around Spike neck, leaning against him. "You'll put naughty ideas in my Spike's 'ead."
"No fear of that Dru," snorted Spike, and they shared a fond look.
Drusilla broke the mood by clearing her throat meaningly with the air of a woman who had something particular on her mind.
"What is it, love?"
"Business," Drusilla said, with an imperious nod of her head.
"Business! Bloody hell! I completely forgot, what with all the small talk," Spike said. "Sorry pet."
"'is 'ead in the clouds," she said indulgently, and took her seat.
"I thought this was a social call," Henry said dryly.
"Not bloody likely," dismissed Spike. "No offense mate, but your company gives me the urge to hold you face-down in the sewers for a long time." He stubbed out his cigarette butt on the table and flicked it into Henry's empty beer mug.
"Charming," said Henry. "If there's somewhere else you'd rather be, no need to stay on my behalf."
Drusilla tapped an impatient nail on the table, calling them to attention.
"Right. Business," said Spike. "See here Hank, the thing is: we're taking over."
"Taking over," Henry repeated slowly. "Taking over what? The Red Cross? The world?"
"Prague," said Spike. "Isn't that right Dru?"
Drusilla gave a pleased nod of agreement.
"You see, my darling has a fancy to brighten up this heap of cobblestones with her beauty for a spell," Spike continued, with an arch glance that Drusilla received complacently as her due, "so you can either take orders from us now—or I'll stake you. Personally," he said, relishing the idea, "I hope you act like the annoying little wanker you are. I'm all for staking you."
Henry stared. "The heights to which you've raised the art of thuggery continue to astound me William. However the staking is uncessary. I'm leaving Prague."
"No need to go on our behalf," said Spike smugly.
"Oh, I'm not," said Henry smoothly. "I've been planning to leave for quite some time now. Your arrival merely gives me reason to make the arrangements more quickly than I might have done."
"Where will 'e go,
My bonny, bonny boy?" recited Drusilla knowingly.
Maybe his irritation at their constant mockery was making him indiscreet, but Henry honestly couldn't see any harm in telling the truth.
"I'm going to the Colonies," he said.
There was a moment of blank surprise before Spike recovered himself. His scorn was as blistering as the touch of Holy water.
"You're such an old fossil, Hank. Perhaps you haven't heard the news, but you lost your crown years ago and the sun doesn't rise and set on the British Empire anymore! Which "Colony" are you going to?"
"I should think it's obvious," said Henry. "Australia's where they send the convicts and Americans are loud, ignorant and crass." Rather like Spike, he thought with a shudder. A nation full of Spikes. "I'm going to Canada. The Canadians are sensible people. Unlike the Americans, they never staged a revolt against the British monarchy."
Actually, Henry had only a very hazy idea of what Canada was like. He knew there were natives, lots of snow and trees, and large rodents that made lovely fur coats. Like the Canadians themselves, Canada was a bit of a mystery. However, he felt this was a positive sign. Clearly the Canadians were smart and discreet enough to keep to themselves. Henry just hoped they'd managed to build a city or two by now. It was easier to live unnoticed in a city, and widespread electricity and plumbing were two of the few modernizations he approved of in this century.
Spike was looking skeptical. "How are you getting there? And what the bloody hell is there to do in Canada?"
"As to how, I'm booking passage on an ocean liner. It should take several weeks to cross the Atlantic, but I can make a private cabin secure against sunlight. And as to what I'll do," Henry said rhetorically, "what do we normally do? The usual. Oh—and I thought I'd get some sort of job."
"I can't abide work," commented Drusilla in the world-weary tones of a society hostess. "It's so dreadfully tiresome."
"Damn right, love," said Spike. "A vampire with a job is pathetic. If there's something you need, you take it."
Henry didn't roll his eyes, because his nurse always told him that it was bad manners and that if he did it one time too many they'd stay caught up in his head. It was pointless to argue morals with a vampire.
"A job may turn out to be just the trick to stay unnoticed in a small city. It will help me pass as human, and the funds will mean I don't have to risk stirring up trouble by thieving. I thought I might take up writing professionally," Henry said, with just the right amount of airiness to irritate Spike. "If you used to do it, it can't be that difficult. The Canadians will probably be grateful: there likely isn't much in the way of culture over there yet."
Spike gave him a black glare. "Trust you to completely waste a trip to the New World! You must have spent the last ten years sleeping. America's where it's at right now. That's where the future is taking place. Europe and Asia are yesterday's news. I'd be there myself by now, visiting the Big Apple and scaring some starlets, except that Dru doesn't fancy leaving these parts just yet." Spike became confiding. "I watch the "talkies" now and then," he said. "I quite like them. One thing I'll say for humans; you never know what sort of idea they'll come up with next."
"Their moving pictures make my stomach 'urt," complained Drusilla peevishly. "I never get to see 'ow the story 'ends."
"I've told you—it's because you keep sitting so close the screen, pet," said Spike indulgently, taking her well-tended hand in his rough one. His bones were surprisingly fine but the nails were ragged, and there was a half-healed scar on his knuckles.
Henry watched them with a feeling very close to pain. He almost envied them, mad and foolish and immoral though they were. They were completely wrapped up in each other; insulated by their love from the outside world and all its loneliness.
Drusilla became aware of his gaze and turned her unblinking stare on him. She started to rhyme in a soft sing-song:
Ladybird, ladybird,
Fly away 'ome.
Your 'ouse is on fire
And your children all alone.
"What's this about, love?"
Henry was glad to hear that he wasn't the only one who found Drusilla impossible to understand.
"'e didn't tell us why 'e was leaving," she said, not taking her eyes off Henry. She had that stripping-paint-off-the-wall intensity to her gaze again that made him so uncomfortable.
"As long as he's going, who cares why?" Spike was clearly bored. "Good riddance to him, I say. Though I would have liked staking him."
"Ask him," commanded Drusilla, taking her hand out of Spike's.
"Come on!" Spike protested in outrage. "Fine love, fine," he grumbled, "but only for you." He turned to Henry, enunciating each word slowly and clearly, like he was speaking to an idiot. "Why are you leaving Prague?"
"There's going to be a war," Henry said.
Spike gaped at him, taken aback. "You're having visions too?"
"I read it in the papers," said Henry witheringly. He supposed that living with a psychic tended to skew your belief in the impossible towards the credulous side, but really.
Spike scowled ferociously. "Dru's been telling me there's a war coming on since China. It's why we came back: good eating ahead." Spike looked happier just contemplating the thought of his future prospects. "Wars mess up what little sense humans have," he said philosophically. "If someone goes missing and never comes back, they just assume it was the enemy side. Very helpful of them."
Henry was shaking his head slowly. "This time won't be the same. It's going to be worse then anything you or I have lived through."
He could feel it, a sickness that ate away at the world a little more every day. It was like a black cancer, one made up of dread and fear and arrogance and hate. It had been growing for years; pretty much as soon as the last Great War had ended, resolving nothing and creating new problems. Lately all the news was bad, and there were rumours of terrible things happening that were difficult to dismiss. Henry had lived through four centuries, and this newest one was his least favourite. He disliked the multiplying masses of people, the dirty factories and unplanned sprawl of the cities, the way the intellectuals were replacing faith in God with cold science, and the callousness that seemed to occur so easily in this large, mechanized world. Henry wasn't in the least psychic, but he felt the approaching disaster as a constant tension in his neck and back and teeth that got a little more pronounced with every passing day. He was European to the core, but this was enough to make him want to leave civilization for the unknown.
Spike was unimpressed by his warning. "You don't have to tell me what humans are capable of. You should see what's happening in China right now. You know mate," he said easily, "I know you think I'm a bloody barbarian, but I could kill humans from sunset till sunrise every night and still not come close to the kind of destruction they get up to all on their own. And the creativity! It's inspiring," he said with admiration. "I like to think of myself as a fairly ingenious bloke, but I can't dream up even a small part of the new ways they keep coming up with to off each other. Why, I was talking to a demon just the other day who was telling me that they've been taking paid holidays for years and letting the humans do all the real work. They're laying bets Below on a date for the Apocalypse: safest bet's within the next ten years. I can get you some really good odds on July 11th, 1937, if you like," Spike said, casual as a wolf. "Pays 300-1."
"No thanks," said Henry, sour, because who cared about the end of the world as long as you cleaned up in the sweepstakes, right?
"Suit yourself," Spike shrugged. "Anyways, if there's trouble to come, I reckon I can handle it. Ran into a spot in China, and did just fine."
"My William bagged 'imself a Slayer," said Drusilla with proprietary pride.
"What!"
"She wasn't so tough," said Spike, elaborately casual.
"Are you mad, or mentally stunted?!" Henry was furious. "As soon as one Slayer dies, another is chosen to take her place. Now you'll have the Watchers' Council sending every Slayer who's ever chosen to hunt you down until one of them manages to stake you!"
"What if they do?" said Spike angrily. "I'll kill them too. That Slayer was the best kill I've ever tasted. You're just jealous because there's no bloody way you could ever do what I've done."
"You idiot!" said Henry. "Now you've got a taste for it, haven't you? You're going to get yourself and Drusilla killed. Why don't you take up a really safe pastime, like juggling vials of Holy water?"
"Hank, I didn't know you cared," said Spike, dripping sarcasm like acid.
"I ought to kick your by the seat of your pants all the way back to the Inquisition, where a few good bonefires might teach you some discretion!"
"Like you could, Granny," sneered Spike. "I thought your style of fighting was 'run away and hide.'"
"Just because I don't kill every being that crosses my path doesn't mean that I can't take you down if I want," Henry goaded, pushed past patience and sense. "I made my first kill centuries before you were ever born!"
"Anytime, you poncy bastard," snarled Spike.
"Fine," Henry spat out from between gritted teeth. Four hundred years later he still hated being called a bastard.
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
They glared at each other across the table.
Drusilla leaned forward with avid eyes. "Don't stop," she protested. "You turn the 'air pretty colours when you shout; such naughty boys you 'are."
That was it. Henry had had as much as he was going to take and no more. He pushed back his chair and rose to his full height in one angry movement. He could feel himself glaring and the fury coursing through his body like dangerous rapids.
"You two are a disgrace to our kind," he said thunderously. "I am ashamed to have anything even so little as kind and country in common with you. You give into your every impulse like children and you have the morals of jackals. You have neither sense nor grace nor humour nor intelligible conversation. The afterlife would be better served if you managed to get yourselves killed, as you so richly deserve. Desist in your unwanted attentions towards myself and go about your business elsewhere, or I shall be forced to teach you some manners, and I guarantee you will not enjoy the experience!"
The entire pub was shocked silent. Drusilla lowered her lashes, downcast as a little girl reprimanded, and pouted. Even Spike looked somewhat cowed.
"Whatever you say, Your Royal High and Mightyness," Spike muttered, and then added, not entirely inaudibly, "…wanker."
Henry wouldn't have admitted it under torture, but he was very taken aback. He hadn't actually expected them to give in so easily. He supposed he had Angelus to thank for making them even this obedient by keeping them under his thumb for so long. Regardless, Henry was determined to make the most of his advantage while it lasted.
"Outside, the both of you, right now!" he commanded.
Spike sulked and bristled, and Drusilla got up with the air of one deeply and unjustly wronged, but they went. Everyone in the pub watched silently with round eyes.
The wind was starting to pick up outside, and it nipped his ears and ruffled his hair. Lamplight dimly illuminated the narrow streets, which would be empty until the pubs emptied at closing time in the early hours of the morning. Henry turned to the two vampires.
"I can say with all honesty that I hope to never see you again," he said coldly, "though I doubt I shall be so fortunate. Do try to exercise some kind of restraint on yourselves, and you may possibly live to see the next century. I'm going to take my leave now. Make no attempt to follow me." Henry looked them over, two pale, narrow faces watching him with wary dark eyes, and reluctantly added out of some misplaced sense of duty, "And have a care for the Golem in Jewish Town."
"Golem?" Spike scoffed, unable to remain subdued for long. "There's no such thing."
"I assure you there is," said Henry evenly. "It took a demon unwise enough to cross its path a forenight ago and left it crushed like jelly."
"Huh!" said Spike. "Fancy that. Drusilla my darling," he said, "do you think we could make it do our bidding and fetch us silly tourists off the streets?"
Drusilla smiled with coy delight, peeking out from underneath flirtatious lashes. "You get such lovely ideas, my Spike."
Henry shook his head in resigned disbelief and walked away.
"Don't say goodbye or anything, Hank!" shouted Spike after him. A few moments later he yelled at Henry's retreating back, "I hope your ship sinks!"
As he left, Henry could hear Spike telling Drusilla, "I'm feeling awfully peckish, my love. What do you fancy—German, Czech or Kosher?"
Drusilla's answer was lost even to his sharp hearing, as Henry slipped into the welcoming shadows of the night and disappeared.
The End
A/N: For Henry's three great loves, Ginevra is a 16th century Ventian woman and Tanya Huff's character. She's very cool and dies in tragic circumstances while still young-- nobody expects the Spanish (or Italian) Inquisition. Niccolo is Niccolo Paganini, the real-life 19th-century violinist. He was so good that people said he'd made a deal with the devil. Franz is Franz Liszt-- the first great piano virtuoso of the 19th century, also a real person. He was a Hungarian nationalist who lived most of his life in other parts of Europe; an incredible performer; a composer; a teacher; a lover of many, many Countesses and Princesses; and a priest at the end of his life. He was the first rock star-- kind of like if John, Paul, George and Ringo were one single, superstar Beatle that was charismatic, really talented, and really, really hot.
The Golem in Prague's Jewish Town is an actual legend.