Chapter 1 - Visions of Rubies

"So what do you want for dinner, Fred?" Cordelia asked.

"Oh, tacos. I could eat tacos."

"How about soup and a salad?"

"No, that doesn't sound right."

"A bagel with salmon and onion?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so."

"Chinese? Vegetables with tofu and mushrooms?"

"Well..." Fred thought, then turned away from Cordelia. "No, not tonight. Just a couple of tacos."

"Fred, you need more vegetables. How about a side order of guacamole and tostoda chips? Or better yet, salsa?"

"Oh, I guess, but maybe I still have some left in the refrigerator."

"No," Cordelia said. "I threw all those leftovers out last week. All right, tacos. Will you come downstairs to eat with us tonight?"

"No, no, I guess not. Not tonight."

"All right."

"And Fred?" Wesley asked.

"Wants some tacos, in her room." Cordelia looked at the big mirror she had put up in the office. She sighed, and brushed a strand of hair back from her forehead.

"I'm thinking Dawn's idea, putting the food lower and lower on the stairs, is not so bad," Gunn said.

"I would agree were not for the fact that Fred seems willing to go hungry before she accepts our company. She is not sturdy, even after more than two months with an improved diet."

"She's real skinny."

"And her diet isn't that improved," Cordy said. "She won't even try salsa." She sat down in one of the visitors' chairs by Wesley's desk.

"She did eat a real salad and even some grapes, when Spike and Dawn were here. Maybe we should get her some grapes," Gunn said.

"Red," Cordelia said.

"Or green, but seedless..."

"It's a ruby," Cordelia said, clutching her forehead as she fell out of her chair, "and he's going to use it to destroy the world."

Gunn caught her, easing her down on the floor. "Easy, girl, easy."

"Who?" Wesley asked. "Who, Cordy?"

"I don't know him. He's as tall as Wesley; he's got dark red, almost mahogany, hair; he's a vampire."

"When and where?"

"The museum, and there are bodies everywhere."

"When?"

"Soon. Oh, Drusilla's with him."

"This Drusilla? I mean our Drusilla?" Wesley asked. "Is he someone we know?"

"No. He's new, with a lot of helpers. Oh, it hurts. Soon, that's all I know, and everybody dies."

"Gunn, open that bottle of wine Gang Long gave us."

Gunn went to the office refrigerator, stopping to get a glass from the small sink.

Wesley helped Cordelia attain a sitting posture and Gunn handed her the glass of wine.

"Why does Ann's wine work and aspirin doesn't?" Cordy asked, sipping. She wiped her eyes.

"Ann's wine is especially good for non-natural wounds," Wesley said. "Demon bites, certainly, and now it appears, vision headaches."

"Who got bit by a demon?" Gunn asked.

"Ann. When I was up there last year."

"I want to get up," Cordy said.

"Sure?" Gunn asked. Cordelia darted an impatient glare at him. "Just asking," Gunn said, lifting her to her feet and supporting her until she stood alone.

"Did you recognize any of the vampires?" Wesley asked.

"Only Drusilla," Cordy said.

"So is she back? Or has she been here all along?" Gunn asked. "And do we have to watch out for Darla showing up again?"

"Angel said Darla left, but he was maddeningly vague about it. He said he told her to leave, but he never said if he meant the city, the state or the country," Wesley said.

"We could ask over at Wolfram and Hart," Cordy said. As the two men silently looked at her, she continued: "I know, I know. Bad idea. But Darla," she continued, "Darla wasn't there. Drusilla was right by this guy's side, and Darla likes being alpha bitch."

"Angel knows all about Drusilla," Wesley said. "After all, he sired her."

"Right," Gunn said.

"That's not all he did. First, over several months, he drove her crazy; then he murdered all her family," Cordy said. "Finally, he killed her. Evil Angel is not nice, at all."

"`Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,'" Wesley muttered.

"Exactly. That's very good, Wesley," Cordelia said.

"Yeah. But he knows her likes and dislikes? Who she'd likely hang with?"

"And he's out of contact," Wesley reminded him.

"What do the Watcher books say?" Gunn asked.

"That she and Spike were lovers for many years, although they do not seem to have been together of late. We could ask him; as long as he has that chip in his head, we can treat with him safely."

"Who makes the call?" Cordy asked.

"You're the boss," Gunn repeated.

"Yes, and, since I think you established a sort of rapport with Spike, you're going to make the call."

"What rapport?"

"You, he and Gang Long seemed to be easy and free in each other's company," Wesley said.

"We're about the same age, is all."

"Oh, stop it," Cordelia said. "I got tired of this argument about ten minutes ago. I called Spike."

"Oh."

"Good," Wesley said. "Initiative, I like to see that in the staff."

"Especially when you don't want the job. Spike has a condition. He wants to drive the Cobra for a couple of hours," Cordy said.

"Is he driving down? Which car? We could trade."

"Well, I suggested he bring Ann's new Jaguar, and leave it, as sort of a deposit, but he just laughed. He's coming in the Viper. What is it about nasty animals? Scorpions, Spyders. Wasn't there something called a Sidewinder?"

"Yes and no," Gunn said.

"Nice car," Spike said. "Thanks. I enjoyed that. We should try it for real sometime, Gunn. So why? Why am I here? Not just for my looks, I'm sure."

Not that he didn't look good, Cordelia thought, for a vampire. About her own height, Spike had tossed his leather coat off when he came in. Now, he wore jeans that lacked any exterior label, but that fit him too well to be anything but tailored, and a heavy dull silk shirt that was also probably bespoke work. Both shirt and jeans were black, and Spike's blond hair and white skin gleamed against his clothes.

"Didn't Cordy explain?" Wesley said, glancing at Cordelia.

"Just that you wanted to talk to me, and if it took a while, you could give me a room for the day, which is sort of obvious." The vampire glanced around the lobby of the old hotel. "Didn't the aspidistras and palm trees get here yet? I arranged for them to arrive in late August, so they'd be here whenever Angel got back."

"I refused delivery," Cordy said.

"Oh, come on. The place needs palm trees and aspidistras."

"Your taste in foliage is typically Victorian," Wesley said. "Unfortunately, no one here wants to take care of that many indoor plants."

Spike shrugged. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"Drusilla."

"Why?"

"Cordelia had a vision," Wesley said. "Apparently, Drusilla's with a new, uh, friend--"

"We broke up," Spike said. "It's been a while. If she has a new lover, good for her; and if I can say the word, so can you."

"--lover, then, and he seems to be trying to destroy the world."

"Oh, again?"

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result," Wesley said. "Drusilla's recent history shows, if not dire consequences resulting from each attempt, at least a singular lack of success."

"True," Spike said, "but perseverance furthers, and she could be experimenting with new tactics: This may differ from last time, or the time before that, come to think of it. She may make it this time."

"A new and different way of destroying the world?" Gunn said.

"No doubt a different methodology for the same end," Spike said. "Or an equivalent end. The girl needs a hobby."

"The girl has a hobby," Cordelia said. "Destroying the world. She needs a new hobby. Why don't you give her palm trees?"

"She doesn't have the space," Spike said. "Is this why I'm here? To help you kill Dru?"

"At the very least, we do need to speak with her, Spike," Wesley said.

"Speaking is one thing, staking is another. I won't help you kill her, not just on this."

"She's a psychotic killer bitch," Cordelia said.

"I know that," Spike snapped. "She killed me, remember." The vampire glanced away, then back at the group. "We were close for a long time, we've done a lot together. I won't try to tell you she doesn't have a vicious bone in her body--she certainly does--I will point out that she doesn't have much initiative. Left to herself, she's not a threat to all humanity. I'll help you, if I can talk with her before you try to kill her."

"And if that doesn't deter her?"

"I think you'll have to prove to me she is a danger," Spike said.

"You just said, she killed you," Gunn pointed out.

"Which means of those here, I'm the one she's harmed. When Ann killed your father, she didn't pay wergeld to anyone not connected with him: The ones she injured were the ones who set her sentence."

"Well, that's only fair," Gunn said.

"That's not really applicable in a matter of destroying the world, Spike. Everyone is involved in that."

"You'll have to prove it," Spike repeated.

"You are biased in her favour," Wesley said.

"I don't think that's so, but I understand your reservations. Prove she's a danger, prove it to me, or to Ann or to twelve strangers off the street; but not just you, you're biased against her."

Wesley opened his mouth, glanced at the two other vampire killers, shut his mouth, then said: "I don't think we are, at least not unjustifiably, but we could certainly ask Ann, or even hire a private arbitration judge, possibly through young Tara's lawyer, what is her name?"

"Nancy Polias," Spike said. "She'll know someone. Good enough. So, why the ruby?"

"He needs it." Cordelia said.

"To destroy the world?" Gunn asked.

"A massive laser?" Wesley offered.

"I don't know," Cordelia said.

"Cordelia," Spike asked, "is this ruby like a jewel or like a stick of hard candy?"

"A jewel. It was lovely. I can wear rubies. There were lots of jewels. I wonder why Ann doesn't wear emeralds."

"Rubies would become you well," Spike said politely. "Ann doesn't wear anything but her earring. Not a laser," he said to Wesley.

"Right," Wesley said.

"So why the ruby?" Gunn asked.

"And for that matter, which museum?" Spike wondered.

Chapter 2 - Art and Rubies

"The Getty?"

"The new Getty," Cordelia said.

"See," Spike said, looking over Cordelia's shoulder at the monitor. "Palm trees."

"See. Gardeners," Cordelia snapped, shifting to the calendar.

"Jewelry and Jewels as Art and in Art."

"Which means?"

"They have a painting, they have a display of the same jewels or modern replicas, some on models--oh, I wish I'd known, I'd've applied--some in display cases. Oh, the models get to wear the same costume as the subject in the painting."

"Dilettantes," said Wesley.

"Silly," Spike agreed.

"But pretty," Cordelia said.

"The Research Institute," Wesley read.

"A special late night opening. Tomorrow."

"That's how he can get in," Spike said. "After dark."

"How many people are we talking about?"

"It's a benefit, for the Los Angeles Fine Arts Society. Wow. Ten thousand a ticket. Oh. The ticket is good for you and a date."

"So possibly not that many people."

"You and your date also get served a mid-night supper, at the café across the garden."

"Better be a hell of a good supper," Gunn said.

"I don't think they've posted the menu," Cordelia said.

"Why over there?" Gunn asked. "Not the supper, but the exhibition. Why isn't it in the Museum?"

"This says the Research Institute is normally of limited access to the public," Wesley said. "Why are they using it and not one of the usual exhibition areas?"

"Access control," Spike said, looking at the stylized map. "A limited and easily defined area with walls, doors that lock and lifts that need a key. It's called security, people. Not an irrational criterion, considering who can afford to attend and what they'll be looking at."

"Yes," Wesley said. "Very rich people and other portable valuable items."

"Even before this vampire got interested in the ruby," Gunn agreed.

"As an added bonus, the Getty staff don't have to stay up all night getting everything put away for the normal museum crowd tomorrow, they just limit the public access a little more than usual," Wesley said.

"Is there a service road? I would imagine there must be a service entrance," Gunn said.

"Just once," Cordy griped, "just once, I'd like to stay out of the kitchens and go in the front door at one of these things. Let me try for a satellite picture."

"I bet Dru's going right in the front door," Spike mused.

"Would a vampire have ten thousand dollars for tickets?" Gunn asked.

"Some of us are rich," Spike said, thinking of James Sternwood and some of the other vampires from Stanford, "but don't forget, the guy after the ruby--call him Jack--doesn't need to spend money to get the tickets, all he needs to know is who has them. He and Dru call on them, kill them, and take their tickets, and maybe their car, and Jack and Dru, and maybe a driver, are in."

"Jack the Ripper?" Cordelia asked.

"Jack Ruby, of course." At Cordelia's and Gunn's blank looks, Spike said, in an exasperated voice, "You humans have no real sense of history, do you?

"The Getty publishes guest lists?" Wesley asked skeptically.

"Angel ever mention Dru's visions?" Spike asked. "She might be able to find out who had tickets."

"Drusilla has visions?" Cordelia asked.

"Not as detailed as yours, apparently," Spike said.

"So what about those bodies?" Gunn asked.

"Right. Are they weltering in their blood?" Spike asked. "Or did they just fall over dead?"

"God, Spike, I don't know how Ann can stand you," Cordelia said.

Gunn looked at her, started to speak, stopped, and finally said, "That is a question Gytha would ask, Cordy."

"Possibly not so poorly phrased," Wesley said, "but how the guests are going to die is important to us."

"I know, I know."

"Sorry, Cordelia. I'm used to Ann and Gang Long knowing what I mean, and not being bothered too much about how I say it. I'm out of practice for talking to humans."

"I am not over-sensitive," Cordelia said.

"No, no, of course not," Wesley agreed.

"I just take these things very seriously."

"I understand that now," Spike said.

"And they're very upsetting."

"We know," Gunn said.

"And all the people just fell down dead, as far as I can tell. I didn't see any wounds, but I know they're dead." Cordy rubbed her temples.

"Spike, does the Viper have a hamper?" Wesley asked. "We've found Ann's wine is beneficial for the pain that attends Cordy's visions."

"Not surprising," Spike said. "Didn't the Cobra have one?"

"Angel took it with him. With such a specialized diet," Wesley said, "he thought it only polite to travel with his own supplies."

"He's becoming positively civilized," Spike said. "I'll be right back."

In the vampire's absence, Wesley said: "I don't know how it happened, but Spike is certainly more civilized himself than when I first met him."

"That was a while back," Gunn said.

"He's got the chip," Cordy said.

"Which stops him from killing us. It does not stop him from being sarcastic, rude, or unhelpful, which he has not been; certainly not as sarcastic as he was when Arlack Armel and his ilk were infiltrating the Council."

"According to Gang Long, he's been living at Gytha's a lot of the time," Gunn said. "She tends to bring out the best in people, and besides, she sure doesn't tolerate poor manners. Not at all."

"He got all prickly when you mentioned Angel," Cordelia said.

"I think it's logical to assume that they may have some points of contention yet to be resolved," Wesley said. "Even after so many years."

"Especially after so many years," Gunn said. "There's nothing like a past history to build up points of contention."

"Boy stuff," Cordelia dismissed.

"Close enough. Look, it's late, and I need to go," Gunn said. "So where are we putting him?"

"Upstairs," Wesley said. "Across from the courtyard from Fred, next to Angel's room."

"The plumbing stack in those rooms works," Cordy said. "As opposed to most of the other plumbing stacks. We need so many repairs."

"What you need is more parking," Spike said, coming back with the picnic basket from the Viper and a suitcase.

"More plumbing."

"Fewer leaks."

"I went out and bought you some sheets and towels," Cordelia said. "But you'll have to use them yourself."

"I brought some gear," Spike said. "What I saw when I was here last month made me think the housekeeping staff was overworked or nonexistent." He opened the basket and soon offered Cordelia a glass of wine.

"Better," she said, after sipping.

"Do you know Claire Galen?" Spike asked Cordelia. "My doctor, Angel's doctor? You could call her, and see if she knows about visions and your headaches. She might be able to do something for you."

"Oh? I'll talk to her, after this."

If Spike noticed Cordelia did not ask for Claire's phone number, he didn't mention it.

Wesley looked up and saw Fred darting back down the hallway from the balcony.

"Fred," Wesley said and waited.

After a long moment, Fred cautiously looked around the corner.

"You remember Spike. You looked at him last month, when he was here with Dawn."

"Hi, Fred," Spike said.

Fred darted back down the hall.

"Well, that's the last you'll see of her," Gunn said. "I'll be back in the morning."

About 9:00 AM the next day:

"I wish now I'd brought the Jag or one of the Mercedes," Spike said, pulling a late supper out of his picnic basket. He yawned. He opened a can of Cambells and, pouring it into a tumbler, warmed it in the microwave. He offered Cordelia some grapes.

"How many Mercedes does Ann have?" She shook her head at the grapes. "No, thanks, but don't put them away, I'll try to get Fred to eat them."

"OK. Two at the moment, more than she needs. We had a toddler for a while, and Ann felt a sedan was appropriate transport for him. The Jag and both Mercedes have filter spells on the windows, so I could drive out and case the museum today."

"That's a neat trick. Angel should have something like that," Cordy said.

"Talk to Ann about it. She's been thinking of giving one of the Mercedes away--she likes her new Jag better than either of them."

"Where did you and Ann get a baby?" Wesley asked.

"Long story."

"Gytha attracts people," Gunn said.

"Exactly," Spike said. "Which is how we got the nursemaids. The house was crowded for a while, and that was even before we captured the assassin and all the truant officers."

"Sunnydale doesn't change much, I guess," Cordelia said.

"These maps are not all that helpful," Wesley said, "I'll take the Cobra and reconnoiter."

"I'll go with you," Gunn said.

"Be ready to sketch a map when you get back," Cordelia said. "I don't understand either of you when you try to tell me what a place looks like."

"Meanwhile, you could go to a bookstore and buy some reference material," Spike said.

"What sort of material?" Cordy asked.

Spike handed her a sheet of paper, with a long list in his painstakingly neat handwriting. "I spent some time with Books In Print and some other sites last night. These looked the most helpful. Mostly about jewels, but some about the Getty Center."

"I guess you don't mean a chain store at the nearest mall, do you? Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, by Anselmus Boetius de Boot, 1636? Are you kidding? Antique Gems: their origin, uses and values, by Rev. C. W. King, M. A., 1866? The budget won't run to all this, Spike."

"They can be facsimiles, if that's an option, but I don't want edited or translated text."

"Even so."

"OK. Pick the best local bookstore or stores, I'll call in the order and charge it. You go pick up what they can supply today, while I get some sleep."

"That'll work. Wes, where should we go?"

"Are all the books that specialized?" Wesley asked.

"There are some big coffee table books on the Getty."

"Very well, try these two," and he wrote down two phone numbers.

"Notice how he's got them memorized?" Cordelia asked.

"Really, Cordelia. Literacy is not something of which to be ashamed."

"Well, between both stores, we'll get everything today." Spike handed Cordelia another sheet of paper. "Here are the addresses. You have to stop at the third place, too, it's a clipping and copying service. I've ordered some copies of news stories, paper and video."

"If Wes and Gunn are taking the Cobra, I guess I get to drive the Viper."

She smiled at the vampire, who said, "Your logic is interesting," and handed her the keys. "Here, if you can get it to start, you can drive it. Sometimes it's picky: Gunn, Filis and Xander Harris each drove it, but it wouldn't start for either Giles or Tara."

Cordelia checked her hair in the big mirror on the back wall, took her purse, waved at everyone and went off to the parking area, going out the corridor to the right of the elevators across the lobby from the desk and office.

"How do you know how to do all this?" Wesley asked.

"Every so often, a charming detective and I go out for dinner and a show. Sometimes, we talk shop."

Later that day:

"So where did you get this?" Wesley asked.

"While you were gone and Spike was sleeping or watching TV, I got into the volunteer site at the Getty. It had lots about being a docent--you have to go to classes for that, did you know?--and a hotkey to the site that shows you how get apply for a real job there, an internship at the Conservation Center, or a grant at the Research Institute. It shows you a cute little map, telling you where to go to apply, and from there, I got in here, which is floor plans. Oh, layers."

"Sub-basement one?" Wesley read.

"Yes!" Cordy said. "Multiple levels of sub-basements."

"Is that helpful?" Spike asked.

"I don't know yet," Cordelia admitted.

"Look here, I found a better map," Gunn said. He opened a large book flat on the desk and unfolded a plan of the whole museum site. "First of all, Cordy, the place is huge! It's a lot of acres on top of a couple of hilltops, with some of the buildings built deep into the sides of the hills. Some of those sub-basements may be walk-ins, accessible from the side, not just from the top."

"What are these curved things?"

"Retaining walls, with plantings, not unlike the turfed walls in a mediaeval garden, only much bigger," Wesley said. "Gunn's right, it's huge. There are unexpected gardens all over the place. Not to mention railings, terraces, ramps, lifts, flights of stairs and small streams flowing down the center of the pavement. I wish we'd had more time--there's a sort of cohesion about the whole place that is really interesting, beyond the impressive exhibits. I could wander around for hours, just tracing the grid lines."

"Grid lines?" Spike asked.

"Yes," Wesley said. "Even the joints of the tiles of travertine marble that make up the pavements are aligned with the compass points. The details of the total conception..."

"You so need a life," Cordelia said.

"So what are we seeing?" Wesley asked Spike, who turned on the TV and started a tape playing.

"Recent gathering, these are the pre-soirée arrivals," Spike said. "Here's your mayor Hahn, and the governor; I don't know who that guy is--"

"This year's mayor of Malibu," Cordelia said.

"--the senator and the state assemblymen. So it's everybody trolling for votes, walking up the fire lane, working the lines and smiling. Now, as they pull back for a long shot, watch this car."

"Where's it going?"

"Down the lower service road." Spike hit the pause button. "You can see--this isn't a very good angle, but it's still visible--a canopy, right where the road passes the square thing at the base of the big doughnut thing."

"That's the Research Institute," Cordy said.

"Right. The limo stops under the canopy, the guests exit, the car goes, the guests go in the back door."

"With a red carpet, though," Cordy said.

"And the limo?" Gunn asked.

"Goes on," Spike said. "Parking lot, rear exit, somewhere."

"Non-public area, anyway," Gunn said.

"So who got to use the private entrance?" Wesley asked.

"Immaterial," Spike said. "But maybe we can tonight and if we can get here, even if we can't use the door, we can get in by climbing up the terraces or by going over this wall and using this ramp."

"Getting in appears possible," Wesley said. "Staying in may be the problem."

"There's one thing you'll like, Cordy," Gunn said. "The Center's caterer seems not to use waitresses."

"Only waiters," Spike said. "At least in the cuttings of the last two banquets."

"So we won't ask you to appear as catering staff," Wesley said.

"Thumb sized," Cordelia said. "My thumb."

"Oval, round, square or rectangle? Other?"

"Round."

"Cabochon or faceted?" Spike asked.

"Ah..."

"Like an opal or like a diamond?"

"Diamond."

"Modern, then." Spike flipped the pages of the glossy large format book on jewels. "Something like this?"

"Sort of."

"Maybe one of these? Not that there's much difference between one table cut stone and another of a similar weight."

"No."

"Are you sure it's a ruby?"

"It's red, like that. What else can it be?"

"I don't trust reproduced color that much and I don't have any idea how, or even if, your vision color correlates to reality."

"Ruby red is ruby red!"

"Maybe. Is someone wearing it, or is it in a case?"

"It's in a case."

Spike glanced at Cordelia. She was rubbing her forehead again. He carefully kept his voice neutral. "In your vision, what's it with? What's on the same shelf?"

"It's alone, on the top shelf. Beneath it, more shelves, more rubies, some like it, some smooth."

"Good," Spike said.

"All sizes. Some are carved, some are funny shaped, some are square. Next set of shelves are all green, emeralds."

"I think we can find it. Do you want to lie down for a while? Do you want some wine?"

"No," Cordy said, and went over to the file cabinet and started fussing with the contents. Spike slipped out of the office. Gunn and Wesley followed him.

"All right, so she doesn't know how the attendees die, and she's not sure of the stone's exact location. Unless you think she can see more if I press her, I'd like to ease up on her."

"No, she was giving all she could," Wesley said.

"So it's big, and it's next to some emeralds," Gunn said. "We can find it."

"I hope so." Spike decided to keep his concerns about green garnets and watermelon tourmaline to himself.

"I'm going to dress!" Cordelia said. She gave the three men a suspicious glance as she passed them as she went upstairs, but made no comment.

"How is Jack going to kill everyone?" Wesley asked.

"A couple of years ago, I was thinking...it doesn't matter. The point is," Spike said, as Gunn and Wesley each frowned at him, "an easy way of killing humans but not vampires is poison gas. It's a lot less chancy than the poisoned canapé routine. After all, humans need to breathe, but eating is optional."

"I thought of that, too," Gunn said.

"Which sort of brings us around to priorities."

"Yes?" Wesley asked.

"What are ours?" Spike asked. "I know what my individual priority is: keep you from staking Dru, if I can; but as a group, what are we doing here? Preventing the deaths? The theft? What am I about to risk my life to accomplish?"

"Cordelia says that the ruby is necessary for Jack to achieve the destruction of the world. Stopping that is our prime goal. If worse comes to worst, Spike, and it's a choice of one thing or another, save the world," Wesley said.

Spike nodded. "That's what I planned." Anything else would be a waste of Buffy's death, and he had no intention of doing that.

The Watcher nodded back at the vampire.

Chapter 3 - Dressing Well Means Accessories

Spike inspected the clothes the suitcase contained. "I was thinking of maybe being a waiter," he told the suitcase. Not surprisingly, the suitcase made no response. The vampire shrugged, and removed the midnight-blue dinner suit and all the accessories, including studs, a black tie, black socks, white linen handkerchief, and black toe-cap shoes. "I am going to need some duct tape, if you can." He looked in the bottom of the case. "Or surgical tape," he agreed, taking a small plastic dispenser. "Thanks."

Dressed, he moved his wallet and his crystal phone from his jeans to the jacket and slipped the tape in the back fold of his cummerbund, then went to shut the closet door. The suitcase, hanging from the rod, contained another suit, more contemporary than his. Also, much bigger, he realized, inspecting the size 16 shoes.

Interesting. He was familiar with the supply spells Ann had installed around her home: his closet, the pantry and the wine cellar. Xiuling had found clothing in his closet, but she was already Ann's guest. He shrugged. There was only one person here these clothes might fit, no matter how they had arrived in his suitcase.

"Wowie," Cordelia said, eyeing the vampire from head to feet.

"I didn't get the idea of disguise across to the suitcase," Spike said.

"Darn," Cordelia said. "I had a sudden inspiration: I'd dress as a mystery model. Guess my artist and painting."

"Now that might be interesting," Spike said. "Gunn, you should go look in the suitcase. It's hanging in the closet."

The taller young man glanced at the vampire, then went upstairs.

"You know what's most impressive?" Cordelia asked. "You tied your own tie, and without a mirror. That's almost a lost art."

"What you learn young, you can always do. Even when I was human, I always tied my own tie and never used a mirror to do it. Do you need to look at your shoes when you tie them?"

"No, not really."

"There you are. That's a most becoming dress."

"Thank you. Angel griped about it for weeks, but I pointed out we need all sorts of outfits if we want to avoid notice by wearing the same dress for two stake-outs in a row."

"That's office equipment?" Spike looked more closely at the long black halter dress Cordelia wore.

"It's practical. It has a couple pairs of sleeves I can snap in and I can change the ruffle for simple white lace or a black chiffon capelet. I can change the look a lot of ways." Cordelia sighed. "Ann took me to Milan when she gave me my beautiful Armani, but I'm certainly not wearing it when I might have to climb walls or fight vampires."

"This may be practical, but you still look very good."

"Thanks."

"Do you have a blank card?"

"Sure."

"Thanks; and I'll need to stop at an ATM," Spike said, writing his name and Ann's land line phone number.

Presently, Gunn returned. He carried his jacket, which was a wool and silk summer weight blend, with a silk grosgrain shawl collar, in an ivory which warmed his dark skin. His evening shirt was Sea Island cotton, in a paler ivory, with a bird's-eye self-pattern; he had an untied black tie loose around his neck.

Spike nodded. "I thought it was for you."

"Oh, yeah, who else? It fits perfectly," Cordelia said. "Even the shoes. Ann's good."

"I feel like a damn fool."

"It's a disguise," Cordy said. "If we were at a stake-out on the beach, you'd wear trunks, wouldn't you?"

"I'd rather wear trunks."

"It's protective coloration," the vampire said. "If it's appropriate for the situation and comfortable, professionally you haven't got anything to complain about. Is it comfortable? Can you move and fight?"

"I guess."

"And it's appropriate enough that no one will really notice you, they'll be too busy wondering who your tailor is."

"All right, but I don't have to like it. I figured out most of it, but I need help with the tie and the cuffs. Are these the links?" He held up a pair of onyx linked studs that matched the studs in his shirt, but these were cabochons with an intaglio design of a laurel wreath, with a small diamond where the boughs crossed.

"Yes," Spike said. "These are a little noticeable, but you're big enough to carry them off. This style was popular when anyone wearing cuff links had a valet. They're tricky to manage alone. Let me."

"I'll do your tie," Cordelia said.

"Don't I get a vest?" Gunn asked.

"Never with a cummerbund," Spike said. "If you really want one, take it up with the suitcase, although I somehow got the impression it doesn't enjoy listening to complaints. Did you remember to thank it?"

"Ah..."

"Don't forget next time."

Gunn inspected his reflection in the big mirror. "I guess it's not too funny looking. You know, it's sort of handy, having a mirror here. Too bad we'll have to take it down when Angel gets back."

"Why rub it in?" Cordelia asked. "You do look good, both of you. Spike is classic, at least up to the neck, and Gunn is also classic, but a different style, all over. Each look is different and each look is perfect. How does Ann do it?"

"A while back, she enchanted the closet in my room; after I got your call, the suitcase was in the closet. I gave it a quick check--it had clothes, sheets, towels, toiletries--so I brought it along."

"It supplied a couple of stakes, too," Gunn said.

"Right," Spike said. "Do you have some spare holy water?"

"And how are you going to carry holy water in that outfit?" Cordelia asked.

"In a bottle," Spike said. "In my pocket."

"It'll leak. They always leak. Take this." Cordelia handed him a brushed aluminum tube, larger than a lipstick, smaller than a container of canned air. There were shallow finger depressions on one side.

It fit comfortably in the vampire's hand. "What is it?" He removed the cap and saw a push button with an opening.

"Aerosol holy water. In the executive spray can."

"Where do you get that?"

"Well, you buy the can and the pump--it's totally air quality friendly, no hydrocarbons or ozone-eaters at all--from `StreetSmarts, the Magazine for the Modern City Woman,' but you don't fill it with the generic mace they sell, you use the holy water we get from one of Wesley's sources."

"`StreetSmarts?' What is that about?" Spike asked, slipping the spray into his pocket.

"Well, daily life in large cities. They advertise their own brand of mace spray, anti-tap boxes for your phone, combs with stilettos inside, snap batons, some other really nice but unfortunately illegal weapons, in your choice of finishes and with leather cases in all the current fashion colors. In the back pages, the magazine lists a bunch of tracers, private detectives who will give you a background check on your newest boyfriend. Angel won't let us do anything like that, even though the basic fee, just for a quick check, is a thousand dollars!"

"Principles," Gunn said.

"Fatheadedness," Cordelia said.

"So do you still have one for yourself?" the vampire asked Cordelia.

"Oh, sure. I bought the office a gross of them, and Wesley gets the holy water by the gallon. Just don't throw it away when it's empty." Cordelia lifted a shoe box full of the silver tubes. Gunn slipped a couple into his jacket pockets and Cordelia stowed one in the pocket of her full skirts.

Wesley came down. He was wearing a neat black suit, white shirt and navy tie. "Good lord, Gunn. That's very nice."

"It popped up in Spike's suitcase. Something from Gytha, is my guess."

"I think she's put a supply spell on the suitcase, or maybe it's sort of an extension of the supply spell on my closet," Spike said.

"Astonishing," Wesley said. "You've never asked her how she does this?"

"I assume it's magic," Spike shrugged. "She's good at it and it means I don't have to shop."

"I guess there's a down side to everything," Cordelia said. "I'll drive."

Cordelia turned right and passed under the freeway. She drove south down Getty Center Drive, past the intersection with West Chalon Road. This entrance had bars across both lanes and the entrance to the parking structure. The booth was unmanned.

"It's empty," Cordelia said.

"Shouldn't be. Stop here," Gunn said.

"Yeah," Spike agreed. "We'll go take a look."

"Well," Spike said. "This changes things." He looked down at the parking attendant, lying on the floor of the booth.

"So who killed him?"

"That one?" Spike answered, nodding over Gunn's shoulder at a vampire, running silently from the interior of the garage.

Gunn pulled a stake out of his pocket and used it. The vampire appeared surprised just before he fragmented into dust. "They started early."

"Or maybe we're running a little late." Spike searched the attendant, taking two sets of keys; a worn key card; a walkie-talkie in the form of an earplug on a cord with an in-line microphone, which connected to a control box, which was about the size of a deck of cards and displayed the usual phone buttons; a wallet; some personal gear and an unmarked key card in a fancy leather case, which fastened to the body's belt with a steel chain. "Damn. I'd be happier with Cordelia out of here."

Gunn glanced at him.

"Guest list; staff list. All right. We'll take this, too," the vampire said, taking a clipboard from the kiosk counter. "She's not like Ann."

"Who is? She doesn't just stand around and scream, though."

Spike nodded absently, looking over at the pile of dust. "It's hard to search a pile of dust. I didn't notice what he was wearing."

"Like us," Gunn said.

"Which means he might be passing as a guest, a waiter or a personal security guard," Spike said. "Let's move this one away from here, over there, where it's darker. We don't want panic just yet."

"OK."

"I'm not happy with the number of gates between us and the road, either."

"Two of them," Gunn agreed. "How would you do it?"

"I'd have transport waiting in the arrival plaza and back-up cars down on the access road; but then," Spike said cheerfully, "I'd have a lot of minions to be low level gang members and I'd be a villain. Good guys are always out-numbered."

"Here comes the car. You like being a good guy?"

"I enjoy the company." Spike frowned at the buttons in the booth, then pressed the one labeled "close gate 2." The bar came down behind Angel's black Plymouth. Spike locked the bar that governed access to the main parking structure open and left the booth. The vampire and the ex-troll got in the back seat of the convertible. Cordelia drove along the service road.

"There are some cars up in the plaza," Gunn said.

"Right," Spike said. "Where are we putting this one? In case we need to get to it fast?"

"The signs say: Truck and Service Parking Ahead. I don't want to walk that far."

"Too damned far away," Wesley said.

"There's room right over there," Cordy said. "Watch this." She accelerated, turned the wheel, hit the brake, straightened the wheel, let the brake up, hit it again, and stopped.

Wesley gasped. Gunn gripped the door handle. After they stopped, they glanced around, moving only their eyes. Slowly, they relaxed.

"I have to get out your side, Gunn," Spike said, calmly, looking at the wall pressing close to the car on the right.

"Wimps," Cordelia said. "Like you never parked on a curb."

"And it's very nearly unnoticeable," Wesley said.

"You're probably not the gardeners' favorite visitor," Spike said, "considering what you may have parked on, but that was very well executed."

"Thanks," the woman said.

"Just a second," Gunn said. "Things have been happening." Briefly, the ex-troll gave a run down of what they had found in the kiosk.

"But now," Spike said, "we may be able to use the easy entrance down here."

"Good," Cordelia said.

Spike inspected the lock, then the keys he had taken from the dead parking guard. The third key he tried opened the door. He listened, then nodded to the others.

"So they're not using this entrance for anybody?" Gunn asked, walking into the freight receiving area.

"I would say not tonight," Wesley said.

"Since they're using the café just across the garden, they may be running all the catering out of there, instead of bring the food up in the lift, which should be around this way," Spike said. "Right. Let's see how it works. Ah, a key card. I wonder if we have that one. No, not this one. Yes, we do. Where should we take this, Cordelia?"

Cordy eyed the selection panel. "We want lobby/gallery."

Chapter 4 - Meeting with a Vampire

"Wow," Cordelia said softly, looking around. "This is my spiritual home."

The service elevator opened in the back hall of the first floor lobby. The vampire glanced around the small hallway. There were rest rooms at either end, with the lift between them. In this area, there was a low ceiling, about ten feet up, with sprinklers every few feet. To the left of the lift as they exited there was an alarmed emergency door. There was an alarm on the wall near the doorway to the main lobby.

Moving forward through the open double doors, Spike eyed the lobby. It was huge and not unlike an angel food cake with a slice taken out of it. The inner circular wall--the one surrounding the central hole of the tube cake--and the cut ends where the slice had been, were clear glass, allowing natural lighting in the daytime and tonight showcasing the lower level reading room's glowing pyramidal skylight. There were stairs and doors at each end. Attached firmly to the wall were heavy display cases, with plexiglass thicker than windows at a post office. An arc, broken in the center with a wide gap, of double-sided freestanding display cases paralleled the curve of the central glass wall. The room was large enough that there was still un-crowded space for all the attendees to wander around and view the exhibits. Between and above the cases on the wall and at each end of the inner arc were the paintings that inspired the exhibit.

The lighting of the showcases was inspired: The unset gems and the jewelry gleamed and glittered in great sweeps of color and brilliant accents of gold, platinum and silver. The people already present glanced at the four newest arrivals, then went back to talking to each other.

"Shit," Gunn said.

"Relax. Look slightly bored," Spike said. "Remember, for all they know, we bought tickets."

"And even then we couldn't get dates?" Gunn muttered.

"I thought Rodeo was your spiritual home?" Wesley asked Cordelia.

"This is my second spiritual home, my jewelry home. Rodeo Drive is just my shoe home now."

One of the circulating waiters stopped by them and offered champagne. Spike gave the man a quick glance and took a glass with a soft word of thanks. The other three followed suit.

"Is this safe?" Wesley asked.

"Probably. He was wearing a cross, the bubbles look right, there's no precipitate, and they're opening the bottles right over there." Spike nodded towards the entrance to the far right. Through the glass end, the group could see behind the beverage station, set up against the glass wall on the terrace. Effectively, the servers were in full view, before and in back of the table on which they were unloading glasses, arranging them on trays and filling them with bottles from a couple of large ice baths. No one was adding anything to the glasses or the wine. "Hm. Not as good as Ann's."

Spike stepped back behind Gunn. "Stay still," he said calmly, touching the big man on the arm. "Dru's over there, looking at the skylight."

"Is that Jack with her?" Wesley asked Cordelia.

"No. I don't know him. Wow! Bazaar! The magazine? Her suit?" Cordelia explained in the presence of total male incomprehension. "She's wearing about $11,000 worth of Valentino! I never would have thought of mixing mink and lace, would you?"

"Turn, Cordelia, before she sees you," Spike said.

"Right," Cordelia said, putting her back to the female vampire. Spike moved in front of her and looked over her shoulder.

"I don't know the man with her," he said, moving back behind Gunn.

"Nor do I. All right," Wesley said. "Gunn, staying between Cordy and Drusilla, escort her around to the display cases. Spike, stay on my near side, with your back to Drusilla, and we'll head the other way. Cordy, locate the ruby, and move to where you can watch it. If you see Jack before you find the ruby, come to us."

"Why do I carry the clipboard?" Wesley asked.

"Because you have the Permanent Under-Secretary look down cold," the vampire said. "No one would listen to Gunn because he's young, black and well dressed. Cordelia has almost the same problem, being young, female and too beautiful. No one would listen to me because they have no idea who I could be. You're the most respectable and responsible looking of us all, you sort of epitomize power exercised through proper channels. If we run into opposition, you can do the talking, using the clipboard as an authority symbol."

"Most of the models seem to be circulating outside," Wesley said.

"It occurs to me," Spike said, "that if the point of this rather silly gathering is to stare at beautiful women and expensive jewelry, instead of European painting, which they seem to have chosen, the organizers should have picked some Hindu idols. Any one statue of a Hindu deity shows more flesh and better jewelry than any three Flemish portraits."

"Beyond the fact that early Asian gem technique resulted in large but uncut stones, which to contemporary eyes are strange and fairly unimpressive, good models would be difficult to find."

Spike nodded. "Women with four or more arms are few and far between; good looking ones are even rarer. The requisite body type should evoke the words: rounded, firm and wasp-waisted. Also agile."

"I was thinking of limber and pneumatic," Wesley agreed. "Who is Drusilla speaking with now?"

"Same one. A guy over there is counting heads," Spike said. "If Jack brought multiple minions, we may have an overpopulation problem; one potentially more serious than just running out of caviar."

"Ah."

Spike glanced around again. "And the population is definitely skewed to the male and vampiric. That one over there is licking his lips as he looks at that model, and I don't think it's because he likes van Dyck."

"Is that a van Dyck?"

"Henrietta Maria. What are you, a Roundhead? I don't think checking for stamps on the back of our hands is going to go over with this crowd. Infra dig," the vampire said.

"There is a guest list, and for all we know, ticket stubs," Wesley said. "We may be operating under a time limit. Have you seen any vents yet?"

"No, not in the lobby walls. The architect was fond of this travertine marble, wasn't he?" Spike looked around again. Not looking at Wesley, he said, "It's a buyers' market for means these days. If you want the stuff to come floating down, you purchase gas A, even if it is a little more expensive than gas B, which rises, and is useful in a different scenario. What you do depends on the physical layout of the action and who the target is. This place faces sort of south; at a guess, cooling is more important than heating, even with the hi-tech glass. I bet there are air conditioning vents further up, which is where I would plant gas A, the one that comes floating down, the way cool air does."

"You are a monster."

With a cold smile, the vampire looked fully at the Watcher: "Hey, I didn't invent poison gas, you know. One of you humans did; also germ warfare, the atomic and thermo-nuclear bombs, bureaucracy, inland revenue and Jar-Jar Binks. Remember that, when you're calling names."

"I didn't mean to imply that there aren't human monsters, too," Wesley said.

"And why gas in the first place? Jack's a vampire, why doesn't he just eat everyone?" Spike wondered. "Maybe he doesn't have enough minions for thorough crowd control, just enough so they grab all the caviar, leaving none for us."

"And what about the people out on the terrace? There's a steady breeze up here, gas would be difficult."

"Cordelia's vision wasn't focused outside, it was centered here, inside, where the ruby is and where there is no breeze. We have no idea what happens to the people outside, maybe Jack lets the minions feed on them while he steals the ruby."

"So where is the gas? And when is will it be released?"

"Well, if we assume Jack is a guest here only tonight and doesn't have library privileges, he could not have set this up last week."

"That does not seem unreasonable," Wesley said. "So?"

"So," the vampire said softly. "So, he's probably using gas C, which has pretty neutral buoyancy and just stays around where you spray it. At a guess, the gas probably hasn't been planted, it was probably carried in tonight. This place isn't that big, a tank large enough to do the job would fit in a briefcase, or a large purse, or an inside pocket of an overcoat."

"All this glass." Wesley was also thinking aloud. "The people outside will see the people inside die. Some will flee, some will try to help, some will call 999, I mean 911."

"Not if they're being killed by vampires," Spike said. "Jack may think he has enough minions to handle half this crowd, the outside half."

"And with one half dead and the other half under attack, he can break open the display cases and steal the ruby. Effective," Wesley said.

"Overkill," the vampire disapproved. "Not in the least elegant."

"Did you see her? Do you know who that was? She was wearing Armani. In fact, she wore that same dress on the show, when they all went to the Kennedy Center."

Gunn glanced after the woman in the blue and white floor length gown. "Kind of tall. Anyway, we're supposed to be looking at rubies," he said.

"These are red," Cordelia said.

"Huh. These are garnets."

"Oh. Maybe Spike was right to worry about my color sense. You know, in my vision, I didn't read the little sign."

"So these might be them?"

"Yeah. I better look at these. The one we're after is on top, above other red stones."

Gunn glanced along the curved wall. "OK. Here's some red stuff. Right over there is some pinkish to red stuff, then there's still more red stuff off at the far end. In the inner row, beyond some lilac to purple stuff at the end of the first bunch of cases, there's more red stuff, a couple of portraits, and then are a few red things in that mix just beyond them. At least we're starting at one end."

"It's not pink or purple."

"Rubies at last," Cordelia said, reading the sign.

"And the sign over there says emeralds. Do you see it?" Gunn asked.

"That's it," Cordelia said. "That's not it, I mean. I mean, it's the one I looked at but it's not the one I saw, it's not the one I should have paid attention to."

"Which one, then?" Gunn said. "Which one is Jack after?"

"The flat one, down three shelves. It's next to the pin-cushion one."

"It looks like red Jell-O," Gunn said, "the kind you make in a flat pan, then cut into cubes and cover with fake whipped cream, to try to fool kids in to eating it. It's sort of skewed, too."

"That's it, though, even if it's not a perfect square, that's the one I should have seen."

"Competition, and not just competition, another seer." A tall, pale man, with an oval head and a high brow under dark red hair, short, neat and parted on the side, reached out and turned Cordelia to face him. His wide, fine mouth smiled at her as her eyes widened and she stepped back from him. He was an inch or two shorter than Gunn and not as muscular. He looked as if he were playing Strephon in a summer camp musical, but his clothes were almost as good as Spike's and Gunn's.

"Jack."

"No; but you do know me, don't you? You've seen me. Interesting. This was fated."

"I was mistaken. Excuse us," Cordelia managed coolly, and turned away. She met Drusilla's manic stare.

"Oh, I know you, don't I?" Drusilla said. Behind her were the man she had been with earlier and two other male vampires. The three minions moved around in back of Gunn. "I don't remember your name, but I know you."

"No," Cordy lied.

"Yes. You're bad." She turned to Jack: "She's bad. Let me kill her."

"No. Where do you know her from?"

"Sunnydale," Drusilla hissed.

"This is the Slayer?"

"No!" Cordelia said.

"No," Drusilla said.

"Good. If she were the Slayer, that would have complicated matters. As it is, don't harm her. She's another seer. We'll take her with us. For now, take her outside to the cars and keep her safe," he ordered two of the vampires.

"Adan," Drusilla started.

"Don't argue," the big vampire told her. "Go outside and get ready to kill everyone else. Send in Colin and Brendan."

"What about him, boss?"

"Don't you hurt Gunn," Cordy said.

"We're just going to leave him right over here," the vampire said.

Chapter 4 - Gas and Champagne

"Shit," Spike said. "Dru has Cordelia. Wait," he snapped, grabbing Wesley's arm. He easily held the taller man still for a moment, then released him. "Slow and easy. Look at the door," Spike said. "She's taking her outside. There are two male vampires with them."

Wesley turned and looked, then nodded. "I see her."

"Where's Gunn?" Spike asked.

Wesley glanced to his right. "Over there, at the end of the central displays, with the vampire Drusilla was speaking with before. Ah, hell, one of the other men with him matches Cordy's description of Jack: as tall as I am with dark red hair."

"OK," Spike said.

"Ah, Spike? The canister for the gas? Would it be small enough that you could carry it in a nylon water bottle carrier? One that could take a tall, slim bottle, the litre and a half size?"

"Easily."

"Two very pale people, each complete with bottle carriers--I can't believe this," the Watcher's voice was horrified. "One is wearing a pinkish dinner jacket and the other one has one of those band collar shirts with a big knob instead of a tie--they just spoke with Drusilla, then entered the lobby. Would you really need two canisters?"

"Overkill," the vampire said again. "I said the man had an inelegant mind. We need everyone out."

"The fire alarm," Wesley said.

"Do that, then get out yourself. I'll get Gunn, then maybe we'll try to stake Jack."

Wesley walked away from Spike, going clockwise around the circular room, back towards the service alcove and the fire alarm.

Spike put his hands in his pockets and ambled counter-clockwise, looking at the free standing cases in the inner arc, heading towards Gunn and the male vampire, who were on the other side of the double sided display. Gunn glanced around, saw him, and waited.

Jack nodded at Colin, in the pink tux, and Brendan, with the band collar, who were waiting at the center aisle between the two segments of freestanding cases. Colin gave Brendan a hand up to the first arc, then vaulted up to the remaining section. Across the center aisle, they faced each other.

A few of the nearest attendees glanced at them. Some attendees moved back, apparently so they could get a better view of whatever was going to happen next.

Instead of bursting into song, or whatever the watching attendees expected, Colin and Brendan unlimbered the canisters from their carriers. Pointing the spouts at the attendees' heads, the two vampires turned around and began walking along the top of the display cases, each heading for the doors at the far ends of the room. Gray mist started surrounding the attendees. Colin and Brendan were thorough, spraying slowly and carefully on both sides of the room.

Spike glanced back: The stuff was fast. Already people in the center of the room were sagging and collapsing. The people not yet engulfed in the gas but aware of it were screaming and pushing, trying to reach one of the doors. They crowded into the people who had not yet noticed anything wrong and who were annoyed at being pushed and shoved. Angry words were shouted, adding to the noise.

In the service alcove, Wesley pulled the handle of the small fire alarm.

In the lobby, the sprinklers, high above, started spraying water and bells and sirens started sounding.

Wesley returned to the double doors. "Everyone out, please. This way, and through the fire door here; excellent. Move along." He waved the clipboard to guide the nearest attendees into the back hall and towards the fire door. The crowd fell into line as if they were school children at a fire drill. "Excellent. No pushing," Wesley said.

Spike looked ahead; The tall vampire was heading for the end of the display cases on the interior wall. The minion with Gunn was pushing the ex-troll towards the two vampires walking the arc, and the gas. Spike took a quick look around. The sirens and bells would cover any noise he made and no one was paying any attention to him at all. He took a short run at the free standing displays, leaped up, got a hand on the top and vaulted over. As he came down, he was moving too fast and missed his kick at the minion's head, but caught him on the shoulder. He landed well enough, though, and drew his stake as Gunn pulled free and pushed the minion back against him.

BOOM!

From in front of the rubies came an explosion. Given the noise level, even Spike could barely hear it.

Spike shook dust off his stake and looked around. The increased breeze from the open doors was pushing the gray mist along towards them. "The other door," the vampire said, pulling Gunn towards the other end of the doughnut.

"Cordy!?" Gunn said, not moving.

"She's outside, Wes is after her. Go help. That way, then around to the other door."

"Right. The ruby, it's not round," Gunn said, starting for the doors. "It's the sort of square one, the big flat one."

"The big fat one?" Spike asked. "I'll get it."

A waiter who had been refilling glasses was standing watching the falling bodies and the approaching gray mist. Spike glanced at him, kept walking, stopped, turned back, took the waiter by the arm and shook him.

"More champagne?" The waiter seemed to focus on Spike, and offered the bottle. It was empty. Spike took it. The waiter's eyes followed it. "Ah..."

"I'll just take the bottle, thanks. Why don't you go get another one?'

"All right."

"Outside. That way," the vampire said again, turning the waiter around.

"Ah," the waiter said, and ran for the doors.

Spike, still holding the empty champagne bottle, silently approached Jack, who was bent over the litter of emeralds, rubies, and plexiglass shards.

Colin, still on top of the free standing displays cases, saw the strange man come up behind his boss. "Look, out, boss! Hey, you! Stop that!" He threw his canister at the man attacking his boss, and then leaped after it.

Shit. Under attack from two sides, Spike hit Jack with the empty champagne bottle, while batting the canister aside with the hand holding the stake. He got the stake pointed up at the vampire in the ugly pink tux, but the jolt when the vampire hit knocked it from his hand. The other vampire hit the floor on his chest, then shivered into dust, as the impact drove the stake completely into his heart. Spike hit Jack a second time with the empty champagne bottle as the bigger vampire continued to turn towards him, then hit Jack again as he sank slowly to his knees.

He bent over the debris. "What did he say? The big fat one? The big flat one? They're both sort of square," Spike muttered. He shrugged, took the flat one, the fat one and the three largest round rubies, just in case Gunn hadn't understood Cordelia; and the three largest oval rubies, just in case Cordelia had been confused. He put the gems in his pocket, hit Jack along side his head with the champagne bottle again, just to be sure, turned and looked around.

The only occupants left were Jack, who was unconscious; the vampire with the band collar evening shirt, who was still spraying; and the fallen humans. Spike eyed the gray mist: It was being beaten down by the water from the sprinklers. Interesting. Spike found the canister the vampire in the pink tux had thrown at him and turned off the gas; then he picked up his stake from the pile of dust and went counter-clockwise, heading for the left hand doors. As he came up beside the last vampire, the one with the band collar evening shirt, Spike grabbed his ankle and jerked him off the display case.

"Hey," Brendan yelled, losing the canister.

Spike reached into his inner pocket, exchanging the stake for the aerosol holy water. Dodging the vampire's flailing arms, he sprayed his face. He continued spraying as the vampire got his hands in front of his eyes.

Brendan, in real pain and blind, blundered around, knocking into the display cases and tripping over the unconscious humans.

Spike found the canister and shut it off. There. If the sprinklers continued spraying, even the humans on the floor might survive. Spike picked up his champagne bottle and continued out the left hand doors.

Wesley joined the stream of exiting patrons, going down the metal fire stairs. At the bottom, most of the escapees continued down and counter-clockwise around the outside of the Research Institute. "Excellent," Wesley said, again gesturing with the clipboard. "Keep going."

He stepped over a gate leading to a narrow walkway headed the opposite way. It halted abruptly at a wall above an unexpected terrace. Wesley saw no easy exit from there and decided to walk out to the edge of the retaining wall. Once there, he turned right. He glanced down to his left. There was a steep and unpleasant looking drop, the wall being faced with rough cut travertine marble. Balancing with his clipboard, he proceeded around the beds of what might be an arbelia of some kind, to a vantage point just above the normal entrance. Only a few people were utilizing this exit. Many more people were coming up the stairs leading to the terrace below the lobby. Just beyond this Wesley saw Cordelia, still in the grip of the two male vampires, being pulled in the direction of the wide stairs going down to the arrival plaza. Wesley climbed up the white pipe railings, crossed through the dense planting of Strelitzia reginae and out onto the marble sidewalk. Avoiding most of the human traffic, he cut around the yarwood trees and the benches directly in front of the doors and went after her.

Gunn came out on the circular terrace. Some of the people who got out ahead of him were going down the stairs to the right and crossing the lawn of the central garden, heading for the walkway over the noisy stream and the temporary ramp up to the garden café. Gunn joined them, then angled through the crowd to the walk joining the garden and the main museum, which had only a few people on it. He raced toward the museum, then turned left and ran up the short, steep flight of stairs than ran along west the side of the main building.

He came out on the main terrace above arrival plaza. Wesley, tall enough to be noticed even in this crowd, was hurrying toward the flights of steps off to Gunn's right. He looked over that way and saw Cordelia. Right. He followed Wesley.

Spike gave his jacket a shake, dislodging the drops of water from the sprinklers. He glanced around at the crowd of vampires and victims. Vampires did get excited about the prospect of easy food. He looked around: Where was Drusilla? Ignoring the screams, he looked at each cluster of vampires. Ah, there she was, over by the steps down the wall to the left of the building, right in the thick of it, surrounded by feeding vampires and dying humans. Calmly, silently, he moved after her.

Coming up around the outer circumference of the terrace, he debated: Did this situation call for his trusty champagne bottle, the holy water spay or the stake? The stake, he decided, and used it twice, on two vampires holding a woman while a third tried to bite her. "Hey," the biting vampire said, raising his head. "Don't let go yet."

"Sorry," Spike lied and staked him.

"Thank you, thank you," the woman said.

"Get going," Spike told her, and didn't watch as a fourth vampire seized her from behind and bit her neck. He walked over to Drusilla. "Hello, luv," he said, shifting to full vampiric display.

"Spike. Is that for me?" Unmoved, Drusilla nodded at the stake he carried, then ran her hand over it.

"No, never," he promised, watching her white hand caress the wood. He looked up, smiled at her, and hit her with the champagne bottle he held in his other hand. "I still love you, baby."

Dru crumpled to the ground. Behind Spike, Jack came out from the lobby. Spike stepped in front of her, slipped the stake into his cummerbund behind his back and watched.

Even with his vampire hearing, Spike couldn't tell what Jack was yelling. The humans' screams, the bell and the sirens were too loud and drowned out the taller vampire. The pantomime was fairly plain, however. Something had displeased Jack, and his minions should do something about it now.

Spike dragged Drusilla up in his arms, biting her neck enough to get his mouth bloody. He turned and dropped her over the railing to the lawn of the garden. A minion came up. "Have you seen the boss's woman? Drusilla? I thought she was over here."

Spike wiped his mouth. "Haven't seen her."

"Damn, he's in a mood already. Something has gone seriously wrong. This won't help."

"I'll look over here," Spike said, and walked away from the minion, who returned to Jack.

Spike stopped walking and leaned against the railing. He watched Jack's greeting: The big vampire glared at the returning minion, then he produced a stake and used it. Jack's next move was to reach out and grab a human. He bit the man's neck and drank deep.

Time to move, Spike thought. As Jack's victim settled limply to the ground, Spike abandoned his bottle, swung his legs over the railing and landed beside Drusilla. He had left it a little long: Dru was already coming too. Working quickly, he flipped her on her face and taped her wrists behind her back. Rolling her over, he took his handkerchief and stuffed it into her mouth as she focused on him. "Don't worry, baby, it'll be all right," he said as he taped the gag in place. He tossed her over his shoulder, and headed for the stairs up to the main terrace that Gunn had used earlier.

Hell, Wesley thought. The vampires with Cordelia were approaching a Bentley, from which emerged another vampire. He eyed Cordelia eagerly, but one of the vampires with her held up a hand and said something. The third vampire looked disappointed.

"Vamp?" Gunn's voice came over Wesley's shoulder.

"I believe so. Where's Spike?"

"I left him in the lobby. The gas doesn't bother him. He was going after the ruby."

"We'll get Cordy."

"Right. Got your stake?"

"Of course."

Gunn and Wesley came up to the Bentley. Wesley slipped his stake in front of the clipboard and held it up in front of him. He glanced at the Bentley's license plate, at his board and back at the license plate. Obviously, nothing matched.

The vampires watched him silently, exchanging quick worried looks.

Wesley stepped forward, started to speak and staked the nearest vampire.

"Hey!" The vampire who had emerged from the car said, and started for Wesley, only to fall apart as Gunn staked him

Cordy, now with one hand free, got her holy water sprayer out of her skirt pocket and used it. The remaining vampire released her to try to wipe the corrosive fluid away from his eyes. As he was still screaming in pain, Wesley staked him.

"Good work," Spike said, coming up to them.

"Got the ruby?"

"The fat one?"

"No! The flat one!"

"I got that one, too."

"Let's get out of here," Cordelia said.

"I'm going to take the Bentley," Spike said, indicating the car. "Gunn, would you drive? I don't dare let go of Drusilla." He gripped Dru's kicking feet more securely and gave the female vampire an angry shake.

"That's her? Can you keep her under control?"

"Yes, as long as I don't have to drive. Are we taking everyone?" Spike asked.

"No way," Cordelia said. "We have to get the convertible. Anything happens to that car and we--and I really mean me--will never hear the end of it. Darn, I'm turned around. What's the best way of getting back to the car?"

"The easiest way is down that little ramp over there, then over the wall and down to the service road and so back to the base of the Research Institute," Wesley said. "Come, Cordy. We want to leave before the police arrive."

"Us, too," Gunn said.

Spike opened the passenger door and tossed Drusilla inside. "What happened to her?" someone in the driver's seat asked.

"She's a little tired," Spike said, taking the holy water sprayer out of his pocket. "Get out," he said, spraying the driver.

"Hey!" the driver said, flinching away and opening the door. Gunn, about to do the same thing from the outside, dodged the swinging door, reached inside, grabbed the driver by the collar and pulled him out.

Gunn got in, closed the door and started off.

Chapter 5 - Exchange of Prisoners

"Anywhere along here."

The Bentley was headed south on Veteran Avenue and Gunn pulled over just short of Wilshire, a little past the entrance of the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Spike hauled Drusilla out of the back seat, across the sidewalk and stood her upright against the surrounding wall. He removed the gag, but left the tape on her wrists.

"Look, Dru," he said softly. "You know I still care about you."

"No, you don't. You're in love with that Slayer."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you. You're important to me, you probably always will be, which is why I'm telling you to lose that idiot you're with now."

"He's not an idiot."

"Baby, the problem with him is he's a bloody dilettante! Don't go thinking he's as good at this as I am or even as good as Angel was, he's not. Look at the way he lost control tonight! Not that you could, since you were unconscious, but I could and you can believe me. One little glitch and he fell straight into blood lust--not that that isn't attractive in its own way; I mean he's more your style than the chaos demon you left me for, who was way too cerebral for you--but he lost sight of his objective, had no back-up plan for crowd control, and staked one of his own men just because he was in a temper. Being a fiend is good, sure, but he's an incompetent fiend. If you stay with him, he'll get you killed. I don't want that to happen to you."

"If I don't stay with him, I'll be alone. I told you, I wanted you to come back with me," Drusilla said. "You should have. Now, Darla's gone, too, and I'm alone except for Adan."

"There are worse things," he told her, taking the money and the card from his jacket pocket. "Really, there are. Don't go back to him. Here's a couple of thousand, use it. If you need me, call here and leave a message." He took her evening purse. Inside were 21^st century basics: touch-up cosmetics and a cell phone. He put the money and the card with Ann's phone number inside.

"He'll be mad, he'll hurt me. I like that."

"What does he want to do?" Spike asked quietly, handing her back the purse.

"It's coming, not soon, not here, but we're going to end the world. I don't like it anymore. I want it all to end."

"Dru," Spike said, helplessly.

"And he needs me to do it."

"Baby, don't go back. You'll only get hurt." Spike got into the front seat beside Gunn.

After a long silence: "Did that do any good?" Gunn asked.

They were driving down Wilshire, heading back toward the hotel. Spike turned from the window. "I doubt it. I laid it on as thick as I dared, but she's not willing to listen to me and she just discounts or ignores anything she doesn't want to hear. I wish..." Spike didn't finish.

"Wait," Spike said.

"What for?"

"There's a noise. There," the vampire pointed at the trunk. "I thought this was noisy for a Bentley. There's something in there."

Gunn reached into the driver's dashboard and unlocked the trunk.

The boot shot open, and a replica of Guy Pearce dressed as if he had been part of a Tommy Hilfiger ad, scrambled out. His clothing was rumpled and creased, and consisted of a pair of OK dark blue jeans and a really nice V-neck cotton sweater. Regaining his feet, he headed for the street. Spike said, "Hey!" and moved to intercept him.

The man tried to dodge Spike, but the vampire got in front of him and started to say, "We just want to talk to you a minute," but the man suddenly grew a couple of inches and swiveled around Spike as if he were David Beckham and Manchester United were five goals behind. Unfortunately for him, Manchester United never played on oil slick concrete with leather soled shoes. The man skidded briefly and Spike tackled him. They rolled over and over on the dirty concrete.

Gunn ran up as the man got an arm free and hit Spike, whose grip slackened. The man was hitting Spike again as Gunn grabbed him and tried to twist his arm up behind him. Gunn put his other arm around the man's neck and pulled him up off Spike. The man let Gunn lift him, then shot up more than half a foot and gained fifty odd pounds. He kicked back at Gunn, aiming for the ex-troll's kneecap. Gunn twisted, releasing the man's neck and catching the kick on his thigh. The man got his foot tangled with Gunn's feet and they fell back, Gunn swinging around so they fell on their sides. The changer managed to hit Gunn in the eye, then to drive an elbow forcefully into Gunn's stomach, and finally to wriggle free. Regaining his feet, he headed straight for the street.

Spike got to his feet and tackled the man again. It was harder this time, because he was so much larger than he had been the first time. This time, Spike got a hand free first. The man's head snapped back. Shaking his head, the man suddenly shrank, displayed full vampire characteristics, and just as suddenly expanded again. Spike lost his hold on the man, who started to rise just as Gunn caught up with them.

Gunn, who couldn't see the vampire display, hit the man in the head from the side. Spike, regaining his focus, hit the man twice, then slowly got to his feet as the man sank down.

Together, the ex-troll and the vampire watched as the man on the ground shifted to a shorter, slimmer, dolichocephalic, golden skinned, blond youth, maybe in his early to mid twenties, if he'd been a human. His clothes were the same, but now the jeans were smudged and the sweater, originally natural, was dusty gray and black.

"Shape shifter."

"Yeah."

"Vampire, did you notice?"

"No. You sure?"

"Oh, yeah. It's not something I'm likely to mistake, you know. So how much of a shape-shifter is he?" Spike asked.

"Dunno."

"I mean how can we keep him around so we can talk to him?"

"Uh..."

"Can he shift to a bird and fly off? I mean, logic and conservation of mass aren't involved in magic, so why couldn't he be a bird?"

"Uh..."

"On the other hand, we could wrap him in plastic and sink him in a tank of holy water," Spike said, gesturing with both hands. "He can't breathe, so he has to stay a vampire, and since he's a vampire, he can't just rip off the plastic and swim in the holy water, which would be exactly like swimming in acid."

"Put him back in the trunk," Gunn said.

"Or we could put him back in the trunk," Spike agreed. "That seems to work OK."

Walking into the lobby of the hotel, they found Cordelia and Wesley already back. Cordelia was inspecting a shoe, holding it in one hand and the heel in the other. She had scratches and scrapes on her face and both arms. Her stockings were laddered and she had her bare foot up on the low table in front of the red sofas.

Wesley was looking at a rip in his pants leg. He had a twig on his left shoulder and a few leaves on his back.

"What happened?" Gunn asked.

"The hill got a little steep," Wesley said.

"We sort of fell the last couple of feet down to the service road," Cordy said. "We went out the back way. What happened to you?"

"We got away fine," Gunn said.

"And Drusilla?"

"We let her off not far from the Museum," Gunn said.

"But it turns out," Spike said, "there's a sort of complication with the car."

"Yeah," Gunn said, and explained.

"What do you mean, a shape-shifter?" Wesley said.

"Someone who shifts shapes."

"Like Arlack Armel?" Wesley asked the vampire.

"He didn't shift to anything resembling Arlack Armel," Spike said. "Also, he's a vampire."

"No," Wesley said. "Impossible."

"Unheard of, maybe," Spike said. "Impossible, no. I don't know if someone turned him, or if he just shifts to vampire."

"Fake vampires?" Cordelia asked.

"Fake real vampires?" Gunn offered.

"Why would anyone imitate a vampire?" Wesley asked.

"Can't drown," Gunn said. "And you're immune to poison gas, which would have been real handy tonight."

"Other vampires don't regard you as prey," Spike said.

"We have to do something with him, or decide to let him go, fast" Gunn said. "We need to lose the Bentley before the cops find it here."

"Can't he just ooze out of the trunk?" Cordelia asked. "Change into a worm or something."

"Doesn't look like," Gunn said.

"If we can get him to hold still, we'll ask," Spike said.

"We must examine this phenomenon," Wesley said.

"Right," Spike said. He wanted to talk to someone calm, someone reasonable, someone who didn't lose her head at the prospect of shape-shifters. He pulled the crystal sphere out of his pocket. "Ann."

Ann Grove, wearing dark green pants and a pale gray man-tailored shirt, appeared in the lobby. She was barefoot and wore her long black hair in a single braid down her back. A single platinum earring, in the shape of a complicated knot, was her only jewelry.

"Hi," Ann said. She smiled around at the four people in the lobby, then flicked her gaze straight up at Fred, peeping around the corner of the hallway that led onto the balcony.

Spike followed her eyes. "That's Fred. Fred," he called, "this is Ann."

"Hello, Fred," Ann said, then inspected the vampire. "Is that your blood?" she asked, nodding at his cuff, stained with Drusilla's blood.

"No, I'm fine."

She nodded again, then turned to Gunn, taking in his rumpled and no longer ivory tux and his eye, which was starting to swell. She walked over to him and stroked his face. A golden light flickered over the ex-troll as his bruises and cuts healed.

"Listen," Spike said. "We've got a shape-shifting vampire--"

"And I need to examine him," Wesley said. "This is new, he's new, and I feel I should examine him for the Watcher Council."

Ann went to Cordelia and took her hand. The light flickered again, and Cordelia's scrapes disappeared.

"--locked in the trunk of a stolen Bentley--"

"And we have to lose the Bentley, Gytha," Gunn said. "The sooner, the better."

"The farther, the better, too," Cordelia said.

"Especially," Wesley said, as Ann touched his face, "if Spike is right about how the vampires at the Museum acquired the car in the first place."

"--and we want to keep him around so we can find out what he knows about how and why Drusilla's newest lover is going to destroy the world. Can you help?" Spike finished.

Ann, done healing Wesley, frowned over at Spike. "Did you try talking to him before you locked him in the trunk?" she demanded.

"Hey!"

"Actually, to be absolutely fair, he was already in the trunk when we found him," Gunn said.

"When we let him out, he wanted to leave. We just put him back in the trunk," Spike said. "We do need to talk to him."

"Well, show him to me," Ann said. "And tell me a little more about what you were doing tonight."

"It started with Cordy's vision," Gunn said, and as they walked out to the rear parking area, he described the events of the past two days. At the end, Spike pulled out the handful of gems he had taken:

"So it's probably one of these."

"Cordy said that one," Gunn said, "the flat square one."

Spike handed it to Ann.

"Lovely color." She seemed lost in admiration of the stone for a moment, then, "Mind if I keep this?"

"I was thinking it would look good on Cordelia," Spike said.

"She does want a ruby, but that one still looks like Jell-O," Gunn said.

The gem vanished from Ann's hands.

Gunn and Spike lifted the man out of the trunk. At the moment, he was dark haired, pale skinned and gray eyed. He wore his hair long, in a tousled mop-top--rather like David E. Kelly's or Anthony Kiedis's--that covered his high forehead down to his eyebrows. His intelligent, triangular face narrowed from wide and prominent cheekbones

Each of them holding one arm, they displayed him to Ann, who inspected him carefully.

He inspected her in return.

Ann smiled at him cheerfully. "Let him go."

Spike and Gunn released the shifter and stepped back.

"I..." Ann started to say.

The shifter slipped out from between Spike and Gunn and, turning his back to Ann, started to run. Ann shrugged and stoned him.

"Now how is that any better than putting him back in the trunk?" Spike demanded with an angry wave at the new statue, standing posed behind the Bentley.

"He's certainly single minded about leaving," Ann admitted. "You were not precipitate; but I was. I apologize."

"Right, then. What else is there?" Spike asked, peering into the trunk. "This is empty."

"Briefcase," Gunn said, straightening up from the passenger compartment, displaying a fine maroon leather case.

"Nice," the blond vampire said.

"And it's full," Gunn said.

"We'll take that," Spike said. "Tell Cordelia to find the Viper keys and come out. She can follow me when I lose the Bentley."

"Bossy, aren't you?" Gunn said.

Ann laughed, then turned away and went to the other side the car and entered the passenger compartment.

Spike eyed him, then said: "I propose Cordelia--since she had the keys last, and with any luck, still knows where they are--follows me in the Viper while I dump the Bentley. You and Wesley could stay here with Ann and start looking over the contents of the briefcase and whatever else we find. I'm open to amendments or any reasonable alternate proposal."

Gunn was silent for a moment, very obviously thinking, then: "Sounds fine." He took the briefcase and went into the hotel.

Ann, holding an untidily folded freeway map and a pile of other maps and papers, came back to Spike. "Registration. A local address."

"Original owner, I'll bet; probably dead."

"I'll move the shifter to the lobby. When you and Cordy get back, we'll start questioning him. Cordy drives the Viper?"

"Surprised me too, but yes. She's an interesting, but basically competent, driver."

Chapter 6 - Call Me Konrad

Spike held the door for Cordelia and followed her into the main lobby of the hotel.

Ann was sitting on a plush circular bench--and managing to make it look comfortable--part of a seating group that included two red sofas and a chair, arranged around a large low table. Wesley leaning against the desk, arms crossed and head down, facing her.

Gunn was sprawled across the sofa to Ann's right, where he could watch her and Wesley. The shifter, still a statue, was between Wesley and Gunn, in front of the weapons cabinet.

Wesley seemed upset: "You must be wrong."

"Not about that," Ann said.

"What's going on?" Cordelia asked, stopping behind Gunn's sofa.

"They're arguing about the nature of the soul and if vampires and demons have souls," Gunn said. "Gytha maintains that `have' is the wrong term."

"But not for vampires," Cordelia said. "Angel says he lost his soul when he became a vampire, and that all vampires do, too, and he should know."

"Ann and Claire say not," Spike said.

"That's probably exactly what Darla told Angel, repeating what she had been told. I think you're all confusing `lost', `saved', and `damned', probably because of sloppy usage by people in religious authority who tend to keep score by numbers," Ann said, turning to smile at the young woman.

"I don't know, Ann," Cordelia said. "I helped Willow curse him, just to bring his soul back, the time he lost it boinking Buffy."

"What exactly did Buffy have to do with Angel's curse?" Spike asked. No one in Sunnydale had ever explained that.

"He gets laid," Cordelia explained, "he loses his soul."

Oh, yeah? Spike thought. That was as interesting as hell, and had a variety of implications, some of which could be explored immediately. With a faint, malicious smile, he turned to Ann: "Is that how it works?"

"No, that is not the mechanism of the curse Willow described to me and not what I observed when I finally met Angel," Ann said, as calmly as if the matter was of merely academic interest.

"Really," Spike said, smiling again, this time in admiration. Her statement was undoubtedly the exact truth, even if it wasn't an answer to his question.

"And Willow, although a very talented Witch, is still a very young Witch. At the time you speak of, Cordelia, she was even more inexperienced. What she intended to do is not necessarily what she did." Ann turned back to the Watcher. "Here's another problem for you, Wes: Who's this?"

She handed the Watcher an 8x10 picture that appeared in her hand as she got up and approached him. Wesley glanced at it, and slammed it down on the desk. Spike went over and picked it up. It showed a dark haired girl, with warm glowing skin, dark eyes and a full, beautiful mouth above a chin with a dimple. She was behind the wheel of an armored truck.

"Pretty girl," the vampire said. "Who is she? Where'd she get the truck?" he asked as an afterthought.

"Faith," Cordelia said, looking over Spike's shoulder. "Is she loose?"

"The other Slayer?" Spike asked.

Cordelia nodded. "She probably was stealing it. I wonder what her take was."

"It's not Faith," Ann smiled, sitting down again. "Find out who that really is, Wesley; or find out exactly what the original curse, or Willow's re-iteration of it, did to Angel, and I'll tell you more."

"Watcher knowledge has been passed down unchanged from time immemorial," Wesley said.

"And at no time has an effort been made to verify any of it."

"Except the killing us part," Spike said, putting the photo back on the counter. "Not only do they practice the classics, they experiment."

"It's a start. They oughtn't limit it to tactics, though. They ought to back up a bit and reconsider their whole strategy, especially in light of modern treatment and diagnostic techniques. Are you ready to question our shifter?" she ended, changing the subject firmly.

"How are we going to manage that?" Gunn asked.

"If he keeps running away from us?" Spike agreed.

"Simple force majeure," Ann said. "Well, not so simple." She stood, then frowned at them all. She glanced at Spike and Gunn, and approached Wesley and Cordelia, touching their shoulders, one after the other. Spike smiled as his rumpled evening suit regained its original freshness. The rest of the group also looked as good as they had at the beginning of the evening.

"Right," Spike said. "Formal, serious and not as if we made our living rolling around in alleys every night."

"We do that far too often," Cordelia said, slipping on her repaired shoe.

"Subtly and suitably intimidating," Wesley said, giving his suit jacket a quick shake.

Ann smiled at him, then looked down at her own bare feet. She seemed to flicker, and was suddenly dressed in a dark green linen pantsuit, with black short boots. She nodded, then faced the shifter. Waving one hand at him, she waited.

The shifter glanced around, turned fully toward the back door, took a step and seemed to smack into an invisible barrier. He put his hands out and felt the unseen wall.

"A mime? All that trouble and we get a damned mime?" Spike muttered.

"I don't think so, not if this is like the last time," Wesley said, feeling in the air in front of the shifter. "No, there seem to be another real, but invisible, wall."

The shifter felt the air in a circle around himself, then looked at everyone in the lobby. He glanced at Gunn briefly, then he lingered on Cordelia, skipped over Spike as quickly as he had dismissed Gunn, and considered Wesley for a moment, before he faced Ann and waited.

"Not completely dumb," Gunn murmured.

"There are several ways of looking at your situation," Ann said calmly. "You may be a prisoner of war, and this is your interrogation before we intern you somewhere; you may be a refugee, and we should move you away from the action as soon as we can. You may discover we have many goals in common and will become a friendly neutral or even your newest ally. I won't force you to speak, but unless you cooperate to some degree, the simplest and most direct action we can take regarding you is to put you back in the trunk and return the car to the person from whom we stole it."

"Well, shit," Spike said softly, awed at the spare elegance of the tactic.

"Very neat," Wesley agreed.

"Ann! You can't do that!" Cordelia objected.

"Cordy, unless he tells us otherwise, for all we know, he wants to be in the trunk."

"No!" the shifter said.

"One more thing for you to consider," Ann told the shifter. "Lying to me is unwise."

"I dare say," the shifter said. His accent could be found in any television news room in America. His voice wasn't as deep or as ironic as Daniel Shore's or as light and pedantic as Wesley's could be, resting fully in the non-committal professional middle.

"We want to know about Adan's plan to destroy the world," Spike said.

"Who?" Wesley asked.

"Jack." Cordelia said. "He's really Adan."

"Yes, certainly, we need to know about that, but first we need to know what he is," Wesley said.

"I think, the very first of all, we should offer him a chance to refresh himself," Ann said, and waved one hand at the shifter.

"Oh, good idea. And if we can find him a comb, even better," Cordelia said. "You look a little ratty," she told the shifter.

The shifter ignored her, watching Ann. "I am reluctant, very reluctant, to be Adan's prisoner again," he said.

"I'll bear than in mind," Ann said coolly. "What can you eat?"

"In this form, human food."

"When you come back, we'll eat."

As the shifter followed Gunn, Spike glanced at Ann. Very softly, he asked: "Do you have a tracer on him?"

She nodded silently.

"You weren't very reassuring to the poor guy," Cordelia said. "He must have been locked in that trunk for hours."

"That poor guy is perfectly ready to run out on us," Ann told her. "Don't promise him anything and don't tell him any more than we must; especially what you all were doing tonight."

"OK," Spike said.

Ann nodded and glanced around the lobby. A long banquet table appeared in front of the desk. She lifted a large hamper onto it. From the hamper she unpacked one of her superb picnics: Cold fried chicken, roast beef, ham, smoked salmon, smoked turkey, crab salad, potato salad, quiche de Roquefort, deviled eggs, stuffed eggs, several sorts of pâté, pickled beets, herring in cream, herring in wine, sweet gherkins, cheeses, pears, grapes, tangerines, chutneys, mustards, horseradish, sliced tomatoes, sliced avocados, roasted red peppers, leaf lettuce, three different breads, a selection of biscuits, an eight-pack of Cambells in Spike's favorite A negative blood, cider and wine. Wesley sighed happily. Ann smiled as she removed plates, tableware, napkins, and glasses.

"Is that caviar in the stuffed eggs?" Spike asked.

"Yes." Ann waved at a chair across the lobby that scuttled across the terrazzo floor to join the seating around the low square table. Ann sat in one of the chairs with a glass of wine.

"Fred," Cordelia called. "Have some food."

"Oh, well, maybe, if it's all right," Fred whispered from the balcony.

Cordelia arranged a plate with crab salad on a bed of lettuce, surrounded by alternate slices of avocado and tomato, and a small dish of tangerines and grapes, and carried them up. Fred took it and disappeared back down the hall.

Ann watched silently, and Wesley, watching her, said, "Long story."

"When we're private, then," Ann said.

Spike took an egg and a glass of Cambells, then sat on one of the red sofas.

Gunn returned, followed by the shifter. "Ah," Gunn said. "Salmon." He grinned at Ann and filled a plate.

"Help yourself," Ann smiled. "You, too," she told the shifter.

"And we can talk as we eat," Wesley said.

"I guess," the shifter said.

"I'm called Ann."

"Spike."

Gunn, Cordelia and Wesley introduced themselves, then waited.

"What's your name?" Wesley finally asked.

"I thought I'd call myself Konrad."

"And when did you start that?" Ann asked mildly.

"About ten minutes ago."

Wesley looked worried, but Ann laughed. "Konrad will do."

"I'm a Watcher," Wesley said.

Konrad looked blank, then said, "Ah. How very interesting. I'm afraid I don't attend the theater much."

"He's not that kind of Watcher," Spike said, as Wesley seemed speechless.

"UFOs?"

"Hardly," Wesley managed.

"Birds?"

Ann laughed. "No. These Watchers specialize in vampires. They're fairly clannish, compared to drama critics; better organized than UFO observers and they keep records and share them like Audubon members. Apparently, you're not yet on anyone's lifelist. Hence Wesley's interest."

"I see," Konrad said.

Well, he should, Spike thought. Ann had certainly rubbed his nose in the fact that anything Konrad told Wesley, all Watchers would know as soon as Wesley could send an email or make a phone call.

"Yes," Wesley said. "And I'm very curious about what you are and how you became a vampire. Or do you just imitate a vampire? And if so, why? What are you?"

"At the moment, he's a very convincing human," Ann said.

"Impossible," Wesley said.

"Uh-huh," Gunn said. "Look in the mirror." He indicated Cordy's mirror on the back wall behind the desk.

"All right, then he's not a genuine vampire," Wesley insisted, looking.

Ann glanced at Konrad. "Are you a vampire?"

Konrad took a breath and his mouth tightened. He shifted to the shorter, slimmer, blond youth. He reminded Spike of one of his great-grandmother's Meissen figurines, an elegant shepherd modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler. Only his eyes were the same as before: clear gray, alert, clever, and untrustworthy.

"Wow," Cordelia said softly. "Cute."

"Interesting," Ann said. "Now he's a vampire, and this form is apparently genuine."

"How can you tell that?" Konrad asked.

"Well, for one thing," Gunn said, "now you don't show up in the mirror."

"She didn't even look." Konrad stared at Ann. "What are you?"

Ann ignored the question. "We do need some background, you know. You must tell us how you ended up in the trunk."

"Very well," Konrad said.

"Good. Now, how did you become a vampire?" Wesley asked.

"From what I've observed since, it was the usual way," Konrad said.

"How'd you get here?" Ann asked.

Konrad looked at her, a quick glance without moving his head, only his eyes. He licked his lips, and said, "Well, home became a little uncomfortable."

"Too many tricks?" Ann asked, dryly.

For some reason, Konrad seemed to find the question soothing and he grinned at her. "Some people have no sense of humor; and have you ever noticed: they are always the ones who carry grudges the longest. Anyway, I decided to leave for a while. The gate at Lillehammer was closed so I went through at Gävle."

"When?"

"Nearly two hundred years ago; 1813, by your local calendar. I'd been here about four years when I was killed." He took a swallow of wine, then another. "I didn't know what was happening. I knew I could be killed, I just never imagined it really happening. In my own form, I'm stronger than a human but not as strong as a vampire. If I had shifted to something else, troll or giant... In any event, Arval killed me, but let me drink."

"Arval?" Wesley asked.

"Arval Lund. He had been a vampire a little more than half a century then." Konrad shrugged. "So that's how I became a vampire." Konrad shifted back to the dark haired human, and resumed eating.

"Yes," Wesley said. "Now about the shape-shifting."

"It's an ability we have. We start to develop it when we go through adolescence. Mastery doesn't come easily. It takes some double dozen years and assiduous practice to achieve any control of it at all. Mastery takes longer."

"So what are you?"

"We are listig."

"I've never heard of you," Wesley said.

"Did you come directly here?" Ann asked. "Or did you make a multiple gate trip?"

Again, Konrad's eyes flicked at Ann and away. "It was a double jump," Konrad said. "From home to Vanning, to here."

"There may not be many listigs here," Ann said to Wesley. "And unless they shift in front of you, you'd never notice them at all."

"How complete are your shifts?"

"When I'm human, I can walk around in sunshine."

"How did you end up in the trunk?" Spike asked.

"I'm getting there. This is all part of the background you asked for," Konrad said. "I don't know if all this is true, but it's what Adan told me: In Berlin, I believe it was in 1834 or 35, Arval killed a woman named Dagmar von Hofmann, who later killed a man named Jean, in Amiens, who killed a woman called Betty in America, who killed Adan, sometime in the 1950's. Adan says Betty told him that Dagmar told Jean that Lund had become what she called a shape-shifter, and went underground as a human."

"What an intriguing idea," Ann said.

"From your blood?" Spike asked, rising to deposit his empty plate on the table and refill his Cambells.

"That is Adan's theory. I never saw Arval Lund shift, but I discovered I could shift to full human about 1840 and never saw Arval after that. I repeatedly told Adan that; until I realized he was only keeping me alive so he could feed on me."

"Ugh." Cordelia said. "How awful."

"Excuse me," Wesley said, and went to his office.

"So how did he get you?" Gunn asked. "You're a human, far as he could tell, how could he find you out of all the six billion other humans?"

"When I'm asleep or unconscious, I revert to listig, which has a variety of problems, and is noticeable and apparently memorable."

"What do you mean?" Cordelia asked.

"Well, it also happens when I'm forgetful... A girl ran screaming out of my bedroom..."

"A sudden shift in partner could be disconcerting," Ann said gravely.

"How sudden?" Gunn wondered.

"Yeah," Spike seconded. "In medias res?"

"I couldn't say," Konrad said.

"In the middle of things," Spike translated.

"More or less," Konrad agreed.

"Oh," Cordelia said.

"So why does Adan want to be human? Humans have certain disadvantages," Spike said. "I mean, they're mortal and weaker than we are." He sat on one of the red sofas and looked over at Konrad.

Konrad frowned. "I don't know. I was immortal before I was changed. On the other hand, I can't walk around in sunshine now, unless I shift. But you can see why I do not want to be caught again." He looked over at Ann as he spoke.

"Very understandable." Ann regarded Konrad quietly for a moment. "Whose blood has Adan been drinking?" she asked. "Is it from this or another human or from the vampire listig?"

Konrad slowly smiled at her, his thin, clever face showing real appreciation. "I also realized he would kill me as soon as he could shift. He likes being the top whatever, the special one. He has been drinking human, with a few exotic additions thrown in. After all, I don't know if my blood would give him the ability to change, but why take chances? I've never stopped trying to escape. At some point, I'll get free, possibly by running away in daylight. It would be to my advantage if he could not pursue me."

"Arval Lund is a vampire, but there is no record of him after 1848," Wesley said, coming back. "The Council assumed that he had been staked, or otherwise died, then."

"That was an interesting year, at least in Europe," Spike said. "There was a fair amount of chaos. Angel and Darla had a lot of stories about how easy life was then. If Lund disappeared, that was a good year to do it."

"How does this tie in with destroying the world?" Gunn asked. "I mean why go to all the trouble of learning to shift, if you're about to destroy the world?"

"He has never said."

"Is Adan his real name?" Spike asked. "Has he others?"

"No, he picked it. It's the only one he uses."

"Why'd he pick it?"

"It's a Spanish form of Adam and also an African word meaning `giant bat.' The meaning changes with the stress," Konrad said. "He likes the ambiguities, he says."

"In what language?" Wesley asked.

"I don't know."

"He's an ass and an idiot," Ann said. "Ideally, a use name is a disguise you pick up and discard. You always have the next one ready and you never grow attached to them. How old is he? When was he born?"

"He looks younger than Spike and Konrad, maybe older than Gunn," Cordelia said. "Sort of wholesome and young, with a real fine taste in clothes."

Gunn, Wesley and Spike glanced at her.

"But evil," she added.

"He says he has been a vampire more than fifty years, and he was almost twenty when he changed."

"Why were you in the trunk?" Spike persevered.

"We were leaving tonight, after he got what he was after."

"Going where?"

"Mexico City."

"Why Mexico City?" Spike asked.

Konrad looked at him, then glanced at Ann, who was regarding him with patient interest. "There is something there Adan wants to steal."

"He does that a lot? Combines a trip with a theft?" Gunn asked. "That sort of thing give tourism a bad name."

"How long have you been Adan's prisoner?" Ann asked.

"It's only been ten months, but it seems much longer."

"Has he stolen many things?"

"Certainly."

"Beyond just the day to day necessities," Spike allowed. "That's just survival, that doesn't count."

Ann laughed, shaking her head at him. Turning back to Konrad, she asked, "Unique and specific items, that might involve a raid such as the one on the museum tonight?"

"He has a list," Konrad said.

"Where did he get the list?"

"I don't know. Even before I made my first escape attempt, there were rooms I was barred from, meetings I was not privy to. I saw it, very early in my captivity, but he snatched it away from me. He's been organizing thefts since before I became his prisoner. He's moved slowly across the country, never staying long in one place."

Ann considered him silently for a moment, then took a folder from the air. From it, she spread several sheets of paper in front of Konrad: Each was a list, all were different--some were printed, some were handwritten, some were centered, some were adjusted left, some were outline format, and some were titled, while others were not.

"Which one most resembles the list you saw?"

"That was some time ago." That was apparently only a pro forma objection, because Konrad pushed aside all the handwritten lists, all the centered and outline lists, and all the untitled lists. He started to read one of the remainder, pushed that one away, read another, and handed that one to Ann. "This one, although the original was more than one page."

Ann took the maroon briefcase from beside her chair. She removed a sheaf of papers and handed it to Spike, along with the list Konrad had given her.

Cordelia moved beside Spike, who showed her the new list and the top page of the papers from the briefcase. The two lists were identical. Cordelia shrugged and sat back. "The Scroll of Hecube," Spike read.

"I'm going to call Giles," Wesley said. "He has more complete records."

As Spike watched Wesley go off to his office, he saw a flicker of movement in the balcony above the desk. Fred had apparently finished her meal and had slipped back to watch the action in the lobby. Strange girl, Spike thought.

Chapter 7 - Shopping Lists

"Well," Wesley said. "Dagmar von Hofmann is a real vampire, with that approximate date of origin, but Giles doesn't know about any of the others. However, the Scroll of Hecube is a well known piece of eschatological literature, and has been mentioned in commentaries for over a thousand years."

Ann said, "Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's real."

"What do you mean?" Wesley asked.

"This could be designed to deceive."

"Why?" Spike asked.

"Some immortals," Ann said, "get bored easily. They like to set humans up and watch them scurry around; and a hundred or two hundred years, or even longer, is not too long to wait for a good joke."

"What?"

"Spike, think of what fun the immortal you met earlier this summer would have planting something like this."

"I can't judge the quality of the writing in translation," Spike said, thinking of Barzilai, "but he certainly didn't strike me as a creator of deathless prose."

"He couldn't hire a hack?" Ann demanded.

"Yeah, he could. You're right."

"There's also misunderstood art work, narrative, fiction or sermons. Parables and metaphors are easy to misread. The most common misunderstanding is to assume that a recommended shift in one's mental state or point of view is really a universal prediction or a commandment."

"Do you mean to imply that those parts of some of the transcendental texts that can sound like a teenage girl's diary are..." Wesley voice trailed off.

"Are in fact, a teenage girl's diary, taken out of context." Ann smiled at the group. "That being said, I will also say Earth receives a number of what we might call `the message in a bottle' scroll. They pop through gates, float down from meteors, or the like, and may be spontaneously generated in the depths of the stacks of the oldest libraries."

"I thought so!" Wesley said.

"The most dangerous sort of scrolls, beyond the ones that promise to reveal the truth--"

"About what?"

"Anything--which end of the egg you should eat first, whether you should have 8 or 12 ribs in your umbrella. It doesn't really matter."

"How can you say that about truth?"

"If you are worried about which end of the egg to open, you may not notice that your child hates all eggs, or that you're keeping chickens in vile factory farms just to get the eggs. If you concentrate on the number of your umbrella's ribs, you may not notice that one of those ribs just poked another person in the eye or even that the sun is shining. Truth is fine, but frequently it's irrelevant. Anyway, the most dangerous scrolls of all have directions."

"Oh," Spike said.

"And this one," Wesley said, taking the top paper from Spike as the white haired vampire finished with it and started to put it face down on the table, "starts out with a list of materials or ingredients; or maybe tools, I'm not sure."

"And just when it would be helpful for Adan to use those sloppy code names of his, he switches over to single words: Ruby, knife, egg," Ann said, taking another paper as Spike finished with it.

"Maybe it's just a shopping list," Cordelia offered.

Ann nodded. "Very possibly."

"Vase, thunderstrike," Spike looked up from the sheet he was reading. "There's another knife over here. Same one?"

"What's this part?" Cordelia asked. "The numbers and letters?"

"Standard latitude and longitude. Huh. East longitude only goes up to single digits," Ann said.

"And 30 North to 60 North," Spike said, looking over her shoulder.

"While," Gunn said, looking over Ann's other shoulder, "going the other way, the numbers stop at 130 West."

"And those numbers are paired with 60 South to 50 North," Ann said.

"Which means?" Cordelia asked.

"Western Europe: England, most of France, maybe all of Spain and Portugal," Spike said.

"Both Americas," said Ann, "Rather broadly defined."

"Is this a list of thing Adan intends to steal?" Wesley asked.

"It may be," Konrad said.

"And the little check marks?" Gunn asked.

"Things he's got?" Spike said.

"I don't know," the shifter said.

"Diamond, sapphire and emerald. Those are nice," Cordelia said.

"And these are dates?" Spike asked. "These three and four digit numbers? What are they, years? Inventory numbers?"

"This is incomplete," Ann said.

"Adan may have the complete scroll," Konrad said.

"And at the very least," Wesley said, "he will probably have another copy of the list."

"But you said that this may be fake," Cordy said. "If it's fake, why worry?"

"Ah, Cordy," Gunn said.

"Yes," Wesley said. "It is true that the world may not be endangered, but Adan seems to think that the scroll is authentic, and is attempting to acquire the items."

"Yes," Ann said. "The world may not be endangered, but if Adan pursues all these items in his incredibly elephantine way, even the most oblivious humans may notice him, which would be bad for all of us, not to count the collateral damage."

"This may be real," Konrad said. "Adan is very confident. The world may really be endangered."

Ann looked at him, a cool amused stare. "It may," she agreed mildly. "Do you know Adan's schedule? When is he planing on ending the world?"

"I don't know," Konrad said. "There maybe still time to stop him, but you should not delay too much."

"How is Dru helping?" Spike asked.

"You know her? You're friends with her?" Konrad asked, displaying a new wariness.

"She turned me, about sixty years after Arval turned you. What?" Spike demanded, eyeing the listig. "Oh. She probably couldn't resist that pretty boy look of yours. She's played with you, hasn't she? She can be inventive."

"Adan wants to keep her happy, but sometimes he is not in the mood for all her little inventions."

"I thought you liked them," Drusilla said, from the double doors leading to the garden.

Konrad grew very still.

Chapter 8 - Enemy Action

"You let her follow you?" Wesley demanded. "Really, Gunn!"

"She has visions," Spike reminded him. "It's hard to avoid a determined seer."

"Ah," Wesley said. He looked over at Gunn: "Sorry."

"Why are you here, baby? I told you to leave," Spike said, rising and crossing the lobby to the vampire, who came down the four stairs from the landing to meet him.

"I saw you were here, so I called and left a message."

"Called where?" He reached out and took Dru's small purse. He removed the cell phone and hit re-dial. There was no answer--Ann's land line was set to answer on the first ring--and the phone on the hotel desk didn't ring. "Where did you call, Dru? If you didn't call here and you didn't call me, who did you call?"

"My lover. Adan. He's coming here for me."

"Weapons!" Cordelia said, moving across the lobby to the arms closet.

"Dru!" Spike said, turning off the phone. "Dammit, Dru, that was really unfriendly."

"Fred," Wesley called. "Go lock yourself in your room."

"OK, sure, I can do that," Fred was so startled she spoke at normal volume.

"Now!" The Watcher followed Cordelia to the weapons cabinet and proceeded to load two crossbows. Cordelia chose a smaller crossbow, while Gunn took a large two handed ax.

"I need to get out of here, let me get away," Konrad said. He shifted back to the young blond as he jumped to his feet.

Ann rose and smiled at him. He vanished. The maroon briefcase and all the papers also vanished. Ann moved unhurriedly after the others, stopping in back of the red sofa that Spike had just left. The naked sword she was holding by her side was bright, but it was partially concealed between the sofa and her legs.

"Can we kill her now?" Gunn asked, glaring at Drusilla.

Spike glanced at the big young man. "Go ahead."

"Hold off on that, if you can, Gunn," Ann said. "I'd like to talk to her at some point."

Gunn snorted, then said, "All right, but I'm not making a point of it."

"Thanks," Ann said. She flicked her hand at the female vampire. Spike thought he saw a bright spark fly from Ann to Dru.

Drusilla stared past Spike at Ann. "I know you, too, don't I?"

"We've met. You should get out of the way."

When had Ann met Drusilla? Spike wondered. Then he wondered what they had talked about, and what Ann wanted to talk to the female vampire about now. Reluctantly he put that aside: "Send her off somewhere?"

"That won't help," Ann said, nodding at the front door.

Spike followed her gaze: Adan was leading a somewhat diminished and varied pack of minions in the front door, while another, larger, set of minions came in the double doors leading out to the atrium garden.

Adan stopped before the steps down to the main level of the lobby. He smiled. Two vampires, one on each side of him, raised Uzi machine pistols and held them ready. Behind them, the minion with the band collar from the Getty was joined by one with a reasonably well cut evening jacket, but with a red tie, handkerchief, and matching cummerbund; one in a totally passé baby-blue tux, and one with a strange double ring beard, which must have made shaving difficult, or at least complex. They all ranged themselves in a loose cluster behind Adan.

Of the vampires entering from the garden, two more had Uzis. One of these moved down the four steps to the main level of the lobby, while the other remained on the landing. The other vampires--the even more discordant group, consisting of the tallest and the shortest, the shaven headed one and the pony tailed blond one, and the one in shirt sleeves and the one in jeans--arranged themselves in an arc, with the armed vampires between them and Spike, Ann and the humans.

Spike wasn't too worried about bullets, but he knew Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley were at risk. Since Tara wasn't present, he had less of an idea than usual of the extant of Ann's powers, but she seemed untroubled as she stood slightly behind and some distance to the left of him. When he thought about it, he decided even if all Ann had was her experience and her physical coordination, he'd still pick her as an ally. He saw her glance at group in the front of the lobby; then beyond him, to the vampires with Uzis standing in back of Drusilla.

"Adan," Drusilla said, pleased.

"Now, look," Spike started. "I realize you might be upset because I went off with Dru, but you must remember, we're old friends and I was worried about her. We were together for over a hundred years, after all."

"Get over here, Drusilla."

"And I'm sure she forgives me, don't you Dru?"

"No. You hit me."

"But I didn't hurt you. You're all right, aren't you?"

"Yes, but..."
"And I just wanted to talk to you in private. Now, you say you want to go back to your new lover. Well, I won't say that doesn't hurt, but if you're sure that's what you want, what will make you happy, it's all right with me."

"Drusilla!" Adan said.

"So no hard feelings, Dru," Spike continued, "and just remember, if things don't work out, call me."

Drusilla, with a quick last look at Spike, crossed the lobby. Adan came down to meet her, accompanied by the two armed vampires and trailed by the others, who spread out farther on either side of him.

"Where's my car?" Adan demanded.

"Was that your car?" Spike asked. "Again, I'm sorry if you're upset..."

"We left it on Wilshire," Gunn lied. "After we dropped Drusilla off."

"Barrington and Wilshire," Cordelia said. "That's where I picked them up; then I drove everyone back here."

"That's where we left it," Spike lied.

"He's lying. Adan, he's lying, they're all lying. If that's what they did, how did Ivarr get here?"

"Who's Ivarr?" Cordelia asked, honestly bewildered.

"Where's Ivarr?" Adan asked.

"He was here." Drusilla looked around, "I guess he got away. I didn't see him go."

"The guy who just left?" Spike asked. "He wasn't anyone."

"He said his name was Giorgio," Ann lied, watching Adan intently. "If he had another name, we don't know it. He never did say what he wanted."

"I should have drained him," Adan muttered. "It may not matter. When we adjust the ratio..."

"Boss," Brendan said quietly.

Spike glanced at the minion, still wearing the band collar evening shirt and now with burns and sores on his face and hands. Hell, he thought. Not good. If this was what not killing every possible enemy you could when you had a chance got you, he would revert to form immediately.

"Not now," Adan said.

"Excuse me, boss, but this guy here? He was there this evening? In the museum? When the ruby went missing, you know?"

"Oh. Is he the one who hit me? From behind?"

"I didn't see that, boss. Maybe. He was right there, though, while I was spraying the gas."

"Now, that's interesting. I remember the black one, and my other seer, of course. I didn't notice the woman and the older man, or this one. Where is the ruby, Drusilla? You said it was here."

"Spike has it. I heard him say so."

"I don't have it," Spike said, telling the truth for the moment.

"You, turn out your pockets," Adan told Spike.

"I must admit," Spike said, "that I did yield to temptation to a very minor degree. I didn't think anyone would mind if I ..."

"Empty your pockets!" Adan said.

"All right, I will," Spike said, and took the seven rubies he still had and threw them hard straight at Adan.

Eight rubies flew at the big vampire: the three round, the three oval, the square cushion cut and the large square table cut ruby. Adan ignored the rest, and caught the flat square ruby out of the air.

Spike, about to follow the gems and attack, felt himself stiffen, unable to move. "How the hell did that get in there? What's going on?" he demanded, looking over at Ann, who remained calm and silent, watching Adan with a faint frown.

"Thank you," Adan said, paying no attention to Spike's outburst. He put the ruby in his jacket pocket and turned to Cordelia, standing beyond Spike. "Now. You, seer: Come here."

"No!" Cordelia said.

"Adan, no! She's bad luck," Drusilla said.

"What do you want with Cordelia?" Wesley asked.

"He wants another seer," Cordelia said.

"Nonsense," Wesley said. "Cordelia's visions come from the Powers That Be. They would be of no use to you whatsoever."

"The Powers That Be? What do you mean?"

"I work for Good. I can't help you at all, even if I wanted to, which, frankly, I don't," Cordelia said, stepping forward.

"Really?" the big vampire said to Cordelia.

"Absolutely not," Cordelia said firmly.

"Kill her, then. Kill them all," Adan said.

The two vampires with Uzis beside him raised their guns.

Ann stepped out from behind the sofa, catching the light on her sword as she passed in front of Cordelia.

The guns shifted to point at her.

Ann glanced at one machine pistol, then the other; then, still carrying the sword low, she turned to her left. Streaking past Spike to the landing, she swung the sword up through the Uzi held by the vampire still on the steps, cutting off the front of the gun and also all the vampire's fingers. She turned the sword as she pivoted to face the other armed vampire, bringing it around horizontally and decapitating him. Ann continued to turn, coming completely around to face the first vampire, still staring in shock at his ruined hand. The remaining half of the docked Uzi was still held by the vampire's thumb, and followed the vampire into dust as Ann took his head off.

Fine, Spike thought, following Ann with his stake in his hand, two down. He moved past Ann, and the tallest vampire, rather anorexic and gawky, leaped on him. He grappled face to face with Spike and tried to sink his fangs into Spike's neck. "Get real, you idiot," Spike said, entering full display and staking him.

Gunn saw Ann turn away from the vampire in shirt sleeves and take a step toward Adan. The shirt-sleeved vampire launched himself off the landing at her back, but went to dust as Gunn used his ax.

Spike turned away from the steps and moved down the lobby, intent on the bald headed vampire.

Ann, still focused on the group around Adan, saw only one Uzi-carrying vampire remained; Wesley or Cordelia had apparently taken care of the other. A crossbow twanged behind Ann and she saw a quarrel hit the last armed vampire.

As he first stared at the arrow in his chest, then fell apart into dust, Ann turned toward the elevators and dusted the vampire wearing the red tie, and followed that by decapitating the bearded vampire before he knew he was being attacked.

Spike, stopping his advance and watching the shaven headed vampire turn and run out the long corridor leading to the parking area, heard Adan snarl: "I always have to do it myself." Then the big vampire yelled in pain.

Turning, Spike saw Adan, moving toward the weapons cabinet, drop a chromed automatic to tug a slender crossbow arrow out of his right forearm.

Drusilla, moving around Adan, picked up the gun. "Don't worry, dear love. I'll do it. We don't need her at all, do we?"

"Dru!" Spike called, as the female vampire approached Cordelia, who was dealing with a contrary crossbow. Not heeding Spike, Dru raised the gun.

Ann moved from in front of the elevators to Dru's side in what looked like two steps and slammed her sword flat on Dru's right arm.

Dru screamed and dropped the gun.

Ann, ignoring Dru as the female vampire backhanded her with her unbroken arm, slid the gun under the red sofa with a shove of her foot.

Dru stared at her left hand. Spike remembered that hitting Ann was like hitting a steel wall. Dru raised her eyes, still wide with shock, to Ann as the woman turned to face her.

Ann shoved the female vampire toward the front door with a hard hand on her sternum. Dru flew back, stumbling on the steps and falling against them heavily.

"Down!" Gunn roared.

Spike wasn't sure he was the one Gunn was yelling at, but since he was the closest, he dropped to the floor and rolled against the right staircase wall, just in case.

Gunn sliced the long haired blond apart in a diagonal cut running up from under his left arm and coming out through his right shoulder and Spike got covered in vampire dust as the blond vampire, his head still on his neck and surprise still on his face, came apart.

Brendan went to Drusilla and helped her to her feet.

Drusilla cradled her right arm with her left as she and Brendan climbed the steps and exited through the front door.

Adan looked around, swore, then headed for the front door.

Gunn leaped after him, but Ann moved at the same time, and they fell to the floor together.

Adan ran out, followed by the vampire in the horrible baby blue tux, and was gone.

"Ah," the remaining vampire said, glancing around. He rubbed his hands on his jeans nervously.

"Oh, get out," Spike said, ignoring his recent resolution and shifting back to human.

"Thanks." He glanced at the front door. "Can I use the other door? I'm thinking of visiting some friends in Colma."

"Be my guest." Spike watched him go, out to the garden and out of their lives.

"Why the hell did you stop me?" Gunn yelled.

"Yeah, Ann. No one will believe you just tripped," Spike said, joining her as she rose and looked down at the black ex-troll, who still lay on the floor.

"I hope Adan does. I want him to keep underestimating me."

"So why'd you stop Gunn?" Spike persisted. He picked up her sword. The sword was light for its length and balanced just beyond the crosspieces. It was straighter than a modern katana and broader than a rapier. It was sharp on both sides of the tip for about ten inches, and was single edged from there back to the hilt. It was ice colored, pale silver gray at the tip and all along the edge, shading from silver through to dark gray to black. The hilt was black and the crosspieces steel gray. Nice, he thought as he handed it to her.

"Because I wanted Adan to get away," Ann said mildly, extending her free hand to Gunn.

"That much was obvious," Wesley snarled, very angry. He made an effort and got his temper under control, "but we are interested in knowing why."

"Adan is pretty much of an idiot. The task he's attempting is beyond him, but he's making progress. I only wonder if he has a patron or even just an advisor. I'd like to know, one way or the other, and it would be difficult to track him if he were dead."

Gunn laughed. "You still think all the time," he told the woman, then took her hand and let her help him up. Ann did not seem bothered by his size at all.

"So why are we alive?" Cordelia asked. "He had the guns, we didn't. Why are we alive?"

"He had guns," Ann said, checking her sword. It was clean, not even dusty. She shrugged, and the sword vanished. "Also, he's an American, from the mid 20^th century."

"So?" Cordy said.

"We'd have been much worse off if he'd have had armed his minions without guns with swords or even clubs, but clubs and swords aren't modern; somehow, they're almost not respectable to people of that time and society."

"Besides," Gunn said, dryly, "Gytha hexed the Uzis."

"I wasn't sure that would work," Ann said. "It would for me, certainly, but I don't know if they would stay hexed for Cordy and the rest of you."

"So you were planing to take all the guns out yourself?" Spike demanded.

"Yes," Ann said. "That seemed the best idea. I didn't know Wes and Cordy were that proficient with their crossbows, which was good for us all."

"We are professionals," Cordelia pointed out.

"Risky," Spike snarled to Ann.

"If I took out the gun-carrying vampires by the back door, Wesley and Cordelia could concentrate on keeping the group from the front door busy. I thought it likely that they would, since not only was that group at the best angle for them, it included Adan, who annoyed everyone by threatening Cordy. You and Gunn would want to be out of their way, which meant that the two of you would, if you were sensible, attack the rest of the back door group, which meant that my back was covered. As a plan, that seemed pretty reasonable."

"It did depend on them being sensible, Ann," Cordelia said.

"That was the riskiest part of the whole scheme."

Spike growled something unheard by anyone else.

"But they were," Ann said, smiling at the vampire. "What I want to know now is: Did the part I cut off the first Uzi turn to dust when the rest of the pistol did? And what about the vampire's fingers?"

"Well," Spike said, "the one Gunn sliced in half went to dust, so it's not just decapitation that kills us."

"Take notes, Wes," Gunn said.

"Possibly it is the severance of the spinal cord..." Wesley began, but no one was really listening.

Spike, Ann and Gunn went over to the landing by the back door and located the front of the barrel from the Uzi, but not the vampire's fingers.

"Interesting," Ann said.

"Good sword," Gunn said, examining the clean edge on the metal. "It is just a sword, right? That wasn't Gang Long in his sword form?"

"No. He seems to have out grown being someone else's weapon."

Chapter 9 - I Like the World the Way It Is

"I would be happier," Wesley said to Spike, "if you hadn't given him the ruby."

"I didn't," the vampire said, mildly. He was picking up the other rubies, and only found six. One of the large round rubies seemed to be gone. He shrugged. "And after thinking it over, I don't think anyone did. What he has is a copy, right?" he asked Ann.

Ann smiled at them. The flat ruby appeared in her hand. "Yes. This is the original." She flipped it up in the air. At the top of its trajectory, the ruby vanished again.

"So there's no reason for him not to go to Mexico City?" Cordelia asked.

"None that I can see," Ann agreed.

"Good," Cordelia said.

Ann gestured a bottle of wine and new glasses into being on the small table. She poured herself a glass but did not pick it up. "The security in this hotel is abysmal," she commented.

"It sucks," Spike agreed, pouring a glass. "I wasn't going to mention it, being a guest and all, but that's sure as hell true. It's not as if Angel didn't know any better, either. In the old days, he always secured his perimeter before he relaxed and started the torturing and the feeding. Maybe he is getting sloppy in his old age."

"May I do something about it?" Ann asked. "Purely temporary, only until 9:30 this morning, say?"

"Go ahead," Wesley said.

Ann nodded, cupped her hands together, whispered into them, then opened them. A green sphere expanded rapidly from her two palms and disappeared through the ceiling, the floor, and all the walls. "Much better. That will keep everyone but Angel out." She picked up her wine and drank.

"I've been meaning to ask, Gytha..." Gunn said.

"I can't detect vampires well," Ann said.

"She says we're foggy," Spike said.

"No, I said there is a fog around you that muffles my perceptions," Ann said.

"Which is how you got walked in on," Gunn realized.

"Yes, but you don't need to worry about that happening again till morning."

"It's also why she has a pack of shouyu around the Sunnydale house," Spike said.

"How do you manage to live there, then?" Wesley asked.

"They like me," the vampire said.

"At some point, we should tell Fred it's all right to come out," Cordelia said, sitting on a sofa and putting her feet on the table.

"I will," Gunn said, and climbed the stairs.

"I was thinking," Spike said, sitting on the red sofa facing Cordelia and putting his feet up on the table.

"Oh?"

"If there were some more teenage shouyu available, Angel could employ them here."

Ann shook her head. "The youngsters who are watching over Buffy's grave are mostly doing me and Gang Long a favor."

"You have people watching her grave?" Cordelia asked.

"It seemed wisest," Ann said. "Mighel insisted I burn Clemencie, even before he let me heal him; but when I suggested it, Tara and Willow said cremation would distress Dawn, and I came to agree with them."

"Who are Mighel and Clemencie?" Cordelia asked.

"Mighel was a Watcher, and Clemencie was his Slayer," Ann said. "Some time ago."

"Back in the 15^th Century," Wesley said.

"The three of them and Xander Harris picked out a place to bury Buffy's body, which, while pretty, was too undefended, in my opinion," Ann continued. "I'm not sure if there is a market for a Slayer's bones, but disturbing Buffy's grave would upset the people who love her."

"That was well thought," Wesley said. "Poor Giles."

"Poor Angel," Cordelia said.

Spike looked at his glass and said: "Poor Dawn." He looked up to meet Ann's sympathetic gaze and managed a tight smile.

"She is so spooky," Cordelia said.

"No more so than anyone else," Ann said, "if you go back far enough."

"What are shouyu, anyway?" Wesley asked as Gunn came back down the stairs.

"You may know them as Fu dogs," Spike said. "Immortal guardians. They look a lot like the classic statues."

"Well, the ones in Sunnydale also took the job because they're young rowdies, looking for an excuse to fight," Ann said. "Rather like teenage gang members. However, they get excited easily, and that is not what you need here, where there are a variety of visitors, not all of whom should be mauled or devoured."

"Where's Fred?" Cordelia asked Gunn.

"She came all the way out on the balcony, wanted to know what was going on and see for herself that we're all right."

"Fred," Ann called. "Have some wine."

"Oh, I don't know," Fred whispered from the balcony.

Ann said, "If you don't want wine, you can have cider or anything else you want."

"Well, maybe cider, I like apples, there were apple trees, not really apple trees, since they were blue, but I liked them."

"Here," Ann said, appearing in front of the girl, who stared at Ann wide-eyed, "try this. It's from a mix of fruit, apples and peaches."

"Oh, well, thank you, I guess I can try this," Fred said, looking at the pint mug. Hesitantly, she took the mug, then a sip.

"I think you'll find it very restorative," Ann said, then used the stairs to return to the lobby.

"This is about what they served," Cordelia told Spike.

"No, this is much better," Spike said.

"Change glasses with Spike," Ann said. "His palate is more experienced than yours."

"Oh," Cordy said, sipping. "This is different."

"And if you remember what it tastes like and concentrate, you can call it out of my wine anytime."

"We need to know what we want?" Gunn asked.

"That's always a good idea," Ann smiled.

Wesley frowned, focused on his wine: the glass shifted to a snifter and the wine stilled and changed color. He tasted. "My word."

"When did you meet Drusilla?" Spike asked.

"A good while back," Ann said. Spike continued to look at her and she continued: "You were being a pest, and I was wondering if I should kill you. I wanted insights Rupert's files lacked, so I sought out Drusilla in South America and talked with her."

"That must have been interesting," Gunn murmured.

"Yeah," Cordelia agreed.

"I can be very patient," Ann told them.

"Why did you decide not to kill me?" Spike said.

"You stole the Viper," Ann laughed.

"And that made you like me?" he demanded incredulously.

Ann smiled at him. "A little, enough so I listened to you when you brought it back."

"So why do you want to see her again?"

"Claire thinks she's found a therapist who can deal with Drusilla's post traumatic stress syndrome, possibly make her less crazed and unhappy."

"She's a vampire," Wesley said.

"So?"

"Sounds like what you'd get is a happy killer," Gunn said.

"She's a killer now," Spike pointed out. "That may not change, but it sounds as if no human would be any more endangered by making Dru a little saner."

"Very possibly it would work the other way," Ann said mildly.

"And I want to get her away from Adan. I think she's likely to be hurt or staked if she stays with him."

"So she'll just be happy? She can whistle as she murders?" Wesley demanded.

"You can whistle?" Ann asked Spike, who grinned at her, then whistled part of "Ode to Joy." "Interesting," Ann said again.

"This reminds me," Spike said. "Ann, what's Claire's phone number? Cordelia wants it."

"Here," Ann said, handing Cordy a card.

"Sunrise is in two hours, forty eight minutes," Ann told Spike. "If you're driving straight back, I'll ride with you, if you like. If you're staying on another day, I'll go home now."

"You can drive," Spike said.

"So tell me all about Angel's curse," Spike said, lounging back in the passenger seat.

"Well," Ann said. "As soon as I met Angel, I saw that he wasn't cursed; therefore I can't tell you anything about his original curse that isn't hearsay or deduction."

"So how'd it work?"

"The triggering incident wasn't just sex, there was a happiness factor." Ann explained the complexities of Angel's curse.

"And sex with Buffy gave him perfect happiness?"

"So I've been told."

"So what did Willow do to him?"

"You must remember that until recently, Willow's kind heart kept her from cursing anyone. This was not something she consciously did, either. She couldn't curse anyone, even deliberately, even Oz after the werewolf bitch incident."

"Yeah," Spike said. "I remember. She was worried about me, when I was so suicidal that time, and when I was the birdbath, something about acid rain. So she wouldn't have hurt him; but what did she do to Angel?"

"The vampire syndrome, except for a few extraordinary cases that are causing Claire some statistical and theoretical problems, artificially fragments the subject's personality, separating you from your conscience and any sense of empathy you may have. Willow omitted all the vindictive parts of the curse and re-integrated Angel's personality without the limiting factors. She and Angel call it bringing back his soul, which is not, of course, what happened at all."

There was a period of silence, then Spike said, "I don't think you could sleep with Angel and not make him perfectly happy, so he knows he's not cursed. Why hasn't he told his friends?"

"There are at least four assumptions in that last speech," Ann said, amusement obvious in her voice. "I thank you for the compliment, but for anything concerning Angel's thought processes or emotional states, I refer you to him."

"What's he doing here?" Spike asked, seeing Konrad, a statue again, in the foyer.

"I want to talk to him. You're sort of involved in what I want to say, so you can stay, but I would like you to keep your mouth mostly shut."

"What do you want to talk to him about?"

"Blood."

"Why?"

"Konrad was a very convincing human."

"So you said, but as Gunn pointed out, there are plenty of humans already; and if you mean I could become human, it didn't sound as if Konrad found the ability to mimic humans solved his problems. In fact, I'd say it could create more problems than it solved, since if I had been walking around in sunlight and got mugged, I'd not only..."

"Spike, have you considered that if you could shift to human, I would be able to heal you completely and immediately, without that damn vampire fog getting in the way? I'd be able to access every part of you right down to the innermost convolution of your cerebral cortex."

Spike looked at her for a long moment before he said, "So you would, by god. I never thought of that aspect of it."

"I told you, if you were human, I could get that obscene chip out of your head."

"Yeah, you did."

"Until you're free of it, I'm not ruling anything out. Apparently, a vampire can drink listig blood with no adverse effects, unlike my blood--"

"Which makes me break out in hives."

"--and probably doesn't confer shape-changing ability anyway. We'll still do another sensitivity test before you drink any of Konrad's blood and I'll start looking for Arval Lund. If he's still alive, we'll be able to evaluate his long term health."

Spike asked: "Do you really think you can find him?"

"I can usually find what I'm looking for," Ann said. "How do you think I found Drusilla?"

"I have no idea," Spike admitted. "Did you ask the Watchers?"

"No," Ann said. "I don't completely trust them or totally agree with their goals, either long or short term. And if you will take my advice, you won't tell even Rupert or Wesley what we're trying to do. I haven't, and I have no intention of doing so."

"I thought you liked them."

"I like Rupert very well, as you know, and I'm beginning to have a growing respect for Wes, but they may be Watchers first, and our friends second."

"You may be right. Do you keep secrets from me?"

"Of course. All those that are none of your business," Ann said.

"Such as who that really was in the photograph you showed Wes?"

"That's one of them. So how much blood do you take when you kill? It occurs to me that if Adan was just sipping from Konrad daily, as he appears from his mutterings to have been, he never received a large enough dose of blood to trigger the change, while Konrad would have died from exsanguination, if Arval hadn't let him drink."

"Gunn's right, you don't stop thinking at all," Spike said. "I don't know."

"Well, I'll see what I can arrange. The volume probably isn't larger than your stomach's, which is a couple of pints, unless you digest it at preternatural speed."

"No one's ever mentioned that," Spike said.

"We do need Konrad's cooperation, since we want him to shift to a non-vampiric listig. Don't look too interested or even involved while I deal with him."

"Right."

Ann freed Konrad, who looked around.

"So where am I now?"

"One of my homes. Come and sit down," Ann said, leading the way into her formal and rarely used living room. "Adan has gone off to Mexico City, apparently resigned to your escape."

"What did you tell him?" the shifter asked, sitting on one of the long sofas. Ann sat across the low table from him, while Spike took a chair off to his left.

"Drusilla saw you, remember, so we had to tell him something, but we lied to him about everything we could. He thinks you're calling yourself Giorgio and we told him we had no idea where you went. Where do you want to go now?"

"North," Konrad said. "If Adan is going south, I want to go north."

"Name a city," Ann said.

"Minneapolis," Konrad said.

"Then that's where I'll send you. Have you an address?"

Konrad shook his head. "Any place inside will do."

"Certainly, but before that happens, I have a proposition to put to you."

"Oh?"

"I want two liters of your blood, or more accurately, two liters of normal listig blood."

"You want to become a shifter?"

Ann smiled and became a slender red head, a tall blonde and her normal self. "Thank you, no; I want your blood for research purposes."

"What are you?" Konrad asked again.

This time Ann answered him, at least to say: "That is not the issue. I offer you a trade," and she handed the listig a small hollow glass sphere. "It's a lifesaver. Break it, step on it, or crush it, and you'll be moved directly to me."

"Really."

"This is not a license to steal," Ann warned. "You will arrive stripped, no loot, no gear."

"Ah." Konrad sat back. "That's not a very attractive bargain."

Ann sat back and smiled.

Eventually, they agreed on one lifesaver now and another after Ann had drawn two liters of unaltered listig blood. That done, Ann waved the shifter to a small all night restaurant on Lyndale Avenue, not far from Hennepin, in Minneapolis.

"So how long do you think it will be before he comes back?" Spike asked.

"Him?" Ann laughed. "Maybe next century, maybe next week. I'd say sooner than later."

"And after that, there's only about twenty years while I practice shifting to human."

"Since you'll know what you're trying to do, I think you'll manage sooner than that," Ann said. She stood and stretched.

"If, of course, it's possible at all."

"It's only a matter of time, Spike, until I discover how to deal with your chip."

"Given that you and I are immortal, that's probably true, but not necessarily immediately comforting. Thank you, though." Spike grinned over at Ann. As he turned for the door, Ann held up one pale hand.

"There's one more thing before you retire. Gang Long," she called. "Can you come here for a moment?"

"Good morning," the long said, appearing in the living room in dragon form.

Ann plucked the flat ruby from the air and showed it to him.

"Where did you get that?" the dragon asked, shifting to boy.

"From Spike," Ann said.

Gang Long turned to the vampire. Spike saw he was shocked and excited. "Where did you get it?"

"I stole it, more or less, but it wasn't in Sunnydale, so Ann's not mad at me."

"And you gave it to Jingwu?"

"Yes."

The dragon turned back to his guardian. "Are you free?" Gang Long asked.

"Come on," Ann laughed. "This has nothing to do with my controllers. You know who really pulls my chain. This is Fate."

"What is? What is this?" Spike asked. "Why does Gang Long recognize it?"

"It controls the world," Gang Long said. "We're taught about it, about all the tianyuan, while we're still in the egg."

"It's one of several things that set up the physical laws of the world," Ann said. "Some of the items on Adan's list are part of the, oh, the control knob; or maybe remote is a better word. If you have all forty-one of them, you and forty of your closest friends can change, ah, the default settings."

"Wait, wait," Spike said. "This is real?"

"Yes," Ann said.

"And Adan's collecting all forty-one things that can change the world?"

"Someone is," Ann said. "My problem is, I like the world the way it is."

(The problem of Adan and the world the way it is will continue in the new series of stories, coming soon.)

Back to Main Page