Title: A delicate test
Author: clarrie
Disclaimer: Most of what you see is owned by, respectively, Joss Whedon, Fox, The WB, The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, Bram Stoker and Laurie R King.
This is a Sherlock Holmes, Buffy, Dracula, Upstairs Downstairs, Beekeeper crossover. There was a bet.
An illustrated version of this fic can be found at www.geocities.com/bakesale_bitca/deltest.html
Van Helsing stood firm in the filth soaked dungeon, his hand at the fiends neck as he pressed the stake into it's chest exploding it into dust. 'Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,' The countess scratched at his face like a wildcat as he pressed her own blade back onto her and decapitated her cleanly, 'adveniat regnum, fiat voluntas tua in terris sicut in coelis,'
Across the snowy wastes he fought Baron Ountinne for the blood of his two lost pupils,
'panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, ac remitte nobis debita nostra, sicut nos remittimus debitoribus nostris et ne nos inducas in tentationem,' In the darkened corridors of the university he had found her, dead by the hand of his crowing former comrade, 'sed libera nos a malo,' A pale face in the moonlight marred by blood leapt at him like liquid guilt from the rooftops 'quia tuum est regnum, potentia et gloria in secula.' He plunged the stake into his breast and collapsed to the floor, 'Amen'. In the smothering grip of sleep, an old man picked at his wounds...
'He's sleeping now?' Watson paused, 'Angus?'
'Oh I know, it is rather an unwieldy name for a child. I'm afraid it was his father's idea of a joke.' Dr Giles began to dart around the edges of the tabletop, discarding those items of place setting that she regarded as unnecessary for her meal. 'I feel so sorry for Nanny sometimes, honestly. He won't sit still for a moment, he seems to have a pathological fear of soap, he objects to coming when he's called out of general belief, he really is a terror. I mean to say, he shouldn't even be in here when I'm not home, so how he came to leave Bump...'
Dr Giles pinched wearily at the bridge of her nose. 'I just addressed a stuffed toy by name didn't I?
'And who hasn't, at um, some point...'
'Are you sure you won't eat?' Dr Giles sat at the table and prodded at the central dish with a fork. 'It's, well, it was Mutton. Yes, I can't help but think you may have taken the right path there. A drink then? I don't believe we have anything very...We used to keep whiskey in for Angus's father but...No? Water.' Dr Giles folded her arms. 'You will at least have a glass of water and a biscuit, otherwise I'm afraid I shan't be able to eat a bite in front of you.'
'Well now you mention it I am a little thirsty.' Watson smiled indulgently. 'And I will concede that those garibaldis do look tempting.'
'Good, good...' Dr Giles began to slice her meat into manageable squares. 'Now, tell me about your friend...'
'William dear, there's a desperately crude little man selling chestnuts on the corner...' Albin took a sip from his bottle and called out to his companions. 'Dreadfully uncouth, has taken to addressing me in the most vulgar terms, treated me as if I was some sort of peasant...' He sighed to himself. 'I rather thought we might keep him.'
'Albin. Company.' Spike gestured to the large uncomfortably cloaked figure in the centre of the room. 'Sit down, don't touch.'
'Shhhhhh.' Drusilla pressed a finger to her lips and ushered the older vampire to sit down next to her. ' Like lit'le mice. Not a peep. '
'Of course Drusilla.' Albin playfully echoed her signal to hush. 'As the grave, my child...'
'Do you two want to stop arsing about or what?' Spike yelled irritably to his affiliates. 'Some of us have work to do.' He turned to the visitor. 'Come on come on, we 'aven't got all night.'
'The, uh, the master sends, like, his apologies that he couldn't come here 'imself.' Parroted the hired youth, stooped in his ill-fitting cloak. 'He, uh, was unaccountably called away on other business.'
'So he sent you?' Spike growled in disbelief.
'To tell you that he'd 'ave to come round tomorrow like, yeah?' The messenger shifted nervously and cleared his throat. 'Right? Tomorrow? Look I'm only saying what I was told to mate. I don't know nothing about any of this, no need to get the arsehole with me.'
Spike scowled darkly. 'You'd better have bloody deep pockets somewhere in that robe.'
'The, uh, master said that,' A pitiful expression began to cross the face of the makeshift go-between, the look of a man who has deep doubts about the wisdom of the words he is about to say, but lacks the imagination to think of new ones. 'The, uh, master said that you would know your reward.'
'A present!' Drusilla clapped her hands in glee. 'He sent us a present!'
'What? I...' The messengers eyes bulged in fear as Spike's face became a misshapen mass of teeth and muscle.
'Don't relax.' Spike grinned. 'Cos frankly, this is going to be fuckin' agonising.'
Van Helsing woke with a whimper. He cracked his stiffened joints and stared, blankly, at the dead ashes of the previous evening's fire. 'I have heard the check of my reproach,' He murmured softly into the darkness, 'and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.' The words rose unbidden to his lips and hung accusingly in the air.
Wincing slightly as his head began to swim, he eased himself painfully to his feet and reached for his cloak on the hook beside the door.
'Petersson, Statham, I am...' Van Helsing blinked in the darkness and breathed deeply as he realised he was calling to pupils long dead. He corrected himself. 'Bathory, Dalton.' Van Helsing paused as he took in the emptiness of the rooms. 'I... It doesn't matter...' He pulled on his cloak and slipped out the door. 'I must walk.'
'He must be exhausted, mentally and physically after such an experience.' Dr Giles took a sip of tea. 'You say he collapsed in the street?'
'Yes, yes, I became rather angry with him I'm afraid.' Watson pressed a fragment of biscuit between his thumb and finger. 'I just... He sometimes seems to have very little concern for his own personal health.'
'You mentioned morphia, yes?' Dr Giles frowned politely. 'Would you say it was habitual?'
'No, I mean, he's certainly not... Usually when he has a case to occupy his mind he...But.' Watson paused. 'I had hoped that he would continue investigating these murders, after a suitable period of recuperation.'
Dr Giles nodded. 'A suitable period yes.' She smiled. 'Although, as I remember he isn't the ideal patient.'
'I believe, Dr Giles, that were my usual patients even half as contrary as Holmes I would have given up on the profession long ago.' Watson sighed. 'He disobeys even the most basic orders, on sheer principle it seems to me sometimes, he self medicates, he will not listen to the advice of his friends, he...'
Dr Giles raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly. 'He sounds an absolute terror, Dr Watson.'
Watson laughed despite himself. 'Indeed, indeed, Dr Giles.'
'Well make the most of it, they're adorable at that age.' Dr Giles smiled softly. 'Tea?' She poured and paused thoughtfully. 'You were injured yourself, in the skirmish?'
'Pardon?'
'I hope it wasn't too presumptuous of me to mention it, Dr, it's just I noticed you, well that is, that you were limping a little.' She smiled apologetically. 'Doctor's eyes I'm afraid.'
'An old injury, madam, the current weather aggravates it a little.'
'I do beg your pardon Dr.' Dr Giles paused momentarily. 'I wonder have you tried this absolutely fantastic new supplement that I sometimes prescribe for the ladies at St Lucy's?'
'Dr. Warren's?' Watson's face lit with recognition. 'Do you know I've heard such good things about that...'
Van Helsing hunched his shoulders and curled a hand around the not quite meeting hems of his cloak, pulling them together against the cold night air. The silence of the streets was soothing, in a way, cocooned by the darkness which crowded around him he let the sound of his cane on the pavement fill his thoughts and stared down at his feet as he walked onwards without purpose. The cool air soothed his head, but as he lifted the back of his hand to his cheek he winced again. He stood and stared at the scarring on his wrist, remembering the night he had received it. There had been a Watcher there too, he remembered, and a stupid, stupid girl. Refusing to run, when running was the only choice left to them. Van Helsing sighed, and walked on.
Holmes snapped upright and listened to vibrations in the air. He craned his neck wildly in an effort to locate it's source, but the sound had stopped and silence was the ruling quarter once again. Cautiously he returned to the mound slumped at his feet and like a wild dog, stooped to it and lost himself to the feed.
He barely had time to roll as the blow caught him across the back of the neck. Another hunk of mud and gravel followed the first and exploded on the paving stones beside him.
'FIEND!'
Holmes cowered, even at the distance from which Van Helsing held the cross before him the feeling behind it burned. 'Abhorrence unto the nature of creation,' Van Helsing's words carried over the night air, a monotone regurgitation of tracts whose form he had learnt in dry classrooms but whose meaning he had learnt in the fire of combat. 'For there shall be no reward to evil.'
Holmes found his feet and turned to face his attacker, Van Helsing advanced down the road at him, the maniacal gleam of the warrior in his eyes, his breath coming in rapid, shallow, gulps as he unscrewed the heavy tip of his cane to reveal a vicious point. 'The candle of the wicked shall be put out.'
A maelstrom of conflicting thoughts worked through Holmes mind as Van Helsing broke into a run towards him. He saw the thin wrists, the twisted blue veined hands gripping the wood and felt the strength running through his own limbs. An urge to pounce filled him, to finish this foolish little man where he stood in the street. He flung himself to the ground as his assailant reached him, springing up suddenly and using his height to spin the crazed vampire hunter to one side. In the moment it took to avoid Van Helsing's first unfocussed jabs, Holmes regained his self-possession. Kicking out at the corpse which lay already between them he thrust it into his rivals path with his feet, and as Van Helsing became entangled in his gory obstacle, Holmes turned and, with the speed born of one without fear of breathlessness or exhaustion, began to run.
'Good g-g-grief, do you know w-w-w-w-w-what time it-t-t-t is?' Dalton pushed his glasses onto his nose and recognised the caller as he pushed past into the hall. 'Sir? Are you quite alright?'
'The library...' Van Helsing brushed aside his student and raced to the opposite doorway. 'Dalton, wake Bathory...' He leant heavily against the doorframe and caught his breath. 'Join me in there quickly, both of you. I will need your assistance.'
Dalton stared at his master. The nervous energy that now animated his face was something he hadn't seen for a long while. 'Sir I...'
'I have seen it, Dalton!' Van Helsing gripped his pupil firmly by the shoulders, the fierce elation radiating from his face. 'It... It ran from me. But He hath filled me with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.' He let Dalton free, tapping him on the cheek dissmissively as he lowered his arms. 'Now fetch Bathory, we have a long nights work ahead of us.'
'Sir, is this...'
'No.' Van Helsing pushed aside yet another book, held open at a woodcut of a portrait of some centuries old terror of the night. 'It is not him.' He rubbed at his eyes in frustration as the dawn light began to filter through the thick curtains. 'Again, it is not him.' A hand raised in anger and frustration barrelled down onto the desk. 'It is not him .'
Van Helsing rose to his feet and snatched a previously cast aside book from his desk, throwing it to the floor in a rage. 'None of them,' he worked his way furiously along the shelves dragging down volumes replaced earlier in the evening, 'none of them are him.'
'I'm sure that if we...'
'Sure, Bathory?' Van Helsing glared at his disciple. 'We need worry no longer Dalton! Bathory is sure.' He grabbed at an abandoned manuscript and thrust it at Bathory. 'He is in here? Or here?' He plucked a bundle of assorted papers from his desk and waved them in front of his face. 'Perhaps his likeness is in here, Bathory, and I have merely neglected to...'
'Doctor?' Bathory stared at his mentor in anxiety as he let the papers fall from his hands and dropped, suddenly, to his knees. 'Dalton, fetch a Physician the Doctor is...'
'It is him...' Croaked Van Helsing. 'Bathory, what is...' He smoothed the crumpled illustration on the desk in front of him and pulled at his associate's lapels. 'Bathory, what is it, what name?'
'Doctor, it, it c-c-can't...' Dalton bit nervously on his thumbnail. 'It is, The Strand.'
