[Hello, all. I realize that it's been a while since last chapter, but I have a good excuse: A-Kon XIV. I was up in Dallas, having fun and cutting my hair. If you were there, you may have seen me, as I happened to look like Spike at the time... In any case, it's time to move things along. A lot of ground to cover before morning.

-DUNOTS]

"Bezoar?"

"Safe."

"Feoral?"

"Safe."

"Quellar?"

"Safe."

"Uh, Doranian Thought Leech?"

"Oh, I know one of those," Jacob Tangerine smiled, "name of Clem, real nice."

William looked at the name on the paper once more, and then back at Tangerine. "So, no go on killing, then?"

The demon expert shrugged lazily, "Depends on the guy. They tend to keep to themselves and not start anything."

"So that's a maybe. Alright, thank," William smiled, slipping the papers into his briefcase, "Good thing I know someone on the inside."

Jacob leaned back in the comfortable armchair, a beer in one hand, and a corn dog in the other. He considered saying something, but then the corn dog just called out to him to be eaten.

"You sure you don't want money?" William asked, a little amazed by Tangerine's appetite.

"Nah," he answered, pausing for a swig of beer, "I like this arrangement. Food, drink, and digital cable; you've got it all, Billy."

They'd been having regular meetings over the past few weeks, Jacob providing information on WIlliam's targets, and William providing Jacob with the perks of a corporate demon hunter's payroll. Much as they had suspected, a fair chunk of the demons in the list were generally nice, and were probably working for the common good, if anything.

The confusing thing, on the other hand, was that there were malicious demons on the list. Why would an evil corporations with connections to the literal underworld want evil demons from that underworld dead? So far, the best he could figure was competition.

"Alright," William said after a few minutes of contemplation, "Quellar. Weaknesses?"

"First you gotta find it," Jacob began.

---

There it was. It had eluded him into some woods, but hadn't counted on his unusual senses. It was about a mile into the woods, and about a night's worth of driving out of town. A little abandoned cabin sat dilapadated, and the perfect hiding spot for a demon.

That was, as long as William the Bloody wasn't on his trail.

Smiling darkly, William shook himself out, gave a little hop, and ran for the cabin, jumping through the window. Pulling out the silver bowie knife oh-so-kindly provided by his employers, he rolled to his feet, less than a meter separating them.

"Way I see it," he scoffed, "You got one chance to tell me who's payin' your bills. Wanna be a nice, alive demon?"

The feoral turned around, now standing fully. My, it was big, and muscular, and horned. Howling in inexplicably intelligable feoral, it leaned back and fired something out of its face. The stream of goop splattered wetly on his right forearm, and stung so badly that he dropped his knife-

Into his other hand, as he swung his body around. The demon reared back, and prepared to swipe, his claws ready to deal the deathblow. Dodging backwards, William considered leaving this one to its own devices. The feoral continued lunging and spewing mucus, strong and scary, but not all that smart. It was pretty easy to navigate to the door, ready to leave.

And then he made eye contact.

What he saw made him smile, and his muscles tighten. His still-scalding right arm shook most of the gunk off, and its hand curled into a fist. The knife felt light in his hand, and his body automatically lowered to the ground, his expression only pleasure.

And then he sprung, silver flashing out in front of him, lopping off the offending hand that tried to meet him halfway. In an instant, he was behind and to the left of the demon, both of them swirling to face each other. As the feoral screamed obscenities, William's right elbow came up and behind him, his hand braced against the other.

As the demon's face reeled back from the shock, its stump thudded wetly into its hunter's ribs, still painful but hardly the maiming it had intended. Favoring its right hand, it had spun the wrong way on instinct.

"Last chance," William asked quickly, eyes inviting the demon to do otherwise.

By the time it smorted another gout of snot at him, his left arm was already climbing the distance between their bodies, and it was too late. Burning mucus splashed over his other hand, some of it bouncing back onto the source, but it didn't help. That hand refused to let go, and it kept going, pushing that shining blade into the demon's nose, then his skull, then his brain, then back out the other side of his head.

William grinned when looked at the creature's face. It still wore the look of fear he'd seen in its eyes, and it always would.

And then the rush was over, and he was in quite a lot of pain.

---

"Did you find out who was controlling it?" Lilah Morgan asked as the nurse applied some salve to his blistering forearms.

Oh, right. "No, wouldn't say. Kill or be killed, you know?"

She nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. "What about the Leech?"

"Skipped town," he said truthfully, "Musta heard I was comin'."

She looked like she could have been disappointed, but she also might have just had indigestion. It was somewhat hard to tell. "You have been tearing this town's demons apart," she replied, "And I expect word spreads."

"I'll try to keep a lower profile, or whatever," he explained. What he failed to explain was that Jacob had tipped the poor demon off.

"Very good. I'll see you again soon."

He pretended to smile sweetly at her. After a moment of reveling in just how much he disliked that woman, a hand patted him on the wounded arms, now bandaged and the pain lessened.

"Done here," the generically foreign nurse said with a smile.

He smiled back, glad to be out of the infirmary. It was an ugly, white place, and he sometimes wondered if he avoided injury just to avoid this room. "Thanks, uh, you," he responded to her, looking for a nametag.

Bowing, or something, she tunred and walked away, leaving William to his own devices.

---

"Anybody home?" William called into Wesley's office.

It was strange for Wes to go missing in the middle of the day, and it was nearly tea time to boot. Whatever the emergency, William had time to kill, and wanted to kill it with tea and conversation. Seeing as the door was open, he let himself in and sat down, ctaking in the sizeable office.

Everything was in its correct place, a vision of neatness, just like every corporate office in the building. Probably maids. The desk, on the other hand...

"Buffy - 2:30" was scrawled at the top of today's date on his desk calendar, and some strange tomes had been left open. Most notable was a passage about vampire prophesies, one of them highlighted in chartruse.

"Cuss marks up books this old?" William wondered aloud, picking up the volume.

The highlighted prophecy was called Shansu, and it had to do with a vampire with a soul, and some kind of metamorphosis. Interesting in the idea that there could be a vampire with a soul, but not terribly intriguing otherwise.

Casually, he began to flip through the pages, to see if there was anything else interesting. Oddly, there wasn't anything at all. After a point, the pages were just blank, as if waiting to be printed on. Curious, he turned to the inside cover, to find if the pages cut off that way, too.

"Currently displaying: Prophecies and various other prognostifications relating to the vampire and its close demon-ilk," the inside page read. Across from it were instructions on how to use the book. Apparently, one would close it, put their mouth to the spine, and tell the book what to be. Anything in the archives could be pulled out that way.

Blinking twice, William realized just how useful that could be to him.

Opening his mouth, he quickly set the book down when Wesley walked in.

"Oh," the stubbly man said with a start, "William. What are you doing here?"

"Waitin' for tea. Guess your date didn't work out?" he motioned to the name Buffy.

Wesley looked very confused for a moment, and then some kind of social revelation spread acrosshis face. "No, that's not a date," he said with a smile, "An old friend, no, a lot of old friends are in town."

"Oh, wouldn't wanna break that up," William stood, "Be off, then."

Wesley gave him a somehow disappointed look and stated, "Come on, I'll introduce you. I think you'll like her."

---

Trying to find out just what relationship Wesley had with this Buffy was somewhat difficult. He resisted straight answers at every turn, and he seemed more and more troubled at the prospects of introducing William to the group.

"Ah," Wesley said with both nervousness and relief evident, "We're here."

As the elevator doors opened, they both jumped a bit when they saw Lilah's figure in front of them.

"William," she commanded simply, "New assignment. I'll brief you in my office."

"Assignment?" Wesley asked, incredulous, "Brief? Lilah, William, what's..."

Brushing him off, Lilah strode away, William forced to follow. "No time. Come on, William, we have to hurry."

All William saw before he followed her was Wesley's face harden.

---

"What?" William demanded as the entered her office, "What do you need me for?"

Handing him some papers as she sat, Lilah explained, "There's another feoral, and he's wreaking havoc in the city. We need you to do something about it, and fast."

"Damn lucky for you I heal so fast," he explained, holding up his hands, "But you never told me about the mucus. Maybe I could get some protective gear?"

"There's really no time," she explained, "It's killing as we speak..."

"Then at least a long-sleeve?"

---

There it was, some kind of rusty, bloody blade in its hand. It was all fury, and death, and anger.

There he was, stained, but still silver bowie knife in his hand. He was all hurting, and bandaged, and wearing a turtleneck sweater.

"You killed my brother!" the feoral roared in its native tongue, "You will join him in hell!"

Questions of how the demon knew who killed his brother, and how William knew the language took a back burner to survival.

"Least you're honest on where the blighter went," William noted in the same language as he leapt to the side.

Smarm, however, never takes a back burner.

Predictably enough, the demon was now past speaking, and used little more than screams and howls as he slashed that horrible implement at William. This time, there was no hint of fear in the monster's eyes, and no woods to hide in. Only open street, a setting sun, and a very, very angry demon.

Another furious slash, and William was looking for a store to duck into, to at least buy himself some time. And then he saw it, broken neon sign like the gates of Kublai Khan's pleasure dome.

"Ted's guns and ammo"

At this point, William broke into a full run, the knife seeming impotent enough to be re-sheathed at his hip. Behind him, the constant pounding of massive feet on pavement became drowned out by a crunching, coninuous ripping sound. The occasional shriek of metal on metal made him turn his head jest enough to see what was going on.

The feoral had his sword at his side, pointed down, the tip of it actually rending the concrete from the ground. The metal noises were rebar and pipes getting smashed into pieces. The demon had only slowed down slightly because of the frition.

William ran faster.

---

The man dove into the gun shop, and the demon was only a little ways behind. Even as he ran for the scene, Angel knew he wouldn't be there before the feoral broke the bars and got inside. Hopefully there was a back door, and the poor sap had some way of getting out.

"Crossbow!" Angel shouted, hearing it click into place beside him as he did.

The sound of the bow moved behind him as he kept running, and then a bolt whizzed by his head, thunking into the demon's back a moment later. The monster ignored it, and kept running, and for a moment, Angel was convinced that man was going to be killed.

But then another shot pierced his flesh, and the feoral noticed that something wasn't right. Swivelling only feet from the door, it saw Angel and paused, seemingly confused. A second later, it howled and began to run at him. When they met, he-

Veered to the right, apparently running for Faith. That would make sense, as she had been shooting the damn thing. Quickly, Angel leapt to his side, barely grabbing the right arm of the demon. It tried to dislodge him without stopping, but he sunk a knife into its shoulder, and it stopped cold.

"Ladies second," Angel snarled, his vampire face manifesting.

The demon plucked the blade from its shoulder, shaking the ensouled vampire off. For a second, it made ready to lunge, but then it stopped, a look of thought sweeping over its expressions. Given the intelligence of the average feoral, that was fairly surprising.

"Me first," a voice came from behind the demon.

And then a boom resounded through the street, and the creature's left side jerked toward Angel, sword clattering to the ground. The monster swivelled as another blast rocked his body. Plenty of blood flowed, but the wounds healed almost visibly. Courage aside, the man was still going to get killed.

Growling, Angel leapt at the monster, left arm wrapping around its massive neck. Even as he jabbed his silver blade into its back, the demon grabbed his head and threw him to the ground in front of itself. Slightly dizzy and shaken, Angel looked up, expecting it to descend upon him. Strangely, it instead looked up again, making ready for something else.

Before he could wonder what it was, the other man was there, huge knife glinting in the streetlamps. He ducked under a swing from its somewhat incapacitated left arm, and brought the blade to bear. Rolling to safety, Angel noted that the blade seemed to be silver. And then, suddenly, he head a thump, and a deep sigh, and turned just in time to see the man withdraw a bloody knife from the demon's chest.

"That's right," he shouted, "I'm a bloody animal!"

Standing quickly, Angel moved for the man, an irrational suspicion nagging at his brain.

"William the bloody is a god-damn animal!" he continued, and Angel stopped cold, only feet from the other man's familiar face.

"Spike?"

Spike turned, a confused look on his face. "Mr. Angel?"