Dies Irae

By Medea

Chapter Eight

When Giles and Spike returned from the pub, they walked in on Willow and Angelus, engaged in an intense discussion of the notes that Giles had compiled earlier in the day about their seven targets. Giles was dumbfounded, given how things had been when he and Spike had left. By contrast, Spike's face relaxed into a relieved grin. He could smell his sire and Willow all over each other, and knew that the discipline had been mild, no more than necessary to re-establish a hierarchy.

While he was grateful to his sire for not hurting her, deep down he knew that Willow deserved credit for resolving the conflict. She must have placated Angelus. If she hadn't, mission or no, he would have beaten her unconscious, or worse.

"There you are," Angelus announced, as if he and Willow had been waiting all night for them. "Red and I have chosen the first target. Now that you're back, we can go cause a little pain...no, a *lot* of pain..."

Giles stared, still confused by the easy interaction between Angelus and Willow, but Spike took it all in stride. His sire was indeed back, and it was bloody glorious!

"Might I ask upon whom you decided?" Giles inquired when he had recovered his composure.

"Not *whom*...*what*..." Willow explained. "We've studied the runes protecting the Council manor where the archives are housed. With the right magic, we can make this a very interesting game. Come on, Giles. I'll explain on the way..."

*****

Footsteps fell softly on the plush carpet of the reading room, disturbing the customary silence of the hall.

Thomas Lytle, Head Archivist of the Watchers Library, looked up from the two volumes he had been cross-referencing for information on a prophecy. His pulse sped up slightly, even as he reassured himself that there was no threat. He and his colleagues had anticipated that the rogue Slayer's vampire lover would attempt retribution, but he knew that the manor which housed the library and the Council's meeting room was protected by powerful magic.

Lytle's eyebrows arched in surprise at the unexpected sight of the rogue Slayer's former Watcher, Rupert Giles, standing a few paces from the library door.

"Rupert?" the archivist greeted him in a carefully-neutral tone.

"Good evening, Thomas. Working late, I see," Giles answered, his voice equally devoid of any emotion.

"Yes, well as you know, prophecies are best handled with advance research," Lytle continued the masquerade of pleasantries, "So, dear chap, what brings you here at this time of night?"

"An errand. I have a message to deliver."

The sturdy, gray-haired archivist clamped down on the tremor of fear provoked by the remark. Giles's tone was calm, but something about his demeanor signaled danger. It was the eyes -- cold, almost inhuman. Maintaining his veneer of calm, Lytle prompted Giles to continue.

"A message for whom?"

"For the seven of you who conspired against your own Slayer, and against the very Powers whose work you claim to carry out."

The two men faced one another. Lytle narrowed his eyes at Giles, but offered no reply to the accusation. Tilting his head slightly toward the door, but without diverting his gaze from Lytle, Giles called out, "Angelus...Spike...Willow...do come in, please."

All semblance of courage vanished from the archivist as the three vampires strolled easily into the library. No vampire should have been able to get past the reinforcing spells that the Council had invoked.

"How did....this isn't possible...you couldn't have...." Lytle babbled in a panic.

"The reinforcing spells?" Willow offered a bemused grin to their first victim. "Yes, that was pretty strong magic, all right. Druidic runes, weren't they? Top-notch. But I guess my faroe stone trumps your runes."

"F-f-faroe stone?" Lytle's face paled. They were rare, and their power unrivaled. How had one fallen into the hands of a vampire?

Responding to his unasked question, Willow said, "An anniversary present."

"Ahh, the dilemma. What to get the witch who has everything?" Spike played along, relishing the waves of fear rolling off of the cringing archivist.

"Shame on me. I never did get you anything...can I make it up to you?" Angelus mused, keeping in the spirit of their game.

Willow wisely chose not to correct him by bringing up Angel's gift of the bonsai tree. A reference to his souled counterpart would most likely throw his stride in a way that Willow didn't want to. Her eyes narrowed wickedly. "Hmm...let's see...well, my tastes are pretty simple. Never did care for baubles...Maybe you could just offer me a nice toast to longevity and future happiness..."

"A toast, she says!" Angelus roared heartily. Then he adopted a thoughtful expression and began to pace. "Hmm....let me put some consideration into this. Far be it from me to shame my countrymen by offering a toast that is anything less than brilliant..."

As he pondered his choice of words, prolonging Lytle's tortured anticipation, Angelus strolled over to a glass-fronted cabinet that contained relics. Smashing the glass, he extracted two silver chalices. Walking back with the vessels, he announced, "I've got it. The perfect formula for future happiness. Spike, my boy, time to tap the keg."

The blond vampire grinned devilishly and played along. "As you wish, Sire."

Removing an iron railroad spike from the pocket of his leather duster, Spike shoved the archivist unceremoniously against a wall, stretched out one of the man's trembling arms and impaled his wrist. Lytle shrieked in agony as blood rushed from the wound. With the ease of a host at a banquet, Angelus filled his make-shift goblets with the blood and offered one to Willow. She accepted it with courtesy, and Angelus raised his own cup with a dramatic flourish.

"Very well, my lady. A toast to your future happiness. Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking. If you cheat, may you cheat death. If you steal, may you steal a human's soul. If you fight, may you fight beside those of your clan. And if you drink, may you drink with me."

Willow saluted him with her raised cup and drank down the rich, coppery elixir. "Thank you, Angelus. That was lovely."

Angelus bowed with mock-gallantry and tossed aside his chalice.

"You know, Willow..." Giles remarked casually, "I, too, was remiss in not offering you an anniversary gift. While you might not fancy baubles, I do recall that you were always fond of books..."

Willow laughed and gestured broadly to the entire library. "Surprise me, Giles."

Spike, meanwhile, was amusing himself by leaning against the wall next to Lytle and ripping off the man's fingernails as casually as he might check his own nails for chipped polish. Lytle, though rapidly losing consciousness from blood loss, managed a beleaguered howl for each nail that was torn from his free hand.

Soon Giles returned with about half a dozen leather-bound volumes which he spread out on a table before Willow.

"Let's see...Bernhard's vampire chronicles...Littré's demon taxonomy...apocalyptic prophecies...does anything strike you as particularly interesting?" Giles asked.

Willow picked up one of the smaller tomes and examined it. Hand-written on vellum pages, it dealt with the training and monitoring of Slayers. As Willow scrutinized it further, she found references to the ritual poisoning of a Slayer to test her resourcefulness ...various charms and amulets that could exert mind-control over a Slayer...and on and on.

Her expression of amusement hardened into a scowl. She'd still had no outlet for her grief over Buffy's murder, and seeing such a book enraged her.

"This is a piece of trash," she hissed, handing the book to Giles. "I wouldn't even line a litter box with it."

"Really?" Giles mused, the glint in his eyes revealing a deadly purpose. "Well, then, I shall dispose of it. I don't see a dustbin anywhere...but I suppose I can improvise."

Ripping a page from the offending volume, Giles crumpled it in his hand and walked toward Lytle. Prying the man's mouth open, Giles --giving himself over to Ripper -- forced the page down his throat. At Lytle's panicked gagging, Giles leaned close and growled, "This is for Buffy. You can choke on your precious work, you Judas."

With chillingly precise movements, and not a glimmer of remorse in his expression, Giles force-fed sheet after sheet of the text to the Watcher until the miserable man suffocated on the very pages that the Council had once used to test Buffy. Lytle's face became a gruesome death mask: his eyes were frozen in a lifeless stare, and blood and saliva ran from the corners of his mouth around the protruding, last page that Giles had stuffed in it.

"My, my, Rupert..." Angelus chuckled darkly, "Wouldn't have guessed you had it in you. We may make a vampire of you yet..."

Giles fixed him with a cool stare, but said nothing. Although Willow had relished their vengeance against the first of Buffy's murderers, concern for her human friend now tugged at her.

"Are we through here?" she asked the others.

"One down, six to go," Spike quipped dryly.

"Not quite," Angelus answered Willow's query. "Before we leave, we burn it...all of it."

"Yes," Giles agreed quietly, "This collection is the heart of the Council's power. Or, at least, the symbol of that power since they have back-up files stored on computer databases in scattered locations. But for centuries, this library gave the Council its authority over all matters concerning vampires, demons and the like."

"Lets 'em know we were here," Spike added. "Care to do the honors, luv?"

"Sure," Willow smiled. Holding out her hand with the palm slightly cupped and facing upward, she intoned firmly, "Fiat ignis."

A ball of flame appeared in her palm and she deftly hurled it at one of the book stacks in the library. The conjured fire quickly spread along the stacks, igniting and devouring the painstakingly-preserved volumes. Willow and Giles gathered together the few volumes he had spread before her, intending to salvage some of the rarer texts for Giles' own collection.

Angelus admired the blaze and. As he signaled for the others to follow him into the night, he announced with satisfaction, "It's good to be back!"

*****

In the elegant Kensington residence of Henry Lloyd, the events of the previous evening were discussed in earnest.

That Thomas Lytle's tortured, charred corpse had been found among the debris was indeed a painful blow. But what brought real fear into the hearts of those present were the details that the firemen hadn't noticed.

"How could it be possible?" Winston Barnes hissed. "Are you *absolutely* sure?"

"Oh, please!" Charles Watson snapped in reply. "I helped renew those runes six months ago. Do you think I wouldn't know? Believe me, any that weren't burned beyond recognition have been inverted!"

"Yes, you *did* renew those runes..." Margaret Austen pointed out, her voice thick with accusation. "And when you did, you assured us that no magic was powerful enough to alter them."

"This was found just inside the main entry to the manor," Henry Lloyd announced, holding out a smooth, black stone. "On the floor, right beside an 'A' written in what, I assume, was Thomas's blood."

The Demonologist, Watson, snatched the stone from Lloyd's hand and murmured in awe, "A faroe stone...and it appears to be spent. I believe we have our answer as to how the runes were inverted."

"But the 'A' in blood...that doesn't fit the profile of the souled vampire," Andrew Barnes protested.

"We're not dealing with him. I think it's clear from the sheer scale of the destruction that we're dealing with Angelus," his father, Winston, clarified.

"And his childe, who left his calling card in Thomas's wrist," Fiona Leary added solemnly.

"Which also implicates the Red Minion," Charles Watson deduced. "No doubt she wielded the faroe stone and inverted the runes."

"What does that mean for us, exactly?" Fiona asked nervously.

Watson exchanged a brief, ominous glance with Lloyd, the Head of the Council and the one who had initiated their small circle in what was supposed to have been a clean strike to restore the Council to its proper working relationship with Slayers. It was all too clear to Watson that they had made a terrible, terrible error in judgment. Yet what chilled him even more than the news he was about to give his colleagues was the fact that he saw nothing in Lloyd's eyes to indicate that the man acknowledged the error.

"It means that the one who inverted the runes -- the Red Minion, we presume -- now has control over any spell that was tied to those runes," Watson explained.

"But we tied them to the protection barriers around our own homes!" Andrew Barnes exclaimed with alarm.

The room fell silent.

"Dear God..." Fiona breathed, "The manor has been destroyed, and they have access to our homes..."

*****

"Yes, you stupid git!" Spike bellowed with contempt. "And yet there you are, discussing everything in one of those homes. Bloody twits!"

He, Angelus, Giles, and Willow reclined in the main room of their flat and continued eavesdropping on their prey, thanks to a spell Willow had worked through one of the inverted runes.

"So, they're making it easier for us. Why are you complaining, Spike?" Willow teased him.

"Come on, luv! Where's the challenge?" Spike pouted.

Angelus laughed at his petulant childe. "Now, Spike, where's your sense of creativity? When did human obliviousness ever stop us from enjoying a good game of cat and mouse?"

"The question is, who will run first?" Giles remarked thoughtfully.

"The woman...wait, she's speaking again...that one....who is she, Giles?" Willow asked.

"It sounds like Fiona...yes, I believe it is," the ex-Watcher replied.

"She's scared. So scared, you can almost smell it," Willow observed.

Angelus smiled approvingly at Willow, pleased by her ability to dissect and anticipate human behavior, nearly the match of his own. "She was the last one recruited into their circle," the dark vampire hinted.

"So, most likely the first to run," Spike concluded his sire's train of thought.

"Rupert, where would she most likely seek asylum?" Angelus asked, already forming a plan.

Continue