A/N: Another day, another chapter! As I said last time, I'm following my "Passion" muse. I've got the rest of this story mapped out; counting this one, there are now eight chapters and an epilogue left, so unless I get sidetracked by an interlude or end up breaking another chapter into two parts like this one, that's it! I say that triumphantly because I've been working on this story for so damn long, and then there's the sequel to it. Sigh. Either way, I'm incredibly proud of this thing, and I'll again take the time to say thank you to all of my fabulous reviewers who have stuck with this thing through thick and thin. Bless you!

Warning, Warning, All Ye Who Enter Here: I've always wanted to misquote that. In any case, just to let y'all know – this story is about to get pretty dark. I deeply respect Angelus as a bad guy (I'm in the middle of an epic rewatching spree, as I mentioned before); he's one of few vampires who ever actually scares people because he's fucking psychotic and he won't just stop at torturing you into insanity before he kills you, he'll get your family too, just to fuck with you. Why? Because he enjoys it. These next few chapters are going to get quite a bit darker. There will be fighting, there will be violent sex, there will be bloodplay and there will be gore. I figured I'd issue one last warning before you got more involved in this.

New Fiction Pairing Recommendation!! As I love Bones, I was skimming through the Bones section on , and I came across this story called The Brothers in the House. Intrigued, I looked in, and this wonderful author named Ptera_Waters wrote a story crossing Bones over with Dollhouse and slashing Booth with Paul Ballard. It's a wonderfully written story with some hot sex scenes, plenty of mystery and intrigue, a few twists, and enough angst to wrench your heart. It's now finished, and I seriously recommend this to my readers; it was absolutely lovely. She's writing a companion piece now from Ballard's perspective, which I'm hugely looking forward to.

The pairing and the story inspired me so much that I've begun a new Dollhouse fanfiction in my spare time that will slash the two together; you can find it in the Dollhouse section under the title "The Sea."

IMPORTANT NOTE: Okay, there's a really quick explanation for breaking this chapter into two parts – I already had this chunk of chapter written, it worked alright on its own, and if I posted the entire chapter together in one part it would be more than fifty pages long. I'm on this whole thing about not giving y'all that much in one go to read, so give me a little bit and I'll post the other half of this chapter.

MORE THAN 200 REVIEWS!!!!!!! YES!!!!!

Okay, I'm done now. But, seriously, THANK YOU! And, also, I'm going to take a minute to really thank asm613 for your well-thought and insightful reviews; you disabled PM's or I'd've emailed you to thank you already. So, anyway, here it is: thank you so much. It really means a lot to me. And, I hope that you continue to enjoy the story.

And so, with all of that out of my way, I'm going to go ahead and start the chapter now. Keep in mind if you get squicked out at all during the reading of this: I warned you! ; )

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

the Passion of Angels and Demons

Chapter XXV, Part I—

The Madness of the Vampire King: Master of the Hellmouth

Drusilla: I'm naming all the stars.

Spike: You can't see the stars, luv. That's the ceiling. Also, it's day.

Drusilla: I can see them. But I've named them all the same name...and there's terrible confusion.

—from "Innocence" (written and directed by Joss Whedon)

I smear your teardrops

I smear your teardrops

.

Woke up to the perfect day

I was feeling more than okay

I had so much fun today

I got higher

Woke up to my favorite day

But then you came and put it to an end

And I know now, I know now:

Time is not a friend

Time is not a friend...

—"Time" by Megan McCauley (No Album, available via YouTube)

Angelus stalked through the night as the miasma of the Hellmouth pulsed beneath him, feeding his demon, whispering to him of his mastery and his power. He smiled at the truth in that. After his humiliating defeat at the hands of the Slayer and her forces, Angelus had learned – that was what set him apart from other, lesser demons: an ability to learn from his mistakes rather than to try to revenge them. While he had had complete control over the lowly minion vampires and lesser demons that lived in the factory, they had all – other than a cursed few – been complete fools, with heads only for following orders and hunting for more blood, getting themselves staked through the heart by the Slayer more often than not.

While he hadn't been able to see it that way at the time, he realized now that Saint Buffy had given him an unexpected boon: she had cleared his head of managing that lousy group of idiots and left him to rebuild his forces the way that he planned, rather than the Master. The Master had thrived off of the stupidity of his inferiors; keeping a select few as his high council, he sent his minions like pawns to be cut down by the scythe of the Slayer. But Angelus had already had a healthy respect for Buffy long before she had hardened into the fearsome warrior she had become these last months, and he had no need for fools who would all but walk into the path of her stake.

And so he, Spike and Drusilla had gone on a brief crusade, slaughtering unfettered vampires wholesale, until those few left alive pledged absolute fealty to him; it wouldn't do to have no minion vampires left to distract the Slayer from him personally. And then he set about in secret to forge in the shadows a new court, pure of imperfections and loyal to him in the extreme, a weapon to unleash upon the Slayer. The battle in the graveyard a week ago had proven to him that they were all worthy, particularly Ella, who had never retreated until ordered.

As he neared the Bronze, Angelus cast out his senses, scenting the air for any breath of Buffy's scent. One benefit of his unnatural following of her while still possessed of that thrice-damned soul was a familiarity with her scent, enabling him to avoid her if necessary when the situation called for it. He shook with disgust at the memory of her kiss. After the soul had burned itself away in a moment of pure passionate happiness, an illusion of humanity, any desire for Buffy had been revealed as a desire to control her, to dominate her and keep her in the coven as family, though Angel had convinced himself that it was desire for her as he fought with her for some dream of redemption for his past crimes...crimes that Angelus was taking supreme pleasure in committing all over again.

He saw his prey as she stepped out of the Bronze alone, a young, slender Asian girl with braided black hair. He contemplated snapping her neck with a painful tug of that braid, and moved in with vicious intent.

"Hello," he said pleasantly as he appeared beside her, enjoying the burst of scent released into the air when her heart sped up in surprise. "Not leaving already, are you?"

"Oh, well, I mean, my parents want me home," she fumbled, in awe of him as they all were, he with the angelic face. He loved how her small, dark eyes roved hungrily over his frame, and lightly leaned back, emphasizing himself, dressed as he was in tight leather pants.

"It's a long way home in this part of town," he purred, leaning closer. "You shouldn't go home on your own. There are dangerous people that come out at night, this close to the full moon."

"How do I know that you're not one of those?" she asked, stepping backward. He blinked. Usually the younger ones came to him quite willingly. "I really think that you should get out of my way," she continued.

"What's your name?" he asked her with a smile. She met his eyes, refusing to be intimidated.

"Move," she commanded, her tone reminding him slightly of the cold royalty of Cordelia Chase.

"Make me," he taunted. He had, in his arrogance, forgotten to wonder why her accent was more reminiscent of Hong Kong than of California, and she lashed out with a vicious punch that snapped his head around and made him stumble back a step. She fell back into a fighting pose. "That, my love, was really the wrong thing to do," he told her softly, and when he looked back up at her, his face had shifted to that of the demon. She screamed in horror, but to her credit she didn't run, merely tried to throw the next punch, which he easily caught, ready for her now; she was fast but she was no Slayer.

He clenched his fist until he felt her knuckle bones beginning to pop in ways that they weren't meant to, and she screamed in pain and desperately pounded on his closed fist, but to no avail. Instead, he reeled her closer and with a sharp twist dislocated her shoulder. Gasping for breath, she bent down, moaning, and he casually grabbed her by the throat and dragged her further into the dark alleyway, where no one would come to help her.

"I'm impressed with you, sweetheart," he told her. He slammed her back against the wall and reveled in the sickening crunch her skull made as it connected with brick, the scent of her sweet blood adding a sharp tang to the air around him. "So I'm going to give you a choice: I can kill you now, most likely rape you to death as I drink your hot blood," he continued, leaning in to lick a droplet of her sweat off of her brow. He loved how humans grew so like animals in the grip of terror, her dark eyes wide and frightened as she panted, looking more like a skittish horse than a young girl. "Or, I can give you eternity as a warrior at my side. But you have to choose quickly," he warned, wagging a finger at her like a naughty toddler as her head injury began to bleed thickly.

"Please," she finally whispered, shuddering and shaking in his grasp. "Don't...I'll be yours, please, don't kill me!" She hung her head in defeat, shamed.

"Sorry," he said with a shrug. "You're going to die either way." He drank down her howl of despair with a punishing kiss, bruising her lips as he broke it off, leaving her gasping and turning her head away, which only bared her slender neck. Chuckling, he struck like a viper and tore into her skin like a dog with a treat, using his tongue to widen the wound as he started sucking voraciously. Her blood was hot and spicy, but it lacked the sweetness, the satisfaction, the power of...him. Angelus had taught himself to ignore this, however, and the lack of satisfaction he found in her blood only made it easier for him to stop when she was at death's door. He pulled back a sleeve of his shirt and cut into his arm with a sharpened talon, until his dark, immortal blood began to flow, and he smeared her lips with it, watched her fight, watched her be seduced by his blood until she began to suck, and he moaned at the pleasure.

When she'd had enough, he shoved her off of him and snapped her neck, killing her in order to let his blood do its dark work. He glanced around until he saw that she did in fact have a purse that she'd dropped when she struck him. With that kind of fire, she'd make a fine addition to his growing forces. In her purse, Angelus found a wallet with a home address. It wasn't that far from here. Grinning, he slung her body over his shoulder and headed off toward the subdivision.

In a town as small as Sunnydale, it only took him five minutes to reach her house, even dragging the dead weight with him. He arranged her on the doorstep and casually ripped her shirt off, artistically slashing into her small breasts, and opened her skirt, fingering her dead body viciously until it simulated sex. He'd leave her there to rot overnight, and when her dear parents opened the door in the morning, they'd find her, drag her inside, and by the time they got their heads together to call the police, little Lisa Yu would have her first blood meal as a vampire.

Propping her mouth open and opening her eyes to sculpt her face into a rictus of pure horror, Angelus stepped back to admire his artwork, and then turned and walked into the night, his work and his meal done in one fell swoop. He would head back to the mansion soon, of course, but for the moment he just let his feet wander where they would. He wasn't, of course, altogether surprised when his feet took him to the Watcher's apartment, to the side where he could peer through the window and see his sleeping boy. He burned with rage and distress that his claimed was in an enemy's house (by choice, no less!). But he peered in through the window and smiled as he saw that even in sleep Xander's body turned instinctively toward him.

He had been patient with the boy, offering a return to his side where he belonged peacefully, but Xander had rejected him, in mind at least. The memory of the boy's hot kiss on his lips by his father's grave had Angelus' cock hardening. It had been far too long since he and his claimed had joined the way they were meant to. It was time to fix that. Xander couldn't break free of this. He had no choice. And if his wooing were rejected, then Xander would have to be brought to heel. While he was sure that he would miss the sweetness of Xander's chosen submission, he was also sure that Xander would come around. He would understand why Angelus would have to punish him for his disobedience and disrespect.

But he would not kill any of Xander's friends, not even Buffy unless he was forced to. He wouldn't break that promise to the boy. And he didn't want Xander broken; he wanted him back. And back he would have him. Angelus smiled as he saw that the foolish boy had left his window unlocked, and he easily slid it open. His hands burned viciously as he did so, and he saw with rage that the Watcher had consecrated the window with holy water and crosses. But his shiny reddened palms would heal quickly, and it would take far more than that to keep him away from what was rightfully his.

Slipping into the room, Angelus crept to the side of Xander's bed, watching with wicked pleasure as Xander's sleeping body turned toward his. He bent down and pressed a light kiss to Xander's brow, knowing the boy was too deep a sleeper to wake, and he left his present on Xander's pillow. He crept out the way that he had come, and repeated his promise to himself: soon. He shut the window behind him and vanished into the night, leaving as ghostlike as he had come.

888

Xander woke up feeling rested. Oddly enough, the goings on at the cemetery had given him some sort of closure, or maybe...he didn't know, he just went with it. He sat up in bed and froze as an envelope slipped off of his pillow. Xander frowned. Was Giles in here while he was asleep? He knew that the Watcher sometimes checked on him, which was kind of cool if a little intrusive, but...He took the envelope and shook it open, and stared, stunned.

It was a sketch, a beautifully rendered portrait of him, Xander, nude, his head flung back, his eyes closed in pleasure, his cock hard, writhing on sheets on a four-post bed that Xander instantly recognized from the factory, with a large, fresh bite wound on his neck. It was signed with a large A, and it was dark red, and Xander could smell from the paper that it was signed in blood, a vampire's stamp of ownership. Almost unconsciously, his fingers reached up to trace lightly over his Claim scar, and Xander shivered.

Here. Angelus had been in here, his sanctuary. He bowed his head and shook, the paper falling to the bed, as the sunlight streamed in almost brutally from the windows.

8

"What on earth are you all doing here?" Giles asked, confused, as the Scooby Gang trooped into his living room from Oz's parked car.

"Three day weekend," Buffy explained. "I know Friday was freaky, but didn't you remember?"

"Er, no," Giles said, settling back down at the table with his tea. Then he frowned. "Why are you all up so early on a day when you don't have to get up for school?"

"We're here for Xander," Willow explained, putting down a bag full of chocolate bars. "He looked pretty torn up at the funeral, so we thought we'd bring a care package with lots of hugs!"

"At some point, you will all have to learn my phone number," Giles said glumly. "Then perhaps you can ring ahead if you're planning to drop in, and I can actually dress."

"I like that robe," Cordelia said. "It just screams gentleman of leisure. I can totally see Hugh Heffner wearing that in his decadently rich mansion..." She trailed off, a slightly dazed gleam in her eye.

"Hugh Heffner?" Giles asked, confused.

"Right! So, where's Xander?" Buffy asked brightly, looking around and trying not to blush.

"Right here," Xander said flatly from the hallway. He was dressed in jeans and black T-shirt, and the forbidding expression on his face made them all pause. He walked forward and put an envelope down on the table. "He was in my room last night, Giles." They all froze, peering in, and sure enough the envelope had Xander's name on it in Angelus' flowing script. "He was in my room, going through my things, leaving things on my bed. We have to do something about this invitation."

"Are you alright?" Buffy said, reaching up. "He didn't do anything to you, did he?"

"No," Xander said. "But I don't want to think about him being able to just stroll into all of our houses. I mean, we were all talking about getting the drop on him, right? We should start by figuring out a way to stop him from getting to us in the places where we let our guard down the most."

"An excellent point," Giles said, sitting up. "I'll call Jenny; she and I have been researching different magics relating to vampires, and she'll have some more books. We can all do some research together today."

"Right! Cause, together," Willow said brightly. "We brought you chocolate." She offered up the bag toward Xander, and even he had to crack a smile.

"Thanks, Wills," he said gently, and they shared a smile.

"First, however, we'll have some breakfast, particularly you, Xander," Giles said firmly, pushing on Xander's shoulder until the boy sat down at the table, looking up at him with a frown of protest. "Everyone thinks better on a full stomach, and while you're living here you'll be eating a healthy breakfast." Xander sighed and tried not to grin as all of his friends smirked at him.

"How's the tea, Xand?" Buffy asked meanly when Giles had gone to the kitchen. Xander stuck his tongue out at her as Giles yelled, "I heard that!"

In the end, they all went to the library. The school was wonderfully empty of Snyder and other such unpleasantness, and they called out to pizza for lunch as Jenny joined them and they spent their morning pouring over large texts in languages that were hard to decipher, so Giles made them all index cards of words and phrases to watch out for. Every once in a while, they'd hit pay dirt for a moment when they found mention of vampires or invitations, but it was usually a dud (though Willow had a memorable moment as she discovered a spell for vampiric aphrodisiacs, the details of which had her snapping her book closed with an small squeak and huddling closer to Oz as she went for the next book on the pile).

Cordelia had helped to open all of the blinds, and sunlight poured in to the library, making it a sort of warm haven in the noonday peace while the gang talked and ate and joked their way through what felt like a quarter of Giles' library, before Jenny leaped out of her seat with a startled cry of "Rupert, I've got it!"

They all tried to gather around her at once, jostling and elbowing each other out of the way, until a harassed looking Jenny shoved through them like a linebacker and handed the book to Giles, who shot them all a threatening look until they subsided and sat back down. Cordelia and Xander shared a smile, as Buffy and Willow looked sufficiently cowed. Giles sat down at the table and took a sip of tea as he paged through the chapter Jenny had pointed out, a triumphant expression spreading over his face as his eyes blazed through each line. "This is it," he breathed. "This is it!"

"So, we really can kick him out of our houses?" Buffy asked, leaning forward. When Giles nodded, she sat back with a satisfied nod. "This is good. This is the first step. What do we need?"

"Well, it's very basic, actually," Jenny said, reading over Giles' shoulder. "Just some chanting, some herbs, a religious symbol and some consecrated water. As a matter of fact, I'm sure if you all contacted the new guy from Avalon, he could help you get this done before dinner."

"Well...wait; what do you mean 'you guys'?" Cordelia said, looking around. Jenny looked down and sighed. "Oh, right, that whole banishment thing. That's gotta get depressing after awhile, I mean, since none of them are ever going to talk to you again and...I'm shutting up now." She carefully pulled out a compact from her purse and started checking her reflection, ostensibly not looking at Jenny.

"That's a good call, Ms. Calendar," Buffy said. "We should call Mitch. And tonight, I should go on the hunt. It's time that I found Spike and figure out if this plan has any kind of shot at working."

"Good idea," Giles said, springing up. "Why don't you and I and Jenny discuss plans for the night, and the rest of you can get started on each others' houses. I have Mr. Johnson's phone number on my desk, Xander. Oz, if you'd like to drive? As Angelus seems to have particularly targeted my apartment, perhaps you could start there..."

"I live for wheels," Oz said, nodding. Willow smiled at him.

"Your van is important, sweetie," she told him.

"You two are so cute," Cordelia said. "Remind me to gag on the sugar after we get in the van."

"If you ralph in my lap, I'll so ruin your shoes," Xander swore as they trooped out of the library.

"If you so much as touch my Todd Gingham pumps – no, if you so much as look at them funny, demon boy, you'll be licking my floors clean with that pump on the back of your neck," she swore, hissing poisonously. The two of them began bickering healthily as Willow and Oz linked hands and sighed identically. Buffy watched them go with a smile.

"It's good to see Xander and the rest of them smiling like that," she observed.

"Well, I know that I'll sleep better tonight knowing that there's no way that that...monster will be sneaking in to kidnap him through his window," Giles said, sitting down and rubbing his forehead.

"And don't forget that he could have attacked you," Jenny said, taking his hand in hers. Buffy looked down, a pang running through her. She hadn't been lying. It was nice to see Xander looking more normal, more happy than he had in...well...long before Angelus had started stalking him. Maybe that was one of the things that was bothering her so much. She'd known Xander for more than a year now. And in all that time, he hadn't felt comfortable enough to come out to her and Willow? Granted, he'd had a major yen for her honey, but, still...

When Buffy had first been Called as the new Slayer in Los Angeles, during her battle with the monstrous vampire king Lothos she had had help from a guy named Pike. Pike had been drawn into the battle more than anything by his attraction to her. But Xander hadn't been like that at all. When she'd first gone after the Master, Xander had fearlessly followed her down in order to save his friend Jesse. He'd give his all, constantly, in order to help those that he cared about. At first she'd thought that Xander had been motivated by trying to get in with her, but now looking back it was becoming increasingly clear that that wasn't the case. Xander had helped her because he believed that it was the right thing to do, trusting his life to her hands on more than one occasion. And it hurt that he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her something this huge about himself, that had the potential to hurt him so much...

And then to have Angelus, the most evil of all vampires, be reduced to wooing to get Xander back? Somehow, that wound in her heart hurt just as painfully as her memories of the first night after Angel had lost his soul, becoming the demon Angelus once more. The vicious glee the vampire had taken in stabbing her through the heart at her most vulnerable and twisting the stake like a demented jack-in-the-box... Angelus was not an average vampire, or demon, or evil. All vampires killed to survive, but this demon, this thing, took more pleasure in causing pain than perhaps any before or after him, an artist of torture. The stories she'd read of the trouble he went to in order to cause his victims the greatest pain, even if he was only feeding to survive. The pleasure he took in displaying sadistic tableaux, in psychologically destroying an innocent soul only to twist them to his own pleasure.

The thought of that evil bent on making sweet, innocent Xander his immortal mate was enough to make Buffy's stomach twist with nausea, but then there was still that hearty pang of genuine rage at Xander, that he had somehow forgotten all of that to go play house with Angelus for three months! She had seen inside of Xander's mind, seen the memories of how he had bent to his knees to accept food from Angelus as the vampire had crafted Xander into exactly what he wanted him to be! But she had been deeper in Xander than his mind; they had shared souls, and she could feel the love he held not for Angelus but for Angel, or perhaps for both of them, the conglomerate being that was the soul and the demon combined, and she couldn't hate Xander because she knew what he was going through better than anyone.

But she couldn't keep beating herself up over this or letting it slow her down. She was the Slayer, and the guardian of the Hellmouth as well. There were other, greater nasties out there than Angelus, which she well knew, and letting Angelus dominate her thoughts was exactly what the vampire wanted, slowing her down and ultimately getting her killed. She would have to kill him. She would have to watch him bear Angel's face and remember Angel telling her that he loved her when she put a stake through that chest, watch the pain bloom on that beautiful face. She would have to feel her heart shattering with his, and then afterward she would have to watch Xander break into a million pieces, because no matter what he said she knew that if Angelus hadn't been stupid enough to fall into the Elemental's trap and shatter Xander's trust, Xander would still be in the factory with the vampire right now.

And that was why she was doing this. Because Angelus was evil, and he was murdering innocent people and destroying innocent lives, making Xander one of his victims, however unintentionally. And she had allowed this. She'd had her opportunity to dust him after they'd conquered the Judge, and she hadn't taken it because she'd been too weak. Xander had paid for that, and so had she, and hundreds of other victims whose names she didn't know, and names that she did, like Theresa, who had been a friend until she had become a demon.

"Buffy?" Giles' voice broke into her thoughts, and Buffy regarded him with her best 'I was listening' look. He shot her his best 'no, you weren't' expression and Buffy made an oops face. He apparently decided to let it pass for the moment and continued. "We've agreed that tonight will be the best opportunity to test your theory on Spike. Our basic plan of action is for me to drive you within a block of the remains of Willy's Bar. It's apparent that the remains have become a sort of haven for the few vampires left in Sunnydale who aren't part of any court, as they drink their way through what's left of the alcohol and blood in the fridge. If you get into any trouble, I'll be close enough that I can provide an escape route and far enough away that Spike will hopefully remain unsuspecting."

"Good plan, although I'm lacking some finer points," Buffy pointed out. "What am I going to say to Spike? 'Hey, I know that we've hated each other's guts for the longest time but are you by any chance unhappy with your current living arrangements?'"

"I see your point," Giles said. He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. "But we've got to try something at this point. I hate to say this to you in particular, Buffy, but Angelus has become more than a threat. He is no ordinary vampire! He has been stalking all of us for months, and as you're sure that he feels more rage toward you than any of the rest of us, he will likely strike hard and fast. The time for playing games or biding our time is over – you were perfectly right to suggest Spike as a weak link. It's time to end this!"

"Do you think I don't know that, Giles?" Buffy demanded, jerking to her feet. "This is my fault, remember? Every single dead body that falls from that thing's hands lands right at my feet, right? I'm the Slayer. I should have killed him the second that he joined up with Spike and Drusilla!"

"Blaming yourself isn't going to get anything done!" Jenny snapped, also standing. "Mistakes were made, on all of our parts, mine more than most. But don't you see? This is how Angelus works! He gets inside of your head and before you know it he spins you around until you're playing whatever sadistic game he's concocting next! He is a master at this, and he's also probably the most dangerous vampire you'll ever face. But for the century that he's been alive, he's defeated anyone and anything that came up against him, and that's how you're going to win, Buffy – because he's arrogant and he's formed patterns. You're the most successful Slayer in history because you're so unpredictable, because you break out of patterns! Not to mention that you've got friends and family standing behind you, Buffy. You're not alone in this like the other Slayers he's come up against. You're going to win."

Buffy was trembling by the end of Jenny's speech, and she let Giles pull her into a hug as she pulled herself together. The fact of the matter was, Jenny was right. Lothos had murdered more Slayers than any other vampire king in history, and she'd torched him with hairspray and locked him in a high school gym. The Master, one of the oldest and most powerful vampire lords, she'd kicked his ass after he'd killed her and then smashed his bones to powder with a sledgehammer. The Judge she'd gone after with a bazooka. There was no way that she was going to let Jenny be right, to let Angelus turn her into another Drusilla. She was gonna kick his ass.

"Alright, so we know that none of the vampires in Angelus' little family are normal, right?" She stepped back from Giles, brushing her hair back from her face. "I mean, even the Lady of the Lake told us that they were more human than most demons which is why they're so vicious. So, what would that entail?"

"We know that Angelus is fiercely possessive, and that his vampiric family mean a great deal to him," Giles said, paging through one of the Watchers' Journals. "Likely one of the reasons his anger toward Buffy is so great."

"Because he thinks that I made him kill Darla," Buffy guessed.

"But he abandoned them for a hundred years," Jenny said. "And then he blows back into town taking over everything that Spike was in control of, and the Hellmouth—"

"And Drusilla," Buffy breathed. "I mean, vampires have sex with each other in their covens or whatever, right, Giles? Well, Spike and Dru have stayed together for how many years now?"

"And, as twisted as she was made into by Angelus, she would likely leap at the opportunity to reunite with her dark father," Giles acknowledged, slowly smiling.

"That's our way in," Buffy said triumphantly, smacking the table. "The heart! Thus, oddly, proving its existence in Spike's creepy little chest."

"Much as I hate to sound like a broken record, Buffy," Jenny said, leaning forward, "but please be careful. Spike is still dangerous, especially now that he's fully healed."

"You're not wrong," Buffy said. "I shouldn't go to this thing without packing some heat."

"More hellfire?" Giles guessed.

"No, I'm thinking multiple stakes. Sharp, pointy ones," Buffy said, heading for the weapons cage. "And besides, if this doesn't pan out, it's not like Angelus can get revenge by getting one of us in our houses, right? He won't be able to get in!" Buffy loaded up on weapons, feeling more in control of her life than she had in months. It was a good feeling.

888

During the day, heavy drapes were hung over the windows of the mansion to keep them safe from the rays of the sunlight. The minions were hard at work digging access to the sewers, but for the moment Angelus was trapped within the Gothic kingdom he'd found at the edges of Sunnydale. It was far enough away from town to be isolated but close enough to it that the dark emanations from the Hellmouth could still easily be felt, keeping him on top of everything that he wanted to keep track of.

The master bedroom was particularly impressive, a massive room with a large four-poster bed. Xander would love it when he came back. Angelus stretched out calmly on the bed, imagining the warmth of his pretty pet next to him. The fireplace was cold now, but soon the minions would bring back wood, and he'd be able to chase back the dampness. One thing he was glad he'd been able to convince Darla of when she'd first come into his life was that they shouldn't live underground like rats the way the Master wanted. He loved the feeling of a large, plush bed beneath him again. This was the luxury his boy deserved to live in.

He was so tired of waiting, and yet his sweet Xander was just so fragile. It wouldn't do to simply abduct the boy, although that was certainly an option if other methods couldn't be used to bring this rebellion to heel. Angelus was haunted by the memories of when he would come home and his sweet boy would be waiting nervously by the door, trying to appear casual when his master returned to their bedroom. Sometimes, Angelus would simply lift Xander into his arms and the boy would bury his face in the crook of the vampire's neck and shoulder, pressing secret kisses there until Angelus lifted his face to his and kissed him until the boy cut his lips on Angelus' fangs, the light droplets of his blood on Angelus' tongue...

Angelus let his fingers tickle down the muscles of his abdomen, toward the light dusting of hair he had around his bellybutton, leading down to his pubic hair. Xander loved to tickle his fingers through that hair, sometimes following with his nose and lips, leading down to Angelus' erection. His fingers were so much smaller than Angelus'...The vampire let out a light moan as he let his fingers circle the meaty head of his cock, feeling the droplets of precum gathering there (Xander loved to taste that...), spreading it around, letting it ease his way as he began to stroke, memories of his boy taking over...

There was a loud knock on the door, and Angelus snarled viciously at the interruption, swinging his legs over the bed and stalking to the door to open it. Standing at the other side was Ella. To her credit, she didn't look at his nude body the way his other followers did, even Spike when he thought his Sire wasn't looking. In fact, it was odd that she wasn't gazing at him with attraction in her eyes. Perhaps it was vanity on his part, but he was Angelus – the one with the angelic face. They all came to him with desire in their eyes, and they all suffered for it. But it was that selfsame strength of character that led him to trust her with her higher position, now that he felt he could no longer trust his Spike to stay at his side.

"Is there something that you needed?" he demanded after a moment as her eyes stayed on his face, his erection beginning to subside.

"I think that you should worry about William the Bloody," she said bluntly, not bothering with the usual minion kowtowing. Her effrontery was offensive, but refreshing, and he had far too few trusted vampires at his disposal now.

"Worry about him?" he asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

"He worries me. His attachment to the insane one is obsessive and it leads him to distraction. He refused your orders to attack the Slayer and her crew. If he had been there, the attack would have gone differently." She had already learned to control her human face. She regarded him with icy cold emerald eyes, her lush, full lips curved in a way that would have been sultry were it not for the deadly sociopath he could sense lurking behind it. Desire stirred in him, but more than that was worry. He'd need to bed her soon, or else she'd need breaking like Drusilla, and his tolerance for his beloved mad Childe were at times as deep as a dry creek.

"Do you believe this?" he asked quietly.

"Yes."

"Then bring proof to me the next time you disturb me, or I'll tie you to the wall and have every vampire in this house rape you," he murmured. He leaned in and kissed her forehead, lingering in her personal space and forcing her to feel his age, his power and mastery over her, until she finally relented and bowed her neck slightly, exposing her throat. "Good." He turned and shut the door behind him, letting it close with a snap in her face.

He waited until he heard her walking away down the hall before he crossed to his closet and began to dress, skinning on a pair of leather pants and a black shirt, thoughts of his desires for his mate dying down inside him as thoughts of running his court took precedence. His rage at the impertinence of Ella's attitude notwithstanding, she wasn't entirely wrong. Spike had defied a direct order of his master and, although Angelus didn't share her certitude that the mission in the cemetery would have gone differently, Spike's constant bucking of orders and his wretched attitude of late could possibly sew discord amongst Angelus' newly assembled court.

Despite dropping from the vampiric world for a time, Angelus still had an enormous reputation to stand behind him. But his chosen mate rebelling against him and his near-crumbling for nearly half a month afterward? Spike openly refusing his orders and his attitude possibly causing discord amongst Angelus' forces, court and minions alike? This couldn't be withstood. The Slayer was still alive, though that wasn't the most troubling issue; her defeat of the Master had most of the vampire population of Sunnydale cowering with fear at the thought of her. But soon he would have to kill her, if only to cement his control.

By now, the entire vampiric population of Sunnydale was firmly under his control. The mortals who traded in the demon world – sorcerers, warlocks, scum – he would ally himself with. Once Xander was back where he belonged, Angelus was certain that he could use that to procure Willow as an ally, perhaps turn her into a vampire. The girl had the obvious potential for massive power still untapped within her; if he could have a powerful witch and her werewolf pet under his control? Cordelia Chase as a vampire had obvious potential. And if Xander was so disturbed at the thought of losing Buffy forever, then he could turn her as well. There were records of Slayers being turned into vampires, becoming powerful ones as well. The Watcher would have to be brought to heel for daring to turn Xander against him – torturing him for hours...

Angelus felt a thrill of pleasure course up his spine at the thought. They hadn't even invented chainsaws the last time Angelus had truly tortured one of his victims for hours on end. Or blowtorches, or refrigeration units or...Angelus opened his door and stepped out, heading down the stairs for the main lobby. It was time to observe his court at work, and the state of the minions. Once he had control of the Hellmouth, his plan for power was delicate, and he didn't want any upsets.

It was time to start reassembling his family. He was tired of being without the Scooby Gang under his control, audacious pups that they were. He wanted Buffy back under his heel. He wanted Willow and Cordelia and Oz decorating his court. He wanted Giles and that filthy gypsy bitch hanging by their innards from his dungeon walls. And he wanted his sweet boy back in their bedroom, hiding his affection in Angelus' neck with his beautiful mortal heart beating fast when Angelus fucked him the way he needed to be.

He'd see. Angelus was sure of that. And once the world was under Angelus' control, then Xander would truly be his, mind, body and soul, once and for all eternity.

888

Mitch Johnson lived in a small cottage near the beach, one of the little bungalow things the almost-rich rented for a few months during the summer. It was a cute thing, painted all over in blue. Sounding amicable enough on the phone, Mitch had given Xander directions and they'd driven over. He was waiting for them in the living room, dressed in a pair of torn-off khaki shorts and a white tank top. He looked like a model displaying some mall store's new surf-shop line, and Xander was once more taken in by his easy smile and the way that he had them all in like they were all already friends.

"So, what can I do for you guys? You sounded urgent on the phone," he said cheerfully. It was so refreshing to even be in the presence of someone so happy that Xander could only stare somewhat nonsensically at him for a moment. The darkness of Sunnydale hadn't touched Mitch yet – there weren't any secrets behind that smile. Xander grinned back at him, not noticing how behind him Willow and Cordelia were elbowing each other and smirking.

"We found this book of rituals of the undead," Willow said, holding it out to him. "It's got a recipe and a spell and everything in it to revoke a vampire's invitation to a dwelling, and since I'm still learning all this magic stuff we thought that it'd be safer to get your help casting it so that we could make sure that it worked."

"You mean that you're trying to kick that Angel guy out?" Mitch asked, taking it and leafing through the book carelessly.

"Angelus," Xander corrected automatically. Then he winced, hearing what he'd said.

"Right," Mitch said softly. His eyes caught Xander's, though the witch looked down quickly, leaving Xander confused as to what he was reading off of Mitch's aura now. It was warm, though, and comfortable, and Xander wondered what it'd be like sitting next to Mitch for a whole lesson. "Well, this sounds simple enough, and it's definitely gotta be on the list of things to do before the sun sets, good?" At their nods, he led them out, and Xander was struck at the fact that Mitch was half a head taller than he was, which was a nice thought. Mitch smelled really good, too.

For reasons he couldn't entirely articulate, Xander was smiling softly as Mitch corrected his longer stride till he was walking next to Xander when they all headed for Oz's car.

"So, what are lessons with you going to mean?" Xander asked as Mitch sat next to him on the back bench. "I mean, I suck at tests, just FYI."

"No tests!" Mitch promised with a laid-back laugh. "Mainly, what we're working on is control, just little tricks that I can get you so that you don't lose it and pull a Carrie on us."

"You've seen Carrie?" Xander asked eagerly.

"Who hasn't?" Mitch asked, sounding shocked. He caught Xander's eye and chuckled, and for once Xander felt like he was in on the joke, too. It was a nice feeling. There was just something about the everyman of Mitch that was so...appealing, the way that he wasn't so high above Xander, so ethereally beautiful the way that Angel had been and Angelus was. When Xander's leg brushed against Mitch's, a pleasurable tingle shot up Xander's spine, and Mitch didn't pull his leg away.

For the rest of that car ride, Xander didn't think about the vampire once.

8

The first place they did was Giles'. "This is a really basic spell, Willow," Mitch explained. "Just stand here and watch me, okay? We'll do your place next and you should be able to just do that one on your own, right?"

"Sure," Willow said, sounding chipper. Oz smiled at her fondly as she leaned in, the scholar in her absorbing the magical knowledge as Mitch took out a small mortar and pestle and started sprinkling herbs in.

"Vampires are magical creatures themselves, so simple things from the earth can repel them: lavender to protect against evil, sage to purify, and salt to bind it all together," he explained, grinding them together quickly and efficiently until they were mixed together. "They can only be let in at the main entryway by invitation, so the owner – that'll be you, Xander – can get rid of them pretty easy. Just sprinkle this here." He handed Xander a pinch of his concoction, and Xander was sure that when their hands brushed this time it was Mitch's fault. Following instructions, Xander sprinkled it over the doorjamb.

"Any kind of religion is faith in something pure and good, which is a basic strength to repel impure demons like vampires," Mitch continued. "Crosses, pentacles, stars of David, crescent and stars, symbols of Buddha...pretty much anything. I'm gonna guess that a Watcher has a cross somewhere?" Oz dutifully handed him one from the desk in the living room, and Mitch hung it on the wall with a thumbtack. He then turned to the door itself and said in a calm, ordinary voice, "Vampire, demon, you who gained invitation through trickery, you are welcome here no more. I dis-invite you from this house and this home, that you may never again enter here without the invitation of my heart, which you no longer have. Leave, now, and bother me no longer."

There was a brief crackle of power, like the house itself was humming, and the door seemed to almost shine a little more brightly in the sunlight, but that was about it. Xander had been expecting a bit more razzle-dazzle, but he could feel that the spell had worked. He was confident.

"Don't you have to speak in Latin or something?" Willow asked, confused.

"Sure, if you want to be all ritualistic and boring," Mitch said. "Magic doesn't care much how you address it. What matters is that you state clearly and plainly what you want. So if English is your language, you use English. If Latin works best for you, use Latin. Of course, you could just use Latin if you want to sound like a pompous jerkwater, but then people'll just stop talking to you, and that's depressing."

"For a powerful witch, you sort of suck at inspiring awe," Cordelia noted, her eyebrow cocked. Mitch turned to her with a devilish grin as all of the windows opened and shut themselves in a phantom breeze that curled around Cordelia, lifting her off the ground as the doors in the house slammed shut, one by one.

"Looks can be deceiving," Mitch sang out sweetly.

"Put me down now before I go Lorena Bobbit on your ass!" Cordelia screeched. "Do you have any idea what this is doing to my hair?!"

Mitch went slightly pale as the telekinetic trickshow died down. "She wouldn't really do that, would she?" he asked Xander in an undertone.

"Never, ever underestimate Cordelia Chase when you stand between her and fashion," Xander intoned.

"I've trained you so well," Cordelia said proudly, brushing a mock tear from her eye. "Learn from his example, witch boy, and fear my wrath," she warned Mitch threateningly, before she turned to stalk out of the apartment muttering about men.

"Yikes," Mitch said. But he was smiling at Xander again, and Xander was starting to smile back.

888

Willow reentered the library later that day, when the afternoon was beginning to slip away, to find Buffy waiting for her with her schoolbooks. It was just about time to begin studying for finals, and Willow had promised to have a cram session with Buffy tonight before she went hunting. For a while, they battled their way through some history before Willow set Buffy some math problems. Giles and Jenny had gone out for dinner while the sun was still out, grabbing some alone time while they could.

"So, how did it go today?" Buffy asked, deftly dodging another truckload of algebra problems.

"Um, your mom was a tad confused why we brought a cute stranger up to inspect your room and put a cross in there. You might want to make something up," Willow noted.

"Great. One more inexplicable to add to mom's list," Buffy said glumly. "There are days when I really wish that I could just tell her about the whole Slayer gig, but that would instantly equal maxi-wig out, and I don't want to stress her out any more than she usually is nowadays. Anyway! How was Mr. Johnson, the mysterious hottie?"

"Very," Willow said with a dreamy sigh. "Buffy, there's something I want to ask you. Do you think that Marie-Claire may have sent Mitch here for...different reasons?"

"How do you mean?" Buffy asked, abandoning math entirely. "I mean, I had my questions about why someone so young..."

"I don't think the age is it," Willow said slowly. "He seemed...I think that Xander kind of likes him. And I don't think Mitch minds, if you catch my meaning."

"Oh!" Buffy exclaimed. "That just explains it, doesn't it? Oh, she's smart! She's devious!"

"I don't get it," Willow said, not catching on to Buffy's ride on the cognitive leap train.

"Xander likes him, Willow, and Mitch might be interested? Marie-Claire treats Xander like he's her kid, practically, and she makes all these comments about keeping him away from Angelus for his mental health?" Buffy grinned as she sat back, gratefully tossing her pencil down.

"Oh...you think Marie-Claire sent Mitch over to hook up with Xander? Don't you think that that sounds a little far-fetched?"

"Well, think about it – even Mitch doesn't know why they'd send over someone as young as him to take over teaching Xander. And Marie-Claire says all this stuff about how unhealthy the relationship between Xander and Angelus is, and then she just happens to send over the youngest and hottest witch on the island who happens to swing that way? Come on, Wills; we've lived in Sunnydale way too long to believe in that much of a coincidence."

"When did our lives become so soap-opera-y?" Willow asked with a sigh, banging her head against her math book.

"We go to high school and we're teenage girls with superpowers," Buffy said, digging some gum out of her backpack.

"This is true," Cordelia said from the front door. "I just had to dump Jim Brammer in front of the entire quad." She set her backpack down next to Buffy and sat at the end of the table, flipping open her notebook to where the two of them already were.

"I didn't know you were dating," Buffy said, confused, passing Cordelia her nail file.

"We weren't. I let him take me to the Bronze, once, and then he started this whole thing the next day about how we were 'going steady.' Please. Who even says that anymore? So I had to stomp on the little puppy today before he started hanging over me and drooling into my frappucino, and he tried to yell at me. I don't think so! So I sicced Harmony on him because she's been trying so hard to get back into my good graces, and now I think the two of them are going to go out." Cordelia rolled her eyes heavenward. "So what were you two talking about?"

Willow filled her in on Buffy's idea, and to her surprise Cordy let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Well, that's just hilarious, isn't it? That's exactly the sort of thing I would do, especially if I wanted to keep an eye on Xander without looking like that's what I was doing. I may not respect her clothing but she's on top of things," Cordelia explained. "So, Buffy, aren't you going manhunting tonight?"

"Not when you make it sound like that," Buffy said, shuddering eloquently (at this, Willow rolled her eyes to the skies and started putting their textbooks away, giving up on the study session). "I'm going to hunt down Spike's unfortunate butt and make him talk to me – or to possibly give him a good long introduction to my fist before he goes on a trip with Mr. Pointy."

"Oh, come on," Cordelia said huffily. "Even I can admit that Spike is totally lunchable."

"I suppose that there are some that would fall for the hunky British punk thing," Buffy acknowledged. "Some that have eyes, okay?!" she snapped when Cordy and Willow shot her disbelieving stares. "Fine, he's hunky. But he's also evil and a vampire. And stop looking at me like that. I only date the living!"

"That's probably good news," Willow smirked.

"What are you smirking about?" Cordelia asked, sounding annoyed. "You get to start hanging out with that Wicca-babe in the afternoons, and Xander's probably going to get to jump him this weekend, and Buffy's going after the other hot vampire in town, all while the librarian and the computer teacher hook up. I swear to god, I'm living in a cheaply produced high-school porn flick and I'm still not getting any!"

"Dear god," Giles said from the door, and turned around and walked right back out of the library with a mortified Jenny, as peals of laughter chased them down the halls.

888

"So, Xander," Mitch said, flopping down on the ground next to him. They were sitting in the sand on the small, semi-private beach that Mitch's cottage came with, and the sun was brightening the foam of the water to create a small circle of light and peace that Xander felt like he could have soaked in forever, letting the gentle shushing of the waves wash away the brutal past. "Where do you think we're going to start in all of this? I mean, do you have any idea what's going on?"

Mitch had decided after they'd warded all of their homes against vampires that he and Xander could start their first training session that afternoon. Cordelia had agreed for him, and he'd found himself alone with the mysterious (and sexy, he added silently) young witch on the beach that afternoon.

"Um, I figured there would be candles and weird robe thingies. Possibly wands," Xander admitted. Mitch laughed at him, though not meanly. When Mitch laughed, his whole head tipped back and every one of his white teeth gleamed. The muscles in the smooth column of Mitch's throat were doing funny things to Xander's stomach, and he started picking at the sand in front of him to stop himself from fidgeting.

"You really are a greenie, aren't you?" Mitch said, sounding almost fond, though Xander told himself that he was reading way too much into it. They'd talked on the way out here, and Xander had been delighted that Mitch had understood at least half of his vague pop culture references. It had been so long since Xander had hung out with a guy that he'd forgotten half of the fun of it.

"Greenie?" Xander asked, narrowing his eyes.

"It's what we say on the Isle for the newbies who don't know what the hell is going on," Mitch explained. Xander narrowed his eyes in mock threat, and Mitch smirked without retracting his statement. "Okay, I'm not really one for big long speeches, so I'm going to try to explain all of this to you without boring you to tears, alright?"

"Sounds good," Xander said, relieved – the last thing he needed right now was a Giles-esque lecture involving big words he didn't understand in order to make the information instantly forgettable.

"Good." Mitch turned so that they were both sitting cross-legged across from each other. As the sun hit the highlights in Mitch's hair, it hit Xander again how close Mitch was to his age. It was almost reassuring – though Mitch was totally out of his league, looks-wise, there wasn't that sense with Angel and then Angelus of overwhelming inadequacy. Where Angelus was nearly perfect, Mitch had flaws – his sense of humor, the mole on his face, freckles, what looked like a building widow's peak – but it was those flaws that somehow made Mitch so...attractive, like he was part of a world that Xander wanted to be in but couldn't quite reach.

"Any power that someone possesses is magic – humans and humanlike beings like witches or vampires or even demons all have some kind of magic in them, and those that can tap into it are usually called psychics in one way or another. What you have is old, wild magic that runs in your blood, and its so hardwired into you that its subconscious – you don't control it right now because you're not really in touch with the part of your brain that controls it. So what we have to do is teach you to start understanding that part of you so that you can control it instead of it controlling you, which is, obviously, as we've seen, a bad thing."

"But that still doesn't explain what we're going to be doing," Xander complained.

"What I'm going to do is establish a psychic link with you," Mitch said. "It's not one of those things where I'll be able to see what you're thinking or anything," he said quickly, seeing Xander's backtracking expression. "What it's going to do is let me connect to you more easily. I'll be able to guide you and communicate with you what I want you to do. It's just a teaching thing!"

"Sounds hinky," Xander said accusatorily, not backing down.

"There's nothing sexy about it!" Mitch sputtered, actually blushing.

"I said hinky, not kinky, you freak!" Xander mock-yelled, enjoying watching Mitch squirm.

"I'm not – you started it!"

"My mind didn't take the innocent comment and turn it into all kinds of sex, mister," Xander informed him gleefully. "You're a pervert!"

"I am not!"

"Lies!" Xander thought that he was going to bust a rib soon, trying not to laugh at Mitch's consternating expression.

Take that back! Mitch's voice sounded in Xander's head suddenly, but it was so much more than that – it was everything that Mitch was, in his aura, a calm, sunny feeling that had Xander thinking that he was smelling fresh-cut summer grass and apples, but it wasn't smell so much as feel, and he could tell from those three words that Mitch was enjoying himself immensely and maybe more, but he couldn't name the other emotions he could sense from Mitch and he didn't try.

No, he thought meanly, knowing that Mitch could hear him.

"Well, you can certainly pick up tricks," Mitch said after a moment, and Xander almost sighed with loss as he felt that sunny presence in his mind begin to recede from him. Then Xander registered what Mitch had said and finally lost it, howling with laughter as he rolled backward on the sand.

"What's so—" Mitch began, confused, until he sighed and chuckled meanly. "Now who's got sex on the brain?"

"You started it," Xander returned, grinning.

"Okay, we really do need to get started, before we waste the whole afternoon," Mitch said with a grin, and Xander obediently sat back up to face him, though he was smiling more brightly than he had in what felt like years. "What I'm going to do is establish the link, and then I'm going to start guiding you toward using a bit of your power – nothing serious, like what happened the other day." He held his hands out, and Xander tried to ignore his accelerating heartbeat as he slipped his hands into Mitch's larger, rougher hands. Mitch had calloused hands from hard work, and the roughness of his fingertips made Xander shiver. For a moment, he thought Mitch was going to say something, but then Mitch closed his eyes and Xander followed suit.

There was a flash of feeling again, like what he'd felt when Mitch had first telepathically communicated with him, but it was stronger this time, and then he could feel a spark almost like electricity but richer, deeper, when his aura began to mingle with Mitch's. He felt naked, and almost ashamed – even in the midst of sex Xander had never felt this completely close to another being, and any walls between him and Mitch were eradicated in that one moment. He knew so completely that Mitch liked him, and would never hurt him, and was safe, that Xander almost felt like sobbing.

Okay, Xander – you still with me? This can be a little trippy at first, Mitch's voice sounded in Xander's head.

I'm...okay, Xander thought after a moment.

Good, Mitch said, and he seemed to be smiling in Xander's mind. The sunny feeling was back. What I'm going to do is picture something in my mind, and I want you to create the same thing in your mind. What Xander saw was an image of a candle burning, but it wasn't an image so much as a memory. He saw the flame, felt the heat, smelled the smoke, all in an instant, and he summoned the same image in his mind, felt Mitch's approval. For a while they just worked on working together, being able to anticipate images or thoughts from the other, until finally Xander felt so relaxed that he was almost boneless.

Now, I'm going to start something in the air around us. I'm going to let you try to solve it, alright? Xander couldn't tell if he thought out his acquiescence or if he just nodded physically, but then something began to build around his body – it was a pressure, but it tingled, and tickled, and there was a rhythm to it almost like a song that was so familiar that Xander instantly recognized the dust devil that was kicking up sand next to them. This was easy, and natural, and Xander sensed something awakening within him – a force, or power, or something that wasn't dark the way that he'd thought it was. It was a memory, or something like that, of when he'd known what to do about this.

He felt the power in the air around him building, and felt the charge of magic in his blood as he willed the wind to flow around them and lay the sand back to where it would, and released it with a sigh that was almost pleasurable. Feeling Mitch's surprised approval, Xander opened his eyes and started with shock.

It was nearly sunset already, and they'd begun working at three that afternoon. He was laying on his back, his side pressed up against Mitch's muscular chest, their hands still entwined, as a light breeze that was playful in nature and most certainly hadn't been there before settled down to play with the waves as Xander's power receded as peacefully as it had come.

"That was really good, Xander," Mitch said softly, and his husky voice was very close to Xander's ear, making him shiver. Xander looked up and saw that there was a very soft light in Mitch's beautiful green eyes as he softly freed their hands. Xander felt his lips curve up in a smile brown eyes turning to yellow watching him with possessive pleasure; a hand between his legs as he was lifted and prepared to be taken; a proud demon bending over him and owning him, fangs in his throat as sweet lifeblood welled—

Xander's Claim scar felt like it was abruptly on fire, ragingly painful in one moment and then gone as quickly as it had come, but the damage was done. Xander jerked back from Mitch like he was poisonous and jumped to his feet. In the last vestiges of the psychic bond between them Xander could feel Mitch's confusion and – was it hurt? But then that was gone, too, and Xander turned away from him. "I didn't realize that we'd been working so late," he observed instead.

"Magic has a way of making time meaningless," Mitch explained, getting to his feet. He didn't ask for an explanation. "I'll drive you home." His tone of voice wasn't as open or welcoming anymore, either, but Xander couldn't do anything about it now. He turned back toward the sea one last time and sighed as he felt the salt of the ocean on his skin like an open wound, and turned to follow Mitch to his car, the peace of the day broken once more by memories of jagged fangs and bloody wounds, some physical and some not, but all hurting just the same.

888

Angelus shook off the moment of pain as he clenched his fists. For a moment, he'd felt Xander near him, all around him, and then it was gone, almost as if the Claiming magic was receding...No, his demon snarled emphatically, and Angelus agreed. He would deal with his boy when the time came. For now, however, he had work to do, and it wouldn't to to make his move on his rebellious mate until he was ready. For now, he hunted.

He had chosen Allen and Lucy to hunt with him tonight. He had taken Ella far too much lately, and he knew more than any the dangers of relying on a particular vampire; besides, Allen and Lucy had created wonderful minions thus far and he needed two vampires who he knew were absolutely loyal to him. The numbers were beginning to rise, and the tide was finally turning in his favor once more. These last two weeks' work had proved fruitful beyond his best estimates; with his new policy of keeping watch over newborn minions and escorting them back to the mansion before the Slayer or her Watcher even knew they would rise had granted them only two losses out of thirty.

With the twelve vampires of his court all turning minions at a rate he approved, Angelus now had twelve vampires who could be counted on as his council, and with tonight's blood nearly fifty minions, all already being brought to heel under his command, an army of the undead with no weak links. Each human who would be given the dark gift and turned into one of his demons was chosen for their strength, speed and brains, ensuring a lack of idiocy in his ranks that he approved of emphatically.

This last, of course, he wasn't expecting to make it through one night of an undead existence, but it would be a handy enough distraction to sweet Buffy before he vanished once more into the shadows. Angelus smiled at the thought as he stepped out of the shower and into fresh clothes, making sure that the blood was completely washed away from him. Downstairs, arranged for Buffy's viewing, were his four latest victims: the Sutter family, the Summers' next door neighbors. He'd managed to convince their slut of a babysitter to let him in fairly quickly, and made short work of both her and the Sutter's twelve year old daughter, arranging their lifeless bodies in a parody of saphic pleasure and hiding in the dining room to enjoy the quality of the parents' screams when they'd come home.

The mother he'd beat to death with the fire poker, before snapping the neck of the father, who had been far too ugly for Angelus to waste much time on. He laid the fire poker in the husband's hand and the wife's hand in her husband's pants, and then left them all there, covered in blood, and headed upstairs to shower. He slipped his blood-stained shirt and leather pants back on, shoved his boots back on, and headed casually out into the sweet spring night, whistling to himself as he picked a white flower from the Sutter's yard. Perhaps he'd leave it outside Xander's window...

The thought had him frowning. Tonight he'd tried to see his beloved before going out hunting, only to feel the magical repulsion at the window – no weak holy water trick, this. No, he had been dis-invited from the home, and that could not be borne. When Xander was back where he belonged, punishment would have to be doled out for his boy's rebellious streak, and he would have to be brought to heel. But no matter; Xander would fall in line, and forgive him, and stare at him once more with those adoring eyes.

Sensing a familiar presence behind him as he turned off of Revello, Angelus turned to see Lucy slowly approaching him. The tall, statuesque vampiress was a rarity; Lucy had been turned when she was in her forties, and the blush of youth had left her face. Though she was beautiful, she looked older than many vampires simply because most vampires only turned the young.

"Master," she said softly, curtseying to him. Lucy had once been a lady of King James' court in England, until her lover had been accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. Lucy had found a vampire and used her lover's tricks to force the vampire into turning her, and Lucy had massacred half of the court and would have gone after the king himself had an angry mob not stopped her. She'd disappeared into the night and found her way to the Master's court. The incident at the time had be attributed to the ghost of an angry witch.

"Good hunting?" he asked her as she fell into step behind him.

"I turned those who would be turned," she answered, but there was a hesitancy in her voice. He waited as they walked, letting her get to whatever it was she wanted to say. "Master, I took a different route home, past one of the smaller bars, near the Fish Tank." He nodded, knowing what area she was talking about. "Since Willy's Alibi Bar is no more, small demon-friendly bars in Sunnydale have, of course, flourished, though this one was new. There were many demons within, some I did not recognize. They do not like your assumed mastery, and plan to challenge it soon."

"Good," Angelus said happily, grinning as his blood began to heat with the thrill of the hunt.

"Master?" Lucy asked, not understanding.

"The fools are all in one place, night after night. We need to add some demons to my court, anyway. I'll kill their leaders in battle and take them out as threats to me, add the useful ones to my court, and then, once I have trial by fire under my belt, there won't be a damned thing in Sunnydale that'll stand up to me – not even the Slayer." He grinned fiercely, feeling the moonlight swell down on him as if blessing his mission.

"Should I tell the others to be ready with your forces?" Lucy asked, drawing herself up.

"No. I'll handle this alone, tomorrow night," Angelus decided. "You can go now."

"Good day, master," Lucy said, curtseying properly again, before gliding off in the other direction, perhaps back toward the mansion. Angelus would let himself see Xander sleeping once more as he thought of his new campaign. No, no one would ever dare stand against him again. And no one – no one – would ever take his boy away from him again.

888

Buffy surveyed the remains of Willy's Alibi Bar with no small sense of satisfaction. The joint that had once been hopping with the scum of the underworld telling the bartender all of their dirty little secrets while they gulped down whatever noxious drink they wanted was now nothing more than a burnt out hollow shell of what it had been. It had been more joyful than she wanted to admit to torch the place and all its inhabitants. Now, she slowly stepped under the yellow "condemned" tape and gingerly stepped over the rubble that was left of the door.

The bar was in even worse shape than she remembered. Half of the walls were crumbling and blackened, the bar was half demolished, the pool tables split in half. There were two small fires made of crumbled bits of wood and bar stools, with a few demons around them – a small green mischief demon and a few vampires, and two or three that she didn't recognize. But the fact that she hadn't recognized them most likely meant that they weren't that important. Still, she kept her hood up. It wouldn't be such a great thing for all of these people to see the Slayer strutting through the place she'd bombed.

She found Spike in the back corner, where one of the booths was still undamaged. He was drinking a bottle of scotch, with about half a pack of cigarettes stubbed out next to him. He didn't even glance up when she slid into the seat across from him. Buffy slowly slid a stake out of the sheath in the side of her coat and held it tightly, just in case, and slid her hood off.

"What the bloody hell do you want—oh, it's you," Spike said, regarding her with his icy blue eyes. Buffy nodded lackadaisically. "What brings a bint of yer stature staggering round down in this rathole?"

"I was looking for you," Buffy admitted, leaning back. Spike regarded her quizzically through half-lidded eyes, a look she absolutely refused to admit was somewhat attractive, in a very Spike sort of way. "I thought that we could have a bit of a talk."

"We don't chat, Slayer," Spike snorted. He took a swig of whiskey and leaned back. "If you're here, it means that you want something. And I'm too drunk right now to fight you. So what do you want?"

"I want to talk," Buffy repeated. "About Angelus." Spike's eyes narrowed. "And Drusilla."

"What do you mean?" he asked, leaning forward. Her fingers tightened over the stake, but she kept still.

"I think that you know exactly what I mean," she whispered, holding his threatening stare with one of her own. "I think that you don't want Angelus in town any more than I do." To her surprise, Spike broke the stare first, leaning back in his seat to laugh a hollow chuckle, his voice sounding raspy.

"Do y'know, you've got more balls n' most Slayers I've ever seen, includin' the one's I've done in?" he observed. "Here you are in this place, askin' me to stab me Sire in the back, and you're not even flinching." He clapped a few times and took another swig of his drink. "I like that."

"And you're not really what I was expecting," Buffy said, leaning back, letting her death-grip on Mr. Pointy relax slightly. "William the Bloody sitting here drinking and moping about his life instead of doing something about it."

"And just what would you propose I do about it? Kill the old bastard and take Dru away from all of this?" Spike indicated the burnt-out husk of Willy's around them, giggling slightly. "First off, I'd never win against Angelus on me own, as you've learned by now. Second, Dru'd kill me, or she'd leave me anyway. And third...what was the third?" He shrugged and took another drink. "Of course, you're one to talk – I'm the one he's abandoned, and here you are trying to get me to...fuck you." Spike laughed again and took another drink.

"Look, maybe you haven't quite gotten the memo, but either me or him are gonna be dead by the end of all this, and I'd rather it be him," Buffy noted, confused. Spike regarded her with his electric blue eyes that were almost pitying.

"You really don't get it, do you? Why you're all still alive?"

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, feeling somewhat uneasy at the tone of Spike's voice.

"You see, Angelus is big on family. Never quite got over killing his, I suppose. And he's right round the fuckin' twist 'bout your droopy-boy. You think that he's just going to kill you all?" Spike snorted. "He loves you guys! Don't you understand? Willow, his pet witch, and you, his pet Slayer, and the Watcher in his dungeons for fun with the teacher. The cheerleader'll be a vampire by the end of the month, and Xander back in his bed – oh, he wants to keep the lot of you, and me and Dru, and maybe find a way to bring Darla back. He's already got all of Sunnydale right under his thumb, and once he gets his family back together...mmm."

Buffy was staring at him in horror as he continued, lighting up his next cigarette. "You see, most vampires, we're just talk – I mean, we kill people, of course. But most of us, we're not going to cause the next apocalypse, or summon a demon, or try to use magic, or end the world. But then comes someone like Angelus, who can make just about anyone fall in love with him, I reckon, who has a real vision and a passion for destruction. Throw your boy and the witch and maybe a vamped you on top of all of that, and he'll have the world in his fist by the end of the year, and here I'll be, drinkin' my way through with this lot."

"What do you mean, he's already got all of Sunnydale?" Buffy asked, her horror mounting.

"What d'you think he's been doing all this time he's not fighting you? Where do you think all the deaths are vanishing to, or why there aren't any new minions around for you to fight?" Spike asked her disparagingly, taking another draw on his cigarette and blowing the smoke in her face.

"He's building an army, isn't he?" Buffy whispered.

"Already ten steps ahead of that, luv," Spike noted. "Now that you've lost your lunch, you still gonna sit there or you gonna run to that Watcher of yours?"

"Well, if he's so keen on taking over the world, why don't you help him?" Buffy asked challengingly, grasping at straws to keep herself from reeling. Spike sighed and slumped in his seat, and Buffy was shocked to feel something almost like pity niggling at her insides at the utter defeat in the motion.

"You've got no idea what...Angelus...look, you remember that first night he came back?" Spike asked her, staring at her with something like sobriety in his gaze. Buffy nodded tightly, trying as hard as she could to fight back the memories of that horrifying night and the nightmares it brought with it. "Picture feeling that, a hundred times worse, for a hundred years. That's what Angelus is to me. I love him more than any man, and I hate him more than any thing on this earth. And now he's back like nothing's changed, like I'm the bad Childe who didn't fall back in line, taking Dru from me..."

"So take it all back," Buffy said softly. She stood up and pulled her hood back up over her head. "Stop drinking and do something about it. You know where to find me." She didn't look back as she left the bar, but she had a feeling that Spike was going to sit there for a very, very long time.

888

Drusilla had gone out hunting that night, walking through the parks of Sunnydale, looking for children to call to her. There had been none, and she despaired that she would not be able to give the darkness she held at her breast to any of the young ones. It festered like a wound, and she scratched at her chest listlessly, drawing blood. She smeared the beads of dark red on her gown, and despaired that the fabric was so dark that she could not see herself lost in it. Drusilla ripped the gown from herself, standing naked amongst the trees beneath the waxing moon.

There was a fascination and an enchantment in degrading herself to the most elemental of beasts, a dark whisper in her mind that her Angelus and Spike could never hear, or would not hear. Some nights, Drusilla would leave all of her clothes behind and vanish into the woods, digging herself a grave and lying in it, sleeping through the daytime in the earth and hearing the songs the worms sang to each other as they descended on her helpless body. On nights she did not want to be alone, she would sleep in the graves of dead humans, drawing their rotting corpse arms over herself like a lover's embrace, and sleep secure.

Tonight, however, she turned away from the woods and continued toward town, intent on finding her little Spike. So self-important he was after having to take care of her for so long, and now that she no longer needed him he felt so disgustingly betrayed. Pity and hatred welled within her. Her Spike had once been a weapon she kept with her, torturing the world that had been so cruel to him, but she had done it wrong, of course she had, and he was so very...human. The lovemaking made her shiver, but it was nothing like what she found in the arms of her dark father, her Angel, her Angelus. Could she ever make Spike understand the beauty of utter pain, degradation, humiliation?

As she turned toward the outer crescent of Sunnydale, toward the harbor, however, she caught a smell of briny water, and the salt of the eternal ocean, and felt a dizzying rush of vertigo as her entire world spun in the cruel hands of a vision, and then she collapsed naked in the street.

Drusilla stands at the crest of a beach, the moonlight dancing over the waves, the winds riling the water into a foamy storm, her hair blowing back from her face. She is dressed in the white of the virgin, though blood drenches the bottom of her dress, and she stands still as the forces of the earth move around her. This is a dark night, a cursed night, and she moans in pleasure while all the powers of Hell itself seem to gather around her, the feeling practically orgasmic against her sensitive skin. Her nipples stiffen.

Behind her lies Sunnydale, her home, or something like it, and all those that she loves sleeping, unaware of the power she feels as she exultantly lifts her hands above her head and lets her hair loose from her head, letting the long tresses fly toward the wood like dark bats, leaving her bald and cold, exposed before the dark shadow gods rising around her. She steps toward the ocean, and she brings her wrists to her mouth, one by one, letting her fangs tear into her skin to join with the dark ones in a bloody communion of orgiastic ecstasy.

She giggles madly as the world explodes around her, the four elements firing into life around her, calling her to dance as the earth heaves beneath her feet, to fly as the air explodes in the power of a hurricane around her, to sigh in lust as the woods burst into flames, mirroring the fires in her groin as her fluids begin to flow, to swim as the ocean explodes in a massive tidal wave, sweeping away all in its path as it relentlessly floods the town of Sunnydale and killing all of the inhabitants, though Drusilla continues to dance in the torrent. She feels the innocent souls of children drowning in darkness and sighs in pleasure as she collects them for her enjoyment.

But the dark spirits of the earth have not had their final say, combining together in a wretched whirlpool to suck all those still alive into the darkness of the water, and Drusilla sees the Slayers, both of them, and her Spike, and her dark father, and the Watcher, the witches and the werewolf and the strong one, all drawn toward the darkness, unable to escape, and stopping short as the boy stands alone on the beach, finally pulling out a blade and killing himself to stop his friends from dying, releasing them from the dark spell. His body drifts out to sea as all those on shore mourn his loss, and Drusilla curiously follows him toward the whirlpool, but the boy has vanished. At the bottom of an impenetrably long, dark well, there is a flame.

Drusilla watches in ecstatic terror as a giant, fiery bird of prey explodes from the depths, turning its raptor eyes upon the world as its wings begin to burn reality around her until there is nothing left...nothing but ashes...

"What the hell?" a rough tough man asked as he leaned over her. Drusilla woke up, shivering rapturously at the memory of the fire's pain, the claws of the phoenix tearing at her mind, at her demon...she smiled lustily at the sensation's phantom memories over her veins. "Well, if that's what you wanted, babe," the ugly man said, smelling like lust as he reached for his pants, and Drusilla remembered that she was naked, and that she was beautiful the way her daddy thought she was beautiful.

"Hell," she repeated ecstatically, and then she sprang up and unleashed her fangs upon the man's throat, draining the fountain of blood that erupted there, cracking his neck as she widened the wound, and dropping his useless dead body where it lay. She needed to return home and tell Miss Edith of her adventures this night, or she might forget, and to forget would be to die.

Licking the blood from her lips with a brilliantly dark smile upon her face, Drusilla danced toward home, all thoughts of Spike completely forgotten.

888

The very thought of Spike's words about Angelus' desire for a 'family' with all of them was enough to make Buffy want to vomit, but from everything she and Giles had read researching the vampire's activities, it made the perfect sort of sense that was horrifying. Driving it firmly from her mind, Buffy tried her hardest to think of something else, but all that was coming up was Spike, and the way his wonderfully blue eyes held hers fearlessly, and how the hollows of his cheeks gave him a shadowed, smoky sort of sexiness...

Gah! she thought, jerking back from herself. Spike is not sexy! Badness! Bad Buffy! "Where the hell is a vampire when you need one?" the Slayer asked angrily, trying to stomp the thoughts from her mind. Just then, she heard a scream in the distance and smiled darkly. "Ha, ha," she muttered, and drew her stake out from its sheath as she sprinted in the direction of the screams.

At the fringes of a cemetery a vampire was stalking toward a young woman, who was trying to ward him off with her backpack. Rolling her eyes, Buffy ran toward them and launched herself in the air, letting her foot come down on the back of the leech's head with a satisfying crack. The vampire jerked forward, howling in pain, and the woman darted off in the other direction, still screaming, but alive. Buffy turned her attention back to the vampire in front of her.

It straightened itself and faced her without fear, falling into a fighting crouch. His arms weren't overly muscled, but demonic strength was a different sort of thing, so Buffy didn't let that fool her. Instead, she raised the stake defensively to distract him from her other hand moving slowly toward her belt. The vampire smirked as it recognized her, which wasn't a great sign. "You don't matter anymore, Slayer. Soon our master will claim this land, and you, as his own, and Hell will reign in this town!"

"Do you have any idea how many vampires before Angelus have said that and then met the pointy end of this?" Buffy snarked, brandishing the stake. "Sorry if I'm not quaking in my new shoes, but you're gonna have to do a lot better than that if you want to scare me off of killing you tonight, buddy."

"My death does not matter," the vampire sneered. "Where you kill me, there will be dozens more to take my place. And if I return to my master from an unsuccessful hunt, he will kill me anyway."

"Then why follow him?" she asked, her questing fingertips finding what she was looking for.

"Because he is the greatest of all vampires," the leech said reverently. "And I will eliminate you for him!" Without warning, the vampire's center of gravity shifted and he leapt toward her, fangs bared and claws outstretched. Buffy was more than ready for him, however, with the small vial of holy water she'd found, and threw it toward him, shattering the glass on his face and dousing his countenance with the blessed liquid, making him drop like a stone, screaming as he clawed at his ruined features and blinded eyes.

"Tell me what I want to know and I'll make it all stop," Buffy promised, putting one stake over his heart. "Lie to me and we're going to draw this out." Her other stake she unsheathed and held point-down over his crotch threateningly. "How many vampires does Angelus have on his side?"

"At least fifty! More after tonight!" the vampire howled, cringing away from her.

"Anything else?" Buffy asked, digging her stake into his pants a little further.

"Some demons, I don't know! He's recruited some witches too! After tonight he'll have control of the entire Hellmouth! He's killed the other competition! That's all I know, I swear!" The vampire was still clawing at his eyes, which were no doubt boiled away into nothing by now. Buffy wanted to hold her breath from the scent, but she forced herself to continue.

"Are you lying to me?" she asked sweetly, tightening her grip on the stakes.

"NO! I SWEAR!" the vampire howled.

"Good," she said softly, and drove her stake into his heart with a meaty crunch, drawing it out and watching his face freeze in a rictus of shocked pain before he exploded in a cloud of ashy vampire dust. Buffy turned and walked quietly out of the cemetery. She wasn't going to be seeing any new vampires tonight, and probably not for a few nights now that she knew what Angelus was planning. An entire army. Angelus was raising an entire army of vampires to take over her town, and demons and witches as well. Buffy wanted to break into sobs as the weight of what was happening settled on her shoulders.

Needing to kill Angelus at all was bad enough, and hard enough. But this? There was no way that she could deal with this! The entire Hellmouth was bowing to his boots by now, and that was more demons, vampires, witches and other nasties than she could even care to think of. Vampires were the only ones who needed to wait on invitations; nothing and nowhere was going to be safe from Angelus' forces after tonight. The only thing left for her was to kill Angelus himself and hope that that would disperse his forces, but could she even do it? She had no doubts left that she could make herself drive the stake in, but would she be able to defeat Angelus in battle? And then deal with the aftermath...

When Buffy turned toward Revello, she sighed. Going home no longer felt safe, even though she knew that Angelus couldn't get into her house anymore, and Buffy mourned that loss more than anything. Spike was right – Angelus was cunning and he had a vision. Angel himself had been a formidable opponent, and add to that Angelus' raw cruelty and she knew without a doubt that if he wasn't stopped soon he wouldn't stop with the Hellmouth. He'd move for the rest of it, for the world, unless she stopped it.

Her mind registered what was wrong before anything else, and she turned toward the Sutter's house, unconsciously drawing her last stake back from her sheath as she headed toward the door that was hanging wide open. The house was dark, though, and she knew that the Sutters wouldn't have gone to sleep with the door open...Buffy stepped over the threshold into the house and froze, nearly whimpering in horror, as the scent of blood hit her. God, no, she thought. Not this...

She saw the bodies by the light of the moon, saw the twisted and disgustingly perverted ways in which Angelus had posed them for her, a gift and a warning all at once, and she had to fight down the rising vomit in her stomach. The thought of Jennifer Sutter not playing outside on the porch swing anymore when Buffy walked home from school in the afternoon was painful, and Buffy had to pause as she leaned against the wall for strength.

Bile rose once more as she heard the snarl behind her, and Buffy turned to see Jennifer and her babysitter sitting slowly up, their once-pretty faces twisted into ugliness by their newly vampiric features. Fighting back a tide of horror, Buffy drove the stake into the babysitter's heart, and she exploded into dust. The little girl, however...Buffy closed her eyes and stabbed before the disoriented newborn could fight back, and then turned and ran from the house, leaving her stake behind, and leapt up to her bedroom window and threw herself in, vomiting violently in her trash can before collapsing on her bed in helpless sobs.

888

"What the what, Giles?" Xander asked as Giles checked the non-ringing telephone once more. They were eating breakfast, and Xander was still riding a bit of a magic-induced buzz from yesterday, determined to ignore the moment of awkwardness that had ensued from the entire thing. In fact, since the Claim had had that strange flare yesterday, Xander hadn't dreamed of Angelus at all, or thought about him the entire night, which was a first since he'd left the factory.

"Oh, nothing," Giles assured him, turning back to his newspaper with a frown.

"Just a thought, but, poker? Not your game," Xander commented as he spooned himself more Raisin Bran. "Just give. My delicate mind can handle it."

"I wasn't implying—" Giles began huffily, but he stopped when he realized that Xander was mocking him. "Buffy still has not checked in from last night, and I was worried."

"You mean from Spikespotting? Yikes," Xander said, not duly worried. "I'm sure she's fine, Giles. She's Buffy. She could take Spike in a fight any day."

"I'm sure you're right," Giles nodded, but he was circling things in the newspaper with his pen, which was never a good sign. Xander decided to cut his losses for the day.

"Do you need any help looking up stuff today?" he asked as he finished off his orange juice. Giles shook his head, still not looking up from the newspaper. "Okay, then. I think I'll go hang with the girls today." Another nod. "Then I might play chicken in traffic," Xander tried. When Giles still didn't react, Xander shrugged and took care of his dishes before he went to get dressed. On his way out the door, Giles called out, "Do try to avoid the larger cars, Xander."

Xander shot him a droll stare and shut the door behind him with a snap.

8

Giles was more worried than he'd let on, and the newspaper was only adding to his growing sense of unease. The Hellmouth had been far too quiet for his peace of mind these last weeks, and Buffy's lack of checking in after such an important mission didn't bode well. This was the very worst part of being a Watcher – the constant waiting, worrying, hoping, fearing, praying as his Slayer went into battle without him. Giles imagined it was somewhat like being a parent of a police officer or a soldier, only worse. And the paper was signifying very bad things indeed.

There was story after story of children not returning home, each individual excelling in a particular skill. Electronics stores in the area were going haywire, indicating an upsurge in either dark energy or magic or both, or perhaps the presence of a chaos demon. Accidents in the hospital and dark births such as children with their eyes turned inwards only added up to indicate that another apocalypse was rising in Sunnydale, and Giles had no doubt that the connection between Angelus and Xander was somehow at the center of it all.

The only question remaining was identifying the threat – Angelus himself, or something far worse? Fighting back the urge to run outside and catch Xander before he could finish leaving, Giles got up to pour himself some tea and started to brew some dark coffee alongside it. Whether in the library or with his books here, he was in for a long day today, and he knew that in either place he'd be sitting next to the phone lest Buffy should call.

He eyed the clock with increasing apprehension as he began browsing through the books he had bookmarked for their content involving either Angelus, the Elementals, or Claiming rituals of vampires. The shriek of the kettle sounded like death in his ears.

888

Mitch was waiting for Willow by the copse of trees on the edge of Weatherly Park when she got there, the bag of supplies he'd asked her to bring swinging by her side. She was nervous, though she was trying hard to hide it. The last time she'd seen this guy, he'd been adding his power to hers to fix the mess that she'd created and nearly killed herself with, which wasn't exactly the impression she'd been hoping to make on the teacher from Avalon. Well, today she'd show him that she was a good student. Her self-affirmation ringing in her ears, Willow strode to him in a display of far more confidence than she felt.

He was dressed as casually as she was, in a pair of ripped-up jeans and an old white T-shirt, and she felt better about the peasant blouse and hippie skirt she'd found at Goodwill. She grinned involuntarily when she remembered Cordelia's expression when she'd heard where Willow had gotten her new outfit, and Mitch smiled back at her.

"Willow, hey," he said calmly, stepping forward to meet her. Willow was struck by how ridiculously cute he was, and how young, and suddenly Buffy's suspicions from the other day weren't quite as far-fetched as they'd seemed in the library.

"Hi," she said. They shook hands and he gestured for her to pull up a patch of grass. They sat down in the traditional sitting position of meditation, and she put her bag down next to him.

"So, my name's Mitch – you probably caught that by now. I'm supposed to be taking you on the next step of training to be a witch, but you looked like you were pretty far along the last time I met you." He gave her a look that wasn't quite condemning, but she still blushed. "It's all good – we all lose control sometimes. Including the teachers, like the time our horticulture teacher almost strangled herself in a weeping willow." She smiled weakly. "I'm going to start by asking you what you already know. I know that Jenny Calendar's started you off on all of this."

"Well, I was interested because I was using her computer for stuff and I was browsing through all of her pagan websites and when she talked to me about it she told me I was a real natural, and it was just...simple, you know, some of the stuff that she was teaching me, so I started doing it and reading more and now here I am and you are, well, here, too," she finished lamely, pausing to draw breath. He blinked, and she tried to calm herself down. "I mean, I know how to do spells, and blessings, and draw up power from the earth and things like that. The major stuff I still need help on. Ms. Calendar says that I'm fine on most spells as long as I have a secondary to guide me."

"Well, I can definitely sense a bit of raw power rolling off of you," Mitch said, nodding. "I heard that you cast the Dance of Souls, which most witches under the level the Lady of the Lake is at can't do. But the problem that I'm hearing is that you haven't had anyone knock you down a peg or three. That stunt you pulled in the football field was just stupid." She gaped at him, and he shrugged. "I'm not here to sugarcoat things. We're witches, Willow, which means that we're using forces strong enough to alter reality as we know it. Arrogance while using that kind of power is the worst kind of thing, because then you start to use magic for everything, to change things or to change people – did you know that there's such a condition as magic addiction?"

"No," she whispered, her cheeks flaming, not meeting his eyes.

"There are people – young people, powerful ones, just like you – who stumbled onto this stuff and thought that they could just blast away on their own, or maybe find a teacher who's willing to give them the dark stuff for a price, and suddenly they can't go a day without magic or they go into withdrawal," he continued mercilessly. "I'm not trying to tell you this to make you feel like shit, or ashamed. I'm telling you this because I know that you're smart, and people keep telling me that you're a good person, and you need to know that there are consequences to every action. You've got some incredible power inside of you; even I can sense that. But I'm telling you right now that I could mop the floor with you in five minutes, which is exactly what I'm about to do, so get ready."

"What?" Willow gasped, before he lashed out at her in a dazzling burst of light and she was suddenly flung backward to land humiliatingly hard on her backside. He stood casually up and stretched, almost like he was showing off his muscles, and Willow was abruptly furious. How dare this cocky son of a bitch judge her like she was a naughty five year old and then attack her and... "OH!" she gasped, and fought back without a second thought, reaching out and causing the very trees to bend to her and move their branches toward him threateningly.

It was like a painfully pleasurable feeling, how easily the magic came to her, and she enjoyed watching Mitch's face as he shuddered at the force of her magic. Let him be impressed, then, she thought smugly, before she stumbled to her knees and started howling in pain as Mitch used her hubris exactly the way he had already told her he was going to in order to slip humiliatingly easily into her defenses and turn her power back on her, using her own magic to induce the illusion of pain throughout her entire bloodstream.

Humiliated, shocked, and humbled, Willow did what she knew Mitch wanted and surrendered her instinctive grip on her powers, letting him erase the effects of the magic around them and returning her from the magic-induced high she'd been riding mere seconds ago. The entire process had taken less than five minutes, exactly as Mitch had told her, and that was as bad as everything else was.

She was surprised when Mitch handed her a handkerchief he'd taken out of a pocket. The cloth was suffused with herbs designed to calm her down, and she wiped her tears and snot away gratefully. "Do you know why I did that?" Mitch asked her seriously, sitting down across from her again.

"Because I needed to be knocked down a few pegs?" Willow guessed when she'd collected herself again.

"Right," Mitch confirmed. "You've got a ton of power, Willow – you've been blessed with a gift. But you've got to learn how to honor that gift instead of just using it to suit you. You've been reckless and its been praised. Now, I'm not saying that you haven't done some really good things. But it's time to learn control. And that's what we're going to be working on the rest of today, okay?"

She nodded firmly, and wiped the last of her tears away. Willow didn't like Mitch all that much, nor did she like his methods, but she was determined to show him that she had heard him and that she was going to be the best student he'd ever had. And she was never, ever going to let her magic do that to her again, or put her in that humiliating position, not ever.

888

Angelus surveyed the cavernous basement of the mansion with genuine pleasure. It was absolutely filled to the brim with dead bodies, each of them to his specifications: young, attractive, smart, and fighters to the end. His army of vampires was close to rising, and he had an idea of what their first blood meal would be. Nodding his satisfaction to Lucy, he turned and led her out of the basement, closing the door on the changing bodies and locking it firmly. He gave the key to Lucy and allowed her to leave his presence, secure in the knowledge that she'd let no one in besides herself.

In the mansion proper, those minions that had already risen were renovating the attic to hold the minions' quarters, while Spike and Drusilla already had a room appointed for them, and he himself of course had the master suite. The other guest rooms and living rooms were also being renovated for living quarters, and weapons' rooms, and the library was being emptied of books in preparation for being refilled with the occult tomes and references Angelus would need to complete his control over the Hellmouth itself. He imagined the look on his Xander's face when he would return to a real home, and a real bedroom, and the rest of their family in line in the library, waiting for them...

"Master," Allen said respectfully, intruding on his reverie. "The sun has gone down."

"Is everything ready?" Angelus asked. Of course he knew the sun was down; he'd lived more than two hundred years, which one would think was more than long enough to learn the solar calendar. At Allen's nod, he turned and left without a backward glance. Thinking better of it, he turned around and asked, "Are Spike or Drusilla home yet?" Allen shook his head, and Angelus frowned as he nodded to his underling and headed to his bedroom to get ready for tonight's battle. Neither of his beautiful Childers had returned to the mansion during the daytime hours. Spike, he had no doubt, was still at the burned-out wreck of Willy's, though why he'd choose to hole up there during the day was something Angelus doubted he'd ever understand. He should never have allowed Dru to attempt a turning on her own.

While he knew that both of his Childers were more than capable of taking care of themselves, even against the Slayer – a thought that filled him with no uncertain amount of pride – he bristled at the disrespect to his house and his court, not to mention to he himself. They would both need to be punished and taught their lessons, Spike more than most. It was unnatural for the brash young vampire to be skulking around like a kicked puppy merely because his fickle Sire was no longer devoted to his every word.

He put the thoughts out of his head and dressed in leather and a heavy shirt, strapping a sword to his hip and a dagger in each boot. He put a stake in a sheath along his sleeve, just in case, and then headed out into the darkening gloam, seeking out the scent of the demon clan he'd encountered the night before. As per his instructions, his underlings were all staying well away from him. This was the final battle he needed to fight for himself before declaring himself king, and he would fight it alone, and win. He knew no other way.

The scent of demons – full-blooded demons – was a particular scent; indeed, it was almost like a feeling rather than a scent, a primal sort of aura that called to Angelus like a song on the night, and he followed it easily enough. The den that he was tracking was sloppy if he could trail them this easily...or they were cocky, or perhaps both. He had been consolidating major power in the area lately, and there were bound to be at least a few free elements left who thought they could simply oppose him. Angelus wasn't worried. He felt confident and strong, glutted on blood and retraining himself back to his remembered fighting strength and prowess. Lucy and Ella were making contact with a small coven of witches meeting on the outskirts of town, and once he had them on his side, his court would never be taken by magic again. He was so close to his goal that he could practically taste it.

Breathing in the warm night air, Angelus let his feet take him toward downtown Sunnydale, and ended up in a tiny bar set steps down from the street. The alley the bar was in looked just like every other alley in Sunnydale, only perhaps a little more deserted. Angelus checked around, making sure that he was alone, and then smashed the door in with his foot as he strode confidently into the dimly lit room, his true face rippling into being and his preternaturally enhanced sight bringing the room and its inhabitants into sharp relief.

There were six demons and three vampires in the room. Two of the vampires looked old enough to have evolved, but the third looked young and stupid as a minion still. There were six demons ringing the room – two large Ch'thin demons, a small mischief demon whose face was covered in battle scars, a swarthy goblin, a large Fellsor demon, and an enormous Chaos demon in the back corner. Angelus felt like crowing in triumph. Instead, he kept his face schooled in an impassive mask and stepped calmly inside, until he was roughly in the middle of the room, and stood there.

"You've got balls, I'll give ya that," the goblin said coldly. It was a nasty thing, small and hunched and covered in spikes that were a darker shade of its poisonous green skin. It grinned at him with yellowed, cracked, viciously sharp teeth. "But you really shouldn'ta come in here and busted our door like that."

"You three are disgusting," Angelus said coldly, ignoring the goblin and turning instead to the three vampires. "I offered you a chance to join my court and here you stand in the company of filth who would only treat you as lackeys instead of kings."

"Maybe I'm a rebel," said the minion vampire with a vicious sneer.

"Maybe you should be dead," Angelus sighed, and tossed the hellfire potion he'd slipped up his sleeve in that direction, watching in satisfaction as all three of the rogue vampires died in an instant, painful immolation, the sound of their brief screams echoing in the now tense room as Angelus turned to face the other demons, who were now watching him far more warily than before. He took a moment to let his actions sink in, and then he addressed them gravely: "This Hellmouth is mine. And it's going to stay that way. I'm giving you all a chance to join me as we turn our sights away from this patch of land and onto the rest of this world. But if you refuse me, I'll slaughter you now and move on with my own forces."

"You just made one big mistake, you stupid fucking bloodsucking little leech," said the Fellsor demon. It was a huge, hulking thing with long tubes for hair that dripped poisonous fluid, dark green eyes and a tiny mouth. It killed by poisoning its victims and then attaching its mouth to the back of their necks and sucking their life-force out. Fellsor demons were big, nasty, and strong, and Angelus knew that their size didn't mean they were slow or stupid. "I think I've put up with your little power grab long enough. It's time to put you back in your place where half-human scum like you belong!"

Angelus sneered at him in disgust before drawing one of his daggers and swinging around in a viciously fast circular revolution, beheading the goblin that had tried to sneak behind him and turning around to hurl the blade at the small mischief demon, landing the weapon with a meaty thunk in between the creature's eyes. Brilliant green blood sprayed behind him as the goblin's body hit the floor. The mischief demon was so small that his body barely sounded out as it hit the ground. Angelus drew out his other dagger and spun it calmly, smiling at the scent of blood as he surveyed his enemies.

The Fellsor demon sputtered in rage as he turned to the two Ch'thin demons and screamed in a high-pitched howl, "Kill him!" The other large demons almost stumbled over each other as they turned toward him, and Angelus smirked. Ch'thin demons were large and fairly stupid pig-like creatures with long, sharp tusks who spoke in grunts. They had massive strength but mainly couldn't use it for anything without a higher demon to command them.

"Look at the two of you," Angelus crooned softly as they stepped toward him. He sidestepped, giving himself more room in between the bar tables. "Such big boys working for something so nasty and smelly. How much does he give you for working for him? Does he let you kiss him?" The Ch'thins snarled in rage as they stepped toward him, their small, piggy eyes looking confused. "What if you worked for someone who valued you? Who paid you and let you loose on a town completely under his control?" The demons stopped, and Angelus smiled in a friendly way as he stepped toward them. "What if you worked for me, and I never gave you an order without giving you a reward?"

"He's a fucking vampire! He's filth, you ungrateful swine! What could he possibly give you that I couldn't, that I don't?! Kill him, and kill him now!" Angelus loved the desperate upswing in the Fellsor's voice. The scent of fear was starting to build in the air. The Chaos demon was completely still, watching the goings-on, and Angelus slung his arms companionably around the Ch'thins' shoulders.

"Boys, why don't you kick back and take a seat? This won't take long," he said in their ears, and the two of them grunted and sat down on the nearest chairs, watching the challenge. All Angelus had to do now was win, and he had no doubts that he would. He tossed his dagger up in the air, catching it on the downfall, and then tossed it handle-first toward the Fellsor, who caught it on reflex. "Let's get it done, shall we?" Angelus suggested, shrugging off his jacket and stretching calmly, making his stomach vulnerable to attack in a show of complete disrespect for the other demon.

"I'm going to take you out," the Fellsor snarled, enraged. "I'm going to put you in your place and rape that pretty body of yours, before I destroy every vampire in this town!"

"Sorry, baby," Angelus said, sounding regretful. "I'm already taken. I mean, if you're into sloppy seconds..." When the Ch'thins laughed stupidly behind him, the Fellsor screamed in rage and hurled forward in a lightning-fast strike, which Angelus dodged, using his jacket like a shield to block the droplets of poison raining from the thing's head. He slammed his foot into the demon's stomach as hard as he could, then slammed his hand down into a tender spot in its spine. The Fellsor dropped to the ground and spun around, sweeping Angelus' legs out from under him and making the vampire drop to the ground like a stone. The demon pummeled him in the side and swung the dagger, which Angelus rolled away from, hissing in pain as it caught his arm, drawing blood.

They both swung to their feet and circled each other warily. Angelus drew his sword from its sheath, remembering with pleasure all of the fencing lessons that Darla had given him, often drawing each others' blood until they tore their clothes off and fucked in a wild, blood-soaked frenzy on the fighting floor. Still, he stood in the en garde position, waiting. When his opponent's weight shifted to his left, Angelus swung to the right and blocked the Fellsor's swift jab. They both feinted for a few moments, before the Fellsor switched the dagger to his other hand and came at Angelus with a blindingly fast series of slashes that Angelus furiously warded off, searching for his opening.

When it finally came, he spun his sword in a complicated circle and sliced the Fellsor's left hand off, the hand and the dagger falling to the floor as orange blood sprayed out, the Fellsor screaming in pain. Angelus stepped forward, punching the demon in the forehead hard, making it rear back in pain. He slammed the pommel of his sword into its stomach, making it double over, and then brought the flat of the blade in a humiliating spank on the thing's ass, and it fell to the floor with a pained groan. "Besides, babe," he said in a deep, huskily sensual drawl, "you're really not my type." He lifted the sword high and cut the Fellsor's head off with a satisfyingly wet squelch, cutting off the thing's high-pitched keen of pain and despair.

He took an unneeded breath of deep satisfaction as he dropped the sword, which was covered in disgusting blood that was no doubt eating away at the blade already. He turned to the Ch'thin demons, which were staring at him in awe and no doubt lust. No matter how disgusting they were, his vanity was satisfied and he preened slightly in front of them. "Would you two please take my coat and wrap the head up? I'll take you to our mansion and set you up to live, and we'll get some good poison out of this thing." They scrambled to their feet and rumbled to do his bidding. Angelus turned to the Chaos demon.

It was a huge, deeply disgusting thing with enormous antlers dripping slime, its swirling eyes constantly changing colors as it surveyed him. Angelus knelt down on one knee before it. No vampire, no matter how strong, could destroy a Chaos demon without allies and proper preparation. "I'd be honored if you would join me as well," he said respectfully.

"I will not," the demon said calmly. Angelus wanted to curse in frustration, but he wouldn't show it on his face. The demon smelled it, however, and chuckled. Its voice was deep and vibrating, grating. "You are, however, a most unusually impressive vampire. Your cruelty is unparalleled among your peers, and I've watched you with interest. This display..." The demon pulled an amulet on a cord out from a pocket on the cloak it was wearing. He held it out and Angelus took it. "Any sort of order, even the order of despair and domination that you would impose, is deeply boring to me. However, it would open up my freedom to meddle where I wish. Therefore, if you call for me with this amulet, I will aid you and your forces in battle one time. Then I will insist that you destroy the amulet and never use it again."

"I thank you, master," Angelus said formally.

"It amuses me that one such as you knows enough to swallow his pride when addressing me – though you are not nearly as interesting to watch as your dark daughter. She dances with me sometimes in the woods at night," the demon said, and Angelus looked up in surprise. Drusilla had known this demon and hadn't told him? "She is a true daughter of chaos, and would never betray that, even to you. You have already lost her, though she will never be free of you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Angelus said quietly.

"Good. Now, go – and beware that you only call on me when you desperately need me," the Chaos demon warned. "There is betrayal in your future, which will cause chaos, which I can see. When it occurs, call on me, and you will succeed." The demon turned and walked toward the wall, which rippled and warped and creaked and groaned before finally collapsing under the demon's will, and then it was gone, leaving Angelus on his knee with a chill.

He shook it off, however, and turned toward his newest servants, whose eyes were still glowing as they watched him. He smiled at them reassuringly and led them to the mansion. The sun would be up soon, and all of his assembled forces were coming in from the hunt. There was one missing that he could see, which was fewer than even he had expected to lose when he began building this elitist force of vampires. Then, of course, Buffy would have found his present. The thought wasn't as full of pleasure as he'd once thought that it would be. He stepped forward and threw the head of his enemy down, watching with bitter satisfaction as every vampire in the great hall turned to stare at him.

"It's done," he said, gesturing toward the demon. "And I am the master of this Hellmouth. Anyone here who has issue with this needs to step forward now!" When no one said anything, he stepped forward and raised his fist in the beginning of the old ritual of Aurelius, the same rituals he had once mocked. Each of them stepped forward and bent their head forward, exposing their necks to their master's fangs. "Now, go each of you to sleep for the day." As the court dispersed, whispering amongst themselves in awe of him, he called out softly, "Ella, Lucy, and Spike – the three of you, stay."

Spike regarded him warily from his position by the fireplace, but he didn't move closer. A pang of melancholy struck Angelus as he looked at Spike's lean form, dressed in the hot night air as he was in nothing but a pair of jeans and a black muscle shirt. "Master?" Lucy questioned, kneeling in front of him. Ella, after a moment almost of deliberation, did the same. Angelus once more noted Ella's reluctance to acknowledge his ownership of him, but he filed it away for a night when he didn't feel so weary and worn.

"Lucy, what do you know of poisons?" he asked instead.

"Very much, master – in my human lifetime my mother simples," she said after a moment. He nodded and gestured toward the head of the Fellsor demon, still laying in grisly tribute to his triumph in the middle of the floor.

"Collect whatever you can from that thing and bottle it. Ella, you'll stay with your Sire and learn from her, and then put the head on a spike and leave it in the garden. When the Ch'thins are done rooting in there, give them a place to sleep, unless they want to sleep outside, and let them do whatever they want tonight; I'll deal with them tomorrow," he ordered.

"But, master, the sun will be up by the time I'm finished collecting the poison from the Fellsor," Lucy pointed out reasonably.

"Well, then, I guess Ella will have to borrow one of Drusilla's cloaks when she does her chores, won't she?" Angelus noted coldly. "You can both leave now. And clean up after that thing when you've finished."

"Yes, master," Ella said. There was almost a note of respect in her voice at his show of cruelty, and he knew that he'd have her in his bed by the end of the week. If she didn't break her haughtiness that way, he would simply begin torturing her. The thought didn't arouse him like it should have, and he walked toward one of the large couches near the fireplace and sat down, breathing out something like a sigh, a sign of weakness in front of Spike that could have proved dangerous; however, Angelus' mood didn't allow him to care.

"Light us a cigarette, Will," he said, indicating the cushion next to him. It had been so long since he'd used the intimate nickname between the two of them that Spike almost fumbled his fingers lighting the fag before he took a draw on it and, after a moment of hesitation, passed it over to his Sire. Angelus took a deep breath of smoke, exhaling it from his nose and appreciating the phantom echo of a burn that he felt in the aftermath. Though vampires' lungs were dead, forcing a breath of burning smoke inside could almost imitate the feel of a cigarette in life.

"Givin' out Dru's jobs n' her clothes, now," Spike observed after a moment of almost companionable silence. "What was that bit about with the cheeky bint?"

"She needs to be knocked down a peg," Angelus said flatly.

"Reckon she needs to be fucked?" Spike asked knowingly.

"Why? Are you offering?" Angelus asked, waggling his eyebrows in Spike's direction.

"Don't know that I would say no. Not like me n' Dru are much of anything," the younger vampire said bitterly. He glared angrily in Angelus' direction, and Angelus snorted viciously.

"Who are you kidding, boyo? If you really knew Dru the way you say you do you'd know she's been behind your back ever since you brought her here. That doesn't mean that she doesn't love you, idiot." Spike stared in shock; it was the first time in their entire lives that Angelus had ever acknowledged that Drusilla loved at all, or that she loved Spike. "She's outside today, in the earth, dreaming her mad dreams. There's something in the stars that she's seeing, but it'll be awhile before she tells one of us whatever the hell it is."

"I hate this place, do y'know that?" Spike said quietly, his voice raw, unshielded from Angelus' ears. "I like violence as much as the next demon, but you never know what's going to blow to hell or from hell any way you turn..."

"That's going to change, when I'm through with this town," Angelus promised. "And we'll have the family together again, all of us. And nothing – especially not some pathetic curse – is going to change that again, not ever."

"Do you miss the days when it was just the four of us?" Spike asked, following Angelus' footsteps on the path to faded memories. "When you and I would fight, and Dru and Darla'd watch and pick the winner. The four of us on the hunt, and afterward, when we'd all go to bed together, and fight again in the morning, cut our way through a country and get chased out..."

"Those were the days," Angelus acknowledged. "When you had something on your mind and you could walk into a small town and kill everyone in it without someone getting the police involved, and we didn't even have to bother hiding our kills. Do you know, I've been getting warnings that the Mayor of Sunnydale has ties to the underworld and he isn't happy with what I'm doing?"

"The bloody Mayor," Spike said, practically giggling, passing the cigarette back to Angelus. "Go figure."

"I hated you so much when Drusilla brought you to me, and I had to complete the turning for her," Angelus said after a moment, unexpectedly draping his arm over Spike's shoulders and hugging the smaller vampire to his chest. "I thought you were so weak. But you've survived so long, and gone so far. Two Slayers, and I couldn't even congratulate you properly..." Spike was very still, laying his head against Angelus' broad chest and listening to his Sire speak. "We'll be that close again, Spike. We can make everything the way it was, and stop people from leaving us."

"How do we do that?" Spike asked quietly, a shiver running up his spine that Angelus could feel.

"Love is forever," Angelus said just as softly, before he tipped Spike's chin up and leaned down, capturing Spike's soft lips in a kiss of equal softness, and Spike moaned helplessly and opened his mouth up, engaging Angelus' tongue with his. It was a slow, languid kiss, something that Spike would have thought he could only get after a long night when Angelus was too tired to be cruel, and neither of the vampires were inclined to make it stop. Instead, the kiss deepened, until Angelus had Spike pinned to the couch, his hands above his head, their erections straining through their pants, and he whispered, "Go upstairs and strip, then get in the bath."

Spike nodded and hurried up the stairs, his Sire following more slowly afterward.

8

Spike sighed as the hot water hit him, stepping into the bath with a shiver. He hadn't a clue what the bloody hell was going on, but the small, hated part of himself that still adored the very ground Angelus walked on was in heaven. He hadn't felt like this around his Sire in literally more than a century, and his cock was standing stiff and proud in the hot water. When Angelus stepped slowly into the bathroom, his steps a predator's prowling, Spike froze and couldn't take his eyes off of his Sire, the new Master of the Hellmouth and King of the Vampires.

Angelus met his gaze, his human face still in place and his brown eyes hotly lingering on Spike's erection, before he slowly slid his shirt off. Spike's cock twitched as his Sire revealed each inch of his chest, his wine-dark nipples stiffening under Spike's avid gaze. Angelus slowly stripped his belt off, kicking off his boots and toeing off his socks before calmly sliding his tight pants off of his body. Spike couldn't help moaning in want as Angelus straightened in all his naked glory, his enormous cock hard and ready. Angelus was so beautiful, so beyond real, resonating with ancient power and a kind of sadness that Spike didn't understand, before he stepped into the bath and sat down next to Spike, letting Spike draw close.

"Bathe me," he commanded, leaning back into Spike's chest. Spike lathered his hands up with soap and let his hands trail over every inch of Angelus' chest, lightly lapping at the healing dagger wound on Angelus' arm with his tongue to catch the sweetly burning blood of his Sire, his cock getting impossibly harder at the taste, so well-remembered. Angelus sighed as Spike cupped water in his hands and bathed the soap away, following the rivulets of water with his tongue and licking eagerly at Angelus' nipples. The other vampire stood up after a moment and turned. "Suck my cock," he whispered eagerly, and Spike leaned forward with a moan, licking at Angelus' shaft all over, suckling at the head and then drawing back to taste his balls. Angelus growled impatiently and gripped Spike's wet hair, forcing his mouth over his cock and moaning as he fucked Spike's mouth.

Moaning at the easy dominance, Spike daringly reached his left hand back and lightly fingered the silky skin of Angelus' hole, and Angelus pulled Spike back, leaning down and kissing him roughly, capturing the taste of himself and of his pre-cum from Spike's tongue. Spike reveled in the attention as Angelus easily lifted him out of the tub and they toweled each other dry, playfully shoving at each other and drawing blood with deceptively blunt-looking fingernails before lapping it up.

Spike soon found himself panting and hard as a rock as Angelus carried him to his bed. "Tell me, Spike, please, I need you to tell me," the vampire murmured in his ear, and Spike felt a bolt of pure shock rock through him as he understood what Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, was asking of him.

"I love you, Sire," he said into Angelus' ear, and felt his master shiver above him. Spike watched in fascination as Angelus fumbled at the bedside table and produced lubricant, a luxury Spike wasn't used to, and he couldn't help but moan as Angelus wetted his hand with the greasy stuff and rubbed it all along his erection, before he spread Spike's legs and thrust into him without another moment's preparation.

Spike howled in agony and ecstasy as Angelus' large cock opened him up, the lubricant providing just the right counterpoint of pleasure with the pain he felt at the stretching. His Sire was panting above him, an extreme reaction for a vampire, as he thrust into Spike with force, making Spike's toes curl as he wrapped his legs around Angelus' waist, lifting his backside up to allow Angelus a better angle as that impossibly huge cock prodded that point inside of him that made the entire world shut down in pleasure.

Angelus lifted him up, making Spike wrap his arms around him, too, drawing them as close together as they could be, settling on his haunches and making Spike effectively ride him as hard as he could, the both of them moaning as the bed creaked and rocked beneath them. Spike followed his instincts and cradled Angelus' head in his neck as his Sire almost desperately rutted into him, whimpering and moaning nonsense into Spike's ear as they fucked into oblivion.

Just when Spike felt himself nearing the edge, Angelus drew back with a howl and his face shifted to that of the demon as he struck at Spike's neck, and Spike hollered in ecstasy as he felt his Sire renewing their bond, drawing at his blood in a haze of painful ecstasy. He moaned and bit down hard on Angelus' shoulder, completing the bond and drinking of the blood he found there as he came hard, spattering their chests with his cum. Angelus growled viciously into Spike's neck as Spike's clenching ass milked the cum out of Angelus' cock, and Spike groaned as he felt and smelled his master's seed bathing his insides.

Neither of them were soft, however, and Angelus simply continued fucking him as hard as he could, moving them so that Spike was on his back and Angelus was above him, over him, holding him close as he thrust in hard enough to make his heavy balls slap loudly against Spike's skin, and Spike thrust down hard, seeking to have Angelus in him as deep as they could possibly get. Angelus moaned his approval and rolled over, letting Spike ride him as hard as he could, and before long they were both cumming again.

Spike collapsed against Angelus' chest, and his Sire cradled him as gently as if he were a newborn Childer once more. Angelus rolled them to their sides, still inside of Spike, though softening, and he lightly thrust against Spike once more before he passed into sleep. Spike felt Angelus relaxing behind him, and he sighed as he lowered his defenses and let himself be held in Angelus' strong arms, let their bodies stay as intimately connected as they were, as Angelus' sleeping head rested against his back.

"I love you, Sire," Spike murmured once more, knowing that once this mood had passed Angelus would never wish to here it again. It had almost felt like a goodbye, one last frenzied roll as they reassured themselves that they were still family when everything else was going to hell around them. Spike sighed with loss as Angelus' soft cock slipped from his aching hole, so he turned in Angelus' arms and buried his face in his Sire's chest, letting Angelus' sleeping body hold him all the tighter. He knew that Angelus would be gone when he woke up.

He wondered dully before he allowed sleep to overtake him if Angelus knew that this was goodbye, too, before Spike fulfilled his agreement with the Slayer and betrayed the one man in this entire world that he had ever loved, and the one man in this entire world that he hated more than any other.

End of Part I of Chapter XXV

A/N: Biddy-bum! You know, as much as I love Angelus (and I do), the most fun that I had while writing this chapter was writing in Drusilla's mindset – the crazy bitch! Don't worry, all you Dru fans out there; Drusilla has a huge part to play in the next few chapters, and as we are approaching the end here, all the little strings are going to start coming together. I'm still mapping out the sequel to this story, but the way that it's going, I'm fairly certain that Dru's going to show up in there, too.

I'm really not usually the biggest Spike/Angel(us) fan, but this scene felt so natural to me that I'm considering writing a Spangel fic the next time I'm working in the Angel 'verse; I just can't see them together during either of their runs on Buffy. Anyway, tell me what you think, no? The really hilarious thing about it all is that I actually wasn't planning this scene at all; it just happened. I like it!

This is, however, the end of this chunk of the chapter, so therefore we have:

Coming Soon in the Passion of Angels and Demons

When the Chaos demon's predictions of betrayal come true, Angelus begins to spiral dangerously out of control in a desperate, final bid to take Xander back. Drusilla dreams of the end of the world while Xander turns to Mitch for comfort in the face of Angelus' loss of control, while everything begins to explode around them all...