Rupert drank his first whiskey fast and held out his glass for a refill. "Tell me about the Balm," he said. "What is it exactly?"
"As far as Spike's concerned," said Mera. "Think of it as a kind of glue to stop him falling apart. You won't be far wrong. But as to what it really is - well, it's very old for a start. Some bright spark developed it way back, long before my time. I got the story from Path - she watched it happen "
"Where? In Britain?"
"No, it was somewhere near Egypt. The location doesn't matter, though. The Balm was developed, used, abused, suppressed."
"Why suppressed?"
"Oh my. It was dynamite. It was used first for preserving the dead - which it does very well, by the way - then someone wondered what would happen if it was used on the living. They tried it and found the results quite amazing. In a nutshell, it makes you invulnerable. It preserves the body completely. Nothing can happen to it. Disease just stops. You can't be cut, you don't age, you can't be poisoned. It's as if it armour plates you, or puts you in stasis. Temporarily, that is."
"So you're hoping this Balm will put Spike's body in, ah - stasis?"
"That's the plan. Oh god." She rubbed her eyes. "I don't need this tension."
Rupert wasn't going to let her get back into that. "You said it's temporary?"
"This is the one good thing about it. The process has to be repeated every few years or the effects wear off and your body becomes vulnerable again." She sighed. "As for its use and abuse, use your imagination. The rulers took it for themselves - which, by the way, is exactly what would happen today if it ever got out. Take the old sum of limitless power plus towering arrogance and multiply it by the belief that you truly are invulnerable and what do you get? A bloody awful regime, that's what you get. It was all very violent in the end."
"So there was a fight and the Balm disappeared?"
"More or less. It was much more complicated than I've made it sound. I know Path had something to do with its disappearance, mainly because she's quite cagey about this part of the story. Until yesterday she was the only one in the world who knew the recipe."
Rupert frowned. "What makes you so sure no-one else knows about it?"
"I think we'd know by now, don't you?"
Rupert sipped his drink thoughtfully. "You said the effects wear off. Are you going to have to repeat the process with Spike?"
Mera looked tragic. "Unfortunately no," she said with exaggerated wistfulness. "He won't need the Balm once I've turned him. I'm doing a lot of hoping, by the way."
"But why does he have to be turned at all? Surely the Balm on it's own would give him what he wants. He could go in the sun and it wouldn't kill him."
"Oh, I'm sorry Rupert," Mera said sarcastically. "I had no idea you'd gone deaf last night. Didn't you pay attention? Immunity to sunlight is not his main objective. He wants his demon gone - I wouldn't do anything like this for him otherwise. As for why he needs to be turned, well, when the demon goes away it'll take with it all the things it's given him. He won't be a vampire any more, not inside, and psychically he'll be very vulnerable. I couldn't let him go wandering around like that, he wouldn't last a week. I have to give him what I have."
"I see. Isn't the Balm rubbing off with all that jumping about he's doing?
"Doesn't matter. If the catalyst spells have done their work I could hose him down and it wouldn't make any difference. Oooh." She gave a delighted smile. "Now there's a picture that'll keep me going for a few years."
Rupert tutted and shook his head. "When this is over, what will he be?"
"Himself, hopefully."
"But with no evil inside him."
"That's right, although like me he'll still be able to display the dental cutlery if he wants to. He just won't want to, that's all. As I see it, he'll have a vampire's body without the demonic perks."
"He'll have your perks instead."
"Yes. The only thing that'll have changed is the internal agent that keeps him alive. He'll still be soulless, for whatever that's worth. As he is now is how he'll stay. And his darling, narky, extra-cool personality - he'll still have that."
"Which is a good thing, I suppose."
Mera laughed. "I think so."
"Is there any point in asking what the Balm's made of?" asked Rupert with a smile.
"No. There ain't." She smiled back at him
"Don't you trust me?"
"I trust you to write it all down neatly in a little book, Rupert," she said bluntly. "And I trust someone, sometime in the future, to get their hands on that book." She shook her head. "The human race has enough nasty little toys to play with as it is - and gosh, they do like to play with them don't they? The last thing they need is an easy way to make themselves invulnerable. Anyway, Path'd kill me." She looked at the clock. "Time for food. Hungry?"
"Thank you, but I really should be getting back to my report. Will you be all right with, er - "
"Oh yes. I'll look in on him before I go to bed."
"I'd better stay for that, then. If he attacks - "
"He's already had a try at me," said Mera casually. "Just after I finished the spell. I took him by the neck and held him off the floor until he ran out of steam. You were the one in danger earlier. I shouldn't have let you go in there." She grimaced. "We live an' learn, don't we?"
"Oh." Rupert felt his machismo wilt a little. "Right. I'll come back tomorrow, if that's all right?"
"More than all right. I want to talk to you about the Council."
*
Rupert had a restless night and got up very early, planning to immerse himself in work for a few hours. He switched on his computer and checked his e-mail, got out his diaries and notebooks and poised his fingers over the keyboard. Then he let his hands drop. Spike's ordeal and Mera's words just before he'd left last night made concentration impossible, and on top of that he hadn't heard anything at all from Olivia. His fingers twitched with the need to call her.
"Sod it." Abruptly, he stabbed the power button on the computer. "Oh, I'm so terribly sorry, Microsoft," he said acidly. "I didn't shut it down properly. How very disobedient of me."
He slammed out of the study, grabbed his coat and left the house in a loud rush.
*
"I've had a bloody awful night," said Mera as she made coffee. "Why are you here so early? It's not seven yet."
"Couldn't concentrate on work," replied Rupert. "Thanks to you."
"Poor you." She set a cup down hard in front of him and dropped heavily into a chair.
Rupert studied her. With red-rimmed eyes, unbrushed hair and a faded dressing-gown wrapped crookedly around her, she looked like any other exhausted woman he was likely to meet at this hour.
"Seen enough?" she asked with venom.
"Looks like you've had a worse night than me," he said. "Sorry for the bad mood."
In the silence that followed, Mera switched on the radio and trawled impatiently through the channels. "Not in the mood to listen to sodding politicians this morning," she said. "Music's what I want. Ah, there."
Rupert winced as a repetitive electronic beat filled Mera's kitchen, making him instantly edgy. "This isn't music, Mera. It's noise."
"Better this noise than the sort MPs make."
"I'll give you that one. How's Spike getting on?"
"I was about to look in on him when you turned up. Better do it now, I suppose, and get it over with." She stood up slowly.
Rupert saw that her hands were trembling. "Are you all right?"
"I'm hating this, Rupert," she said. "With my entire heart and soul. I'll be back in a minute."
"I'll come with you." Off her look, Rupert said: "I was just shocked yesterday. I'll be all right."
*
The vampire was standing against the wall on shaky legs. His eyes were a little wild, but Rupert could see that it was Spike in there at the moment.
Spike looked at them standing just beyond the threshold and shook his head. "Don't come in," he said to Rupert.
"I won't." Deliberately, Rupert took a step back.
Spike raised his hands and watched them tremble. "It took over."
"I know," said Mera.
"It's going to do it again. I can feel it."
"Yes. Until it's dead."
"When will it be dead?"
"I don't know, love," she said gently.
"It attacked me, look." Spike pointed to bloody scratches on the front of his torso. "It didn't do much, though." He looked at Mera. "I'm almost wishing we'd never started this. I had no idea it would be so fucking bad." His voice cracked a little on the last word.
"Neither did I," said Mera sadly.
"Do you want anything?" asked Rupert. "Some blood - "
"No!" said Spike, alarmed. "No, don't feed it." He slid down the wall to the floor. "Tired," he mumbled.
His head fell forward and he was quiet for several minutes. Rupert and Mera waited. When the vampire looked up again, Spike was no longer there. As he launched himself at them, Mera pushed the door closed and ran a hand over her face.
"Oh, shit," she said. "Shit. Shit! I wasn't prepared for that. I had no idea he'd get the upper hand again." She closed her eyes. "I really wish that hadn't happened. If he keeps coming back like that it's going to be worse for him than I thought."
To Rupert's surprise he saw tears running down her face. He put a hand on her arm. "Maybe we should strap him to a bed or something. He's hurting himself."
Mera got herself under control. "The demon'd break any restraints I used. I'll cut his nails next time he's quiet."
"What about a spell?"
"Good god, no. There's enough magic going on in there already. Don't want to upset the old apple-cart, do we?"
To Rupert's relief, Mera sounded more like her old self again. They went back to the kitchen.
"Would it kill him?" Rupert asked, thinking of Spike's scratches. "If it knows it's going to die anyway?"
Mera looked pained. "I suppose there's a chance it could, but only by accident, not design. Vindictiveness requires a measure of intelligence and the vamp demon's nothing but an animal, really. An instinct." Mera flopped bonelessly into a chair. "Anyway, dying is something that happens to other people as far as vamps are concerned. They don't believe it applies to them, so even if it could think, it'd probably spend all its time believing it's going to win this one."
"Could it win?"
"Not a chance. Once the spell's done there's no stopping it. It's like a poison. All the demon can do is fight until it can't fight any more. Then it dies." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "It just takes a long time, that's all."
Rupert decided it was time for a subject change. "All right," he said firmly. "You said you were going to talk about the Council. So talk, woman."
"Oooh, authority!" Mera brightened up. "I like a bit of - well, never mind. I'll get dressed first."
*
"There's a statue in the Council grounds," said Rupert. "Do you know of it?"
"Yes." Mera smiled. "What do you think it is?"
"I think it's a statue of a demon."
"And you are absolutely correct. The last Demon left on earth, to be exact."
Rupert thumped the table. "I knew it! Wait a minute - that Demon? Who put it there?"
"The Council, of course."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the Council built the statue," said Mera pedantically.
"Why?"
"To remind them of their duty." She turned another chair around and put her feet on it. "It's like this: way back in the depths of time, the Council decided it would be a good idea to build a big reminder of what the fight was all about. So they built the statue. Its proportions were true, by the way. It was enormous. Whenever the Council moved they destroyed the old statue and built a new one where they settled next."
"Good heavens." Rupert was amazed. "True proportions? How did they know what it looked like?"
"Oh, come on. Our Demon was wandering around alone for a long time before he made his mistake. Many people must have seen him. There's cave drawings all over the place, and you know how accurate the cave-dwellers were in their art. What they saw, they drew. None of this poncing around we get nowadays."
Rupert's eyes gleamed. "You must tell me where those caves are."
"I will."
"Do you know how old the statue is? I know there's been a building on that spot since Roman times - one of the cellars still has a full mosaic floor, but - "
"That statue must be, oh - well over nine thousand years old."
"What?" Rupert's mouth fell open. "Nine thousand years!"
"Path remembers it being built. Why are you so surprised? You know how old the Council is."
"Yes, but I didn't think they'd been in the same place for so long!"
"The Council's been in that spot since the ice retreated."
"Nine thousand. I have never heard of any statue that old." Rupert shook himself. "So this must be why there's so many ancient remains on Council grounds. I know the properties in Scotland and Ireland have some truly - "
"Yes, indeed. Archaeological wonders that the Council themselves created. If the high-ups at the British Museum ever find out about it they'll have a collective orgasm."
Rupert shook his head. "It's sad."
"Yes?"
"You know more about all of this than the Council does: how it began, the statue - "
"Oh. Well, I'm constant. Watchers come and go. Things are forgotten." She frowned. "Forgotten deliberately, sometimes."
"They could do with being reminded of all this."
Mera looked at him thoughtfully. "And soon they will be."
"What do you mean?"
"I made myself known to Quentin Travers a few months ago."
"Good god!" Rupert decided that this was going to be another of those days that were full of surprises. He'd been having a lot of them lately.
Mera laughed. "He was very surprised, particularly when I put on the fangs for him. I told him he didn't know squat - I like that word - squat about Vampires. Then I dumped a bottle of holy water over my head."
"But wasn't that dangerous? Telling Quentin, I mean."
"Possibly, but I'd seen the shape of his mind and took a chance. He - this may surprise you, but deep inside where he lives he's not as hidebound as you'd think. I remember he was shocked. He went quite white, much like you did. He stared at me for a long time with his mouth open, and then he laughed. He surprised himself, I think."
Rupert frowned, thinking that Quentin had taken it better than he had. "But why did you do it at all?"
"Path and I want to come into the light." Mera smiled. "Do you know what it's like, being part of this whole battle and not being able to help? Unlike vampires we don't like to simply drift. We like to know we have a purpose."
Mera suddenly swayed in her seat and gasped. She had been hit without warning by a powerful surge of anger and she stared at Rupert with astonished eyes. He was glaring at her, his face grim.
"Oh my god," she said, breathing hard. "Whatever's the matter?"
"I've just had a thought." Rupert's voice was clipped. "You said you always knew what was happening around the Slayer. You wanted a purpose?" He pointed at her. "You two could have helped us with Glory."
Shaken, Mera slumped in her chair. "Oh, I see. God, you had me going there for a moment!"
"You could have - "
"We're not gods, Rupert." She looked earnestly at him. "Please, my dear, listen to me. Glory had all kinds of tricks going on to keep herself hidden. We had no idea she was even here on this planet. We didn't feel a thing when she ended up in Sunnydale. When she knew she up against the Slayer she must have given thought to me and Path. You think she didn't know about us? She was a god! A stupid god, but still!" She rubbed her eyes hard. "The first we knew about it was when we felt Buffy die."
Rupert sat frozen, his anger suddenly bereft of a target. He'd had no idea that the emotions he'd felt the day his Slayer had died were still so close to the surface. He relaxed slowly and Mera waited, saying nothing.
"Sorry," said Rupert eventually.
"Understandable. Think nothing of it."
Mera got up and pottered at the sink, giving them both time to calm down. When she sat down again she decided to continue as if nothing had happened. "A long time ago the Council knew all about Path and I."
Relieved, Rupert went along with her decision. "They knew?"
"Oh yes. They consulted us frequently." Mera made an ugly face. "Then they forgot. I watched them change from being people who knew what it was all about, into the blinkered, tradition-bound, separatist idiots they've been for the last eleven or twelve hundred years or so. God, I hate to think how many Slayers they've killed with their outdated ways. Funnily enough, this turn-around in attitude co-incided with the arrival of Christianity in Britain and I've always wondered if that had anything to do with it. I don't mean Christianity itself, but the fanaticism that some people brought with them. You know fanaticism. It's like an unstable virus, infects people in different ways. Some of the Council members started in on the old familiar "We are the be-all and end-all of everything. Humans and only humans are Good. Anyone not human is Baaad, even if they look human." Mind you, some of 'em were like that anyway, but this was worse."
She shook her head, her eyes unfocused as she remembered. "It was so insidious the way it started. When I became aware of it I thought it was a spell. I actually thought it was a spell! It never entered my head that they'd do this all on their own. I was staggered when I found no magic at work."
"They - the ones who subscribed to this tunnel-vision - they began to shun Path and I and, true to type, their voices got very loud and their numbers grew, just like a virus. What's that modern term? Zero Tolerance, that's it. They pushed out the helpful demons - became actively agressive towards them. Bloody fools gave no thought to the fact that they were cutting themselves off from their only allies. It was very upsetting."
"Eventually Path and I found ourselves shut out, treated as lepers. Path was devastated. That was when she took off and found her little hidey-hole. Been there ever since. Now, me being much more bloody-minded, I stayed here and it's a good thing I did because later, in the fourteen hundreds, they burnt - " she raised a finger. "And I'll say that again just in case you didn't hear it - they actually burnt a lot of writings that didn't fit their way of thinking. Anything about the connection between Slayers and vamps. Path and I, good heavens, anything about us had to be destroyed. It was mad. So much was lost it hurts to think of it. Ancient, ancient manuscripts, oh god! Knowing they had a statue of a demon on their grounds - a demon, can you imagine? - they destroyed any writings about it. They hacked at it but couldn't destroy it." She smiled grimly. "I'd already put a very strong protection spell on it. So they left it where it was, forbade anyone to talk about it, and it took some time but eventually its origins were forgotten, too.
"Once this infection had hold of the Council bosses there wasn't any way I could approach them. It would have been suicide, their minds were so closed off. It'll do them a lot of good to be reminded of what they've forgotten." Mera looked at Rupert with bright eyes. "I've kept at a distance since I first spoke to Travers, but now you're here and pleasingly open-minded about it all, well - I think the time has come. Path agrees with me on this one: I spoke to her last night about it."
"They won't like it," said Rupert with conviction. "They won't even believe it."
"To hear that their precious Slayers are sisters to vampires? No, most of them won't like it. It'll offend them mightily, but that's hard luck. The fight's more important than their ideals. The world has changed again, thank god, and just like last time those changes are having an influence. New times, freer ways of thinking. Hence Quentin Travers. Michael Greco. You. And others, you'd be surprised at the number. I wouldn't even consider it otherwise."
Rupert remembered Quentin's words about Spike. "There's quite a few that aren't so, ah, advanced."
"They don't matter. They're not at the top. That's what counts."
"I see. So you'll tell Quentin and - ?"
"I'm not going to tell him. I'm going to let him find out on his own. You see, during the burning they didn't get their hands on everything they wanted to get rid of. The Council was split and those few who didn't like this new - ha! - new regime took what they could and came to me and told me where they'd hidden it. There are manuscripts, parchments, all sorts buried for safekeeping in many places in these islands and the whole story is in these hidden pieces. I myself stole a lot right at the start of the madness and hid it, then when I had the chance I took it to the U.S. It's there now, buried. I'm going to tell Travers where to start and it's going to keep them busy for a long time. I imagine long before they've found half of what's hidden in England, Travers is going to be coming to me demanding clarification. I shall, of course, tell him to go away and find out on his own."
Rupert looked up suddenly. "Those pieces in the U.S."
"Yes?"
"Where are they? Are they near California?"
*
"Hello Buffy."
"Oh my god!" said the bright voice from Sunnydale. "Hi Giles! What's the what? And then some! Spill it."
Rupert laughed. "I'm just calling to let you know I'm coming over in the next few days."
"What? Oh, that's great! Any special reason?"
"No. Well, yes, but I'll tell you when I get there."
"Is it about Mera?" Buffy asked quickly.
"N - well, in a way, I suppose." Rupert had a sudden premonition that he wouldn't be putting the phone down until she'd got it out of him.
"Path?" There was a strange note in Buffy's voice.
"Y-yes, it's about Path. Look, it's a long story - "
"Tell me now."
"I should really come over - "
"Giles." Buffy's voice was suddenly flat. "Tell me."
She's worked it out. Sod it! I should have been with her!
He opened his mouth but couldn't speak.
"Oh god," Buffy moaned. "Oh god."
"You know, don't you?"
"I'm not stupid, Giles. I read that report of yours. And I remember the liturgy: 'For as long as there have been vampires, there have been Slayers'. Oh, god. And I've heard nothing about how Slayers came to be."
"Buffy - "
"Spike knows, doesn't he? The second he read your report, he shut up. But he looked really hard at me just before he left." She took a shaky breath. "Yeah, I worked it out. Anya was saying how she remembers something about 'The Three'. I thought, Three? What's that about? And Path looks like the First Slayer. Wild hair, patterns on her face. She's from exactly the same time. I was really hoping I was wrong. Why didn't you tell me?" She sounded betrayed. "Why did I have to work it out on my own?"
"Remember how impossible it was for you to tell Dawn what she is?"
Buffy said nothing.
"You know what I've been feeling," said Rupert. "You've felt it yourself." He frowned, hearing her breathing hard. "Are you all right, Buffy? Perhaps you should call Willow - "
"How long has this been kept from us?" she demanded.
"A long time. Mera says - "
"Mera!" she snapped.
"This isn't Mera's fault, Buffy," said Rupert gently.
"I know. I know! But she's kinda the bringer of bad news, isn't she? Seems like every time she opens her mouth things get turned upside down."
Rupert felt as if he swimming against the tide. "It may not be as bad as you think. Listen, you don't know the full story. It's - when you learn about the Slayer's Source I think you'll find it's not that bad."
"Am I some kind of vampire?" It was sixteen-year-old Buffy at the other end of the line, the Buffy who had nightmares about becoming one of the things she killed every night. Who knew what her nightmares were now?
Rupert spoke as hard and fast as he could. "No, of course not! You'd know if you were! You couldn't be more different. The Source is not evil, understand?" There was silence. "Do you understand, Buffy? Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"I'll come over and tell you everything."
"No! I'll go mad waiting. Tell me now."
Rupert closed his eyes, knowing she'd win this one. "All right. I just feel I should be there." He thought about his conversation with Mera. "First, I'll give you what Mera told me today about the Council. There are hidden manuscripts - "
Gripping the receiver hard, Buffy listened.
