Author: Tohonomike Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners...it will start off with the Joss/ME characters, and any other characters or real-life folks are clearly not mine. NO money is involved. None are mine.
The Offices of Wolfram and Hart, December 22nd, 2000
"Prince Tepes, good to see you again, sir," Lindsey MacDonald enthused as the client entered the room., "I'd like you to meet my boss, Holland Manners."
"Prince Tepes, it's an honor to meet with you," Manners greeted him as he felt the sheer power radiating from the man, shaking an offered hand, and gesturing to a seat., "Is there anything we can get you? Coffee, perhaps?"
"No, but thank you for the offer," the man smiled slightly, then allowed a slight smirk., "I'm here to complete my Christmas shopping, as it were. As I would hope you have the competency of knowing, I've been establishing my influence over the Watchers Council and their champions; one is my ward and the other, for want of a better term, my paramour. And their support groups are under my direct influence, if not outright control."
"Yes, sir, we did notice that., and And that the area of the Hellmouth has been remarkably free of vampires, if not other demons, as of late."
"And that would be from the minimal interference in your own affairs from the Vampire and his helpers redirecting themselves into a rather formidable force to clean up his dusty brethren," Alexander pointed out, then got to the point., "But there are two that are not quite as obligated to me as they could be, and thus, I'm hoping that a quintet of Christmas presents might overcome the last resistance. Your previous attempt to ensnare Angel has inspired me to try a similar tact.,
"I'd like to hire your services in the full and healthy healing of three humans that, in death, hold greatly the hearts I need to win to complete my coup. One was a vampire, a new one, named Jesse McNally, who was as a brother to my main Witch;, the next was the intended of the Watcher, her name being Jenny Calendar. And the third, my paramour's former Watcher., but But only bring him back if his soul has not been reincarnated. The fourth 'gift' is the sister of that street thug that's doing quite well with Angelus; I want his sister back, so that if the time comes when the vampire might resist, his alternative will be that I'll have isolated the brooding soul from his support. And the fifth one I want back is his old seer. He'll have two more vulnerabilities, and he'll owe me."
Holland Manners looked a bit concerned., "Um, normally, such raisings are quite expensive and cannot always be guaranteed…"
"How much, Mr. Manners? Money is nothing unless it is used in one way or another as the power it is. In this situation, I'm willing to pay a fair premium for this service, especially if it can be completed within the next two days. Further, I'm almost done establishing portals to two parallel realms; I'd appreciate a heads up in the event your Senior Partners decide to, shall we say, end the world or take it over. That way, I can relocate without too much fuss."
The older man considered for a moment, and decided that perhaps the necromancer might be able to lend a hand in this one, and perhaps in the future, recruit the young Prince into joining the Black Thorn. Indeed, if he could split the Council, that alone might be sufficient to bring him to the attention of the Senior Partners., "I need to make a phone call to find out if the necessary personnel are in this city, world and plane."
"Take your time, and, if possible, I would like the last ten minutes of Calendar's life to be removed. I don't want the trauma to interfere with my plans."
"I'll pass that on, sir. I'll be back as soon as I can. Lindsey, please see to the needs of our guest."
With Lindsey eager to please their guest, Xander learned something of the workings and machinations within Lindsey's level of the firm, and encouraged the lawyer to consider him a source of possible patronage in the future. Feeding the man's ego by continuously referring to Lilah as his assistant, he wormed his way deeper, something he wouldn't have been able to do before he became Tepes. He also managed to hand over his shopping list and Lindsey had immediately assigned staff to having it delivered as specified.
The final property documents, titles, and inventories had come through, and it had served as the basis of business in Manners' absence. And both Both the attorney and Young young Tepes were fascinated to learn that Vlad had actually maintained all rights to his story, variants, legacy, and had acquired those of the Van Helsing family,. As as well as their historical property, as trophy assets. MacDonald had handed him a large suitcase to take with him, which contained the hardcopies and CD-media on which his total legacy was catalogued.
After about forty minutes, Manners returned with a smile on his face., "Prince Tepes, I believe that while our contractors will charge a premium, we can meet a deadline such as you specialized specified, but the two restored humans will be a bit tired and confused for a day or so, afterwards."
"Excellent., and And the memory removal?"
"A simple spell after the fact."
"Again, I'm impressed," Xander admitted., "And not to make it more difficult, but could you age the boy four years so he'll match his records as a runaway and give those years to the old Watcher?"
"Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. and And we've already begun the process of changing the many legal documents and support paper work on all three as well."
"Do you require payment in advance? Or upon completion of services?"
"Well, we'll leave that in your hands, sir."
"Let's get this out of the way, if we can," he said, reaching into his suit coat for the checkbook., "How much, and do I make it out to your firm?"
"To the firm, yes? And it comes out to thirteen million dollars even."
Alexander nodded;, the large amount of money he was spending hadn't been accrued by him, and it was a small price to pay to reunite the family once again.
Xander walked out of the building with an amused look on his face, greeting Buffy with an enthusiastic exchange of kissing. He got into the limousine and let himself slump in the seat and exhale loudly.
"I'm not sure I can ever do that again, guys," he told Buffy, Willow, Giles, Angel, and Lorne, "even if I do get to embarrass myself singing old disco songs to get a heads up."
Angel snickered, "You really could have picked your own song…"
"What! Lorne…"
"Hey Sugar Buns, at least it wasn't the Broodiest Maximus singing 'Mandy,.'" The the green demon replied with a big smile and an exaggerated eye roll., "And besides, I pick up the best immediate information if you sing what I like in a way least likely to cause me pain."
Angel looked hurt, "But…"
"Sorry, Champion of Light, but if I let you do to Donna Summers what you did to Manilow, I'd have to forever close up shop and listen to 'Machine Metal Music' in a monastery."
While Angel looked openly hurt for a moment before shaking his head and nodding agreement, the others smiled or laughed at Lorne's successful move to lighten matters.
Giles turned to the young castle owner., "So, are you now going to let us in on what business you took care of with the attorneys?"
"No, I think I'll wait and see if they deliver, first, but at least I had them take care of my Christmas shopping for me."
"Please tell me we didn't go to all this trouble for your shopping?"
"Come on, Giles, of course that wasn't the only reason…I'll have you know I own a large home in Amsterdam that now serves as an inn, and another next door that used to be a doctor's office but is now a tourist attraction, also, in addition to being part of the inn. Oh, and apparently a small library put in storage so a good many years ago, will be delivered to the castle soon."
"Really? Why would Dracula have property in The Netherlands?"
"Well, they did belong to Dr. Van Helsing, so I suppose that was reason enough?"
"Good Lord, Xander, is this bounty to end soon?"
"I have the documentation and such in the bag I had them put in the trunk, so I think I'm about done."
Angel watched as Buffy comfortably leaned against Xander as the young man spoke, and sighed as he thought about all the what ifs of their relationship. No matter how much he hated it, at least she'd have someone powerful to watch after her, as well as come closest to giving her a normal life.
The long day in Los Angeles had resulted in a general sweep of three seedier vampire bars just to let the local evil populace know Angel and his group were still around, and to allow that part of the group to make a wish list for the Hyperion. Angel had finally sucked it up and, to provide a better standard of living for his group, had asked outright for financing the remodeling of the historic hotel to its former glory, only a basement level section of rooms for storage and training being exclusive to the demon fighters.
Xander had made a call, and ninety minutes later, a team of estimators and an architect came in and spent nearly three hours to develop a preliminary picture, during which Xander explained how he'd used money in Vlad's questionable accounts to buy the general and subcontractors through whom he'd worked in Sunnydale, and a small general contractor in the heart of LA that seemed to specialize in the less-human areas.
"So I know you own the company, but didn't they get here a little fast?"
"The company office is four doors down and across the street, the gated staircase entry between the deli and the men's shelter."
"I don't remember the space being occupied before.?"
"Well, when I bought up a couple small subcontractors and a group of do-gooder architect and engineer types that really don't know business, we consolidated the brains down here, and moved the worker bees in with the general contractor and closer to where you all said Gunn's gang is."
Cordelia nodded enthusiastically, and handed Xander a bunch of legal pad sheets.,
"Wow, that's amazing, Xander," she smiled, then launched into an explanation of the sheets she'd given him. "Okay, now I know it takes up three of the rooms, and has one of the only good views of the courtyard, but there's my basic design for my place, and on the fourth one page is the furnishings I want for it. You'll notice that the two back-to-back bathrooms become a bigger one, and the small one is the center for the kitchen. Even I understand a little about that infrastructure stuff.
"Oh, and with all this these businesses, how're you going to run them all?"
"I'm not, Cor," he smiled as he looked at the drawings and realized she'd done far better than most people, and had included measurements of all the rooms involved, too. "I bought them all, consolidated them all into two management teams and kept the previous guys on as managers. The 'extra' managers are out there as estimators, planners and salesmen."
"Yeah, but two cities…"
"There were three partners in Sunnydale., one One, who liked the business side and felt antsy while his family wanted to stay in one place: he's the new CEO of Dragonson Development. The second guy liked the construction side and didn't really wanted to uproot his family and move; he's heading up the company based in SunnyD. And the third guy was the same, but his family wanted to move back to LA; so he's now construction veep vice president here."
Wesley smiled, "So, you basically made it possible for them to do what they had or wanted to do, but not have to break up their money source; that's quite good. So how much does that leave you, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Um, about twenty million in liquidity after making sure there was enough money for all the stuff I wanted to do…"
"Bloody Hell…"
"Language, Wes…"
"Oh dear, I'm sorry ladies., I'm just…a bit shocked."
Buffy stared at her new boyfriend in shock., "You have that kind of money and still won't buy me a car?" she pouted. And quite adorably so, he thought.
Those who knew Buffy's driving capabilities either chuckled, whined, or whimpered, depending on the degree of previous exposure, leading the blonde to look around at them and half-snarl, "Traitors."
"Buff, you already know how much we love you—" he held up his hand to ward off Cordelia, "and the next person to say otherwise will be heavily insured and then forced to give you driving lessons for a solid week," (Cordelia paled and clenched the hands of Gunn and Wes in her own for comfort at that threat) "but you're your destiny is to slay evil vampires, not innocent Volvos."
"But—"
"Now, I'm not unwilling to have you chauffered chauffeured around, especially if it means you can focus on doing less damage to my money by concentrating on the sales at the department stores."
"Oh!" Cordelia interjected with a very big smile, "And I'm willing, for a reasonable fee, to go with her, just to make sure it works out according your plan, O Great Prince. After all, I have to make sure Dawnie as a brunette gets the proper training."
"I knew I could count on you, Cor," Xander smiled, making it clear he both agreed and knew she'd been halfway joking, halfway wistful., "So I figure I'll spring for a gal-pal weekend every other month, but only if you all actually wear the things at least a half-dozen times."
"What?" Buffy and Cordelia grimaced together, indignantly. "That's not right!"
"There's you two, Dawn, Joyce, Amy, Willow, Tara, Catherine, Faith and Darla. You Some of you guys may be different sizes, but since you can mix and match all you want, but I'd like to not waste the money. See, with that many of you, if you wore something twice before passing it, you're good to go. And don't start me on shoes or purses—"
"Handbags," the two shoppers corrected automatically.
"I don't care if you guys connect the closets at the castle and put in a big dry cleaning rotator, there will be NO retail shoes if you can't keep the total each to under a dozen pairs. You want more than that, shop wholesale, Payless Shoes or clearance."
Buffy pouted, "Xander, that's not fair…"
"Now, Buff, your shoe budget over the last couple of years has been way down; are you telling me if I doubled it, you wouldn't feel rich beyond the dreams of avarice?"
"Well…"
"And don't you, Faith, Darla and Willow actually have the same size feet?"
"Yeah…"
"Doesn't that mean that by sharing, it's like having four times the shoes?"
"O-o-okay. When you put it that way…"