Chapter 14.

"I think I've got something." Giles said as he came out of his office. "There's another watchers council. The original watchers, depending on who you ask. But they don't interfere with their charges. Now, to give you the most basic information, their charges are biologically immortal but not vampires. I have some theories about that based on the likely birthdates of those Immortals we know the birthda... and you don't care." he realized. "Moving on. When these Immortals win a battle with each other, the victor gains a Quickening, basically all the knowledge and power of his foe. Is that what you experienced?"

"I don't know. I've never fed on anyone besides Xander. But I don't think I got all of his knowledge. Even Xander's only fed on what...? Four, if you count bug-boy." Cordelia said, then added at Kendra. "And they were all trying to kill us."

"Well, there's a legend among them of something called a Dark Quickening. Basically, an Immortal takes in so many evil Quickenings total, or so many in a short period of time, that he – himself – becomes evil." Giles finished.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Giles, backup. I thought we were going with Xander is missing, not Xander is evil." Buffy said.

"Yeah. I mean even if that Drusilla called him her Kitten, that doesn't make him evil, right?" Cordy added.

All sound in the library stopped. "Wait... What?" Buffy asked.

"Oops. I wasn't supposed to tell you guys that." Cordelia cringed.

"I'm afraid I'll have to insist." Giles said. Kendra nodded, cracking her knuckles for emphasis.

"No, big. We were walking home after saving this woman from a vamp and she steps out of the shadows and starts purring and calling him Kitten. Drusilla, not the woman. Anyway, she offered to tell us where the bug-guy was hiding." Cordelia said.

"And why didn't you volunteer this information before? Might that be where Xander is now?" Giles asked.

Cordy shook her head. "I doubt it. For the same reason we didn't say anything about her. In exchange for bug-boy, she wanted Xander to kill Kendra. And since she's not dead, I'm going with he's not with bug-boy."

Willow, who had moved to the computer while Giles was researching, then spoke up. "Guys. You may wanna read this. Husband and wife killed by wild animals in their home. It's Xander's parents."

"Angel! You don't write, you don't call. It's like you broke up with me." Xander snarked as he followed Drusilla into her lair.

"Oi! What the bloody hell, pet!?" Spike yelled. "Why you bringing this bloody wanker into our home!?"

"Shush now, Spike. You're scaring Ms. Edith." Drusilla mewed.

"Harris." Angelus stepped up into Xander's face.

"Angelus." Xander stood face to face with him.

Suddenly, the two embraced, laughing.

"Haha! How's it feel to be evil?" Angelus asked as he pulled away.

"Freeing." Xander said. "I killed my parents. I've been wanting to do that for a while now."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Killing my father is still the kill I remember the most fondly. Here, have a cigarette, that's how people know that we're really evil. Only evil people smoke nowadays." Angelus said.

"Don't mind if I do." Xander took the smoke and took a deep puff. "Wow, these are really good. I wish I'd gone evil sooner just so I could smoke."

"Freeing, innit?" Angelus smiled.

"Oi! Somebody better start ans- Ahh!" Spike went down clutching the knee that Xander had shot.

"Naughty Tiger!" Drusilla waved her finger at him disapprovingly. "Mustn't scratch."

"Sorry, Dru. He was being annoying." Xander shrugged and blew a breath of smoke across the still smoking barrel of his silencer, mixing the smells of tobacco and cordite in the air. He then put the gun back in the shoulder holster.

"Wow, Dru. You were right about your Kitten turning into a Tiger." Angelus complimented. "Come on kid, let's get your opinion on this translation we've been working on."

Spike was left in the common room, putting pressure on his wound until it stopped bleeding enough for him to hobble to the fridge to get some nasty pig's blood to speed his healing.

Spike limped into town. He'd never had this feeling of being cast off since he'd been turned, but he remembered it well enough from being human. Dru had found someone new. The bloody blue-eyed wanker. Blue eyes, just like her beautiful blue eyes. It made him want to cry and that was just un-demony of him.

Somehow his feet carried him to the high school. He considered suicide by Slayer. But that was undignified for someone like him, a vampire with two Slayers under his belt. He knew from trying to get Dru's cure where the library was and could see lights on there. Bloody wankers were probably wondering where their bloody wanker friend was. And he suddenly had an idea. Close enough to suicide it was. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Walking into the library got him just the kind of scared/startled response he wanted. Except then he was attacked by the Slayer, a vampire chick who looked like Harris, and another bird who was almost as strong as a Slayer. Luckily for him, the vamp-chick wasn't a very good fighter and mostly got in the way. In fact, he finally took her prisoner and got to call time-out with that. "Just time-out. Okay. I didn't come here for a fight." he said.

"Coulda fooled me." the Slayer replied.

"Den why did you come here?" the other girl asked.

"Want to make a deal with the Slayer." he said, nodding to Buffy.

"Let Cordelia go first." Buffy ordered.

"If I do, can we talk?"

Buffy nodded. "Fine."

He let her go and she immediately ran into the arms of some Romany bint.

The black girl tried to attack him then in violation of their cease fire, but Buffy intervened by pulling her back by her hair. "Down girl. I said he could talk."

Spike smirked. "Well aren't you all tough an' in charge?" at a look, he got to his point. "Right. Dru's got your boys. Angel and Harris. Looking to replace me is what I figure."

"Well, boohoo. If that's all you got, I'm going to stake you just for wasting my time." Buffy threatened.

"Of course that's not all. Tomorrow night, they're doing the spell thing to fix Dru. Only I'm not sure any more she needs fixing with what she's been doing while I've been trying to help her. Anyway, it needs either her sire or her sired. We disagreed on how to conjugate the Latin. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Angelus is planning on sacrificing me."

"And you can't get him first?"

"He's got over a century on me, luv. And now he's got Harris as backup, who already shot me in the bloody leg. Look at these trousers, they're ruined. And the two of them are getting along like pigs in shit." Willow 'eeped' at the swear word. Spike noticed her for the first time and leered. "Stick around luv, I'll teach you all sorts of dirty words."

"So, what's the deal?" Buffy interrupted his flirting.

"I tell you when and where the spells taking place, you come get your boys, and me and Dru leave your town. Never to return." Spike offered.

"Giles, can we bring them back? The real them? Xander and Angel?" Buffy looked to her watcher, her eyes pleading.

Giles scratched his head. "There's only been one confirmed instance of a Dark Quickening. That was by an Immortal widely acknowledged to be a powerful force of good. He did come back, but I don't have information on how. I've left two messages with his watcher and with that branch of watchers. Even then, we can't be sure this is the same. It's only a theory."

"I'll contact my tribe and see if we can re-curse Angel." Jenny offered.

Spike chuckled. "Thought you were a Romany. Figured the rest of us killed off that tribe after what you did to Angelus. Guess a couple escaped." he taunted.

"Maybe we'll see if we can curse you too this time." Jenny said with a smirk she didn't feel. What she really wanted to do was run in terror.

But her words had their intended effect. The smirk disappeared from Spike's face. "You wouldn't."

"Double cross us, and you can count on it." Jenny suddenly felt much better now that she had something he was clearly scared of.

"Tell us where and when this is going down. We'll be there." Buffy promised.

"And Dru and I walk?" Spike confirmed.

"You and Drusilla walk." Buffy confirmed and Spike gave her the information then left.

Once Spike was far enough away Buffy turned to Kendra. "Are you going to be up for a fight by tomorrow?" at a nod, she went on. "Good, because if we can't find a way to bring Angel and Xander back by then, I want you to kill Spike and Drusilla."

Kendra suddenly looked much, much happier.

Killing an assassin wasn't, strictly speaking, an evil thing to do. Though Xander decided that the betrayal of one evil being of another was evil enough for him. Angelus was planning on betraying Spike but had no idea what Drusilla had planned for him. Not that he planned on telling him. Not after losing his virginity to the seer. He rather liked the method of coercion she used on him.

What might be called evil was the way in which they were killing him. After having the... thing stand in a large, metal tub; all three vampires doused the bugs with high-proof alcohol. Then the two that were weak against fire stood back while Xander lit the guy on fire. The popping sound of each bug exploding reminded him of a demonic microwave popcorn. And though his humanish face never showed it, Xander was pretty sure that the bug-guy died in extreme agony.

Even the remnants of what he thought of as good-Xander had no objection to this, so he could sit back and watch the thing burn in peace.

A/N: References to Highlander. Not crossover with that, but I do not own.

A/N: Smoking and evil. I don't know if many people noticed my earlier reference, so I decided to hit you over the head with it this time. Angel did not, but Angelus did; Spike smoked through the series, even after he got his soul, but he was never 'good' just 'reformed-evil'; Faith smoked at least some, though I'm sure we never saw it until she 'went bad'.