Collins returned to his not-so-safe house with a lighter spirit than before. He had leant heavily on a young man he knew locally; a drug addict who sold his own blood to vampires to make the price of his next fix. Hardly a roaring trade, but there were vampires enough who enjoyed the buzz of a cocaine/blood mix enough to make the price reasonably high. Not that Collins cared for the spirit of free enterprise. He cared only for the young man's notorious lack of backbone. People who dealt with vampires generally knew where the creatures hung out, and it hadn't been hard to get some details about rumours on the vampire grapevine. Beatrice had been seen here and there, and even if there was no undead local likely to tell Collins about it - at least without the application of a few choice skills that hedidn't have the time for right now - the next best thing was a human in front of whom vampires spoke freely. So it was that he returned with the whole of London narrowed down to a handful of possible locations. With Weatherby and Smith's research added to his own information, he was able to narrow it down still further. Beatrice, it seemed most likely, was in one of two possible places; a vast improvement upon an entire city's, or even country's, worth of buildings. Soon it would be dark, which was not exactly the perfect time to go hunting for vampires, but he was spoiling for a fight and didn't care about the risks. He had had a long day, and it was time for some fun.
Smith seemed less happy. Collins supposed it was rather less satisfying to spend the day poring over printed matter rather than beating the living daylights out of repulsive humans, but such were the privileges of rank. Watchers were supposed to enjoy reading, anyway; quite how Smith had managed to miss out on that particular gene was a mystery. Smith seemed to have missed out on rather a lot of genes, though, at least as far as Collins could tell. Brains and charm being just a few of them. He smiled to himself at the thought, as he and the others prepared for their sortie. Weatherby was smiling too, although his mind was undoubtedly in different pastures. Weatherby, Collins was sure, was thinking about Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and what he might be doing in the company of Drusilla. That was something that Collins had been thinking about too - that and what to do about it when they found out. He could see Weatherby's own preferences written in his eyes; that particular gleam only shone when his colleague was thinking about violence. For all Weatherby's intellect and skills, there was a part of him that was ever the bully. It was part of the reason why he was so good at his job. Today that job was just ever so slightly different to the many times before.
"Are we going to kill Pryce?" Loading a particularly wicked looking knife into a hidden sheath on his ankle, Smith glanced up at Collins. The other Watcher shrugged.
"Depends how much he asks for it I suppose."
"But we are going after him? Like we're going after Drusilla and Beatrice?"
"Yes, we're going after him." It made a change to demons, anyway, and a certain renegade Slayer. Renegade Watchers didn't tend to come along very often, and when they did a little pressure from the Council almost invariably brought them back into line sooner or later. The Council's elite team of killers and professional bone-breakers rarely had the chance to exert their own forms of pressure upon their colleagues. With luck it should prove an interesting task. They had had the same training, after all; been taught to resist the same things, face the same things, fight the same way. Collins and his team had gone beyond that and, as far as the evidence suggested, so had Wesley. Collins smiled to himself, and saw his smile copied by Weatherby. This should definitely be interesting. Possibly even inspiring. Unless you were Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, presumably.
It was dark by the time they left, their various weapons secreted about them, some rather less secretly than others; and darker still when they ruled out one of the places on their list. There had been a vampire there right enough; Collins' informant had been telling the truth about that. It just hadn't been Drusilla or Beatrice. Wiping the dust of the pale-skinned disco flashback from his hands, Collins had walked back out of the first building on his list with a sense of frustration at a wasted visit, and satisfaction at a job well done. Maybe the visit hadn't been all that wasted after all. One address left.
It proved a hard place to find, though a big building such as it turned out to be should theoretically have been easy to locate. Once they knew where it was they could see it a mile away. A huge place, less than a hundred years old, and looking like some eccentric mansion house built for a rich man with dreams, it clashed with everything around it; Gothic architecture competing with an abundance of glass in a nineteen twenties Art Deco style, all in the same building. There were some flats nearby, of the recently renovated type popular with the young urban rich, and a pub that looked straight out of the seventeenth century, and might well have still borne the scars from the Great Fire Of London. It had already closed when Collins led his team past, and the threesome cast a longing look through the darkened windows. Beneath low eaves and lines of polished horse-brasses, they could see taps controlling any number of real ales and showier, more modern beers and lagers. Collins scowled.
"My kind of pub."
"A locked door doesn't have to be a barrier." Smith was thirsty. Collins smiled.
"True enough. But business first. If we take out Drusilla, we'll have a drink afterwards. Might even pay for it."
"I'll believe that when I see it." Weatherby rubbed at the window to clear it up some of its city grime, and peered in. "Serve the stupid sods right, anyway. What are they doing closed at this time of night?"
"Probably don't get much business around here." Collins shrugged. "Or maybe Drusilla ate them. You're asking for trouble with vampires in the neighbourhood, if you run a public house. There was a place not far from here about fifty years ago. It went through six publicans in two months before the brewery gave up and closed the place. Vampires got every one of them."
"And now they go for the night-clubs." Weatherby looked grim. "All those kids together, all the heat and the hormones. They might just as well go around with Eat Me stamped on their necks. Bloody civilians."
"The bloody civilians are happy." Smith was not generally given to being prosaic, but despite his interest in the beer, he had no wish to be distracted any longer from the task at hand - especially if it was to wonder over the fate of people who didn't bother to notice the dangers surrounding them. "Come on."
"Single-minded, isn't he," joked Weatherby. Collins raised an eyebrow.
"I wouldn't say that. His mind has three tracks at least. Sex, alcohol and violence."
"Not violence. Work." Smith smiled, unconcerned by the jibes. "And not just any old alcohol, either."
"Yeah, he's a connoisseur," confirmed Collins. "Only the best alcohol, only the best violence."
"Not half so choosy about the sex, though," added Weatherby. They both laughed. Collins scowled, although he didn't mind the insinuation in the slightest.
"Just concentrate on Drusilla," he said with meaning, and pulled slightly into the lead. The other two both sobered up then; joking might be a part of any team work, but the work always came first. For all their apparent lack of seriousness at times, there were few who were more serious when it really mattered than the Council's three most celebrated hitmen. Drusilla would not be an easy target - even if her reputation didn't make that clear, her earlier attack on the three of them did. She had beaten them easily on their own home turf, and now they were planning to enter hers. She could see them, hear them and smell them, long before they were ever aware of her presence; and she might not be alone. Pulling out a long ironwood stake, Collins weighed it in his hand, feeling its familiar shape and balance. He had killed more vampires with that stake than some Slayers had seen during the course of their careers, but he had no illusions about this. He knew he might never leave that anachronistic building alive. He might not even make it in through the door.
They chose a side door, slightly overgrown with weeds, but still easy to open. Somebody had been using it recently, to get into the garden perhaps. It was quite an attractive garden, supposed Smith; there were many roses in a variety of colours, although it was hard to appreciate them in the darkness. A well worn path showed where people had wandered amongst the flowers in the past, and by the look of the earth, wet as it was, the path was still in use. Collins pointed at several of the rose bushes.
"They've been cut recently. Somebody has been picking flowers."
"Vampires don't pick flowers," growled Weatherby. Most Watchers shared the common assumption that all vampires were little more than animals, with no appreciation of the finer things in life, and even though experience had taught the threesome that the truth was rather different, it was still hard to imagine a vampire admiring flora. Collins smiled grimly.
"Drusilla might. She's famous for liking flowers. Flowers and dolls."
"Then we might just have found her." Weatherby pulled out his own stake, ironwood like Collins', but longer and heavier and altogether more like a spear. It even had a carved handle, spiralled to give better grip. His grandfather had been given it, back in the nineteen twenties, at round about the time that this strange house was being built. Collins smiled tautly at the sight of the familiar old weapon.
"She ate him, didn't she."
"Not something I'd overlooked." Weatherby had never met his grandfather, and certainly felt no particular malice towards Drusilla for supposedly having been the vampire who had ended his life; but there was some degree of family pride involved. His mother had been upset about her father's death, anyway, as he supposed a daughter would be. He might even give her back the stake, as a souvenir, if he managed to use it to despatch Drusilla. And if he managed not to get himself killed in the attempt.
Inside the house, they found a short length of corridor floored with hard tiles. It wasn't the easiest of floors to negotiate quietly, but they managed it to their own satisfaction. There were a number of doors, all leading to darkened rooms - a study, a drawing room, an entrance hall - but there was no sign of life - or unlife - within any of them. Not that there would be, even had Drusilla been present, given her innate ability to remain unseen. They didn't dare turn on any lights, or use torches, but merely continued on down the corridor, watching all directions at once and seeing nothing, until finally Weatherby squeezed Collins' shoulder.
"Light." His voice was a breath - barely a sound at all. Even so he was taking a risk, for it was noise enough for a vampire to hear no matter how low the volume. Collins turned his head to look in the direction Weatherby was facing, and saw a faint gleam of light underneath a door. He nodded. He didn't need words then; just a few sharp movements with his hands that were the signs they all understood. No human would have heard them move, so silent were they as they approached the door. No human, even had he been present amongst them, would have heard them open the door, ready for battle and tense with adrenalin - but then it wasn't a human they were expecting to encounter. Drusilla would have heard them, they were sure of that, and it was teeth and ferocity and unmatchable strength that they were expecting to face. Instead they met a library, and a sole figure bent over a long table, and leafing through the sort of large, old books that played so much a part in every Watcher's life. Collins breathed out a long sigh.
"Pryce." He closed the gap between them even as Wesley was registering their presence. The other Watcher stood up, startled, turning around to meet a hefty hand that slammed into his chest and almost bent him backwards over the table. Collins froze then, frowning at the bruises and blood that marked his colleague's face. "What the hell happened to you?"
"I had a little disagreement with somebody." There was the look of a hunted animal in Wesley's eyes; suspicion, caution, distrust, that went well with his dishevelled appearance and ragged stubble. Collins' had a frown of his own that outdid Wesley's for force, but couldn't quite match it for vigilance. "What are you three doing here?"
"Why do you think?" Letting go of the other man, Collins stepped back to allow him to rise. He did so, straightening his clothing with the old instincts of a man who had once been far better dressed. "Where is she?"
"Who?"
"The sodding Queen of Sheba. Who do you think?" Collins might have been fazed by the injuries Wesley had suffered, but Weatherby was not. He crossed the distance between them faster even than Collins had done, and took a firm grip on Wesley's shoulder. "Your girlfriend. Drusilla. What the hell is going on here, Wesley? I see you looking like you've gone ten rounds with Frank Bruno, and I see ropes on the floor. Okay, so maybe we should give you the benefit of the doubt. But I also see you here, alone, no guard, the doors unlocked, happy as a lamb in springtime. You're no more a prisoner than I am, are you."
"That probably depends on your definition." Wesley tried to knock the hand away, but failed. He could still have broken the grip, if he really tried, with a swift move in any one of a number of fighting styles, but he reined in his instinct to do so. If he tried that now he would have to fight all three men, and he didn't really want to do that. Quite apart from the fact that he was tired and sore, he didn't really believe he had much chance of success - and he was quite certain they were all armed with rather more than just the stakes he could see. "Drusilla isn't here. She went out."
"Hunting." Collins' tone was filled with disgust, either at Drusilla or at Wesley. Possibly at both. "And you thought you'd just stay here. Are you a prisoner?"
"No more than I was with you." He looked from one to the other of them, "I'd thank you for coming to the rescue, but somehow I doubt that's why you're here. You have something else in mind, don't you."
"Rescue certainly wasn't high on the list, no." Weatherby pushed him back into his chair, then picked up the nearest of the books. It happened to be the Magicarum Cœlestium, and his lip curled in disapproval. "You know how to use this?"
"Of course I know how to use it. We were all taught that when we were kids." He reached out to pull it away, but Collins was holding him now, with one hand on the same shoulder that Weatherby had been gripping so tightly moments before. Smith hovered nearby, doing the sort of lurking that professional menacers like himself had been practising for centuries. He was just out of Wesley's sight, and the effect was rather unnerving, just as intended.
"That's not what I mean." Weatherby flicked through a few of the pages. "There are two ways to use this book, Wesley. You can read it straight, or you can read it with a little chanting. One way is useless except for mild research. The other way is forbidden."
"To Watchers." Forcefully, and glad that Collins was not nearly so overtly brutal as Weatherby, Wesley broke free and stood up. He took the book back, and set it down on the table with all the gentility and care that befitted an antique. "But I'm not a Watcher. They didn't want me, and I don't want them or their rules. They don't apply to me anymore."
"All kinds of things don't apply to you anymore." Collins looked around at the other books; the huge one that was the centre of Wesley's research, the jumble of others that he had been reading, or which Drusilla had toyed with when she had been 'helping' him earlier. Alice In Wonderland lay where she had thrown it, and Coral Island and Little Women lay there too. Collins smiled.
"Been doing some very eclectic research, haven't you. It's almost as though there was somebody here with you earlier. Somebody reading books beside you, keeping you company? And clearly not bothered about leaving you here with the door unlocked as soon as she got hungry." His voice changed, noticeably not for the better. "I've had it with you, Pryce. Had it with your peculiar morals and your even more peculiar loyalties. I don't care if you're a Watcher or not; if you're a good guy or a bad guy or even a bloody vampire yourself. You've just been found guilty under the old charter of the Council."
"Which no longer exists," pointed out Wesley. "And even if it did - and even if I was still a part of the Council and could be charged that way - the power isn't yours to use."
"True enough. Funny thing, though, when all your colleagues, and the organisation you've been a part of all your life suddenly gets blown to smithereens - you suddenly wind up being promoted beyond your wildest dreams. I have all the authority I want now, Wesley. Because it comes from me." Collins was smiling the tight, bright smile of a man who was enjoying himself immensely. "I think we can find a way to kill Angel without needing your input."
"That's just as well." His voice guarded, his eyes everywhere without seeming to move at all, Wesley kept his face carefully neutral. "Because you weren't going to get it anyway."
"Because you never hurt vampires," said Smith scathingly, finally revealing his location through his voice. Wesley didn't bother to scowl, or to roll his eyes. He had heard that jibe so many times that its original power to annoy had long since been eroded.
"Change the record," he shot back; but by then he was already moving; already knocking aside Collins, snatching a heavy book from the table, spinning to meet Smith with a speed and accuracy that had been honed in days now forgotten by all save Angel. He slammed the book down on Smith's wrist, knocking loose his weapon, then using the book in a powerful backhand that caught the other Watcher on the chin, and dropped him unconscious to the ground. Collins had recovered by then, slashing with his ironwood stake in a move long forbidden in any fights against humans. Wesley dodged it easily, throwing himself to the ground and executing a perfect roll that brought him up behind Collins and allowed him to deliver a heavy blow to the other man's back. Collins recovered quickly and regained his balance, spinning around with impressive speed - only to run straight into an advancing fist. He collapsed to the ground. Wesley turned again, still fast, still smooth, still faultlessly efficient. He met the barrel of a gun; his own gun; pointed at him with mocking sarcasm by Weatherby. Wesley froze, his eyes still glittering with the heat of the fight, bright with a wariness and watchfulness - again from days forgotten by all save Angel - that robbed Weatherby of the fear he had hoped to see. Once again he was forced to accept that this was not the Wesley he had known in days of old.
"Don't move," Weatherby told him, rather unnecessarily. Wesley glared back, almost sulkily.
"Or you'll kill me?" he challenged. "I rather think you're going to do that anyway. What will I be, Weatherby? An entry in your journal? A notch on your stake?"
"A footnote in history. Not even that." Weatherby's smile was truly unpleasant. "Somebody should have done this a long time ago, Pryce. Before you were ever allowed to head out to California and get turned by that damned vampire. They should have seen you weren't Watcher material. You don't give a damn about your own species. You don't give a damn about anybody. It's all vampires. She's out there now eating people, and you're back here instead of trying to do something about it. You're just sitting here, reading her books and practising magicks you shouldn't even know the first thing about."
"But I do have one thing in my favour, Weatherby." Wesley's eyes were like chips of ice, pale and bright and infinitely cold, and lit with a humour to match. Weatherby scowled at him, contemptuous and just as cold.
"Oh yeah?" he asked. "And what's that?"
"Put simply?" A sharp, hard little smile matched the ice in Wesley's eyes. "That I'm not a total wanker." And he threw himself aside. Weatherby saw him move; saw the blur as his target rolled across the surface of the table and landed hard on the other side. Fired the gun without scoring a hit; heard the bullets echo and completely failed to hear the other sounds that he would otherwise have heard as well; Wesley landing, knocking over a chair, the front door swinging open. Collins was stumbling to his feet, almost spoiling Weatherby's aim - not that it was an aim worth keeping. As Wesley came up suddenly to his feet, a ball of fire already forming in his hand, Weatherby was throwing aside the gun. Screw weaponry - he would do this the old fashioned way. It would probably be more satisfying anyway. Wesley hurled the ball at him, aiming for the gun that had already fallen, and scoring no more than a few singed hairs on his enemy's hand. Weatherby's lips curled with displeasure.
"I've thrown my weapon away. How about you forget yours?"
"Maybe." Wesley didn't trust him for a moment. He well knew that Weatherby would be armed to the teeth, and that the mere act of throwing away the gun didn't mean he wasn't prepared to pull just about any sharp instrument or heavy object from about his person. He stepped out from behind the table though, playing along, hands held out from his sides as though to prove that there were no more balls of fire about to rise into being. "What do you want?"
"To settle this." There was an increasingly unpleasant gleam in the other man's eyes; if it were possible for them to become more unpleasant than they had been to start off with, which Wesley seriously doubted. "Scared, Pryce?"
"Of you? No." Wesley rarely seemed to find himself afraid these days. He wasn't entirely sure why, but a lot of his emotions seemed to have been frozen at some point, giving him a wholly different attitude to the world than he had possessed a few years before. Certainly Weatherby wasn't enough to frighten him, whatever he was planning. "But I'd rather you just left. I don't know what time the others will be getting back."
"Others?" Collins stepped forward then, moving neatly in between the other two to stop, or at least postpone, the clash. "What others? There's somebody here besides Drusilla?"
"Yes. And she's just as hungry and a hundred times more cranky. If I were you I'd get out of here before they get back. I can just about vouch for my own safety. I don't know about anybody else's."
"Stop talking to him." Weatherby was advancing again, his words directed at Collins and his glare directed powerfully at Wesley. "He's only trying to postpone the inevitable. Let me tear him into little pieces like we should have done the last time we met him. You can talk to what's left, if it's still capable of listening."
"You're all talk, Weatherby. You always were." Wesley also advanced again. He had tried to warn them; tried to get them to leave. Like the others he had been unable to hear the front door open due to the masking sounds of the gun, but he knew that he could not count on Drusilla and Beatrice being away for much longer. But if the three witless wonders of the Council could not understand that, he wasn't going to carry on trying to convince them. "I'm ready for this if you are."
"That's just what I wanted to hear." Smiling grimly, Weatherby flexed his fists and quickened his step. It took only a second to reach the other man; less than that to feint smartly and begin the game. Collins moved aside, frustrated at the sudden end to his attempts at interrogation, but ready enough to watch the fun unfold. He wasn't particularly concerned for Weatherby; he had seen his companion fight demons with nothing but his fists to help him, and Wesley was hardly a demon. He watched the pair circle each other, almost willing the fight to begin, and was entirely unprepared for the sound of a low, throaty chuckle from somewhere behind him. He froze, and he didn't turn around. He didn't need to. Only a fool wouldn't have guessed what that laughter meant.
"They're having a fight," said a deep, merry voice. A female voice, strongly accented and filled with traces of mockery. "What fun. Shall we watch?"
"What-?" Immediately distracted by the voice, Wesley looked up, eyes widening when he realised that the two vampires had returned. Weatherby took advantage of his distraction to land a powerful punch that carried considerable resentment behind it. Wesley went down, landing hard on his back and making no immediate attempt to rise. Only then did the new voice register with Weatherby, and he started to turn to face the door. It was a move he didn't get to complete.
Drusilla had attacked the moment Weatherby had done the same. Even as Wesley was falling she was breaking into a run, and when Weatherby turned it was to meet a fist far more powerful than the one he had used against his chosen opponent. He had a fleeting image of yellow eyes before everything spun out of focus. He crashed to the ground. Drusilla loomed above him, a dark shape in his vision, teeth the only thing he seemed able to see clearly. Collins ran at her, but Beatrice was a hundred times faster than he could ever hope of being. She hit him like a battering ram and he crashed to the ground, struggling desperately just to keep her teeth from his neck. Nearby Weatherby was doing the same with Drusilla, swiping wildly with his hands at a target he couldn't see, wishing for his stake and experiencing his first moment of solidarity with his long dead grandfather. He could smell the vampire's blood heavy breath, peculiar for its coldness in contrast to the warm breath of the living. She was excited, he realised; there was no other reason for her to be breathing. She didn't need the oxygen, but her body still responded to anticipation with quickened breath. He realised that he was the reason for that anticipation even as he was noting the fact that he had no chance at all of fighting her off. Her strength was overpowering, and she was beginning to growl.
"Drusilla." The voice seemed to come from nowhere to Weatherby, who could still see nothing but a dark blur and a set of snapping fangs, but it came of course from Wesley. Struggling to sit up, he croaked the vampire's name out through a mouth that seemed once again to be full of blood. Forcing himself to put authority into the voice, he snapped her name once more, although he was in little better physical shape than Weatherby. "Drusilla! Leave him alone."
"Are you jealous, my pet?" She loosened her grip almost immediately, and Weatherby fell back. Wesley glowered.
"Just leave him alone. And the others. You've only just eaten, you don't need them as well."
"He's getting above himself, Drusilla." Beatrice released Collins and tossed him aside, going over instead to haul Wesley to his feet. He didn't bother to resist, for he hardly had the strength and equilibrium anyway. "Remind me again why we didn't kill him earlier?"
"Because I said not." Dru stood up, moving over to join her 'sister' and her mute captive. "He's much more entertaining alive." She nuzzled up against Wesley's neck, muttering more of her strange sweet nothings under her breath. "Aren't you, pet."
"Just leave the others alone." He felt horribly tired. So much for this being a holiday; a chance to get away from everything that had been bothering him. He wanted to push Drusilla away, but he had learnt that to try it was futile. Instead he endured her hand on the back of his neck, and the teasing scrape of her teeth against his skin. She laughed at him.
"They're hardly friends of yours."
"No. But don't hurt them. They're no danger to you."
"They want to be." She stepped away from him, hauling Collins to his feet with the same lack of care that Beatrice had used upon Wesley. "Don't you, my little drop of poison?" There was no answer. Collins was still half conscious, but he was not in the mood for talking. Neither was he in the business of playing along with vampires. He just hung there, helpless in the grip of his captor, and directing a particularly venomous glare at Wesley.
"And since we don't do as humans tell us..." put in Beatrice, meaningfully. She tossed Wesley into the nearest chair, and went over to the unconscious Smith. Weatherby scrabbled for his stake, trying to save the life of his unknowing associate, but unable to find the weapon. His hand fell upon Wesley's gun, and he emptied it into the vampire without the slightest effect whatsoever. Beatrice growled at him. She was still growling that way when Wesley ran her through with Weatherby's stake. It passed straight through her heart in a textbook manoeuvre, but as Drusilla had discovered before him, it had as little effect as the bullets. She let go of Smith to pull the stake through her chest, and the hole left by it closed up almost immediately. Wesley eyed the stake, now in her hands, with considerable trepidation.
"She's already begun the process." Blinking dazedly at the death-defying vampire, Weatherby looked over at Collins. "The spell's already underway. And he's bloody well helping them!"
"Not them." Beatrice was eyeing Wesley with new interest. "You know of my plans, don't you. And you were brought here by Drusilla." She smiled suddenly; a bright, warm smile that was so far removed from her previous behaviour as to be decidedly disconcerting. "Drusilla, my dear, have you finally become interesting? Did you bring this scrawny little rat here to find a way to stop me?"
"Maybe." Dru had thrown away her usual act of general oddness, and came over to join them in a walk that bore little resemblance to her usual rambling stroll. She took Wesley's shoulders and moved him aside. "I don't want Angel dead."
"Even though you once tried to kill him yourself." Beatrice smiled hugely. "Well, no mind. Alright Drusilla, keep your new toy. I won't hurt him until after I've finished my work, when my ceremonies are complete. Then he's mine. Try stopping me if you can." And laughing softly, she turned about and left the room. Drusilla smiled without concern.
"She took that better than I might have thought."
"She wasn't worried." Wesley didn't like the implications of that. "She really doesn't think we can stop her."
"She doesn't know that you're a Watcher," Drusilla told him. He shrugged, and went slowly to sit down on the nearest chair.
"I'm not a Watcher. I was sacked five years ago. Besides, I've used every scrap of knowledge I can think of, and none of it's been any use yet." Wiping fresh blood away from his mouth, he cleaned his hand on his shirt, and watched the red smear grow on the cloth. "All that I can think of is getting away. You know she can use either one of us in her ceremony so that she doesn't need to have Angel himself present? If we leave, it could at least slow her down. Maybe make her put this off until the next full moon. We'd have a month then to look for something else to help us."
"You're not fool enough to think we've got a chance of leaving." Drusilla seemed to sniff the air. "Anyway, it'll be light soon. There aren't the underground tunnels around here. I have to travel above ground, and you know how inconvenient that is for me."
"I'd hope he doesn't care." Weatherby had made it to his feet, but Collins barked at him to shut up and sit down. His colleague glared at him, clearly wounded by the reprimand.
"You sound like you're starting to side with him!" he protested. Collins glared at him with disgust.
"This is no time for arguing, you idiot. You saw what happened. That stake went right through her heart, and she barely flinched. This is bigger than our disagreements, at least for now." His eyes narrowed. "Bigger than our disagreements with Pryce, anyway."
"We need Drusilla." Wesley spoke meaningfully. "We won't get anywhere without her help."
"Save it. I couldn't give a toss for your opinion." Collins couldn't tear his eyes away from Drusilla, her bestial features now gone. She looked strikingly innocent. Girl-like, with her large dark eyes and her pale face framed with long dark hair. She was smiling the secret smile of one who had whole worlds inside her head, and as he watched she wandered over to stand beside Wesley. One hand caressed his hair with the gentle touch one might reserve for a pet. Oddly enough he didn't flinch away.
"Sweet of you to try to protect me, my little one," she crooned softly. He scowled up at her.
"I'm not. They haven't got a hope in hell of killing you. It's them I'm trying to protect." He stood up, wincing heavily. "Now we have to get back to work."
"We have to get on the next plane to Los Angeles," corrected Weatherby. Smith, beginning to wake up, groaned in groggy agreement. He didn't know what the argument was about, but getting on a plane to Los Angeles definitely sounded preferable to staying where he was and getting hit again. Wesley didn't bother arguing.
"By the time you can fly over there and get anything done it'll be too late. We only have until tonight." He frowned. "Or at least I think we do. I'm rather loosing track of time."
"The full moon is tonight," Collins confirmed. "He's right, Weatherby. Going to Los Angeles would be pointless now. I don't like it any more than you do, but we've let ourselves be distracted far too much already. We should have got straight on the next plane after we met him at the airport, or gone off there ourselves after he was taken, and not wasted all this time looking for him. Now we've got no choice." He went over to the table, trying to disguise a stiff limp, and pulled out a chair. "How far along in your research are you?"
"Not far enough. Even with the Cœlestium I haven't made much headway. We're dealing with a series of spells that don't even originate in this dimension. I could probably come up with something to counteract it, if I worked at it hard enough, but it would only have a limited effect. I'd far rather find some way of stopping her altogether."
"And killing her is out of the question, at least at this stage." Weatherby collected his stake, eyeing it sourly. It had served him so well in the past, but he had just been witness to its complete uselessness against Beatrice. "We're going to need magic, aren't we."
"And there you've been knocking it all of your life." Wesley went back to reading through the giant book that he had been studying on and off all day. "This whole affair is all to do with magic. It stands to reason we'll need it to fight more of the same."
"That's fine for you. It leaves the rest of us at something of a disadvantage." Collins picked up Wesley's notebook, and glanced through the lines of unreadable shorthand. "You want to tell us what you've been studying all this time?"
"I've been trying to work out the details of the ceremony she's planning to perform. The parts of it that she's already completed, and anything that she still has to do. I was hoping for some way of thwarting her, but so far the details are proving elusive."
"It's not as though indestructible beings are all that common," put in Smith, picking up a large book and flicking through it. Though he often gave the impression of being less academic than his companions, he read the words effortlessly, though they were written in Sumerian. Whatever else he might be, Smith was still a Watcher. Wesley shrugged.
"I've encountered a couple. Usually there's a way around it, but I can't see one in this case. There was a vampire in Los Angeles who had his heart removed by a demon sorcerer. He became indestructible - even stake-proof, like Beatrice. That was a strictly limited deal though. Eventually his time ran out and he died."
"Maybe if she doesn't finish the rest of the ceremony, she'll run out of time," suggested Weatherby. Drusilla shook her head. She looked bored, as though annoyed that she no longer had Wesley to herself, and she spoke with none of the playfulness of earlier.
"She still has her heart. I saw it when I stabbed her through it myself."
"Yes. Remind me never to get into a family squabble with you." Shooting her an almost amused glance, Wesley leaned back in his chair, continuing his earlier train of thought. "The other indestructible creature I've encountered was the Sunnydale mayor. It took a massive explosion to kill him, but that wasn't until after he had ceased to be indestructible. He had to finish his rites and rituals first, and we can't let Beatrice do that." Weatherby smirked, his mind moving along obvious lines, but Wesley shot him a sharp look. "I mean it. She can't be allowed to complete that ceremony, even if it does give us an opportunity to kill her straight afterwards. Angel cannot be allowed to die."
"Besides which, completing the ceremony won't allow us to kill her," added Drusilla. "That much you should already know. The spell she is planning will make her very much stronger than she is now. It won't leave any weak spots."
"Well there has to be something!" Collins was past frustration now, and heading towards blind anger. "Any spell can be countered, surely. Everything has its mirror, and everything has its nemesis."
"So the theory goes." Wesley took back his notebook, flicking through the pages until he came to one of the earliest. The lines of purple biro seemed to him to have been written days ago; even weeks ago. The previous night, when Drusilla had taken him from the others, felt like another lifetime. It was the fatigue, he decided. The fatigue, the worry, the work. "According to my reading so far, she needs a good deal of space and quite a bit of equipment to make this work. Possibly she's planning to use the cellar, or the garden. Otherwise I don't know. I can't find any mention of a specially sanctified piece of ground. She won't need to have prepared somewhere."
"She has things in the cellar. I've seen them." Drusilla was standing behind him now, bending down to wrap her arms around his neck and rest her chin on the top of his head. "Candles in big black holders. A cauldron. A big hole dug in the floor that looks like a fireplace. There were things drawn on the floor. Words that I couldn't read. All spikes and swirls and cruel, cruel points."
"Sounds right." Doing his best to move with her holding onto him, Wesley rifled through the mammoth book until he found a page depicting a series of symbols. "Are these the one you saw?"
"Yes." She returned to stroking his hair, and he fought back the urge to shake her off. Collins and Weatherby were watching him with such outright hatred that he almost enjoyed it. Maybe there was something to be said for the unwanted affections of a vampire after all. "Sharp pictures. Such cruel lines and shapes."
"They're focusing symbols. They concentrate the spell and the powers it creates." He frowned at them. "Destroying these symbols can be catastrophic. If we were to wait until everything is underway, and then obliterate one or two of the markings, the powers would be unleashed and Beatrice would be destroyed, no matter how indestructible she thinks she is."
"Yes, but if we were to do that, we'd be killed too," pointed out Collins. Wesley nodded, as far as he was able with Drusilla's arms dragging at his neck.
"Half of London would probably be destroyed too. I didn't say it was an ideal solution."
"What we need is a counterspell." Smith was pacing up and down, still engrossed in the Sumerian text he had taken from the table. It was a beautiful edition, he had decided; hand copied from the original scrolls by some Mediaeval scholar with a fine hand and an eye for beauteous detail. Not that he would have pointed out such things to Collins or Weatherby. Everybody looked up at him, and he frowned thoughtfully. It wasn't exactly a new expression for him, but it was one that his colleagues were not greatly used to seeing. "Granted we don't have one, and presumably there's no way of getting a proper one, at least unless we can find out which dimension she got all of this from, and go there ourselves."
"There isn't nearly enough time for that," commented Weatherby. Smith nodded.
"I know. But we're Watchers. Surely between us we have the knowledge to come up with a counterspell? Collins, your speciality was magical weaponry. Didn't you write a thesis along those lines? And Pryce is supposedly the linguistics genius - plus he's a magician, or something approaching it. If we can make a spell, he can deliver it."
"I'm not a magician. Not in the definite sense. Besides, this would be alien magic, of sorts. I don't know if I could channel something like that." Wesley was eyeing a particularly graphic set of pictograms, which made perfectly clear what some of the consequences could be when dealing in these magicks. Smith fixed him with a steely glare.
"If you want to save your vampire boyfriend, you'll have to. You know this is our only option. You've come to that conclusion yourself, and don't pretend you haven't. You just couldn't do it alone. Well now there's four of us. If you don't want to try it, fine. We might be able to find a different method, but she's sure to kill Angel in the process. We don't care. All we want is to stop her from using any powers she might manage to create for herself. If you want to save Angel, you know what we have to do."
"Yeah." He stared at the book, thinking of the forces that could be unleashed. He had power; he had strength. He had the ability to perform any number of magicks, and had used that ability more than once in the past. He was certainly the only one of them who had any hope of attempting such a task now. He nodded. "Alright. Supposing you aren't barking up the wrong tree entirely, I might be able to do it. But we've still got to come up with the spell."
"Doesn't sound like such a great idea to me," muttered Weatherby. Collins smirked.
"Sure it does. If it goes right, our work is done. If it goes wrong, we lose Angel and Pryce. Either way, we're winners in a sense."
"Yeah." Weatherby let a slow grin take over his face. "When you put it that way, it does have a certain attraction." He flicked listlessly through one of the books close to him - a nineteen fifties paperback edition of a once classic work on basic spellcraft - and wrinkled his face up into an expression of distaste. "I don't know where to start, though. I'm not a linguistics expert or a an expert in magical weaponry. My speciality was demon combat."
"You don't say." Excusing himself from Drusilla, and surprising himself in the process with his courtesy, Wesley leaned forward to take the little book from Weatherby, replacing it instead with a larger, cloth-bound book. "You'd do better reading something that isn't sixty percent fiction."
"I'd do better reading something by Jack Higgins or Alistair MacLean." Weatherby snatched the new book from Wesley, eyeing it without enthusiasm. He was a doer, not a reader, and gained little pleasure in scouring books written in - by the look of things - archaic French. It wasn't one of his better languages. "What am I looking for?"
"References to fighting magic with magic." Collins headed for the bookcase. "I'm well versed on the theory. I've just never tried it for real before, obviously."
"Obviously." Weatherby cast a sidelong, extremely snide, look at Wesley. "Magic is hardly recommended by the Council."
"Which could well be why they're the ones who got blown to smithereens." Wesley felt momentarily guilty about making such a jibe, then realised that, for now at least, he didn't care. He turned his attentions back to his books and his notebook. Let the other three congregate at the other end of the table, and whisper conspiratorially amongst themselves. He didn't need to hear them to know that they wanted him dead, and might still be likely to try making him that way. Neither did he need to hear them to know that they were not at all happy with this alliance. He didn't blame them - he wasn't happy about it either. The three Council assassins had never been his favourite people, even back when they had supposedly been on the same side, long before he had shocked his former colleagues and employers by allying himself with Angel. Drusilla slid into a seat next to him, and started looking through one of the books. She was reading it upside down, but something about the way she studied the pages suggested that she was reading it properly anyway. Possibly she read Greek better that way. Wesley didn't care, particularly, especially as it was keeping her hands off him.
"Snap, Crackle and Pop don't like you very much, do they Watcher." She spoke with a broad smile in her voice, and a teasing glint in her eyes. Lost to his book it took Wesley several moments to respond.
"What? Oh. No, we've never got on." He glanced up again, watching them for a second in their huddle over their books. "Are they saying anything interesting?"
"No plans. No strategies. But they want Daddy dead, and you too." She grinned lasciviously. "They want to spill your blood all over everything. I can sympathise with that. Spill it, lap it up. You have tasty blood, Watcher."
"Thankyou." He turned back to his book, taking refuge in the struggle to understand it. Drusilla giggled.
"They're also talking about what to do when they've finished here. I don't think they plan to let you live, if you survive the spellcasting."
"I'm not surprised." It wasn't as if they had ever tried to disguise their feelings. Their disapproval was practically tangible, coming off them in waves to clog up the atmosphere. "But then you never planned to let me live either, did you. Seems everybody wants me dead."
"I didn't plan to kill you, dearie." She stroked his hair, entwining her fingers as best she could in the short strands. "Just reawaken you. You'd have thanked me for it."
"No." He forcibly pushed her hand away, even though it hurt. She didn't resist; didn't use her massively superior strength. "I would never thank you for that. Whatever you put in this body instead of me might, but I'd be long gone by then. And probably pretty pissed off about it. I never saw myself as a vampire."
"It's every Watcher's secret desire."
"No, it's every Watcher's not-very-secret fear. Along with the same thing happening to their Slayer." He could have added, and being kidnapped by a flirtatious vampire, but didn't. Instead he found himself stifling a yawn, and having to rub his eyes before he could continue reading. He was hopelessly tired. It would be a wonder if he could ever finish his research, let alone manage to perform the spell that they all hoped to create at the end of it. Drusilla folded her hand around one of his.
"You're tired."
"There's been a lot of work to do. I haven't managed to get much sleep just lately." Not since I blasted my own father with the entire contents of a gun. Not that there had been any opportunity to try to sleep since arriving back in the UK. Drusilla nodded.
"You haven't eaten, either. Should have come hunting earlier."
"My teeth aren't nearly sharp enough." He rubbed his eyes again, then refocused on the books. "Who did you kill?"
"Poor Watcher." She smiled at him like a mother smiling gently at her child. "All bound up in regret for strangers. Like my Angel."
"If you disapprove of his humanity so much, why are you so determined to save him?" He could read and talk at the same time - it was one of the necessary skills of research - but he could feel it getting harder. He was too tired. Life seemed to be all about too little sleep and too much work lately. He hadn't been sleeping right since... since when exactly? He wasn't sure that he remembered, but he could see the strain in his eyes whenever he ventured close to a mirror, and knew that it had been there for some time.
"I told you. Miss Elizabeth thinks it's important." Her eyes turned to her doll, lying on the table with her own eyes shut, her hair spread out around her head in a strangely artistic fashion. Wesley shook his head.
"That's no answer. She's just a doll."
"She's Miss Elizabeth. I took her from a child who tasted of strawberries and rainbows. I think the child hid inside her. Her name was Elizabeth too." She was staring into the middle distance, lost in the memory, and didn't see Wesley's momentary expression of disgust. "Such a little thing, with a beautiful dress of blue and gold, and I didn't get a single drop of blood on it. She was so pretty."
"That's as may be. It doesn't mean that the doll is any better at planning strategies." He tore his eyes away from the thing, sprawled there in a suddenly apparent echo of its former owner, as she must have looked when Drusilla had finished with her. Once again the mammoth book and its entirely foreign language closed over his head, sealing him in. Drusilla frowned, then leaned against him, as though to snuggle up. He had tensed up when she had done that the first time; become rigid in her grip. He barely responded now, almost as though he had grown used to her.
"What happened to Grandmother?" she asked in the end. He frowned, glancing at her in surprise. It seemed such a random question, but apparently it was leading them somewhere. He shrugged.
"I thought Angelus killed your family."
"Not that grandmother." Her head rubbed against his shoulder, almost catlike, and he realised in a flash who she meant.
"Darla? Angel killed her years ago in Sunnydale."
"Yes. But you know that wasn't the end of it. Wolfram & Hart brought her back, and I want to know what happened to her then. She was human, and I made her real again. I know I did."
"Yes." He remembered that too - remembered Angel, upset at the loss of a human who had finally found peace with herself, mourning Darla's return to undeath. So what had happened to Darla? Odd that it should seem such a jumble in his mind. He put it down to his being so tired, but it still seemed peculiar. He remembered her return so clearly. Wolfram & Hart had resurrected her, and used her to undermine Angel's fight. He had fired his team, turned dark and dangerous, and stepped over the line he had drawn for himself between his human side and its vampire echo. It had been a difficult time for all of them. So why did what had come next seem so vague? There had been an explosion at Caritas; some kind of flight through a rain drenched alley. Darla had been killed in a fight then, hadn't she? It didn't have the same clarity as the rest of his memories though - almost as if there was something else behind it. He jumped suddenly, and twisted away from Drusilla.
"You're playing with my mind. Get out of it."
"Not playing, dearie. Trying to see, that's all. Can't fault a girl for trying to use the powers she has. I told you; you have holes in your mind. I see them gaping there, all filled in with shapes that don't fit. There are doors with locks that have no keys, and I think Angel might know where those keys are. I want the holes gone, Watcher boy. The holes in my mind. You can't see them. Our three unfriendly friends can't see them. I can. I see everything, and I know when things aren't right. When everything is unbalanced and mixed up and dancing so wrongly. I know. And I know that Angel is in the middle of it. He makes my head spin when he does good things. I'd like to have him without that nasty soul again, or have him dead so he doesn't make my poor head hurt so much. But I won't have him dead yet. Not when there's still answers to find."
"You're not making any sense. There are no holes in my mind."
"No confusion? No pictures that don't connect?" She brushed his forehead with her fingers, and he saw, for one white hot moment, the picture of a woman, and a knife, and felt a blaze of pain across his throat. He gasped, pushing himself away from Drusilla once again.
"Keep away from me. And forget the tricks. I'm helping you already, you don't need to play your games."
"Poor Watcher." She made a show of turning back to her book, holding it with both hands as though to prove that she would not try anything further. He sat down again, but several chairs away this time, his expression troubled and confused. Best just to concentrate on the printed words; not to listen to her anymore. Not to look at her, or acknowledge her touch, but merely turn his mind to work. He had let her distract him long enough.