Chapter Twenty

It was Lisbon all over again, Angelus decided as he scoured the books he kept from the others, and especially from their too curious little witch, looking for something that would shed some light on last night's unsuccessful raid. Willow was right about one thing. With the advantage of surprise, the vampires who attacked the house had suffered heavier losses than could be easily explained. Luck and the surprise at her willingness to fight back, and fight more effectively than could be expected played a part in countering the ambush. So, why didn't they back down? Why didn't they take her out of the equation?

In Lisbon, it wasn't an organized fight. In Lisbon, no one group of vampires had been large or strong enough to exert any authority over the other groups. The territory that they had established a household in belonged to a small group who acted to defend their territory. Beaten back, their numbers diminished, they became prey for the vampires in neighboring territories who had wiped them out and then started fighting amongst themselves to establish primacy in the now unclaimed territory.

But that wasn't what reminded him of Lisbon. No, it was the sleeping couple he had walked in on this morning, wrapped up around each other, oblivious. William's mouth had been open over her skin, where neck and shoulder joined, lazily suckling her flesh, his thigh wedged in between hers, one hand possessively covering her breast, his thumb over her heart. Angelus understood the attraction. She was a good lay, and he could never get enough of the look in her eyes when she was compelled to submit to him, all that feeling trapped there was intoxicating. At the same time, he couldn't imagine sleeping with her. She was too warm, too noisy. Breathing, beating heart, and the living tension in her body was distracting. He couldn't begin to imagine having a warm mouthful of her skin under his tongue without the bite.

William had carved out a place apart from them with her, an unholy suspension of her humanity and his inhumanity. He had seen it in Lisbon, where she had been shot when they moved closer to the wharves to manage what was quickly turning into a kind of vampire civil war. The boy should have turned her then, just out of loyalty or the kindness of mercy, because she had been in such pain and there was nothing that could be done for her but dig the bullet fragments out of her flesh, and wait for shock or infection to kill her.

The sound of her screaming as the wound was disinfected with raw spirits had made Drusilla tear at her hair, moaning in distress. For nearly a week she drifted in deathlike unconsciousness, a sickly sheen of sweat dampening her face as she lost flesh to fever, and the stink of infection filled the room where she lay. William had nursed her, without any assistance. They had denied him that when he refused to turn her, refused to even consider that she might not survive. Darla had wavered on the side of Angelus turning her. She had considered doing it herself. They had agreed that if her condition deteriorated much more, that they would do what had to be done if William wouldn't.

She recovered, and as soon as she was somewhat alert, and on the road to recovery, William went on a rampage the likes of which had been suggested in some of his more reckless exploits over the years. Their idiot boy had gotten too attached to his pet. As soon as she was well enough to travel, Angelus hit on the notion of Prague, of sending her there in advance to set up their household. Separating them for a while seemed wise at the time, and he was convinced that if she stayed in Lisbon after William's retaliation for her injury that someone was going to figure out a way to kill her simply because William had inadvertently made it clear that keeping her alive was important to him.






“Welcome to Gehanna,” the man holding the cross on a long staff said in a tone that was full of dark humor and challenge.

‘Gehanna' was not the storefront mission two blocks from the Jewish Quarter. It was the place to which you could expect to be dispatched if you didn't touch the cross. David Giles stripped his glove and grasped the cross until his interlocutor was satisfied. Behind him, Harry was in the grip of the smell that had hit him like a wave when they came through the door. It was the smell of too many unwashed bodies in unwashed clothing pressed into too small a space. It made him gag a little, and Emile slapped the back of his head for that, but it wasn't an unfriendly, or reproving gesture, and for the first time in a day and a half Harry felt like he had done something right.

David's stiff upper lip pretense of nothing being out of order about their surroundings was what was probably expected of him, and it was the polite thing, but it didn't impress Emile.

Following their meeting with the representative of the Order of St. Ubaldus they took the streetcar to the Jewish Quarter for an interview with Rabbi Meir, which had been on David's agenda for the afternoon long before Emile suggested it. On the way there, David demanded that Harry review everything he knew about the Order of St. Ubaldus with him, particularly their antipathy towards magic users of all stripe. Later, Rabbi Meir belabored the point with him. While useful, the Order of St. Ubaldus was distrustful of magic to the point of paranoia.

This was in part because David was much more forthcoming with Rabbi Meir than he was with Emile. With Rabbi Meir, he had included the particulars about the girl they had observed, and their speculation about her potential usefulness to the four vampires over a lavish meal in the almost clubby confines of the Rabbi's study in the company of his most trusted colleagues.

As a result of this, Harry and David found themselves in possession of the likely address of the house where the vampires were laired. If they had been able to watch the girl for a few more days, they might have had it on their own. They were much closer to it than they had suspected, but David had erred on the side of caution about following her. Twice a week the relief auxiliary of the Temple took in a large stock of donated food from the house in question, always in the early morning hours. This had been going on for weeks.

They had a potential avenue into the house that was only spoiled by the fact that they could not risk it themselves for fear of being recognized by the girl. Rabbi Meir agreed to send two of his students to accept the next delivery. They would be tasked to observe and report back to Rabbi Meir, who would in turn share the information gathered with the Watchers.

It was an arrangement David had no intention of sharing with the Order of St. Ubaldus, which was why they were there, having met Emile at the appointed hour only to be led here. The proximity to the Jewish Quarter had alarmed Harry, who thought that Emile was sending a not so subtle message that he knew that they were keeping things from him.

“You can get something to eat,” Emile invited.

Harry decided that it was a ‘when in Rome' moment, and possibly a kind of character examination as he took his place in the line winding past a table where lay brothers were serving soup in wooden bowls with chunks of bread. When his turn came the lay brother serving him voiced a blessing in Latin, making a point of looking him in the eye. There was a cup of weak tea waiting for him, but he could hardly manage that as well as the bowl with his cane, and an older man with a puckered scar that ran from an empty eye socket to jaw who was sitting at the end of one long table resolved his dilemma by carrying his tea for him.

Breathing through his mouth, Harry thanked him and sat at one of the long benches that flanked the tables crowded into the room. The soup was a fish stew with onions, turnips, carrots, and cabbage. The cook had been unsparing with the salt and pepper. The bread soaking in the stew was chewy with a thick rind of brown crust. He discovered after a few spoonfuls of the stew that the seasonings were overwhelming his sense of smell and that it was easier to breath.

David sat across from him. He had accepted the tea, and Emile had followed suit. There was not a lot of chatter, just the sounds of hungry people eating. As soon as the food was consumed, some of the men broke out bottles and flasks to top off their tea. Harry felt like he was gaining focus. As a rule, he didn't look at poor people. It seemed impolite somehow. Now he was looking beyond the shabby clothing and the lack of grooming and seeing faces that were old and young, thin and fat, marked by the circumstances of poverty, disease, and violence, and not. He caught the eye of a man who was probably his age, and saw a flicker of amusement there that made him smile wryly.

When all of the soup was served, baskets of left over bread were placed on the table and passed around. The bread disappeared into pockets. Cups of tea were refilled from pitchers that were passed around. Emile took this as a signal to stand up, claiming the attention of the gathering.

“We have an interesting task to consider in Nove Mesto,” he announced. “The English are vampire hunters. They have tracked four vampires across Europe to Prague. Vampires who have made a lair in Nove Mesto,” he laid out the particulars that David had shared.

There was a rustle as a group of men scattered throughout the room exchanged significant looks, all directed at one pear shaped young man with a scraggly beard who had a battered notebook in front of him. Emile nodded to him, and he briefly consulted his notes, hunching his shoulders a bit before he spoke in a voice that was unexpectedly birdlike. “We've seen the Zlata Ulicka clan prowling around a house in Nove Mesto for the last week,” he announced. “Last night they sent out seven—“

There was a murmur at that, and Harry thought he caught someone saying, “hunting party.”

“We lost them on their side of the river,” he admitted, “and saw none return.”

Emile turned to another man, sitting at a bench near the wall, now leaning against the wall with his hands folded over his stomach. “Tomas?”

He shrugged. “The Cern'nsky hunt the city. Their movements are more difficult to relate to the presence of a small clan in the city. I'd have to know where they had been to establish any indication of interest,” he said, and then belched. “What makes four vampires special enough for the English to track them across Europe? Why not just stake them if you know where they lair?”

Emile turned to David, who betrayed in no way that he had a precise fix on their location. “It has been attempted,” he said. “There was a vampire hunter in the last century who spent the better part of a decade harrying the senior pair, and in the end, they killed his wife, his infant son, and turned his eight year old daughter. When you hunt the Scourge of Europe, you risk becoming what they hunt.”

It was not an announcement that particularly impressed the assembled men, and Emile's easy manner vanished. “These English belong to an organization called the Watcher's Council,” he said, “and while Holy Mother the Church does not always agree with their methods, the Order of St. Ubaldus recognizes them as an absolute authority on the subject of vampires. If we undertake this task, we will do so with the English as our mentors, and we will show them that we have more than arrogance to apply to the mission.”

If anything, David looked more serious. “We do not ask that you place yourself in harms way,” he said. “Only that you watch, and report. This is a clan that has been nomadic for most of its existence. How long they intend to stay in Prague is impossible to know. What has brought them to Prague may be no more than a whim. We have no immediate intention to take direct action against them, even should an opportunity present itself. Our goal is to study them, learn more about their methods, associates, and capabilities.”

He already had his eye on the fellow with the notebook. “We are looking for assistance that does not draw attention to itself. People who can see and not be seen versus a predator that has every possible advantage.”





The seed pearl choker concealed the bite mark on her throat that was still too fresh to be mistaken for anything other than what it was. Willow wore it with an evening gown that had a black velvet tunic bodice attached at strategic points with jeweled clasps that fell over an ice blue column dress, affording glimpses of bare skin or the ice blue satin that peeked through. It was the most daring dress she owned, and William looked pleased as he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm to lead her out to the Brougham.

Lucius was waiting with the step let down and the door open for them. Willow spared him a quick glance, wondering if anyone had bothered to tell him the part he was playing this evening. He returned her stare without giving anything away and she was forced to manage her skirt as William handed her up into the carriage, joining her a moment later. He picked up her hand. She was wearing long, black evening gloves.

“Might have to keep these on later,” he smirked.

She cast him a slightly startled sideways look. They had spent the better part of the afternoon in bed. Her skin was still tingling from the sensations. He had been insatiable, nibbling, biting, licking, sucking, and fucking her relentlessly, until she was too tired to move.

“Aren't you tired?” she asked.

He grinned. “Hardly,” he kissed the tips of her fingers.

“I am,” she told him.

He guided her head to his shoulder. She was wearing a pair of pearl earrings that dangled from a simple hoop. He played with one, the backs of his fingers stroking her cheek. “All you need is a bit of food and fresh air to wake you up,” he said confidently.




From the box of the Brougham, Lucius watched them walk down the narrow gangway to the docked steamboat. The steamboat deck, painted red, was actually a few feet below the level of the wharf where they were boarding with other couples and clusters of people dressed in evening wear. William had her hand, and his free hand was hovering at her back, ready to steady her if the slight bobbing motion of the steamboat transferred to the attached gangway disturbed her balance. When they reached the deck, she tilted her head toward him and said something that made him laugh. They were met by a steward who discreetly checked the tickets that had been purchased and directed them to the stairs that led up two and half flights to the uppermost deck, where the diners would eat and dance under the stars on this clear, almost warm night. William had made the arrangements after consulting Cook about the boats that cruised the river.

Lucius hadn't seen her since she had performed her spell in the dining room and William had whisked her off to recover. According to Paulus she had been up briefly, and had taken the dog out in the garden in the mid-day sun, but by the time he was up, she was in her room with William, and the sounds of what transpired behind that closed door were always impossible for him to completely ignore.

He picked them out as they reached the upper deck, escorted to a table near the rail under a canvas canopy trimmed in gold tasseled fringe. Lucius' eyes narrowed as William turned to speak to a jacketed waiter, possibly the wine steward. “Bring me a bottle of your finest,” he mocked under his breath, though deep down he knew that he was off the mark, William was rude, not pompous, and that she would never be impressed by that kind of display.

He noticed last night that William impressed her. It was clear once he returned with Dru that she thought that even if their visitors returned in greater numbers, that William was more than vampire enough to meet any challenge. After William was satisfied that the house was secure, the two of them were rarely out of each other's sight or hearing for more than a moment or two. Willow made no mention of their exchange at the door before the ambush, and Lucius was almost certain that she had actually forgotten about it. Having seen her dust more than one vampire that night, he thought he understood why she wasn't concerned about him.

On the third floor, in the former servants quarters, it was a topic of heated discussion. The little human, William's pet, was no longer easy to dismiss. Since Lucius and to a lesser extent Cook, had never gone out of their way to be rude or unpleasant to her, they looked like geniuses. Matilde didn't like that, at all, but she didn't say anything.




Cook was on the wharf, trawling the wharf with Matilde, who it was decided could pass for his wife. The way her nostrils had flared when Angelus made that announcement had made him smile. She might be evil and undead, but with her round, plain face and dressed in one of the gowns that she wore when she was primarily a lady's maid, no one would have mistaken her for a whore. She sort of looked like what he imagined his mother might have looked like, as unlikely an idea as that was. His mother had died when he was three and from the tight lipped looks his grandparents had when her name came up, he had figured out that she hadn't been the most dutiful and esteemed of daughters.

She looked like what he would have liked to imagine his mother looked like, Cook amended the thought, and just because it would irritate her, he shared it with Matilde.

Cook schooled his expression into blankness when she called him an idiot.

Angelus' instructions were simple. They were to hang about on the wharf, keeping Lucius more or less in sight, but not to watch him or draw any sort of attention to themselves. A simpering and dubiously affectionate Matilde was, to Cook's mind, an attention getter as a spouse, so the touch of irritation was perfect. They were a working couple taking a stroll, watching the people in fancy dress boarding the boats. He had a covered pail that held two bottles of beer and a sandwich wrapped in wax paper in case they had to linger in one spot. Stopping to share the sandwich and the beer was plausible. When he was alive, he used to do that himself, though usually not with any kind of girl.

Andreas had been left at the house with the dark lady. Drusilla. That one sent cold chills up Cook's spine, and it wasn't just because she had killed him. She was insane. When those spooky eyes of hers focused on him he had a wholly inappropriate, and potentially painful desire to lay hands on a cross. He felt no mysterious pull to Drusilla, though the mechanics of how he was made a vampire hadn't survived with the change. Matilde could and would, given an opportunity, provide a detailed account of her turning by the Master's Sire. Paulus and Andreas, like him, lacked any memory of the event, but they acknowledged finding Angelus particularly compelling.

For a while, Cook thought that Lucius was in a similar no-man's land with him, unfettered by any real sense of a connection to a sire, but of late, he seemed to be bowing under the weight of William's indifferent influence. Cook didn't know why it bothered him so much unless it had something to do with the girl. Of the four masters, William and Dru were the least demanding, and William wasn't insane, so that put him ahead of Drusilla in Cook's estimation. Lucius was quietly obsessed with the girl, and it was no secret. To a certain extent, Matilde was too. She had made no effort to conceal her disappointment that she hadn't been killed last night, and her disapproval of the girl's presence in the household went unstated.

Matilde was a vampire in search of a hierarchy, and the higher she rated in that hierarchy, the better she liked it, fueling her resentment of Lucius and the girl. After he had gotten past the unnerving hunger that gnawed at him when he could smell her or hear her heart beating, Cook's resentment of her off-limits status had eased.

An old man in a bulky coat that was too heavy for a warm night was fishing off the wharf. Cook spared him little more than a glance. The coat gave him away. When you had no sure roof over your head, you kept all of your possessions close. Lucius was still on the box, one foot propped up on the fender. The Brougham was one in a line of carriages idling at the curb above the wharf. The other drivers were leaving their carriages, to congregate, exchanging gossip to pass the time. There were three taverns nearby, and the boat was not expected to return until eleven o'clock.







Drusilla had decided to trim William's hair. She had taken a great deal off the length in the back and trimmed the rest. One long lock fell forward, dipping down to his unscarred eyebrow, lifting in the breeze. He had dressed for dinner in a dark suit with a white shirt and cravat paired with a vest complete with watch fob and chain. The fob hung on a dark red ribbon embroidered in black thread that repeated the pattern edging the round gold fob. On the opposite side, William's initials were etched in the back with a date. The watch, chain, and fob had been a gift from his father presented when he graduated from Magdalen College.

Their table was a small square table attached to the rail by a hinge that trapped the edge of the tablecloth covering the table. A pale blue glass globe resting on a heavy silver leaf base held a lit candle. An overhead framework supported a canvas canopy. The side supports, rising from the deck at the rail and on the inner edge of the oval that separated the diners from the center of the deck were painted white and gold and supported lantern box gaslights that spread soft light. A string ensemble played in the center portion of the floor facing the wide stairway under the pilot house.

The passage of the steamboat over the river was surprisingly smooth. Willow watched the shore slip past at a stately pace, and smiled across the table at William who moved his cane backed chair around to the end of the table, taking her gloved hand to hold.

The smell of sunlight still clung to her hair, fading. The evening on the river would take it away completely, and yet, watching her with the lights reflecting off the water and dazzling her eyes, he could not regret it. She had changed so much in the years since he had found her, and what she was becoming now was an apogee. Time was slipping away, like the shore, and he hoped that it kept her distracted a little while longer.

He had ordered a bottle of champagne, and kept her glass full, watching her nose wrinkle as the bubbles tickled her with a small smile. The menu for the cruise was relatively light, possibly due to the prospect of motion sickness. The main course was a puff pastry filled with grilled asparagus spears and thinly sliced game bird that he took to be duck, but refrained from mentioning to Willow. He had discovered that duck and rabbit belonged to the previously unknown phylum of ‘cute' animals that were not meant to be consumed, at least in her mind.

When the last course was cleared away, more musicians, forming a wood and string ensemble, joined the string quartet. The first dance was a waltz, and he offered her his hand.





Holy Mother the Church had developed selective blindness about vampires and demons, but the Order of St. Ubaldus had not. Carefully, reverently, Emile wiped off the surface of a leather portfolio removed from the wall safe in the office that was connected to the private library maintained at Emmaus for his Order's use. He kissed the embossed crucifix on the cover, reverencing the suffering of Christ as he silently repeated the vow his order took.

There were four others in the office with him. Two were, like him, lay brothers, the third was their father confessor, Monsignor Koenig, the last was a pear shaped young man with a scraggly beard and a crusty, dried bit of spilt soup on his worn jacket. Mistaken by the Watchers for part of the street rabble that the Order of St. Ubaldus relied upon from time to time, he was a seminary student.

Emile broke the seal on the portfolio and opened it. It was a true copy of a portfolio that had been prepared at the Order of St. Ubaldus' chapter house in the diocese of Westminster, numbered and initialed by the then head of their order, containing an order signed by Pope Pius IX.

“On the evening November 18, 1862 the Carmelite community of St. Catherine of the Cross in the diocese of Westminster, a community of twelve nuns and three novices, was utterly destroyed by two of the four vampires that the Watcher's Council call the Scourge of Europe,” Emile began.

He began by laying out the lithographs. The first two pictures were likenesses stolen from the Watcher's Council archives. “Darla,” Emile identified the woman, “Angelus,” his lip curled over the name, a name taken by Popes, a name that mocked the church.

“Within the precincts of the convent, they took a novice on the eve of her ordination, stole her life, animating her dead body with a demon.”

Monsignor Koenig said a prayer for the souls of their sisters in faith. Emile let him finish, setting down the lithograph of Drusilla, based on a portrait of her before her death. “She was one of ours,” he reminded them.

“We are charged to destroy these creatures, utterly wherever they might be encountered,” Emile told them.

“The Bishop cannot be involved in this,” Monsignor Koenig cautioned. “The church's position in the Austrian-Hapsburg Empire has not been compromised beyond tolerance yet.” For the last fifty years, from the reign of Pius IX, the Roman Catholic Church had watched, impotent, as the papal lands in Italy were stripped from the church, as tithes were removed, as church property was confiscated, particularly in Italy and the German states. The church was struggling to redefine itself for a modern world, tucking away its Inquisitors and its witch hunters to appeal to the so-called educated masses.

The Order of St. Ubaldus had always been small, much smaller than their Jesuit brothers who had broadened their work to include education. They had absorbed the lessons that had diminished the military orders of St. John, the Knights Templar, and Hospitaler, the Knights of Malta. The Order of St. Ubaldus owned less than a dozen monasteries, preferring instead to lodge small groups of their lay brothers within the monasteries established by other orders, adopting the rule and mission of the host monastery where it did not conflict with the mission of the Order of St. Ubaldus.

“What about the Watchers?” the seminary student asked. It was a logical question. He would be working with the Watchers.

“Let the Watcher's watch,” Emile instructed. “They use our weapons,” bitterness bled through his voice. The English had abandoned the true church. They used the cross rather than the crucifix, and claimed through Canterbury an unbroken line back to the first Bishop of Rome. Anglican clergy blessed their holy water.

“They do not use them well,” he charged. The diocese of Westminster had been attacked under the Watcher's Counsel's very noses in London, and this offence against the church was no more, no less to them than any other massacre perpetrated by the vampires in question. They owed the Watcher's Council nothing.




The art of making jewelry from human hair was one that Drusilla had learned from her grandmother, though it had not reached its zenith of popularity until after Drusilla was dead. The cult of mourning, and the somber mourning fashions that prevailed after Queen Victoria was widowed in 1861, had more or less coincided with the end of her mortal life. From 1860 to her death two years later at St. Catherine's Convent outside of London, Drusilla had never been out of mourning.

Her grandmother had not had mourning in mind when she taught Drusilla how to twist, weave, and knot hair into rosettes, cobweb fine net, and braids. The brooch she was working on now was a lover's knot formed around study cord threaded with wire for stiffness. The double bows were formed out of her hair and Willow's, collected from her brush. She was making the center knot from William's hair. It was a kind of peace offering. Miss Edith had suggested it after Drusilla had shared the misunderstanding that had developed with her childe.

She had been left behind to protect the house. In this task, Andreas was supposed to help her, but she had seen nothing in him to suggest that he might be useful. He looked less than solid now, standing in the foyer, the grayish shape of his bones hanging on him like a suit of clothes. One foot in the grave, one foot out. It made him no different than most vampires she saw, and there were many in Prague, like ghosts, distracting, but unimportant, unable to truly impact events. Of the minions, only Lucius looked solid to her, the others were dead things trying to stay undead another day.

As her fingers worked, she listened to the psst, psst, and mumble jumble of voices, hissing at the ancient music and meter of the voice that presumed to be an instrument of vengeance. Vengeance was the provenance of Gods and certain demons, of which the voice was neither.

The nuns told her that her visions and voices were from God. She was his divine instrument, a true martyr—not a mad woman, not a bad woman, not devil's spawn. A divine instrument.

Andreas cocked his head to one side in the hallway, listening for a moment to the woman in the salon. She was a picture of domestic industry sitting before the cold fireplace with a basket at her feet, her hands moving in her lap. She was also one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He found the pitch of her voice soothing, melodic, though she was speaking in her native English and he had no idea what she was saying.

“What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

She was a divine instrument. She would see sparrows fall.




It was not the tavern under the Charles Bridge, but one like it, a two story building with blackened timbers supporting the ceiling in the tap room. The post boys were left to keep an eye on the carriages, even those without a post boy like the Brougham Lucius was driving. Invited to join his supposed peers for a drink, he had left the carriage. Angelus had anticipated this, and told him to act normally.

The conversation was what was to be expected. Who worked for whom. Where had they worked before? Were any households looking for help, because virtually everyone was related to someone who needed a job. Had anyone heard about the coachman whose throat had been ripped out in Nove Mesto last night? Or the fellow last week, killed by the quayside? And did anyone know anything about repairing a broken bicycle, because the Master of the house had bought one of the infernal contraptions, and it kept breaking.

He sipped his beer, and participated in the formless conversation without volunteering anything about himself. A coachman from a house a block and a half from their home had recognized him on the box and invited him along, calling up a friendly greeting. “Haven't seen you in a dog's age, Lucius, isn't it? Your mistress is out of mourning, is she?” he was saying now.

Another lifetime ago, that had been the ‘story' about the American or English woman who had hired him. She was a widow. Lucius had forgotten that. He considered it while he sipped his beer. He hadn't forgotten it so much as he had never quite believed it, he concluded.

Awareness of the passing hour, and the growing unlikelihood of a repeat of last night's ambush, made him look around the tap room. The windows and shutters had been opened. The shutters were hoist above the windows and secured by posts outside, forming a kind of awning over the sidewalk, the flower boxes attached to them hanging over the edge. The glass paned windows were folded back in two panels to be secured by brackets to the wall to prevent anyone from accidentally running into them and damaging the valuable glass.

There was gaslight, but the jets were turned down low, and in the shadowy depths of the tavern, Lucius pondered creating another mystery to be discussed tomorrow night when the discovery of a dead body in some dark corner of the tavern might be generally known. He was looking for a likely candidate for this fate when a dark haired serving girl caught his eye. She looked familiar, but out of place. His eyes tracked her for a moment, admiring the sway of her hips as she sidestepped a table with a heavily laden tray on her shoulder.

A boy at a table nearby stood up, stumbling, and made his way to the privy. Calculating the time he had left, Lucius finished his beer and left his stein on the table to follow him. On the way, he bumped into the dark haired serving girl. He glanced down at her again, and got a quick flash of memory of a once white cap edged in lace, and eyes looking up at him.

The girl behind the tavern under the Charles Bridge. It wasn't possible. He had drained her down to the last shuddering beat of her heart and left her dead body in the alley behind the tavern. It simply wasn't possible. He could feel the heat coming off her body, hear her heartbeat, and he sniffed, eyes narrowing. It was her. Not even a hint of recognition in her eyes as she excused herself.

His meal forgotten, Lucius decided to return to the carriage. In the distance, he could see the steamboat returning, a curling cloud of smoke leaving its twin stacks to dissipate in the night air. He could hear music and imagined couples dancing, the ice blue satin of a skirt gently draping around the darker color of a pair a man's of trousers. He knew he should be paying more attention, but Cook was out there watching him, and he was certain that Angelus was somewhere nearby.




The sandwich lay between them on the bench, untouched. Neither of them could even pretend an interest in food. They drank the beer instead, Cook curling his arm across the back of the bench, behind Matilde. She gave him a sideways look, as if to tell him not to get any ideas, and he had smiled good-naturedly at her. She was predictable, and he liked that about her.

He saw Lucius coming back and wondered if he had gotten anything to eat. Cook hated to go more than a day without a meal, even if it was one he was sharing. He knew that they could go longer. Matilde had gone three days once, as a punishment for some offence the Master had taken. Cook shuddered at the thought. Three days. They could go longer, though how much longer he didn't know and didn't want to find out. Left behind to clean up after the dinner party and stuck there after the ambush, Lucius hadn't fed for at least a day, maybe more.

“There's Lucius,” he pointed out to Matilde. “You've never hunted with him, have you? He's interesting,” Cook said to make conversation. “He likes to—“

“Rut with humans?” Matilde supplied. “It's from the taint in him,” she announced. “He's William's get.”

Cook tapped her beer bottle with his to get her attention. “I was going to say that he's quick. It's like watching a red tailed hawk. I used to do that. Come down here in the morning, and watch the hawks hunt the pigeons. Where do you get these crazy ideas?” he asked. “I mean, I figured out why William keeps his pet a long time ago.”

She frowned, looking at him, waiting for an answer.

“Because he can,” Cook said with a grin. “He's got his nice bit of fluff. None of which has anything to do with us, other than the obvious. No biting the master vampire's pet, and I'm getting the feeling lately that he not just talking about the kind of biting that comes with the fangs. Be careful what you say around them,” he advised. “she's one of them, ‘Tilde. Not one of us. I've seen them together. He talks to her like he talks to them. One of us is not going to become one of them. If you want to stand towards the front of the line, that's your choice, but I'm staying in the middle of the pack, where I can blend in.”

“She's not one of them,” Matilde protested.

Cook shrugged, “Maybe not, but she is whatever William decides that she is, and what that means has nothing to do with her. He's not the least of them, or the youngest, or the weakest. He's one of them. We aren't. They came here together, with no minions. Have you thought about what that means? What did they do with the ones that came before us?”

Matilde's eyes were focused on the middle distance as she worked that out, shivering. Staked or abandoned, it hardly mattered, did it? The idea of being left by Darla made her skin crawl. “What do we do?”

Cook patted her shoulder. “Not a lot we can do, is there? Except stay in the middle, and blend in,” he nodded to Lucius on the box. “He can't help himself. He's always going to be in the front, and maybe that will work out for us, or not,” he shrugged. “There's always someone to stand behind.”

For him it had been the redheaded footman who had died with Drusilla's hand wrapped around his heart. He could no longer remember his name, but Cook was positive that he was the reason that he was undead rather than rotting a layer of lime under the compost heap in the garden.



The food and the champagne made her sleepy. The music didn't help. Willow felt that if she could take a step in closer to William's body and let her head rest on his shoulder, she would be asleep in seconds.

That's the way she learned how to dance, staring wistfully at the crowded dance floor at the Bronze during the slow songs when couples were pressed together. Girls with their arms twined around their partner's neck, boys with their hands laced over the small of partner's back, swaying together, barely moving. It wasn't really dancing.

She had been taught to dance properly. There were no country dances tonight. It was all dances for couples, waltz, polka, redowa, schottishe, mazurka, and minuet. The music gave a clue in the time, and William was leading, so all she had to do was recognize which dance it was, but they were, one after another, exhausting.

She was thinking about it though as she followed William in the demanding Schottische, a Bohemian country dance that had become hugely popular. The left, right, left, hop, left, right, left, hop, left, right, left—crap, she was supposed to have hopped, now, she was on the wrong foot altogether, and William was laughing, pulling her away from the dance floor back to their table to pour her another glass of champagne. He held the silver gilt cane backed chair for her, turning it towards the water as he resumed his place in the chair he had moved around to the end of the table when they were seated.

She looked over her shoulder at him and found him leaning on his elbows, braced on the table. “Catch your breath, love,” he advised, pointing to the shoreline slipping past, his voice a low, intimately pitched purr in her ear, when she turned back to the rail. “Can you see the Charles from here?” he asked, well aware that he saw much better in the dark than she did. “Look past the bridge tower,” he prompted.

“Hradcany?” she guessed, seeing not much more than the shadowy profile of the ancient and vast Prague Castle complex.

His fingers caressed the inside of her arm above the glove that came nearly to her elbow. “Yes,” he agreed. “Did you visit it before we came?” he asked.

She nodded. Before they came, she had, aside from shopping for the house, managed to visit Hradcany, the Jewish Quarter, and several museums, usually with Matilde or Sophia and Lucius, who always made a point of driving for her if she went out.

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes on her face in profile. “When we go home, would you like to see the Tower of London?”

Home. It gave her an odd pang, and at the same time she was almost startled to hear William refer to London as home. “It could be arranged. Edward or one of the cousins could go with you. They'll ask you a lot of rude questions,” he conceded, “but, you wouldn't have to go alone.”

“I don't mind going places alone. I like it,” she insisted.

“Hmmm,” his eyes narrowed. “Don't know if I do, pet,” he said mildly, his gaze shifting to the shoreline. He lifted her gloved hand and kissed the back of it before sliding his fingers over her palm. He smiled, “I do like these gloves,” he teased, slanting a look at her, and laughing softly at the blush that was creeping into her cheeks.

They stayed at the table for the rest of the cruise, sipping champagne and nibbling on a selection of small crumbly biscuits filled with a variety of preserves and dusted with powdered sugar. William insisted on feeding her to keep the powdered sugar from getting on her gloves, even though they unbuttoned at the wrist in order to free her hands for eating.

She accused him of having a fetish about feeding her, and he lifted his eyebrows before seeming to acknowledge it. “I think it's a vampire thing,” he glanced over at her to see if she was taking him seriously. “I need to feed you.”

She looked skeptical, having heard William's callous views on the care and feeding of minions, which was essentially that if they couldn't care for or feed themselves, then they weren't going to be kept. She had seen the principal applied to fledglings and injured minions over the years.

“I've never noticed that you felt the need to feed any of your . . .”

He nodded, “Well, no, not minions. But, you know, Dru,” that went without saying, “Angelus, if I was in the right mood. Darla, if I was feeling charitable,” he snarked, “You.” He waved a biscuit dripping blood red raspberry preserves. “Daddy's got a nummy treat,” he teased.

Her nose wrinkled. “Eeeew!”

He ate the biscuit in two bites, chewed, and washed it down with a mouthful of champagne. “It has to be some instinctive, primal thing, pet because there is no way in hell I'd willingly expose myself to Angelus while I'm putting together a snack for you unless it was some kind of impossible to deny thing.”

“Really? Angelus? What does he do? Stand with his arm crossed over his chest and look disapproving?” It was his default expression when it came to William.

“Something like that,” he agreed. “Sometimes,” he chuckled, “he gives me advice.”

Willow looked horrified and intrigued. “Do I even want to know?” she ventured, her nose wrinkling.

He pinched her chin, “Nah, give you nightmares, sweet.” Her eyes looked a little heavy lidded. Partially from the champagne, he guessed, but she was tired. The last few days had been a bit much for her. “Knackered, aren't you?”

The yawn that had been threatening for hours, finally broke and she let it speak for itself.

He scooted his chair closer. “Not much longer now, and we'll be on dry land and I'll take you home. Tuck you up in bed.” He considered kissing her. He wanted to kiss her, but they were in a public place and it really wasn't the done thing. For himself, he didn't mind, but . . . he lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I really want to kiss you,” he said.

She froze, and he sighed. “I'm not going to, pet.”

“Oh,” she breathed, and then her gaze shifted to his lips and her tongue stole out to wet her lower lip, and she looked back up at him. “Um . . . okay.”

“Okay,” he drawled right back, fascinated by her reaction. “I like kissing you,” he confessed, picking up a biscuit full of apricot preserves. “You have the softest, most kissable lips.”

There was something that flashed in her eyes, so fleeting that he might have missed it if he wasn't watching her so intently. His earlier insight about what she had been deprived of had been an epiphany. He hadn't consciously been thinking about how to turn it to his advantage. He understood, the night under the bridge, that there were things that he could never expect from her, and he accepted that. But it didn't mean that he couldn't . . . woo her.

It was a novel idea, and an oddly pleasant one, though he knew Angelus would have a field day with it when he picked up on it, but that was a small price to pay.

How could he have neglected to tell her these things? Jesus. He really was an ass. It was on the tip of his tongue to elaborate, but he made himself stop. He didn't want to overwhelm her, and she was hideously clever. If she thought that he was manipulating her, the slender toehold he sensed that he had gained would dissolve.

“Will?” her tone of voice was tentative.

He made himself sit back, and drink the last bit of champagne in his glass, gesturing to her to go on with whatever she had been about to say.

She looked down at the table, thinking, and then at him. “I had a good time tonight.”

He was pretty sure that wasn't what she was thinking about saying when she said his name, but he let it pass. “It was a good idea,” he said with a small smile, because he wouldn't have thought of this if she hadn't looked interested when she saw the boat on the river.




From the roof of a hotel on the Stare Mesto side of the river, Angelus and Darla met the surviving quartet of vampires whose lair on Zlata Ulicka was at least partially compromised. A note requesting the meeting had arrived at mid-afternoon. With William occupied with Willow, it was something that had been easily kept from him. Angelus saw no reason to alter their plans for the evening. The invitation was for all of them, himself, Darla, William, and their witch, but he had no intention of delivering all of them into potentially hostile territory.

The rooftop was not deserted. Rising an additional story from the alley side of the building was the element of the building that housed a kitchen and service area as well as the stairway access to the roof. Strings of electric lights were attached to an expansive pergola painted a shade of green that blended with the patina on the exposed bronze flashing on the rooftop. Wrought iron tables and chairs separated by heavy planters on casters filled with ornamental trees shrubs with powder puff blossoms and a classically themed fountain spraying water into the night sky gave the rooftop a garden feel with a spectacular view of the city.

From this vantage point, Angelus could make out the running lights of barges and at least two steamboats on the Vltana.

The maitre d' directed them up a short flight of stairs to a terrace that was largely empty but in clear view of the roof garden.

He registered disappointment, but not surprise or annoyance in the way he and Darla had accepted the invitation from the three female and one male vampire on the terrace. They studied each other, and the impression of age that he had from the two older vampires was a little off putting. They were truly old, possibly older than Darla's ancient sire. He recognized the vampire ‘child' from Willow's description in a costume that could have been taken from a fifteenth century Northern Renaissance painting. She was wearing scarlet trimmed in sable with a fez-like hat of gold covered by a film of gauzy white fabric that formed a line where her eyebrows should have been. The low neckline framed small breasts, possibly on display to erase any doubt about her age when she was turned. She was so small that Angelus understood how Willow could have mistaken her for a child.

It took him a moment, but then he recognized it. The resemblance to a Northern Renaissance painting was not casual. The costume was an almost exact copy of one in a painting by Roger van der Weyden.

The other ancient vampire was unexpectedly tall, nearly twice her height. His waist length white blond hair was unbound, casually swept over one shoulder, otherwise he was as conventionally garbed as Angelus in a dark suit that he looked mildly uncomfortable in. Incurious, almost blank cornflower blue eyes studied them without any particular interest. Where the little van der Weyden vampire had her hands folded in front of her almost prayerfully, her ringed fingers on display showing the tell-tale signs of advanced aging in a vampire in the length of her curling fingernails, the taller vampire's hands were loosely curled to hide his fingertips.

The other two female vampires were younger, possibly younger than Darla. One dark, dressed in a loose banyan that was more appropriate for daywear, and the other, blond with large gray eyes that were tempered by a certain amount of weary patience. She was the only one of the group who was seated, and Angelus found himself amused by this little hint as to who was in charge, as well as intrigued that one of the youngest of the vampires was the acknowledged leader of the group, a mystery that was worthy of further exploration.

“Do we start with the usual maneuvers, or do we get right down to business?” Angelus asked.

The younger vampire nodded. “We attacked your lair, for which we lost over half of our clan,” she said, giving away a lot more information than Angelus would have if he had been in her position. “Our lair in Zlata Ulicka is impenetrable, though I am certain this is something you plan to ascertain for yourself.”

He waited. They were talking, and there was no point in giving up what advantage that represented until they stopped saying anything interesting.

“We will demand neither compensation nor retribution, for our losses,” she told him.

If over half of their clan was eliminated, they were not in a position to demand anything. “Very generous,” he commented dryly.

“We think so,” she agreed, gesturing to a settee covered with a striped cushion. “We are not in neutral territory,” she said as Angelus and Darla sat, facing her. “This is Stare Mesto, and it, and the whole of Prague, are claimed by my sire,” her lip curled a little on the last word. “Ekaterina Cern'nsky,” her head dipped forward, and Angelus realized that she was expecting him to recognize the name.

He gave it a moment before he allowed his lack of recognition to bleed through. He gave Darla a sideways look and saw her smile a cool, brittle, ground glass smile.

“Never heard of her,” he stated flatly.

The dark haired female vampire's weight shifted from one foot to the other. “I'd give a fang to see the expression on her face if she heard that,” she said, her voice dry and amused.

A smile ghosted across the blond vampire's face. “Esota,” she indicated the dark haired vampire. “Lulach,” the older male vampire gave them a curt nod, “and, Sian, who is known to your household,” she matched Darla's brittle smile. “And you are Angelus and Darla,” she said, an eyebrow lifting with a hint of disdain. “We know this because we make a point of being knowledgeable.”

Darla felt Angelus tense as the jibe landed. Her boy prided himself on being knowledgeable and he had just had his own arrogance and rudeness paid back.

“And I am Thomazine,” their hostess concluded, not rushing, but not lingering over the discomfort she had inflicted. “We have more in common than not,” she directed this to Darla. “For two hundred years we have managed to maintain our independence from my sire, much as you have, childe of Heinrich Nest.”

Shit! Angelus studied his fingernails, trying not to betray any sign of discomfort, and knowing that he was failing to some extent. The depth of knowledge that they were casually displaying about them was startling.

Darla gave a shrug. “We like to travel,” she made it bland.

Thomazine cocked her head to one side. “Yes,” she agreed. “You like to travel. Lulach,” she looked over her shoulder, “likes to travel. I've always thought I would have time for it.”

Esota looked at her as if to dispute this, but held her tongue. Sian smiled, finding the comment amusing.

Angelus flicked an imaginary speck of lint from his trousers. “I've always thought Paris was nice this time of year,” he drawled, sounding bored. “If you do not seek retribution or compensation, what do you want?”

“To remain independent,” she didn't flinch from the question. “We are dangerously weakened. Our numbers could be increased,” she acknowledged, “but not in any way that would protect us in the short term.”

Angelus smiled at that. “You can't be very knowledgeable if you think we have the least interest in your problems,” he shot back.

“My problem is your problem,” she told him. “If someone did an injury to your childe, how would you react? Would you leave them to their own devices and tell yourself that they had it coming? Would you offer them the mantle of your protection? Or would you see it as an opportunity to re-establish your authority and finish what they began?”

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter what you or I would do, because we have something in common. More to the point, what would your Master do? Because your Master and mine have something in common.”

Darla's fingers moved to rest on Angelus hand, her fingernails tapping lightly against his skin. It was the only sign she gave that what Thomazine was suggesting had made an impression on her.

“That's a warning, is it?” Angelus said. “We can be out of Prague in twenty-four hours,” he bluffed. He had no intention of leaving Prague just yet. “There is a whole world out there. You might want to see what it has to offer.”

Thomazine's chin lifted, her eyes narrowing. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I'll take that under advisement. I think that, like you, I'll leave when it suits me.”

Angelus chuckled. “It suits me to live again another day,” he told her. “I've had to run to ground before, more times than I could count. Thinking that you are above running is going to get you staked. It got six of yours staked last night by a human and a pair of fledglings,” his tone was pure acid.

Anger and uncertainty flashed in Thomazine's eyes and Lulach checked an involuntary move towards her, a low frequency purring growl rumbling in his throat. It wasn't a threatening growl. It was meant to be comforting. For a moment it dragged Angelus' attention away from the younger vampire and he pondered the unusual circumstances that might drive a vampire as old as this one to serve one so much younger.

He also found himself responding to the calming purr. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Darla's eyes widen in wonder.

“We've exchanged our pithy comments,” Angelus said, acknowledging that his own stepped over the line. “What exactly do you have in mind?”



‘I really want to kiss you . . .'

“Careful, Willow,” William's hand rested briefly on her back as they made their way across the gangway to the wharf. A section of carpet had been rolled out and Willow distracted herself with wondering if this necessity was what inspired the red carpet of her time. The wharf was covered with gray paving stones that sloped into deep grooves between the pavers, as if the grout or concrete, or whatever held them together, had been washed away. They would have been impossible to manage with her long dress, even in her relatively flat evening slippers. The carpet made it possible to walk up the grade of the wharf, though she hung onto William's arm anyway.

Lucius was waiting for them beside the Brougham with the step down and the door open. He had lit one of the candles that were mounted inside the carriage in a lamp backed by mirrored glass. William handed her in and found his packet of cigarettes, shaking one out and lighting it. He sucked in a hearty lungful of smoke. It gave him an excuse to linger outside the carriage, and he had gone without a smoke for hours on the boat.

Cook and Matilde were sitting on a bench. Cook looked bored, but resigned to it while Matilde was paying critical attention to the passing knots of people streaming off the boat.

William shook his head at the picture they made. “They look married,” he observed, amused by the pairing. “Bloody well eat him alive, she would.”

He was speaking in English out of habit and Willow thought he was speaking to her. She moved from the outer side of the bench seat closer to the open door of the carriage.

“Who?” she asked.

“It's nothing, love. I'll just be a moment,” he said over his shoulder. His attention turned to Lucius and he switched to German. “Anything interesting happen?”

“Interesting?” Lucius repeated. “I saw someone I drained and left for dead, alive, but other than that, no.”

William looked at him. If it was true, that qualified as interesting. “You don't see that everyday,” he mused, taking another drag on the cigarette, weighing the odds that Lucius only thought his victim was dead. “Where?”

Lucius described the tavern while William smoked, his eyes restlessly scanning the wharf, settling briefly on an old codger who seemed to be napping over a fishing line. He caught Cook's eye and gave a slight nod to the fisherman, miming pushing a pair of glasses back.

Cook looked puzzled, and then a flash of enlightenment dawned. He nodded. William wondered if he was going to flash him a thumbs up sign. Very subtle, they were.

“Let's get my girl home. She's ready to drop,” he said, taking a final drag on the cigarette before dropping it and crushing it out under foot. He ducked into the carriage, pulling up the step that folded inside the door. Lucius shut the door behind him and William secured the latch.

Willow would have slid back to the other side of the seat to make room for him, but he stopped her, stepping around her nimbly to sit on the other side of her. He leaned back against the seatback and stretched his legs out.

‘I really want to kiss you . . .'

She glanced over at him cautiously, not wanting to stare, and definitely not wanting to be caught staring, but wondering a little if he was going to kiss her. Not that it was a big deal or anything. It wasn't like he hadn't kissed her before. It was a little different that he had announced that he wanted to kiss her and then hadn't followed up on that, by kissing her.

He caught the sideways look, and misread it. “We'll be home soon,” he promised.

The wharf was at the foot of the Palackeho Bridge, and it was a short drive over the bridge into Nove Mesto to the house.

It was never a good sign when Drusilla greeted you with a reference to scripture. She met them at the door. “Matthew, 10:29—one will fall!” she announced, grabbing Willow's hand and waist to dance across the foyer, “but, not us, dearie. We'll dance on clouds of feathers and blood,” she confided, eyes softening as she looked down at Willow.

William found himself following them up the stairs. Drusilla had pounced on Willow as soon as she walked through the door, talking animatedly about what she and Mr. Buttons had done while they were out. Drusilla had made the dog a chew toy out of some scraps of fur that had been stuffed and sewn into a misshaped dog figure with an overly large head and stubby legs.

The dog was dragging it in front of him since it was too large for him to carry in his jaws without it dragging on the ground. Willow seemed to find it more interesting than amusing as she watched the dog sit with it positioned between his two front paws, occasionally pausing to bite or chew on the toy.

William went to sit on her chaise, in the far corner of her bedroom. It was a comfortable piece of furniture, even if it wasn't up to Darla's tastes.

Willow sat at her dressing table to take her hair down, and Drusilla made a sound of protest. “Going out, not staying in. It's not time for bed,” she scolded.

“Willow is staying in, my love,” William told her.

Dru eyed him quizzically, and then turned back to Willow, tucking her fingertips into a section of Willow's hair, smoothing it with her thumb. “Better to know than not to know,” she observed.

Willow ducked her head. “I think so, too,” she agreed, scooting to one side of the vanity bench.

Dru took the hint and sat beside her, her hand moving from Willow's hair to her cheek. She cocked her head to one side as if she was listening to something, and then leaned forward to kiss her, her free arm moving to Willow's waist below the velvet bodice. She paused, her lips hovering over Willow's and then smiled. “You can have what you want if you take it,” she told her, then she patted Willow's cheek and rose, holding her hands out to William.

“Such lovely secrets I have to tell,” she told him.

Without leaving his place on the chaise, he held his hand out to her, pulling her down to lay against him, her abdomen resting against his hips. Stroking the cool softness of her cheek, he smiled into her eyes. “What did you do tonight while we were out?”

She gave Willow's back an arch look. “I made presents, for Christmas,” she caroled.

Willow was taking her hair down, brushing it out. She glanced over her shoulder at them when William didn't say anything, and figured out that the present Dru was making had something to do with her. Her expression became rueful. Dru was childish. Half the fun of the present was teasing her about it and it would be spoiled if she didn't show enough interest to guess at what it was. Willow was childish enough to feel curious.

“You'll never guess what it is,” Dru was smug, “though it's right at your fingertips,” she wiggled her fingers at Willow who was brushing her hair.

William got it. Dru's sudden interest in cutting his hair now made sense. She was making something for Willow, and it had his hair in it. Willow simply looked puzzled and tired, but she was trying to come up with a good guess.

William pulled a lock of Drusilla's dark hair through his fingers, carrying it to his lips, and she frowned at him. “You are not to give hints,” she scolded.

“Hm?” He feigned ignorance, but out of the corner of this eye, he checked to see if Willow was taking the hint about the hair. She was looking at them, and the small smile she wore looked a little forced, and the slight frown suggested that she was confused. She was clever, but when she didn't get something right away, when a joke or a comment went over her head, she got an almost frightened look on her face. For a brief moment, as he wound Drusilla's hair around his finger, he wondered who had taught her to fear not knowing the right answer.

His attention returned to Dru, who was stroking his chest through his clothes, tracing and shaping the contours of the vest. He smoothed the lock of hair he was playing with against his lips, quietly reveling in the heavy, silken quality of her hair, savoring the scent that clung to her hair. The warmth of Willow's body did things to her scent, cooking it into a spicy mélange of impressions. Dru smelled like nothing and no one on earth. She smelled like fresh air, like water trickling over lichen covered stone, like crushed violets. The purity of her face was such that she almost looked plain, and then she would cast her dark, wicked eyes on him, or smile a certain way, and he would find himself marveling at her, his dark Goddess.

“I get so lost in you,” he told her.

“Wonderful games tonight, my love,” she whispered, treating him to one of her secretive smiles, “Even if Miss Willow refuses to play,” she pouted.

Willow was taking off the pearl choker, laying it flat on her dressing table. The earrings joined it, and she rubbed her slightly sore earlobes, not wanting to examine the feeling that she had been excluded. “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

Dru huffed at that. “No,” she said, and then rolled her eyes. “And it's not a breadbox,” she added.

It was an old joke between the three of them. They had been in Calais, forced to wait out the day in a warehouse when a maid at the hotel that they were staying in stumbled on a pair of dead bodies carelessly left propped up at the foot of Dru's bed, and forgotten there while the three of them slept in an adjoining room that forced them to vacate the premises with a deeply annoyed Darla and Angelus. To pass the time, they played endless rounds of twenty questions, with Willow and Angelus emerging as the most difficult to confound.

Angelus had started the ‘bigger than a breadbox' question, using it so predictably that it started to become a joke, and eventually, Willow stumped him, leading him through the maze of questions until they were sitting across from each other on crates, like duelists. Forced to conceded defeat, Angelus asked her what it is was, and she had raised her eyebrows and said, “A breadbox,” which had made Angelus frown at her for tweaking him with his own joke.

She took off her shoes, walking on stocking feet to her wardrobe to struggle with the dress, buttoned up the back. William and Dru exchanged glances. Dru pursed her lips, and William lifted an eyebrow, running his tongue over his lower lip. She crawled up his chest to capture his lower lip, worrying it with blunt teeth.

Willow pinched and pushed the small, hard, satin covered buttons through the holes. There were a ridiculous number of them starting just below her shoulder blades and going down to the small of her back to support the fitted bodice of the column dress under the loose fitting velvet bodice that lifted over her head. She got the dress off first and carefully hung it by the straps before removing the tunic-like velvet top of the dress and hanging it over the dress. The dress had been too fitted for any undergarments other than a corset and a long slip with three rows of black ruffles that were meant to be visible if the hem of the dress rode up at all. She unfastened the draw string waist of the slip and stepped out of it, hanging that up too.

The corset fastened at the back in a series of crisscrossed ties that were meant to pull in the waist and keep it flat, but were worn without that constraint. She untied it and eased it off, placing it in a drawer inside the wardrobe where she found a shift to wear to bed.

She glanced over at William and Dru. They were all tangled up in each other on her chaise. Dru was wearing a black dress with fitted sleeves and a high neck in shiny bombazine. On her the modest dress, almost severe dress was becoming. She wore black well.

She slipped the shift over her head and let it fall before going back to her dressing table to roll her stockings down. They would need to be soaked in cold water before she went to bed, and she quietly moved to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth with the stockings slung over her arm. After she was finished with her bedtime ritual, she hung the stockings to dry over a towel that was hanging and returned to her bedroom, half hoping that they would be gone, and with them the confusing feeling that she could almost feel pressing against her chest.



Drusilla broke off the kiss, rubbing herself against him with a predator's smile. “I'm hungry,” she announced.

“I think we can work in a bite before we go hunting,” William told her, trying to recapture her lips.

She laid her fingers on his lips, ducking her head a little, her gaze sparking with a hint of concentration as her fingers traced the outline of her lips. He stilled instantly, suddenly aware that she was trying to tell him something.

“Have you had a vision?” he asked carefully, not wanting to break her concentration.

She gave him a spare nod. “I was meant to be,” she said, her lips tightening in a moue of irritation. That wasn't what she was trying to tell him. She tried again. In her mind she could see the sparrow falling, its feathers bloody. Death was in the natural order of things. She was a part of that, bringing order to the chaos, bringing death because life required it. Those thoughts she might share with Angelus, who would savor them with her. William, her darling, lovely, wicked boy, didn't think deep thoughts about what they were, what they were meant to be.

“Priests and monks,” she managed to say, finding the words that belonged to the things that they would hunt. “They mean to make us no more,” she looked at him, wondering if he understood, “but I see them. I know,” she gloated. “And I will creep up on them, quiet and soft, and make them no more.”

Uh, oh. William stared at her, thinking, wondering where Angelus was. Hunting priests sounded like his kind of game, given the right circumstances. Generally, Angelus preferred not to bring that kind of attention down on them, but under the right circumstances it was one of his favorite past times.

“Are you certain, my love?” he asked.

She nodded. “I can feel them,” she said simply. “They would torture Daddy and Grandmother, and stake me, and you, and burn our precious,” she tilted her head to the bathroom. “They burn witches.”

He nodded slowly. Vampires on the left, priests on the right, death and terror to all comers. It suited him. Burn his witch, would they?

Drusilla crawled off of him, gesturing to the closed bathroom door, and making a shushing motion with her hand to her lips. It went without saying that Willow was not going to be brought in on this new development. He smiled wryly at her, but nodded his agreement, rising from the chaise.

He wandered over to her dressing table, scooping up the jewelry she had removed, and tucking it in his pocket before running his fingers over the bristles of her brush, mentally reviewing who was in the house at the moment, and who he would take and leave behind.

The bathroom door opened and Willow stood for a moment in the open doorway, fumbling with the knob that turned down the gaslight in the bathroom. She still had that look on her face, the one that he associated with being left out on something she was sure that she should understand. It made him smile a little to see her so uncertain.

“I'm going to bed now,” she announced, looking at them like she wasn't sure why they were still there.

He looked at Dru, who shrugged.

“We'll be out,” he said. “I'll leave someone to keep an eye out,” he added. “Do you need anything before you go to bed?”

She shook her head, moving into the room, towards the bed, and then pausing. She looked so sleepy and perplexed that he felt a wave of affection rise, and then she turned to him, moving slowly. Her fingers curled around his wrist, under the sleeve of his suit coat, using his wrist for balance as she rose on her toes to awkwardly press her cheek to his, missing a little, the slight bit of beard stubble on his jaw rasping her sunburned cheek, making her flinch.

His eyes widened a little. He couldn't think of a time when she had done anything like this, expressed anything like a desire to touch him one last time before they parted. It was unexpectedly moving, and he before he could react she was moving to her bed, turning down the covers to climb inside.

Drusilla was smiling a little. She frowned at him meaningfully, a look he read as, don't just stand there, stupid!

He went to the bed and tugged the linens up under her chin, tucking them in around her until she made a sound of protest and tried to fluff her covers. He leaned over her, kissing her mouth, eyes drifting shut as he absorbed the texture of her mouth, so soft and pliant. “Go to sleep. We'll be home when you wake up,” he promised, and then grinned. “Might be waking you up when we get home,” he added, since it was more likely than not.




The elders were just coming in as William and Dru were heading out, and Angelus stopped them. “Where are you off to?” he demanded.

“We're feeling peckish, and you told me to scout Zlata Ulicka,” William reminded him.

Angelus grunted, exchanging a look with Darla. “Forget that,” he said. “It's no longer an issue,” he gestured to the salon. “I want to talk to you both. Where is Willow?”

“Asleep, by now,” William stated. “She's a bit knocked up, needs some rest.”

Angelus assessed the likelihood of that. “I don't want to fuck her. I want to talk to her,” he said, half suspecting that William was getting territorial about his pet. “Get her up,” he ordered.

Glaring at him, William hesitated. “It won't wait till morning?”

Darla interposed before Angelus could react to what was starting to sound like a refusal. “We can talk in her room. It won't take long,” she explained.

William heaved an annoyed sigh, and marched back up the stairs to Willow's door. He went in, leaving the door ajar, seeing her head turn toward the door as he came in. “Need you to wake up, love,” he said gruffly, resenting Angelus for demanding that he wake her.

She pushed up on one elbow. “What is it?” she asked as he came over to the bed.

“Hell if I know,” he admitted, nudging her over in the bed to sit on the edge beside her. “His highness wants to ‘talk' to you.”

Following William into the darkened room, Angelus heard that and let it pass. Darla drifted past him, her body brushing his. She went to the table in the corner where the chaise was arranged and lit the lamp that rested there. She sat in the armchair.

Not noticing that Drusilla was no longer with them Angelus began, addressing William. “There is no reason for you to scout Zlata Ulicka. We met with the clan that lairs there, and they are no immediate threat to us,” he summarized.

Dru had bypassed Willow's door to go to her own room, and she came in from the connecting bathroom, carrying Miss Edith. She kicked off her shoes and joined William and Willow on the bed, walking across the foot of the bed to the center and sinking down on the other side of Willow. She looked up an Angelus. “Miss Edith, too,” she explained, and then smiled brightly at Willow. “Daddy is telling bedtime stories.” She held her fingers to her lips. “Sssh. Listen,” she said, hugging Miss Edith.

Angelus gave Dru as slightly bemused look before continuing without the implied, ‘before I was so rudely interrupted' that would have fallen on deaf ears. “What can you do in a real fight, Willow?” he asked.

Feeling uneasy, Willow had to check the impulse to move closer to William. She made herself sit up, rubbing her face while she tried to formulate an answer.

Her increased heartbeat was giving her away. William held up a hand to stay Angelus, turning to Willow. “I know you are half asleep, love, but no one is angry with you. Just answer his question,” he sought her eyes.

“I don't know,” she said. “I guess it would depend on what kind of fight it was, and what was available, and how much time I had to prepare,” she hedged.

Angelus glanced over at Darla, who smiled. “You have two days. It will be a raid on a lair. You'll have the four of us, most of our minions, and four more vampires on your side. We want surprise and maximum damage.”

She blinked several times processing that. “Against what?” she asked warily.

“More vampires,” Angelus told her. “By this time tomorrow I expect a full list of any spell components that you might require,” he told her.

Willow pushed her fingers through her hair, frowning. “I don't understand,” she said slowly. “You want me to . . . do what exactly?”

“That's a good question,” William growled.

Darla took over. “We've upset a balance of power, and before it becomes an all out war, we are going to even things up,” she explained. “It's not that complicated,” she told William. “According to the sole survivor of last night's raid, Willow was the difference that cost them so much.”

Willow's mouth opened in a silent ‘oh'. Something like guilt flashed in her expressive eyes before she looked down, and hastily tugged the sheet up over her chest. She gave William a long, puzzled look. “Okay,” she said slowly. “I need more information,”. “I need as much information as possible about space, floor plans, how many vampires . . .” her voice trailed off.

Angelus was looking at her with a strange little smile on his face. “We'll talk some more,” he said, nodding his agreement.

Darla took that as a signal and rose. “What did you do?”

Willow shook her head. “Something I shouldn't have been able to do, but I think I know why,” she said. She looked at the table beside the chair Darla had left. Drusilla turned with her, and Willow extended her hand. A book lying on the table slid an inch, and Willow stopped. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to refocus her concentration. When she tried again, the book snapped open, pages flying, and she grimaced.

“Um . . .” she frowned. “When I did the spell to set the wards outside the house, I used crystals. I buried them in the ground in a pentagram and cast the spell from the cellar, which is pretty much dead center, which has created a kind of fixed locus of dark magic?” her voice held a note of uncertainty. “I felt it the other night. I needed power, and it was there, and as long as I'm tapped into it, I have power, a lot of power, but I should be able to float the book? But when I try it goes,” she wiggled her fingers at the book, “not floaty.”

“Except this morning, with the locator spell,” she pointed out, her voice so soft that William saw Angelus lean forward ever so slightly. “I was inside a circle, using a spell, with components, and I think the circle and the ritual refocused the energies in a way that blocked out the interference.” She looked around at her audience. “It's a theory,” she admitted. “I mean, it was just the one time that I was really aware of the crystals, but I've done some spells—“ she frowned, “not so much spells, as just directing energy, and it feels very weird and . . . not good. Like the locator spell? That felt good.”

Angelus was following this with more interest than Darla was. She was still waiting for Willow to answer the question. Aware of her impatience, Angelus gestured to Willow. “That's interesting, but what did you do?”

Willow's finger's twitched and her hand shot out. The book shot across the room at her hand with enough force that William, reacting with reflexes she couldn't match, deflected the book before it could hit her unprotected hand.

“Except, with knives,” she said in a small voice. “And, there's this spell, to make things freeze . . . and I did that,” she said.

“Show me,” Angelus commanded.

“I'd rather not,” Willow said. Before Angelus could react to the unprecedented refusal, she rushed on, “Aside from not entirely understanding how it works, without a circle or the ritual to focus the energy it passes through me, and I'm kind of weak right now from yesterday, but I think it would be more to the point to see what I can do outside of the ward set around the house.”

William ran his tongue over his teeth, watching her in a bemused sort of way. Apparently there had been a bit more to her hocus pocus demonstration the other day than she had let on and he was a bit annoyed to realize that he had missed that by not pressing for more details from her. They would talk about that soon, he decided.

Darla looked to Angelus to gauge his reaction to Willow's refusal. From the look on his face, she deduced that he recognized that it was the best approach. His attention was divided between William and Willow, and he looked like he wasn't pleased about something.

Drusilla bounced on the bed. “More stories, please,” she put in.