Part Three

The magic shop smelled as funky as it always did - weird herbs and incense and fermenting newt eyes, Cordelia wrinkled her nose slightly and tried not to breathe too deeply as she and Doyle spoke to the guy behind the counter. The magic shop owner had a large, leather bound spell book open beside the till and was running a finger down a list of ingredients, consulting it. 'How long has this guy been dead?' he asked them.

'A few hours - maybe five,' Doyle told him, 'we got there not long after … but it was already too late.'

'Huh… well, it's always easier if the soul hasn't long since passed on,' the guy explained, 'especially if the body hasn't been ritually buried or cremated.'

'He's currently wrapped in a tarp in the back of our truck,' Cordy said. The shop owner raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on their disposal methods. 'Burial - following a ritual the deceased had some form of faith in, allowing the people still on this plane to say that final goodbye - acts to sever the soul from the body completely. Lets the soul rest in peace, as it were - allows it to move on. Before that's taken place,' he screwed up his mouth and thought best how to explain it, 'it's like there's still a link between body and soul - a faulty one, shaky … like a bad signal on a T.V. And because you're guy is still linked - albeit poorly - to his body, the strength of the spell you'll need to conjure him up is less. Which is good - neither of you are actually witches, right?'

The young couple both shook their heads. Neither had any particular magical talent. They just had to hope that the words and spooky incense would be enough to get the job done. 'OK - well it's a simple enough spell - that's the good news. You'll need some sacred sand,' he moved away from the till and took down a jar of sand, which was a strange purple hue, unscrewed the lid and poured a quantity into a little mason jar. 'And some virgin candles,' he opened up a drawer behind the counter and took out some fresh, white candles with long wicks.

'Now - you need to paint this symbol,' he showed them a picture inside the spell book, 'onto a surface - floor, table, whatever you choose - and then sprinkle the sand counter-clockwise around it in a circle. This creates a sacred space for the soul to appear. You place the eight candles equidistant around the circle - and light them. Start at the 12 and this time go around clockwise, you getting this?' This time they both nodded their heads. 'Good,' the man said, nodding approvingly, 'then once you've finished the set up you just chant the words and the soul should appear inside the circle. Once he's there - you can ask him what you want. But you won't have long, because neither of you have any magical power of your own, you won't be able to keep him more than a few minutes. So keep it short. Keep it snappy. Ask what you need to find out and let him go. Once you're done, blow out the candles and say the closing incantation - to make sure his soul doesn't get stuck between planes.'

He took out a pen and a pad of paper and scribbled down the incantations they would need to both open and close the ritual, as well as drawing them a quick copy of what the symbol should look like. As an afterthought, he scribbled down the instructions as well - in case they forgot. Then he handed the note, the sand and the candles over to them and they paid and turned to leave the shop.

As he got to the door, Doyle turned back - his brow was furrowed as if he was worrying about something. 'Can I just ask, bud?' he said, 'you said that the spell bein' simple was the good news so … what's the bad news?'

The guy behind the counter took a deep breath. 'Well - truth be told - the spirit world doesn't like when you try and pull someone back across the dimensions. Even for a little bit. Disrupts the natural order - it's supposed to be a one way ticket, you follow? So when you try and call someone back - someone who's already crossed over - the spirit world will fight back. Hell - it'll throw all it's got at ya. I heard the witch who resurrected a slayer, one time, actually coughed up a whole snake. This ritual you're about to try … it could get nasty. You both need to be on your guard.'

Wesley had pulled out all the books he could get his hands on off the shelves and they were spread around the office. The men were all in there, leafing their way through the pages - looking for anything that could give them a clue as to what had happened to their medium, and what was happening to Spike.

Lilah was sat in one of the chairs, her long legs crossed, watching them. As always, she had a smirk on her face.

'You know you could be doing something more to help,' Wesley told her irritably, 'speak with The Senior Partners - find out what they know.'

'I work for them, lover, I don't lunch with them. They want me - they call. They don't want me - I stay away. And for now, they're staying silent. You're on your own on this one.'

'Well then, pick up a book and start looking. If you're here - you're here to help - otherwise get out of my office.'

She raised an eyebrow at that - and leaned down to pick up a book. But Angel, watching her, couldn't help but sense that her arched brow and languid manner was masking more than a little hurt. Things might be over between Wes and Lilah, he realised, but they weren't over. And maybe they never would be. And maybe this was just another complication that he was going to have to learn how to deal with, along with balancing the scales, the bigger picture and embracing the grey.

It shouldn't have to be this way. He missed when things were simpler - when he could just go out in the streets, kill himself a bad guy and then go home to his hotel. He had a sudden fleeting desire to drop his book and run away back to Doyle and Cordy, but he fought it back down. That was ridiculous. And anyway - it was late. They were probably in bed. With each other. And Angel had his best enemy and worst friend to save.

'OK got it,' Gunn's voice cut through Angel's thoughts. 'The dark soul,' he tapped the book he was reading with the back of his hand.

'What's it say?' Angel asked.

'A lot. There are over 3,200 different references.' He looked up at his boss, 'four of them are about you.'

'What? Give me that,' he snatched the book away from Gunn and began to scrutinise the words. He paced up and down as he read, his bottom lip stuck out in a pout. Over by his desk, Wesley was complaining that this was getting them nowhere - but Angel was barely listening. 'See this?' he looked around at the others - his expression injured, 'I didn't even have a soul when I did that!'

'What about the other three references?' Lilah asked him, 'is the time you locked 12 people in a wine cellar with your sire and your insane protege in there? That was a good one - definite one for the history books.'

'They were Wolfram and Hart lawyers,' Angel said tersely.

'Right...' her answering smile was bright. 'Remind me again which company it is you run these days? My my - if only the Dark Avenger could see himself now.'

'There must be a way to narrow down the search,' Wesley's voice cut between the two of them, sounding irritated and impatient, trying to bring them back to focus on the job in hand.

'Reaper,' Fred came running into the room, pulling her cardigan on - her hair was still wet from the shower. 'Cross reference with the word Reaper.'

'Where'd you pull that?' Gunn asked, sounding impressed.

'Came to me in the shower.'

Angel was scanning through the book, ignoring all the unfair and inaccurate information that was listed about himself. 'Here he is. Mathias Pavayne. Dark Soul number 182.'

'I've heard that name before,' Lilah frowned.

'I'm sure you have,' Wesley said, working away at his computer. 'There's a file on him in internal archives. He's in the classified histories.'

'Is there more than in this book?' Angel asked, still reading, 'this doesn't tell us much: European aristocrat. 18th Century. He was a doctor nicknamed "The Reaper" for performing unnecessary surgeries.'

'What kind of surgeries?' Fred asked, looking alarmed.

'The kind you don't recover from,' Wesley answered, as the file on his computer opened and he was able to access the archive. Mathias Pavayne had fled to California when word of his unorthodox practices had started to spread. As the area was still under Spanish rule at the time he had been able to avoid the reach of the authorities pursuing him. But his arrival had coincided with a rash of grisly murders - brutal and ritualistic - pieces of the victims placed in a manner showing evidence of knowledge of the dark arts. These murders had continued for the better part of twenty years… until one day they had just stopped.

'Oh,' Lilah was nodding her head, now. 'I remember the name now. Legend of the law firm has it that when The Senior Partners were looking to open a local branch they used seers to find them the perfect slice of real estate. But there was a mission built right on the spot that the mystics insisted was the proper confluence of dark energies and ley lines needed to host their presence on this earth. Well, you can't just build a Mecca to all evil right on top of holy ground. They needed to find a way to deconsecrate it. So they found the worst serial killer, the darkest most depraved soul they could find and spilled his blood as the appropriate sacrifice.'

'Mecca to all evil?' Angel said, repeating her words back. She nodded, happily, 'and you run it all.'

Fred was looking troubled, 'so this place is built on the blood of a mass-murdering psychopath?' she asked.

Wesley nodded, 'seems like.'

'But if Pavayne's half as bad as he sounds … he should have been roasting his chestnuts in hell centuries ago,' Gunn said.

But Angel already had a theory. Wesley had said that Pavayne had displayed knowledge of the dark arts, perhaps he had known enough to figure a way to stick around - to not cross over. That probably explained why the mystics were unable to get a beat on him, as well. But what Angel couldn't understand was all the other ghosts.

Wesley frowned, 'but there aren't any.'

'Exactly! High risk employment - people die here all the time…'

'Some are murdered in their own wine cellars,' Lilah said, with a smile. Angel ignored her. 'This place should be full of spooks. So what happened to them?'

'Maybe this Pavayne character's munching on them,' Gunn suggested.

'Whatever he's doing to them - we need to get Spike back,' Fred said, 'before he's next.'

Spike crawled across the floor on his belly, dragging himself away for them Reaper. This ghost - spook - whatever it was seemed to have control of their surroundings - he could affect things, touch things … make things happen.

They were in the lab - the Reaper had brought them here - willed them out of the lobby and into the lab. Glass beakers were exploding, their shards flying through the air and cutting Spike, even though he was incorporeal. The lights flickered. The Reaper was able to touch him - to beat him and cut him- and Spike was bleeding heavily from many nasty scratches now. He'd been around long enough by now to know when he was beaten - so he was trying to escape, inching his way across the floor … but the Reaper was just toying with him.

'Vampire soul... Watch it struggle, more fun than the others,' the hollow voice said.

'Go to hell,' he looked up - and saw that somehow the Reaper was now directly in front of him - looming above him. The spirit smiled down, 'your journey - not mine.'

The light in Fred's office switched on and she appeared, visible from the lab through the big glass window. The Reaper stared up at her. 'Oh the pretty … still trying to save you. Such passion so... wet and sweet. Perhaps I'll have a taste one day.'

Spike struggled back to his feet and threw a punch at his tormentor… but his fist just passed through, still incorporeal - despite the fact that this other ghost could touch him. The Reaper laughed, a dark, cold chuckle - amused but deeply unpleasant. 'Still thinking like meat and bone,' he sneered, 'none here boy. In this place...'

The lab faded away - and now the two of them were back in the dark of the basement. '...all rules are mine,' the Reaper said. 'Reality bends, my desire - the way it was meant to.'

Spike realised something, 'Bending reality?' he repeated. He hadn't just faded away before. It was the Reaper that had made it happen, that was why the others couldn't see him any more. The Reaper had chosen to make it that way.

The Reaper smiled as he listened to Spike figure it out, showing uneven, yellowing teeth. 'Parlour tricks, to amuse,' he told the vampire, 'like your blood.' He waved his hand and all of Spike's scratches and cuts smoothed over and healed in an instant. Spike put his hand to his face and felt his cheek - where the skin was now knitted back together. 'Oh yes,' The Reaper gave that dark, hollow chuckle again, 'nothing here without the will. Your voice … your body…'

'Clothes you think you wear,' the other ghosts were circling him again now, and it was the woman with the glass shard in her eye who spoke, her voice as sneering as her master's. Spike looked down - and saw that his clothes had disappeared, leaving him naked and vulnerable in front of the spirits. The ghosts circled around him.

'William the Bloody,' the hollow voice said, 'scourge and destroyer. But scratch the surface…'

'Little Nancy still crying for his mother,' the armless ghost hissed.

'Know all your hiddens,' the Reaper told him, 'dirty, red things you've done. Then fell in love. Won himself a soul. No more dirty things. Thinks himself special.'

'Thinks it matters,' the bloodied secretary said.

'Hell still waits,' the hanged man told him. He stared around at them, these grisly apparitions circling him.

'Knows he deserves them,' the Reaper said, 'like all the others.'

'You killed them,' Spike said - still staring at the circling ghosts. But the Reaper shook his head - no, he didn't kill them. They had all died here, in service of Wolfram and Hart. Little ants, scurrying from the flames.

'Their spirits hung on,' Spike said, slowly, still watching them, 'tried to keep from tumbling into hell. Until you gave them a shove.'

'Burning now. Screaming forever. Like you'll scream.'

'Well,' his voice became stronger - and sounded more pissed off than he had a moment before, 'if they're in hell, they can't be here then, can they? Just more of your tricks. They aren't real.'

'Real enough,' the Reaper warned, as the hanged man crept up, unnoticed, behind Spike and plunged a dagger through his back. Spike yelled out in pain and fell to the floor.

Between them, Doyle and Cordy had moved the dining table and chairs out of the way so there was a big, clear space on the floor for them to do the ritual and then mopped the floor so it would be clean. They both had an underlying feeling that, when messing around with powerful, interdimensional forces, things like purity - and there not being any crumbs on the floor - mattered. Then they had worked to set up the sacred circle just as the guy in the magic shop had told them.

Cordelia read the instructions out, and Doyle took the lead on the preparations. They had agreed, well - Cordelia had, that he should take the lead on summoning the dead soul of their Roishnik demon, as he was partially psychic and therefore more naturally attuned to these sorts of things.

'I'm not sure that's true, princess,' he had tried to tell her. 'I've got the pure sight, but that's from The Powers. They play messages in my head. It's not the same as bein' able to see the future, the way some human seers can.'

'Well, it's more than I've got - so you're taking point, vision boy.' She finished painting the symbol on the floor and then stood up, brushing her hands clean against her pants, and stepped back so Doyle could get pouring the sand.

Carefully, he picked up the jar containing the sand and then stood on the symbol. He turned around in a circle, upending the jar and allowing the sand to spill out counter clockwise. Then he stepped out of the newly formed sacred space, ensuring to lift his feet high over the line of sand and so not risk smudging it. Cordy passed him the eight white candles and he knelt down and placed them equidistant around the circle.

As neither of them smoked, they hadn't had a lighter, but Cordelia unearthed the one ancient box of matches they had from the back of the drawer under the kitchen counter. 'You know we should probably get more of those in,' she said thoughtfully, as Doyle struck the match and waited with bated breath to see if it would light and if the flame would hold, 'if we're going to be doing magic as a regular thing.'

'Yeah…' he said absently as he lit the candle placed in the 12 position and then moved onto the next one and then the next. The flame on the match began to burn perilously close to his fingers and he shook it out and dropped it. He took another one from the box and struck it, continuing around the circle until all the candles were lit.

They sat down, cross legged, on the floor then - across the circle form each other. 'You ready?' Cordelia asked. Doyle nodded, 'uh - remember what that guy said, though,' he warned, 'things might get … ugly. But if we wanna talk to our dermon guy - we gotta keep goin', no matter what.'

'I just hope you don't end up choking on a python.'

'Me too,' he looked a bit queasy at the prospect. But then he shook his head, cleared his throat and, in his most determined voice, began to read out the opening incantation of the ritual. 'Osiris, Keeper of the gate, hear our prayer. Release to us the soul of …' a wind picked up inside the room - and all the lightbulbs simultaneous blew, leaving them in darkness. Cordelia yelped and jumped, but Doyle took a deep breath and carried on chanting. '...the soul of M'hatmik of the Roishnik clan, who is recently crossed over…'

The flames on the candles suddenly shot upwards, like Bunsen burners whose gas supply had been increased, and the mirror hanging on the wall shattered - sending shards of glass flying through the air towards them. They both raised their hands to protect against the flying fragments and screwed their eyes tight shut, but Doyle kept on speaking. 'Let him stand in the circle we have prepared, let him speak with the living once more.'

There was a moment of quiet - and then came the sound of a distant rushing noise. It was like hearing Niagara falls from a few miles away. They frowned at each other, in the darkness. 'What is that?' Doyle asked - and then the bathroom door burst open and a tidal wave of water, flowing from the bath and the faucet, crashed out in a surging, blue ribbon and engulfed them.

'What do we do?' Doyle yelled as the water smashed against them and the wind howled round their ears.

'Keep chanting,' Cordelia shouted back - straining her voice to be heard over the ongoing storm. Her hair was whipping violently in the wind and her eyes were still screwed to tight shut. 'Start at the beginning again!'

Doyle took a deep breath and - trying to ignore the water sloshing around them, like they were on a sinking ship, and the screaming of the wind - began to chant once more. 'Osiris, Keeper of the gate, hear our prayer...'

Angel, Wes and Gunn walked into Fred's office only to find her kneeling right up against the large, plate glass window, her nose pressed against it, scribbling formula onto the glass. Other windows had had similar treatment, as had her board and some of the walls. Wesley frowned when he saw her, 'that's never good.'

She stopped what she was doing and looked around - and saw them all staring, concerned, at her writing on every surface she could lay her hands on. 'Oh. no,' she told them, understanding what it was they were thinking. 'I just ran out of whiteboard. I'm not crazy. Again.'

'Just scary smart,' Gunn smiled fondly.

Angel was staring around at all the equations and formulas. They meant nothing to him - looking like nothing so much as a crazy demonic language with an over reliance on numbers - but he knew that to Fred this was all as plain as simple English. It was her super power. He could beat up the bad guys, she could do … this. 'You really think this will bring Spike back?' he asked her.

She shrugged, modestly. 'Well, I had to extrapolate a new variation on interdimensional plasma dynamics on the fly, but … if the math holds…'

To Angel, her words were as foreign and meaningless as her written formulas. 'All right,' he interrupted her. 'First we'll get Spike back. Then we'll deal with Pavayne.'

But it wasn't going to be as easy as all that. In order for this to work, they were going to need a massive surge of dark energy to catalyse the process. Bringing Spike back was going to require the equivalent of nuclear evil.

'Where the hell are we supposed to find that?' Angel asked.

'There is a legend,' Wesley said, slowly, 'that tells of a volcano deep in the forbidden jungles of South Africa…'

'Or… I might know a place a little closer to home,' Gunn cut him off.

Angel stood in the whiteroom and glanced nervously around. It was a long time since he'd been here - not since The Beast had killed the previous conduit, the creepy little girl in the Mary Janes - the one who had lent him the power to bring Connor home but in doing so had trapped him in service to Wolfram and Hart for good. She had asked him if he was prepared to pay the price. At the time, it had all seemed so distant, the day they would make good on his promise. But now here he was - less than two years later - owned completely, lock stock and barrel by The Senior Partners and Wolfram and Hart. Being back here … well, it made him nervous. He didn't know what he would be asked to give up this time - and if he would be prepared to pay the price. For Spike.

'So this is your brainstorm?' he asked Gunn, who stood beside him. 'You want to snip off a part of the conduit that connects Wolfram and Hart to the other dimensions?'

'"Want" may be a hair strong,' Gunn corrected him.

'The last one took the form of that creepy little girl,' Angel said. He remembered her red dress and the way she had complimented Lilah's red nails. The little girl had liked red - and said that was something she shared in common with Angel. He shuddered. 'There's no telling what the new one's decided to look like.'

'Actually it's not that bad.' There was a distant roar '...if you like cats,' Gunn finished up.

'More of a dog person.' The roar came again - closer and angrier.

'Ixnay on the ogday,' Gunn said to him. Angel looked even more uncomfortable and shuffled his feet. He still couldn't see anything, besides the glaring white of the massive, empty space, and he felt both nervous and foolish as he called out to speak with the conduit. 'Um - look, we're not here to ruffle anything,' he called out. He lifted a glass flask and shook it. 'We were just wondering if we could maybe borrow a couple of whiskers or…'

This time the unseen animal snarled - sounding furious. Gunn grabbed the flask out of Angel's hand and then looked around the room, calling out. 'Whoa - hey, easy. It's me. Charles Gunn. You know I wouldn't be here if the situation wasn't heavy. Just asking for a little help. Me to you. Personal favour. What do you say?'

The growl this time was much softer, far less angry, far less menacing. And then a black panther materialised from nowhere, padding towards them on velvet paws. Gunn smiled, 'yeah.' The big cat came to a stop in front of him and purred, he grinned down at it. 'Who's a good kitty?' he said, and reached out to pet the panther - as Angel watched him with an expression of consternation etched on his face.

'Let him stand in the circle we have prepared,' Doyle was now shouting his words over the howling wind, 'let him speak to the living once more.' Cordelia was up on her feet , dancing from foot to foot and squealing as a swarm of rats surged across the floor towards them, their fur slick and greasy, like a writhing, wriggling wave coming into shore. She swung out with an axe and bashed at them - trying to squish as many as she could and send the rest scuttling backwards, trying to make sure they didn't manage to swarm their way over to Doyle and stop him from completing the ritual. There was no way he would be able to sit still and continue chanting if a river of rats ran across him … and so Cordy, with her nose screwed up in disgust and trying desperately not to let her feet touch any of them, stood between her boyfriend and the vermin, trying to protect him from them.

She closed her eyes and swung out even more wildly with her weapon, hearing the squeaking screams and the disgusting squelching as she whacked them. Doyle started up his chant once more. 'Osiris, keeper of the gate…' Cordelia swung her axe again - but this time felt the blade suddenly stick into the wood of the floor, she opened her eyes. 'They're gone,' she cried out in delight - and it was true, there were no more rats, even the dead ones had vanished as if they had never been, 'the rats are gone…'

'Hear our prayer…'

There was another blast of wind - and Cordelia was picked up as if by an invisible force, hurled across the room and slammed against the opposite wall. She fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, groaning.

'Cordelia!' Doyle broke off his prayer and stared, wide eyed and worried, at where his girlfriend was collapsed. He started to get to his feet - to go to her side. But she picked herself up. 'I'm fine,' she called across to him, 'keep going. We can't let any of this stop us.' She rubbed her aching shoulder and rolled her head to try and shake out her muscles. 'We mustn't get …' there came the sound of a distant roar, and she picked up her axe again and gripped it tightly, looking wary, '...distracted,' she finished up.

'Release to us the soul of M'hatmik,' Doyle intoned - as Cordelia raised her weapon and prowled the room, waiting for the next threat.

Spike was curled up on the cold basement floor, in the fetal position, still naked and now shuddering in pain. 'Disappointing,' the Reaper said, staring down at the broken vampire, and noting how easy he had been to break. 'I expected more from the soul of vampire. Too much conscience, perhaps, weighing it down.'

Spike cringed away from him. Above his head, a portal opened up - tearing the air. It was black and slick, like oil - and there was a gaping, howling hole in the centre, ready to swallow Spike's soul and send him to hell. Black tendrils snaked out from the edges of the gateway, like tentacles - like arms. Like this was a living thing reaching out, ready to pull him inside. They snaked closer towards the cowering Spike.

The Reaper watched on, in delight. 'Look…' his hollow voice crooned, 'hell knows you're ready, plump and ripe.' There was a sickening, lascivious joy to the way he spoke - a madness that betrayed his pleasure, almost physical, at the thought of a damned soul being taken to hell. 'Beginning to understand, aren't you?' he asked, smiling his broken toothed smile. 'The soul that blesses you … damns you to suffer. Forever.'

And Spike had a sudden vision - just a flash of awareness - of himself screaming in agony in hell, being tortured for all eternity. He curled up tighter, cringing further away from the portal.

The Reaper crouched down next to him and gripped his hair in his fingers, pulling Spike's head up so he was looking at the gateway that opened for him. 'You go now, William,' the Reaper hissed in his ear, 'so I can stay.'