"If this isn't a beautiful woman with an almost-insatiable lust for me, I'm going to be very angry."
"Vampires got into my house."
Xander was wide awake. "Deke? Is your family okay?"
"They're scared," Deke said. "But yeah. Symone's got a little throat damage, nothing serious. They're good."
"Have you checked the house yet? Are they gone?" Xander looked around his room and found a pen and a blank piece of paper.
"I only checked the top floor," Deke said. "And no, my family's still here."
"I meant the vampires, but I'm guessing you're not sure yet. Okay, give me your address and we'll be there as soon as possible. Deke… are any of them… I mean, do they have, uh, bite marks?"
"I didn't check," Deke said, his voice suddenly weak. "But uh… but I'm wearing a cross, and I've hugged 'em all."
"That should do, for now," Xander said. He took down the address and hung up, after telling Deke to barricade himself and his family in the master bedroom. Then he began waking people up.
Xander knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me, Deke," he said. He waited as Deke said a few quiet words to his family before opening his bedroom door.
"The door was open, so I just came in," Xander said. "Hope you don't mind."
"Nah, it's cool," Deke said once he was out in the hallway. "Thanks for making it here so quick."
"Yeah, well, we have a lot of experience moving fast," Xander said. "We're clearing the house, Angel's clearing around outside, looking for clues."
Deke nodded and followed Xander downstairs, to keep the conversation away from his family.
"So what's going on?" Deke asked. "What's happening here?"
"We're not sure yet," Xander said. "But you said your family's fine?"
"Yeah, yeah, just scared, you know?"
Xander nodded. "But they're not dead. That means whatever got in had a different reason for being here."
Deke looked up at him sharply. "What?"
Xander stopped and turned to Deke. "Sorry," he said. "I forget sometimes that everybody isn't as familiar with this stuff as I am. Look, for the most part, vampires are just out to feed, to stay alive. If a vampire got into your house and didn't hurt anybody, then there's a reason, usually a more sinister one."
"Like what?"
Xander shrugged. "Mayhem, destruction, apocalypse, whatever. The point is it's never good."
"Ap… apocalypse? Did you just say –"
"Yeah," Xander said, "it's probably best if you don't think too much about it for the moment. Listen, you need to go talk to your family. Tell them the rules. Don't invite anybody inside after dark, don't go outside alone, all that stuff. Okay?"
"But what about the guy who got in?" Deke asked. "He can still come in, right?"
"Yeah," Xander said, "but we're taking care of that."
"You can take care of these things?"
Xander nodded and pointed to an adjoining room. There was a soft glow, as if from candlelight.
"Willow's in there," he said. "She's casting a de-invitation spell that will stop that guy from coming in again."
"Xander," Faith called from the kitchen..
"Go talk to your family," Xander said. "We'll be searching around down here."
Deke went back upstairs, and Xander joined Faith in the kitchen. She was staring at a wall.
"What's up… whoa," Xander said as he caught sight of the wall. "Can you read that?"
She shook her head. Xander leaned closer, and touched the writing with one finger.
"Well, it's written in blood, whatever it means," said Xander. "And that second line…"
"I'm thinking," Faith said, "that's a direct reference to you."
"What," Xander said. "Just because it says 'RIP ALH'?"
"Yeah," Faith said. "Just because."
"What are we… whoa," Willow said, as she stepped into the kitchen. "See, that's not fun."
They all shook their heads. "What's it mean?" Xander asked.
"Mortalitas omnia vincit," said Willow. "Death conquers all."
"No, we don't know what it means," Xander said. Deke had introduced his wife and kids to the group, and was talking to Xander about what was going on. Xander was not being very comforting. "I mean, we know what it says, but we don't know why they put it here."
"You mean you don't think they're trying to scare you?" Deke asked. He was not very comforted.
"They probably are," Xander said. "But there's usually a deeper meaning. It's like tagging. They leave their mark so we know who they are. But it works both ways. Once we know who they are, we have a better chance and finding out what they're up to."
"Uh huh," Deke said. "And how long does that usually take?"
"Anywhere from… a few hours to, once, about forty-five minutes before an apocalypse."
"Before an apoc–!" Deke cut himself off before finishing the word, and pushed Xander up against a wall farther away from his family, and lowered his voice. "You better not be sayin' an attack on my family is a precursor to the world ending."
"I'm not," Xander said. "Not, you know, necessarily. Didn't I tell you not to think about it?"
"How can I stop thinking about it when you keep bringing it up?" Deke asked.
Xander looked up at Deke. "That's uh… a good point. Really, though? Could be any number of things. Ritual sacrifice, raising of a demon, or a god, invoking spirits or mystical energies to create an army of zombies, creating a tear in the dimensional walls… there's really a whole slew of things."
"You're not making me feel any better."
"Hey, you're the one who wanted in on this stuff," Xander said.
"I didn't know it was gonna involve my family! Damn, man, you think I want them endangered?"
Xander closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. "You're right. Of course. Listen, they're probably going to be scared of this place for a while. Is there somewhere else you can send them, where they might feel more comfortable?"
"I could send them to my dad's," Deke said. He would feel better with them there anyway. His dad had a good security system, a big, scary looking dog and a shotgun.
"That sounds good," Xander said. "We'll get what we can from here, and then see what we can find out. But, the truth is, I really don't think your family's in danger."
"Why not?"
Xander shrugged. "The message was for me. They're just using you as a way to get my attention. Well, job done. We're paying attention. Now, we see what they want."
"This is not a normal search," Wesley said, as he laid out any number of books in front of the assembled group. Giles, Willow, Angel, Fred and Dawn had joined him in the Wolfram and Hart library, and were each flipping through a book as Wesley spoke. "We do not know if what we are looking for is time sensitive, nor if it is related to a cult, a specific ritual, a prophecy or anything. We have, as it were, very little to work with, and as such, we should concentrate our efforts on the general, rather than the specific. Otherwise, we will never find anything."
"Found something," Dawn said, one hand raised in the air. "Says here that the phrase 'Death Conquers All' was at one point the motto of… the Order of Aurelius."
Everyone looked at Angel.
"I don't remember anything about that," he said. "And I was with them for a pretty long time…"
"Is it possible that they took on the saying after you got your soul?" Wesley asked.
"I suppose so," Angel said. "But probably not. I mean, I'm sure Dru or Spike would have mentioned something back in Sunnydale. Or even Darla, back when she was, you know, alive again for a little while."
"And it's not as though we can ask the Master," Willow said. "Cuz… dead."
"You know, I bet it was Luke," Angel said, shaking his head. "The guy was always like that. He was so dumb. He once tried to draw up a family crest. I mean, trying to find slogans and mottoes and the like, that's right up his alley. I bet it was him."
"The Order was particularly violent and sadistic, was it not?" Giles asked, as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Sadistic is a good word for it," Angel said.
"And, in your time, were you to send a message of this sort, would it have been with blood on a wall and the entire family still alive? Or would Mr. Kay have come home to find his sons' throats ripped out, his daughter disemboweled and his wife turned?"
"Maybe not, you know exactly, but… yeah. Something like that."
"Then does it not follow that the people we are searching for either are not actually from the Order of Aurelius, but either another group entirely that used the same motto, or from a group of vampires who heard of the Order, and its history, and wanted to imitate them, but could only manage to do so poorly?"
"That does make a kind of sense," Angel said. "I mean, this just reeks of poor quality. I bet it is someone who just wanted to be like us. But Darla's gone, I'm out of the whole 'evil' business, Luke's dead, Spike's dead, Drusilla's… well, this just isn't her style…"
"There could always be more than one group that uses it," Wesley suggested.
"What would be Drusilla's style?" Fred asked.
"She probably would have mentioned a prophecy or the stars, she was a kind of a seer," said Willow.
"Yeah," Angel agreed. "Or, knowing her, she just would have done their hair or something. She's a little crazy."
"And whose fault is that?" Buffy asked as she, Cordelia and Gunn walked into the room. "We searched the whole area around Deke's house, didn't find anything."
"Cordy, you went?" Angel asked. "I didn't know that you were –"
"What?" she asked. "You didn't expect me to just sit around the hotel the whole time doing nothing, did you? Please! I've been in bed for a few months, I want to get around, to move, you know, work out the kinks."
"Not to mention she was dying for an iced mocha… something," Gunn said. "And stayed by the car while we checked the place out."
"Well, I was wearing nice shoes, and it was all muddy!" she protested. "And anyway, I've recently recovered from a very serious trauma. I shouldn't have to do leg work."
"Didn't you just say that… you know what? Never mind," Gunn said. "Anyway, we didn't find anything. Footprints, magical doodads, anything. Place looked clean."
"Except for the freaky writing in blood," Buffy said.
"Right, except for that."
"So nothing we didn't already know," Fred said.
"What about Xander and Faith?" Willow asked. "Did they find anything?"
"We haven't seen 'em," Gunn said. "What were they doing, anyway?"
"Checking out some underworld contacts," replied Angel.
Buffy frowned. "I hope he – they're all right." If anybody caught the slip-up, they didn't say anything.
"They'll be fine," Angel said. "Faith's a Slayer, and I trained Xander myself. There's nothing to worry about."
As his head slammed sideways into the bar, Xander could see where, mere moments earlier, his face had left a dent in the drywall. He noted, somewhat more objectively than expected, that his blood really didn't go with the paint in this place, and they'd probably have to fix that. He thought it vaguely odd that he was happy that the walls weren't made of cinderblocks.
There again, he was getting his ass well and truly kicked at the moment, so he had to take his happiness where he could find it.
If only he hadn't dropped his gun when the demon did its best attempt at a Mike Tyson impression. Xander, happily, still had his ear. Again: happiness where he could find it.
Xander reached on the other side of the bar and grabbed the first two bottles he found. As the demon behind him whipped him around to begin pummeling him again, Xander smashed two bottles of vodka over the demon's head.
He soon found that being pummeled by a demon that smelled heavily of vodka was not better than being pummeled by one that did not. He could tell that the other occupants of the bar – mostly vampires – were enjoying the show. As he was thrown across the room, Xander looked for something, anything, that could help him out of this mess – and where was Faith by the way? Wasn't it about time for her to be sweeping in out of somewhere and saving his ass from, you know, dying?
And then Xander saw his gun, and right in front of it, his salvation. As the demon approached, Xander grabbed it and held it in his palm. When the demon grabbed him, Xander spun around and stabbed the still-lit cigarette into its left eye.
The demon smacked his hand away, and, for a moment, seemed to laugh. Then his head caught on fire, and he wasn't laughing anymore. He dropped Xander and started running around the room, looking for something to put his head out with. It being a demon bar, he found no help.
Xander dragged himself over to his gun, picked it up and fired three rounds at the fiery, hulking figure of the creature that had just been maiming him. The third shot hit the monster in the head and splattered its brain across part of the bar.
Xander grabbed a bar towel and wiped as much blood from his face as he could. That done, he raised his gun to head-level with the bartender.
"Slayer," he said. "Where is she?"
The terrified man pointed to the back room of the bar.
"And how many are there?"
"Th-th-th-three," the man stammered.
Xander nodded and walked towards the door the man had indicated. As he passed over the still-flaming demon corpse, he put another bullet into its chest. For fun.
Xander paused at the door, wiped more blood from his brow, and kicked the door in, his gun raised. His gun drooped as he surveyed the carnage in front of him. An arm here. A leg there. And oh yes, there's the rest of the body.
Xander's eyes eventually followed the path of destruction and nastiness to its end, where Faith was, at that very moment, dispatching of the last of the demons.
"Where'd you get the hardware?" Xander asked when the demon at last slumped to the ground. Its head rolled a few feet farther.
Faith shook her head and hefted the sword into her left hand. "Idiots just left this sitting around. What am I supposed to do, not kill them?"
Xander sighed and pressed the towel back to his head.
"You all right, X?"
"Yeah," he said, leaning against the door frame. "Just a little light on blood at the moment. Thought it might be nice to give the vamps in here a snack, you know?"
"Never had that impulse," Faith said.
"That's because I'm a giver, Faith," he said. "And I'm a little lightheaded."
Faith walked over, took him by the arm and led him to a table and ordered him to sit.
"Anyone so much as touches him," Faith said, aiming the sword at the salivating vampires around the bar, "and I'm gonna get mean. Understand?"
Nobody said a word.
"Now, which one of you is uh… hold on." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "Which one of you is Gerard?"
Xander looked up at her, and Faith read the paper again.
"Gerard?" she said. "Really?"
"I go by Jerry."
Xander turned and saw a massive, black skinned demon with spikes coming from the top of its head, and fists the size of bowling balls.
"I can see why," Faith said.
"We don't need commentary, Faith," Xander said.
"Oh, come on! His name is Gerard!"
"My mother named me that," Jerry said, striding over to Faith with a speed his size would not suggest. His voice reverberated through the bar and seemed to vibrate in Xander's chest, like the guy had his own internal subwoofer. "Do you have a problem with my name?"
The room was again silent as Faith looked up into a couple of rows of sharp teeth.
"There's no problem," Xander said, glaring at Faith from under the bloodied rag. "She didn't mean to be rude. She apologizes."
Faith sighed and muttered a half-hearted apology.
"Good," said Jerry. "People who mock others because of their names are rude, and I don't deal with rude people. How can I help you?"
"'Mortalitas vincit omnia'," Xander recited as Jerry and Faith joined him at the table.
"Death conquers all," Jerry said. "I want beer and money."
Faith raised an arm and signaled for a couple beers.
"Now, money I have," she said. "But you ain't seein' a dime until I get some info."
"It was the motto of the Order of Aurelius for a time," Jerry said.
"The Order of Aurelius has been out of commission for a while. Spike, Darla, and the Master are dead, Angel's got his soul and Dru… look, it wasn't them," Xander said. "Try again."
"Of course," Jerry said as the serving girl-demon delivered a drink for each of them. "Had you let me finish, I would have pointed that out. The Order hasn't been heard from in a few years, not in any significant way."
Jerry took a long drag from his beer, sighed contentedly and leaned back in his chair. "Okay. There was a little group out of Peru a few decades ago that picked that up as its motto. Nobody really paid attention at first, they were really just like a fraternity of demons. You know, get together a couple times a week, have some drinks, kill and maybe eat a few people. Good times. Anyway, nothing happens for years. Then about three weeks ago, I hear that they're under new management. A real ambitious guy, apparently, who's got it in for somebody here in L.A."
"What's their name?" Faith asked.
"Don't remember," Jerry said as he downed the last of his beer. "My memory, you know, it's just getting fuzzy."
Faith rolled her eyes and tried to pull a wad of twenties from her pocket. The wad stuck, because of the tightness of her pants, and she had to stand up. Frustrated, she slammed the money on the table and glared at Xander, who was trying to stifle a laugh.
"Wow," Jerry said, as he flipped through the money. "My memory just got better. They're called The Brotherhood."
"Okay," Xander said. "And the guy who runs it. Who is he? What's his name?"
"He's a wizard, really into black magic. I think he even knows some voodoo," Jerry said. "His name is uh… Alan. Alan O'Toole."
End Chapter 26