Angel rematerialised on the outskirts of a small town, near the sort of building inclined to feature on rural scenes captured on postcards, and recognised it as the place where he had met Cordelia an hour or two before. They had walked together along a little track, heading up into the hills, and the vineyard where they had lain together to talk. The memory of that stolen little moment gave him a rush of feelings that he wasn't at all sure were fitting for an angel. The thought made him smile.
"I'd almost forgotten what that looks like," said a distinctive English voice from beside him. Angel turned the smile, a little fainter now, towards the owner of the voice.
"Pretty Italian countryside, or happy vampires?"
"You know what I mean. I'm not sure I've seen you happy since--" He broke off, and his eyes drifted away to look sightlessly at the scenery. "Since I took Connor away."
"Yeah." Angel wasn't going to deny the horror of that day; of that night. Of losing his son, and all that had come afterwards. It was all in the past now, though, and the sooner Wesley came to accept that, the better. It was all too rarely that they were alone long enough to talk it through. "But I have been happy since then, Wes. Now and again. You just couldn't see it because you weren't happy yourself. Now you are again."
"Who would have thought that death could be so enjoyable." A thin smile faded across Wesley's face, and Angel saw the worries and the guilt that still existed behind the newly light-hearted exterior. Death might have lightened the load upon Wesley's shoulders, but it hadn't removed it. Angel could sympathise, for the same was true of himself. He shrugged.
"Things change when you die. They're bound to. Problems disappear. I still have all that guilt, about everything I did as Angelus, but somebody thinks I have a shot at being an angel. That's got to mean The Powers That Be think there's something good inside me, right?"
"Somebody wants us to do their dirty work for them. It doesn't mean that the slate is clean."
"No. That's true. But we're worthy of doing that dirty work, and that means something. At least, I think it does."
"Maybe." Wesley smiled faintly, appreciating the exchange. Time alone with Angel, once, had been a time for comradeship, conversations and companionable silences, the occasional joke. They could share a cup of tea, talk of battles and monsters, and discuss the old books that were Wesley's life, and had once been Angel's contemporary literature. Angel was the same age as him, whilst at the same time was hundreds of years older, and could be a friend, confidant and advisor all at the same time; something Wesley had missed during the last year or so of their lives. They had still been together, but there had been none of the old closeness, the old easy relationship. Pressures, responsibilities, regrets, worries, secrets - all had come between them. All and much more. Now every time that the pair of them were alone, a little of the old relationship seemed to come back. A little more of the happiness, the relaxation, the easy conversations and silences. It would perhaps never be quite the same as before, but to Wesley is still felt bloody marvellous. To have been sent on a mission with Angel felt far more pleasurable than it should do, given what they were likely to be up against.
"Come on, Wes." Suddenly flashing him that old, broad grin, Angel broke into a fast, long stride, taking him away along the track. Wesley had to hurry to keep up. "We have a job to worry about. If there's one thing we both did enough of when we were alive, it was wallow in self pity. We don't need it now as well."
"No." This time Wesley couldn't keep the smile away, instead of struggling to keep it up. "You've got better things to worry about."
"Oh?" Angel's eyebrows arched innocently. "Such as?"
"Oh come on, Angel. I may be miserable and self-obsessed, but that doesn't stop me noticing the way that you and Cordelia look at each other. I'm not sure that many people embark on meaningful relationships after death, but then none of us have ever been especially conventional."
"Cordelia and I aren't..." Angel thought about their time spent sprawled in the vineyard, and trailed off. It wouldn't be at all honest to claim that there was nothing going on. He just didn't know what was. As ever he was uncomfortable with the scrutiny, and scowled in mock irritation. "Anyway, you can talk. At least Cordelia isn't evil. Or subject to periodic reanimation by our enemies. Or fond of trying to sabotage our work. Or--"
"Yes, alright. So I won't be inviting Lilah to spend the evening at the hotel any time soon." Wesley shrugged, even more uncomfortable with having his relationships discussed than was Angel. The mere idea of such relations made him think of Fred, the one member of their little group who had not joined them in death; who couldn't, because of what had happened to her at the end of her life. That was one regret that would always hang in the air, no matter how many others he conquered. "Anyway, Lilah and I aren't..." He trailed off, infuriated at the way he had echoed Angel's own words, even down to ending the argument in confusion and uncertainty. Frustration showed on his face and he glared. "Anyway, we're not here to talk about girlfriends."
"No, we're here to kill monsters." Satisfaction showed on Angel's face. Killing monsters was something that they could both do; and be comfortable with. There was no necessity for emotions, or the exploration of feelings, when fighting big, toothy monsters - be they from other dimensions or from the darker corners of the Earth. "I like killing monsters."
"I'd never have guessed."
"We all have our purpose, Wes." Angel's smile became bigger; brighter; almost childlike in its enthusiasm. "Mine just happens to be more fun than most. Other people find fulfilment, I guess, but most of them never get to whirl big axes, and chop the heads off giant snakes and slimy things in sewers."
"Yeah." There was a certain nostalgia in Wesley's eyes, as he thought of some of their battles in the past. Of some of his own, solo journeys following his exile from the rest of the team. Big, four armed monstrosities that prowled in dark alleys; flying demons spitting venom from twin heads; rarely glimpsed shadows that slithered and bit. Not to mention the hordes of ever-hungry vampires. He scowled suddenly. "Not that there'll be much killing this time. Buffy will probably want to do that."
"The disadvantages of having to work with a Slayer, huh?" Angel's own smile became rueful. "It never was easy, letting her do it all."
"For you." Wesley's smile matched Angel's. "I didn't like getting Faith to do all the work when we had to fight Angelus and the Beast, but I was glad that she was there to do it. When you don't have super-strength and indestructibility, it's nice to know that somebody else does."
"You gave a pretty good account of yourself, Wes. If Faith hadn't been there..."
"If Faith hadn't been there, I'd have died a long time ago, and you'd still be Angelus."
"Well yeah." His friend laughed at him lightly, in a way that would have been impossible before death had brought them back together. "But you didn't do too badly."
"Better than now." Unconsciously illustrating his point, Wesley let his hand trail through a bush that grew alongside the track. "Ghosts don't make great fighters."
"We'll get you a nice ghostly sword." Angel was clearly in a less than serious mood. He had always had a slightly goofy side to his personality in the old days, but it had been a long time since it had had a chance to surface. Clapping his friend on the shoulder, he smiled merrily. "A long glowing one."
"That'll pass straight through all the monsters?"
"I didn't say it would be a practical sword." Angel shrugged. "Anyway, from what I hear you've done your fair share of fighting recently. Cordelia said you managed to do a lot more than you were expecting when she sent you to help out Giles, and that included using a sword. Besides, if Spike can work out how to hold solid objects, so can you."
"I know. It's just been a long time since I had to learn something from scratch." The Watcher grinned crookedly. "And even if I can't hold swords, it could be a whole lot worse. I could be an angel. However frustrating it might be to be a ghost, at least there's no danger of me winding up in a shiny white dress and a halo."
"I am not going to wear a shiny white dress and a halo." Angel winced. "That is just a myth, isn't it? I mean, I don't even know how to play a harp. And nobody mentioned shiny white dresses when Cordelia was telling us all why we weren't dead. Or, you know, why we weren't dead dead. I'm a hero. I don't think I should have to wear a shiny white dress."
"You're an angel. It goes with the territory," Wesley couldn't help doing a little stirring, now that he was feeling that bit more sure of himself in Angel's presence once again. "You're just earning your wings at the moment, I suppose, but once you've won them it'll be robes, haloes, harps and fluffy clouds." He straightened the collar of his black leather jacket, smirking faintly. "I think I'll stick to the leather and stubble. You know, I don't think I've ever seen you in white. Certainly not head to toe. There might even be sequins."
"Sequins?" Angel eyed him uncertainly, as though unsure whether or not he was being teased. "Angels wear sequins?"
"Well information is scarce, Angel, even amongst the Watchers, but they do tend to twinkle in pictures. Either it's something to do with inner radiance, or they wear some kind of sequins. It needn't be anything tasteless, though. Perhaps we could get Lorne to give you some tailoring hints. I'm sure he'd be delighted to give you a wardrobe fitting."
"Sequins." Angel, who had rarely diverted from the path of black cotton and leather, was practically squirming. "What do you suppose it takes to get demoted? I mean, nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be an angel. I don't think you can have white dresses and sequins forced on you against your will, right? I mean, if it's heaven, you should be wearing what you want. Right?"
"Angel..."
"And am I really an angel anyway? An actual angel, angel? I know I'm a guardian angel, but does that make me a proper angel, or... just some sort of alternate entity? Like a substitute teacher. Or a second at a duel." He frowned. "And do I really have to get wings? 'Cause... I don't know if they'd suit me. And would they fit under my coat?" The frown deepened. "Would I have to cut a hole in my coat?"
"Angel..." Wesley rolled his eyes, faintly exasperated. It had been so long - so very, very long - since Angel had been this relaxed and chatty in his presence, that he had almost forgotten how annoying it could be. Fun, entertaining, wonderful - blissfully, gloriously reassuring - but annoying nonetheless. "Just... don't be such a wanker."
"Hey." Angel straightened the collar of his beloved coat. "There's got to be rules, you know, about calling angels wankers. I don't think you can do that. There could be punishments."
"Yes, sure to be." Wesley shook his head in amusement, marvelling at his companion's capacity for juvenile behaviour. "Angel, I'm dead. I escaped hell, or at the very least purgatory, by the skin of my teeth, and I live - or not - under constant threat of being resurrected by Wolfram & Hart for whatever nefarious purposes they might have in mind. Punishment for being rude to angels - proper or otherwise - isn't that great a threat."
"It wouldn't just be punishment," suggested Angel. "It could be divine retribution. Insulting a heavenly being might attract higher attention."
"You're not a heavenly being, you're just named after one. You're a vampire who just happened to have caught the eye of something powerful. And besides, it wouldn't be divine retribution, would it. It would be Cordelia's retribution, which is infinitely less scary. Last time Spike pissed her off she just sent him to baby-sit Andrew for a few weeks."
"Talk to Spike. He'd have preferred divine retribution, believe me." Angel scowled. "Look, I'm just saying, if somebody tries to make me wear sequins and a halo, I'm not going to be happy."
"Yes, I gathered that."
"Nobody made Michael Landon wear sequins and a halo. In Highway To Heaven, I mean. Okay, so he was just earning his wings still, but there was never any talk of sequins. Or glowing dresses. And he got to wear a leather jacket."
"You're expecting me to understand your popular culture references again, aren't you." Wesley rubbed his eyes, feigning exhaustion. "We're just about there now. Can we put off the discussion of angelic fashion for a bit? I don't know how visible we are."
"There's nobody around. The streets are empty." Angel looked about, at the old and new buildings, and the winding road. It was a rural town with an unsteady grip on both the modern and the traditional; the sort of place with one leg in the present and another in the past, probably in the process of losing its youth to bigger towns in faraway regions. The sort of place to which a tourist might go in search of sights off the beaten path, and where the odd things that sometimes happened were still believed by a dwindling number of people who had not yet closed their minds to the unexplained. It was easy to believe that things could happen here, with its echoes of such ancient architecture, and its little fountain carved with detailed images. "I wonder where Buffy is."
"Is she here to sight see, or did she come here because she knew something was going on?"
"A bit of both, I think. She has precognitive dreams sometimes, and they can lead her to places. She waited until Dawn was back in school before she came here, so I doubt she just here to look around."
"Then it's doubtful she's at home in bed." Wesley wandered out into the middle of the empty road, and turned in a rough circle in search of road signs. "Any ideas?"
"The best idea is usually to head for where there are the most people. Sights, smells, heat, hormones. You know the score." The vampire cocked his head on one side. "I don't hear anything like that, though. If this place has any popular night spots, they're the quiet kind."
"It doesn't look as if it's likely to have a very big population. There probably aren't any night clubs." Wesley headed over to the fountain, eyeing its carved walls. What had at first glance appeared to be simple gargoyles turned out to be the heads of recognisable breeds of demon, interspersed with occult symbols, and what looked like a picture of a girl staking a vampire. "This is fascinating."
"We'll come here another time to do a study of the sights." Angel cocked his head on one side, joining his companion by the fountain. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" All that Wesley could hear was the water in the fountain, and the faint, warm breeze that blew across the street. Angel frowned.
"Feet. Running, or--" He broke off. "Blood."
"You can hear blood?"
"No." Angel shot the Watcher an exasperated look. "I can smell it. I may be an angel, but I'm still a vampire where it counts." A frown of concentration showed on his face. "This way."
"I didn't hear any sounds of a struggle." Breaking into a run to keep up with his companion, Wesley looked this way and that down side streets as they went. "No screams."
"You know as well as I do that there isn't always time." Angel's feet echoed on the hard surface of the road, a contrast to his supposed low profile. The rest of the world could neither see nor hear him, but to his fellow dead he sounded normal enough. He slowed suddenly. "I can hear something else."
"Me too. Footsteps." Wesley ran a few paces further on ahead. "Shoes. Somebody running."
"Somebody else heading this way." Angel broke into a run once again, and this time Wesley followed instantly, taking shortcuts through walls in full appreciation of his non-corporeal status as a ghost. It was tempting to try transporting himself instantly to the source of the noise, but he couldn't pinpoint it accurately enough to make the attempt. Pulling ahead of Angel, who had no choice but to go around the obstacles that Wesley could walk straight through, he reached their destination first, skidding to a halt at the sight of a massive grey beast with the body of a girl held fast in its mouth. Gleaming red eyes glared angrily at Wesley, and gargantuan feet scratched the ground in demonstration of the size of the monster's claws. Wesley held out his right hand, and a sword appeared in it, long and gleaming. It was a simple magic spell to someone of the Watcher's talents, but it was rather hit and miss as to whether the weapon would make contact or prove to be as intangible as the ghost who wielded it. He stepped forward, confident of his own safety, and drew the sword back for a blow. Angel came around the corner at the same moment, drawing his own trusted weapon from beneath his leather coat, dashing up to join his associate just as, with a sound like the cracking of ice, the huge creature disappeared with its prey. The street was empty. It was a striking anti-climax after the heat of the chase.
"Damn!" Angel was furious at being denied a fight. "It had a girl, Wes."
"She was dead." Wesley had not been able to see the animal itself very clearly, but he had been sure of that point at least. Her attacker had held her gripped in its jaws, its teeth sunk into her neck in such a way that death was certain. Her eyes had told the rest of the story, in their pale sightlessness. He scowled and made his ghostly sword disappear. "Cordelia says that this thing is harvesting girls for some magician."
"So I hear. She tell you why?"
"She didn't seem to know all that much. With what The Powers That Be seem prepared to tell us, it's almost like working from her visions again, only with a little more clarity in the details this time." The Watcher's head cocked on one side, as the sound of approaching footsteps filtered into his consciousness again. He had rather lost track of them during the running, and the shock of the beast's disappearance. "You think that's a fellow demon hunter?"
"It's Buffy. I'd know her anywhere." Angel knew the Slayer as well as he knew anybody; better; even though he had spent less time working and fighting alongside her than he had with most of his current colleagues. She was, after all, of particular importance to him. She ran in a certain way, moved in a certain way - all clear to him even through mere sound. He knew that it was her footsteps he could hear; her scent that was beginning to filter through that of the dead girl's blood. Wesley nodded, seeing no reason to distrust his companion's instincts.
"You want to keep this low key?" he asked. Angel hesitated, listening to the sounds of running feet. Finally he shook his head, terse and fast.
"No. We've got to make contact sooner or later. It might as well be now." He hesitated, listening to the feet clacking on the road, a part of him yearning for the girl who could not see him, and with whom he no longer had a relationship anyway. Something within him, he had long ago learned, was destined forever to be in love with Buffy Summers. He didn't understand it; but then that was love.
"Damn." Buffy's voice came to them before she did. She had apparently sensed that the creature was gone, but she came around the corner anyway, tense and alert. She held a stake in one hand and a stout stabbing dagger in the other, and her small, wiry body was half crouched in a fighting stance. Angel couldn't help but feel a flash of emotion, part pride, part love, at the sight of her. She had always moved so well. Always been such a natural in the ways of battle. She relaxed slightly now, when it became clear that the creature she had been hunting was gone, and moved forward to examine the marks of blood on the road. Only then did she catch a glimpse of Wesley, and whirled with both stake and dagger held ready once again. He didn't jump at the sudden threat of attack, and that lack of reaction surprised her almost as much as the sight of him. He understood why. The last time they had spent any time together he had been the sort of man who would have screamed or even fainted at such a threat of attack. He smiled faintly.
"Hello Buffy."
"Wesley." Her eyes flickered up and down the street, looking for other people and seeing none. "What the hell-?"
"Long story. Well, probably not all that long." His smile became rather more awkward. "We need to talk."
"You need to talk." She didn't have the slightest interest in him, and he couldn't blame her. To her he was instantly dismissable; a clown; a buffoon; worse. He was the hopeless wimp who had got in the way in Sunnydale, and driven Faith straight into the arms of the enemy. Her eyes had already drifted on past him, staring at the place where the monster had been standing. "I have work to do."
"So do I." He narrowed the distance between them. "Buffy..."
"Wesley, I have a monster to chase. Big grey thing. Large teeth. Kills girls. Four have gone missing over the last four nights, and I'd rather like to make sure that it's not five. So unless you're hiding it behind you, I'm not interested. Goodbye."
"The monster's gone. Except technically it wasn't a monster, it was a Kra'ash. They're intelligent, at least to a degree." He saw the spark of irritation in her eyes, and smiled slightly. He might have changed, but she hadn't. "Buffy, I'm sorry. He had another girl, but I'm here to help with--"
"You?" The scorn was clear in her face. "Giles phoned me last night with some weird story about you. About all of your gang. Willow tells me you're not the wet blanket you used to be, but it takes more than a new wardrobe to make me get all excited. So stay out of my way."
"Well this is a surprise, I must say. Common theory has always held that you're the good Slayer and Faith is the bad one, but quite frankly, Buffy, I'm inclined to think that common theory is cock-eyed as hell. If you'll excuse the expression. Faith, at least, is civil."
"I don't have time for civil, Wes." She sounded sharp, but he could see that he had struck home. Mentioning Faith was always a good way to get to Buffy; he had seen that much the last time they had been together, when Buffy had visited Angel in Los Angeles in an attempt to capture the rogue Slayer. Even now that Faith was one of the good guys again, the rivalry apparently still remained. "You say this monster's gone?"
"Yes. With another dead girl." He couldn't help but stiffen his shoulders, sliding back into the old ways of the Watchers. He might not be Buffy's Watcher, but the training was still there; the instinct to instruct and assist. "But it's not a monster."
"It was big and growly, and it had teeth that the Tasmanian Devil would kill for. That spells monster."
"You go after it expecting a monster, and you won't have a chance. I told you; it's intelligent."
"It is, huh?" She stuck the knife and the stake away in her belt, then folded her arms. "So how do I kill it?"
"A good sharp blade will do the job well enough." He frowned, watching her now with a degree of uncertainty. "You say you spoke to Giles?"
"He phoned, yes." Now her eyes were glittering with that same degree of watchfulness. "You know what he said?"
"I can imagine." He moved forward, passing his hand through a nearby road sign, as though in illustration. "Hopefully he told you that I'm a little more useful than I used to be. I prefer to be taken seriously these days."
"You always did prefer to be taken seriously." She frowned at him, ever cautious, clearly unable to see beyond her memories of him. He was inclined to think it his own fault. He really had been an idiot when she had known him in Sunnydale; a hopeless fool unable to defend himself, and incapable of living up to the example set by Rupert Giles. "Takes more than a makeover though, Wes."
"Yes, so you already said." His eyes flickered over to Angel, necessarily absent from the conversation, but clearly itching to be a part of it. Buffy's eyes narrowed.
"He's here, isn't he."
"Who?" Wesley was momentarily confused. "Giles?"
"Angel." Her voice was suddenly cold. "Giles told me that he's playing guardian angel these days, and watching over me when he thinks I need help." She raised her voice. "Are you listening, Angel? I mean, am I supposed to be grateful? You think it's nice to know that somebody's watching you all the time? We call it stalking nowadays."
"Angel's not stalking you." Seeing the indignation on his friend's face, Wesley attempted to soothe his feathers as well as Buffy's ire. "Look, perhaps we've got off on the wrong foot here. We were sent to help you stop this... well, this monster. As far as we know, it's in the employ of a powerful sorcerer, who's presumably using the dead girls as part of some spell. Now I don't need to tell you that he has to be stopped. We have to work together, Buffy, and that means putting aside whatever differences you think that we have." He paused, ignoring Angel who was trying to attract his attention. "Believe it or not, I can help. You won't be able to fight this sorcerer on your own."
"Oh I don't know, Wes. I seem to remember doing pretty well before you came into my life; and just as well after you left it again. I think I can handle one little magician. Can't be worse than the world's most powerful witch trying to destroy everybody."
"From what I hear, you didn't defeat Willow on your own." He sighed. "Buffy, I didn't come here by choice, you know. I was sent here, by... by a higher power. Dead people don't come offering their assistance every day, do they? Just why are you so opposed to the idea of my help? Giles must have given some indication of--"
"Yeah. Forget the long words, Wes." She sighed, apparently frustrated. Buffy Summers had matured a lot in the years since she had last encountered Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and he was attempting to speak to her as he had when she was still in high school. She had been without the authority of the Watcher Council for a long time, and since the destruction of Sunnydale she had been very much her own person. She was a woman now, roaming the world, learning things with each new sight; each new town; each new country. She had come to value her independence, and was proud of the fact that she relied these days on nobody. Giles was always at the end of a telephone; sometimes he was by her side; Willow was always available. She didn't need them, though, the way she once had done. Not usually. She certainly didn't want to give up her independence now at the behest of a man she had always loathed. She was expecting him to get angry, as he had used to do when she had ignored his orders and gone her own way, but there was no anger on his face now. His eyes were sharp and bright, his face impassive. He masked his emotions, she realised, surprising herself with how much he reminded her of Angel. He really had changed. Once upon a time he would have been apoplectic with indignation by now, spewing out great torrents of words in an increasingly high pitched voice, and sounding like a petulant child. She turned away from him, scanning the ground in search of signs of the beast she had come to fight, and causing Angel to leap out of her way. Wesley could see the frustration on the vampire's face; could see how very much Angel wanted to be able to speak to his former love. Being invisible to her was far too painful for his position as her guardian ever to give him real pleasure. Wesley felt a flash of outrage for his friend, at the charge of stalking that had been laid against him. He was no stalker; if he could have been Buffy's companion rather than her guardian angel, he would have accepted the post with alacrity. The Watcher stepped forward now, eager to defend his companion's good name, but Buffy spun suddenly to face him, having discovered a new line of attack. Her eyes were hot, and he knew what was coming now before she spoke up; there were other barriers between them these days than mere memories of past inadequacies.
"Wolfram & Hart," she said, with force. He managed not to wince.
"What about them?"
"What do you mean, what about them? You went to work for them; all of you. Not just you - I mightn't have been so surprised if it was just you, whatever Willow says about you being okay these days. But Angel. Spike. I expect more from them, and they just went off and joined the enemy. I've made it clear enough in the past how I feel about that. We all did. You were told the score back during that Potential Slayer incident last year. I don't trust you anymore. Any of you. So you can take your 'higher powers', Wes, and you know what you can do with them."
"You don't understand, Buffy." There was so much that she couldn't understand - how he had entered the lair of the enemy looking to find salvation for his murdered lover; how Angel had all but done a deal with the devil in order to save his son, and the innocent people whose lives that son had so nearly ended. All Wesley could do was make the best argument that he could, given the circumstances, without giving any indication of the real tangle of emotions and motives that had led to Team Angel's apparent switching of sides. "We were trying to fight the system from the inside, and in the end it killed us. After that, your disapproval really doesn't sting all that much."
"I don't trust you." She lived by her wits - and her survival, as well as the survival of all life on the Earth, had depended too often upon her instincts for her to be willing to take chances now. Wesley nodded.
"Fine. You don't trust us. That doesn't matter. There's a Kra'ash killing girls as part of some magician's evil plan, and that has to take priority over grudges or mistrust. Angel and I plan to stop this thing, and we'd rather have your help. That doesn't mean we have to have it."
"You can put your hands through road signs, Wes. You're a ghost, not a warrior." She sighed. "Yes. Okay. If it'll save lives, I'll listen to what you have to say. But don't expect to make my Christmas card list."
He smiled at that, in the taut, brief way that was his. "I'd say 'I'll survive', but that might be something of a misnomer. So... friends?"
"Unlikely. Allies, possibly." Her eyes flickered around, searching for the invisible Angel. "Where is he?"
"Standing beside me right now, as it happens." Wesley didn't look at the vampire. He had no desire to see the other's renewed pain at his inability to communicate with Buffy. "It's the way these things work, you know. If you could see him, and talk to him, then he wouldn't just be a guardian angel. He'd be a companion. The Powers That Be wanted you to work alone. It's honed your skills the way that working as part of a team never did. He not watching you secretly out of choice."
"Yeah." For a second her expression softened, showing the fond history that she had shared with the vampire. Her eyes drifted to Wesley's left, unnervingly finding Angel's own, and holding them for several seconds. He smiled faintly, but of course it was a smile that she didn't return. She couldn't see it, and instead her expression hardened.
"If there are higher powers involved in this, why don't they just stop this sorcerer? Why send you to help?"
"It doesn't work that way." He didn't know why; only that somebody on some other plane had managed to snatch all of Team Angel from the jaws of death, in order to re-employ them as soldiers in the continuing fight against evil. That suggested at great power, and the ability to do a lot more. It seemed that none of the fabled Powers wanted do to anything more. Buffy's expression was mocking.
"It doesn't work that way?"
"Buffy..." He sighed. "Look, take it up with them some other time, alright? Just accept that there's a limit to the help you're going to get from The Powers That Be. They do what suits them."
"Sounds like the Watchers' Council to me." It was a cheap shot and she knew it; although as far as she was concerned the old Council had deserved any insults that came its way. Wesley merely offered her that small, tight smile again, and shrugged slightly.
"Sounds exactly like the Watchers' Council." His attention was caught once again by Angel, and he nodded curtly. They were wasting time, and there was little enough of it as there was. "Listen, Buffy, I have a spell in mind that might tell us where that beast disappeared itself to. That should let us pinpoint the location of our sorcerer's den, and let us take the next step in all of this. Alright?"
"A spell, huh." She was still remembering the useless buffoon, incapable of earning his worth as a Watcher. He could see it in her eyes, as he had been able to see it all along. "You think you can manage something like that?"
"Possibly." He wasn't offended by her suspicions, and knew that he had no right to be. He had earned her distrust a thousand times over, and now it was up to him to earn her respect - or at the very least her tolerance. "Those of us without super strength approach the fight against evil in many different ways. Mine..." He clicked his fingers, and her plain white blouse turned a pale sky blue... "is magic."
"Cool." She looked down at her shirt, rather taken aback, then spun around in a circle. "How does it look?"
"Beautiful," commented Angel. Wesley smiled.
"I'm rather inclined to agree."
"Huh?" She glanced up in surprise, then guessed that he had been speaking to the lurking vampire. "Yeah, alright Wesley. Do your hocus-pocus."
"Hocus-pocus?" He smiled faintly. "Sorry. I don't even say Abracadabra. Would you like your shirt changed back?"
"I don't know." She flashed him a wholly unexpected smile, and did another twirl as though at a fashion show. "I rather like it. Although I have a bag somewhere that used to match, so you might have to waggle your fingers at that sometime too."
"I'll put the reorganisation of your wardrobe at the top of my 'to do' list." Doing his best not to roll his eyes in exasperation, he turned to the place where the beast had disappeared. "Now if you wouldn't mind giving me a moment, I've got better things upon which to expend my energies just now."
"Takes a lot out of you does it?"
"It's hard to affect the real world with magic when you're dead, yes. But it's getting easier." He flexed his fingers and stretched his arms, then knelt to examine the area. "Entertain yourself for a while, Buffy. I don't know quite how long this will take."
"Entertain myself. Right. I'll just stand over here and talk to Angel." She looked around, as always failing to see her invisible guardian. "Where is he again?"
"Here." Angel answered, knowing that Wesley would not. The Watcher was too busy with his work now, and had probably not even heard Buffy's question. The Slayer shrugged, not offended by the lack of an audible answer, and instead turned around to look for some sign of the vampire's presence.
"It's, er... it's nice to see you again," she offered, feeling somewhat awkward. "Or... you know. To not see you. I've missed you. Sometimes."
"I've missed you too." He smiled fondly. They had such a history together, the pair of them. She had been his reason for coming back to the world, for stepping out of the shadows and making something of himself. His inspiration in battling the years of guilt and self-pity, and using his strengths and his talents for good. It was because of her that he had gone to Los Angeles, and become stronger and better; had met with Wesley and Cordelia and Gunn; had been rewarded with this new status after his death. In a way he owed her everything.
"I guess you can hear me. I mean, you'd have to be able to, wouldn't you. See me and hear me, or you'd be no good as a guardian angel. Seems rather unfair, that you can hear me, and I can't hear you."
"Not my choice, Buffy." He wandered over to her, but she didn't even hear his feet striking the ground. "Not that it matters. Probably. You have your own life to live. You have the Immortal - or had the Immortal. Maybe that's not still going on, I--" He broke off, for she had begun to speak again, and he wanted to listen to her properly.
"I suppose it doesn't matter," she was saying, although she didn't sound convinced. "Sometimes I wonder if we've got anything to talk about anymore. You went off to Los Angeles, and I met somebody else."
"Yeah. Riley." Angel almost spat the words out. He had never had a very high opinion of Buffy's second lover, although he still wasn't sure how much of that was due to jealousy. Buffy carried on regardless.
"Not exactly living our lives the same way anymore, are we. You were all independent and Mr Private Eye Guy, and I had college and everything, although that didn't exactly last."
"Yeah, about that--"
"Although I got a pretty good job in the end, you know, with the high school counsellor thing, even if it was pretty tough keeping the job going with the First Evil trying to send everybody mad, and popping up all over the place as every dead person I'd ever run into. And what with Spike and all, things didn't exactly go brilliantly for my career."
"Spike." He practically roared that one word. She, of course, didn't hear.
"And then with the entire town disappearing into the Hellmouth that pretty much ended that career anyway." She frowned. "Where was I? Oh. Right. Our lives didn't exactly go in the same direction, did they."
"Not really." He smiled faintly. There had been a time when he had honestly believed that he would end up with Buffy regardless. That the Shanshu prophecy would come through for him, and make him human, and that he would be able to go back to the girl he had forced himself to leave behind for the complexities of life as a vampire. In many ways he had long ago given up the thought of life with Buffy, but he knew that she was still extremely special to him. Extremely special. Enough so that the thought of their divergent lives caused him an unexpected flicker of pain.
"I miss you." She said it quietly, and took him by surprise. "Oh, not all the time. Not like I used to. You practically broke my heart leaving Sunnydale like you did. I thought I'd never understand why you'd gone. Now I love my life. You've no idea how wonderful it is, Angel. Having all the strengths and powers of a Slayer, but none of the pressures anymore. I'm not alone. There's hundreds of us. The fight is being carried on in every continent, just about. We're like this world-wide network, and there's people everywhere who understand me and my calling. Used to be it was just me and Giles. Me and Giles and you, maybe. But I'm seeing the world, now. I'm learning stuff." She grinned, and for a second she looked like a teenager again. "Me. I mean, I hated school. If it hadn't been for Willow I doubt I'd even have passed the easy subjects. And now I go to museums by choice. Dawn dragged me to them at first, but now I go because I want to. Giles is totally gobsmacked. He's starting to wonder if Will didn't spin some kind of a spell when his back was turned. I have a fantastic life, Angel, and I wouldn't want to go back to how it used to be. But I do still miss you, sometimes."
"I miss you, too." It was true enough, even if it was Cordelia who held his heart now. Buffy was in many ways his first love, and first loves, he knew, were always special. There were times when he thought of things that he knew Buffy would find funny; things that even Cordy wouldn't understand. Jokes that he could only have shared with the Slayer; memories that would only mean something to her. Cordelia probably knew him better than anybody, but there were some things that she couldn't appreciate. Not fully.
"I miss Sunnydale sometimes too." She had half turned away, and he followed her as she began to wander off. Wesley was busy, surrounded by a pale blue glow now, his blood red shirt turned a dark, almost Imperial purple by the force of his own magicks. Angel left him to it, and followed Buffy a short way along the road. "Not the deaths, obviously. I mean, going to a school where half of your class wind up dead or undead before graduation isn't much fun. And graduation itself was hardly a world of fun and frolics. But I miss the Bronze. I miss the high school library. I miss my room at the old house, and I miss... I miss my mother's grave." She smiled faintly, and Angel reached out a hand for her shoulder. He couldn't touch her; he might in general be more solid than a ghost, and he might be able to touch things that Wesley just passed through, but to Buffy he was as non-corporeal as the dead Watcher ever was. He watched his hand hovering uselessly in her shoulder-blade, and wished that he was merely a vampire again. He had wanted for so long to leave his undeath behind, and become something better - but now that he had, he knew that he would cast it aside in a moment if it let him comfort Buffy, even for just a second. Her smile became more gentle, though, and she lifted one hand, putting it to her shoulder just as though he could feel his, and was covering it with her own. With her heightened senses, perhaps she was aware of something. He wouldn't have been entirely surprised.
"I miss Sunnydale too," he told her. He missed creeping up to her bedroom window at night; going on patrols with her in the graveyard; visits to the library, and the long discussions there with Rupert Giles. Giles had been almost childishly delighted to meet somebody with such a long memory; who had lived through so much. Angel had lost all of that when he had turned back into Angelus, and had never really won back the Watcher's trust; but the memories remained. Meetings in the library with Buffy, Willow and Xander; illicit encounters in dark alleys, and in the basement apartment where he had lived for so long. Battles - so many battles - on so many atmospheric nights, or in the deserted corridors of the unfortunate, cursed high school. It had been a lot of fun - when the fate of the world hadn't been resting on all of their shoulders. He let his hand fall to his side. "Sometimes I find it hard to believe how much we've seen and done. And I look at you now..."
"I never thought I'd leave Sunnydale." Her own thoughts followed so naturally from his that it was almost as if she had heard him. "I thought I'd end up buried in the graveyard. Remember my first Prom night, and the prophecy that the Master would kill the Slayer? And so many times after that." She smiled suddenly. "Actually I did end up buried in the graveyard, didn't I. So much happened. I never thought I'd get to grow up."
"I never imagined you'd grow so much." He smiled at her the way he had smiled at her so many times before; when she had been able to see him, and to respond in kind.
"I was such a kid when we first met."
"And now you're anything but." It had terrified him once; the idea of her growing older, when he couldn't age at all. Now nothing seemed more natural; more right; than seeing her growing, and changing, and maturing, and becoming the person she deserved to be. He was proud to be here to see it happen. Proud to watch her maturing, and facing up to her new life. So different to the would-be cheerleader, with the wildfire teenage slang, and the obsession with fashion, boyfriends and fun. He remembered the way she had twirled around to show off her newly blue shirt, and smiled faintly. Well, alright. Maybe not everything was different. Like Cordelia, Buffy would probably always have a part of herself that was focused on the shallower things in life. It was what made both of them who they were.
"And now I'm anything but." She frowned slightly, and he could almost believe that she had realised her words had echoed his own. "I wish I could see you, Angel. Just once. I'd say that I'd like to see your smile again, but your glower tends to happen rather more often." She grinned, anticipating his scowl of partial umbrage. "Are you still wearing all that gel in your hair? Can you wear gel in your hair when you're dead? Although you were dead anyway, I suppose. Sort of. So maybe it doesn't make any difference."
"Never mind the gel." One hand went instinctively to his hair, shaped as it had been throughout his involvement with her. Spike always mocked him for it, but the hairstyle remained.
"I always liked your hair." She looked up, although she wasn't looking in quite the right direction. One of her hands reached up, tentatively, passing through his left arm and shoulder, then falling back down to her side.
"Thankyou." He spoke dryly, or as dry as he ever got. For a second a happy silence hung between them, neither of them quite certain whether there was any point in speaking, when no conversation could be two-way. Finally he smiled faintly, and reached out to make a pointless attempt to brush a stray strand of hair from her face. "It's good to be working with you again Buffy. I've watched you fight recently, but it's not the same as actually working with you. Like in the old days." A frown showed on her forehead, as once again it seemed that she was listening to him. She moved closer to him, unconsciously perhaps, or possibly with intent. Again there was that comfortable silence, with both of them unsure what to say, or what, really, they should say. They were acting almost like a couple again, as they so often did when they were together, even though it had been five years now since they had gone their separate ways. Buffy opened her mouth to say something then; a warm half-smile lighting the depths of her eyes, but Wesley's voice stopped her before she could begin.
"Got it!" He had no idea what was happening between them. He wasn't even looking in their direction. The words ended the uncertain moment, though, as neatly as if he had been watching the former lovers with a mind to stopping them when they got too close. Buffy sighed.
"He's still irritating."
"Not really." Angel had to smile, both at Wesley's timing and Buffy's frustration. "I wouldn't be without him. Most of the time."
"Angel!" Running over, eyes bright, Wesley nodded politely at Buffy, then all but shut her out as he turned back to the vampire. "I've got it, or near enough. An abandoned airfield about twenty miles north of here. The picture wasn't all that clear, but I saw enough. Three corrugated iron hangars, and a rusted old cargo plane with only one wing. It shouldn't be that hard to find."
"Nice going, Wes." Angel glanced back at Buffy. They could transport themselves instantly, but she, of course, could do no such thing. "Get up there. Have a look around. I'll stay with Buffy, and then I can home in on you or something."
"I'm not sure it works that way, Angel." Wesley frowned, his eyes flickering over to Buffy for a moment. "And anyway, you can't really give her directions, can you."
"I could drive. Then I don't need to be able to speak to her. She's the only one who can't see me, Wes. I can make myself visible to other people, so it wouldn't look weird to anybody who saw the car - just to her. Ask her. It's the best way, short of getting Cordelia to transport us all up there together, and you know she won't do that. She's not allowed to."
"Not being allowed to never stopped Cordy before." The Watcher sighed. "Yes, alright Angel. It does make a certain sense, I suppose. Buffy is more likely to listen to you than she is to me."
"I can't hear a word he's saying," put in Buffy at that point, beginning to feel left out. "I may want to listen to him more than I want to listen to you, but I can't actually listen to him at all."
"Yes, I know that Buffy. I was being sarcastic." The Watcher looked from her to Angel for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. "Angel wants me to go ahead to this airfield. I can get there instantly. He'll take you up in a car. It might take you a while to find the place on your own, but he can get Cordelia to point him at me, or something. Probably. Or so he seems to think, anyway."
"And that won't be at all weird." Buffy shook her head. "Whatever. I just want this monster, or Crash, or whatever, stopped."
"Kra'ash," corrected Wesley, unable to resist. "They originate in Tarradon, a hell dimension very similar to Earth. Practitioners in the dark arts have been using them for centuries now, which is playing havoc with their development as a race. Evolutionary speaking they're about on a level with the apes that first began to develop into Homo erectus. An intelligence of a--"
"Okay Wes." Speaking in unison, Angel and Buffy pressed him into silence. Buffy rolled her eyes.
"Watchers. You're all the same, aren't you. Giles, Quentin Travers, whoever. No matter how different you seem, it all comes back to the lectures."
"We're bred for it." He was far too used to the teasing of the rest of Team Angel to be bothered by her comments now. Time apart from the others had thinned his skin to such things, perhaps, but death had healed many wounds. Buffy was still pushing him, gently, in an attempt to see just how much he had changed, and he recognised that. The days when he would have behaved like a child were long gone, though, in the past he had so willingly buried. He looked over to Angel, emphasising his lack of concern at Buffy's jibes by ignoring her completely. "You'll be alright?"
"No problem, Wes." Angel clapped him on the shoulder. "Get going. Look around, but keep your head down."
"Angel..." Wesley had once commanded Angel Investigations, and nowadays the pair of them were forever knocking heads over the issue of seniority. The Watcher might be willing to take orders from the vampire, but he drew the line at commands that stated the obvious. "I'll see you in a bit. Buffy." And with a polite nod her way, he disappeared into thin air. Buffy blinked in faint surprise.
"Handy trick."
"It cuts down on fuel costs." Angel turned back to her. "Do you have a car?"
"I suppose you'll be wanting a car," she said in reply. He nodded.
"Might be handy."
"It might be handy, after all."
"Buffy..."
"I have a rented one back at the boarding house where I'm staying. It's not far from here."
"Good." He fell into step beside her as she began to lead the way back to the place where she had been staying. Secretly he was hoping for a convertible. Something powerful, and preferably black, ideally with leather seats and a perhaps fair sprinkling of chrome. Since Buffy had chosen it, he had a nasty suspicion that he was destined for something pink and quirky, with a more efficient in-car sound system than engine. The dark green convertible that awaited them was something of a pleasant surprise.
"The keys are here." She took them from her pocket, and put them down on the car's roof, watching as an unseen hand picked them up. The passenger door opened a second later, and she slid into the seat, nodding her cautious thanks. Moments later the driver's door was opening and closing, but she saw no difference to the seat. The engine started up almost instantly, and she settled back to watch the car appear to operate itself.
"It's been ages since I drove a car." Happy to hear the engine purr, Angel grinned like a child. Buffy smiled over at him.
"I suppose it's been a while since you drove a car?" she asked. He sighed. Suddenly conversation had become somewhat limited.
"Being dead tends to limit the opportunities for such things," he told her, not that there was much point.
"I guess being dead means you don't bother. Instant travel and all."
"Instant travel is no substitute for this." He had always loved to drive. From the very first time he had sat behind the wheel of a car, it had been one of his most favourite things. Even Angelus appreciated it, and he had always seemed immune to most of the things that gave Angel pleasure.
"Seems weird to think of you being dead." For a moment she sounded so very subdued, that Angel felt a flash of concern. He looked over at her, worried, but she smiled suddenly. "But then I guess you always were dead, weren't you. In a manner of speaking."
"Dead in every way." He frowned. "Well. Most ways."
"I just don't like to think of you dying. Facing the end, and not knowing what was coming. I mean, did it hurt? For you, for Spike, for Cordelia? It didn't hurt me, but my death was a little unusual."
"It didn't hurt." He thought about that battle, in the alley near the Wolfram & Hart building. Gunn bleeding to death, Illyria half crazy, Spike fired up with bull-headed determination. He hadn't been remotely afraid, and he had gone out with a sword in his hand and a smile on his face, and the knowledge that he was doing what he had been put upon the Earth to do. One glorious battle to balance out the century of guilt and self-loathing, and the memories of the wastrel he had been before his Becoming. One last fight to prove to himself, to The Powers That Be, and to Wolfram & Hart, that it was always possible to take a stand, and score a victory, however impossible the odds. He would have been proud of that fight even if the result had been his oblivion. Always supposing it was possible to be proud of something then. He glanced over at her. "Don't feel sorry for me Buffy. Don't mourn."
"It's a nice night." Her mind was on other things already; or perhaps she had turned it that way on purpose, to avoid those things that she would rather not imagine. "And I suppose we don't have to worry about it ending, either. Do angels burst into flame when the sun comes up?"
"Not usually, no." They both laughed then, briefly, before she turned her head to stare out of the window, and watch the darkened scenery go by.
"Angel?"
"What?" It was an automatic reply, and he had almost forgotten that it was a redundant one. She glanced back at him, or rather at the empty seat that was all that she could see.
"I'm glad you're here. I really have missed you."
"Yeah." He smiled out through the windscreen, staring out into a night that could have belonged to Sunnydale, five years ago. The intervening years seemed to fall away, and it was almost - almost - as though they had never split up. As though they had never moved apart, and found new loves, and learned to live without each other. Almost. But not quite. "I've missed you too, Buffy. Really." And wishing that she could have heard that one sentence, even if she couldn't hear anything else that he said, he turned the car towards the north and followed his instincts. They would lead him to Wesley, at the sorcerer's lair, whilst his head dreamed of other things. Long ago things, in Sunnydale. Long ago things that he had once thought lost to the past.
Wesley materialised in the dark shadow beneath the rusted hulk of an aeroplane. He looked up at it, slumped as it was in its crumbling rest, and offered it a conciliatory pat. He even managed to make contact.
"Apparently it's less interesting being dead if you're an aeroplane," he told it. It didn't bother to reply. Walking through its set of broken wheels, he looked about at the place to which he had come. It was a disused airfield, just as he had told Angel; corrugated iron hangars, cracked tarmac with grass growing up from beneath, windows cracked and dirty. It looked run down and abandoned, which was likely how it was supposed to look, and he was not fool enough to believe just the evidence of his eyes. Snapping his fingers to create a flame to light his way, he left the cover of the aeroplane and headed for the nearest of the hangars. It was empty, its concrete floor bare, and dusty, huge cobwebs hanging from the ceiling like curtains. Wandering through the wall he made a quick circuit of the room, then left for the second hangar. This one was anything but empty.
There was a cauldron in the middle of the floor, set upon a fire that was blazing merrily. Five large black plastic bags stood around it, a congealing puddle of blood splayed out around the opening of one. It didn't take much imagination to work out what was in the bags, and the chalk symbols drawn on the floor beside each one merely served to underline the truth. Cobwebs still hung from the ceiling, and the place still had an air of desolation and decay, but there were footprints in the dust on the floor, and it was clear that the door had been used frequently. Wesley walked in through the wall, bending down to examine the bags as best he could. He didn't want to disturb them and give away the fact of his presence, but he wanted to be sure that they really were what he suspected. Red-brown hair showed at the top of one bag, and a white shoe spotted with blood stuck out of another. Wesley muttered something extremely rude, that was supposed to make one feel better in such situations, but very rarely did.
"You'll get a decent burial," he told the girls, but none of them gave him any answer. Most dead people, of course, were rather more dead than he was. Turning his attention to the cauldron, he tried to calm his anger by working out the details of the spell involved. The contents of the metal pot bubbled in shades of purple, spitting viciously every time the fire sparked and crackled. Purple. He tried to remember if that was likely to be important. Was he dealing with necromancy, or some kind of sacrifice? It was difficult to be entirely sure, and for a moment he considered going back to the hotel to look through his books, but he decided against it. He had enough information stored in his brain to figure this out, he was sure of it; and the hotel wasn't the peaceful place it had once been. Not with Spike hanging around, reading over his shoulder, making lewd comments about some of the illustrations, and happily pointing out the various demons he had encountered over the years. Sometimes the vampire was entertaining. He could even be good company, oddly enough, and his genuine concern for Fred had created a bond between him and Wesley that the Watcher would never have thought likely. When it came to research, though, he was a pain in the neck - all the more so, presumably, when eager for information about Buffy. No. Best to stay here, and try to work it all out himself.
Purple. Why did purple ring such a bell? It wasn't a rare colour in the world of magic and sorcery, but connected with dead bodies it was making unexpected memories connect. The number seven came to mind, along with a book in his father's library that he hadn't been supposed to read. One of the ones that was deemed for fully-fledged Watchers only, back in the days when he was an inquisitive child with an insatiable appetite for books. He had read it anyway of course, on one of his school holidays, when the library was a vast empty place of shadows whilst his father was away. The chalk markings seemed to ring a bell then too, bringing to mind a picture in the same book of an ancient engraving. Symbols carved on a chunk of oak in the middle of an old village green, and a tale of murdered village girls in the fourteenth century. He screwed up his eyes, trying to make everything snap into focus. Seven girls killed at night, and their bodies burned in a cauldron. A half-jumbled story of bright sunlight in the middle of the night, and a man who couldn't be killed. Perhaps it was worth going to his father's library now to check up on the story? He almost gave it serious consideration, but he doubted that it would work. Even if his father didn't have spells set up to prevent the supernatural from gaining access, there was too much of a chance that he would be inside his library when Wesley arrived. That was all that he needed; a confrontation with his least favourite person, and letting his father know that he was dead into the bargain. He could well imagine the insults that would come with that revelation.
"Having a look around?" The voice was calm; unconcerned. Wesley spun around, but there was nobody in sight. The door was still shut, and nothing had disturbed the dust. No recent movements had bothered the motionless cobwebs, and no new shadows marked the floor. He didn't answer the voice. Somehow it made more sense to stay silent, and wait to find out if there was anything else to be said.
"How did you get in?" The voice was still gentle; still unconcerned. "Not that it matters. You won't be leaving." There was a wrinkle in the air, and a head appeared, floating in the middle of the room. A clever spell - Wesley was impressed. There were few enough magicians in the world who practised such illusions. Few who bothered, in the technical age. He didn't recognise the face. Middle-aged; broad and lined; bright, intense eyes. Receding grey hair matched greying skin, giving an over-all impression of a man of strength but failing health. Somebody who was fighting well against disease, but was beginning to lose a battle that had been long and hard.
"Who are you?" Stepping forward, Wesley looked the face dead in the eyes, but met only contempt.
"I rather think that that's my question, don't you? This is my building, and you're the one who's trespassing."
"Yes... but you're the one with five murdered girls in bags, and the beginnings of a very powerful spell that you really shouldn't be spinning." Wesley had once done his best to look strong and powerful when confronting the enemy, but in recent years he had learned not to bother. More had changed than the strength of his sight and the closeness of his shave. He smiled wryly, not losing the glimmer of darkness in his eyes. "There are rules, you know. People whose job it is to stop magic like this from ever being performed."
"Ah." The disembodied head nodded up and down. "So that's why you're here, is it? The Watchers found out what I've been doing?" A dry laugh led into a drier cough. "Last time they took it upon themselves to stop me, they sent twelve of their best men. They must have a lot of faith in you."
"It would be rather nice if they did." He sauntered closer to the head, examining it from all sides. "The Watchers and I shared a mutually low opinion of each other. But then they all died." He hesitated, for technically speaking, since he was now dead himself, he no longer had any particular reason to feel smug about that. "Shame."
"Dead?" The head frowned, then shifted position slightly as though the unseen shoulders had just shrugged. "Oh well. Can't be helped. No doubt I'll eventually get around to sending you to join them. In the meantime..." There was another wrinkle in the air, and metal bars blinked into existence, forming a cage around Wesley. "Just stay there. I have better things to do with my time than worry about intruders." The head flashed him a humourless smile. "Stay out of the way. You can watch later, when I go ahead with the rest of this. Nobody is known to have performed this spell for six hundred years, so you'll be in something of an honoured position; for a few minutes, anyway. Until I kill you."
"Until you kill me." Wesley nodded. "I'm not especially looking forward to being dead."
"Nobody looks forward to death." The head smiled at him, grimly and with a plentiful measure of ice. "Not once they're looking it in the eye. But that's your problem." The smile vanished. "Goodbye."
"Goodbye." Wesley offered the word to empty space, for the face disappeared in the same instant as the smile. Waiting for a second to make sure that it really had gone, the Watcher walked through the metal bars, escaping the conjured cage with predictably little effort. He went back to the cauldron automatically, glancing over it in the hope that he might get some inspiration, but nothing came immediately to mind. He could cool the fire beneath the potion, but that could be undone soon enough. He could remove the bodies, but they could be easily replaced. He could wipe out or alter the chalk symbols, but he doubted that that would really be of any use. There seemed little that he could do, at least for now. Angel would arrive soon enough, and with him Buffy. Then was the time for decisive action; for dealing with the Kra'ash, and preventing any more deaths; and for tackling the owner of the disembodied head. Only then could he really hope to dismantle the magical equipment. For now it made more sense that he should merely look around, and see what else he could discover. With that in mind he left the hangar quickly, and headed for the third one - the one he had not yet investigated.
It was different from the other two; he saw that at once. Here a ramp led up to the door, rather than the cracked and uneven tarmac, and concrete block steps of the first two hangars. The big double doors, once providing access for planes, had been bricked up on the inside; a crack between the doors showed the solidity of the barrier beyond. Wesley looked in through one of the windows, and saw several items of furniture, and symbols painted on the inside of the walls. There was no dust here; no cobwebs. None of the glass in the windows was broken, and unlike the first two hangars, the padlocks and chains that kept the place locked were on the inside, not the outside. This was not the unkempt storage facility that was the second hangar. This was more like home. Wesley walked through the wall into a shadowed area, and took a better look around. There was a desk, a chair, a kitchen area with a microwave and a kettle. There were scratches on the floor, too; claw marks, where the Kra'ash had moved about, and spots of dried blood where drops of the stuff must have dripped from its teeth or its victims. It was not a warm or a welcoming place, but it was unmistakably lived in. A little radio stood in one corner, playing a tinny succession of sixties pop songs. Manfred Mann, Wesley's brain told him. One of his mother's secret pleasures when he was a boy; something that she had listened to quietly, when her husband was out of the way, in place of the relentless, bombastic classical music that he had always preferred. It seemed incongruous. Incongruous and somehow rather grim.
"Well isn't that an annoyance." It was the same voice as before, although this time there was no disembodied head. Wesley couldn't see anybody at all. He turned to face the sound of the voice, but there was nothing but darkness where he thought that it had come from. Shadows that seemed deeper than they had any right to be.
"An annoyance?" He knew exactly what the voice meant, but he wanted to encourage it into greater speech. There might be something to be learnt, or its owner might be coaxed out of the shadows. A low laugh answered him.
"A great annoyance. I left you caged up. You shouldn't have been able to get out."
"Oh. That." Wesley allowed himself a small, faintly self-satisfied smile. "I'm quite the Houdini as it happens."
"So I see." From nearby came the unmistakable sound of an energy crackle, and the scratching of claws on the concrete floor. "But happily even Houdini found that there was something he couldn't escape from."
"A frozen river?"
"Death."
"Oh." Slowly Wesley turned around. He already knew what he was going to see; the Kra'ash, looming above him with its teeth bared. It sniffed the air and growled in puzzlement, and for the second time in as many minutes, Wesley allowed himself a faintly smug smile. The creature was watching him; able to see him, but not to smell him. Either it didn't understand what he was, or it knew all too well. It took a lumbering step forward, and one large hand groped tentatively at the air. Wesley watched the claws with a certain degree of nervousness. The way that the universe seemed inclined to treat him, he wouldn't have been at all surprised if he had one of his moments of unexpected solidity just before the Kra'ash lashed out with all its force. He took a step back, eyes never leaving the lumbering creature, and as it came for the attack, ducked its first violent blow. It growled at him, angered, and lashed out again, its second hand striking low and with a speed that did not seem at all in keeping with its size. Wesley had no chance to dodge this time, and the huge, clawed hand came straight towards his midriff, passing painlessly and easily through his torso. The Kra'ash roared in fury and confusion, then made another slash at its insubstantial target. The hand sailed through the top of Wesley's head, rushing through his neck and emerging from his chest in a downward sweep that blew papers from the surface of the nearby desk. The Kra'ash screamed allowed in renewed rage, but back-pedalled. There was no fear in its eyes, but by the look of it, it had no wish to continue its assault on this unpredictable opponent. Wesley heard the dry cough that he had heard before, mingled with a laugh that did not seem even slightly touched by humour.
"I confess that was one option I hadn't considered. I've never had a ghost sent against me before. You are a ghost?"
"Seems so." Turning his back on the Kra'ash with a nonchalance that was really rather enjoyable, Wesley switched his attention to the invisible speaker in the dark. "How about introducing yourself?"
"You don't know who I am? And there was I thinking that you'd been sent to stop me. I'm almost insulted."
"Don't be. I'm never given much information to work with. Seems to be some sort of company policy." Wesley took a few steps towards the deep and shifting shadows. "So who are you? You said that you'd encountered the Watchers before. Any particular occasion? Something that I might have heard about?"
"Then you are involved with the Watchers. Or were, I suppose I should say." There was a silence. "Okay then. Suppose we were to have an exchange of identities? You're the trespasser, my very dead friend. Why don't you introduce yourself first?"
"Alright." It seemed fair enough, and at least the owner of the voice was speaking freely now. "My name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and yes, I was involved with the Watchers. I went freelance several years ago."
"You were thrown out, you mean." The voice hinted at mockery, but not in any great amount. "I never heard of a worthwhile Watcher who wasn't. My name is Walsh. Henry Walsh. So does the name ring any bells in that carefully schooled Watcher brain of yours?"
"Henry Walsh?" It did sound familiar, in the way that long-ago-heard names sometimes did. In the same, old, half-known way that the purple liquid in the cauldron had seemed familiar, and had linked itself to a barely-remembered story of dead girls in the fourteenth century. "You were a magician that the Council tried to stop. Thirty or forty years ago I think. They don't talk about it much. I think the files were sealed. Something to do with you having access to spells that the Council wanted buried? My father always had files like that in the house when I was a child. He felt that his library was a better safehouse than anything the Council had."
"Spells that the Council wanted buried." There was bitter humour in the voice now. "Yes, I suppose that is about right. They didn't appreciate my ambition. You've realised what I'm up to by now? Five dead girls waiting to be seven; the contents of the cauldron? A certain spell last performed in an English village in the fourteenth century by a very clever sorcerer wiped out of the history books by your erstwhile colleagues. Not that he didn't take a fair few of them with him, when they finally managed to kill him."
"It was a terrible spell, by all accounts. He wanted power that no human should ever have."
"He wanted to test his abilities, and see if they could bring him just rewards. I worked hard to gain such abilities myself, and thirty-five years ago I set out to test them. The Watchers found out about it, somehow, and they came to stop me. There was a battle. Their magicians were no match for me. Always scared of real magic, the Watchers. But they had a trick up their sleeve. They called in a favour. A little assistance from another dimension. When I tried to spin my spell, there was a clashing of power fields, and a burst of pure magical energy that had no place in this world." A bitter laugh showed a lurking anger. "The Watchers. Defenders of mankind, as they claim to be, risked wiping out half the French countryside in their eagerness to defeat me. Pure chance saved all those civilians, just as it saved me. Not that it left much. Not of me." There was a hiss, as of hydraulics, perhaps, then a figure loomed into view out of the darkness. A twisted, bent figure, who seemed little more than a misshapen torso in a chair. His face was familiar as the face that had appeared in the second hangar, but beyond that there was little enough of him left. One arm gripped a joystick to control his chair, but the other arm was missing. Both legs were gone. Wesley gave an involuntary hiss, that might have been pity, or might have been mere shock.
"Enjoy the sight of your associates' handiwork, Mr Pryce? I can't say that I'm too fond of it. They destroyed my body, and they destroyed what was inside of it. All these years, slowly dying of the injuries they gave me. My lungs will collapse eventually, if something else doesn't give in first. I've been able to keep myself going with my magic, but every year the damage grows greater, and there's less and less for the magic to work on. Every year my ability to patch myself up grows less. So I decided that there was only one thing for it." He smiled. "Try again. Spin the spell again. Make it work this time. I couldn't kill the girls myself this time, so I got a friend to do the job for me. There's so much that I can do though. I thought, if I can stay one step ahead of the Watchers, I might have a chance. But it seems that I wasn't quite careful enough. Still. You won't be giving me any more trouble."
"I can hold my own." Wesley flexed his fingers, well aware that he wouldn't be any match for a magician of so many years experience, but knowing that he could give a good account of himself. He might be a ghost, but he had learned that he could breach the gap between corporeality and non-corporeality when he had to. It was hard, but it was by no means impossible.
"You think so?" Walsh seemed amused. "I'm a magician, my boy. And not a dead one - yet - which gives me certain advantages. Never, ever, tell a powerful magician your name, Mr Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Names have power. Such power."
"What do you mean?" Suddenly nervous, Wesley felt some very uncomfortable suspicions beginning to lurk within his mind. Walsh smiled.
"Try to dematerialise. Try to transport yourself away. Go on. I insist."
"You can't stop me from being a ghost." Wesley tried to transport himself out of the hangar; to a different part of the room; to anywhere but this little patch of floor in front of Henry Walsh. It was useless. He lifted his hands, ready to send a bold of energy at the other magician, but nothing happened. It was as though he had no power anymore. "What have you done?"
"Nothing much. Nothing permanent. The only way to do that, after all, would be to restore you to life, and I confess that my powers don't extend that far. At least, not without a body to work with." Walsh's chair came closer, bringing the ailing magician to gloat. "All that I've done is trap you here. You still have all your powers, my boy, but you can't use them. A simple trick. Your identity gave me something to home in on, if you want to put it that way. A personally tailored spell. A genetically engineered virus for the supernatural, perhaps. Oh I've no doubt that you'll find a way out of it eventually. I can feel the magic in you, boy. You'll find a way to use it. But until then? Stand there and stew, and stay the hell out of my way. I'm getting what I'm due, and nobody is going to stop me. Certainly not some envoy of the bastards who began all this." He smiled, coldly and thinly, then moved his chair past Wesley and off towards the door. "Enjoy the rest, Mr Pryce. I'll be next door. Just call, if you want anything, but don't expect a quick answer. I'll be busy." He laughed his dry laugh again, broken once more by the coughing that he didn't seem able to control. "I think it's time I sped things up. No more surreptitious kills for my lumbering friend. I should thank you, Mr Pryce. I was going to wait. Be circumspect. Now I won't bother. Thanks to you I'll be performing this spell tonight, for better or for worse. And there'll be two more dead girls by the end of the night." His wheels scratched the floor in tandem with the claws of the Kra'ash. "Do have a nice rest. I hope it won't be too uncomfortable." The door swung open. Wesley heard it, but found that he couldn't turn to watch the magician leave. He merely heard the wheels rolling down the ramp, and the contented grunting of a Kra'ash given leave to go hunting again. Damn it. The creature had to be stopped. He had to get out of here, and find Angel and Buffy. Something had to be done before two more girls were killed. But he couldn't move. Before he had had some movement, even after Walsh's spell had trapped him. Now nothing moved at all. He felt peculiar; weak; uncoordinated. There was a blue glow surrounding him, he realised. A blue glow that made his head spin and his strength fade. He was losing substance. The colour fading from his limbs; the resolution crumbling as he faded from view. Soon all that was left was a faint transparency, and then he couldn't help collapsing to his knees. The room seemed to spin around him. You'll find a way out, Walsh had told him; so there was a way back from this. There was a way to fight it, and regain his form. There had to be. But he couldn't think of one. Couldn't think of anything. Couldn't think at all. As the last of his strength faded, and his vision left him completely, his mind set itself adrift and floated away. There was nothing but blue light then. Soon enough there was nothing at all.