Chapter Seventeen

Willow was almost surprised to find her room empty when she returned to it. She started her bath before undressing. After the estate agent departed with a hand written page of instructions, she took Mr. Buttons for a quick walk around the park. It was still raining, and the park was deserted. By the time she returned, the hem of her dress was sodden and her nose was starting to run from the unseasonable cold. She only had a few hours to get herself ready for Darla's dinner party, which meant no lingering in the bath. It would take hours for her hair to dry enough to put up.

She looked in the wardrobe for something to wear, very conscious of the bite mark on her neck that had to be concealed. There was an oyster satin gown with a high neck that would do, though it looked like something a much younger girl would wear. with large, puffy sleeves that billowed to her elbow and narrowed to little more than lace covering her arms from elbow to wrist. It looked like an old fashioned and unflattering wedding gown, at least to Willow, who had never lost the feeling that evening clothes were variations on prom and wedding attire.

She was putting on the dress when Matilde knocked on her door, and entered after Willow acknowledged the interruption. She didn't look happy to be there. Darla had sent her to help with her dress and hair. She finished buttoning the dress up the back. Willow sat at her dressing table while Matilde impatiently brushed her hair. William wandered in during this operation.

His expression indicated that he wasn't particularly taken with the dress, but he didn't say anything about it. He simply smiled at her, picked up Willow's hand to kiss it lightly, and told Matilde if he saw another wince, there was going to be hell to pay.

She finished putting Willow's hair up with a bit more care before excusing herself.

William lifted the lid on her jewelry box, examining its contents with a thoughtful look. With years of practice, she had chosen a dress that would conceal his bite mark on her throat. The pearl choker might have worked just as well for that purpose, but it was a valuable enough piece of jewelry that he kept it in his room, and she hadn't thought of it. He found an oval locket and lifted it by the chain with one finger. He let it fall back into the box and snapped the lid shut.

“Come across the hall, and we'll find something for you to wear,” he invited.

She looked up at him. “I'm in character for the poor relation from a Bronte novel,” she said.

That made him smile. “I suppose you are,” he agreed. “Poor pet. You haven't had a decent bit of alone time all day, have you?”

“I walked Mr. Buttons in the rain.”

He frowned at that. “I don't want you walking the dog, in the rain, or otherwise.”

She started to open her mouth and then shut it, rising from her dressing table to go with him to his room. He went to the dresser and opened a drawer. Flat black boxes holding her jewelry were casually mixed in with his socks. He opened a lid, examined the contents, and rejected the choice, tossing it back in the drawer and reaching for another box until he found what he was looking for.

It was a diamond necklace on a gold chain with earrings to match. He held it up for her, an expectant expression on his face.

Willow feigned surprise. “Oh. Do I get to express an opinion on this?”

He had been expecting something like this. Tell a woman you love her, and she thinks it changes everything. He removed the necklace from its velvet bed and walked around behind her to fasten it around her neck.

He held the box out to her and after a moment of hesitation, she took the earrings, one by one, slipping the wire through the holes in her earlobes, two bright spots of color staining her cheeks. He stood back a little to admire her. The dress she was wearing was oyster satin, fitted through the bodice with a small bustle in the back. The skirt was a confection of asymmetrical ruffles of pleated organza that arrowed up from the hem to her left hipbone. It was a fussy looking dress and it didn't suit her.

He went back to the drawer to find a ring, settling on a spray of pearls and diamonds with a matching hairpin. Matilde had piled her hair up, slightly off center, leaving a cascade of curls to fall on the opposite side of the part in her hair. The style was an echo of the ruffles. He tucked the hairpin in under a wave of her light auburn hair where it peeked out, like a flower nestled in her hair. The ring went on the third finger of her right hand, though it could have been worn on any of her fingers save her pinkie. Her ring size did not vary from left hand to right or index finger to third finger, which was fairly unusual according to a jeweler who had measured her fingers for him.

He kissed her fingertips lightly, holding her hand. “It would do you well to keep in mind that we really are sorting out what is amusing and what is not,” he warned, keeping his tone light and even. “I'm not a suitor or a customer.”

He held her hand for a moment longer until he was certain that she grasped the point that he was making and then he let her fingers slide from his grasp and turned his attention to getting himself dressed for Darla's dinner party.



It was always interesting to meet the descendents of people he had killed, Angelus reflected. Wolfaert Adorne was the grandson of one such victim, Jan Adorne. Outwardly pious, a pillar of the community, Jan Adorne had a secret life. He belonged to one of the Illuminati cells that littered Europe in the mid 19th century. The character of these secret societies varied. There were those that were committed to real economic, social, and political change, but more often it was bored, thrill seeking bourgeoisie indulging their more exotic tastes. Jan Adorne fell into the later category. He had been very useful in the short time Angelus had known him, advising him on investments, providing him with entertainments and a fresh supply of victims.

Wolfaert knew nothing about that. His grandfather had died of a heart attack on a business trip as far as he knew, and this had happened decades before he was born when his own father was a child. The two men were chatting amiably when Willow and Drusilla entered the salon to be introduced to the guests who had already arrived. Willow felt the usual attack of nerves that preceded evenings like this one. Darla commandeered her, keeping her at her side as she made introductions.

When William finally graced the salon, nearly everyone expected was already there and it was nearly time to retire to the dining room. Willow found herself seated near the foot of the table between a brother and sister pairing, an English girl named Claire Hamilton and her brother, George. William was seated between Drusilla and Isabella Neri.

Dinner started with cold strawberry soup served in small, chilled bowls with a spoonful of unsweetened whipped cream and a mint leaf garnish. Paulus and Andreas served. Claire Hamilton was busy trying to get her brother to talk to Willow, which frequently meant that she was craning over Willow's head, or making unsubtle non-verbal gestures to engage her brother. Willow briefly met William's eyes across the table as she was trying to pretend that she was oblivious to the exchange between the Hamilton siblings. He was listening to something Isabella Neri was saying with a show of polite interest, but his eyes were bright with humor.

She looked down at her strawberry soup to keep from laughing.

Darla had planned a five-course meal. Willow had learned from experience that this was far less food than it sounded like. The strawberry soup covered the bottom of the bowl with less than an inch of depth to it. Each course was a relatively spare offering, sometimes decoratively arranged on the plate with a splash of sauce or a colorful garnish, requiring no more than a polite bite or two between removes. Wine was consumed in much more copious amounts, glasses refilled as soon as they reached a magical half full mark when Paulus or Andreas would smoothly top off the glass.

After dinner, two groups formed. Coffee, wine, sherry, and the petit fours that had appeared with her breakfast, were served in the salon. The library was the destination of choice for smoking. Brandy and whiskey would be served in the library. At a pointed glance from Darla, Willow went to the piano and started to play, sight reading the sheet music that was left there. The socially awkward George Hamilton came over to turn the pages for her, offering her a wry smile.

His sister was engaged by Drusilla, pinning Darla down since she was determined to remain within hearing of Dru, who could drift off on a tangent. Dru had Mr. Buttons in her lap, and was clearly showing off all of the dog's tricks. Dru was showing Claire how to extend her hand, and Mr. Buttons took the cue to daintily lift his paw and place it gently in the cup of Claire's hand like he was doing her an immense honor. Willow almost lost her place with the music, but George quickly directed her attention to the correct bar.

When Claire was able to escape Drusilla and Mr. Buttons, she joined them and George offered to get them something to drink. They traded places at the piano, with Claire playing Schubert from memory. It took longer than it should have considering how well Claire played, before Willow correctly identified the piece as Sonata in A.

Compared to her teen years in Sunnydale, she felt pretentious and slightly ridiculous playing name that tune with classical music. There was no radio, no television, and no movies. The Hamilton's were in their early twenties, more her contemporaries than anyone else invited to this party. Music, books, a handful of journals and magazines in circulation, plays, and the opera were to the Hamilton's what MTV and obscure, late night cable to Willow and her friends. When it was her turn to return to the piano, she chose from a folio of sheet music that William had brought with him from Vienna. Claire joined her on the bench seat. Not for the first time since she had been introduced to the piano and violin in this century, Willow thought about taking a musical leap forward to the 1990s to play something she missed.

Unfortunately, her memories of music were never that complete. She remembered maddening little bits and pieces of songs, like the plinking notes that proceeded the lyric of a Lisa Loeb song—but she couldn't recall the words. Trying to work it out on the keyboard or the violin threatened the fragile memory, sometimes making the song unrecognizable to herself. It had taken her months to work out the piano overture from Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight.

The Neri's were the first to leave, but their departure was a kind of signal, and gradually the other guests filtered out into the night. William and Drusilla left soon after the house had emptied followed by Angelus and Darla. Willow started picking up abandoned glasses and cups in the living room and almost ran into Lucius in the hall.

“You'll soil your dress,” he pointed out, taking the cups from her.

She looked down at the dress. “It's all ruffle-y,” she pointed out, thinking that a hideous accident with coffee wouldn't be a bad thing. “I look like a powder puff.”

They were having a kind of conversation, Lucius realized. They were alone in the house, having a kind of conversation. He wasn't sure how to prolong it. “Is there anything I can bring you?” he asked.

She looked startled by the question. “N-no,” she shook her head. “I was just going to pick things up and then go up to my room. To read,” she added, though she couldn't imagine that he cared. “But, thank you, for asking.”

“I'll get a tray, then,” he offered. If she wanted to pick things up, he could carry them to the kitchen for her.

She smiled. “Good idea,” she agreed.

She returned to the salon and finished straightening furniture and cleaning up while she waited for Lucius to bring a tray to collect the glasses and cups that had accumulated. When he arrived, she thanked him for the tray and asked if he would open the windows in the library to air it out.

While he was in the library, she filled the tray, straightened the pile of sheet music that had ended up resting on the piano, and covered the keys. She was reaching for the knob that controlled one of the gaslight jets when she felt the crawling pins and needles sensation of her barrier ward warning her that someone or thing was coming very close to the house. Reminding herself that no one could get in, she went to the front door, opening it cautiously to look out.

It had stopped raining, but the air was damp and cold. She felt rather than saw Lucius come up behind her. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

“What?” Willow cocked her head to one side, looking up at him curiously.

He was listening to something she couldn't hear. “Singing,” he said.

Willow's eyebrows lifted. “Like real singing, and not water running or star's spinning, or—“

“Real singing,” he confirmed. “Miror quaenam sis tam bella,” he repeated, haltingly, sounding it out without understanding the words.

“Okay,” Willow nodded. “Singing aside, there is something out there,” she announced. “Any sharp wooden objects at hand?” she asked him.

He looked at her, frowning.

“A stake,” she said helpfully. “I need a stake.”

A noise reached her. Someone was on the sidewalk using a stick to make a clattering noise against the wrought iron fences that separated the sidewalk from the houses on the street.

“Get away from the door,” he said instead. He had been almost relieved when she asked him to open the library windows. When they were alone in the salon the need to touch her made his palms itch. If he didn't know it was impossible, he would have sworn sweat was forming, making him want to wipe his hands off. His instincts ran to two goals: feeding and continuing his existence. He knew that if he touched her, he would fulfill at least one of those goals and violate the other. He would feed, amongst other things, and William would obliterate him.

Even now, distracted by the high, clear voice that was growing stronger, and aware of the possibility that there was an undetermined threat outside, he was even more aware of how close he was to her. Close enough to sink his fangs into her throat and watch the glowing oyster satin resting against her skin bloom crimson with blood.

Unbeknownst to him, his face had started to change.

Willow saw it out of the corner of her eye. Her now dry umbrella was resting inside of an umbrella stand in the foyer. She grabbed the handle and jerked it out of the stand. The pointy end of the umbrella was wood.

“That better be because someone is prowling around outside,” she warned him. “If it's for me, there's no one around to surprise with the creative use of certain spells.”

She took a step over the threshold onto the porch, holding the umbrella at her side. Lucius swore softly under his breath. It went without saying that if anything at all happened to her on his watch that his un-life would not be worth un-living.

“Come back inside, now,” he insisted.

“Shush!” Willow waived at him.

She heard a high, clear voice, singing. “Mica, mica, parva stella,” and turned, eyes widening at the familiar nursery rhyme. On the sidewalk a small girl in a black dress with a green shawl trimmed in white fur was skipping towards them. She was wearing an odd hat that looked to Willow like a fez held on her head by a band of black velvet that attached to the flat crown of the hat, fitting snuggly under her chin. A tear drop shaped loop of black velvet rested against her forehead, where her hairline should have been. There was no hint of hair, just smooth white skin disappearing under the brimless hat.

“Miror quaenam sis tam bella,” she sang, a mysterious little smile playing on her lips. Almond shaped eyes regarded them with a certain gravity that was full of curiosity and courteous reserve.

Willow considered the child. Unaccompanied at this hour, wearing what looked like a fifteenth century costume. Right. Nothing unnatural there, she thought with an inward snort.

“Super terra in caelo,” she teased.

It was a common enough tune. She placed it at once. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Willow knew this version of it, and joined her, singing, “Alba gemma splendido.”

She inclined her head gravely. There was a hack coming down the street, in no great hurry, drawn by a light draft horse that looked to Willow like an oversized Shetland pony.

“Mica, mica, parva stella,” they finished the song together, “Miror quaenam sis tam bella.”

Lucius' attention was on the little girl, who was no little girl. She opened the gate, but paused there, looking at them curiously. Looking at Willow. She was ignoring him. It went well with the whole little girl angle she was working. A child approaching a strange couple would look to the woman first.

“May I come in?” she asked.

Willow stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone was coming around from the back. She spared a brief glance in that direction and saw a young man, casually strolling around the corner of the house.

“You can try,” she answered.

The child pouted. “Don't want to,” she said, caressing the gate with gloved fingers. “Someone's done something to make it whisper ‘go away',” she mused. “I wonder what you know about that?”

Lucius slid past her, meeting the charge of a vampire on her right who had jumped from the ground to the low wall surrounding the small porch. Lucius swept his legs out from under him effortlessly and was pulled off the porch to roll across the ground with his adversary.

At a glance she could tell that Lucius was overmatched. The other vampire was countering him rather effortlessly, tying him up by prolonging the fight rather than ending it quickly.

“You really should invite us in,” the second vampire advised, stepping into the light that was spilling out of the open door behind her. He was what William would have described as a relict, dressed for an age that had come and gone two centuries ago right down to the knee breaches and the fancy buckle shoes. Long, curling black hair fell over his shoulders.

To Willow, he looked like a pirate. Actually, there was some merit to his idea, she decided, watching three more vampires pile out of the hack. Counting the driver that made a total of seven. She counted it out in her head, exactly how long it would take her to shut the door, bolt it, reach the cellar under the butler's pantry, unlock the door, find two loaded crossbows in the dark.

When it came to storing weapons, Angelus was a vampire without pegboard and masking tape, but willing to improvise to impose order on his armory.

Chances were she was going to die horribly, and for some reason, that made her feel almost like her old self again. She brandished the umbrella of pointy death. “Yeah,” she scoffed, “like I'm stupid enough to invite all of you, or some of you, like you, and you, and you, but not him,” she dismissed the vampire Lucius was fighting, “in,” she finished, and then she feigned dismayed realization and scrambled back into the house to slam the door shut and throw the bolt.

It wouldn't hold them long, she guessed, running down the hall, tripping over her skirt as she pushed through the swinging door into the butler's pantry, mumbling the words to the spell to unlock the cellar door since she didn't have time to go rummaging around for the keys.

Fortunately, when it came to weapons, Angelus was nothing if not organized. She found the crossbows hanging from their arched bows, loaded, with a quarrel of bolts below them on a peg. The later she slung over her shoulder, while she took a crossbow in each hand. Her left handed grip was not so good, but it would give her a chance to get two shots off before she had to drop one of the cross bows to reload, so it was worth taking.

She heard the front door give as she crept towards the swinging door. She made herself wait until the door was pushed open before she brought the cross bow in her right hand up to fire. To her horror, nothing happened, and she realized too late that she had forgotten to release the safety.

“Crap, “she muttered, mostly to herself, but the piratical vampire heard her and laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “It's really been forever since I've encountered a human who even had an idea about how to fight back,” he told her.

Stupid safety on the crossbow, stupid plan on the letting the vampires in, and stupid skirt on her dress making it impossible to kick the vampire moving towards her in the narrow confines of the butler's pantry. She backed up, hurling the crossbow in her left hand at him.

He batted it aside, reaching for her at the same time that she found the safety release on the crossbow. With no time to aim, she fired.

At close range, the bolt didn't just hit him, it went right through him, on the fleshy part of his side. He paused long enough to feel the entry and exit wound, pushing his index finger through the hole while Willow fumbled with the quarrel for another bolt to reload. She slipped on her skirt and fell on her butt. The fall changed her perspective on the room with the looming vampire. Butler's pantry. There was a block of knives on the countertop that in her rush to get into the weapons locker, she hadn't noticed, and on the end of the counter that extended beyond the cabinets with a rounded lip was something even more welcome. A gun, holstered to the underside of the countertop.

It was, she knew, something Angelus would have thought of.

She didn't bother to dig for a word or a spell, she just went to power. The crystals buried outside the house in the shape of a pentacle sprang into her mind, all connected and intersecting in lines, and then reshaping and forming around her in a three dimensional construct where everything slowed to match the touch of stillness in the center.

For the vampire who was, to his own mind, toying with her since he had very strict instructions not to kill her, but to bring her back to Zlata Ulicka, there was something wonderful and terrible about the way her eyes bled black. He hardly heard her speak.

The knives left the block of wood, pivoting at a right angle in midair, hardly hanging there a second, quivering slightly, before they hurled themselves at the broad back in front of them.

She rolled to the side, grabbed the pistol out of the holster, keeping the crossbow, as she forced herself to scramble over the injured but not dusty vampire, and run out to the hall. There were two vampires in the hall. A dark haired female vampire and a nearly bald vampire who looked like he had been turned in middle age. Raising the gun, she shot the female vampire in the head and took more time to aim the crossbow at her companion. The bolt hit him center mass, and he hardly had time to register surprise before he collapsed in a shower of dust.

“About time,” Willow muttered to herself as she reloaded the crossbow and stalked past him and out the badly damaged front door. The odd little girl was still out there, humming to herself as she watched Lucius getting pummeled.

She raised the crossbow and shot the vampire straddling Lucius' chest between the shoulder blades. Lucius had seen the coachman finished off by Angelus, so it wasn't the shock that it had been to realize that a mortal wound was so final. Still, he found himself looking up at a deus ex machina, glowing in blood spattered white, with eyes as black as onyx who hardly spared him a glance.

“Get up,” she ordered, taking aim with the gun at the little girl.

“That won't kill me,” she sounded serenely unimpressed. “The Bohemian Reii welcomes you to Prague,” she said, without a flourish or a bow, just very matter of fact.

Lucius stumbled to his feet, swaying a little. He swiped at the blood running from his nose. Willow handed the crossbow to Lucius. With hands that were not quite steady, he managed to get a bolt from the quarrel slung over her shoulder and ram it into place, covering her back.

The male vampire with the long, curling dark hair appeared in the door supporting a female vampire whose face was . . . mostly gone. She was leaning into him, one arm flailing uselessly.

The Bohemian Reii? Wonderful. Vamps with a little club, and a name, and probably a secret handshake. Willow frowned at the sarcastic train of thought, and shook it off.

“I counted seven. There are two down, two dusted,” Willow said, her voice low enough that Lucius recognized that she was talking to him. She had not responded to the odd greeting, and he realized that she had no intention of responding.

“Two unaccounted for,” he told her.




God, he was hungry. The last hour of being confined in a house full of humans had whetted his appetite. Four blocks away from the house he found what he was looking for in a dozing coachman waiting for his fare. Enough to sate his appetite and leave something for Dru who looked a bit put out at the expediency of his feeding.

She made a shushing motion with her hand to her lip and pointed to the house. William looked at the house seeing a modest two story townhouse, mostly dark, with lights on in a second floor room. “Yeah? So?” he said.

“It's late for callers,” she pointed out. “Very late.”

His eyebrow lifted. That was true enough. Someone would be leaving soon, only to discover the now dead driver. Drusilla gestured to him to join her. She walked up the short sidewalk to the door, grasping the knocker. She turned to give him a sly smile and then knocked in a few short, hard raps.

Flanking the door he looked at her, smiling a little. “You are so odd,” he said fondly while they waited for the door to be answered.

A hastily dressed man appeared at the door, looking flushed and annoyed. His expression softened only slightly when he saw the well dressed woman standing in the doorway. Annoyed, but puzzled, he looked out to his coach, seeing the box empty.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, setting aside his curiosity about the missing coachman.

“Fornication,” Dru hissed at him, sniffing loudly. “The stench of fornication is on you!” she proclaimed dramatically, her voice rising. “Adultery! This is a house of fornication and adultery, and you will pay for your sins.”

William snorted back a laugh at that.

The man at the door heaved a long suffering sigh. “Oh, for God's sake. Who put you up to this? Was it Tiriac? Very funny, now go away!” he said, trying to shoo her away from the door. “The joke is over, go on now,” he added. His hand crossed the threshold and Dru struck, pulling him out to her and into William's grasp. He wrapped one arm around his chest and held on to him as Dru pushed his head to one side and sank her fangs into him. While she fed, William's lips stroked her ridged brow until she was sighing in contentment and daintily lapping at the last of the blood.

Never one to simply drop her victim and run, Dru took his dead weight, positioned it and herself against the intact barrier at the door and let go of him. He sort of slid and fell back on the floor with a solid thump when his head connected.

The sound roused the other occupant of the house, who called out from upstairs and Dru looked at him with a question in her eyes. William gave it a pass, extending his hand to her. “I'm full,” he pointed out. “Rather have a nice walk with you, my ripe, wicked plum,” he crooned.

She preened under his gaze, licking the corner of her mouth as they glided away, hand in hand. They had spent many a night roaming around with no particular object in mind. Dru was much better company than anyone gave her credit for being. She could be counted on to deliver observations that were always unique and sometimes extraordinary. She took a great deal of pleasure in the night, turning her face up to bask in the starlight, her dark eyes soaking in her surroundings with a predatory avidity that he found mesmerizing. She was as graceful as a dancer, her body occasionally, deliberately, brushing his.

After the build up, the kill was faster than he expected. Getting into houses was one of Dru's special talents. She could talk anyone into letting her in, and if that failed, her prodigious gift for thrall, turned her victims to putty. After the killing, she could spend hours picking through other people's things. He was a little surprised that she hadn't taken anything. She had a habit of picking up things for Willow in particular that sometimes was less than pleasant on the receiving end.

“No presents for Willow or Mr. Buttons?” he asked when their path had them circling around to the park.

She gave him a secretive sideways look. “Presents for your golden boy,” she said with a sly smile. “Left all alone in the house with her. Such lovely thoughts in his head. He wants blood and flesh, and soft sounds, and salt tears as warm as rain to drown in.”

William looked at her, trying to work out a meaning. “Her? You don't mean Willow?” he said, disbelieving.

“He doesn't call her that. He doesn't call her anything at all,” Drusilla explained. “She's just ‘her'. It's lovely, isn't it? The stars through the damp sky?”

Lucius and Willow? Oh, no. Hell no. “We are going home,” he said.



Angelus' plans for the evening were to follow the delectable Miss Hamilton home for a tryst in the garden. They had been seeing each other for weeks, ever since they had been introduced at a party in the week after they had arrived in Prague. He knew Darla was following him, which only made it more fun for him. Claire was waiting for him in the arbor, nearly blue with cold, but no matter. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and she breathed his name like it was a prayer.

“Beautiful, Claire,” he answered her, taking her gloved hands in his own. “I wanted to kiss you all night, so badly,” he said, pressing his lips to her hands.

“Oh . . . yes,” she said, her blue eyes taking in everything about him with evident pleasure. “Please,” she raised his face with her fingers.

Their lips met and clung, hers trembling a little.

“This is madness,” he whispered, impressed at how guilt ridden he managed to sound. “I'm married—“

She winced a little. “I know,” her forehead came to rest against his. “I keep thinking about that. You, your poor sister,” she sighed.

“Don't,” he whispered. “I can't bear to think that I've made you sad thinking about me. Tell me a good thing about today,” he urged. “Anything, darling. Just one good thing.”

She smiled a little. “I like your cousin,” she admitted.

“Willow?” Angelus gave her an encouraging smile. “I'm so glad,” he said. “I hope that you can be friends.”

“Actually,” Claire ran her fingers over his lapel, “I was thinking that she might suit George very well,” she said with a wry smile. “Is it crazy? I'm trying to coax my brother into paying suit to your cousin so we can have some excuse to see each other more often? I'm a terrible person.”

For a second Angelus actually considered it. The Hamiltons were very comfortably settled financially, and he savored the idea of seeing Willow married, and then slowly killing the groom, the groom's sister, and all of the annoying guests. It sounded like fun. He had a feeling that William would be a spoil sport about it and exercise his veto.

“No,” he soothed. “You aren't terrible, Claire. Far from it,” he assured her. “A bit frozen, though?” he noted. “You should go inside,” he encouraged.

“When will I see you again?” she asked.

He tilted his head to one side. “Sooner than you think,” he teased.




Andreas was in the stables the whole time, feeding the horses, cleaning their stalls and adding fresh straw. Matilde had left with Paulus and Cook and he was on his own. He thought that after he was done in the stables, he might return to the house and see what Lucius was doing. The horses were a little restless tonight. He put it down to a lack of exercise and being shut in the stable while it rained.

The sound of the gunshot from inside the house got his attention. For a moment he froze, one hand on the lead shank of the disfigured mare. She tossed her head, snapping him out of his moment of blank astonishment.

There were holstered pistols in both carriages. He made his way into the carriage house to get both of them, tucking one into the waistband of his pants. He made his way from the carriage house to the kitchen door. Once inside the kitchen he moved quietly up the hall. Like Willow, Andreas knew that there was a large cache of weapons in the under the butler's pantry. He cautiously pushed the swinging door open, taking in the evidence of a fight. Blood on the floor and walls, the discarded and damaged crossbow, and the open cellar door. For a moment he very seriously considered leaving, quietly. Instead, he found a stake in a step shaped basket at the top of the cellar stairs and went out into the hallway. The front door looked broken, like someone had kicked it in, and there were two figures outside the door that reeked of blood.




Nothing had gone right, Nicholas reflected as he held Madwyn to him. He was relatively certain that she would heal, but the head wound that had been inflicted on her was severe. It looked like the point of impact had been the bridge of her nose. Her left eye was oozing clear fluid and he could see grayish tissue where the bullet had exited the back of her head. She was unable to speak, and a mewling sound of distress wept from her throat as her hands moved in an uncoordinated way.

This was Sian's raid. She was the least imposing of all of them, easily mistaken for a child. The idea had been to lure the girl out or trick her into inviting them in. In the event of plan A, they were to grab her and go, and plan B, wait until the vampires returned and pick them off one by one. This was partly his fault. Once the girl was outside of the house, he had thought that they could finish this by intimidating her into inviting them inside.

He had not expected her to not only put up a fight, but to fight so well. The little bit of magic she had used had gained her time, but most of the fight had been an almost admirable demonstration of ingenuity. Madwyn was too badly injured to be useful, and she had dusted two of their party. He couldn't recall the last time anyone had done so well against them.

“We appear to be at a stalemate,” Sian observed.

Nicholas wanted to correct her. This was no stalemate. As long as they were prohibited from killing her outright, the girl had an edge on them. Not that she knew that, but still, a bluff was a bluff, and if she refused to be bluffed, their position was tenuous.

He didn't have the opportunity to discover how she would respond. Andreas had gone to one knee, using the door and the stair for cover. He fired a crossbow bolt into the back of the female vampire. Nicholas barely had time to feel her body jerk with the impact, before Madwyn exploded in a spray of dust that sparkled in the gaslight.

Moving forward, Andreas reloaded and found a new target, coming at Lucius and Willow from their left. He took his second shot. The bolt struck, but the shot was not fatal. Lucius had chosen to take out the vampire shadowing them on the right, which just left the injured male vampire and the tiny vampire at the gate. The male vampire was almost on them when Willow tore her attention from the small vampire at the gate and gestured to him, and he appeared to stop, as if some invisible force immobilized him.

Lucius didn't bother with the crossbow. Feeling a grim kind of recognition as the dark haired vampire realized that he couldn't move, he nodded his head once, slowly. Holding a bolt like a stake, he finished off the injured vampire.

The tiny vampire at the gate simply disappeared. Willow looked around for her in vain. The coach was still on the street, the horses pulling it, moving restlessly in their harness, setting their tack to jingling softly.

“Get in the house, now,” Lucius urged.

Willow didn't debate with him. She picked up the hem of her skirt, climbing the stairs, stepping around Andreas with a whisper of satin ruffles as she crossed the threshold. She sat on the stairs, holding the gun in her lap, leaving a smear of gunpowder residue on the oyster satin. Lucius followed her in and shut the door as well as he could. The door knob was on the floor and the wood around the bolt was splintered.

She stared at the door, almost as if she expected someone to come through it.

“What the hell was that?” Andreas asked the question that had nagged at him as soon as he heard the gunshot.

Lucius was just as baffled. He shrugged, shaking his head.

Willow regarded them wearily, feeling herself cast in the awkward position of explaining one of the facts of un-life to the un-living. “Vampires don't get along with demons and they don't get along with other vampires,” she said, unselfconsciously quoting Rupert Giles. She gestured to the door. “That was the resident big bad inviting Angelus to come out and play, which really isn't smart.”

The two vampires were looking at her, waiting for her to elaborate.

She could only shake her head. “Trust me on this. Making an enemy of Angelus, or Darla, or William, is almost always the last mistake that you ever make.”





For William, who almost expected to be walking in on a domestic drama, the actual drama enacted on the front stairs was taken in at a glance. His girl, his lovely, sweet natured Willow, was sitting on the stairs with a gun in her lap. When he came through the door, Andreas and Lucius pivoted to face him, both armed, and by all appearances, both putting themselves between anything coming through the door and his girl.

Drusilla's gaze swept the foyer, lingering on a smear of blood and brains that decorated the wall, scarred by a bullet hole. William brushed past Andreas. Willow met his gaze. “Seven vamps, calling themselves the Bohemian Reii. One of them got away.”

“One?” he started to question that, and then shrugged it off. Hell. One out of seven? He looked around. “How did they get in?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. “Lucius was outnumbered outside, and it split them up.”

William looked at Lucius. “I want to hear about this,” he told him, taking the gun from Willow and handing it to Lucius. “And I want to know who thought to do anything but lock her inside and keep anything from getting at her.”

“That would be me,” Willow admitted.

Lucius nodded. “That's true. She injured two of them and dusted another,” he said, having missed the vampire she dusted in the hall. Recalling her count, he frowned. “Or was it two? It all happened so fast.”

“Two,” she acknowledged. “Butler's pantry, knives, slowed one. Crossbow, hallway, big pile of dust. Gunshot to the head,” she made a vague gesture at the blood decorating the wall without looking at it, her expression registering distaste. “Crossbow, front walk,” she looked at Andreas. “We held them off until Andreas flanked them from the inside of the house, and then Lucius and Andreas took down two each.”

On the heels of this extraordinarily succinct explanation, Drusilla came to sit beside her on the stairs. “Was it fun?” she asked.

Willow gave a snort of surprised laughter. “Uh . . . yes,” she admitted. “They were doing the whole spooky, menacing, the Bohemian Reii welcomes you to Prague thing, and thanks for the welcome, and here's a nice ass kicking to send you on your way,” she summarized. She mimed a cheery wave, “Have a really crappy night!”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of William's lips as he watched Dru draw Willow back into her arms. “You saved Mr. Buttons and Miss Edith?”

Clearly this thought had not occurred to Willow and she turned her head to look at Dru. “Exactly in that order,” she said without cracking a smile.

William shook his head. “If one of them got in, then let's assume there is more. Sweep the house, top to bottom,” he ordered, “and then, let's get this mess cleaned up,” he took charge. “Dru, my love? Stay with Willow until I let you know that the house is secure.”

Dru pouted. “Give her back the gun and let her shoot them. That sounds like more fun.”

“Bullets won't dust a vampire,” Willow told her.

Dru smiled. “But it is painful,” she said with a sly, oddly respectful grin, echoing Willow's thoughts on the matter. If she ever got back home, they were going to start using guns if she had her way about it.



Watching Angelus' performance in the garden, Darla concluded that she was supposed to be angry or jealous. Old habits die hard. From what she had gleaned of the matter when he was first turned, her childe's most significant relationship had been with a disapproving father. To a certain extent, Darla had taken the place of Angelus' father as the person whose disapproval he courted. She was judicious about lading out her punishments.

The Hamiltons interested her. There was an adventurousness to the sister that she could appreciate, otherwise, she couldn't see anything particularly interesting about her other than the fact that she had Angelus' fleeting attention and lacked the potential to become another Drusilla. She didn't seem to have any particular gifts that might make her more valuable in Angelus' eyes.

She let Angelus catch up with her. She really wasn't hungry, and Darla suspected he wasn't either. The dinner party had kept them in, and though she was centuries past the restless feeling that came when night hours were curtailed, she could still appreciate being away from the house. Prague had not been her choice, it had been Angelus', but she loved the house, and she had grown to like the city. She could almost see them, if not settling in Prague, maintaining the house and using the city as a stopping off point between travels, much as London had once been for them.

“It went well, don't you think?” Angelus said after his longer stride had put him a half step in front of her before he adjusted to her slower gait.

She smiled at him. She ran to keep up with no man, and he knew it.

“I met our estate agent today,” he told her. “His name is Mueller. He's Austrian.”

Darla didn't look at him. This was her favorite part. The slightly nervous chatter that brought out the rolling cadence of his brogue as he waited and wondered what she knew and how angry she was about it and how she would retaliate. He was never boring.

The afternoon was spent reviewing the arrangements that Willow had made, largely on Angelus' instructions, regarding banking, the ownership of the house, and accounts that had been set up to maintain the house's needs. None of which particularly interested Darla, though she gave Angelus credit for managing the means that provided them with a lifestyle that suited her perfectly. While other vampires lived below ground, on the margins, in the shadows, they lived extremely well, enjoying all that humankind had to offer.

Who would have guessed that inside the drunken, discontent boy she had found in Galloway, who had gotten by too long on looks and charm, there was this amazing creature who was filling the silence between them with his hurried discourse on their finances? He had made a fortune for them, made it possible for them to travel and live virtually anywhere in the world without discomfort. He had shaped a family around them, and as annoying as Darla found each of them, she understood that they were, on the balance, rather remarkable. Drusilla, William, and very soon, Willow.

It might have been very different. The life they had suited her, and so did he, even when he was making an effort not to suit. Maybe even more so. She'd never been in love, not living, nor dead. She didn't love him, not really. He was just hers, and she had chosen well.




Even before they reached the damaged front door, it was apparent that something had happened while they were gone. Cook was standing just inside the foyer, evidently on guard. The salon was empty, but the dining room was not. The tableware and serving pieces had all been cleared away. There was an unfurled street map of Prague on the table as well as what looked like magical components. Willow was sitting in one of the armchairs that belonged at the head and the foot of the table with a thick black leather bound book in her lap. She was still dressed in the gown she had worn to dinner, but it was sprayed with dried blood.

William was standing with his hands apart, braced on the edge of the table, watching Willow until he heard them come in, and then he stood up, spinning around to face them.

Angelus was direct. “What happened?”

“After we left, Willow felt something setting off her barrier wards and went out to take a look. Seven vampires,” William nodded to the out of doors. “Lucius got drawn away from her trying to keep one of them off her, so Willow thought it would be a good idea to invite a few of them in to split them up. Andreas was in the stable and he helped out.”

Angelus started to turn to her, but William slid in between them. “Only one of them got away, and she's reversed the invitation and strengthened the wards,” he told Angelus.

Angelus looked down at the shorter vampire, who stood his ground. He mentally reviewed what William had told him. “Reversed an invitation? Didn't know that could be done,” he admitted.

“Now you do. Clever girl is my witch,” William told him, retreating as far as the edge of the table, leaning against it. “She's going to try a locator spell, see if we can't find what we are up against.”

Willow tilted her head to one side, feeling like she was at a bizarro-world Scooby meeting—with Darla and Angelus, and William. Dru wandered in next, doing a twirl. “Did you hear the lovely news? Our Miss Willow saved Mr. Buttons and Miss Edith from bad people.” No one could look as bloodthirsty and childishly gleeful at once as Dru.

William shook his head when Angelus' attention returned to Willow. “Ask Lucius. He tells it better,” he gave Willow a sideways look, “the way she tells it, she stumbled, fell a lot, and managed to wound two of them and dust another two. The way Lucius tells it she was less inept.”

Willow looked up at him. “Actually, I've been thinking about that, and it seems off,” she said. “I don't know what they wanted, other than to announce their presence, but it seems to me, we were outnumbered, and caught flat footed. If it was supposed to be an ambush, what was slowing them down?” She shook her head and shrugged in answer to her own question. “Maybe killing wasn't on the agenda for the evening.”

Angelus had her go over it again, coaxing details out of her, with Darla adding questions as they went along. Eventually Lucius and Andreas were invited into the dining room to give their account of the evening.

“Bohemian Reii?” Darla repeated when Willow came to that part. She looked at Angelus, who shook his head. “Lucius?”

Moderately surprised at being included in the discussion, the younger vampire shook his head. “It didn't mean anything to me.”

Angelus gestured to the book Willow was holding. “William said something about a locator spell,” he prompted.

She smoothed her hand over the page she had been reading. “There are a couple of promising spells, including a general locate demons spell that looks pretty neat. I've got the spell components for that one, but, I was thinking . . . if the spell could be altered to pick up vampires only, that would be more useful. I'm not really sure how to do that,” she admitted.

“Just do what you can,” Angelus told her, gesturing to her as if he expected her to get to it now.

“I thought it might be better to do it closer to dawn,” Willow volunteered. “At dawn, where is a vampire going to be?”