London, 1921.

'Ronnie? Did you say that you'd be getting a cab back?'

Veronica Beaconsfield froze with her arm positioned to throw. 'Not for an hour or so.' The coconut shy made another penny profit. 'Meet me by the boat swings in about an hour and a half if you like, you don't have to stick with me.'

Having been so graciously emancipated I pulled my coat around me and trod, slightly bent being self-conscious about my height, into the enforced gaiety of the fair.

Thus begins this, the second week of my twenty-first year, a gawky, bespectacled Jewess with strawberry blond hair and too few friends, currently about to start the second term of my last year at Oxford and at the mercy of Ronnie Beaconsfield's attempts to 'cheer me up' and 'bring me out of myself' this visit to the travelling fair on the common being the latest, and hopefully, the last before our return to the dreaming spires.

'Winna goldfish! Git yerself a goldfish to take 'ome missy?' I murmured something about my landlady not allowing pets and pushed past. Continuing past popcorn and toffee apple stalls, stalls offering chances to try your strength or buy candyfloss, I trod despondently on through the mud.

It was outside a dowdy fortune teller's tent that I eventually came to a halt, ostensibly to adjust my stockings, dragged low as they were by a coating of mud.

I am not by my nature superstitious and indeed am usually inclined towards the sceptical, but there was something about a woman who would call herself Princess Iriana Von Ormstein in these anti-Teutonic times which plucked at the perverseness in my own nature and pulling my coats around me I stepped inside.

'Sixpence for a basic reading dear. Life, love or profits?' The pile of shawls and bangles hunched over her low table snapped suddenly upright and without further explanation sat stiff backed and beckoned. 'Come, daughter of the desert.'

The artifice in her accent and phrasing seemed oddly jarring even within the darkness of the tent. As I took my place across the table from her, and sat breathing in the heady, camouflaging stink of cheap perfume and incense, I saw that the assumption of her age that I had made at the doorway was vastly exaggerated. The women I had thought a crone was barely touching forty-five, and a smooth skinned high cheek-boned forty-five at that.

I sat, my eyes drawn inexplicably to the smooth crystal which sat on the table between us and which seemed, although full of imperfections, through some undetectable trickery to subtlety glow. She lay her hands flat upon the table, stared into the distance and began to speak.

'I am Princess Iriana Briony Von Ormstein, and it is my curse to know all. I know what has been and what is to come. I can tell the point at which what is to be separates from what might have been and read both paths. The minds of men, the spirits, the very stones themselves offer up their secrets to me.' She sighed mournfully. 'And it is my curse that I must listen.'

Her eyes grew sharp again as she caught my expression. ' And I see that Miss Russell does not believe I speak the truth. That she does not wish to hear any advice her parents or brother may have to impart and that she fears the future will be as dull to hear as it will be to experience.' She paused, although whether for thought or for (in my opinion totally unnecessary) dramatic effect, I do not know. After a moment in the silence I realised my jaw was hanging open and shut it sharply. She began to speak again. 'This does not matter, however, as her family are content to leave her be, I know myself to speak the truth and although her future is indeed as dull as would be expected from one as plain as she, it is not this of which I intend to speak.'

I listened, entranced, as my glasses steamed up in the fug of the tent, barely registering the insult which and been flung at me as I waited for her to continue.

'I will speak instead of a tale witnessed by the stones of this city some twenty years past. A tale of darkness and of light and of those who walk the tightrope path between the two.' With this unchallengable statement as introduction, She sat back in her chair and began...

'Look.' The shadows shifted in the alleyway, forming themselves, as the eyes grew used to the darkness, into the shape of a tall, slim man, bent low over the mud. Brushing the hem of his coat away from the filth of the streets he beckoned to his companion. 'Look. Do you see?'

Dust and dirt was brushed from his hands as he straightened his back.' The prints, boots, two sets. One small, high heeled, the other,' He sniffed tartly, 'Workmen's. Low quality.' He rubbed a clod of the remaining dirt between his fingertips as he thought on. 'Ha!' He snorted, pointing discretely at a doorway several yards away. 'I'll wager that our rats have unwillingly trapped themselves.'

'You think that the fiends responsible for the murders are in there?'

The taller man paused in a disgruntled stance. 'I know that they are. You have your revolver?'

Obediently the shorter man pointed his revolver at the building opposite.

'Be ready.' His companion took a deep breath. 'We know what they're capable of.'

Almost before his sentence had been completed, the night exploded into a blur of monochrome activity. Pale limbs highlighted white against the black clothing of the two combatants. Aghast, the shorter comrade saw the swish of skirts and overcome by panic and disgust fired, blindly into the air.

It, she, this grotesque distortion of a young woman, fought with the insane grace of a cornered animal, tearing into her opponent until he began to lose his footing and fall to the ground. 'Run.' He choked at his associate who stood, frozen and miraculously unnoticed by the virago. 'Run. RUN DAMN YOU.'

As he watched his friend fold, and collapse in a smooth motion to the ground, his blood running cold at the sights he had just witnessed and the bile of evolutionary cowardice already rising in his throat, John Watson MD turned tail and fled.

'Dru! Drusilla pet, you are a fucking gem.'

The skinny, greasily aggressive, young man took a deep draught from his beer bottle and ran a pale hand over his crop of sandy hair. 'You're a marvel. A bleedin' marvel!' He sprawled, lolling back in his chair like a grubby dandy, his face lit with a fierce misshapen pride. 'You know, I've watched you work every day for years but still...' He leapt to his feet, his hands clasped in joy like a child on Christmas morning. 'But still...'

The girl stared fixedly into the flame of a candle smiling distantly and drawing her long pale fingers through the heat. 'The length of her hair, it was nothing so special, 'twas just long enough to wrap round my throat, and I disappear in the cold, cold satin, oh the dark lining of her long winter coat.' Her voice trembled softly with as she sang. Oblivious to the other occupant of the room she sang her high piping song to the candle flame. 'If you take my hand, well I'll show you the dances...'

'Dru? Do you remember the talk we had, about not playing with Mr Fire, or Mrs Sunlight?'

A demure smile crossed the young woman's inward looking face. 'He played so prettily, when we danced.' She picked up a handful of salt and began to drop the grains into her flame, watching hypnotised as the bright spark of coloured fire flashed in front of her.

'I know he did love.' Spike put his arms around her waist and nuzzled gently at her neck. 'And you were the belle of the ball.'

'He was like a pretty little butterfly.' Drusilla stared blindly at her fingertips. 'All burned up in the flame. Lily papillion.'

'Sherlock bloody Holmes!' Spike gave her waist another squeeze. 'My little Dru took down Snoop Sherlock. Dru you are a fucking wonder...'

'Wonder, I wonder, I wonder...'

'Dru?'

'Do you think he'll come visit his mummy?'

'Oh pet. Tell me you didn't...'

'OPEN THE DOOR!' Watson felt the flat of his hands scrape the hard wood of the door as he pounded blindly at his target. 'OPEN. DAMN YOU WOMAN.'

'Well! I don't know that I've ever been spoken to quite so... What is it? What's wrong?' Mrs Hudson's expression changed in a split second. 'Doctor? There's been an accident hasn't there? I'll send a message to...'

'Holmes is dead.' Watson took a bottle from the sideboard and sunk into a hunched position in his chair. 'I...We were attacked... I'll send a message to his brother about any arrangements, if you would care to alert Mr Lestrade that Dr Watson wishes to speak to him with the uttermost urgency. After that, your time is your own.'

As the capable housekeeper exited the room Watson stared at the uncorked bottle in front of him. The caustic fumes of some abandoned experiment hung in the air and marked the rooms with the character of their deceased occupant. He cast the bottle, untouched, into the fire and ran the events of the night through his brain...

'I must say I think this is all in rather poor taste.' I stared at the smiling woman across the table from me as she stroked the crystal in front of her. 'And I do think you might have chosen a less obvious target.'

She stared at me with undisguised boredom. 'You are finished?' I nodded, mildly fascinated by her disregard for my protests. 'Good.'

He was not unused to death, a doctor, in particular an army doctor is not afforded an opportunity to become sensitive about such things. And the loss of his own dearest Mary had been an all too recent personal experience of the phenomena. But this? This was not just death. This was something foul and inhuman. The memory of that creature as she had slashed at his friend bringing him down... This...

A knock at the door broke into his reverie. 'Call back tomorrow.'

'Watson. For pities sake let me in.'

In a moment he was at the door, bundling his friend into the room. 'Holmes? Holmes, I'm sorry, so very, very sorry.' Holmes leant his full weight upon Watson's shoulder and allowed him to pull him to the settee.

'My dear Watson,' He breathed. 'Do shut up. We need...' He closed his eyes and bit down upon his lower lip. 'We need to speak to... We need to speak to Dr Giles, at the...' And he collapsed, unconscious, upon the couch.

'Your pulse is somewhat erratic, although this is rather to be expected.' The rather serious looking woman let Holmes's wrist fall to his side and stepped back. 'You've lost rather a lot of blood, again, not unexpected.'

'Holmes? Who...That is, I... I mean...'

'This is Dr Miriam Giles, Watson. An associate of my brother's.' Holmes winced as cold fingers probed at the gash on the side of his neck. 'I would not wish you to take her presence here as any reflection on your own highly competent medical skills. It is simply that she has rather more experience in a few somewhat specialised fields.'

'You have been outstandingly lucky.' The doctor stood back from her patient and wiped her hands. 'Exceptionally lucky. It would appear that you were merely...' She paused momentarily. 'Attacked until you passed into unconsciousness and left for dead.'

'I'm sorry, I'm so, so very sorry. I thought...'

'Oh please don't let's start this again Watson. Had you not run we would have both been lying in that alleyway now, and who would have been left to fetch the good doctor then?'

'I imagine the same rather grubby youth who came for me today.' A wry smile passed rapidly across the visitor's otherwise stern face. She raised an eyebrow. 'I believe he introduced himself as 'Billy, mate, uh, sir, uh, blimey, ma'am.'

'I...I didn't like to leave.' Watson blushed at Holmes raised eyebrow, 'you seemed so pale.'

'Always the mother hen Watson, always the mother hen.' Holmes chuckled softly to himself. 'Which reminds me, have you offered our guest a cup of tea yet? No? Why then you must do so at once.'

Tea was brewed and poured as Dr Giles affixed a light gauze to the wounds on Holmes face and neck. 'Now, you must get plenty of rest.' She sipped carefully at her tea and stared over her glasses at her irascible patient. 'If you notice anything unusual, anything, then I want you to contact me. Come straight to the hospital, don't come through your brother.' She pulled her bag to her chest and stood to leave. 'Immediately, do you hear me?'

'My dear lady...' Holmes began to drawl as he lit one of his slim cigarettes. 'I rather think I...'

'Come Dr Giles, I'll summon a cab to take you back to...' Watson trailed off, his hand already at their guests elbow. 'To take you back to...'

'St Lucy. It's the free hospital, near the river. I won't take a cab however though if you don't mind.' Dr Giles rummaged in her handbag for a moment before recovering her gloves and sliding her hands into them. 'I hope the time when I fear a good walk through the streets of this city will be a long time coming.'

She paused at the door and spoke softly to her fellow medical practitioner. 'I'm relying on you to fetch me at the least little thing. Anything unusual, no matter how silly you think it might be. The, the woman by whom your friend was...attacked,' That pause again, thought Watson. 'She has been known to... Well, it would be wise to watch him for a day or two.' She stepped gently through the door. 'Good night Dr Watson. Mr Holmes, get some sleep.'

It was barely an hour later when Holmes emerged from his rooms smoking merrily and clad in the multitude of mismatched layers of wool and corduroy which signified a change 'into character'.

'Holmes! You're not going out, at this hour and after... Holmes!'

'Nonsense Watson, these old bones can handle another outing yet.' He picked a small hand rolled cigarette from the tin in one of his outfits many voluminous pockets and lit it from the glowing bowl of his pipe. 'I have a few rather important tasks to complete and...' He smiled sardonically through the haze of foul smelling smoke. 'I rather hope the time when I fear a good walk through the streets of this city will be a long time coming.'

'Holmes I must insist...'

'My dear Watson, I do wish you would stop fussing so. ' Holmes arranged his frayed and unsanitary fingerless gloves into a more satisfactory position. 'I assure you that Sherlock Holmes would not be caught...Would not be seen on the streets at such an unsavoury hour.'

He drove his crown deep into his ill-fitting, worn and grubby bowler and stood before the mirror. 'It may be that a Mr Basil Josephs, cab driver by his trade, may be seen to pass a few moments in idle conversation with some of the city's less respectable business persons. But what of it?' He leered rheumily into the mirror. 'T'aint a crime ta 'ave friends yit is it?'

'Ere! Wot you playin' at?'

'Violet my dear you really must learn to control those nerves.' The dark form sidled out of the shadows and held out a tin. 'I should imagine they heard you in Battersea. Cigarette?'

'Oh, it's you.' The shabbily, and somewhat insufficiently, dressed young woman took a cigarette with comical dignity and held it out for a light. 'Wot you after then?'

'Violet, you wound me. Is it so improbable that I may be desirous of your company on a balmy moonlit night such as this?'

'Go up dozey!' A bubbling cackle echoed round the dark alleyway as the smooth words hit their target. 'You ain't just after a bit of a chat are ya'.'

'Violet, you have a suspicious mind.'

'Stop acting the div! You're a terror you are Baz, got a drink on ya'?'

There was the glint of metal as a small silver hip flask changed hands in the darkness and the pair shared a drink.

'Violet my dear, come away from the street. Whatever will people think of a lady of your stature drinking in public with strange men? I fear for your reputation my sweet really I do...'

The cackle rang out against the cold walls of the alleyway once again as the flask was passed back. 'You got a bleedin' lovely voice Baz. You should go on the music hall or summin.'

'Perhaps you could secure me an audition my dear, I'm sure you have a rather closer relationship with the stage door than I.'

'Ooh, you never stop taking the piss do you?' She drew a pale, stubby finger down the line of his lapel. 'I swear you're jus' trying ta get me drunk.'

'And rob you of a night's work?' He slipped an arm around her waist and slid his other hand beneath her shawl. 'Would I do such a thing?'

'We ain't got more than a couple of hours till it gets light.'

'Hmmm. You overestimate me Violet my pretty really you do.'

'Only the peelers come round an hour an' half before dawn is why I say.' Violet began to ease open the fastenings on her dress. 'Ere, you should've come to me earlier.'

'I am rather afraid that I had previously overlooked the possibilities of your wares.' Holmes brushed his lips against the base of her throat. 'A situation which I hope to rectify with the greatest immediacy.'

Violet's short sharp gasp as Holmes drew back his teeth and punctured her jugular vein went unnoticed in the busy London night. And as the brandy and laudanum tainted mahogany life force flowed from her lifeless body over his lips, the rare and uninterested passer by saw nothing more or less than another nocturnal transaction between the twin dancers of the oldest trade in the world....

'Doctor?'

'Ja?' The thin, delicately featured, elderly professor sitting at his desk turned his face to the doorway where the younger man lingered nervously. 'You have something you wish to ask of me?'

'You asked for the news to be brought to your study Professor. In particular if there was another...'

The professor removed his thin wire frame glasses and ran his fingers wearily along the bridge of his nose. 'There has been another death.'

'It... A young girl...' The young man placed a bundle of curled and smudged papers before him.

'Dr Van Helsing, She was a...'

'It is not our place to judge the personal morality of another human being, Bathory. The wounds fit the profile I gave you?' He peered greedily at the information in front of him. 'It was not exactly the same I see.' He dismissed his associate from the room with a wave of his hand causing a million motes of dust to dance in the pale early morning light. 'No, this is not the same at all...'

'BLOODY HELL DRU. I don't need this! Poncing about like a big...Like a big... Looking down his nose at me - 'h'elementary my dear h'William.'' Spike screwed up his face in disgust. 'You see but you do not h'observe.' He ran his fingers roughly through his hair and fell heavily into the chair at his back. 'Can't you just eat for once?'

'He'll be such a pretty baby...' Dru cradled Miss Edith to her chest and put a hand out to stroke Spike's cheek. 'Just like his daddy.'

'Oh Dru.' Spike sighed in exasperation and took her hand. 'What are we going to do with you?'

'Holmes?'

'Oh what is it now Watson? ' A faint voice emerged from within the layers of clothing bundled on the couch. 'I am intolerably weary.'

'You really should let me change the dressings on your throat Holmes, especially after wearing those clothes all night.' Watson took a roll of clean gauze from his bag. 'Whatever your own views on the matter, I don't care to risk infection.'

'Watson.' Holmes peeled the thick woollen scarf from his face and peered drowsily at his friend. 'I am quite capable of taking care of a few strips of sticking plaster. Really I am.' He fingered the bloodied gauze with a pair of long pale digits. 'As it is, I appear to be healing with my customary rapidity and I am certain that there are cases far more deserving of your tender mercies... Leave me to my sleep. I'm sure that an hour or two in the embrace of Morpheus will do nothing to hinder my recovery.'

Van Helsing stood motionless as he gazed at the dark patch in the alleyway which marked the last known movements of Miss Violet Strensall. He drew his cane slowly along the filth of the ground and paused as it hit a small shell button with a few short threads still trailing from it.

Slowly, he eased himself to the floor and scooped up the fragments for closer inspection.

'What did you see in the night you died Fräulein Strensall?' He murmured softly to himself as he ran his fingers over the ridges of the button. 'What did you see?'

'Mrs Hudson?' Watson pulled his coat on and began to fumble with his buttons. 'I'm going out for a while.' He paused momentarily at the door and returning to the main room picked up his bag. 'Should Holmes ask after me when he wakes would you be so kind as to tell him...' For some unknown reason Watson found himself pausing. 'Would you be so kind as to tell him that I have gone out.' He ended weakly.

'We shall have such fun.' Whispered Dru into the ear of her scarred and dismembered doll. 'And we shall teach him such tricks. Only you must never speak of this to Spike, because it makes him cross, and we are a happy family... '

'Oh we are Dru, poppet. We are.' Spike put his arms softly around his lover's shoulders and smelt her hair. 'We're the happiest bloody family in all of London and don't you ever think any different.' He breathed in deeply, savouring the mildew scented locks with every sign of rapture. 'And no bloody cuckoo in my bloody nest is going to make me stay grumpy at you.'

'Oh dear.' A cultured voice rang out from the doorway. 'Have I come at a bad time?'

'Dalton?' Van Helsing beckoned to the bespectacled youth as he passed his doorway. 'A moment please.' He ran his tongue along the edge of an envelope and smoothed down the fold with a thin finger as the young man entered his study and stood shyly at the desk. 'I have an errand.' He paused as he added his signature to another piece of paper and slipped it into a second, unsealed envelope. 'Where is Bathory?'

'P...P...P...Pardon?'

'Bathory, where is he?' Van Helsing glared at the stuttering lad as he fumbled with his glasses, and rubbed his eyes in irritation. 'No matter, it is... No matter...' He waved a dismissive hand at the scholar. 'I need you to pay a visit to the Diogenes club, you will ask that this message be given to Mr Wyndham.' He passed the envelope to Dalton who eyed it curiously. 'I am desirous of an hour or two in the company of their fine library, my own meagre resources do not seem to be particularly forthcoming I am afraid.' Van Helsing frowned as his erstwhile help left the room. 'And again we submit ourselves to the tender mercies of our friends at the council...'

'I'm looking for Dr Giles. Excuse me?' Watson attempted once again to catch the attention of the busy charge nurse. 'Excuse me? Sister? I... Excuse me?' He sighed with relief as the nurse paused momentarily in front of him. 'Thank you, My name is Dr Watson and I...' Such was the good lady's explosive efficiency at the sight of his doctors bag that it was not until four hours later he was to reach his original target.

After, that is, he had diagnosed and dosed more sorry looking specimens that he had seen in all his years of medicine, spent an instructive and infuriating ninety minutes attempting to repair the ministrations of a fellow 'physician' who's name he was sure that would curse until the day he died. Had ushered in one young life and been present at the exit of another.

It was sitting at this bedside that he eventually found, or rather was found by, Dr Giles herself. 'Pleurisy.' He smoothed the hair from around the young girl's face. 'Probably resulting from a prior unreported injury, with complications arising from poor nourishment, sustained alcohol abuse and general weak constitution.'

'Oh dear...' Dr Giles pulled the sheets up over the cooling body and frowned to herself. 'They never come to us when they should you see. Sister?' She beckoned to the hovering nurse. 'If you could find someone to take her to the... Thank you.' She turned to Watson. 'Shall we walk?'

Holmes faced the mirror and extended a cochineal tongue. He stretched a lengthy index finger and pulled down his lower right eyelid in a disinterested way before resuming a more usual aspect. 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper. A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked.' He grinned as the childish rhyme hung in the air. 'I'm not a pheasant plucker I'm a...Mrs Hudson.'

'Ever so sorry if I interrupted you Mr Holmes. I heard you up and about.' The matronly Scotswoman balanced a tray between her hip and the sideboard. 'I brought up a basin of hot water for you, should you wish to shave of course, and a pot of tea. I hope that wasn't too presumptuous?'

'Not at all, my dear lady, not at all.' Holmes took the tray from her hands. 'I was just about to ring for those very things.'

'I'll leave you to it then shall I sir?'

'If you would Mrs Hudson, if you would.' Holmes listened for the click as his employee closed the door behind her and returned to the mirror. He pressed his fingertips against the glass and watched with fascination as even these small points of flesh went unreflected. 'A magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man.' He murmured to himself softly and stared at the reflection of his room, given novelty by that which was missing. Before turning his mind to the problem which has traditionally perturbed many the practical minded reader of gothic fiction. How exactly does one shave without a reflection?

'You are worried about your Mr Holmes?' Dr Giles stepped hurriedly across the cobbled square which lay between the twin buildings of St Lucy's free hospital. 'He has shown signs of...' She skirted a patch of unidentified refuse on the path. 'He has shown ill effects from last night?' Dr Giles bent slightly to pick up a lurking cat and throw it further from the door. 'Or are you here concerning the Strensall case. Because I'm afraid I'm unable to help you there, we do not allow access to our records, except to the police and I will admit, grudgingly then, you understand.

'I...' Watson watched as a brace of nurses wheeled a spitting and cursing invalid from one building to another, seemingly impervious to her blows and cries of poison in the face of their aid. 'You seem to do a lot of good work here. Among... Among a certain class...'

'Who will if we do not Dr Watson? Sister Peters has spoken to you about volunteering your service for a few hours a week I suppose... No? Well no doubt she will corner you again before you leave. She is a capable woman and much given to the furtherance of our little operation.'

'Hardly little, madam.' Watson paused as they reached he set of steps leading up to the door of Dr Gile's offices. 'There must have been thirty or forty cases in the maternity ward alone.'

'We enjoy the patronage of several organisations, with a little frugality we manage to avoid the clutches of the bailiff. But we have trouble securing medical staff.' She paused as Watson held open the door. 'Surgeons, consultants, it seems that they think our clientele to be rather beneath them...'

'A great pity.'

'Drink?' Dr Giles poured herself a glass from an unlabelled decanter. 'Only a tonic I'm afraid, we received several cases of it from a benefactor in the brewing trade and the patients won't drink it under sufferance.'

Watson refused the offer with a smile and accepted the proffered seat. 'You persevere though?'

'Your Mr Holmes once said something about isolated houses I believe.' Dr Giles seated herself at her desk and began to half-heartedly sort a pile of mail. 'That there was more potential for crime among the lone houses of the countryside than ever there was in the city?'

Watson nodded carefully. 'Something of the sort. Yes.'

'These people are isolated houses Dr Watson. They have no family - or none that care about their fate, they have no real friends. There is no one to raise the alarm, there is no one to turn to.' She paused. 'We do what we can here but... They're almost entirely at the mercy of others.'

'No. Dr Van Helsing you have been told before that...'

'A message was sent... I wish only to.' Van Helsing's knuckles turned white as he grasped tightly at the head of his cane.

'You are not permitted to use the council's facilities.' The slim bookish young man at the desk stared emotionlessly before him. 'The council does not agree with your methods, with your motives, you have been told repeatedly that...'

'Nicht mehr!' Pulling his cloak around him and stepping backwards, Van Helsing pointed an accusing finger and raised his voice in a hoarse shout of anger. 'It enough!' He yelled into the ancient stone of the building around him. ' It is enough for evil to triumph, only that good men sit by and do nothing!'

Holmes rinsed the last of the dried blood from his throat and pressed at the smooth new skin with his fingertips. He carefully, if needlessly, applied a clean gauze to the area where the injuries had been and returned to his seat at the fireside. Taking up the notebook at his side he bent forward over a low table and began to sort through the eclectic items before him, his hand hovering for a moment over the clutter before picking out a small scalpel.

'If you prick us do we not bleed?' He murmured to himself as he drew a fine score down his thumb and watched the dark liquid swell up. 'Hmm.' He gave a satisfied nod of his head and made a mark in his book. 'Evidently we do.'

'Enter.'

The young man who had been responsible for the knock took a bashful step inside the heavy warmth of the room. Heated through by the fire which snapped and rumbled in the fireplace, the air lay solid and undisturbed cosseted by the thick carpeting and curtains, and as the cold draught of the hallway blew into the study there was a very real risk of an indoor rainstorm.

'Sir?' The youth peered through fogged up glasses. 'We had another visit from Dr Van Helsing, He was most... He seems to think that there's a new vampire hunting in the city.'

'Another?' The elder Holmes brother's low voice rumbled drowsily from the unseen depths of some armchair. 'The Compte De Longueville has been sighted again I know, presumably it is our old friend Albin to whom he refers?'

'No Sir.' Wyndham took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the mist from his spectacles. 'He claims that it, that is, that he was unable... It was unknown to him.' Wyndham replaced his glasses and blinked theatrically. 'He wished to research in the library but...'

'You didn't let him of course.'

'Yes Sir, that is, no Sir, as per the given instructions.'

'Good, good.' There was a creak as Mycroft shifted within his seat. 'Keep an eye on him though would you. It is as well to know his movements just that little bit better than he himself. After all.' He chuckled softly. 'It would not do to have total anarchy.'

'No Sir.' Wyndham stood stiff backed at the doorway.

'Was that all?'

'Yes... Well, sir, we, that is, Travers...' Stumbled Wyndham.

'Out with it man.' Countered Mycroft wearily. 'Before we all freeze.'

'The Earlings sir, they're becoming restless.' He cleared his throat. 'What with the recent weather and some of them are so very homesick and...'

'To the point man, to the point.'

Wyndham blushed. 'Travers and I wondered whether we might take them to the theatre Sir. Miss Pryce has offered to chaperone and there's a production of...'

'Wyndham, are you seriously suggesting that I allow you to take an entire battalion of potential slayers to the theatre?'

'Sir.'

There was a pause, and a lengthy sigh from within the depths of the chair. 'Have them back before nine. Matron worries if they lose sleep.'

'Aaaaahoooooffffffghfufff.' I blushed as I felt the woman glaring at me in irritation, and fumbled for my handkerchief. 'It was just...' I prickled at her air of smug superiority. 'It *is* unhealthy to suppress a sneeze you know.'

She raised an eyebrow in infuriating silence before consenting to continue.

'So, what is it brought you back to this gilded midden anyway?' Albin lolled back in his chair, elevating his boots to the table-top beside Spike as the skinny youth attending him began to scrape a thick layer of shaving foam from his exposed neck and chin. 'Don't mind Alfie, will you, William. He may be painfully vital but he has the morals of an alley cat, don't you my dear?'

'I prefer to think of me'self as an entrepreneur, Guv.' Alfie grinned wickedly to himself as he ran the heavy Turkish blade along the vampire's profile. 'Filling a niche in the market, like.'

'Tsk.' Albin raised an eyebrow carefully as the blade passed a final delicate circuit along his jaw. ' Guv He says, guv. Such inelegance!' He purred to himself like a contented Persian. 'I daresay I could smooth out a few of those ghastly little mannerisms...'

'With respect guv, I'd have a sharp stick through your waistcoat before you could say 'knife'.'

Alfie wiped his blade carefully on a towel and replaced it carefully in his somewhat dilapidated bag. 'I got this barra' down the market see, for when business with your class a gentlemen is going a bit slow, And I'd hate to lose me morning trade.' He took a tin of tea and a brown paper packet of sugar from his bag and placed them on the table in front of him, to Albin's appreciative murmurs. 'Speakin' of morning trade, which of you lot was it did in Vi Strensall the other night?' Alfie rummaged in his bag for the rest of Albin's groceries. 'Only out of curiosity like, on account of it didn't seem like your style, guv.' Albin grinned wolfishly. 'And she's more what you might call a veal girl i'n't she?' Alfie nodded towards Drusilla as she slumbered peacefully on the floor. 'Likes the kiddies as I remember.'

'Vi?' Spike frowned. 'Ginger? About...' He held his hand out at shoulder height, 'So high? Runs a whelk stall?'

Alfie shook his head. 'Nah,' he paused. 'It was you who got old Bet then?'

Spike shrugged without shame. 'We got peckish. Couldn't...' He ignored Albin's knowing smile. 'Couldn't tell you who got your friend.'

'Ah.' Chuckled Albin under his breath. 'The modesty of youth.'

Holmes stared at his palm as it smoked gently beneath the tiny wooden cross. A rapidly healing blister along his middle finger testified to his earlier experiments with a small phial of holy water and a garlic bulb, pungent, but otherwise it seemed ineffectual, lay smouldering in the fire.

Carefully he picked up his handkerchief and wrapping it around the emblem removed it from his skin. A circle of scorched and reddened skin spread out from around the central crosshairs left by the crucifix.

'Fascinating.' Holmes muttered to himself, stretching and prodding at the wound as he walked to the bathroom. 'Absolutely...' He stared up at the tiny, shaded window above the washing basin. 'Fascinating...' Hypnotised by curiosity, he took his unharmed right hand and slid it, carefully beneath the blinds...

'Dr Giles? If you have a moment, I'm afraid you're needed at the...' Sister Peters paused momentarily at the sight of Dr Watson, before turning back to her superior. 'It's Millie Porter again, I'm afraid. Rather urgent.'

'Oh dear.' Dr Giles stood briskly and shook Watson by the hand. 'I shall have to bid you goodbye, Dr. I'm sure Peters here will fetch you a cup of tea whilst she discusses our volunteer programme, Peters?'

'So, Dr.' Peters took out a form and began to fill out details. 'May I ask in which field of medicine it is that you specialise?'

'You still haven't told me, William.' Albin brushed his fingers through the dozing Drusilla's hair in a distracted way and watched Spike pace the length of the floor. 'Why on earth did you come back here? It can't have been for the good of your health.' He shot a glance around their crude and unwelcoming dwelling. 'And it obviously wasn't for the scenery. Do you know Miss Drusilla,' Albin spoke gently to the young woman curled, child like, at his lap. 'Do you know, I rather think your William wishes to keep me in the dark about his intentions. And that would never do now would it?'

'I built my castle upon a rock, but now the sand runs into all...The sandwiches...' Drusilla leant back and put a hand up to Albin's chin. 'Even the egg.'

'Especially the egg.' Albin pressed an affectionate kiss onto Drusilla's forehead and smiled up at her beloved. 'Well William? I think that was a pretty conclusive statement of endorsement, don't you? Come now, Share...Share...'

'It's an absolutely first class operation, Holmes,' Watson took a forkful of potato and began to chew. 'You really ought to see it.'

'I'm sure it's unutterably fascinating.' Holmes sniffed delicately. 'And not at all unsuitable for discussion at the dinner table...Would you mind passing the salt? Thank you.'

'Yes of course Holmes,' Watson chuckled to himself. 'I apologise, I have a tendency to forget that not everyone shares an interest in my craft.' Watson watched as Holmes salted, tasted and resalted his meal several times over. 'Something the matter with your food Holmes?'

'Hmm, a little bland, it seems that...' Holmes viewed his plate distractedly and took a careful sip at his wine, rolling it over his tongue several times before swallowing. 'I believe I may have picked up a slight chill Watson, nothing more.' He pushed his plate to one side and folded his hands. 'Now, do go on. You were telling me of this hospital of Dr Gile's.'

'It really is outstanding Holmes.' Watson skewered a slice of gammon on his fork and gestured emphatically. 'They run a very tight ship - apparently there's some sort of organisation which supplies them with the bulk of their money but they're terribly stretched, so they have a kind of volunteer timetable.'

'Which our own good Dr has of course allowed himself to be immersed in to the hilt.' Holmes smiled to himself. 'You are too soft hearted by half Watson.'

'It's a very good cause Holmes.'

'Indeed, indeed. You must pay no attention to me.' Holmes took another tentative sip at his wine. 'It is an admirable way for you to spend your time.'

'You would appreciate the organisation of it Holmes, if nothing else.'

'Come now Watson.' Holmes leant back in his chair and smiled over his steepled fingers. 'I 'm not a monster you know. I assure you that I find the endeavours of Dr Giles to alleviate the conditions amongst the London poor to be highly commendable, if inevitably Sisyphean in nature.'

'Bathory?' Van Helsing stared into the depths of the fire 'Do you consider yourself to be an upright man?'

Bathory looked up from his books. 'I believe myself no worse than any other man Doctor.'

'We are all inherently sinful Bathory. The human race is marked and pocked with a thousand little sins and weaknesses.' Van Helsing looked up briefly. 'Where is Dalton?'

'He studies Sir. In the next room.' Bathory opened the door with his foot. 'Dalton, the Doctor wishes to speak.' Dalton blinked into the room, an air of desperate helpfulness combined with resigned pessimism in his face, but as this was his customary expression it went, as did by far the larger part of Dalton's activities, unnoticed.

'I require a drink.'

Hesitantly, the short-sighted youth poured a glass from the whiskey decanter on the sideboard and placed it into his tutor's hand. 'Y-Y-Y-you wanted to...That, that is Bathory said that you...'

'Bathory hears commands where there are only questions.' Van Helsing waved away his pupils concerns. 'He is young,' Van Helsing held up his glass to be refreshed. 'And considers every task to be urgent. Sit down Dalton.' He stared blindly into the fire. 'I am failing again Bathory.'

'Doctor! Why only last month in Ypres...'

'Trifles, petty tasks to fill the time.' Van Helsing bolted the last of his drink and poured another. 'You never saw me at my peak Bathory, you were a child.' He stared through the bottom of his glass. 'At my best, I could strike fear into the blackest heart that Satan ever forged. But now?'

His hand stretched to the bottle again. 'But now... An old man, playing at past glories.' He drank deeply from his glass. 'Picking at a wound and cursing his physicians for presenting him with a cure...'

'Dear me Holmes.' Watson waved his arm before him in the fog. 'Impenetrable.'

'Indeed.' Holmes stood with his hands to his eyes and peered into the gloom. 'It's a walk home for us I fear.' He chuckled. 'Without too many wrong turnings I hope.'

Watson smiled. 'To the right?'

'Quite.'

Watson trod, warily, along the pavement. Keeping the tips of his fingers in close contact with the brickwork of the buildings to his right hand side and his eyes on Holmes's often too quickly retreating back. 'I haven't seen it quite this bad since...'

Holmes tried desperately to focus on the sound of Watson's voice behind him as they stepped onwards through the muddied air. His senses shivered as the sounds of the city attacked him from all sides, the distant inaudible scream of a horse impaled upon the shaft of an oncoming cart sent an electric thrill along his skin, the scent of blood on the wind clouded his mind, pushing aside higher thought. As his mind began to harden into the sharp brittle point of the hunter he clung desperately to normality. A monograph on the paving stones of the central London area: An interesting feature about the paving stones used in the area of London known as... His body sang for the hunt, for the pain he could hear in the night around him for the... Much can be told by careful listening to the sound of the cobblestones, not merely the type of stone and the street name, for by listening for the sounds of wear upon the individual stone a sufficiently trained mind may... The liquid feel of the death he could hear, he could smell, he could almost touch, tore at his reasoning... Particularly interesting to the student of applied harmonics are the stones around... Overcome. Holmes welcomed blissful unconsciousness and collapsed to the ground.

'Dear God he's dead.'

Holmes felt a pair of hot hands at his throat as he began to come round. For the second time that week he began to focus all the strength of his will into the action of his muscles, into producing a movement where movement was no longer needed, to force a tide through canals lapsed into dry inactivity, a heartbeat. 'This is becoming an unfortunate habit of yours Watson.'

He blinked up at his companion. 'And one that hardly engenders confidence in your medical ability.'

'Holmes your pulse, it was...' Watson pressed his fingers back to his friend's neck and felt for the sluggish beat in the vein. 'Morphia.' He spat accusingly. 'I can't believe that you would be so...so stupid as to...When? And why? You knew that you were still weak from... You are not invulnerable, Holmes, no matter what you may think!'

'Indeed I am not.' Holmes pushed himself up on his elbows. 'Do calm yourself Watson, people will begin to stare.'

'I will not.' Watson glared as Holmes gradually raised himself to his feet. 'I cannot imagine why you would be so... So... It's just stupidity, yes Holmes, blind stupidity!'

'Calm yourself, please.' A cab drew up to the curb from out of the thinning mists. 'Come now, this night air is doing my constitution no good at all.'

'No, I believe I shall walk.'

'My dear Watson...'

'No, I wish to walk, Goodbye Holmes.'

'As you will Watson.' Holmes stepped up into the cab. 'Baker street if you please.'

'William.' Albin scolded, 'This is becoming very tiresome.'

Spike stopped pacing for a moment and sparked up a cigarette. 'Albin,' He took a long drag and pushed the smoke out through his nose, 'We're on a humanitarian mission, we're going to reunite someone with their long lost grandma.' Drusilla began to giggle.

'You're going to do what?' Albin pouted. 'You toy with me William dear, it's not fair.'

'Oh cheer up Albin you dismal old bugger.' Spike grinned and smacked Albin cheerily on the shoulder. 'You'll find out soon enough. Go, sod off out, get something to eat, have a bit of fun. Have you ever known us leave you out of anything before?'

'Aside from the rapidly disappearing coach and pair?'

'Dr Watson?' Dr Giles tilted her head in astonishment at the approach of the familiar figure. 'Tell me Peters hasn't given you the graveyard shift on your first week.'

'No, no...' Watson smiled nervously. 'I, um, I thought, as you said...' He cleared his throat. 'I couldn't sleep, so I thought to help here for a while.'

Dr Giles ran her hands briskly under the tap. 'We never did discuss Mr Holmes as I remember.' She took a towel from the side. 'I believe I was called away, did you have something you wished particularly to talk about? '

'I, I will admit to being a little worried, yes.' Watson frowned. 'He, Well, I suppose he has always been a little reckless where his health was concerned but...'

'Excuse me for a moment, Doctor.' Dr Giles slid her arms into her overcoat. 'I've just finished up here and I'm afraid if I don't get home to eat soon I shall faint. Would you care to join me?' She picked up her bag. 'Do you know, I may even splash out on a cab fare.'

Holmes watched the movement of the figure in the darkness, creeping from shadow to shadow in the run-down little alleyway, it paused every few yards to try a door, or run it's fingers along a ground floor window. Idly searching for the opportunity to make a few easy shillings from the misery of others. It darted across to the opposite side of the narrow strip of open ground at the imagined sound of a latch turning and continued it's 'work' as before.

Holmes watched, tensed his limbs, and gave in to the hunt.

'Good evening ma'am.' The ageing attendant raised an eyebrow. 'Sir.'

'Goodness, Pearson, I told you not to wait up for me.' Dr Giles handed her coats to the waiting retainer. 'It must be, what? Gone eleven?'

'It is not safe for a respectable lady to be walking the streets alone at night ma'am.' Pearson sniffed. 'I could not have it on my conscience were Madam to be endangered in some way. Cook has prepared a cold collation in the morning room.' He paused for breath and shot Watson a disdainful glance. 'Should I have set a second place?'

'No, that is, um.' Watson shifted nervously. 'No thank you, I, I've already eaten.'

'Go to bed, Pearson. Listen to the advice of your physician.' Dr Giles smiled as the elderly servant left the room stiffly. 'He does fuss so. But he means well.' She turned to Watson, 'It's this way to the morning room, Dr. If you're sure you don't mind my eating whilst we talk.' She pushed down on the door handle and ushered Watson into the dimly lit room. 'I'm sure I can fetch a second setting from the kitchen if you just... Aggie! What on earth are you doing out of bed at this time of night?'

The small child in the centre of the room froze, and held a small stained stuffed animal of uncertain genus up for inspection. 'F'got Bump.'

'Angus Wymond Giles that is no excuse.' Dr Giles swept a hand over her forehead in irritation. 'What was Nanny thinking?'

' 'Pstairs. Gone asleep.' Angus mumbled through a mouthful of thumb. He stared at Watson from the safety of the centre of the room. 'Who?'

'Whom, dear.' Corrected Dr Giles distractedly. 'This is Dr Watson.' The child obliging extended a healthily pink tongue for inspection. 'No dear, he's a friend of mama's.'

'Hello, um, Angus.' Watson held out a hand and plumbed his diminutive store of small talk for use with young children. 'And what do you want to be when you grow up, eh little fellow?'

To Watson's surprise the child stood stiffly and removed his thumb from his mouth as if to recite a well learnt piece of poetry. 'A Giles is primarily a Watc...'

'He wants to be a train driver. Or possibly a fireman.' Dr Giles interjected rapidly. 'Children will have their fancies.' She drew the youngster to her skirts and began to usher him from the room. 'Come now Aggie, let's get you to the nursery.'

Watson smiled knowingly and patted the emboldened toddler on the top of the head. ' I'm told I once stood before my mother and announced my intention to become a nanny.' He tilted his head wistfully as the pair turned from the room. 'My, um, my own seemed so happy.'

Holmes smelt the fear on the stranger's sweat as he backed him into the darkened corner. He stood, his tall frame casting a long shadow before him and watched silently as his prey attempted a show of defiance.

'You don' scare me right!' The stink of him undermined his bravado as he crouched against the brickwork. 'You touch me, I'll get me mates on you, I ain't got to do nothing but shout and they'll hear me.'

Holmes pushed out a powerful arm and flattened his hand against his quarry 's neck. 'Liar.'

'He's sleeping now?' Watson paused, 'Angus?'

'Oh I know, it is rather an unwieldy name for a child. I'm afraid it was his father's idea of a joke.' Dr Giles began to dart around the edges of the tabletop, discarding those items of place setting that she regarded as unnecessary for her meal. 'I feel so sorry for Nanny sometimes, honestly. He won't sit still for a moment, he seems to have a pathological fear of soap, he objects to coming when he's called out of general belief, he really is a terror. I mean to say, he shouldn't even be in here when I'm not home, so how he came to leave Bump...'

Dr Giles pinched wearily at the bridge of her nose. 'I just addressed a stuffed toy by name didn't I?

'And who hasn't, at um, some point...'

'Are you sure you won't eat?' Dr Giles sat at the table and prodded at the central dish with a fork. 'It's, well, it was Mutton. Yes, I can't help but think you may have taken the right path there. A drink then? I don't believe we have anything very...We used to keep whiskey in for Angus's father but...No? Water.' Dr Giles folded her arms. 'You will at least have a glass of water and a biscuit, otherwise I'm afraid I shan't be able to eat a bite in front of you.'

'Well now you mention it I am a little thirsty.' Watson smiled indulgently. 'And I will concede that those garibaldis do look tempting.'

'Good, good...' Dr Giles began to slice her meat into manageable squares. 'Now, tell me about your friend...'

'William dear, there's a desperately crude little man selling chestnuts on the corner...' Albin took a sip from his bottle and called out to his companions. 'Dreadfully uncouth, has taken to addressing me in the most vulgar terms, treated me as if I was some sort of peasant...' He sighed to himself. 'I rather thought we might keep him.'

'Albin. Company.' Spike gestured to the large uncomfortably cloaked figure in the centre of the room. 'Sit down, don't touch.'

'Shhhhhh.' Drusilla pressed a finger to her lips and ushered the older vampire to sit down next to her. ' Like lit'le mice. Not a peep. '

'Of course Drusilla.' Albin playfully echoed her signal to hush. 'As the grave, my child...'

'Do you two want to stop arsing about or what?' Spike yelled irritably to his affiliates. 'Some of us have work to do.' He turned to the visitor. 'Come on come on, we 'aven't got all night.'

'The, uh, the master sends, like, his apologies that he couldn't come here 'imself.' Parroted the hired youth, stooped in his ill-fitting cloak. 'He, uh, was unaccountably called away on other business.'

'So he sent you?' Spike growled in disbelief.

'To tell you that he'd 'ave to come round tomorrow like, yeah?' The messenger shifted nervously and cleared his throat. 'Right? Tomorrow? Look I'm only saying what I was told to mate. I don't know nothing about any of this, no need to get the arsehole with me.'

Spike scowled darkly. 'You'd better have bloody deep pockets somewhere in that robe.'

'The, uh, master said that,' A pitiful expression began to cross the face of the makeshift go-between, the look of a man who has deep doubts about the wisdom of the words he is about to say, but lacks the imagination to think of new ones. 'The, uh, master said that you would know your reward.'

'A present!' Drusilla clapped her hands in glee. 'He sent us a present!'

'What? I...' The messengers eyes bulged in fear as Spike's face became a misshapen mass of teeth and muscle.

'Don't relax.' Spike grinned. 'Cos frankly, this is going to be fuckin' agonising.'

Van Helsing woke with a whimper. He cracked his stiffened joints and stared, blankly, at the dead ashes of the previous evening's fire. 'I have heard the check of my reproach,' He murmured softly into the darkness, 'and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.' The words rose unbidden to his lips and hung accusingly in the air. Wincing slightly as his head began to swim, he eased himself painfully to his feet and reached for his cloak on the hook beside the door.

'Petersson, Statham, I am...' Van Helsing blinked in the darkness and breathed deeply as he realised he was calling to pupils long dead. He corrected himself. 'Bathory, Dalton.' Van Helsing paused as he took in the emptiness of the rooms. 'I... It doesn't matter...' He pulled on his cloak and slipped out the door. 'I must walk.'

'He must be exhausted, mentally and physically after such an experience.' Dr Giles took a sip of tea. 'You say he collapsed in the street?'

'Yes, yes, I became rather angry with him I'm afraid.' Watson pressed a fragment of biscuit between his thumb and finger. 'I just... He sometimes seems to have very little concern for his own personal health.'

'You mentioned morphia, yes?' Dr Giles frowned politely. 'Would you say it was habitual?'

'No, I mean, he's certainly not... Usually when he has a case to occupy his mind he...But.' Watson paused. 'I had hoped that he would continue investigating these murders, after a suitable period of recuperation.'

Dr Giles nodded. 'A suitable period yes.' She smiled. 'Although, as I remember he isn't the ideal patient.'

'I believe, Dr Giles, that were my usual patients even half as contrary as Holmes I would have given up on the profession long ago.' Watson sighed. 'He disobeys even the most basic orders, on sheer principle it seems to me sometimes, he self medicates, he will not listen to the advice of his friends, he...'

Dr Giles raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly. 'He sounds an absolute terror, Dr Watson.'

Watson laughed despite himself. 'Indeed, indeed, Dr Giles.'

'Well make the most of it, they're adorable at that age.' Dr Giles smiled softly. 'Tea?' She poured and paused thoughtfully. 'You were injured yourself, in the skirmish?'

'Pardon?'

'I hope it wasn't too presumptuous of me to mention it, Dr, it's just I noticed you, well that is, that you were limping a little.' She smiled apologetically. 'Doctor's eyes I'm afraid.'

'An old injury, madam, the current weather aggravates it a little.'

'I do beg your pardon Dr.' Dr Giles paused momentarily. 'I wonder have you tried this absolutely fantastic new supplement that I sometimes prescribe for the ladies at St Lucy's?'

'Dr. Warren's?' Watson's face lit with recognition. 'Do you know I've heard such good things about that...'

Van Helsing hunched his shoulders and curled a hand around the not quite meeting hems of his cloak, pulling them together against the cold night air. The silence of the streets was soothing, in a way, cocooned by the darkness which crowded around him he let the sound of his cane on the pavement fill his thoughts and stared down at his feet as he walked onwards without purpose. The cool air soothed his head, but as he lifted the back of his hand to his cheek he winced again. He stood and stared at the scarring on his wrist, remembering the night he had received it. There had been a Watcher there too, he remembered, and a stupid, stupid girl. Refusing to run, when running was the only choice left to them. Van Helsing sighed, and walked on.

Holmes snapped upright and listened to vibrations in the air. He craned his neck wildly in an effort to locate it's source, but the sound had stopped and silence was the ruling quarter once again. Cautiously he returned to the mound slumped at his feet and like a wild dog, stooped to it and lost himself to the feed.

He barely had time to roll as the blow caught him across the back of the neck. Another hunk of mud and gravel followed the first and exploded on the paving stones beside him.

'FIEND!'

Holmes cowered, even at the distance from which Van Helsing held the cross before him the feeling behind it burned. 'Abhorrence unto the nature of creation,' Van Helsing's words carried over the night air, a monotone regurgitation of tracts whose form he had learnt in dry classrooms but whose meaning he had learnt in the fire of combat. 'For there shall be no reward to evil.'

Holmes found his feet and turned to face his attacker, Van Helsing advanced down the road at him, the maniacal gleam of the warrior in his eyes, his breath coming in rapid, shallow, gulps as he unscrewed the heavy tip of his cane to reveal a vicious point. 'The candle of the wicked shall be put out.'

A maelstrom of conflicting thoughts worked through Holmes mind as Van Helsing broke into a run towards him. He saw the thin wrists, the twisted blue veined hands gripping the wood and felt the strength running through his own limbs. An urge to pounce filled him, to finish this foolish little man where he stood in the street. He flung himself to the ground as his assailant reached him, springing up suddenly and using his height to spin the crazed vampire hunter to one side. In the moment it took to avoid Van Helsing's first unfocussed jabs, Holmes regained his self-possession. Kicking out at the corpse which lay already between them he thrust it into his rivals path with his feet, and as Van Helsing became entangled in his gory obstacle, Holmes turned and, with the speed born of one without fear of breathlessness or exhaustion, began to run.

'Good g-g-grief, do you know w-w-w-w-w-what time it-t-t-t is?' Dalton pushed his glasses onto his nose and recognised the caller as he pushed past into the hall. 'Sir? Are you quite alright?'

'The library...' Van Helsing brushed aside his student and raced to the opposite doorway. 'Dalton, wake Bathory...' He leant heavily against the doorframe and caught his breath. 'Join me in there quickly, both of you. I will need your assistance.'

Dalton stared at his master. The nervous energy that now animated his face was something he hadn't seen for a long while. 'Sir I...'

'I have seen it, Dalton!' Van Helsing gripped his pupil firmly by the shoulders, the fierce elation radiating from his face. 'It... It ran from me. But He hath filled me with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.' He let Dalton free, tapping him on the cheek dissmissively as he lowered his arms. 'Now fetch Bathory, we have a long nights work ahead of us.'

'Sir, is this...'

'No.' Van Helsing pushed aside yet another book, held open at a woodcut of a portrait of some centuries old terror of the night. 'It is not him.' He rubbed at his eyes in frustration as the dawn light began to filter through the thick curtains. 'Again, it is not him.' A hand raised in anger and frustration barrelled down onto the desk. 'It is not him .'

Van Helsing rose to his feet and snatched a previously cast aside book from his desk, throwing it to the floor in a rage. 'None of them,' he worked his way furiously along the shelves dragging down volumes replaced earlier in the evening, 'none of them are him.'

'I'm sure that if we...'

'Sure, Bathory?' Van Helsing glared at his disciple. 'We need worry no longer Dalton! Bathory is sure.' He grabbed at an abandoned manuscript and thrust it at Bathory. 'He is in here? Or here?' He plucked a bundle of assorted papers from his desk and waved them in front of his face. 'Perhaps his likeness is in here, Bathory, and I have merely neglected to...'

'Doctor?' Bathory stared at his mentor in anxiety as he let the papers fall from his hands and dropped, suddenly, to his knees. 'Dalton, fetch a Physician the Doctor is...'

'It is him...' Croaked Van Helsing. 'Bathory, what is...' He smoothed the crumpled illustration on the desk in front of him and pulled at his associate's lapels. 'Bathory, what is it, what name?'

'Doctor, it, it c-c-can't...' Dalton bit nervously on his thumbnail. 'It is, The Strand.'

'Oh Bathory. Oh, it's just too, too...It's just... Oh Bathory.' Dalton ran a handkerchief once more over the lenses of his spectacles. 'I...Oh Mr Bathory.'

'Do give me that rag Dalton, you'll wear those things out.' Bathory held out his hand and plucked the handkerchief from his companion's grasp. 'Does he sleep now?'

'Oh, Mr Bathory.' Dalton nodded. 'He...I mean, the Doctor has never... He sleeps, w-w-we,' Dalton dug his front teeth into the tip of his thumb and blinked glassily, 'We are to make ready for the hunt.'

'Ha!' Bathory flung the rumpled square of cotton into the air and laughed scornfully. 'So we battle the unholy denizens of Baker street do we? We're moving upward in the social scale Dalton - such celebrities! But, what new cauldron of malfeasance are we to enter after this? Can it be long before we are called to do battle at, ' Bathory placed an earnest hand to his mouth, 'Balmoral?' He threw his head back in mocking laughter.

'You-you-you mustn't... Stop, stop it now.' Dalton rose to his feet. 'No m-m-m-man is above the-the... All-all may become... The Doctor is...'

'Oh the doctor is a righteous man, Dalton, a just man, an upright man, a godly man.' Bathory crowed. 'And mad as a broom.'

'Enter.'

'A visitor, Mr Holmes.' Wyndham lingered edgily in the doorway. 'Are you at home?'

'To whom, Wyndham?' Mycroft sighed wearily and added more coal to the fireplace. 'Not a colleague from overseas, you would have written it in that little book you keep. My brother perhaps? No? Then who? Who is this intriguing new visitor who disrupts my studies?'

'Dr Giles.' Wyndham frowned and made a private resolve to always keep his journal about his person. 'Sir.'

'Oh, what is it now?' Mycroft sat back into his armchair with a sigh. 'Another batch of girls that she's prepared to swear blind have met all the criteria for a potential slayer, only to have them present us with twins in six months time?'

'I believe I apologised for that.' Dr Giles stood at the door. 'And they are seers.'

'And very useful to us they've been to madam. But if you try and claim that it was a deliberate act on your part I'll have you thrown out.' Mycroft turned to the window, grumbling to himself. 'One colleague who appears to think that we run a kind of inferior finishing school and another who takes it to be a home for nursing mothers.'

'Good morning Mr Holmes, a smile on your lips and a song in your heart as ever I see.'

'And I see you have lost none of your crippling timidity in the face of authority, ' Mycroft lifted his gaze towards the doorway. 'Was there a specific reason for your visit, Giles? Or did you merely wish to prove the ineffectiveness of my daily apple?'

'I came to ask you to grant a request - Sir.' Dr Giles shifted uncomfortable with her own display of humility. 'From the Council.'

'Not more funding surely?' Mycroft raised an eyebrow. 'Your philanthropic tendencies are most commendable, Giles, but we must at least keep up the appearance of poverty - after all your clientele are not...'

'Not for more funding.' Dr Giles scratched nervously at the back of her hand. 'There is someone who I believe should be informed of our -'

'No.'

'Your brother's friend, sir.'

'No.'

'I believe that in the circumstances it is important that he be alerted to the dangers,' continued Dr Giles, 'I believe him to be trustworthy and the recent events have placed him in a...'

'You are aware of the rules, Giles, There is no one in the world trustworthy enough.

We stand alone, we remain alone.' Mycroft lifted the poker at his side and gently shifted the coals so that they no longer threatened to suffocate the fire when they fell. 'If we are very lucky, we die alone.'

There was a moments silence, before Dr Giles flushed in angry realisation. 'You didn't tell him. Your own brother! He might have been... Anything might have happened!'

'I alerted him of the necessity to call upon you should anything unusual occur. I trusted in his own ability to judge what was sufficiently unusual.' Mycroft took up a sheaf of papers from the table in front of him and began to leaf idly through them. 'Mine is not an old family Dr Giles, unlike your own, I believe that young - Angus is it? - young Angus, will be the thirtieth generation Giles to fight, and yourself, your family...you were the thirty... third?'

'Thirty-fifth. The thread may be traced back to Cunning Millnes of what is now known as Battle, who claimed that his Slayer was discovered as a foundling amongst his chickens, currents studies however suggest that,' Dr Giles cut short her automatic lecture upon the entangled topiary of her family tree, 'Records are however a little patchy until around 1270.'

'Indeed.' Mycroft took his watch from his pocket and glanced briefly at it. 'Holmes is not a Watcher name, Giles, and perhaps, as the first to be asked to serve, I am still a little in awe of our society. I can't but feel, however, that the multitude who went before me created, and followed, the rules for a reason. Not that they may be broken because a new acquaintance is believed to be trustworthy.'

Dr. Giles bowed her head and turned to leave. 'Sir.' She paused before reaching the door, still flushed from her earlier display of emotion. 'With the greatest respect, I do believe you to be mistaken.' With her fists curled tightly at her sides in frustration she turned to leave. 'How does your husband enjoy Cairo, Mrs Giles?'

'He...I...'

'Allowances are made, Mrs Giles. A Watcher is granted certain, freedoms...'Mycroft spoke in a level voice, the absence of threat a threat in itself. 'Please do not give me cause to regret this.'

'Wyndham, Just the man! Setenius the mighty, 11AD, which demon was it that he was bound to for his power again?'

Wyndham started at the unexpected voice in his ear, nearly dropping the manuscript he held to his chest like a newborn and frowned in recognition at the grinning young gentleman. 'Oh,' He politely twitched the corners of his mouth in an upward motion, 'Hello Travers.'

'Gods Wyndham! Try and control your emotions you extravagant fool. People will talk.'

Wyndham smiled wanly at his friend's good natured babble as he fell into step beside him. 'Um, did you get the...'

'Have no fear Wyndham, my mind has not known rest, my body succour, so filled have I been with the determination to fulfil the errand which you, in your infinite wisdom, chose to...'

'I take this to mean that you arranged the tickets then?'

'Yes.' Travers grinned like a tow headed monkey and reached into his pockets, misshapen with brightly coloured pebbles, confectionery bags and cheap trinkets, for a matchbox. 'Also that I am extremely tired and succour-less. You owe me a good dinner old man.' He lit his cigarette and blew the smoke up towards the high stone ceilings.

Together they passed through the adjoining door which connected the Diogenes club with the surrounding buildings, the discreet and unrelated public faces which together formed the urban hub of modern London Watcher society.

'Come on, I'm down to Faversham with Poll and the brood at the end of the week. Do you knowwhat the cooking is like at Faversham?'

Wyndham, whose thin frame and skimmed milk complexion told a tale of meals habitually overlooked in favour of study, confessed that he did not.

'It's absolutely ghastly,' Travers screwed up his face in disgust, his blonde curls bobbed around his plump cheeks giving him the expression of a moustachioed cherub, 'School dinners without the charm.' Travers shook himself out of contemplation of the horrors before him. 'Right, on to business - ' He rapidly finished his cigarette and ground the stub underneath his heel. 'We are going to order dinner, we are going to order wine, I am going to bore you rigid with tales of the adorable Emmy and you are going to worry about the tickets, which may I say were got with a satisfyingly large party discount. I just hope those Earlings appreciate Madame Rosa's tableau la femme - I'm joking!'

'So.' Holmes sprawled sideways across the wicker chair and lifted a half finished cigarette to his lips. 'The wanderer returns.' His eyelids flickered over Watson's dishevelled form. 'You have been walking in the botanical gardens.'

'Good afternoon Holmes.'

'I daresay it is. I can't claim to have looked.' A pale finger tapped the curl of ash onto the carpet. 'For some hours, if the mud on your boots is anything to go by.' Holmes idly examined a smudge on his fingertip. 'Did you pass an enjoyable night with Mrs Giles?'

'I-I-I...' Watson blustered. 'I...'

'Oh kindly stop bleating Watson, you sound like a budgerigar.' The cigarette was extinguished between Holmes' finger and thumb, and replaced with an unlit one. 'I must say you don't look well on it. Positively drained I'd say.'

'Holmes, I...I never, Holmes!' Watson cast his bag down at his side. 'Please, Holmes, this behaviour is unbecoming of you.'

'Of course, of course...' Holmes lowered his now lit cigarette from his lips and pushed the smoke out through his nostrils. 'I will draw a veil upon the matter Watson if you wish,' his eyes half closed in the gloom, 'God knows, I'm not one to affect a judgement on the behaviour of others.'

The pair sat in an edgy silence before the fire. An unpleasant smile crossed Holmes face and he snorted audibly.

'Holmes?'

'Wordsworth, Watson, Wordsworth.' He drawled. 'But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me - I wonder, Watson, you have more knowledge of certain areas than I.' Holmes' eyelids lowered dangerously. 'Is it the custom nowadays to move onto one's next whore when the last is hardly cold in the ground?'

'Bert, sweetie, there's a spot right in the centre of my back there, would you. Mmmm.' Albin purred in the shadow of the larger vampire. 'You're a blessing darling.'

'Albin.' Spike caught a chestnut in his mouth and raised his eyebrow. 'Is that all you ever think about?'

'I have an itch, William. You do me an injustice - Oh my! Bertie,' Albin fanned himself with his hand, 'Haven't you got big arms...'

'It comes...' Whimpered Drusilla, half-waking from her slumbers, curled around the corpse of the messenger, 'Spiiiiiike' She wailed, and stretched out her arms like a child waking from a nightmare. 'Spii-iike'

'What comes kitten?' Spike crooned, dropping to the floor and smoothing the hair from her face. 'What did you see?'

'Ooh!' Albin pointed over their shoulders to the figure in the doorway behind them 'Was it him?'

'What did you say?'

'My dear Watson, you really are the most dull-witted individual I have ever encountered.' Holmes yawned. 'What was it, that rather pleasing phrase that I managed to use during the Savage case? Ah yes, a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications, something of an overestimation on my part I think, you appear to have failed even in that highly restricted field of endeavour.' He sniffed. 'You are a parasite, Watson. Weak, and limited. You feed upon the intellectual and financial resources of those around you, and, frankly, it becomes tiresome.' He watched with disinterest as Watson rose angrily to his feet. 'Indeed, It's something of a relief that another sickly drab seems to have taken pity on your defective carcass. I may be rid of you for some small while at least.'

'I-I...GET OUT.' Watson grabbed at his companion's shoulders and lifted him bodily from the chair. 'Get out of my sight!'

'With pleasure.' Holmes paused at the door and smiled eerily. 'The nights draw in so early at this time of year...'

'Dalton? Where is Bathory?' Van Helsing half opened the study door to address his student. 'I wished to ask him - well, no matter.'

'He - He isn't...'

'Yes, yes, yes, Dalton. It was merely a trifling matter, It will not suffer for the waiting.' Van Helsing disappeared back into his study, before opening the door again a moment later. 'Dalton?'

'S-Sir?'

'I think perhaps the ladies would like some tea.'

'The time is upon us.' Bathory paused for effect, and rapidly resumed his speech when this was greeted with blank stares. 'I have received word from my sources in the Council that we will soon be given an opportunity beyond our wildest imaginings. My noble ancestor...'

'Oh THAT Bathory. ' Interrupted Albin. 'Ooh, I met her once.'

'Sir,' Bathory smiled indulgently, 'If I had a guinea for every vampire who claimed to have met my...'

'Big woman, mad as a goldfish. Had a bit of a ferrety look about her.'

'Yes, well,' Bathory cleared his throat self-consciously. 'The family portraits do show a certain noble intelligence...'

'Tea?' Van Helsing smiled as he poured. 'Miss Buck, Miss Finch - such a pretty name Miss Finch, like the little bird, charming, would you care for a sugar biscuit? They call them cookies in the Americas I believe, and scones are biscuits, I'm thinking it must make teatime rather like one of Mr Carroll's books, yes?'

'Mhf...'

'Swallow before speaking Ruby.'

'Oh my, another little bird, we shall have to be watchful with the seedcake, yes? Excuse my little jokes, my dears, I am an old man and I am afraid that I am given to using my age to permit me liberties.'

'Ere!'

'No, no, you misunderstand me, dear me, no.' Van Helsing took a sip of tea and sat back, smiling benevolently over his glasses, 'Miss Buck, you must not think for a moment that it is anything improper that I have in mind.'

'Very glad to hear it too.' Rose sipped primly. 'So then, begging your pardon of course sir, but what h'exactly is your intentions?'

'My ancestor,' Bathory closed his eyes in quite ecstasy, 'The shining, sharp culmination of countless centuries of breeding...'

'With a four year reign of terror?' Murmured Albin dissmissively under his breath, 'really my dear...'

'Cut short! Felled in her prime by those little - But, oh they, even they could not extinguish her totally.' He took a twisted pewter tube from within his coat pockets. 'Before her second death, whilst - no, no, before her first death, for surely the previous event was only the inevitable fulfilment of her natural potential - She made certain, arrangements.' He rolled the metal between the palms of his hands. 'You will have heard, no doubt, of the 'Bain Elizabette'. The most famous of her deeds, vitality secured by bathing in the blood of two dozen virgins...'

Albin looked up from the cat's cradle of twine he had spun around his fingers. 'I can believe it'

'You do? That is,' Bathory paused, a proud glow rising in his face. 'But of course you do.'

'I mean,' Albin twisted another loop around his wrist, 'as soon as you've finished draining virgin number four, number one will have begun to clot and so on. Rather a lot of trouble to go to if you ask me...'

'As you are of course, fully aware Miss Buck, Miss Finch and yourself are currently in the employ of the Bellamy household, under the butler, a Mr A. Hudson, yes?'

The two women nodded attentively, although Van Helsing noted that the younger of the pair also snaked her hand towards the tea tray in search of further confectionery.

'Now, my dear young misses, yes Miss Finch, please do continue to eat of those, perhaps if yourself and Miss Buck would care to take some home, yes? Where was I? I will forget my head next, I think. Ah yes, I have secured permission, that you will take temporary positions at another household, that of his sister-in-law, but this you knew, yes? Indeed, I thought so.' He leant forward and poured another cup. 'But you wonder, yes, why it is I am so eager to use the Bellamys' staff when there are so many others out there? Of course you do, you are not silly little misses, well, it is not anything you must worry about, I have taken an opportunity to... You must know that it is no normal household to which you will be going. You have heard of Mr Sherlock Holmes the detective, yes? It is fortunate indeed that the two Hudsons chose to live in such close proximity, ' Van Helsing laughed casually, 'But then, it is well known how we immigrants cluster, yes?'

Ruby looked up open mouthed from her teacup. 'Are you Scottish too then Mr Helsing?'

'Who is it?' Watson lifted his head from his arm. 'Who's there?'

'Dr... Dr, It's me I...'

'Go away.' He pushed the dying coals of the fire in hope of regenerating it a little. 'You're not wanted here.'

'Is Mr Holmes there? I wanted to speak to him, perhaps he would...' Dr Giles paused as Watson opened the door slightly. 'I thought perhaps...'

'He's not in, madam.' Watson snapped. 'As Mrs Hudson will have told you at the front door.'

'I wanted to...' Dr Giles struggled to assert herself as Watson attempted to shut the door. 'I came to apologise for - OH...' She fell to the floor, grasping at the door handle in an attempt to steady herself. 'Oh, dash it all,' she choked, 'go away yourself...'

'I... Is there...' Watson bent over the slumped form, concerned despite himself. 'Are you alright?'

'No,' barked Dr Giles wiping her eye with back of her hand. 'I think you've broken my blasted foot!'

'You understand me, yes?' Van Helsing smiled amiably at his new employees. 'You will do your duties as usual, only, you will be keeping a little eye out for me, yes?'

Rose and Ruby nodded silently.

'I will be asking that you do nothing more than that, I want nothing taken, no interfering, you are simply to observe, to be for me my eyes, you are able to do this for me?' He nodded in satisfaction at their ready agreement. 'You will be watching, yes, simply watching...'

'Watchers?' Albin blinked, 'But my dear, they're gentlemen. All face first in opium and ball deep in fourteen year old boys.'

'You have been away awhile Albin mate.' Interrupted Spike, noting the sudden reddening of Bathory's complexion and hopeful to prevent death by apoplexy at least long enough to enable them to collect on the deal. 'These are modern times, Albin, physical jerks and self denial.' He illustrated his point with a star jump. 'That's what we're up against.'

'Quite.' Bathory snapped his words out with an icy efficiency, unconsciously tightening and loosening his grip upon the tube containing the late Countess, 'You will all have participated in this kind of spell before I assume?'

'...'Spike opened his mouth to speak.

'No, no of course you haven't, why would you have?' Bathory raised his voice in a shrill yell of frustration. 'You've only been taking my money, exploiting my protection and letting me tie myself in knots covering for that stupid little bitch...' He stopped, mid sentence, at Spike's sudden presence at his throat.

'You can say what you like to Albin,' growled Spike softly into his ear, 'he thrives on it. You can have a go at me, I've let you down a bit, that's fair enough.' A bead of sweat rolled down Bathory's forehead as Spike increased the pressure on his neck slightly. 'But if you EVER talk about Dru like that again,' Spike let his employer fall to the ground, 'I'll kill you. Where you stand, and without warning. Got it?'

'Well, I...' Bathory scrambled to his feet and attempted to brush some dignity back into his rumpled frame. 'I... The Watchers, the Watchers should not pose a problem.' He decided to continue on this businesslike tangent. 'If you do your work properly you can be out of the country within twenty four hours, there will be I am reliably informed, only three Watchers at the scene.' He cleared his throat. 'And whilst they are of course not your primary target, if I have judged you correctly you will find it no great chore preventing them from being able to make any kind of identification whatsoever.'

'Mmm...' Drusilla hugged herself in anticipation. 'I shall have a fishee on a little dishee...'

'When the boat comes in.' Finished Albin happily from the corner. 'So - maintain your stance Bertie dear I may still swoon - you have, if I understand this correctly, a desire to resurrect your formidable ancestor, this, you intend to do, via the expert services of my good friends here,' He raised an eyebrow, 'With the blood of Slayers yet to be?'

Bathory placed his phial upon the table. 'Can I take it then that you will be, shall we say, assisting at the delivery?'

'Why not?' The effete vampire grinned wickedly. 'I always enjoy a night at the theatre...'

'ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.' Drawled Albin, stroking Drusilla's hair fondly as Spike and Bathory bent, discussing the next nights spell, over a square of parchment.

'While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly,' He whispered into Drusilla's ear, 'There came a tapping,' he accompanied his recitation with three playful blows upon her crown, 'Tis some visitor,' He patted Drusilla's nose as she turned her face up to him in childlike amusement, 'tapping at my chamber door.' He breathed low and whimsically conspiratorial in the vampiress's ear, 'only this and nothing more.'

'Dr...I...John...' Dr Giles paused as she was assisted into the cab and turned back to face Watson. 'Do you trust me?'

'I...'

'Do you trust me?' Giles unfastened the clasp of her necklace and pressed it into the palm of Watson's hand. 'Wear this, please.' Watson stared at the crucifix. 'Please.'

'Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought it's ghost upon the floor.'

'Eagerly you wish the morrow.' Interrupted Drusilla giggling.

'Vainly I had sought to borrow, From,' He paused and grinned, ' Your dolls surcease of sorrow, sorrow for?'

'The lost Lenore!' Exclaimed Drusilla with childish laughter.

'For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named?'

'Lenore!' Drusilla giggled snatching her doll back from Albin's teasing grasp.

'Hmm.' Pouted Albin playfully. 'Nameless here for evermore.'

'What the...' Spike stared at his laughing companions and shook his head in disbelief. 'You're both as mad as a fucking hat-stand. Now - ' Spike took Drusilla's hands and lifted her to her feet 'Stop playing silly buggers and come and come get marked with Erzsébet's brand.'

'Patience, William dear, patience.' Albin nonchalantly eased himself to his feet. 'We shall come to receive Betty's mark, with joy on our faces and a song in our hearts.'

Drusilla pulled Spike's arm around her shoulders and leant back into his embrace. 'Like little birds in May...'

'Phw...Phw...Phw...' Ruby paused in her abortive efforts to whistle as she worked and twisted another strip of newspaper for the grate. 'Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching out the door,' She sang quietly, if inaccurately, to herself in the darkness of the pre-dawn living room, 'With them cross old Jesus,' Her song faltered as the fire failed to catch, repeatedly, 'Marching out the door - bugger!'

'Hardly the language of a lady, my dear.' Ruby started and dropped the remaining matches at Holmes' voice. She turned to see her new employer inclined against the main doorframe, lighting a cigarette. 'And you would be?'

'New under house maid, only temp'ry, Sir, Ruby,' Ruby stood staring fixedly at the floor. 'Sir.'

'Indeed? I'm glad hear it,' He drawled breathing smoke out through his nostrils, 'for you make a singularly inefficacious cat burglar.'

'I aten't never taken nowt.' Protested Ruby indignantly. 'I got references and everything.' She added for veracity.

'Oh my, references?' Holmes took a further drag on his cigarette. 'Kindly continue about your work, Ruby, I would not be blamed for any disruption of the housework.'

Ruby, who had heard stories, and for whom suspicion was not tempered by a sense of proportionate risk, returned warily to her task. Presently the fire began to burn in the grate and she turned to leave. Holmes remained in his previous position at the doorway.

'S'cuse me, sir.' She muttered.

'You are excused.' Holmes shifted to the side of the door and allowed her to push past. 'I shall be keeping an eye on you, Ruby.'

'Sir,' The young Watcher peered around the edge of his superior's door, 'Sir you have a visitor, it's...'

'Let her in,' Mycroft sighed. 'If nothing else, it's preferable to a scene. Mrs Giles,' He neglected to stand, 'I assume it would be too much to hope that this is a social call?'

'I want you to place a watch on your brother and his friend.' Dr Giles leant upon her cane. 'Now.'

'I was rather under the impression that I already had.' Mycroft cast fragments of a torn envelope casually into the nearby fireplace. 'Am I to assume that you are requesting to be replaced?'

'A proper watch,' continued Dr Giles, 'An Agramonian, or, a pair of Carreunites. At the least, Mirihimnae, at the very least.'

'You appear to think we have infinite resources at our disposal for you, Mrs Giles. Would you care to have me ship the Slayer herself in from Egypt? It would take a little longer but...'

'Sir, I'm not being unreasonable.'

Mycroft prodded the fire, pushing red-hot ash on top of the remaining unburnt fragments until they themselves ignited. 'You are injured.' He said, finally.

'Sir.'

'In the course of your duties?'

'As a child I was always told that it was impossible for a Watcher to do anything outside the course of their duties.' Replied Dr Giles grimly.

'Of course, I do not have your childhood training, Mrs Giles. It must be a great comfort to you.' Mycroft rose slowly from his armchair. 'I shall have to remember it for the future.'

'I became entangled with a door.' She adjusted her stance to relieve the pressure on her injured foot. 'Sir?'

'I will look into the matter.' Mycroft ushered her towards the door. 'I assure you, Mrs Giles. Notice has been taken.'

'Hu Lun, Hu Lun, please, stay in line! Well I don't care what the dog was doing we'll never get there if you don't.... TATIANA! Now is that ladylike behaviour? It doesn't matter if it wasn't deliberate it was still...Oh please don't pester Lucia so, Nabulungi... well if you truly dislike each other that much go to opposite ends of the line... Hesther! Parvati does not wish you to do that to her hair! No she doesn't! She has repeatedly told you to... Branwyn stop that now! Because I said so, Oh why can't you all try to behave a little more like Ramona... No she isn't Francesca! And I hardly think I'd call that ladylike language would you? Oh, Good evening, Mr Travers,' Miss Pryce smiled wanly from within the throng, 'Such high spirits, today's youth, I'm sure I don't remember being so - Oh please Soraya,' she wailed, 'you have been told!'

'Good evening ma'am.' Pearson assisted Dr Giles with her coats. 'Do I take it, from the early hour of your return, that Ma'am will be taking dinner at the usual time this evening?'

'No, Pearson, rather I shall take it at the same time as the rest of humanity.' Dr Giles paused in the face of Pearson's unbudging convention. 'Yes, Pearson, I shall be taking it at a more usual hour. I'd like to go to the nursery for an hour first and see Master Angus to bed, if cook doesn't mind?'

'I imagine she will view it as something in the way of a raindrop in the ocean, ma'am.' With this, Pearson departed to the kitchen leaving Dr Giles alone in the hall.

'Gosh,' she thought affectionately, 'And after only twenty years of service, impudent pup.'

'Mr Wyndham, Good evening,' Miss Pryce extended her hand, 'Mrs Travers, How delightful, I did not expect to see you in your present...' She blushed. 'That is...'

'I was told, Miss Pryce, in no uncertain words,' Travers grinned, 'That Poll would soon be big as a house and that if had the sheer gall, that was how you put it wasn't it poppet? The sheer gall to come out and leave her at home with Emmy and the triplets, then I would only have myself to blame for the consequences... What?'

'Ooh,' Mrs Travers smacked her husband light-heartedly with her programme, 'Cad!' She turned to Miss Pryce and smiled. 'Don't listen to a word he says Miss Pryce, he's an inveterate liar, a torment to friends and family alike.'

'Oh.' Miss Pryce laughed uncertainly. 'Oh my, indeed, that must be most...Zillah! Please leave that poor man alone and give those back at once!'

Wyndham paled slightly as the young girls swarmed in the foyer. 'Gosh. How vigorous they are, Miss Pryce.' He cleared his throat. 'Shall we begin to take them in?'

'S-s-s-sir.' Dalton stood in the door to Van Helsing's study. 'S-sir.'

'Ah, Dalton,' Van Helsing sealed an envelope with a cheery whistle, 'would you please take this to...'

'No.' Dalton stood, pale, and biting down hard on his bottom lip, but resolute. 'You... Y-You're using them, How- how could you...'

'Dalton?' Van Helsing, looked up from his papers. 'Are you quite alright?'

'Bait!' Snapped Dalton, accusingly at his mentor. 'You have sent those poor girls, a-a-as-as a lure.' He spat. 'A-a-a-a-a...'

'Pull yourself together.' Van Helsing averted his eyes from Dalton's glare. 'You, you're becoming quite hysterical Dalton, where is Bathory? I need him to...'

'The S-s-s-scientist,' Dalton blocked his master's path, reading haltingly aloud from Van Helsing's own notes, ' Is the most d-d-d-d-dangerous of the t-turned. For the logician w-w-will s-s-s-s-s-s-s, w-will s-s-s-s-seek p-p-p-prey not on the grounds of p-p-personal allure but p-p-perceived d-d-d-d-dispensability...' He threw the notes to the ground in frustration. 'W-we're s-s-s-s-s-s,' He struggled, 's-stopping it. Now.'

'Three little maids from school are we, pert as a school girl well may be, filled to the brim with girlish glee...' Trilled Albin giddily as they lounged nonchalantly in the alleyway alongside the theatre. 'Three little ma-ids from school.' He took hold of Drusilla's hands and danced her along the path, 'Everything is a source of fun, Nobody's safe we care for none, Life is a joke that's just...'

'Albin.' Spike put out a hand to interrupt his friend, and pulled Drusilla back to him. 'If we're to end this evening with a baying mob after us,' He flicked a cigarette butt to the ground, 'I'd rather it weren't on account of your singing.'

'You have no appreciation of popular theatre, William.'

'Well, that's not true, is it Dru? We saw The Amazing Marvo every night for a month at the Grande, didn't we?' He stroked the hair gently from her face. 'You remember pet? The pretty doves?'

' 'E was a nasty old man,' Drusilla pouted, 'Shouted at me.'

'Be fair love, you did eat his assistant.' Spike sparked up another cigarette and relaxed against the wall. 'Where's Tiny got himself off to then?'

'Hmm?' Albin blinked distantly and sniffed. 'I believe that Albert saw a little Italian selling ices on the corner.' His face split into a wide grin as the larger vampire appeared, wiping his mouth.

Drusilla, folding herself into Spike's coat, smiled. ' 'E'll ruin 'is appetite...'

'Mama! Story?' Young Angus Giles stood, wrapped in his blankets, and watched his mother negotiate the discarded toys and unidentified sticky patches on the nursery rug.

He bounced, slightly, and enjoyed the unfamiliar springiness and view that his new mattress and bed-frame offered in exchange for the security of his crib. A brief subconscious calculation of the momentum required to fling himself clear across the room was made, and filed in the compartment of his brain marked 'for future experimentation'.

'Mamma,' He bounced forcefully, 'Story.

' 'Dear me,' Dr Giles reached his bedside and looked down at the impatient blond. 'Do calm down, you'll do yourself an injury.' She raised an eyebrow and folded her hands playfully across her chest. 'And which story does the young master demand, as if I need ask?'

'Jeevan Himmat Singh!' He yelled, with the curiously deep and purposeful voice that young children often have before they learn to lisp, whisper, and anthropomorphize their stuffed animals for the benefit of adults.

'Again?' Dr Giles clicked her tongue in resignation. 'Well, are we all settled down? Yes?'

Angus loosened his muscles and allowed gravity to pull him to the horizontal. His mother darted forward and, with the skill of the professional, had him firmly tucked in before he could protest. 'A long time ago,' She began, 'In India there lived a wise old Watcher named Jeevan Himmat Singh, who lived with his Slayer, Paramjit, in a little hut on the edge of the jungle. Paramjit was as beautiful and kind as she was brave and Jeevan Himmat Singh loved her as if she were his own daughter -'

'Ma ma!' Interrupted Angus impatiently, wriggling free from his patchwork bonds.

'My, aren't you growing into a blood-thirsty little horror?' She frowned playfully. 'Is this your subtle way of telling me to get on to the exciting parts?'

'Ramjeet Thakur!!' Yelled Angus, and bounced unbound.

'Virginia, please, how many times do I have to...' Miss Pryce froze as the quartet stepped out from the shadows across the way.

A charge shot through the four Watchers as each in turn recognised the pale, malformed, faces staring at them from across the square, enemy by birth and training, watching. The theatre crowd, chattering, warm and full of life, slid away into the night, oblivious to the threat in the shadows.

'Poll?' Travers felt for his wife's hand and twisted his fingers in hers. 'I'm sorry.'

Dr Giles lowered her voice and sat close to the wide-eyed infant. 'Jeevan Himmat Singh,' She whispered, 'Stood in the darkness of Ramjeet Thakur's doorway and drew upon everything he had ever learnt from the Fakirs in his home village, for he knew that the life of Paramjit depended on his actions. 'Master Ramjeet,' he said, his voice low with the effort, 'if I were not a vampire, would I not have a heart beat?' He held his wrist out to his enemy, 'And a pulse?'' Dr Giles stopped, her hand at her mouth, sick with sudden realisation. 'Oh,' She murmured, 'Oh dear God...Aggie dear, Mummy has to,' Dr Giles leapt to her feet. 'I-I've just remembered something terribly important, terribly, terribly important... ' She dipped, and kissed her son distractedly on the forehead. 'Be a good boy for nurse dear...'

'When the wind blows, the cradle will fall,' crooned Drusilla rocking the mesmerised child in her arms, 'And down will come baby,' She pushed the girl's head towards her shoulder, exposing her throat, 'Cradle and all...'

'Keep still you little...Argh.' Albin heard something snap as the well trained foot of an earling connected with his sternum. 'Really...' He blocked the girl's stabs, precision, but without strength behind them, and grabbed at her shoulder. He twisted her upper body 'I told you,' a knee in the small of her back pinned her in position, 'do keep still.' All was blackness...

'With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,' sang Ruby softly to herself as she twisted the duster around her finger and rubbed around the inside of the brass-work on the wall. 'Peter Dany, Daniel Wheddon, Harry Hawk-'

'And Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.' Holmes exhaled a stream of smoke slowly and watched it rise towards the ceiling. 'Good evening Ruby.'

Spike let the drained body fall to the floor and grabbed at the fist already racing towards his side. He felt the joyous pop as the thin arm dislocated at the shoulder and tugged sharply on the useless limb, pulling her to him like a roped steer. 'Now,' smiling, he drove his fist into her face, 'I bet you wish,' He lifted the near unconscious girl until her throat was level with his teeth, 'that you'd been taught to run...'

'Oh,' Albin ducked beneath the young man's punch and threw his own, winding his opponent, 'Oh for pity's sake,' He looped his fingers beneath the red-faced blonde's chin and pulled his head back. Albin heard the snap as the young Watcher's vertebrae separated. He let the corpse fall to the floor and paused. 'Well,' He held out a nonchalant hand to grab for one of the earlings as she ran past, 'What a waste that was.'

'Ere!' Bert grabbed at the weeping woman's wrist as she flailed wildly, and brought his fist round in a savage blow upon her chest. 'You din't want to do-' Mrs Travers withdrew the stake from his heart and let the dust explode around her. 'I bloody did.' She murmured, collapsing to the floor.

Bathory stared at the glowing circlet of dust around him, illuminating the unlikable dwelling with sudden rising bursts of light. The air swelled with the power flowing into the room and pressed against him like the unfeeling crowds in the streets outside. Another life ended, another burst of power entered him.

Bathory threw back his head, and wept.

'Oh for fu-' Spike pushed aside the short sighted Watcher's ineffectual jabs as a golden haired young earling barrelled into him. 'One at a -' He found his sentence cut off midway as the sparse young girl flung him heavily against the wall.

'Yes!' Grunted Spike through the pain, his eyes growing bright with recognition. 'We have a Slayer!'

'And what is it will you be doing when we arrive, Dalton?' Snapped Van Helsing, pulling the edges of his cloak together against the cold. 'You will be warning them?' He raged from the curb-side as his student attempted to attract the attention of a cab. 'You will be explaining to them? Protecting them?'

'I-I...'

'As you did in Omsk?' There was a moment of brittle, solid, silence as the cab drew up to the curb. Van Helsing shrugged off his pupil's hand as he began to usher him into the cab and stared unblinking into Dalton's eyes. 'Will you pay for the burials this time, too?'

Wyndham landed hard upon the cobbles and pulled himself painfully into the shadow, he screwed up his eyes and squinted blearily at the torn skin on his palms and knees.

'Oh congratulations Lucia dear! So proud, I - Oh my, poor Fatima, I'd quite forgotten, I suppose I shall have to dig out my half mourning... '

Wyndham stared at the creature curled in the shadows beside him. 'Excuse me?'

'Your glasses,' She passed across the scratched and bent spectacles. 'Did you see? Did you see Lucia?' Miss Pryce wrung her hands. 'Oh, poor Fatima, Do you suppose they shall call Professor Giles back from... Oh but of course they shall, without her he has no cause to be...' Her eyes widened at the battle in front of them and paling slightly, she placed a thin hand to her throat. 'Oh. Poor dear Lucia, so soon! We must take care that she is noted Mr Wyndham,' She frowned earnestly, 'She must have her place in the record.'

Wyndham stared at his fellow Watcher in disbelief. 'I hardly think-' He gulped as a small nut brown hand closed over his mouth and grasped his jaw in an iron grip.

'Oh, Zillah! Congratulations dear, you really are most-'

'Scarper!' Hissed the dark haired young Slayer removing her hand from Wyndham's mouth. 'You'd have to be glocky to stay up here right? I wouldn't give a salter for yeh chances if you don't rub sharpish.' She pulled open a drain cover and tossed it aside. 'This way you can maybe yelp at the bunyo' ken.'

Wyndham stared in blank incomprehension at the Slayer as she assisted Miss Pryce into the sewer. 'Um?'

'We're to try and get back to Bellum House and raise the alarm.' Called Pryce from below. 'The poor little dear does still have such a tendency to revert to speaking cant in times of stress I'm afraid, I can hardly understand more than one word in three sometimes, but she's a good soul at heart, oh, dear me, do watch that third step Mr Wyndham it seems to have something slippery on it...'

'Dr Giles you can't...' The young Watcher found himself pushed roughly aside as his colleague forced her way into their superior's office.

'You bloody fool!'

'If you would excuse us please Peters, I'll deal with this.' Mycroft lifted himself from his armchair and turned to face the intruder. 'Dr Giles, kindly calm yourself.'

'How could you? Your own brother!'

Mycroft stared into the fire beside him. 'The lives of friends and family are of no more worth to us than that of strangers, cannot be of more worth. I was taught that not as a child, Giles, but as a grown man.' He turned to his colleague. 'There must be no revenge, Giles, no retribution, no waste of resources to avenge the dead.'

'You knew! You knew he'd studied... And you sent me to play at doctors like a...'

'My brother is not a vampire Giles.'

'But...'

'Either my brother lives, or he is dead. It is possible that there is now a demon inhabiting his corpse. This does not make him any less dead.'

Wyndham blinked and tried not to think about how long they had been wandering blindly around for his eyes to get so used to the almost complete darkness. 'Miss Pryce?'

'Here.' Her voice echoed loudly around the black abandoned tunnels.

'I am afraid that we are hopelessly lost.'

'Oh.' Pryce felt a light thump on her shoulders as the last pin gave way under the strain of activity and a gentle mass of tabby coloured hair began to flap against her back. Her hands fluttered briefly around her scalp in an attempt to convince her hair to stay up by power of will alone before giving up an unequal quarrel with gravity and attending instead to her skirts, which trailed amidst the filth. She picked her way slowly along the tunnel, progressing in hops and skips among the more solid looking patches of what she preferred to think of as earth, which lay beneath the ankle deep fluid.

'It is rather disheartening to think that one is about to end one's days, lost, in a sewer.' Pryce sighed. 'There were one or two ambitions which I had hopes of fulfilling first.'

'You cannot begin to imagine the extent to which I agree madam.' Wyndham collapsed heavily on a worn stone outcrop to the edge of the tunnel. 'I had often considered the manner and date of my death.' He reflected morosely. 'And very few of the situations involved sewers.'

'Oh my.' Pryce held up her hand. 'What was that noise? Do you hear it?' She cocked an ear hopefully. 'A splashing sound, regular, there!' They paused for a moment as the sound echoed around the tunnels, 'Almost like footsteps perhaps?'

'I would imagine it would be the rats.'

Wyndham held out his hand to Pryce as she leapt clear of the liquid and began to scrabble her way to 'dry land'.

'Where's she got to?' Spike ended his whimpering prey with a flick of his wrist and turned his attention instead to the Drusilla shaped gap in his surroundings. 'Dru? Precious?' He kicked out in frustration at the dead weight lying at his feet, rolling the broken heap into the already swollen gutter. 'Sod this for a game of soldiers.' William the Bloody shook the rain from his hair and took off in search of his sweetheart.

'You vicious, petty, little trollop. 'Albin bought the edge of his heel down hard in the small of the prone Watcher's back. 'He had absolute years of wear left in him,' The toe of his boot found her kidneys, 'years! ' He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged the sobbing widow to her feet like a rag doll. 'Come along, dear, come along! Don't you want to stand up straight like a good tin soldier?' He sneered, jerking her upright. 'Aren't you fit for the old model army?'

Albin stared down in shock as the discarded pencil smashed into his chest. 'That waistcoat was brand ne...'

Once more Mrs Travers let herself fall into the dead warmth of the explosion.

'For God's sake hurry!' Dr Giles rolled her cane between the palm of her hands. 'Please, I-I beg, as fast as you can,' she crouched at the edge of her seat, twisting her body against the interior wall of the cab in an attempt to glimpse the streets outside through the curtain of falling water. 'A - a sovereign if you can gain any more speed, please... ' She rubbed, feverishly, at the condensation clouded window with her sleeve and peered out into the night, 'Please, I must - JOHN!'

The horse screamed in panic as the cabby tugged wildly at the reins, hooves sparking against rain soaked cobbles as the creature ground to a halt.

'I- what? What's wrong?' Watson stared at the doctor as she hung from the open cab door, her hands outstretched and her eyes searching desperately around the streets behind him.

'Please, come with me now, I ...Please.' She grabbed at Watson's wrist pulling him into the cab, rapping on the dividing wall with her stick to command the driver onward.

'What happened?' Watson tumbled into the seat beside her. 'Is it the hospital? Should I-'

'You wore it.'

Watson blushed as Giles reached out to touch the crucifix hanging from his neck. 'Yes - I...'

'Do you believe me to be sane, free from mania?' Giles took his hand. 'Do you trust me? You would believe my word?'

'I - Dr Giles.' Watson frowned. 'You must tell me what is the matter.'

'You must think me the most awful wet.' Pryce began to wring the hem of her skirts out ineffectually and swung her legs, schoolgirl fashion, against the ledge. 'Being scared of a few rats when in all probability we shall die down here anyway.'

'Nonsense madam.' Droned Wyndham, staring fixedly into a middle distance. 'I myself have an absolute terror of snakes.' He sighed deeply and turned to his companion. 'I assure you, were anything from a simple slow worm to a boa constrictor to appear before us, I should not be responsible for my actions.'

'Gosh.' Pryce peered nervously between her dangling limbs into the water beneath them. 'It, um, it's not terribly likely though I suppose? Is it?'

'This is lunacy!' Watson drew back against the wall of the cab in disgust. ' You are mad! Or-or lying, or both!' He beat his fist upon the wall to attract attention. 'Driver! Driver, please, back to Baker Street as fast as you can.'

'But you must-' Began Dr Giles.

'No,' He softened his voice, 'Listen to me Dr Giles, Miriam,' he took her hand, maintaining a steady voice and continual eye contact, 'you are delusional, what- what you are saying, it cannot be. It is the product of some sickness, some infection which is affecting your reasoning. At-at the hospital you must encounter many such-'

'It is not a sickness,' Giles stared into his concerned face, pleading for belief, 'It is the truth.'

'I don't want to die, Mr Wyndham.' Pryce stared into the darkness around them. 'I know it's utterly yellow and we spend an absolute age teaching the girls that there's nothing to fear but...' She bit her lip stoically. 'One never considers it from a personal perspective.'

'Nobody wants to die, Miss Pryce, not in a sewer. Even a Watcher makes plans.' He tilted his head to the side. 'I had hoped to see our sister facilities in BudaPest and Tibet one day.'

'I'd booked a walking holiday through the Peak District in May with some of the girls at Bellum.' She dabbed her nose purposelessly with the by now sodden handkerchief that Wyndham had passed to her. 'I bought new boots.' She swallowed sadly. 'It was rather a waste I suppose.'

'I always thought that I'd be able to see the sun rise over the Isis once more before I died.'

'I'd been thinking of getting a little dog.'

'I'd thought I might have a slayer of my own one day.' Wyndham began to work at the brickwork beside him with his thumb. 'There were some theories I had devised about the use of different wood types in stakes I had rather hoped to share.'

Pryce stared out into the dark tunnel. 'I have a niece, of whom I am rather fond.' She paused. 'I'd promised that I 'd take her to see The Nutcracker.'

'You must not worry child.' Holmes placed a hand upon the trembling girl's shoulder, pulling her slowly back towards him. 'Fear of the inevitable is a singularly pointless pursuit.' He ran a long finger along her jaw-line, pushing her head back against the shoulder, stretching her neck to expose almost its entire length. 'Consider the wider view, Ruby, please.' Drawled Holmes, casually pinching out the glow of his cigarette with his free hand and disposing of it into a nearby ashtray, 'There is no-one in the world to whom you are of sufficient importance for me