Chapter Nine

The dead that had been fed to rise had been moved to the servants’ quarters at the rear of the house, behind the kitchens. They included three of the four stable hands, the Cook, one footmen, one maid, and the majordomo. It was a larger number than Angelus liked. The dead had been dumped in the cellar below the kitchen for disposal later.

Cleaning up the house was not a high priority. They’d have minions for that soon enough. The dinning room doors had been drawn shut on the spoiling food, and blood spattered walls and floor. William’s door had also been shut.

These little niceties were for the girl’s benefit and Darla found them ridiculous, but Angelus had been the one to take those small precautions. It was a little after nine in the evening before William appeared in the salon with a girl on each arm. Dru was dressed in a blood red velvet gown overlaid with black lace. She had her hair dressed in an elaborate coiffure around an onyx comb and a pair of jet earrings dangled from her ears. She always dressed up for the awakening, swaning around like she was the gift of unlife.

William was in his usual state of dishevelment. He’d tied back his hair, and put on his disgusting boots and a waistcoat that was half unbuttoned under an open frock coat. His cravat was just . . . there.

Willow looked . . . stunning, actually, Darla decided. She was wearing a beautifully cut blue velvet gown that gently draped her shoulders, falling to a natural waist into a deep skirt with contrasting ivory silk panels. Her hair was also up, less elaborately styled, it had been pulled up loosely, and a braid of her own hair wrapped around it with the length allowed to fall in natural curls.

There was a deep bite mark on her throat, not yet scabbed over, but not bleeding either. The skin around it looked bruised. It was not necessarily unattractive. Her right wrist, almost hidden in the bell of her skirt, was black and blue with bruises. Not a mark on her face, though. Darla made a mental note of that. William had become reluctant to mark up her face over the years. He might not even be aware of it, but it would make the girl more vulnerable to the shock of being hit in the face.

“Are your fingers broken that you can’t fasten a button?” Darla sniped at William.

He grinned at her. “Good evening to you too, Darla,” he said, capping it with a mocking bow, catching Willow’s hand in his when her hand automatically went to his waistcoat to button it. He brought her hand to his lips, kissing it lightly.

“Are you hungry, Willow?” Angelus asked, he nodded to the sideboard. “There’s something for you, if you are.”

“Thank you. I might take it up with me when I go upstairs?” she said, the slight rise at the end of the sentence a lingering request for permission.

“Whatever suits you,” he agreed. “I can’t say when I’ve ever seen you looking lovelier,” he said, looking to Darla. “My Dru’s always in looks,” he added before a pout could fully form on Dru’s face.

“It was my dress for Miss Willow,” Dru informed him. “Her wardrobe is full of bad clothes that must be punished severely.”

The other four occupants of the room greeted this observation with varying degrees of amusement.

William walked over to the sideboard, still holding Willow’s hand as Dru sank to her knees beside Angelus, carefully arranging her skirts around her. Dissatisfied with how they lay, she stood up again and started over.

The food laid out was mostly cheese and fruit. William picked up a ripe red berry and ran it over Willow’s lips before he let her take it from his fingers. His hand stroked her back and he kissed her mouth, sucking on her lower lip while she turned pink at the attention. “Sherry, sweetheart? Or wine?”

“I’ll get it,” she said, giving him a small push. “Sit. I’ll bring you a drink.”

“I don’t think I can bear to be away from you that long,” he teased, kissing her blushing cheek. “Now, that’s a pretty bit of warmth.”

“Wine,” she blurted out.

He grinned, knowing that he was making her uncomfortable, but unable to resist. He looked over the selection of wines, chosen by the pretentious one, and settled on a dry Riesling for her, and poured that before going with his usual whisky, neat. She picked up her glass with her left hand and he steered her around him, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. There was a green leather armchair that had him written all over it, but he was pretty sure Darla was going to ring a peel over him if he pulled Willow down into his lap, so he steered her towards the settee, and when she would have put a correct hands width between them, applied just enough pressure to keep her next to him.

He rested his arm on the back of the settee, giving one of her long ringlets a tug before winding it around his fingers.

Dru was finally satisfied with the arrangement of her skirt. Her gaze was intensely appreciative, and she might stay that way for hours, admiring herself, if they were lucky, Darla thought.

She was sitting opposite Willow and William. “The house really is lovely, Willow. You’ve done very well. I haven’t seen all of it, yet, but what I have seen is beautiful.”

William touched his tumbler to her wineglass. “It’s better than a hole,” he put in.

Willow’s eyebrows pulled together the slightest bit and she gave him a sideways look of exasperation. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that he and Darla were on the outs and he was being annoying for her benefit. “I’m glad that you are pleased,” she said.

Angelus’ lips quirked with mirth. There was no one like Willow for rendering a polite social phrase. He knew she didn’t mean it to sound like she was mouthing rote platitudes, but that was exactly what it sounded like. Darla made her nervous, and William baiting Darla was making it worse.

“I had a bit of a look around,” he said. “Tomorrow? We’ll go over the house top to bottom, and I’d like a look at the accounts,” he told her.

“The account books and petty cash are in the safe in the library,” she said. “There is an extra set of passports, travel documents, maps, gold coin, and bearer bonds in the floor safe located in the master bedroom. It opens by key lock. I have all the keys, but I forgot to bring them down.”

“Give them to William when you retire,” Angelus suggested. “I don’t recall suggesting anything about passports and travel documents,” his tone was deceptively mild. “Are we going somewhere?”

William felt her tense. “When aren’t we?” she asked.

Angelus and Darla exchanged glances. “An excellent point,” Darla allowed. “Where are we going?”

William watched the surface of the wine in her glass ripple. She was starting to tremble. He set aside his glass and took her wine glass from her. “Sweet? Just answer their questions. No one is mad at you.”

Darla raised an eyebrow as if she might dispute that.

“Antwerp, or Budapest,” she said.

Angelus’ curiosity was piqued. “Why those places?” he asked.

“Last summer we invested in several dye works in Bruges and Brussels, and a lace factory in Antwerp, so in addition to hard assets, we have contacts in Belgium. Antwerp is centrally located and within a day’s ride of three major ports. The dye industry in Europe is in a freefall. Mass produced dyes from England, India, and the United States are too cheap to compete with. The textile industry in Europe still hews to the older more reliable dye works for the production of luxury goods, but the money is in mass produced textiles, so the industry is very sluggishly adapting—“

“What does that have to do with going to Antwerp?” Angelus interrupted.

“Uh . . . to un-slug it,” Willow’s brow wrinkled at her attack of verbal spasticity. She made a hand rolling gesture. “We have to go to Antwerp at once, those fools are loosing money by the fistful . . .” she declaimed in an unnaturally deep voice that had William laughing heartily.

“Do it again, with a bit of the brogue, pet,” he invited.

Her nose wrinkled. “I thought I was,” she ducked her head to say.

Even Darla smiled. “Avoid the stage, my dear,” she suggested.

Angelus leaned back in his chair. “And Budapest?”

She looked the tiniest bit guilty or embarrassed. “Well, we’ve never been there, and it looked interesting in the atlas—and did I mention that my Grandfather was born in Hungary? He’s dead now, but . . . Magyars! Goulash, Paprikash—“ she shook her head, “You don’t care about food,” she snapped her fingers. “Oh! Alum! Center of alum trade in Eastern Europe, which makes Antwerp still good for—“

“Those fools!” William recapped, still chuckling. “So, you thought Budapest, and had to figure out a way to make it work?”

“More or less,” she said under her breath. She looked up at Angelus. “It’s not so much your, er, track record with an angry mob,” she began.

“Oh, I’m hurt,” William clutched her to his chest. “You wound me, sweet. Kiss it better,” he chased her lips.

Darla cast a long-suffering look at Angelus. “We could have gotten a puppy,” she said. “They are as cute, and they make nice snacks.”

Dru looked up at Angelus. “I should very much like to have a puppy,” she announced.

“Dru, dear, you already have William,” Darla said in an acid edged tone.

“Hey, now,” he left off kissing Willow. “I’m in the room! And, about that thing that you are upset with me about, uh . . . sorry. Didn’t realize.”

She debated about accepting the apology while she responded with a wintry smile. “It was already forgotten.”

And if you believed that, Willow thought, there was a nice bog in a stinky corner of hell that you might be interested in for a summer home. She covered the desire to smile at her own wit by touching William’s knee lightly. “May I have my wine glass?” she asked softly.

He reached over to the table on his right to get it for her.

“Any other interesting things you want to tell us about?” Angelus asked.

‘Subtle’ William mouthed over Willow’s head, rolling his eyes.

She sipped her wine, thinking. “Mmmm. The house has some interesting features,” she said. "It’s roughly one hundred and twenty years old, and built on the foundations of an older structure destroyed in a fire. The water is spring fed, so it’s drinkable---not that you drink water,” she allowed. “And, there are three old cellar’s beneath the foundation. Two that I’ve found. The third one maybe under the main staircase, but ripping out the wainscoting seemed . . . unnecessary,” she said, taking another sip.

William let his hand drift to her shoulder. “Under the library there’s a cellar that is accessed through a section of the shelving that is on a pivot,” she smiled suddenly, brightly. “Secret rooms,” she bubbled over, infectiously.

He kissed her shoulder, relieved that she was telling them. He didn’t want to think what Angelus and Darla might have done to her.

“Daddy!” Dru interrupted. “I want a puppy!”

“Not, now, Dru. Daddy’s busy,” he said, quelling. “Willow?”

She shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry,” she offered meekly. “It’s not a very useful space. Small. Can’t be secured. I’ve been using it to store my books and magic supplies.”

There we go! That’s my girl. Not keeping any secrets. William twisted his head, to realign a couple of vertebrae.

Darla glared at him. “Must you? It’s disgusting, that sound!”

“We’re vampires. We snap necks all the time. Right and left,” he barked back. "Makes me feel right at home when I do mine.”

Uh oh. Darla looked like she had decided not to accept his apology, and Dru was too busy pouting about Angelus not finding her a puppy to deflect attention to him. Willow made herself turn to him. “Will?”

His fingers brushed her cheek. He was in a staring contest with Darla. “Pet?”

“Well . . . I mean, it is kind of . . . ooky,” she softly.

Jaws dropped. That was an unmistakable siding with the enemy, soft-spoken rebuke.

It also lost him the staring contest as he looked at her like she had lost her mind. “Ooky? That isn’t even a word.”

She made a face and shuddered. “Ooky. It’s like,” she put her hands up into claws and bared her teeth, “Grrrr. Also not a word, I’ll admit, but it’s . . .” she frowned. “You do know what ‘Grrr’ means, don’t you?”

He had two choices; backhand her to the floor, or laugh. He chose the later, pinching her chin. “I can guess,” he told her with a small frown.

Angelus had that look he sometimes got on his face when he was watching Willow. It was contemplative, curious, amused, and just a tiny bit covetous.

William’s lips moved silently, ‘Mine.’ And then he smirked.

“Tell me about the other room, Willow,” Angelus prompted.

“That’s the grand prize, so to speak,” she turned back to him. “It’s secure behind a two inch thick reinforced door, and it has . . . sewer access.”

For a moment he just stared at her, and then he smiled broadly. “Now does it, lass? That’s a bit of good luck.”

“Right now, it’s a weapons locker, because it’s pretty much the most secure room in the house. Access is through the butler’s pantry. The stairs are a little creaky, but I didn’t think you’d want just anyone knowing it was there, so I didn’t call a carpenter in to look at them.”

“You’ve done very well,” Angelus pronounced. “I think some reward is in order, don’t you Darla?”

Darla gave her one of her brittle smiles. “What would you like, dear?” she asked.

A one way ticket to London? That would not go over, she thought, looking down at her lap. She hated these kinds of moments. They’d expect her to think of something that she wanted, and the reality was that they would never give her what she wanted. The hell with it. She was going to say something that was at least what she actually wanted.

She looked up at them. “I’d like to go to London,” she said.

“To London,” William repeated.

“England. London, England. There are other Londons. It’s in the Atlas,” she insisted when he frowned at her. “Like, there’s a London, Kentucky. Also a Paris, Berlin, Lebanon, and Frankfort, just in Kentucky. In the United States. East of the Mississippi, which is the longest river in North America, and there’s a London in—“

He laughed. “I get the idea, pet,” he said dryly, looking at Angelus briefly, thinking that it was none of his business where he took Willow, but if it was on Angelus wallet, then he wasn’t going to object.

“We could do that,” he said agreed. “Go to London. Take a train to Calais, and a night ferry across the Channel. I haven’t pissed off anyone that counts in London in at least a decade,” he kissed her bare shoulder again. “We’ll make a holiday of it,” he watched her face. She might have actually meant go to London alone, but he was sure she would accept going to London with him as a reasonably pleasant compromise.

A tiny frown knit her brow. “What’s in London?” Angelus wanted to know, wondering why London, and not, Paris or Berlin, or the oh-so fascinating Budapest?

Because the Watcher’s Council is there? “Where to start? Well, the last time I was there hardly counts. I’ve read so much about London since then. Its like there is a London I’ve been to, and a London I’ve . . . been to, in books and plays. And, there are the plays, and museums, the Tower of London, and Buckingham Palace, and I want to see if there really is a 221B Baker’s Street—“

Angelus laughed. “That’s an interesting question,” he agreed, though the significance of the address was not shared by anyone else in the room.

“And there are magic shops in London. That fortune teller in Lisbon told me that the best magic shops in the world are in London and Edinburgh.”

Darla watched as she got swept up in all the things that she wanted to do, that William had no interest in and would probably spare very little time for. The animation, the glow in her eyes, the rush of color in her face, the enthusiasm in her voice, it was all very appealing. If she met her at a party, she would probably find her interesting and entertaining. But it was, in a way, new. She had probably been moving toward this very interesting place in her life for years, unnoticed, tending to slip into the background. Her two months on her own, with no way to hide herself, had been like forcing a tulip bulb to burst out of dormancy.

For the first time it actually occurred to Darla that Willow might eventually become someone she might actually like. Her interest in Angelus was purely confined to getting what she wanted, which wasn’t Angelus himself but things he could make available to her. Her attachment to William was no more than what it appeared to be. She fucked him, he kept her alive and reasonable well cared for. There was a gritty, hardheaded pragmatism to the girl that she liked.

William sat back mentally reviewing her list of the attractions London offered. Hmm. There were plays. He could take her to a play—no bloody opera. One play. Check.

The tourist-y sites were all daytime only venues, which counted him out, though he supposed that maybe she could go by herself. She’d spent two months in Prague and behaved herself. A day trip around London wasn’t a stretch.

The mysterious address that made Angelus smile? Ask a cabbie and be done. As for magic shops . . . aside from the fact that they smelled foul and attracted a strange crowd, he had never been keen on magic. He had met a witch or two in his time, and they were generally not to be messed about with, and the serious practitioners of the dark arts gave him the willies.

Not that she had ever done anything really alarming. Floating a feather or a flower was the most witchy thing he’d ever seen her do. Most of her books read like an apothecary manual with instructions to make ointments and pleasant things like the pillow she had made for Dru to help with her headaches that always worked like a charm. For a few months she made bath oils and soaps and cosmetics by the gross as she worked her way through another book. Angelus joked that they were the cleanest and best smelling vamps in Western Europe. It all appeared to be harmless crap that kept her busy, but there was a part of him that was skeptical. They weren’t burning witches for centuries, and there weren’t biblical injunctions against witchcraft over trading recipes for the home remedies.

“That reminds me,” Angelus said. “How did you manage the non-invite. You didn’t invite Darla and I in, but there was no barrier.”

It was so obvious that he didn’t know how he missed it. In fact, he couldn’t recall that she invited him in, and he and Dru had walked in beside her. He looked at her.

“I did research on three types of spells,” she said. “Protection wards, household blessings, and spells to cast out, which are similar too, but not quite the same as a protection ward. I did some experimenting—“ she winced. “In fact, there is one room in the attic that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to be able to get into, but I sent Matilde in and she didn’t have a problem. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work because I didn’t have a vampire to . . . test it on.”

“The long and short of it is that I did a modified protection ward and a blessing on the grounds, and nothing can get in without an invite. Not a mouse, not a stray cat, not a demon or vampire, not even humans. Invitation required to all beings not specifically included in the blessing. The ward is just a extension of that, but” she frowned “I’m not sure if it worked. It’s kind of a stay away ward, and if anyone clears it, I get a little pins and needles sensation, which is kind of unpleasant, so if it doesn’t work, I’d like to dispel it and recast it without the barrier whammy.”

“Why don’t you make it so someone breeching the barrier would feel it?” Darla wondered.

“And every time someone casually approaches the place, or even walks by, they get a prickly feeling? It’s easier for me to just look out a window if it persists more than a few seconds.”

“Right, then,” William said. “Or we just hang a big fucking sign that says, ‘Keep Out, Evil Vampire Lair, PS We Have A Witch. PSS: She’ll Turn You Into A Rat.””

Willow bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. She looked down and caught Dru staring at her with a pout. She nodded to her and looked up. “Oh, and I would very much like for Dru to have a puppy,” she added.