84

"What news, worm?" M'rek's talons were being tended to by a dozen or so servants. Some actually doing the work, others to-ing and fro-ing. In the midst of all the chaos, M'rek sat, serene and unruffled.

Kraj bit back a whimper. The serenity would not hold for much longer, he feared. "Our initial attempt to seize the vessel must have put them on their guard, my Lord," he whined. "The souled one refuses to allow the vessel to attend without a security team accompanying her." Kraj bowed his head, waiting for the worst.

"Use her human name, Kraj," M'rek admonished in surprisingly mild tones. He paused in thought for a moment. "Very well. Tell Angel." He accented the name. "That we will accept his terms. And invite him to accompany..,"

"Rose and Spike," Kraj supplied, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Yes, invite all three of them, plus their security detachment," M'rek ordered. "Once they set a date, make preparations for a grand feast. No expense is to be spared."

"It shall be as you will it, oh mighty M'rek." Kraj bowed and scraped his way out of the chamber, happy to have dodged the bullet one more time.

&&&&&&

Rose started stacking papers on Wesley's desk for a change.

"The employee evaluations." Thump. "The quarterly budget." Thump. "The bi-annual accomplishment report." Thump. "The annual employee sacrifice report." Thump.

"The what?" Wesley's head came up out of the book he was studying.

"I was wondering what it would take to get your attention," Rose replied. "I'll have to remember that sacrificing employees will do it. There is all your administrative nonsense. Now, do you have something for me to do that is actually worth doing?"

Wesley sighed. Rose had been awfully tetchy since she'd gotten pregnant. She used to be so.., amenable. He suspected that trait would not re-establish itself after the birth. "There's not a lot to do here, Rose," he said. "Except for the prophecy, which is out of bounds for you. They're inventorying everything in the vaults this week. Most of the rest of the department is down there working on it, except for the couple that are helping me. Why don't you take a few..," His voice trailed off as he saw Rose's face twist into a scowl. "You could go help with the inventory, I suppose," he finished weakly.

"Inventory. Fine." Rose dropped the rest of the paperwork on his desk. "If you need me, you know where to find me," she said, heading for the door.

Wesley watched her retreating back and silently prayed that the next few months would pass quickly.

&&&&&&&

"Hey, Hot Mama, what's shaking?" Lorne fell into step beside Rose as she marched down the hall.

"Inventory, evidently," Rose grumbled. "Since I'm not allowed to work on that stupid prophecy. I'd like to know what we were thinking when we created it."

Lorne blinked. "Okay, you kind of lost me on that one, blossom," he admitted. "What prophecy are we talking about, for starters?"

Rose stopped in her tracks and stared. "No one has told you?" She looked at her watch. Lunch, or close enough to it. "Are you free for lunch, Lorne? This could take a while."

"I'm not free, but I am cheap," he replied with a grin. "It's going to cost you a pair of dimples and a little sugar, sugarplum."

Rose smiled and hugged him. And she wasn't sure if she was more cheered by Lorne's sweet, friendly manner, or the fact that there was someone more in the dark than she was.

&&&&&&&

"Talk about being kept out of the loop," Lorne exclaimed. "I didn't realize how out of it I was. I mean I knew that you and the studly one were staying at Casa del Angel because someone tried to put the grab on you again, doll-face, but I had no idea there was a prophecy behind it all."

"Do you think it's right for them to keep me in the dark about it, Lorne?" Rose asked

Lorne was torn between not wanting to hurt her feelings and what he thought was right. "Rosebud precious, try putting yourself in their shoes for a minute," he advised. "It seems to me you've got an even more important job than you realized. So don't you see how we all kind of have an interest in protecting those little bundles of joy you're carrying around?"

Rose pouted while she thought, but her innate sense of fairness won out. "I guess," she muttered. "But I really hate not knowing. Suppose there's something in it I need to know. To keep my babies safe."

Lorne sighed. "None of us down here is omniscient, blossom. And neither are you since you decided to take a little leave of absence from it. So we're all just going to have to take our best shot and hope it all works out."

&&&&&&&&

Spike made his way through the dim, vast expanses of the vaults. It had taken not only his rank, but direct intervention from Angel to get him in here. Blimey, the place didn't half give him the creeping horrors, and considering some of the things he'd seen, that was saying something. It looked like a library in hell, which considering what and where it was, wasn't a bad analogy. "Rose?" he called. He heard her name echo eerily through the place. He stood for long moments, just listening, and finally heard a faint, "Spike?" in answer. He followed the echoes as far as he could, then tried again. Rose's answer was closer this time. It still took a third time before he finally pinpointed her position.

He found her sitting cross-legged on the floor, a stack of papers in her lap, and a clipboard beside her. She glanced at the paper on the top of the stack, then made a mark on the clipboard. "Hello, darling," she greeted him. "I'm almost done here for now. Do you mind waiting for me? This place is starting to give me the shudders."

"You and me both, pet," Spike answered. "Is there anything I can do to speed things along?"

Rose handed him the clipboard. "If you can check things off for me, it ought to help." She yawned. "I think Wesley was going to offer me a few days off. I'm beginning to think I should have taken him up on it."

Spike stopped himself just in time from asking her why she hadn't. She was so determined that her pregnancy wasn't going to slow her down that it was a little scary. But he also found it hard to scold her, especially now, looking down at her as she sat there on the floor, hair mussed from running her fingers through it, no doubt, a smudge of dirt on one cheek. He found the scene incredibly endearing. But, instead of making comments or small talk or anything that would slow her down, he merely dutifully played secretary for her and got her finished up in about fifteen minutes.

Rose tucked the papers back into place in the filing cabinet. "Give me a hand up, will you, love?" she requested. She didn't like admitting to the least little delicacy, but she'd been sitting on the floor for quite a while now, and she was starting to feel like everything was stiffening into place.

Spike carefully helped her to her feet, then caught her up in his arms when her knees buckled. "You all right, babe?" he asked solicitously.

"I think my legs have gone to sleep," Rose replied. She looked at her watch and was surprised at how late it was. "No wonder. I think I've been down there about three hours."

"Silly little nit," Spike said fondly. "It's a wonder you didn't grow roots sitting like that for that long. Now, which way is the way out?"

Rose looked around. "Don't you remember how you got here?" she asked in a small voice.

Spike shook his head. "I was more concerned with locating you, luv," he replied. "Are you trying to tell me that we're lost?"

"Of course we're not lost," Rose muttered. "We're just in the vaults under the building, not in outer Mongolia or something." She swiveled her head around again. "They are awfully big, aren't they?"

"They are indeed, pet," Spike agreed. He turned around. At least, for one small leg of the journey he knew they'd be pointed in the right direction.

&&&&&&&

In the end, it took them over half an hour to negotiate their way through the maze of shelves and filing cabinets till they found the exit. Rose finally persuaded Spike to set her back down on her own feet, and they lost no time making their way to Angel's flat.

Angel was pacing the floors like a caged tiger when the truant lovers appeared. "Where the hell were you two?" he snapped, then added. "I don't want to know what you were doing, just where you were."

"We were in the vaults," Rose supplied, then honesty forced her to admit, "We kind of got lost for a while."

"Next time I'll leave a trail of breadcrumbs," Spike promised. "Are you supposed to be down there all by your lonesome, babe?"

"I did have help when I first got down there," Rose replied. "I guess that no one remembered me when quitting time came around."

Angel was liking things less and less. "Spike, assign her a couple of your men," he ordered. "Make sure you can trust them. I don't want her left alone like that again."

"You'n me both," Spike muttered, fighting back the wave of nausea that he usually felt when he had to agree with the pouf. "Any developments on your front?"

"The invitation to dine with Lord M'rek has been expanded to include me and a security team," Angel replied. "I think we're going to have to go just to keep the client happy." He gave them both a stern look. "Rose, I don't want you going off alone for so much as a minute. And, Spike, please try to remember to think before you speak, act or do anything at all."

"We're going to go?" Spike looked dismayed.

"I've already accepted for all three of us," Angel answered. "Be ready to go Saturday night."

"Buggering hell," Spike muttered. "And to add insult to injury, I 'spose you'll want me to dress like a bleeding nancy-boy too."

"If that means a jacket and tie, then yes," Angel replied. He felt a little petty about it, but damned if he wasn't enjoying Spike's discomfiture at the thought of wearing civilized clothes.

"You'll look very nice, love," Rose soothed. She smiled at him, and despite himself, his resistance melted away.

Spike sighed. Sometimes being love's bitch cost you a lot in the dignity department. He looked at Rose again, and decided it was worth it.

&&&&&&

"They have accepted your invitation, my Lord." Kraj was almost dancing with glee. "Shall we then take Rose, when she is here in our very midst?"

M'rek delivered a casual-looking backhanded blow which sent his chief toady sprawling. "You would dare suggest that I treat honored guests so, slime?" he snarled. "We shall do nothing of the sort. This is, as it always was, an exercise to gain their trust. They will be treated with the utmost civility."

"It shall be as my most gracious Lord orders," Kraj whined, picking himself up painfully. "If this miserable one may ask, Lord, when shall we make our move?"

"Patience, Kraj," M'rek chided. "We have time. The more these off-dimension humans trust us, the less likely they will be to suspect us when we do take possession of Rose. Indeed, should they make mention of her disappearance to us, we shall offer them our aid in her recovery. Deliciously ironic, is it not?"

"Truly, most wise Lord," Kraj mumbled. "But those we deal with are not human. This Angel and Rose's mate, Spike, they are the souled ones. They are not human, they are vampires."

"But they think as humans," M'rek observed. "They were human once, if the records read true. Tell me, litter-mate of defectives, have the scholars made any progress in divining the origin of the vessel?"

"No, Lord," Kraj whimpered. "They have found nothing. As for your suggestion that the prophecy suggests that she comes from beyond all worlds, they flatly state that this is an impossibility. There is nothing beyond all the worlds."

"Have they proof of this?" M'rek demanded.

"My Lord," Kraj replied, inching away from him. "I am informed that it is also an impossibility to prove that something isn't. This is not my unlearned opinion, great and mighty M'rek, but what I have been told by your Lordship's scholars."

"Do the scholars know who is responsible for the prophecies?" M'rek went on a slightly different track. "Not the mystics and seers that penned them, but who inspired them. Those who put the actions in motion by their very words and thoughts."

"I believe that the scholars refer to them as The Powers That Be," Kraj muttered. What was M'rek on about now?

"And where might these Powers That Be, be found?" asked M'rek.

"I myself, have no notion, oh great one," Kraj replied. "Would you desire me to put the question to your scholars?"

"Yes, Kraj." M'rek stroked his muzzle, reflecting. "Ask the scholars where one might find The Powers That Be."