Chapter Sixteen

For the third day in a row, the girl had not been found in the park. They had lingered longer than it was safe yesterday and Harry had already been up before dawn to see if the girl was walking the dog in the company of one of the vampires. It was drizzling out, and Harry's shirt collar was damp with sweat from the exertion of staying on his feet for so long. His grip on his cane was a little white knuckled as he paced the bachelor's parlor they shared between their respective rooms while David recorded the non-observations of the prior day in his diary.

He was frowning at the page, wondering what he should say about Harry's early morning stroll. It was dangerous, and foolhardy, and they were peers, holding an equivalent position within the organization they served. If they were truly peers, David would not have hesitated to chafe him for taking such a risk. But they weren't really peers. There was over fifteen years of field experience that separated them, and while David had been out of the field for several years, nothing had changed that much.

“Damn it,” Harry swore, his cane catching on a bit of fringe on the carpet runner, forcing him to grab at the back of an armchair to maintain his balance. “She's not coming back, is she?”

There were a lot of reasons why she might not be out walking her dog, but David Giles did not speculate. He believed Harry had scared her off, and he could tell that the idea had occurred to Harry, so there was no point beating that dead horse.

“I'll wait until after luncheon, and then try again,” Harry said, almost to himself. The healing muscles in his thigh cramped and he groaned, sitting heavily in the armchair.

“No matter,” David said, sounding unperturbed. “It has never been clear to me what might be gained from her.”

Harry shot him an incredulous sideways look, expecting the rebuke that David had withheld.

“We've devoted attention to making contact with a young woman,” David elaborated. “For what reason? The fact that she has survived so long in the company of the Scourge is interesting, but she's mortal, and we can only speculate about her potential usefulness.”

“It doesn't bother you at all that she isn't likely to remain mortal forever?” Harry asked.

David's pen hovered over the page for a moment. He looked up at Harry. “Ah,” he frowned, “I beg your pardon, Harry. I didn't realize that you meant to rescue her. I thought you wanted to kidnap her off the streets and bundle her off to London to be interrogated for every shred of useful information that could be wrung from her.”

Harry prodded the rug with the end of his cane. “Very funny,” he said sourly.

David capped his pen. “Not really, because to some extent it is only natural, and yet, we both know it is too dangerous to think that way. We have no reason to believe that the girl is even unhappy with her current situation. For all we know she is deeply attached to her masters and utterly loyal to them. In fact, everything suggests that this is as likely an explanation as any for her survival thus far. That doesn't mean that it is true. Consideration of her needs as an individual has played no part in our calculations. Why is that?”

Harry frowned. “As you said, it's a dangerous way of thinking,”

“It has nothing to do with the educated guess that she is one of the vampire's mistress? Probably William the Bloody, from what we know about them?”

“She's a human being with a soul,” David reminded him. “A representative of the very reason we exist; to serve and protect the innocent. And yes, it would be beyond foolish to imagine that she has survived in their company without getting her hands dirty, but as she remains human, she deserves some shred of concern for her most basic dignity. I rather imagine that she has been treated as a useful extravagance for much of her co-existence with her paramour.”

Harry cocked his head to one side. “And how should we treat her, assuming an opportunity arises?”

David looked thoughtful. “She's not your average civilian, is she? Probably knows as much about vampires and more about the Scourge than you or I,” he pointed out. “I think we treat her as an equal. As a potential colleague,” he said. “It's very possible that were we to somehow separate her from the Scourge, she would simply wish to return to whatever life she left when she came into contact with them, and it is more likely that that isn't possible. One thing that we can offer her is the assurance that she will never be alone in the world, and that she may be useful.”

“Useful?” Harry snorted. “Oh, there's an attractive pitch!”

David allowed himself a smile. “You aren't a Watcher because you believe that ultimately you can do some good in the world? Don't think of her as a woman, or a girl, or a common whore, or even an uncommon whore. Think of her simply as you would any person that we would seek to recruit. Think of her as a potential Watcher,” he advised.

Harry looked skeptical, wondering what the stuffed shirts in London would think of that notion. “Why?”

“Because, we simply do not have anything better or easier to offer,” David told him. “Look at their history. Even if we manage to separate her from them, she will be in a certain degree of danger for the rest of her life and if we are right, that she knows more about them than we do, then she must know that.”

He rose from the chair he was occupying, straightening it before he closed his diary. “So, how do we proceed?” The question was rhetorical. “London is considering diverting resources from a field office to broaden our field study. We both know it will take weeks, if not months, to arrange that, though it is likely to be approved eventually despite the risks.”

Harry thought about that. A field study of four vampires and one human was extravagant, but these vampires had never been hunted with any kind of success, and had on more than one occasion turned the discovery of the hunters into a hunt of their own. He wasn't convinced that the risk adverse upper echelons of the Watcher's Council would act quickly.

“We need locals,” David said.

“It will take weeks to train them,” Harry pointed out. “Might as well cable London and ask for an immediate answer.”

“No it won't,” David told him. “There are other resources, and we'll talk about that later. Another thing; this isn't an adventure, Harry. You have a certain impetuousness that is valuable. It allows you to think creatively, but it also means that when you get bored, you tend to try to make things happen,” he observed. “That's a valid approach to your work,” he allowed. “As long as what you risk when you get bored is confined to yourself,” he gestured to Harry's injured leg. “A Fiyarl demon isn't going to find you interesting or odd. You are just a thing to be killed. It isn't remotely personal. That isn't true about vampires. A vampire might find you interesting enough not to kill immediately.”

Harry scowled. “I can take care of myself,” he muttered.

“Possibly,” David agreed. “We are working together, and I expect you to also take care of my wife's husband,” he said pointedly. “I expect that you will give some thought to the fact that we are hunting vampires who have made a point of hunting their hunters, and their associates, and their families. There are acceptable risks to what we do, and there are unacceptable risks. If you want to risk your own neck, that's your affair, but when you risk your field partner, I expect the courtesy of being consulted,” he stated. “If you can't do that, we need to pack our bags and go home.”

Harry looked incredulous. “You can't think that if I fell into their hands, I'd tell them about you? That would be stupid, wouldn't it? You'd be my only chance of rescue.”

David chuckled. “Harry, if you fell into their hands, as you put it,” he was wry. “You wouldn't have a hope in hell of being rescued. If you disappeared for more than twelve hours, I'd cable London and be a train out of Prague at the first opportunity. Sacred duty? Vows of secrecy? Bullocks. If you lasted a day under torture, I'd tip my hat to you for giving me time to get away, but I'd not plan on it, nor expect it. It isn't about bravery or fortitude. It is about being reduced by fear, by pain, by failure, to do anything for the blessed release of death, and that's if you are lucky. So, no more going off on your own, before dawn, if you please. When it comes to vampire versus human, vampire wins. It really is that simple. That's why they are dangerous. That is why we make them our business.”

Harry stared at him for a long moment. As dressing downs went, this was mild, and there was a grudging part of him that knew that he deserved it and that David was demonstrating a degree of courtesy in the delivery that was meant to get his attention.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “So, what is our next step?”

David opened a drawer and removed a clean sheet of stationary. “A late lunch, I think.”



“It's ugly,” Darla pronounced, not at all impressed with the chaise that had been delivered.

Drusilla was leaning against the doorframe, pouting at being denied the opportunity to eat the deliverymen who had brought the chaise and taken away the settee to sell on consignment. She did not argue with Darla. What the chaise needed was a throw blanket to drape across the foot and a few pillows. It was obvious she thought as she studied her fingernails.

Angelus was examining the mechanism that allowed the position of the back of the chaise to be adjusted. There were three deep brackets at the back of the base of the chaise. It was a fairly simple operation to lift the back of the chair out of one bracket and seat it in another. The angles varied from sixty, to forty-five, to thirty degrees, and at each angle the joints locked together smoothly.

“It's brilliant,” he concluded. Well-made things, well-executed ideas, pleased him.

“It's a piece of furniture,” William pointed out, his surmise that virtually anyone else in the household would be more interested in the topic of furniture, confirmed. Willow was still asleep, tucked up in his bed, where he would be right now if he hadn't been woken up by a debate over the chaise that was taking place in Willow's bedroom.

He had dispatched Cook to the kitchen with a request for a pot of coffee and food for Willow.

Dru's little dog trotted into the bedroom, sniffing furiously, his beady black eyes seeking. He made his way over to the bed, his front paws clawing at the counterpane as he wiggled and arched his body, trying to get on the bed. He gave a sharp, disappointed bark and went back to sniffing. Reaching Darla, he sniffed at the hem of her skirts and gave a little doggie huff to expel her scent.

Dru and William exchanged amused looks at that. Fortunately Darla was paying no attention to the dog.

Darla was having a dinner party tonight, and she wanted Willow present, reasoning that she had not been seen out with them often enough. Angelus had an appointment with the estate agent at two, and he also wanted Willow for that. William looked annoyed. “Anything else?” he asked.

“The dog needs to be walked,” Angelus added.

“Then have him walked. We have a whole, crappy garden that he can run around in,” William pointed out.

Lucius, looking worse for last night's adventure, was in the hallway with Willow's tray balanced in one hand, reaching for the door to William's room with the other. William rolled his eyes. He had probably pried himself out of bed for no other reason. “Leave it on the floor,” he snapped at him before he could open the door.

Lucius checked, bending at the waist to stiffly place the tray on the floor outside the door. He paused for a moment. “Will there be anything else?” he asked.

“Yes,” William told him. Darla had stepped away from the bedroom door to clear the sight line to the hallway, or to get a better look at both of them. “You can tell Cook that the next time I tell him to do something he better finish it, or I'll make him wish that he had.”

Angelus watched with a slightly amused smile. William really wasn't that arbitrary. Most of the demands that he made on the minions were simple and direct, goal oriented rather than process oriented. He didn't care how his needs were fulfilled as long as they were fulfilled. Lucius was aware of this, and he knew exactly how unusual this was. It was written on his face, but it was also clear that he thought that being denied the task he had assumed was a kind of punishment, and that was interesting. Most of the minions resented doing things for the lone human in the household.

Lucius retreated down the hall. Smoothing his hand over the thickly cushioned back of the chaise, Angelus observed, “You do know that he is the only one that will do anything for her without being told to.”

“And I'm bloody sick of that, too,” William said. “It's going to stop.”






Officially, the relationship between the Watcher's Council and the Roman Catholic Church was non-existent. Unofficially, it was strained by the emergence of a Slayer in Rome who happened to be a Roman Catholic novice. The Watcher's Council and the Holy See were engaged in a tug of war over who was going to control the Slayer that had strained a working relationship with the church that was already under pressure.

But that was between Rome and London, and in Prague, the tension was acknowledged, but less of an obstacle than it might have been thought. The Emmaus Monastery in Nove Mesto housed a small cell of lay brothers who belonged to the Order of St. Ubaldus. On the afternoon in question, Brother Emile was dressed in what he and his order regarded as civilian mufti, sipping beer flavored with raspberry liquor at a sidewalk table that belonged to a small tavern within sight of Emmaus' towering spires. He watched the English arrive with interest, wondering how long it would take them to find him. It was in a manner of speaking, a test, as well as an exercise of simple curiosity and professional rivalry.

The younger Englishman was willing to play the game. His gaze was just a shade too intent, betraying a less than casual interest. The older Englishman gestured to the door, prepared to walk into the tavern to, no doubt, simply ask someone where he could find Brother Emile. It was the sensible thing to do, and Emile told the barkeeper to expect foreigners seeking him out this afternoon.

Moments later, the English emerged, the old man carrying two steins as his younger partner limped behind him using a cane. Emile folded the newspaper he had been scanning for the last quarter hour as the pair joined him at his table in the shade of a chestnut tree only now beginning to bud. As the wind blew, the table was intermittently showered with drops of rain that had fallen earlier and the detritus of spring growth, tiny, tender green buds that Emile rolled between his finger tips, savoring the fresh, earthly scent broken as the buds were worn between his ink and nicotine stained fingers.

The English began in German, with the introductions. They were a race that prided themselves on manners, mocked by Napoleon as a nation of shop keepers. Taking a longer view of history, Emile considered the manners a newly acquired veneer of civility. The children of the island kingdom were the sons and daughters of conquest, the surviving product of generations of depredation that had ended only when the English had become something a bit savage themselves. He found the Napoleonic wars particularly illustrative of this point. The British had fought a long, bloody campaign on the Iberian Peninsula with the cool calculation that dictated that they did not have to win a single battle to win the war. It was all a matter of losing well.

He repaid their courtesy by switching to English, which had the added benefit of ensuring that their conversation would remain private in so public a place. Brushing aside the honorific that he was entitled to, he invited them to address him simply as Emile.

“What brings to Watcher's Council to Prague?” he asked, and then answered his own question, “Vampires, surely.”

Harry's gaze flicked to David, who had initiated this contact. The Order of St. Ubaldus was a Roman Catholic order dedicated to the study of demonology. They were a bit out of step with the Church's recent preoccupation with shedding its association with the more mystical elements of Catholicism, but they had always operated in the background. While the Watcher's Council was primarily focused on vampires, demons, and the dark arts roughly in that order, the Order of St. Ubaldus had over the last century inverted those priorities as witch hunting had been dropped as a pursuit by the more public elements of the Curia.

“That goes without saying,” David agreed. “We've isolated a small, nomadic sub-clan to Prague.”

Interest sparked in Emile's eyes, followed by amusement at the precise manner of description. “Have you? They've been here for centuries and you've only now noticed them?”

Harry felt himself bristle at the gibe, but David only looked interested. “Prague has not been a locus of activity for the Watcher's Council,” he acknowledged. “We find ourselves in uncharted territory in need of a guide.”

The older watcher had passed another test for Emile. No journey to truth or enlightenment began without this kind of blank slate. By admitting what he did not know, David Giles had invited him to begin an exchange that would be mostly one sided.

He leaned forward. “We have two clans in Prague. In Stare Mesto, there is the primary clan, led by Ekaterina Cern'nsky,” he began.

Harry recognized the name, and started to speak.

Emile paused politely, waiting for a predictable response to this announcement.

“Ekaterina Cern'nsky was dusted in the 17th century,” Harry said, knowing even as he said it that he was going to be handed his lunch, so to speak.

Emile gestured to him. “The Watcher's Council has a legend?” he invited.

Harry glanced at David to see if he had caught the casual usage of a term that the Watcher's Council used. David simply nodded, as if to tell him to go ahead, and Harry continued. The ‘legend' as Emile called it was the biographical information known about the subject. Setting aside his discomfort at the idea that a Roman Catholic lay brother knew enough about the Watcher's Council to use their terms, Harry returned to the subject at hand.

“Ekaterina Cern'nsky was a 15th century Muskovite who married into a Bohemian family. She achieved a certain amount of notoriety in life for her cruelty to her serfs and for an interest in the dark arts. There's an apocryphal story that she bathed in virgin's blood that is attached to her.”

Bathing in virgin's blood was a popular medieval canard, ranking up there with bestiality, and eating babies as an attribute attached to witches to imply notoriety. Harry had been trained to be skeptical about such claims, and that skepticism bled through.

“She claimed to be the progeny of Vlad the Impaler, which is unconfirmed, but by the early 17th century she was the indisputable master of Prague. She was dispatched in or around 1627 following an internal power struggle. Her clan never recovered entirely, and became fragmented into two small groups that nearly wiped each other out.”

David recognized that as a good summary of the Watcher's Council's legend on Ekaterina Cern'nsky. There was more, but it would do for now.

Emile smiled at that. “That's one version of it. The Order of St. Ubaldus' version is that she orchestrated her demise in 1627 and was actually destroyed in 1845 during the Hungarian uprising against the Hapsburgs. This account was accepted by Dom Xavier Alegro of blessed memory, who was at the time the head of our order, and has yet to be conclusively disproved, but Ekaterina Cern'nsky has more lives than a cat, and she's very much alive, or undead, if you will.”

“I thought only the Holy See was infallible,” David ventured with an appreciative smile. The Watcher's Council had similar problems. Once something was established as a fact in the vast archives of the Council, it was nearly impossible to dislodge it, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You simply learned, over time, to navigate the gray area.

Emile shrugged, “Ah, but we all dream,” he quipped. Returning to the matter at hand, “The Stare Mesto vampires who follow Ekaterina Cern'nsky numbers range at any given time between twenty and forty. They control Stare Mesto and consider the city their hunt. The Jewish Quarter is more or less off limits. You might want to pay a visit to the Rabbi Meir. He and his predecessors have managed to convince the vampires that hunting Josefhof is too expensive an undertaking.”

David nodded. “You mentioned two clans?” he prompted.

Emile sat back in his chair. “Another interesting story. The vampires of Zlata Ulicka, the gold alley. Very small clan, numbering ten for the last two centuries. Zlata Ulicka is the home to a community of alchemists that were brought to Prague at the turn of the 17th century. They co-exist in an arrangement that we have not been able to infiltrate. Obviously, our interest is centered more on the alchemists than their vampires. Zlata Ulicka is virtually impenetrable. Unassuming in appearance, even humble, but heavily warded.”

David frowned. “Are they a splinter of the Cern'nsky clan?”

Emile shrugged. “According to the Cern'nsky clan? Yes. Rudolph II brought the alchemists to Prague, for the usual reasons.”

“Transmutation of base material into gold, hence, Gold Alley,” David followed.

“Precisely, but without breaking the veil of confession,” Emile's distinction referred to what was known to a priest/confessor and what was known by other means, “his interests were more specific. He died insane from syphilis,” Emile explained. “So, the alchemists were tasked to find a cure. It began innocently enough with the usual cast of charlatans, only their claim was that the blood and dust of a vampire was the key to transmutation of disease and gold.”

This was not a new or unheard of theory. The regenerative powers of vampires had invited speculation about their blood for centuries, as for transmutation to gold, the central feature of alchemy's claims rested on difficult to obtain ingredients or objects of power, such as the Philosopher's Stone. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Watcher's Council had been highly diverted by exploring both areas of research in what was now regarded as a rather embarrassing chapter in the organization's history.

“But there are real practitioners in Zlata Ulicka?” David concluded warily. Alchemists were largely charlatans, what the Order of St. Ubaldus and the Watcher's Council considered to be witches were not. The two organizations parted company on how witches should be dealt with. David Giles had no innate magical talent, and as far as he knew Harry didn't either, or they would not have risked a meeting. The Order of St. Ubaldus tended to take a kill them all and let God sort them out approach to practicing witches that the Watcher's Council found overly simplistic and wasteful.

“Very much so,” Emile agreed. “Again, you may wish to interview Rabbi Meir on the subject. My order's presence in Prague has been somewhat sporadic,” he conceded. “But, this is not what brings you to Prague.”

David nodded. This was how the game was played. It was his turn to trade. “We are tracking a sub-clan of the order of Aurelius,” he said.

Emile extracted a pack of Turkish cigarettes from his coat pocket. “The order of Aurelius,” he repeated with a small smile. “Interesting. Nomadic?” He lit a cigarette, giving the cylinder pinched between his fingers an exasperated look. “It's a filthy habit,” he said, more to himself than them. “The Scourge of Europe is in Prague?”

David nodded, not at all surprised that Emile had worked it out.

“Very interesting,” he allowed, eyeing David narrowly. “This is not a social call, then?”

“No,” David agreed. “We need eyes and ears, preferably locals who can blend in,” he said. “They've established a lair in Nove Mesto. The exact location of the household has been narrowed down to the area around the park on Vladiskvy, the one—“

“I know it,” Emile interrupted. “You are certain?”

David smiled. “Vampires are our principal adversaries. Yes, we are certain.”

Emile flicked ash to the ground at his side. The purpose of the meeting had been served. The Watchers had identified their needs and established what the interest was in Prague. The Order of St. Ubaldus would take that under consideration. They had their own priorities.

“We will meet tomorrow,” his voice rose slightly, as if to allow that attending the meeting was an invitation rather than an order. “Here,” he added with a small nod to indicate the tavern.





Willow woke up alone in bed. The smell of coffee reached her as she was waking, and she blinked, feeling mildly disoriented by the change in venue. It took her a moment to realize that she was in William's room, looking up at the canopy attached to his bed. Using her pinkie, she scraped the grit out of the corners of her eyes, barely suppressing a yawn. She stretched, taking a mental inventory. Her hand went to her neck, her fingertips gingerly exploring the fresh bite mark that decorated her throat. It was starting to scab over already, and there was no bruising that she could detect. She felt a little sore. Running her tongue over her lips made her feel the ghost sensation of kissing, not the pressure and the texture of the kiss itself, but the tingly feeling that she had when they were kissing, that rolled down her chest like a wave.

It made her heart skip a little.

There was a pot of coffee on the bedside table, arranged on a tray with a tea cup, sans saucer, cream, sugar, and a plate of food. Triangular shaped wedges of thinly sliced dark bread with something white between the layers, pale green grapes, and petit fours. She sat up, holding the sheet to her chest, tucking it under her arms.

William was sitting at his writing desk. From the state of his hair, he had bathed recently, not bothering to do much more than towel his hair dry. His shirt was sticking damply to his back in places. He was writing, his left hand curved around in an unorthodox grip on the pen he was using. From her position on the bed, she could only see him waist up, but she knew that his foot would be hooked around the leg of his chair.

She reached for the coffee pot, her wrist shaking a little from the pull of the heavy pot as she tried to pour one handed while holding the sheet in place. The lid rattled against the lip of the pot and some of the coffee splashed onto the tray, soaking the white linen napkin that had been used to line the tray.

William capped his pen and rose, walking across the room in stocking feet, scooping something off the floor as he approached her side of the bed. It was the shirt he had been wearing last night. He shook it out, and then gathered it in his hands to slip over her head. When it was settled over her head, he reached under to guide her arm through the sleeve. The sheet slipped to her waist and his hand grazed her breast. He used his whole hand to shape her breast before rubbing his thumb over her nipple and squeezing it lightly against the side of his hand. For a moment she thought that he would make something more of the caress, but he pushed her arm through the other sleeve. Her hair was trapped under the shirt collar, and his hands slid between her neck and the mass of her hair to lift it. He leaned down to kiss her and she ducked her head, aware of the slightly sour taste in her mouth, more aware of how sensitive her lips felt right now.

He kissed her neck instead, below her ear, finger combing her hair.

“What time is it?” she asked as he sat on the edge of the bed beside her, his hip pressed against her thigh. He reached across her for an extra pillow to wedge behind her.

“Past noon,” he was smiling a little at her in his shirt. It was too big for her, the sleeves at least four inches too long. She looked adorable. He started on one sleeve, folding it over to form a loose cuff, and then folding it over again until her wrists were left free. She gave him her other arm, and he rolled that sleeve up as well.

“I should get up,” she said tentatively. There were things to do. The dog had to be walked. There was mail to answer. The estate agent was meeting with Angelus today, and he would want her there for that.

“Drink your coffee. There's still time for you to get dressed,” he noted. “Do you want a bath?” He added sugar and cream to the coffee cup for her.

Her scalp felt a little itchy. Last night, or early this morning, when he finally let her go to sleep, he left the bedroom to get a basin of warm water and a washcloth and he washed her, running the warm, damp washcloth over her back and legs before he made her roll over and repeated the process, washing her arms down to her fingertips, wiping her face. Pressing an extra washcloth over her eyes, leaving it there while he washed the rest of her, leaving the insides of her thighs for the last, blotting her clean with the warm, wet washcloth, soothing her swollen labia with his cooler tongue.

When she didn't answer immediately, he looked over at her curiously, seeing the flush in her cheeks and the sleep softened, dazed look in her eyes. He handed her the cup, admiring the picture she made. Her fingertips bracketed the thin bone china cup carefully as the china absorbed the heat of the coffee. She raised it to her lips, hesitating when she caught him watching her. Her fingertips slipped a little on the cup and she made herself pay more attention to what she was doing. The coffee wasn't that hot, but it was still hot enough to burn.

“I must look like a mess,” she grumbled, embarrassed by her clumsiness with the cup.

“Your hair is pretty wild,” he conceded. It was all tangled and mused from last night. “You won't have time to wash it before the estate agent arrives, but there will be plenty of time this afternoon. Darla is having a dinner party tonight,” he reminded her. “We are expected,” he made a face at that, glancing at the plate of food. “Don't you want something to eat?”

He picked up the plate, examining the small sandwiches. “What the hell is this?” he wondered, lifting the bread.

“Cream cheese with cucumbers,” Willow determined.

“Yuch,” his lip curled.

“No, it's good,” she insisted. “Yum! I can't live on chocolate and biscuits alone.”

He held one corner of the sandwich to her lips, and she took a bite out of it. She adjusted her hold on the coffee cup to free her hand and reached for the sandwich. He pulled it back, frowning at her. “Mind your coffee. I've got the food,” he insisted. “I was talking to Cook this morning, and I was thinking that tomorrow we might take a supper cruise on the river. Would you like that? There's dancing,” he noted.

“Dru won't like that,” she warned him. Drusilla did not travel well over water.

He gave her an assessing look. “No, probably not,” he agreed. Why bring Dru into it? “Do you want to do something that Dru would like too?”

Confused by the question, Willow took refuge in her coffee cup, taking a sip, thinking all the while. “Don't you?” she finally asked.

His eyes narrowed. “Of course,” he admitted. “Nothing I like better than going out with my girls,” he said blandly. “Fancy an evening out with us? With me and Dru?” He sounded skeptical. “Or, are you asking a question?”

Willow considered that for a moment. She was asking a question, but it was one that was hard to frame. She wondered if he was thinking this through very carefully. He was spending a lot of time with her, and very little with Dru. Last night she had gotten the impression that Dru was annoyed with him about that, which might have been his problem, but she was in caught in the middle if they started quarreling over her.

He offered her the sandwich again, and she took another bite. When she was little, her parents had a woman who came in and cleaned for them three times a week. She would leave treats for Willow in the refrigerator. Zucchini bread with cream cheese and pineapple, graham crackers with peanut butter and Dream Whip, cut carrots and celery packed in used glass jars filled with water to ensure that the cut veggies would stay fresh and turgid, and little tiny sandwiches made from dinner rolls. Sometimes, after she had her snack and finished her homework, they would play cards, or get the good silverware out and polish it at the kitchen table.

“We are separate and unequal,” Willow observed.

That unwittingly Dru-like observation, wrung a smile out of him. “Something like that,” he agreed.

“Because . . .” she frowned a little, “nothing has changed. Not really. We are, more or less, what we've always been.”

He thought about that for a moment, tapping the remaining bit of her sandwich against the plate. “There's a bit of that, too,” he agreed, casting an almost wary glance at her, no longer smiling. “But, the world is made new, in you. I can't undo it for you—and, I wouldn't if it meant that I couldn't have you. I'm selfish that way. I'm selfish, beyond the bounds of reasonable self-interest. I'll never give you up. That's a promise, and a threat. I won't have you thinking otherwise.” He sought her eyes. “Do you understand me, Willow? I won't give up anything to have you and I'll have you whether you want it or not. That hasn't changed.”

She looked away first, but she nodded. It was left to him to decide if it was an acknowledgement or acceptance. He was betting on the former. His fingers threaded through her hair and he kissed her forehead, and the tip of her nose before ducking his head to kiss the fresh bite mark on her throat.

“Finish your breakfast, sweet.”



The process of detangling her hair had eaten up time. She was dressed in a blue morning dress with sheer white gauze between the oval neckline and the high-necked white satin collar that buttoned in the back. A small silver and crystal hummingbird pin gave the collar a spot of color. It was too much to hope for that she would only be required to make introductions before being dismissed. Instead, Angelus gestured to the settee, and Willow was forced to take her place there.

Darla wasn't going to like that, she thought. The rooms that would be used most during her dinner party would be the first floor dining room, salon, and possibly the library as a retreat after dinner for the gentlemen who smoked. Darla would want the salon to be thoroughly cleaned and left in pristine condition before dinner, and they were in the way of that operation. Bypassing the settee, she made herself touch Angelus' sleeve to get his attention.

He looked down at her. “Yes?”

“I think that you might find the library more comfortable and more out of the way at this time of day,” she suggested, reverting to English in a last minute burst of inspiration.

The estate agent spoke English, but not particularly well, which meant that any business would be conducted in the common language of the house. The salon was the most central and least private of rooms on the first floor. Making everyone work around him would not have bothered Angelus in the least, but the idea of being overheard reached him. It was not a natural train of thought for Willow, and he saw that too, pinching her chin. She was trying to get them out of Darla's way, tactfully, suggesting a reason that would appeal to him with a subtlety of mind that he found pleasing.

“Quite right,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners at how pompous he sounded. He steered Willow ahead of him, with one hand resting on the small of her back. “My cousin is a treasure,” he told the estate agent who murmured something complimentary in agreement.



William lounged on Drusilla's bed, combing his fingers through the neglected Miss Anne's brown ringlets, straightening her starchy petticoats. She was dressed in a jaunty red velvet dress with corded trim and tiny buttons fashioned from jet in a pinwheel design. Of all of Dru's vast collection of dolls, Miss Anne most resembled Drusilla, though Dru was oblivious to the resemblance. Dru never, to his knowledge, missed having a reflection. If she had not been required to seek help with her hair or her dresses, she would have anyway. Nothing pleased her more than being the object of someone's admiring attention whether they were brushing her long, dark hair or buttoning her dress.

She was sitting on the opposite side of the bed from him, sorting out a length of velvet, her needle moving smoothly in tiny stitches as she sewed a length of cloth to the back of the velvet. The seam she was forming between her fingers encompassed a bit of cording that she had made. This morning's project was a throw blanket for Willow's chaise. There was a sewing room on the third floor with a sewing machine. Dru liked the lock-stitched results the sewing machine produced, but she didn't care for the machine itself. The sewing room was stocked with bolts of fabric and furnishings and discarded clothing that Dru might use to make doll clothes.

She nudged his extended leg to get his attention and he picked up the book he had been reading to her. It was a volume of poetry chosen at random. He consulted Miss Anne. “What shall we entertain the Princess with?”

Dru cocked her head to one side, looking at him curiously with a small mysterious smile. He was deaf to her dolls voices and they knew it. Sometimes they mocked him for it, with silence, or amusing non sequiters. Miss Anne was his favorite doll, and knowing this, she tended to be more polite than the others.

Interpreting Dru's silence as the doll's, he sighed. “No opinion? Cruel, cruel lady. What if the Princess is displeased with my choice? What then?” William murmured, casting a sideways glance at Dru.

“No tea and cakes for you,” she rejoined. No tea and cakes, the direst of consequences. It was an old joke between them, and he grinned back at her.

He liked to think that Dru's tea parties were as much for him as her dolls. It was one of the first things he remembered genuinely missing after he had been turned. Not so much sunlight and a body temperature, but the daily ritual of high tea. His mother, even in failing health, had always insisted on tea and the family cook had worked hard to find things that would tempt her fading appetite. On most days they would take tea together in her sitting room, and he would read to her. Dru's tea parties had been mostly playacting before Willow came into their lives. The girl had to eat, so the character of Dru's tea parties changed to include real tea and real cakes.

He had a memory of Willow from years ago, half fainting from hunger as she gamely pretended to eat, and his smile faded a little. He hadn't always taken very good care of her. It was hard to gauge needs that were impossible to personalize, and most of the needs that he learned to pay attention to were by trial and error. Her trial, his error. And even now, she was sitting downstairs with Angelus and some irritating wanker, probably dying for a bath and a few minutes to herself without someone demanding something from her.

Which, unfortunately for her, did absolutely nothing to mitigate his desire to be the one on the receiving end of her undivided attention. When she escaped Angelus' attention, he would be waiting for her.

Dru knotted her thread and snapped it off with her teeth and he started reading. The volume was Tennyson. He read at random, until she poked him again, this time with the needle. “We are one and one and one and two and two and sometimes three,” Dru informed him. “Sooner than it was meant to be.”

He let the book close without marking his place. “Sooner in what way?” he asked. The directness was a little unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. Dru's little game with Willow last night in the bathroom had mostly been for his benefit. He got that Dru had sensed him in the other bedroom, and that she had played on Willow's fear to tease him, but at the same time, there had been a hint of real menace that he knew he could not afford to ignore.

Using the sharp tip of the needle, she opened a scratch across his shin, her fingers following it to gather the small amount of blood that wept from the scratch. She sniffed at her fingertips before licking the blood off.

“You are full of her. Blood and brains. All singing.”

Like a giddy chorus of hellish cherubs, no doubt, William thought. He really couldn't recall being more content, more happy, living or unliving.

“Yeah?” he eyed her thoughtfully.

She gave him an almost pitying look. “You worry too much,” she said. “I saw it long ago. The stars sung it to me. Miss Edith knows. Daddy knows. Even Grandmother.”

He frowned a little at that. It was odd, but he was a tiny bit disappointed. He wasn't sure what it was that he expected. Maybe an echo of the intense jealousy that had been his to bear when he realized that it would never be just Dru and him, but Dru and Angelus, with him somewhere on the margins. Dru was as completely bound to Angelus as William was to Dru. It was in large part simply the nature of the childe-sire bond, though in his case he thought it was a little more complicated than that.

She didn't have anything more to say on the subject. No comfort to offer, no advise. It was all meaningless. Things happened and there was nothing to do but accept it, or twist and turn, unwittingly to the song's rhythm. There were times when she felt ancient compared to William, though she was hardly more than a decade his senior. Drusilla cast aside her sewing. Miss Edith had nothing more to offer on the subject. She was taking a wait and see approach.