That Old Grand Sire of Mine Chapter 3: Poisoned Chalice, an angel fanfic

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…

Summary: Sequel to Vampirus (Non) Domesticus. Wherein there is a lot of heated debate and pithy comment…Rating PG13.

THAT OLD (GRAND) SIRE OF MINE

Chapter 3 – Poisoned Chalice

"Harmony, I need that file rather urgently." Wesley tried to hang on to his patience.

"Hm." Harmony continued to gaze at the preview catalogue of Versace's Spring Collection, then looked up, "Oh right! I'm supposed to care about stuff like that, aren't I?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"Right, ooh, right." Looking around as if she expected the file to materialise conveniently out of thin air in front of her, Harmony looked at Wesley helplessly. "Sorry…"

"Move over." Going around behind her desk, Wesley expertly flicked through the neat stacks of files in her desk trays, noting to his surprise that they weren't that chaotic – if he'd given her ten minutes or a heads up, Harmony probably would have been able to find it. Wesley became aware that Harmony was leaning slightly more towards him than was polite, intruding on the edges of his personal space, her nostrils flared slightly and her lips a tiny bit parted…she was scenting him. "Stop that."

She leaned back with a placatory, I'm-not-really-a-serial-killing-demon smile and Wesley felt a momentary twinge over his somewhat harsh snap, but he daren't let her pick up how concentrated Spike's scent was on him. Fortunately, as well as vampires having a much weaker body odour than humans, Spike's scent was so widespread throughout Wolfram & Hart that neither Lorne nor especially Angel, both of whom possessed olfactory excellence, had seemed to notice it's concentration around Wesley. The Brit wanted to keep it that way – he didn't need Angel to be any sulkier than 'General Grumpy-pants' as Spike had unfortunately rather aptly christened him, already was. Wesley tuned out as Harmony started babbling some explanation at him, "Sorry, our boss is being Captain Cranky this morning. I hoped his first mug of blood would soothe the savage beast but no such luck…"

Ah-hah! Pulling the file, Wesley opened it and noted that it had been word-processed and itemised correctly; Harmony might be a flake, but she was good at admin -

"…maybe I ought to put more otter in it? Or –"

"Otter?" Wesley snapped back to the here and now with a force that, had it been literal and not metaphysical, would have caused serious whiplash. "I thought Angel drank –"

"Pig's blood, yeah. So do I." Harmony hastened to assure him. "But you know, after a while…same old, same old; pig's blood isn't really that nice, it's just so much easier to get hold of than beef or horse or mutton if you've sworn off people…only lamb's blood is easier to get hold of than swine, and no vampire's gonna touch that so –"

"?" Wesley was battered by the verbal deluge.

"You know, Lamb's Blood…" She raised her eyebrows at him. "You call yourself a Christian and you've never read the Gospels?"

Gospels? Oh, John Chapter 1 verse 29: 'The Blood of The Lamb that takes Sin away from the world'. Oops, right, theologically profoundly disturbing to a vampire. "Ah, of course."

"Anyway, pig's blood…like, yuck, but we were talking in the kitchen and one of the guys in Contracts…or maybe it was Necromancy?…Or Sorcery?…Or Files & Records?…Whatever, anyway, they said if I wanted a treat, I should try –"

"Otter's blood."

"Yeah."

"And Angel..?"

"Loves it. I give him three mugs a day – morning, lunch and afternoon – it completely disguises the pig's blood –"

I'll just bet it does. Wesley was getting that hot, tight tingling sensation at the nape of his neck that experience had taught him did not bode well.

"- and for some reason, you never get tired of the taste." Harmony chirped.

"Excellent. Carry on." Wesley smiled insincerely and walked away, casually flicking through the file as if nothing untoward had happened. Going into his office and closing the door, Wesley dropped the file on his desk without interest and instead, pulled out one of the source books: "Otter blood – English."

Leaning back in his chair, Wesley slowly read through the words that had appeared on the page. The vampire was a mystical creature – it inhabited the corpse of the human it killed, maintaining their body indefinitely. As every Watcher explained to his or her Slayer, a vampire wasn't a person at all. It had access to the personality and memories of its human victim to the extent it could act so exactly like them as to fool even the closest of family, but it wasn't them. The human was dead, his or her soul having fled their body, the demon simply taking up residence in the empty home left. Admittedly, sometimes the demon took on a trait of the human – such as Drusilla continuing to be clairvoyant after Angelus Sired her, or Spike's ability to not only appreciate the poetic, but be capable of love in some form, even without a soul, but such depended as much on the personality of the individual demon as it did on that of the human.

When it came to feeding, the process was simple. Vampires required mammalian blood to survive. They could survive on vermin, swine, anything as long as it was a mammal, but human blood made them strongest and fastest. Other blood was like junk food to a vampire, and human blood was like healthy food. In the same way that a human could live on Big Macs and TV dinners but would only be fully fit if they ate fresh fruit and vegetables, so too a vampire could live indefinitely on non-human mammals, but to be in really tip-top shape, they needed occasionally to imbibe homo sapiens haemoglobin.

The major difference was that the vampire's 'health food' was much better tasting to them than human health foods, which was why the vampire as a species took the risk of attacking humans instead of what was actually the much safer option of sticking to cows, horses, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats and other things that were much easier to subdue and of course incapable of staking you.

Except for otter. For reasons that had never really been understood, otter was the exception to the 'human blood tastes best' rule. If non-human mammal blood was like cola, and human blood was like fine wine, then otter blood was fifty-year old cognac, or Krug champagne. Thick, dark and very rich, otter's blood was a delicacy to the undead, rarely obtainable by virtue of the elusiveness of the otter and the creature's almost unique willingness, amongst mammals, to viciously attack a vampire on sight instead of panicking or being paralysed by fear. Otter blood had a 'strong, distinctive meaty flavour', which led to the advice that it 'should be imbibed slowly and in small quantities'. It could also be used to disguise the taste of other things, such as pig's blood…and perhaps something else in the blood?

Wesley closed the source book and replaced it in the row on his desk. He didn't believe in many things, including coincidence. The idea that some mysterious 'guy' in Contracts or wherever just 'happened' to know how good otter blood tasted to a vampire, and then decided to anonymously share that information with Harmony out of the 'goodness of his heart' just didn't wash. He began to swivel his chair from side to side slightly as he worked it out. While Angel's initial melancholy had come about due to giving up Connor and his reservations about taking over Wolfram & Hart, could it be that his depression was being artificially extended and exacerbated by an enemy within who was doctoring his thrice daily mugs of blood, in the same way that unscrupulous geriatric care home operators kept residents quiet by slipping them sedatives in their food? The otter blood would certainly disguise pretty much anything except the most pungent of illicit additives.

Harmony probably dashed into the kitchen and made a fuss about getting the blood for Angel, allowing this presumed bad guy to target the dark vampire alone and not arouse suspicion by having all three vampires within the 'inner circle' suddenly develop severe depression and disaffection. Angel was legendary for his ability to brood not just for months but years on end – he'd done it for decades before Buffy showed up, and in the Hyperion Hotel right here in LA through most of the early 1950s. Besides, who would have any interest in driving Harmony over a psychological edge – except to shut up her incessant chirpy bounce, which, okay, was appealing but unlikely.

As for Spike, most people fortunately, and presumably our bad guy also, seems to assume that he still has no need to ingest blood now he's solid, just as he didn't when he was non-corporeal. But even if the villain was spiking all the blood to make sure, the blond vampire fed solely from an uncontaminated source – le Bistro Wyndham-Pryce. He tapped his pen on his desk blotter; he needed a way to make sure without tipping off this possible bad guy. Wesley had no real way to smoke him out, assuming he himself wasn't merely being over-paranoid, and if he did something that alerted the man and sent him deep into the woodwork, Team Angel would be handicapped by having an enemy they couldn't readily locate in their midst. Fortunately he was trained Watcher – ipso facto master of all things sneaky.

Getting an empty file wallet, he shoved in a selection of random A4 papers from the shredding file, then stood up and lurked surreptitiously unseen in his office as he peeked through his doorjamb. He could, just, see Harmony's desk outside Angel's office and watched as she glanced at her Cartier wristwatch and then disappeared. Timing it in his head to the second, he strolled out of his office with his head buried in the file – to collide with Harmony as she came back clutching a mug, slopping half the contents all over the file.

"Oh! Ewww!" Harmony dithered, holding the mug and flapping her other hand ineffectually.

Telling her to go back to her desk, Wesley appropriated the mug and told her he'd get it refilled. Depositing the soiled 'prop' file back in his office, he took advantage of those few unobserved seconds to tip some of the blood into a small phial he'd left there for that purpose, then went back out and got the mug topped up – despite what he suspected to be in it, he had not dared risk anything more grandiose like trying to get all the blood spilled or breaking the mug. Taking it back to Harmony and assuring her that there was no harm done, he went back to his office, feeling the shape of the phial in his pocket.

Having the sample analysed in Fred's lab, even by an underling, was too risky, but fortunately today was Friday. Following his established routine, Wesley didn't got to his apartment but instead went to Ye Olde Brittania, where in between fleecing arrogant Yank Tinseltown executives of their cash at darts, he made a phone call from the old payphone in back. Less than half an hour later, a weasel-faced man whose only hint of non-humanity was his very bright, unnaturally green eyes passed him en route back from the men's restroom. In the moment they were exactly side by side, Wesley slipped him the phial and $1,000; he always maintained plenty of cash on his person, building it up by withdrawing smaller $50, $20 and $10 bills gradually from ATMs but not spending it, or by his darts hustle as now. The grand was to ensure he got the results by the time he left Ye Olde Brittania tonight.

Going back into the main bar, there was no sign of the weasel-faced man. He continued with his game, his opponents having no idea that he no longer had the money he'd won and was down to merely $40. Wesley, however, was an expert in the art of the 'lucky' and 'fluke' win; as time ticked on he was by midnight $500 up, at which point he gracefully exited the game and, judging his marks expertly, risked offering to return to them the $1500 he'd won, despite not having two-thirds of it. As he'd thought, masses of male pride and a determination not to lose face in front of his friends made each man casually wave off his offer as if the whole thing had been merely an amusing and trivial diversion.

Leaving the ex-pats bar by the rear entrance, again something he did frequently, Wesley waited in complete stillness until the weasel-faced man seemed to materialise in front of him as if he'd been beamed down from the Mothership. Which was entirely possible. Wesley didn't flinch or even blink, merely raised an eyebrow. The other held out the microscopic comparative composition analysis he'd asked for and Wesley held out $200, which made the other raise his eyebrows in appreciative surprise. "Your speed and discretion are appreciated, perhaps we can do business again."

Pocketing the money and inclining his head at the compliment and warning in the Englishman's tone, the weasel-faced man slipped away content. Wesley had made it a point to pay slightly above the going rate, but without fuss or threats, for solid information or discreetly rendered services, while yet proving to be capable of shocking and ruthless violence towards those who attempted to play him false – or for a fool. He had built a reputation as a straight shooter, and the fact that he had even sought justice for Merl, the demon murdered by Gunn's old crew, had gone the rounds and done him no harm amongst the demons, other-dimensional beings and shady types he did business with every week.

Folding the report and slipping it into his pocket, Wesley drove home and took the elevator to his apartment, fighting the way his fingers itched to touch it. Entering his apartment, to his relief he found that Spike was not yet back from his usual Friday night partying; Wesley suspected the vampire spent most of his night going to and fro from the human-demon brothel and nearby bar down on 14th and Roe. Going into the kitchen, Wesley cracked open a bottle of his imported Theakston's Old Peculiar, and sipped straight from the bottle as he read the analysis: Otter blood; pig's blood; anti-coagulant agent, etc., etc. Bingo. He read on: Hellibore 2, Sylphic root 3, ground Taric horn, 2.5. Wesley's lips tightened. Hellibore, Sylphic root and Taric horn when mixed together in the correct proportions were the three active ingredients in an other-dimensional medicine, Luaric, which in turn was of the same chemical 'family' as the mystical drug Orpheus, the stuff Faith had injected in her veins as part of her and Wesley's plan to capture Angelus.

The medicine was superficially similar to Valium and acted as a mild depressive; in small dosages it aided restful sleep and negated mental agitation and mood swings. However, it wasn't for daily use because an active residue remained in the patient's system for several days that increased the depressive symptoms if the patient ingested another dose before the first had been flushed out of his, her or its body. One dose of Luaric wouldn't have done Angel any harm, but Wesley would have bet his last penny that every one of Angel's daily three mugs of blood were laced with enough Luaric to turn the Three Stooges into weeping suicidal wrecks. The otter's blood would more than disguise the distinctive taste of Sylphic root, and Angel's vampiric constitution would fight off the effects to a certain extent – Angel would remain morose and despondent, but wouldn't go on to display the erratic emotional outbursts and hysteric anxiety that would show something was wrong and which would have alerted Wesley in about ten seconds flat as to what was really going on.

Now, how to turn the tables without the bad guy becoming aware of that?

To be continued in Chapter 4…