Disclaimer: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…
NB – thanks for the positive reviews I've received from readers for The Scroll of Niamh, the first in my The Blood Will Tell series. This is story #2. For the sake of American/Non-English readers, please be aware that I am a British authoress, and though I have tried to use American English terminology, there are differences. For example, in America, there is only "curb" but in England, I step off the kerb but curb my desire for more chocolate, which is why those two words are spelled differently.
Summary: Sequel to The Scroll of Niamh. Wesley's common sense takes great pleasure in pointing out how bad an idea it is in allowing a punk vampire to be your roommate, because a soul has no bearing on a creature's ability to be relentlessly obnoxious…Rating T – M, consists of Three Chapters. Occurs literally on the same day after Spike is made corporeal again.
THE VAMPIRE IN MY LIVING ROOM
Chapter Two – Orbs & Opinions
Spike's voice had risen with anxiety. "Wes mate, you've got to stop this crazy life… just put it down, okay?"
His lips tightening, Wesley's fingers tightened around the projectile and he let fly viciously –
Several bystanders looked impressed as the dart hit a perfect Bull's Eye.
Spike sneered. "So this is where Enigmatic, Mysterious Hero slinks off to of a Friday night, hey? No wonder you keep it secret from the others…" Spike looked around the bar area of Ye Olde Britannia with an expression of withering contempt, his tone marinated in sarcasm as he pointedly gazed at two at-least-septuagenarians playing chequers in a dim corner with all the lightening speed of arthritic tortoises. "What would Angel say about this wild, adrenaline-junkie, out-on-the-edge secret life of yours, eh?"
"While I realise that stalking me obviously gives you –"
"Stalking? You? Could you possibly take a second to look round that ego, mate?" Spike for a moment sounded so much like Buffy Summers in full on Kick-Ass Slayer mode that Wesley blinked. "The day the highlight of my afterlife is following you around is the day I eat a stake."
"And yet you're still here."
Spike gave one of his characteristic shrugs. "Was taking an after-dinner stroll through the metropolis – god, I hate LA - when I caught a whiff of Watcher. Thought I'd best check it out, now I'm part of Team Angel and all that." The blond vampire tried without success to look serious and noble, but his derisive smirk got in the way.
"Whiff of..?" Wesley flushed as he recalled a certain long ago occasion when Angel had taken one delicate sniff and instantly known, over twelve hours after the event, that Wesley had had a one-night stand the night before, though the dark vampire hadn't seemed aware of the cruel bruises the woman had inflicted on him as she enjoyed forcing his submission.
Wesley's embarrassment changed to something darker as his magically-restored memories recalled the tense exchanges between himself and Angel after he had rescued Angel from the bay…"I can smell Lilah on you", Angel had said. Wesley knew he shouldn't have been surprised – a trait common to both Angelus and Angel's nature was to try to dominate and control what he considered to be his, and Wesley had been part of the ensouled vampire's life long enough to bring out those possessive tendencies –
"Your scent was strong here," Spike was saying, "so I decided to be a good little Scooby and investigate. Los Angeles, the City of Dreams, Hollywood, Rodeo Drive, packed with the Beautiful People, and so of course you spend the pathetic excuse that is your social life in a tacky ex-pats theme bar. You should be ashamed to be a Scooby – even that poof Xander had more of a dangerous edge than you." Spike nodded at the barman who approached, indicating Wesley with a jerk of his thumb. "Large Jack Daniels, no ice, on his tab."
The barman hesitated but Wesley nodded in resignation to Spike's continued presence. The blond vampire perched himself on a bar stool, lighting a cigarette with a casually expert flick of his metal lighter, oblivious to the barman's admiration at the sight of a man so secure in his sense of self and sexual identity that he could blithely wear black-with-red-tip nail polish.
Ye Olde Britannia's interior décor matched its self-consciously pretentious name; the artificial dark wood and stone-effect walls were adorned with various flags, such as the Union Jack, Cross of St. George, Cross of St. Andrew and Welsh Dragon. Various portraits of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandria, King George V and Queen Mary looked down disapprovingly from the walls, interspersed with posters like the famous one of General Kitchener with his YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU slogan, and that of Winston Churchill making his famous Victory sign. Spike half-expected to hear the wail of air-raid sirens and the menacing drone of approaching Luftwaffe; the whole place looked as if someone had sucked it en masse through a time-portal from the London Blitz, circa 1942…something not entirely beyond the realms of possibility, Spike acknowledged with a sudden twinge of nervousness.
"At least Xander could play pool," he complained petulantly as Wesley threw another perfect Bull's Eye, he'd never been much good at darts, not having the patience. Give him something a bit larger, like railroad spikes…his soul seared him and he flinched with the guilt and shame.
Apparently Wesley decided that if he ignored Spike long enough, the vampire might get bored enough to go away, but sensing the opportunity for humour at the expense of the other British man, Spike was reluctant to decamp. He lounged on the bar stool, working his way through several cigarettes and glasses of Scotch again to the obvious admiration of the barman, who of course had no idea that to a vampire, the worst rotgut was about as intoxicating as water. As time went on the place became actually rather full, surprisingly with a majority of up-and-coming professional executive types; all Filofaxes and stock portfolios, men in those ghastly trendy braces and power-dressing suits on the women, though thankfully without those big Dynasty-style shoulder pads that you could have landed a Boeing on.
Through it all, Wesley continued to play darts and largely ignore him. At a certain point, however, Spike looked at his fellow Englishman through blue-white wreaths of cigarette smoke and narrowed his eyes in a thoughtful manner that had nothing whatsoever to do with irritation from the acrid tobacco.
A successful vampire, i.e., one that survived any length of time, was without master when it came to human Body Language, making the greatest behavioural scientist or supreme psychoanalyst look like a rank amateur in comparison. For the undead, it was not a matter of academic interest but survival. The slightest nuance of facial expression, the merest shift in body stance, the tiniest contraction and flex of a single muscle, the vampire that wanted to survive longer than a week learned to read them all as if they were an open book in a single, all-encompassing glance. The one that would run, the one that would freeze, the one that would thrash in panic…and the one that would retain the presence of mind to fight back.
It was easier nowadays of course. The pseudo-god Science jealously tried to steal the worshippers of the mystical and the religious, denigrating these older truths in its attempts to reign supreme. In this computer age the human prey, foolishly indoctrinated by Science and Rationality that vampires and demons were fairy stories of the uncivilised, uneducated savage, were more likely to conveniently freeze like a rabbit caught in headlights and be easily turned into tasty snacks, but such ease was, like TV, only a post-1950s phenomena.
Back in more honest times, when humanity had been more in tune with the world around them, a lot more humans had instincts honed enough to allow them to either escape by running like hell (and bringing back a torch waving mob), or by fighting back with enough vigour to injure or even dust the vampire that was attacking them. Even up to the 1940s, a surprisingly large number of vampires had never made it past the first two months, especially after that bastard Bram Stoker had given the entire English-speaking world step-by-step instructions on how to whack a vampire, just because that show-off "Count" Drac had chowed down on some Transylvanian tart Stoker was tumbling in the sack!
In this vein Spike began to watch the way Wesley was playing darts more carefully, noting the occasional flicker in those cool smoke-and-shadow eyes, that focussed intent with which he played, projecting a sort of aloof superiority as if completely confident of his pre-eminent ability. Without bluster, boasting or braggadocio it was nevertheless just the sort of testosterone-laden vibe to draw the young Turks into a pissing contest. Spike's lips curved up a merest hint as inevitably some go-getting corporate executive type who looked barely old enough to shave started to lay down dead presidents and inveigled a clearly reluctant Wesley into a match.
Gesturing the barman with a finger to refill his glass, Spike lit another cigarette from the stub of his last one and leaned back against the bar, rocking the bar stool very slightly from side to side, a mocking smile on his face as he watched the game and the wagers taking place as the men preened for the attention of the attractive women who were smiling coyly at them. Their most flirtatious smiles were saved for the quiet, tall Englishman who did not flirt, and whose cool, silvery-sheened eyes showed his superb command of the game.
Nobody likes to be publicly made a fool of, and such things make a man's thoughts turn hotly to revenge, but Spike had to admire Wesley's mastery of the art of the shakedown; he wouldn't have thought his fellow Englishman capable of such subtle manipulations. Wesley lost games by the narrowest of margins and the unluckiest of throws, but as time ticked on past midnight, the Brit relentlessly increased his winnings in such a way as make it seem impossible that it was anything other than just luck. Only Spike was aware that every action had obviously been pre-planned by the Englishman a dozen moves ahead of everyone else.
At just gone one o'clock in the morning, Wesley gathered up four hundred dollars from the yuppies and retired from the field victorious, returning to the bar where his suede leather jacket was draped over the empty bar stool next to Spike. One young pup was pouting over his losses, but over Wesley's turned back, Spike's arctic-blue eyes met those of the yuppie. Ancient instincts not smothered by the relentless pursuit of money and superficial pleasure shrieked warnings as those icy eyes warned that hassling the dignified grey-eyed Englishman whose back was so vulnerably presented would lead to a world of hurt.
Finishing the last of his pint of beer with one hand as he shrugged on his jacket, Wesley laid enough bills on the bar to cover Spike's drinks but instead of heading towards the double doors onto the main sidewalk, Wesley turned and headed out towards the back. Man and vampire exited the titular fire exit into a very dark and smelly alley, cold wind drawn through it in a wind-tunnel effect. Wesley shoved his hands in his pockets, but seemed in no particular hurry to move, never mind leave; Spike allowed the fire exit to swing shut behind him, turning him into an invisible black shadow in deeper blackness, waiting for the next Act.
A minute went by, then another, then the vampire's acute olfactory ability caught the closing-in smell of rotting eggs mixed with sulphur and his enhanced hearing distinctly heard the double rhythm of something that had more than one heart. A large, very bulky shape momentarily blotted out what little light fell in at the end of the alley, and then it slowly walked towards Wesley, feet falling with a weighty thud at each step, followed by three smaller versions of itself, obvious "heavies", who stopped at a discreet distance and assumed guarding stances.
It was huge with impressively large teeth and big bony ridges down both massive arms that spread into Y-shaped forks of bone on the back of each huge hand, its own personal inbuilt knuckle dusters. Like Lorne, its skin was green but whereas the empath demon's hue was the bright emerald of fresh spring grass, Spike had only ever seen this creature's skin tone on something that had been dead six months. However, the sulphur yellow eyes fixed on Wesley Wyndham-Pryce with intelligence, not mindless bloodlust. Spike wasn't familiar with the species, and he knew most of the demonic types that physically inhabited this dimension, so the Not-Jolly Green Giant probably was only visiting from another dimension.
"Segrid," Wesley acknowledged coolly as if meeting an acquaintance for High Tea in an elegant, aristocratic London drawing-room rather than a stinking back alley in downtown LA.
"Wezzzzleee." Segrid's jaw and facial muscles were not configured for speaking English, probably any human tongue at all, but the big monster inclined its head. "You have my money?"
"You have the Orb?" countered Wesley as if challenging a creature with a clear two-foot height advantage and a good thousand pounds on him was not something he was particularly worried about.
One huge hand with impressively long claws for fingernails extended palm upwards. Nestling in the centre was a crystalline object about the size of a tennis ball. Dull and without lustre, it looked like nothing so much as a buck-ninety-five lead crystal paperweight, but Wesley seemed content.
With a curt nod, Wesley reached inside his suede jacket, and pulled out the $350-plus he had won at darts not an hour before.
Segrid's mouth widened in a hideous rictus that was probably a smile, and a sort of eager ripple went through the heavies…
Uh-oh…time to add a little muscle to the proceedings.
The group stiffened as, very loud in the preternatural quiet of the alley, there came a clear snick sound, followed by a barely audible whoosh and a tiny blue-orange flame suddenly danced in mid-air, illuminating the shadows before being abruptly extinguished to the accompaniment of a sharp clack. A tiny red circle glowed as Spike stepped forward into what little light there was, raising two fingers and taking the cigarette out of his mouth to blow a perfect smoke ring.
He looked at Segrid and the demon's heavies, and his own eyes glowed smoky, mustard yellow for a moment, but his demon face progressed no further. It didn't need to; eighteen years as Angelus' protégé and a further century as Drusilla's bed-mate meant that Spike was able to unconsciously exude thick, dark waves of homicidal menace without so much as a flicker of an eyelash.
The gangrenous greens twitched warily as they recognised what Spike was, and noted that the calm grey-eyed human didn't himself bat so much as an eyelash at the Punk Rocker vampire being suddenly behind him despite his species being a vampire's snack of choice.
Wesley held out the wad of bills to Segrid with one hand, plucking the "orb" from its palm deftly with the other. Segrid's clawed hands counted the bills to $360, before it raised its hideous face to Wesley's in obvious puzzlement. "The price was $200…"
A cold smile curved Wesley's mouth, making him resemble Spike in a manner that had the heavies shifting uneasily. "You kept your end of the deal…mostly. Let me introduce you to a concept: return customer."
Segrid blinked and then his face twisted in a truly horrific contortion that Spike realised was a grin. "Right..." with a sharp jerk of his head, Segrid turned without further ado and lumbered away with his goons.
Wesley left the alley with Spike on his heels and went to his car – a midnight-blue Barracuda soft-top that had clearly been chosen with the need to accommodate all of Team Angel if need be. The Brit must have had some sort of mystical wards protecting the car, for in this neighbourhood the expensive, powerful machine should have been gone within ten minutes of being left – or at the very least stripped down to the chassis. Getting in the driver's side, Wesley placed the paperweight on the dashboard where Spike, smoothly sliding in on the passenger side, promptly picked it up and held it up to the light; however it still looked dull and interesting.
"You do remember that you're now the Head of Wolfram & Hart's Occult Department?" Spike enquired.
Wesley pulled away from the sidewalk immediately since buckling up wasn't really something a vampire worried about; the undead had the ability to survive unscathed an impact that would seriously injure or outright kill a human. That was how The Master's minions had got the little boy who was their Chosen One back in Sunnydale several years ago, by crashing the bus he and his mother were on. - an auto wreck that would leave Wesley a smear on the blacktop would most likely merely piss Spike off. "Yes."
"What I'm saying here is that you have a budget for this sort of acquisition. Not exactly any need to lurk in dank temples-to-stench like that all on your own against the Incredibly Ugly Hulk."
"The Orb is for my personal collection." Wesley hung a right, displaying a reassuring speed in getting them away from the vicinity just in case. "So I used my own money, not Wolfram & Hart's."
"And of course this way there's absolutely no trail that can lead back to you as the owner." Spike was nothing if not perceptive. He twisted the crystal ball left and right as he held it up towards the moon. "What is it?"
"An Orb of Thessaly."
"Wow!"
There was a pause for the space of about two heartbeats.
"You have no idea what an Orb of Thessaly is."
"Not the foggiest," Spike confessed cheerfully, "but explain it and I'll try the admiring exclamation with a bit more sincerity."
"It clarifies prophecies, shows the true meaning of precognitive riddles." Wesley explained as he drove the powerful car with a grace and deft ability that belied his sometimes hesitant, uncertain attitude in the presence of others. "Hold it over a section of prophecy and the real meaning of the passage can be read through it in a simple, clear, jargon-free version of the reader's native language."
"Sounds like every seer should have one," commented Spike, "so why aren't these useful little gadgets scattered like confetti all over the place, considering all the pretentious prophecies and cryptic conundrums knocking about our dimension?"
Wesley shrugged. "Two reasons. Firstly, they're extremely rare. The Orbs of Thessaly were manufactured only by the Mages of the College of Thessaly, which was the pre-eminent centre of learning in Lantia, the capital city of the continent of Atlantis, and they kept the process a closely guarded secret."
"Ah."
"Exactly. In a way, I find it peculiarly comforting that a civilisation so technologically and mystically advanced could still make the basic mistake of not checking out the ground they decided to build their entire culture on."
"Turned out to be more than a minor cock-up I take it?" Spike ascertained.
"The Atlantians decoded DNA 30,000 years ago. They achieved manned space-flight beyond our solar system and the ability for humans to live over 800 years by 27,000 years ago." Wesley shrugged as he turned at the next junction, "They had the power to alter the very stars in their courses yet decided to construct their entire civilisation on a landmass with all the geological stability of a blancmange in an earthquake. Anyway, to the point - when the Big One ripped Atlantis apart like rice paper and sent it to the bottom of what is now the Atlantic Ocean, the College of Thessaly, the Mages thereof and the secret of how to manufacture the Orbs went with it."
"No more Orbs – all you see is all you get; got it. What's the second reason?"
"The transmogrification magicks utilised in the Orb are greatly volatile and profoundly unstable."
"And in non-technobabble for those of us just joining you?"
Wesley sighed. "The Orb contains tremendous transmogrification powers – the ability to change one thing into another thing? Those powers are extraordinarily unpredictable and dangerously sensitive to interference from other mystical fields. A person can put an Orb of Thessaly on his bookshelf at night and wake up at 3:00am to find himself up-close-and-personal with an Ethros demon or a flesh-eating Thane Parasite or whatever fun gizmo any nearby fluctuating mystical field might have caused the Orb to transform itself into."
Spike frowned, "So why put transmogrification powers into a glorified magnifying glass in the first place? Poring over a moth-infested bit of parchment whilst holding a crystal ball that could transform into something big and homicidal without any notice doesn't strike me as a very sensible thing to do."
"The Orb had to be able show the changes when the prophecy changes." Wesley shrugged.
"Changes? You mean like the Shanshu Prophecy could change?" Spike looked more alert; the Shanshu prophecy of redemption and restored humanity for a vampire with a soul Champion of the Light was a major obsession of the blond vampire, understandable considering he had been Buffy's Champion of the Light, sacrificing his life to close a Hellmouth and save the world.
"Yes." Wesley admitted without enthusiasm. "Some prophecies – like the Shanshu – have an exceptionally good "hit" rate in comparison to others, but no prophecy is ever written in stone for one simple reason: free will. All humans have it, and every choice an individual makes, or doesn't make, changes the universe in profound and complex ways, microsecond by microsecond. Prophecies, even "True Prophecy" scrolls, foreshadow what will happen only if certain people make certain choices, or don't make that choice, or make a different choice."
"Like..?" Spike's sole attention was focussed on the Englishman's softly spoken explanation.
Wesley concentrated on the road and resolutely didn't look at the intensely blue eyes of the creature next to him. "Shanshu foretells of a vampire with a soul, but it's not specific because it can't be."
"That why the Shanshu hedges its bets with that 'nobody knows whether the Vampire With-A-Soul will be a force for good or evil in the Apocalypse' riff?" Spike made it perilously close to a statement rather than a question, his words marinated in cynicism; he'd once tried and failed to eat an old London bookseller who'd driven him off with cold steel in the form of a holy-water soaked sword. As he'd backed away, he'd given the old git props for his moves, having come prepared to circumvent mystical wards. "'Magic! Magic will always work against you if it can, vampire, remember that and you might avoid ending up as dust under the Slayer's boots…'" Spike had always remembered the old man's words, which was why he mistrusted the mystical so much.
Unaware of the vampire's momentary lapse into wool-gathering, Wesley admitted, "To be honest, yes. Every person makes choices in life, whether to act, or in some cases not to act. Liam O'Niall had a choice to continue the defiant debauchery that led to him crossing Darla's path, or to sober up and grow up."
"Yeah, if he'd stopped acting like a spoilt brat in 1752, there would have been no Angelus in 1753." Spike sneered.
"True," Wesley acknowledged, "but Darla made the choice to Sire him rather than kill him outright. Angelus in turn made the choice to Sire Drusilla rather than just slaughter her like he had the rest of her family. With no Drusilla, back in 1880 you would probably have been just another statistic in Angelus and Darla's body count, and William the Bloody a.k.a Spike would never have existed. Darla could have chosen another victim instead of the Gypsy girl whose family cursed Angelus with a soul and Angel would never have been. You could have walked away from Sunnydale instead of becoming the Champion of a woman who didn't love you as much as you love her –"
"Grasping the concept!" Spike's words were a deep growl of warning.
"Prophecies are ever-changing shadows of what may be if conditions A, B and C are met, not set-in-stone recordings of an inflexible future."
Spike looked at the tiny orb, "So it's not as simple as holding this thing over the words once, because the thing can change minute by minute. Nothing's ever easy; I should know that by now. So why go to all this trouble to get one if there's not much point dangling it over the Shanshu?"
"It's for my personal research. There's a minor scroll written in a very obscure language which is becoming rather tedious." Wesley's tone was a masterpiece of casual unconcern identical the way he had spoken when he had phoned Giles in England and asked permission to have several minor books from the Watcher Council archives, including a certain unimportant, moth-eaten scroll he'd 'been occasionally working on'.
The older Watcher had been happy to accede to Wesley's request, and a large box had arrived within two weeks. Wesley was aware that by getting the Scroll of Niamh out from under the Scooby Gang's noses, he was perpetrating exactly the same deceit as the late, unlamented Watcher Council hierarchy, a deception that should it be discovered would bring upon him the painful retribution of Ripper, not Rupert, and also the entire Scooby Gang. Wesley knew from agonising experience just what Faith alone, when truly enraged, was capable of, never mind Buffy, Giles, Willow, Angel, Spike, Gunn and the others.
He had made the choice in the full recognition of his punishment when, inevitably, what he had done was discovered, and made it without flinching. Over the past five years the Shanshu had tied Angel up in more knots than a pretzel, and landed some pretty harsh blows on those around him, yet it was a candle in comparison to the thermo-nuclear detonation waiting to happen that was the Scroll of Niamh. They would freak out totally.
Most prophecies tended to concentrate on the principals: the Superhero and Arch-villain duked it out while the assorted sidekicks and minions, if they rated a mention at all, were relegated to the sidelines cheerleading, even if one or more of them had a more important role to play at some point. For example, as a human with no special powers whatsoever, Xander Harris wasn't even on the radar, prophetically speaking, yet many of the portents concerning Buffy would have been rendered as useful for nothing but lining the bottom of a birdcage had it not been for that young man's knowledge of First Aid, specifically resuscitation techniques after The Master drowned her…good lord, eight years ago now!
The Scroll of Niamh turned that methodology on its head and then dropkicked it into the middle of next week! It mentioned everyone, and occasionally included spouses, mates, parents, offspring, friends and the odd next-door-neighbour.Paradoxically, Wesley both yearned and dreaded a successful conclusion to his extremely secret, deeply personal search to find a copy of Niamh that didn't look like it had been through the wash several times. He didn't know if he could take the strain of the complete prophecy, and if he couldn't handle it after living with intimate knowledge of the Scroll for over twenty years, how could he expect Buffy, Angel and the others to deal with it?
He came back to himself as he pulled into the underground residents' parking garage of his block, normally havens for hungry vampires and other creatures that had humans on their menu. Wesley's suspicions regarding the mystical connections of the development company had deepened when he recognised the mystical wards built into the geometric designs of the garage's support pillars. They wouldn't stop any really determined Big Bad getting in, but would certainly slow it down and make it very uncomfortable to stay around long.
Whistling cheerfully, Spike hopped out of the car, casually dropping the Orb on the seat he'd just vacated. "It's time for good little Watchers to be in bed!" he opined. "Think I'll go for a stroll," and he vanished.
Wesley's lips twitched. Now corporeal, Spike wasn't a true ghost, but nor was he "just" a vampire any more. After some experimentation the blond had discovered that he could, although with exhausting effort, teleport himself, and now his favourite hobby was materialising in Angel's Penthouse suite at Wolfram & Hart and seeing how far he could needle his Grandsire before the older vampire tried to pulverise him – at which point he dematerialised. If Spike wasn't going to torment Angel then there was a demon brothel and a couple of biker bars nearby, hardly surprising since the night was a vampire's normal habitat and the undead didn't really need sleep in a human context; they rested during the day simply because they couldn't go out in daylight.
Continued in chapter Three…
© 2005 C. D. Stewart
As far as I am aware, "Liam's" surname has never been mentioned on either Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel, in much the same way as Faith's surname is likewise omitted. I have therefore chosen O'Niall, but stand ready to be corrected if anyone knows differently.