Against her expectations of the hospitality of vampires, Buffy was not attacked or seized, but lead through the closed door at the far end of the room. The four vampires that surrounded her reeked of power over and above normal for their kind, but her predatory sense told her that she would have been able to take at least two of them before she fell. But she also knew that she had not come so far to be killed at the hands of a powerful Master who obviously had designs other than her death. Nor was she sure that, even were she able to take all four, would she be able to fight Jur'Khan Chung. He had faded into the shadows of the balcony from which he had greeted her, but she could still feel his awesome strength behind her, watching her. She had never felt so much power in a vampire, not even the Master. This one was a prince of the Undead.

'You guys always dress this formal,' she asked them flippantly in Russian, 'or is it just for me?' She was actually curious. All were dressed in the same well-designed suits that the vampire she had killed in the bar, though they were not as smooth. In fact, she thought them nervous as they led her through the door.

One of them turned slightly, holding the door open to allow her through. It was so incongruous she almost laughed. He made her feel as though she were less of a prisoner than an honoured guest, as though he did not know that she was simply biding her time to escape. 'Image is a tool in the hands of those who know how to use it,' he told her, his tone dry, his eyes watchful though not yet aggressive. 'Your lover knows that well.'

Her face flushed, and she resisted the temptation to charge him. Instead, she channelled her anger, burying it carefully, though not forgetting it. Her voice level, she spoke. 'You know about Spike?'

He shrugged. 'Our Lord will tell you what he thinks you need to know. For now, rest here and refresh yourself. He will come in an hour.' He smiled slightly, though his voice remained cold, his face impassive. 'You will not be harmed.'

'Heard that one before,' she told him, though she entered the room without so much as a backwards glance, pretending for the moment to be a willing player in this little drama.

The room beyond was far smaller than the gallery of war, though it was not small. At one end was a bath and shower, the curtain open. A large double bed, comfortably appointed with what looked like silk sheets, was opposite the door, a dresser with a richly decorated mirror and frame on the wall beside. The wall was plain stone, but the carpet was a deep crimson red, expensive and full. The room spoke loudly of tasteful expense.

The door closed behind her, though she did not hear it locked she was sure that she could batter against it for hours without making a dent.

She looked around for any sign of cameras or hidden windows, but could see none. Removing her heavy outer coat and the jacket beneath, she sat on the bed, which gave way comfortably. She sighed, not realising until now how tired she had felt, how exhausted from the tension that had suffused her since she had arrived by train in this city. She knew that Spike was here. She could not feel him as she could still feel the power of Jur'Khan Chung, but in a way that went beyond her calling and his essence. She could feel him as a wolf felt his mate.

She turned on the shower and let the water run until it was not quite hot enough to scald. Removing her clothes, she stepped beneath the powerfully running water, letting it flow down her tanned skin, warming her deeply.

She let her thoughts go back to the last time that she had seen Spike, bruised and bloody beneath her powerful blows in the alley behind the police station. She could have killed him then, so great was the anger that she felt. She realised soon after, minutes even, that her anger was not directed at him, but rather at herself. What they had shared, the sheer intensity of feeling that had linked her to a world that was rapidly moving out of range of her emotions, was so powerful that she had shied away from it, and when he had not been able to escape it, she had blamed him. Beaten him. Cursed and denigrated him, hoping that he would back away.

He never had.

'I should never have blamed you,' she whispered as she rubbed the soap into her skin, cleansing her body, but not yet touching the stain on her soul.

It was hardly his fault that he had elicited such feelings in her. He had been sure of his own, as he had been sure of hers, and had only wanted her to admit to herself what he already knew, that she returned everything that he felt for her even more strongly than he, for in her there was no conflict between nature and inclination on one hand and the desires of the heart on the other. She would have told him that. It would have taken only a little more time for her to admit to herself, and later to him, what she felt.

'You never gave me the chance,' she breathed. Stepping over the rim of the tub, wrapping a towel around herself and sitting on the bed, brushing her golden hair with a carved brush from the dresser.

He had left that night, leaving only a note. She had gone to look for him the next evening, bringing a six-pack of beer that would serve as the first, she hoped, of many peace offerings. He deserved at the least an apology. From deeper within, she remembered as she lay on the bed in the lair of another vampire, a voice had told her that he had deserved more. He had deserved honesty from the woman that he loved.

The crypt was the same, but he had not been there. She had sensed that as soon as the door had opened without being locked from the inside. On the TV, a small envelope had been left. She had out the beer down, her hands trembling, and picked up the note.

Slayer,

I love you too much to see you suffer, and not enough to know how to stop it. You would have been better off if you had killed me yesterday. So would I. Tell Dawn that I'm sorry.

Goodbye, Buffy.

She closed her eyes as she dressed, slowly and mechanically. After five months searching, and even after the trauma of the events during the two months after he left and she was still in Sunnydale, the pain and the betrayal, that letter still made her ache for his touch.

'Love isn't brains,' she whispered to herself, staring into the mirror, seeing a pale imitation of herself. She remembered the words, and her mood darkened further as she remembered the context. Angel.

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

'How could you let him touch you, Buffy?' Angel demanded, without anger, simple astonishment in his voice. Connor was in the crib behind him, beside the couch in the front room, gurgling softly, unaware of the tension in the room. She stole a glance at the baby, trying to keep the longing from her face as she tried even harder to make Angel understand, while at the back of her mind a treacherous voice asked her why she cared whether or not that he did.

Behind him stood Wesley and Cordelia, their faces stern and unbending as Angel's. Wesley's was haunted, Cordelia's possessive and protective, but both bore the stamp of unthinking condemnation.

Behind her stood Xander and Willow, with Dawn off to one side. Her against him, his against hers, if it came to that. What did he know, after all? Where had he been for the last three years?

'He loved me … loves me,' she told him, keeping her voice level despite the temptation to lash out.

'He loves suffering and pain,' Angel told her. 'Torture and death. The last woman that he loved was the scourge of continents. What lies did he tell you to convince you that he loved you?'

'Have you changed that much that you believe the word of vampires?' Wesley asked her, though his voice carried less conviction. He sounded weary. 'Your job is to kill them before you get to know them.'

'She knows what her job is, Brit boy,' Xander snarled. Xander, of all people, defending Buffy's choices. Now that Spike was gone, he could say what he wanted without fear of losing face. That, she was convinced, was all that he had feared. Such a childish motive for pettiness. 'What's your job again? Oh, yeah, that's right. You work for one of the most evil vampires ever. You can talk.'

'Angel isn't evil,' Cordelia told him, moving up to stand beside the vampire.

'Neither is Spike, not any more,' Buffy told her. 'You weren't here, you didn't see. You can't know.'

Angel growled. 'I came here because I knew you would be in pain, because I know what its like, now that I have a son, to lose what you lost.' He stepped forward, looming over her as he had so many times before. To this day, she could not remember what the sixteen year old girl she had been had ever seen in him. 'I never thought that Spike would be the cause of it. Or that you allowed him to be. That you let yourself be sullied.'

The slap that she delivered to his square chin echoed through the house. All was silence, though none were shocked.

'Get out,' she ordered him coldly, knowing that there was nothing more to say, nothing more that could be said. She was nothing like the girl that he remembered, had none of the old illusions left. All had crumbled before the contradictions with which she had been presented by Spike.

But she could barely accept that she had only been forced to realise it after he had left. After he had left that heart-rending note. After she had left him with no choice through her own wilful ignorance and blind fear.

Angel gathered up Connor, and turned to leave. Before he stepped through the door, knowing that one chapter in his long life would close with door, he turned slightly.

'If he loved you that much, he wouldn't have left.'

The sheer hypocrisy of the sentiment staggered her, though beneath it lay a deeper truth that she had known for years, buried deep beneath the pleasant memories to which she had clung but which now were ripped away by his blind righteousness.

'If it wasn't for what you did to me, I would never have forced him to leave.'

Those, she knew, were the last words that they would ever exchange. She had, after years of pointless comparison, laid to rest the ghosts of Angel's flawed perfection.

A knock at the door brought her back from her reverie, and she rose. 'Come in.'

One of the vampires that had brought her stepped through the threshold. 'Lord Chung wishes to speak with you.'

Candles burned dimly around the room, flickering, casting strange shadows across the books that lined the study from floor to ceiling. One wall alone was clear of literature, and it was covered with screens, with a panel at the front. There were twelve in all, and a larger one in the centre. All showed views of what she assumed was the house and the grounds around. Buffy was not surprised that the centre screen showed the courtyard at the front, through which she had fought to get here. Like Spike, Jur'Khan Chung was careful enough to watch his opponents before he fought.

She wasn't quite sure how she knew, instinct maybe, but she didn't think that he had asked her here to fight. He sat on a large chair, raised slightly on a low dais, like a throne, though it was plain wood. The had barely seen him when she had entered the chamber at the front of the house, so she took a moment to study him.

He had been a large man when alive, and vampirism had done nothing to diminish him. Like the others, he wore a plain, though expensive suit, though his was of pure black, with a crimson red tie over a pristine white shirt. His bulk showed through, and there was no questioning his physical strength. His face was impassive as he watched her enter, the one who brought her retreating quietly through the door and closing it quietly. The only noise came from the fire in the corner behind the vampire lord.

His voice was deep and guttural as he rose from the chair slowly, every movement controlled. He was oriental in origin, though his face was paler than any alive. His eyes were almost black, his hair tied back in a ponytail that ran past his shoulders.

'Drink?' he asked her, for all the world like a gracious host with an honoured guest, not a vampire speaking with a Slayer.

She hesitated. 'No,' she said shortly. She needed her head clear if she was to elicit any information about where Spike was. And if she needed to fight, for he was no mean adversary, if it was to come to that.

He gestured idly. 'Sit, woman,' he ordered. 'I am no barbarian.'

She bristled at his tone, but followed his instructions, though she reversed the wooden chair, sitting facing the back rather than in the normal manner. She wanted to be able to rise quickly, if need be. His attitude did nothing to relieve her tension, and the gloomy décor merely added to it. She could feel her heart thumping, for she knew that she was nearing the end of her search.

'You know why I'm here, right?' she asked, still speaking in Russian. 'You know why I came here?'

'To find William the Bloody,' he replied, pouring himself what looked like a straight vodka in a shot glass which he knocked back, Russian-style, with a brief grimace. He raised the glass to her in a salute. 'Za zdorovya.' At her blank look, he smiled slightly, though it never reached his eyes. 'Its an old Russian toast.' He moved over to the fire, staring into the flames.

She lost patience, the tension becoming too great. 'Do you know where is? Why am I wasting my time?'

'As you get older, Buffy Summers, you'll realise that time is all that most of us have, and that it is filled with nothing but unpleasant memories.' He turned back, pointing to the small table with the bottle. 'Pour yourself a drink, and me another. We'll both need them before this is over.'

She followed his instruction, passing him another shot. She diluted hers with water from a decanter, and sipped it. It was fiery, nothing like the mediocre vodka back home. Pepper vodka, she remembered. One of the rarest kinds – she had first drank it in Paris, after taking out a coven of vampires with the aid of a Special Forces unit of the French Army. She carried the medal that she had received for her work somewhere in her threadbare bags, back at the small hotel.

After a moment, he turned to her. 'You were right,' he told her quietly as the fire burned behind him, giving him a hellish glow along his right side. 'I do know where William the Bloody, or Spike as he has become known, is. He is three miles from here, in a small house that was once owned by the Archduke Nikolai, of the House of Romanov. He's related to them, did you know that?'

Buffy was unable to keep the astonishment that she felt at learning that Spike was related to the vanished family of the last Russia Tsars from her face. He saw it, and smiled again. 'I suppose he doesn't care much anymore. My being related to the house of the Great Khan himself means nothing to me, after all.'

'Where is this house?' she asked, stepping forward slightly so that she could feel the heat coming from the blazing wood fire. 'Where is he? And why have you brought me here to tell me? You want something from me, or you would have just killed me and have done with it.'

He looked at her, his eyes suddenly blazing. For the first time, she noticed the pure hatred that festered beneath those black orbs, and she shrank away from it. She had seen hate, she had felt it and had acted on it, but she had never imagined that any creature could hold as much as him. She was surprised that it had not yet consumed him. She stepped carefully back, to give herself room in case he tried anything.

'You are right, of course,' he told her, though his voice was immeasurably colder. 'I need something from you. From you and your lover both, actually.' He stepped away from the fire and walked to the far side of the room, to a small locker in the opposite corner. She followed him carefully with her eyes.

He opened the drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. Striding back across the room, he passed it to her, them reached over her. She pulled away quickly, but he was merely reaching for the bottle, which he used to fill another glass. She had forgotten about the one in her hand, which she sipped again. It warmed her as it went down, and she closed her eyes briefly at the pleasant sensation.

The paper that he passed her was a photo, she saw as put the drink back on the table.

'Have you ever seen this man?' he asked her.

The picture was not of the best quality, but it was enough. The man was young enough, maybe a few years older than she. His hair was black, and short, his face clean-shaven. The picture looked to have been taken in an airport or a bus station, and he was looking away, but she could see enough to see that he was extraordinarily handsome, albeit cold. His face betrayed no emotion at all, like a classical statue. For some reason, he was familiar, though she was sure that she had never seen him before.

'No,' she told Jur'Khan Chung, impatient for information about Spike but knowing that, aside from the small matter of leaving the house alive, she needed his co-operation in her search. 'Who is he?'

'He who will not be named,' he breathed, staring with undisguised malevolence at the picture. 'This was the last time that anyone saw him, as far as I know. And I have earched. I have had people searching for this creature for three centuries, across all continents and nations. And all I have is this photo.' He growled.

She pulled back as his face shifted, becoming even more cruel, but he soon shifted back .'Who is he?' she asked again.

'Some call him Legion.'

It hit her like a physical blow, the images in her mind so powerful that she fell back against wall, barely stopping herself from sliding to the floor.

She did not see Jur'Khan Chung watch her analytically, like a scientist would a lab rat, with a slight smile on his cold face that this time did reach his eyes.

She could see things in her mind, things that she was sure that she had never seen before in real life. Images of buildings the likes of which had not been seen on earth in centuries. Images of soldiers with helmets with red plumes, light iron armour, segmented not plate, wearing greaves and carrying shortswords. No, gladius. She knew nothing of how she knew that, or how she knew that the long javelins that they carried were called pilums.

It was in the middle of a sun bleached valley, the grass a brilliant green, white topped mountains barely visible in the distance. There was a road of cobbled stone passing directly through, relieved only by a large stone building.

They stood in perfect formation, metal gleaming with the light of the sun, maybe two hundred before a large stone building with arches and carved columns. The columns had exquisite reliefs of every martial scene imaginable, carved in a white stone that reflected the daylight brilliantly. The light fell on the armour of the soldiers, all of whom stood perfectly still, like statues. Hard faced men, their eyes narrowed, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing and everything. Tanned and leathered, they were clean shaven. They stood proudly, their bearings erect as they held themselves. These were men who believed in themselves and, more, in each other. Legio XVI.

Nor did she recognise the man that rode a black horse in front of them. Unlike them, he wore a golden, gilded breastplate, and his head was bare. His hair was jet black, and close cut, his face handsome but cold. He rode his horse arrogantly, and he wore his armour and sword with the ease of long practice. He was not old, maybe twenty five, but the reverence in which he was held by those behind him was palpable. He could lead them to storm the gates of hell, and they would follow.

'Legion, she gasped, coming back to the present with a grunt, her head splitting. She opened her eyes, remembering only after a moment where she was, and with whom.

Levering herself away from the wall, she pushed herself upright and turned to face the powerful vampire who was watching her carefully. 'What did you do to me?' she demanded furiously, withdrawing a stake from her pocket.

'Nothing,' he answered, unmoved. His eye flickered to the wood in her hand, and then back to her face. 'And I would appreciate you listening. If you don't, even if you make it past me, you won't leave this house alive. And your Spike will not survive the next week. Though I suppose you could be with him in heaven.' His lip curled with some disgust at the thought.

'Talk,' she ordered him, running rapidly out of patience. She could almost taste Spike, she knew that he was that close. Then she could see him. More, then she could tell him.

Jur'Khan Chung sighed and, seeing that she would not relinquish the stake, moved to the opposite side of the room. 'What did you mean that Spike will not live for a week?'

'The picture you have in your hand is of a creature that killed the only thing that I ever loved,' he told her. He might as well have been reciting the weather for all the feeling that was in his voice. 'In the year 1643, at Rocroi.' Seeing her blank face, he elaborated. 'It was a battle towards the end of the Thirty Years War, a war between Catholics and Protestants for domination of Europe. More or less. Rocroi was where I was supposed to meet her – we had not seen each other for more than fifty years. The battle was just a coincidence.'

'And?'

He stared at the fire, his face grim as he remembered the pain. 'He was there, the vampire in the picture. He killed her when he found her, I never knew why. She had been my Sire, and I loved her as only a Childe can love his Sire. She was his too, I think, though she never said. When he killed her, he left. I have not stopped hunting him since. I won't until I can catch him and make his suffering last the same length of time that I have been searching.'

'And this has what to do with me?' she asked, against her better judgement sensing that what he told her was true. She could recognise the shattered dream that was lost love when she saw it. In her short life, she had seen it too much. For the last seven months, she saw it whenever she looked in the mirror.

'This creature, Legion – that is not his real name, by the way, I never speak his name – is also hunting. He disregards me as a threat, thinking that I am not powerful enough to trouble him. He might well be right. But I have spent too long in the chase not to get to know his every habit and every move. I will be ready, he will merely be arrogant. And he will fall because of it. But, I digress.

'He is here, in the this city. He, too, had found his prey. You see, child, we three are linked. We have all traced our prey to St. Petersburg. And we will all see the end of our search, one way or another, quite soon. You are hunting Spike, to tell him you love him or some such nonsense. You are too young to know what love is.'

He walked across the room, to stand directly in front of her, his black eyes boring into hers, pinning her against the wall. She was helpless to move beneath the power of those eyes. At that moment, a voice told her at the back of her mind, he would have been able to tear the head from her shoulders, and she would not have been able to stop him, so efficiently had he buried her will beneath his own. The light from the candles around the room danced around his hard face, full of suppressed fury as it was. The flickering embers of the dying fire reflected in his eyes.

He was barely inches from her as he spoke, his voice soft and quiet, tortured and furious. He rested against the wall, looming over her, one hand against the cold stone behind her, over her narrow shoulder, small as she was beside his bulk. Power was irrelevant in that moment, for at that moment he was the predator, she the helpless prey.

Yet all he did was speak. 'What makes you think that you can return his love, child?' he asked, his words a dagger to her soul. Even before he elaborated, she knew what he would say. 'He is more than a century old, and in that time has lived ten lifetimes, building a passion that you could begin to touch. He loves you with everything that he is, everything that he has become over that century. Think of what he has seen, what he has done to make him what he is, to make him what you think you love. What is your love to him? You will never be able to return what he feels for you – you would never be capable of feeling that depth of emotion.'

He turned away. All she could feel was the heaviness in her heart as what he said slowly, so slowly, sank in. 'You could love him with every fibre of your essence,' he told her relentlessly. 'And still you could return barely a tenth of what he feels for you.' He chuckled, without humour.

'I have to tell him,' she said, her voice barely audible, her tone small, like that a of child before his age and perverted wisdom. 'Tell him what happened after he left, tell him that I –' She stopped, shaking herself. 'I have to find him.'

'Of course you do,' he told her, not looking at her. 'But for that you have to find him. For that you need me. And then, Slayer, I need you.'

She shook herself slightly, though the truth of his words still stung. How could ever return Spike's love? How could she return the feelings of a … man … who loved so deeply that he had loved the same woman faithfully for more than a century. 'What do you need me for?'

'While you hunt,' he told her, 'so do I. And while I hunt, so does Legion.'

She took a deep drink to calm herself, though she knew that she still needed a clear head, now more than ever perhaps. 'What is he hunting? And what does it have to do with me?'

The fire gave up its struggle, and died. The room became slightly, the shadows changing. She pulled her coat more tightly around her – it shouldn't have been any colder, but it was. She was cold within, as well as without.

'Legion want's revenge, as do I.'

'Revenge for what? And again, what does this have to do with me?'

He turned, though now he was deep in the shadows, only his face visible, and that barely. 'If you leave this city now, nothing at all. He knows that you are here, as you can sense him. For some reason that I have yet to understand, you are linked to him. I suspect that you have been able to feel him for your whole life.'

She shook her head vigorously. 'This, this thing in my head, the images,' she momentarily forgot that she had not told him of them, but he nodded his head – he knew anyway, somehow, 'they only started when I got here.'

'Perhaps,' he murmured, moving out from the shadows into the dim candlelight. 'Perhaps not. In any case, you are not why he is here. He's here for someone else.'

'Who?'

'He is looking for revenge for something done to him during the last war, done to him by a woman that your Spike will fight to the death to protect.'

Buffy knew the name before she heard it – she could see her face as clearly as the last images.

As they rose in her mind, the last shred of hope that she felt vanished like mist in the wind.

'Drusilla.'