Disclaimer: see prologue
Author's notes: I'm currently juggling this story with a new LOTR one, so updates are becoming rarer. Sorry! However comments are always welcomed. :)
Chapter 9
"What's this, a circus?" Spike, chained securely to a chair, looked around the crowd of Watchers balefully. Buffy stood up from testing the chains and glared at them.
"There's nothing to see, people."
"This, ah, this is the first time a vampire has entered Headquarters itself," someone volunteered. "We're all quite excited."
"It's Spike!" Buffy said, waving an arm. "That's all."
Spike looked put out. "That's not fair, Slayer. I'm William the Bloody, I am."
"Writer of bad poetry," Buffy returned.
"That's not how I got that name!" Spike said. She looked at him, arms folded, and he shrugged as best he could with the chains. "Oh, hell, I told you, didn't I? Yeah, all right, William who wrote bloody awful poetry, that's me - but I'm also the guy who killed two slayers." He grinned at the Watchers. "Celebrity guest, me."
Giles entered the library and crossed to Spike's chair, turning to the crowd. "Right, everyone out. Miss Summers and I have work to do and we would appreciate not having an audience."
The Watchers muttered amongst themselves, but eventually filed out. From his seat in the corner next to Daniel Hansen, Mike breathed a sigh of relief.
Buffy picked up a stake and twirled it. "Okay, Spike, talk."
"Talk about what?" Spike said, looking up at her. "Old times, maybe, Slayer?"
"I want to know where Angel is," Buffy said.
"Gone," Spike returned. "Poof! Into the ether. Angelus, now ... he's quite another matter."
"Angel, Angelus," Giles said. "Same vampire. I expect you're aware he has this man's little girl?" He gestured at Daniel. "I expect you know all the plans."
"Not all of them," Spike said. "See, me, I'm the annoying kid in that family. Tolerated and not much more. The old man still thinks of me as Dru's mistake, Darla couldn't care if I was there or not ... I get on all right with Luc."
"So where are they?" demanded Buffy.
"Ain't telling," Spike retorted. "Not worth my while. I'm not going to believe you'll just let me go this time, Slayer, chip or no chip; and I'm not going back there after being held by you." He shivered.
"Why?" asked Buffy.
Spike nodded his head towards Mike. "It's not just humans he tortures, Slayer. In some ways hurting a vamp is more fun. It lasts longer. And he's bloody good at it - right, Rupert?"
Giles turned away, fiddling with his glasses. Biting his lip, Mike stared at the ground between his feet.
"Mike?" Daniel said, softly. "Was that ... I mean ... the arms?"
"They'll heal," Mike returned. "I just don't really want to talk about it. Give me a few years, okay?"
His brother-in-law nodded, and went back to staring at Spike.
"So you won't tell us?" Buffy said. "Giles, can I dust him?"
"No," Giles said, putting his glasses on and turning back to her. "No. They have a hostage, and so do we. Unfortunately I rather think that we care more about their hostage than they do about ours, but for the moment Spike is all we have."
Spike grinned, pleased. "It'll be nice hanging around to watch you all die horribly. All we need is Dru to make it perfect."
"She's not coming, is she?" Buffy asked, her voice showing a little concern.
"Nah. Angelus has Darla and Luc at the moment, he doesn't need anyone else. 'Course, he might get bored, or Luc might take off again, and then he might want Dru."
Giles sat down on the edge of a table close to Spike, and said nonchalantly, "So the Breton has a habit of disappearing, does he?"
"Hell yeah," said Spike, laughing. "Mr Independence, that one. If he's not in the mood to be bossed around, he won't be." He stopped speaking abruptly. "Learnt something about interrogation yourself, didn't you, Rupert?"
"A little," Giles agreed, a glint in his eye.
"Yeah, well, you can stop right there!" Spike said. "I'm not talkin'."
"Then you're not eating either," Buffy said. "No blood. Not until you tell us where Angel is." She caught his look, shrugged, and said, "Angelus."
There was silence. Daniel looked at Mike, and Mike watched Spike. Eventually the vampire nodded.
"Good. Fine by me. I'll starve, and you can all get killed when he comes. Because he will come."
Buffy folded her arms, and walked away. "Great."
Following some unspoken decision, the men followed her out of the room, leaving Spike shackled to his chair. They left the door open and Giles watched their hostage out of the corner of his eye.
"So?" said Buffy. "Any bright ideas?"
"We need to try other avenues," Mike said. "Housing agencies. Where did Angelus live when he was in London before? Do we know?"
Giles looked thoughtful. "We can check the archives. Maybe someone could help us with that. We could at least discover the kind of area he and Darla preferred."
"We need to do something!" Daniel broke in. "My Katie is in the hands of a ... a thing that tortures people. Can't we make him," he pointed into the room where Spike was still sitting, "talk?"
"Like he said," Buffy replied, "he won't. Usually I guess we could persuade him, get him blood or cigarettes or something, but here I get the feeling he just won't talk."
"Vampires," Giles said, "come in many shapes and sizes. Some never get very far - they rise, spend a few years killing at random, and then commit some ridiculous mistake like stepping into the sun. Some receive some wisdom from their sires, and survive for maybe fifty years, maybe a century. And a few are turned by vampires from strong, ancient bloodlines. Remember the Master, Buffy?"
Buffy made a face. "How could I forget him? He killed me! Temporarily," she added, because Daniel was looking confused.
"Yes, well," Giles continued, "I, erm, did some research, and it turns out that Darla's sire was in fact the Master himself. And for many years, she spent time with him. When she in turn made Angelus, they roamed Europe as a couple. The point is, we're not dealing with ordinary vampires here, we're dealing with some of the most dangerous vampires that have ever existed. They're playing a game, but we're playing with our lives. And the lives of those we love. Spike will play the game, because if there's one thing I think he's scared of, it's Angelus."
"I heard that!" Spike called, from the library. Buffy opened the door wider and they all looked at him. "Vampire hearing?" Spike said. "Not deaf here, children. Watcher's right, Slayer. That time I helped you before, I could kill, I could run, and I didn't want the world to end. Now, no danger of the world ending. No Acathla. And he's not alone this time. You went up alone against Angelus before and you nearly bleedin' lost. Go up against Angelus with Darla and Luc behind him, and you will lose."
Buffy walked quickly up to Spike and punched him once, hard, in the nose. The vampire's head went back before he slumped forwards in his chains.
"Research party," said Buffy, putting on a cheerful smile. "Let's get some of those Watchers back in."
Giles tried to persuade Daniel and Mike to get some rest, but they both refused, and so were set a pile of books to rifle through. Glancing at his brother-in-law's tired, grey face, Mike wondered if he looked as bad. Neither of them said anything as they turned pages and skimmed sentences. Around the library, a small group of Watchers had been drafted in by Buffy and told off to read through many other books. She herself was in front of a computer, and from time to time Giles would stop by her, lean down and say something, before moving on to see each Watcher.
They kept going, through the night, and well into the next morning. The Watchers disappeared to be replaced by new ones. At about eleven, Quentin Travers appeared, but disappeared as quickly as he had come. Mike and Daniel kept reading, Mike finding important passages and facts and Daniel writing them down.
By lunchtime they had ascertained that Angelus had always chosen opulent neighbourhoods, and large comfortable houses. One of the Watchers had discovered a picture of the 'hôtel' in Paris where Luc Tarpeau had worked and died, and Mike had stared at it for a long moment before returning to his own book. But records regarding London were strangely absent.
At noon they broke off, and most of the Watchers disappeared to find food. Giles went out and came back with sandwiches and soft drinks, and they ate in silence around the largest of the library tables. Buffy helped Mike eat his sandwich by breaking off chunks and feeding them to him - at any other time Mike thought he would have found the situation hilarious, or possibly wildly erotic, but he had no mood for laughter.
Spike woke up as they were eating, and moaned for a while about being hungry. When Buffy got up with a stake and threatened to punch him again he fell silent, and after lunch they all settled back down to the research.
Daniel finally fell asleep, his head pillowed on Francis Shaw's 'They Who Drink Blood' (published in 1879), in the early evening. Without someone to turn pages for him, Mike could do no more, and so he got up and went to watch Buffy on the computer. The Slayer had a messenger programme running and was evidently working in tandem with Willow Rosenberg in Sunnydale, for messages from the latter popped up every minute or so.
"Any luck?" Mike asked.
Buffy shook her head. "Nope. Willow sends her love."
"Thanks. Send it back, will you?"
She nodded, and typed in, "Mike says hi, sends love," and hit 'send'.
"Thank you for coming, Buffy," he said. "It means a lot."
"It's my job," she returned. "Though I'd have come anyway, out of friendship." She frowned. "Though, if it hadn't been my job, I guess I'd never have met you."
"I know what you mean," Mike said. "Still, thank you."
Buffy smiled, and went back to searching the site she was on.
He watched her for a few minutes, and was about to cross the room to speak to Mike when Travers came in. He looked tidy and refreshed, in stark comparison to the crumpled clothes and red-rimmed eyes of the researchers, and was holding a stiff cream-coloured envelope.
"This just came," he said, handing it to Buffy. "A man - at least we assume it was a man - dropped it at the gate and drove off."
She was holding the envelope carefully by the edges. "Did the guard get the licence plate?"
"The registration number?" Travers said. "No."
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Good guards you got there, Mr Travers." Looking down at the envelope, she turned it over and scrutinised the handwritten address. Her face grew sombre, and Mike felt a shiver of foreboding.
"Him?" he asked.
"Yeah." Buffy looked around, and seeing a dagger on the table by the computer, picked it up and slit the envelope neatly. From his chair Spike watched with interest. The Slayer pulled out the single sheet of paper and opened it up. After a moment, she held it out for Mike. "Is that your niece?"
Mike looked down, and saw a pencil sketch that was as good a likeness of Katie Hansen as any photograph he had seen. She seemed to be asleep, her arm around her favourite pink elephant and her eyes closed. "That's her," he said.
Buffy sighed. "And that's Angel all right. Last time he started the pictures ..."
"... it ended with Jenny," finished Giles, coming over to her. He took the portrait. "May I?" Turning it over, he scrutinised the back. "At last we have our showdown."
"There's a message?" Mike asked.
"'Leicester Square, three am. tonight,'" Giles read. "'Bring Spike. Looking forward to it.' He's just signed it 'A'."
"Finally!" said Buffy. "Some action."
Giles gazed at the picture. "Let's hope it turns out for the best," he said. "Let's hope."
Author's notes: I'm currently juggling this story with a new LOTR one, so updates are becoming rarer. Sorry! However comments are always welcomed. :)
Chapter 9
"What's this, a circus?" Spike, chained securely to a chair, looked around the crowd of Watchers balefully. Buffy stood up from testing the chains and glared at them.
"There's nothing to see, people."
"This, ah, this is the first time a vampire has entered Headquarters itself," someone volunteered. "We're all quite excited."
"It's Spike!" Buffy said, waving an arm. "That's all."
Spike looked put out. "That's not fair, Slayer. I'm William the Bloody, I am."
"Writer of bad poetry," Buffy returned.
"That's not how I got that name!" Spike said. She looked at him, arms folded, and he shrugged as best he could with the chains. "Oh, hell, I told you, didn't I? Yeah, all right, William who wrote bloody awful poetry, that's me - but I'm also the guy who killed two slayers." He grinned at the Watchers. "Celebrity guest, me."
Giles entered the library and crossed to Spike's chair, turning to the crowd. "Right, everyone out. Miss Summers and I have work to do and we would appreciate not having an audience."
The Watchers muttered amongst themselves, but eventually filed out. From his seat in the corner next to Daniel Hansen, Mike breathed a sigh of relief.
Buffy picked up a stake and twirled it. "Okay, Spike, talk."
"Talk about what?" Spike said, looking up at her. "Old times, maybe, Slayer?"
"I want to know where Angel is," Buffy said.
"Gone," Spike returned. "Poof! Into the ether. Angelus, now ... he's quite another matter."
"Angel, Angelus," Giles said. "Same vampire. I expect you're aware he has this man's little girl?" He gestured at Daniel. "I expect you know all the plans."
"Not all of them," Spike said. "See, me, I'm the annoying kid in that family. Tolerated and not much more. The old man still thinks of me as Dru's mistake, Darla couldn't care if I was there or not ... I get on all right with Luc."
"So where are they?" demanded Buffy.
"Ain't telling," Spike retorted. "Not worth my while. I'm not going to believe you'll just let me go this time, Slayer, chip or no chip; and I'm not going back there after being held by you." He shivered.
"Why?" asked Buffy.
Spike nodded his head towards Mike. "It's not just humans he tortures, Slayer. In some ways hurting a vamp is more fun. It lasts longer. And he's bloody good at it - right, Rupert?"
Giles turned away, fiddling with his glasses. Biting his lip, Mike stared at the ground between his feet.
"Mike?" Daniel said, softly. "Was that ... I mean ... the arms?"
"They'll heal," Mike returned. "I just don't really want to talk about it. Give me a few years, okay?"
His brother-in-law nodded, and went back to staring at Spike.
"So you won't tell us?" Buffy said. "Giles, can I dust him?"
"No," Giles said, putting his glasses on and turning back to her. "No. They have a hostage, and so do we. Unfortunately I rather think that we care more about their hostage than they do about ours, but for the moment Spike is all we have."
Spike grinned, pleased. "It'll be nice hanging around to watch you all die horribly. All we need is Dru to make it perfect."
"She's not coming, is she?" Buffy asked, her voice showing a little concern.
"Nah. Angelus has Darla and Luc at the moment, he doesn't need anyone else. 'Course, he might get bored, or Luc might take off again, and then he might want Dru."
Giles sat down on the edge of a table close to Spike, and said nonchalantly, "So the Breton has a habit of disappearing, does he?"
"Hell yeah," said Spike, laughing. "Mr Independence, that one. If he's not in the mood to be bossed around, he won't be." He stopped speaking abruptly. "Learnt something about interrogation yourself, didn't you, Rupert?"
"A little," Giles agreed, a glint in his eye.
"Yeah, well, you can stop right there!" Spike said. "I'm not talkin'."
"Then you're not eating either," Buffy said. "No blood. Not until you tell us where Angel is." She caught his look, shrugged, and said, "Angelus."
There was silence. Daniel looked at Mike, and Mike watched Spike. Eventually the vampire nodded.
"Good. Fine by me. I'll starve, and you can all get killed when he comes. Because he will come."
Buffy folded her arms, and walked away. "Great."
Following some unspoken decision, the men followed her out of the room, leaving Spike shackled to his chair. They left the door open and Giles watched their hostage out of the corner of his eye.
"So?" said Buffy. "Any bright ideas?"
"We need to try other avenues," Mike said. "Housing agencies. Where did Angelus live when he was in London before? Do we know?"
Giles looked thoughtful. "We can check the archives. Maybe someone could help us with that. We could at least discover the kind of area he and Darla preferred."
"We need to do something!" Daniel broke in. "My Katie is in the hands of a ... a thing that tortures people. Can't we make him," he pointed into the room where Spike was still sitting, "talk?"
"Like he said," Buffy replied, "he won't. Usually I guess we could persuade him, get him blood or cigarettes or something, but here I get the feeling he just won't talk."
"Vampires," Giles said, "come in many shapes and sizes. Some never get very far - they rise, spend a few years killing at random, and then commit some ridiculous mistake like stepping into the sun. Some receive some wisdom from their sires, and survive for maybe fifty years, maybe a century. And a few are turned by vampires from strong, ancient bloodlines. Remember the Master, Buffy?"
Buffy made a face. "How could I forget him? He killed me! Temporarily," she added, because Daniel was looking confused.
"Yes, well," Giles continued, "I, erm, did some research, and it turns out that Darla's sire was in fact the Master himself. And for many years, she spent time with him. When she in turn made Angelus, they roamed Europe as a couple. The point is, we're not dealing with ordinary vampires here, we're dealing with some of the most dangerous vampires that have ever existed. They're playing a game, but we're playing with our lives. And the lives of those we love. Spike will play the game, because if there's one thing I think he's scared of, it's Angelus."
"I heard that!" Spike called, from the library. Buffy opened the door wider and they all looked at him. "Vampire hearing?" Spike said. "Not deaf here, children. Watcher's right, Slayer. That time I helped you before, I could kill, I could run, and I didn't want the world to end. Now, no danger of the world ending. No Acathla. And he's not alone this time. You went up alone against Angelus before and you nearly bleedin' lost. Go up against Angelus with Darla and Luc behind him, and you will lose."
Buffy walked quickly up to Spike and punched him once, hard, in the nose. The vampire's head went back before he slumped forwards in his chains.
"Research party," said Buffy, putting on a cheerful smile. "Let's get some of those Watchers back in."
Giles tried to persuade Daniel and Mike to get some rest, but they both refused, and so were set a pile of books to rifle through. Glancing at his brother-in-law's tired, grey face, Mike wondered if he looked as bad. Neither of them said anything as they turned pages and skimmed sentences. Around the library, a small group of Watchers had been drafted in by Buffy and told off to read through many other books. She herself was in front of a computer, and from time to time Giles would stop by her, lean down and say something, before moving on to see each Watcher.
They kept going, through the night, and well into the next morning. The Watchers disappeared to be replaced by new ones. At about eleven, Quentin Travers appeared, but disappeared as quickly as he had come. Mike and Daniel kept reading, Mike finding important passages and facts and Daniel writing them down.
By lunchtime they had ascertained that Angelus had always chosen opulent neighbourhoods, and large comfortable houses. One of the Watchers had discovered a picture of the 'hôtel' in Paris where Luc Tarpeau had worked and died, and Mike had stared at it for a long moment before returning to his own book. But records regarding London were strangely absent.
At noon they broke off, and most of the Watchers disappeared to find food. Giles went out and came back with sandwiches and soft drinks, and they ate in silence around the largest of the library tables. Buffy helped Mike eat his sandwich by breaking off chunks and feeding them to him - at any other time Mike thought he would have found the situation hilarious, or possibly wildly erotic, but he had no mood for laughter.
Spike woke up as they were eating, and moaned for a while about being hungry. When Buffy got up with a stake and threatened to punch him again he fell silent, and after lunch they all settled back down to the research.
Daniel finally fell asleep, his head pillowed on Francis Shaw's 'They Who Drink Blood' (published in 1879), in the early evening. Without someone to turn pages for him, Mike could do no more, and so he got up and went to watch Buffy on the computer. The Slayer had a messenger programme running and was evidently working in tandem with Willow Rosenberg in Sunnydale, for messages from the latter popped up every minute or so.
"Any luck?" Mike asked.
Buffy shook her head. "Nope. Willow sends her love."
"Thanks. Send it back, will you?"
She nodded, and typed in, "Mike says hi, sends love," and hit 'send'.
"Thank you for coming, Buffy," he said. "It means a lot."
"It's my job," she returned. "Though I'd have come anyway, out of friendship." She frowned. "Though, if it hadn't been my job, I guess I'd never have met you."
"I know what you mean," Mike said. "Still, thank you."
Buffy smiled, and went back to searching the site she was on.
He watched her for a few minutes, and was about to cross the room to speak to Mike when Travers came in. He looked tidy and refreshed, in stark comparison to the crumpled clothes and red-rimmed eyes of the researchers, and was holding a stiff cream-coloured envelope.
"This just came," he said, handing it to Buffy. "A man - at least we assume it was a man - dropped it at the gate and drove off."
She was holding the envelope carefully by the edges. "Did the guard get the licence plate?"
"The registration number?" Travers said. "No."
Buffy raised her eyebrows. "Good guards you got there, Mr Travers." Looking down at the envelope, she turned it over and scrutinised the handwritten address. Her face grew sombre, and Mike felt a shiver of foreboding.
"Him?" he asked.
"Yeah." Buffy looked around, and seeing a dagger on the table by the computer, picked it up and slit the envelope neatly. From his chair Spike watched with interest. The Slayer pulled out the single sheet of paper and opened it up. After a moment, she held it out for Mike. "Is that your niece?"
Mike looked down, and saw a pencil sketch that was as good a likeness of Katie Hansen as any photograph he had seen. She seemed to be asleep, her arm around her favourite pink elephant and her eyes closed. "That's her," he said.
Buffy sighed. "And that's Angel all right. Last time he started the pictures ..."
"... it ended with Jenny," finished Giles, coming over to her. He took the portrait. "May I?" Turning it over, he scrutinised the back. "At last we have our showdown."
"There's a message?" Mike asked.
"'Leicester Square, three am. tonight,'" Giles read. "'Bring Spike. Looking forward to it.' He's just signed it 'A'."
"Finally!" said Buffy. "Some action."
Giles gazed at the picture. "Let's hope it turns out for the best," he said. "Let's hope."