Wesley's phone rarely rang in the middle of the night. If Angel needed Wes in the wee hours, he tended to appear on the doorstep, often bleeding. Wes's current love life didn't generate dreams, much less midnight calls, although if he could get back to sleep...

He had to answer. He pulled down the duvet and peeked from beneath the pillow. It was 2 AM according to the glowing blue numbers on his alarm clock. The phone was still ringing. Wes supposed it could be a family emergency. He did still have a family. He forced himself to sit up and lift the receiver.

"Took you bloody long enough, ye wanker. What, you couldn't spit the poof out and answer the phone?"

"Spike, do you know what time it is?"

"Almost half past two. Why?"

"Because I'm not a vampire."

"Awwww. Did the nasty vamp spoil ums beauty sleep?"

"What do you want, Spike?"

"I got some books you need to see."

"Books. Can't Giles do it? Or did he tell you to sod off and let him go back to bed?"

"What, Ripper? Not this time. He tends to... get lost in the moment. Besides, this is your patch. It's Arabic, see, and something else."

That was almost too pat. Well, he couldn't be expected to drive to Sunnydale tonight.

"All right, Spike. If Angel can spare me, I'll come up tomorrow evening."

"No need," came the reply. "The books are down there. She'll be there in a bit. Thanks... I mean, go...."

"I know what you mean, Spike. Same to you. Wait a minute. Who is this 'she?'" The only answer was a click and a dial tone. Wes set down the phone and got up to make a cup of tea. Before the kettle sang there was a knock at Wesley's door. A tall brunette in a red suit stood in the door beside one of those aluminum carts for wheeling one's luggage through airports, which was stacked high with leather-bound tomes redolent of must and not a little mold. The girl was classy piece, though. She looked a banker or a solicitor or some such. Where could Spike have met someone this... this... un-Spike-like?

"Mr. Pryce?"

Except that she said "Praw-eece." She sounded like Audrey Hepburn before Rex Harrison got to work on her. Well, Wesley supposed there must be attorneys from the East End, although he expected most of them would lose that accent very early on.

"Yes, are those the books Spike mentioned? Do come in."

"Thank you, if you're sure?"

Wesley could almost hear the mental penny hitting the floor of his mind. Spike wouldn't know a human woman like this, but a vampire? Still, she was likely safe enough, if she were a friend of...

It was far too late at night. He was not about to trust some strange beauty of a vampire just because Angel's peroxide toy boy vouched for her. True, she hadn't made a move at his initial invitation, but...

The kettle whistled, and Wesley jumped.

"Of course I'm sure. May I offer you a cup of tea? Or I do keep a couple of pints of A-neg on ice. My employer is... of your kind."

"Tea would be lovely, thanks. Where do you want these?"

"On the dining table, if you don't mind. Do you take lemon, Miss...?"

"'Awkins. No lemon, just lots of sugar, please."

Lots of sugar. She and Spike did have something in common. Wesley handed her a mug of tea and contemplated the books she'd laid out. There was more than a month's work there, at least. It might be far more, depending on the dialect.

"Do you know anything about these?" he asked.

"I found them in the ruins of a Jesuit house in the south of Brazil."

"You found them yourself? In the jungle in Brazil?"

"There's a sort of hospital there, for my kind, as you said. It used to be every third vamp you met was a doctor. They made house calls then, and if a young lady had a mysterious case of anemia.. well, you see. Nowadays... I'm sorry I'm chattering. I haven't talked to anyone about it since I left."

"Please go on. It's fascinating."

"Nowadays they think we're off our heads, so it's the headshrinkers that get turned. Some of them, and some of the regular doctors, too, set up this hospital in the abbey, and they let me read in the old library while I was there, and I found these."

"In the middle of the jungle? I can't imagine vampires just wandering up. Where do they get their patients?"

"Word of mouth. In the beginning, the vampires were already there. The Jesuits were trying to get us away from temptation."

"Why?"

"To redeem us, the annals say. I do all right with the Latin parts for as long as I can concentrate, but the others are beyond me, and... Mr. Pryce, we just have to find out what's in them."

"Why? What do you think is in them?"

"In the parts I could read, the priests called us their Lost Sheep. They thought we could learn to be good again. Mr. Pryce, I think those books will tell us how."

"And what happened to those priests, those Jesuits?"

"The vampires killed them. Slaughtered them all. They tried to help us, and we killed them."

Wesley handed her a tissue.

"You have a soul," he said.

"The priests didn't think we ever lost it. They were trying to save our souls."

"And the psychiatrists?"

"I'm not sure most of them believed in souls to begin with."

"So which are you? MD or psychiatrist?"

"Psychiatrists are M.D.S. I'm neither one. I have schizophrenia."

"That can't be fun. God, a mad vampire...." Wesley stopped and waited, but she only smiled and waited for him to say it.

"You're Drusilla, aren't you?"

"Did Spike not tell you?"

"Spike told me bugger all. Oh, sorry."

"It's all right. I'm used to it."

She smiled again and Wesley caught himself smiling in turn.

"I take it that's nothing new for Spike."

"He never changes."

"He's a demon."

"No, he's not. He's a confused young man with a hard shell over a very tender heart, and I hope what's in those books will help him find some peace."

"He misses you terribly, you know."

"He's doing all right with his bit of a fledge. Speaking of which, I've one of my own that I need to get back to before dawn."

"Right, then, I'll have a look at these, and... will you call me, or what?"

"If you need me, we're in an abandoned mall north of here. I'll check back now and again, though."

"Do you... would you not like to see Angel?"

"That's probably not a good idea right now."

"Did Spike tell you about Darla?"

"I heard."

"Angel's brooding terribly over her. Perhaps if you were to speak to him...."

"I couldn't have convinced him."

"Convinced him?"

"That the one human on earth who's ever been a vampire has a right to choose how she lives her life."

"Angel doesn't see it that way."

"I know. I really have to go."

"You know you're welcome here, whenever you like."

He clasped her hands, meaning only encouragement.

Drusilla looked up at him and he found himself unable to speak or think or even move. They stood like that until her cold hands began to warm from the touch of his living flesh, and then she seemed to wake, and pulled them away.

"I have to go," she said, and slipped out the door.

"Remarkable," Wesley murmured, "truly remarkable." He could have gone back to bed, but he'd have spent the rest of the night contemplating the girl. Instead he opened the first of the Jesuit annals.

******

"Good morning, Cordelia," Wesley said as he hung his coat in the hotel lobby. Cordelia wasn't smiling. "What's wrong?"

"Dru's back. She turned Darla last night."

Spike wasn't the only one who was telling Wesley bugger all.

"Well, it's what Darla wanted. Perhaps it's for the best."

"How can you say that? She's working for Wolfram and Hart!"

"Drusilla? I wonder why?"

"Because... because she's evil!"

"What's going on in here?"

"Angel!" Cordelia fumbled with her paperwork.

"Good morning, Angel," said Wesley. "I'm sorry about...I'm sorry the thing with Darla didn't work out as you wanted."

"Thanks, Wes." The vampire started across the room toward him. "The important thing right now is to find them. They can't move around too much in daylight, not with one of them a new...." Angel stopped moving, and his nostrils flared. "Wesley?"

"I honestly don't know where they are, Angel. I do know that Drusilla believes what she's done is morally right."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Cordelia.

"Her scent is all over him," Angel said.

"Angel! I only touched her hands!"

"You touched Drusilla's hands," said Cordelia, "and lived?"

"She brought me some books to be translated. They suggest that what we've been told about vampires and souls is not entirely accurate."

"How do you mean?" Angel asked.

"She believes that vampires have the capacity to reject evil. She thinks you don't actually lose your souls."

"She's nuts!" said Cordelia.

"Yes, well, we are all aware of that. She's on medication."

"She believes we never lose our souls? She thinks a creature with a soul did what I did to her, and to Spike, and all the others?"

"There is considerable support in the documentation..."

"That was not me! It was Angelus! We're different people!"

There were tears streaming down Angel's face, and his fists were clenched at his sides. Wesley took an abrupt step back.

"Of course it wasn't you," Cordelia said, stepping between them. "Drusilla's crazy. She has delusions."

"But she's on medication?" Until that moment Wesley had not been aware of Gunn lounging in a doorway. "Where does a vampire get medication?"

"Wolfram and Hart," Wesley said. "It must be. Angel, she doesn't have a choice."

"Neither did I," the vampire said.

"Of course you didn't," said Cordelia. "Come on, you'll feel better after you've had breakfast."

"We have to find Darla," he said as he followed her into the kitchen.

"Well, that didn't go particularly well," said Wesley.

"It went a lot better than it had any right to," said Gunn. "You want my advice, you take your books and your girlfriend and get the hell away from here before he puts a stake in her."

"He wouldn't stake Drusilla. He's her sire."

"Darla was his sire. They say he staked her."

"He's not going to stake Drusilla."

"Right now he's thinking about staking you. Did you know beforehand what she was going to do to Darla?

"No! No, I hadn't even...."

"Okay, you go on out of here for today. Let us talk to Angel."

"I should...."

"You should make damned sure he doesn't find the two of them."

"All right, but I'll have to take the car."

"Be a good thing. He's brooding bad enough now. I don't want to see him after he stakes those two. You go."

Drusilla hadn't told Wesley which mall. It took him three tries, after he loaded the books into the boot of Angel's convertible, to find her sitting on the edge of a dry fountain with Darla cradled in her lap.

"How's he taking it?" Drusilla asked.

"Moping like it's the end of the world, and swearing to find her. How are you, Darla?"

"Better than last time. I know it'll pass."

"Are you in pain?"

"Fear, mostly. I'd forgotten... Drusilla, stay close, please."

"I'm right here, lovey." Drusilla sank back down beside the other woman.

"I'm sorry. I'm being silly."

"Not at all," Wesley said, and hunkered down and stroked Darla's hair. "It's probably hormonal, if you know it passes."

"Be careful," Drusilla said. "Her fangs do work."

"I know better than to bite my own childe's human servant. But, God, he's my Grandsire now. What am I? Who am I?"

"Shh. You're my precious Darla. It's not that she means you harm, Mr. Pryce. When we're frightened, or... well, when we hold someone, we bite as well as clasp."

"That's good to know, I suppose."

Drusilla's head snapped up, and she peered around into the shadows of the darkened mall.

"We have to go," she said. "They're here."

"They who?" he asked, dragging the whimpering Darla to her feet.

"They us." From the shadows came a flock of vampires in power suits.

"Half a dozen," said Wesley, feeling for his pistol as if it might help.

"None of them over a decade old," answered Drusilla. "Stay with her. I can handle this."

"Yeah," said the vamp that had spoken before, "but meanwhile we're handling these." He held up one of the books Wesley had left in the car. In his other hand he had a lighter. "Give us the blond. We've got way too much invested in Angel to let our best weapon walk away."

"She's my childe. She stays with me."

The lighter flicked.

"Come on, Dru! We'll take good care of her. We took care of you, didn't we? Got you pills for the voices, pills for the blues. How many do you have left? How you gonna take care of her when they're gone?"

"She'll have help," said Wesley.

"What can a human do?" sneered the vamp, and touched the lighter to the edge of the spread pages of the book he held."She'll have plenty of help," said Angel from the entrance. From beside him Cordelia opened fire with her yellow Toys R Us water rifle. The hostiles screamed, and Drusilla dove for the books. Wesley turned away, using his body to shield the terrified Darla from the spray of holy water. He heard Gunn's expression of awe, and smelled burning vamp-flesh, and then the survivors fled past them and out of sight.

"They'll be back," Angel said. "We should get out of here."

"I thought you wanted no part of this," said Drusilla.

"I didn't. I still don't like it, but I can't undo it. All I can do is keep you safe."

"How did you know?" she asked.

"When they gave you these pills," said Cordelia, "were there any for the headaches with the visions?"

"Hey, Wes?" said Angel. "Are you okay?"

"We'll be all right in a second," Wesley said. "Darla? Sweetie?" He massaged one of her temples with the ball of his thumb, but she didn't look up.

"Jeezus!" Gunn had come up beside Wesley, and was staring at Darla. Angel was right behind him, and Wesley's knees buckled as he felt the unleashed aura of an alpha vampire envelope him as well as Darla.

"It's all right," Wesley said again. "It's over, sweetie." Darla looked up at him. "That's good," he said. "Are you ready to let go yet?" She made a small sound deep in her throat, and then her fangs slid out of Wesley's bleeding hand and he toppled backward into Angel's arms.

******

"Where am ?" he said, somewhat later.

"In Sunnydale," came an unexpected voice. A book was closed and laid aside, and Rupert Giles settled his angular frame on the side of Wesley's bed. Well, actually it was Giles's own bed, but that was beside the point.

"How did I get here?"

"The vampires brought you from Los Angeles. Actually they brought the books. You were an afterthought."

"How's Darla?" Wesley asked.

"I'm told she was quite distraught over hurting you, although Angel seems to have done most of the damage clamping his aura down on you. He was trying to comfort Darla, of course. At any rate, Harmony and Cordelia took Darla to the mall. I think they all feel much better. Spike is over the moon. Neither he nor Drusilla have been seen since you arrived, although they ring to check on you now and again. Gunn has been patrolling with Buffy, and Angel has been pretending to brood over you and actually worrying about what's in Drusilla's library. I think that about covers it. Oh, and we were served with some papers about the books, but a slippery young attorney with one arm turned up and filed enough motions to buy us until the end of the next millennium."

"You'll want to be careful of Lindsey."

"So I was told. Drusilla..." Giles's expression clouded momentarily, but then he continued. "Drusilla is a first class mind reader. She says he's on the level 'for now,' that he was dismissed by his employers, and that he dotes on Darla. He seems to have no interest in the books, although he'll interpret demon contracts and the records of ecclesiastical courts if we ask him. He's making himself useful. Buffy's sister has a crush on him."

"Brilliant. Rupert, what is in those books? I've only seen the first dozen pages of one of the journals. Is it... is it what Drusilla thinks it is?"

"Perhaps. They're very old. They came upriver from Uruguay or Paraguay into what's now Brazil in colonial times."

"The Jesuits. Drusilla said. How did they get the books?"

"Left behind when the Moors pulled out of Spain. They came from Marrakesh, and before that from the great schools at Timbuktu. Some of them may actually have originated in the Library at Alexandria. They make the rest of my library look recent."

"And Wolfram and Hart want them?"

"No. No, the Watcher's Council have sued."

The bedroom door flew open and Darla danced in.

"Wesley! Dru said you were awake! I didn't hurt you too badly, did I?"

"Oh, it was just a love nip. It was your mindless chi... well, I guess he is your grandsire now. Isn't he?" Wesley turned to Giles. "Is he?"

"Spike keeps referring to 'vampire incest,'" said Giles. "Drusilla keeps hitting him when he does. The last few times, she drew blood."

"Hasn't slowed them down any," said Darla. "I don't think there's two drops of blood left in either of them that haven't been in the other one's body."

Wesley heard the front door open, and then Harmony's voice: "Spike, you have got to talk to her! She wouldn't let me kill a single cashier! We had to pay for everything!"

"Live with it," said Cordelia.

"Not even the security guard!"

Drusilla stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

"We'll just leave you two alone," said Giles.

"Yeah," said Darla. "Cordy's got the magazines we brought you from the mall. I'm glad you're okay."

And then he was alone with Drusilla.

"I'm sorry I got you involved in this," she said.

"Don't talk rubbish. I'd have been involved if the books had dropped from the sky. It's my specialty."

She cradled his bandaged hand in both of hers.

"This isn't," she said.

"What about these?" he said, brushing her hair away from the slashes on her neck.

"It's just..."

"Just how vampires hold someone?" He took her hand in his unbandaged one and squeezed. "One could get used to it, I suppose."

"I didn't know you felt this way.... I mean, I suppose I did, but...."

"You had your childe to think about." He touched her throat again. "Your children. You can't be expected to feel the same."

"But I do. I think I do. You don't know it, but you're really that much alike, you and Spike."

"Troubled young men with hard shells over tender hearts? And you were drawn to me because I'm like him." Wesley turned his face away from her.

"I was... I am drawn to you because you're a good, kind man, and those are just as rare now as in my time."

"Because I'm the sort of chap who knows your children have to come first."

"If that's what's bothering you, you can be one of them in a matter of seconds."

"I...I'm not even sure I want to think about that yet."

"Good. Two at a time would be a pain."

"Drusilla, where does a human fit into this family you're building?" He touched the gashes at her throat. "What am I to you?"

"You're... a translator. You help me take care of Darla. You make a decent cup of tea. What am I to you? What do you want me to be?"

"I want..." Before Wesley could get his thoughts out, the door flew open.

"Oi! You gonna talk all day, or help me get these twits under cover before dawn?"

"Oh, Spikey, we've half the night left!"

"It'll take it to shift what Harmy's bought. You coming, or no?"

"Go ahead," Wesley said. "I want to get an inventory anyway, so I can start the translations. Go take care of your children."

"Harmy's not hers," Spike said after Drusilla had ducked past him.

"I know," said Wesley. "Spike, I can't be what you are to her."

"Too right!"

"I'm not sure I even want to be, but unless you can translate ancient African and Middle Eastern languages, you need me."

"Well, you'd best get on with it, then." Spike's eyes fell on Wesley's bandaged hand. "And don't do that again, all right?"

"Spike, what if it's true? What if you have always had a soul?"

"Have you talked to the Slayer about this?"

"You mean Buffy? No, why?"

"Because if we have souls, every time she's staked a vamp, she's done a murder. You want to lay that on her?"

"That could be why the Council wants the books."

"Those papers they sent... they have titles and descriptions. They know about every book she brought back."

"They knew they were there. They knew, and they left them there in the jungle. Give me my trousers, would you, Spike? I want to know exactly what's in those books."

Wesley was well into the translation of the second book when Willow and Tara blew in.

"Why would they do this?" Willow moaned. "What could it possibly be to them?"

"Who are they, Willow," Giles asked, "and exactly what have they done?"

"Your Watchers! They've shut down my Internet access! They've got a court order, and they're going through all the free storage accounts they can find."

"Well, at least you've still got yours," said Cordelia. "Kate called a while ago. Somebody broke into our offices last night and stole our computers and all our books and everything."

"Wow," said Willow. "It makes you wish Angel had been there."

"They knew he wouldn't be," said Giles.

"What? What's wrong?"

"The Council has come up with a new wrinkle. Since I am no longer in their employ, they are attempting to recover such of their property as is still in my possession."

"I beg your pardon?" said Wesley.

"The originals of all the books we've scanned, the data Willow has placed for safekeeping all over the Internet. They're trying to take it away from us."

"Take them away?" said Willow. "But then how would Buffy manage...."

"She couldn't, of course," said Wes. "They're trying to shut her down. I assume they will drop that attempt...."

"...if we cooperate in the matter of the Jesuit library, yes. If not, they're going to take it all away."

"Didn't Willow burn some CD's?" asked Cordelia.

"The writ specifies that all copies be turned over. They claim that it's proprietary information."

"But why?" said Willow. "What do they care if some priests got eaten by some vampires?"

"Honestly," said Cordelia, "you wouldn't think this would be the only time that ever happened."

"I don't think it's the priests," said Wesley. "The material in these books is quite... disturbing."

"How so?" asked Giles.

"The order of Egyptian mages who wrote the first of them is very old. The originals from which these copies were taken may have been older than anything in the Christian Bible."

"Substance, Wesley, not provenance."

"Drusilla is right, but she doesn't know a smidgen of what's in here, and I haven't looked at more than...."

"Wes," said Cordelia, "condensed version?"

"We know that there was a race on this plane of existence before humanity, before any living thing, the ones we call demons."

"We knew that?" Tara asked.

"Yeah," said Willow, "we kinda did. But then they went away somewhere, and there got to be people, right, Wes?"

"Not exactly. They were encouraged to go away by the people who planted humans here."

Giles frowned. "Someone usurped...."

"Someone attempted to exterminate an entire population of sentient beings and replace them with humans. As best I can tell, it was a strategic move in a war that involved several universes. The demons were not agreeable, of course."

"I wouldn't be either," said Willow.

"Well, the war seems to have gone badly, because the outpost here lost contact with its home. On their own, they had to find a way to deal with the surviving demons, who had regrouped and were trying to retake the earth. These Guardians used the genetic materials of their human charges and that of the demons to make a third race to protect humanity."

"The Slayers," said Giles.

"The vampires," said Wesley. "Think about it. Horribly powerful, immortal, and yet dependent on humans for nourishment and reproduction. They were intended to live within human tribes as their protectors. Remember, this is very early in the development of humankind."

"So what happened?" asked Willow.

"So there were agents of the enemy still on earth. They created the myth that vampires have no souls."

"But they do?" said Tara.

"Of course. They are, or should be, humans who choose to undergo the transformation, choose to become protectors. Some people didn't see it that way, though, and they pulled strings and called in favors, and eventually there were wars between clans with vampires and clans without, and the vamps were driven into hiding. Then the whisperers started in earnest, telling them that humans couldn't be trusted, that we weren't their kind. Soon the vampires were more of a problem for us than the demons."

"And then?" said Giles.

"Then some of the whisperers who had studied with the Guardians made another sort of protector, a line of women with some of the characteristics of vampires: strength, rapid healing, and so forth. They created a trigger, so that they controlled the expression of these traits, and they chose to allow it only in young girls who could be easily controlled."

"They made the Slayers."

"They were the first Watchers."

"I don't understand," Willow said. "Why don't they want the books about their own history?"

"Genetic experimentation on humans to create a hybrid race?" Giles wasn't as angry as Wesley had expected. He seemed rather... tired. "Even at the dawn of time, that would be something of a scandal."

"You said they control the trigger," said Tara. "Does that mean that this business of a new Slayer being called when the old one dies is...?"

"Is a bunch of bollocks. They lied to us, to me and to Faith. They didn't send us in here because Buffy died. It was because Buffy was out of their control. They can call as many as they want, any time they want, from all the available candidates."

"Then why not just do it?" Willow asked. "Why not wipe out the badness and be done with it?"

"We have all been lied to," said Giles. "For thousands of years, Willow. The demons are their reason for existence. Wipe them out, and the excuse for all these secret machinations in the politics and economics of unwitting peoples...."

"They do that?" said Tara.

"They do a great deal," Wesley answered, "in the name of protecting the world from vampires."

"In the name of a lie," said Giles.

"Are you going to tell Buffy?"

"Are you going to tell Faith? Or Angel?"

"We can't just stop fighting," Willow said. "I mean, the vampires don't know it's a lie. The demons still want their home back, and we don't have any place else to go. We have to keep doing it."

"I suppose we must," said Giles.

"We won't be able to, if the Council take away our references."

"You could go public," said Tara. "Put everything out on the Inter... oh, yeah."

"Few enough people believe in vampires in the first place," Giles told her.

"Yeah," said Willow. "I don't think the ‘vampires are our friends' line would go over all that well."

"We're going to have to hand them over, you know," Giles told Wesley. "The alternative is to be exterminated."

"I'll talk to Drusilla."

"You keep translating. I'll talk to... the vampires. I think they should all hear it at once."

"Take Cordelia," Wesley advised. "She might be able to keep Angel from eating you. Perhaps."

"On second thought, why don't we all get together here. Buffy should hear this, after all. And I want to talk to Joyce about it."

"You're going to ask her if there were any other Slayers in the family?" said Willow.

"I'm going to ask her to help us prove this, one way or the other."

******

Giles's living room was not big enough for such a convocation, especially since most of the humans were wary of the vampires and all of the vampires were wary of the Slayer. They formed two clumps that merged in the middle where Wesley sat on one side of Drusilla and Spike on the other. Giles read aloud from the translations, pausing now and again to let the meaning sink in.

Xander seemed the least convinced.

"So how would these monks in the jungle know any better than anybody else?" he said.

"They didn't start out in the jungle," Wesley told him. "And they had very good resources."

"We may be able to prove it," Giles said. "That's why I've asked Joyce to join us tonight."

"You think you can turn me into one of them?" she asked.

"Mom...."

"Hush, Buffy. What is it that you want to do, Giles?"

"When a Slayer is called, her Watcher is told to administer a substance reputed to give her a certain immunity to contact with the undead. This is not widely known, even among Watchers. It wasn't until Wesley and I compared notes that we realized we'd both done it."

"It's done the night before the call," Wesley said. "We asked ourselves why that immunity would not be desirable up until then. We also wondered just how the Watchers knew when the call would come."

"And we asked ourselves why it was only given to the active Slayer," said Giles. "I personally wanted all the immunity I could get, but that's beside the point. We believe that this substance is the trigger that causes a Slayer to come into her powers."

"And exactly what is ‘this substance'?" asked Joyce.

"The blood of a vampire."

"In minute amounts," said Wesley into the ensuing silence. "And we're not sure it will work past adolescence, anyway."

"If it doesn't work, could there be any side effects?"

"We don't think so," said Giles as he knelt in front of Drusilla. "Vampires don't get diseases, and we've all been exposed to enough of the stuff to know it's not poisonous." He slid a needle out of the fabric of his collar. "At least not in such small amounts." His hand shot out, but instead of Dru he jammed it into Spike's wrist.

"Ow!" Spike went game-faced for a moment, then clutched his head, but Giles was already carrying the needle to Joyce.

"Drusilla offered," he said, "but I didn't think it wise to expose you to all the drugs in her system."

"You're not going to expose my mother to anything!" said Buffy. "I've sat here, and I've listened to this, and I feel really bad for the poor little vampires, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let them kill me, and I'm certainly not going to let... Mom!"

Joyce had driven her palm onto the upturned needle in Giles's hand.

"When will we know?" she asked.

"How long does it usually take such an injury to heal?" Giles asked her.

"A day or...." She turned her hand over and looked down at it, and then lifted it to let everyone see. There was no mark at all.

******

"Will you go to Los Angeles?" Wesley asked Angel.

"Someone has to tell Faith, and I need to continue with the translations."

"I don't believe it, Wesley. A conspiracy older than any human culture on the planet? Mulder and Scully wouldn't believe this! Besides, do you really want to tell Faith the Watchers lied to you both?"

"If you don't go, I'll send Spike."

"You'll... since when...?" Angel sputtered for a moment before settling into a glower. "All right, I will go and tell Faith her entire life was a lie. Now are you happy?"

"I'll be happier when Lindsey has compiled the affidavit and initiated the countersuit. What those perverts were doing to teenage girls should undermine their credibility with any court on earth, and if Giles and I can find a shred of evidence that his library contains information that would help us understand the phenomenon of the Slayer, they can jolly well keep their collective hands off the books, as well."

"Are you coming back, Wes? Eventually?"

"Angel, I haven't left. I would like to remain your friend, and your employee, if that's all right with you."

"What are you going to do if it turns out the books are fake?"

"Now who's been watching too much X-Files? It's unlikely. We could get them dated, of course, but we don't really want to let them out of our hands."

"It's not so, you know. I know what it feels like to have a soul, and what it feels like without one, and you're a different person, Wes. I am not Angelus. I'm not. Did Dru tell you what he did to her? Did she?"

"She told me that she loves you," Wesley said. "She did not do this to hurt you, Angel."

"She never does."

"Go to her, Angel. Go and talk with her. She is as distressed about losing you as you are over Darla."

"Spike still has those pokers."

"Angel."

"Who works for who, here?"

"She loves you."

"Is that what this is all about? Get me to talk to Drusilla, so she'll stop pouting?"

"She comes by it honestly."

"I do not pout."

"Angel, I love you both. Perhaps it's silly, but I'd like to see you reconciled. I'd like to see you on speaking terms with all of them."

"I can't, Wes. No, don't start again. I can't look at her right now, maybe not ever. I'll see you when you get back to L.A."

******

Wesley was so absorbed with the treatise he was translating that he didn't know she was there until he felt her cool fingers on the back of his neck.

"Darla?"

"Dru's crying."

"Make her take her meds. It's important. Are you all right?" Wes took a deep breath and offered her his unbitten hand. She smiled, kissed it and gave it back.

"I'm feeling a lot better, thanks. It's Dru. Angel was there... Spike took us hunting, and while we were gone, Angel...."

"Hunting?"

"Yeah, we caught a coyote. What about it?"

"Coyote. Darla, you've known Angel and Drusilla a long time. Were they always like this?"

"When he was Angelus, he liked making her cry. He was like a sick child picking the wings off flies, and I...."

"It disturbs you, that you didn't intervene?"

"And I don't know why."

"It's actually the icing on the cake. You still have your soul."

"So why didn't I feel this way before?"

"Conditioning is a very powerful thing. You lived through the middle of the last century, Darla. You know what people can be convinced to do."

"Come talk to Dru, will you?"

Wesley found her sitting on top of a mausoleum, staring up at the moon.

"Does he have anything interesting to say?" he asked.

"I can't hear him, with the pills."

"What did Angel say?"

"That I was still trying to ruin his life the way he ruined mine."

"Berk."

"Wesley!"

"Well, he is! If he's going to take out his bad mood on someone, he should pick someone who can deal with it."

"I can deal with it."

"Yes, you dealt with it well enough that Darla came running to me for help."

"Where is she?"

"She's fine. I left her with Cordelia. Where are Spike and his little friend?"

"I sent them for ice cream. He has a habit of catering to my whims."

"And Angel didn't?"

"Wesley, he's my sire. He's supposed to love me! Why doesn't he...?"

Wes put an arm around her and let his cheek rest against her shoulder.

"My father was like that, too," he said. "It was as though he was waiting for me to do something he could pretend was wrong so that he could punish me. It was as if the punishment was what was important."

"He felt like he was doing what a sire is supposed to do. Oh, he'd rag me for not punishing Spike. He said he hadn't a clue how to behave."

"But you didn't?"

"After a while, Angelus would do it for me. Sometimes he'd make me watch, and it wasn't about Spike at all. It was getting me to fight him so he could slap me down."

"Did he behave that way tonight?"

She nodded. "Just like old times. He even had that awful Irish accent. What are you laughing at?"

"Your taste in accents."

"Well, aren't we the hoity-toity one!"

"Drusilla, I wouldn't change a single inflection of yours if I could. It's part of what makes you you."

"Right. Come on, then. What's yours like when it's at home?"

"Actually very much like this."

"Never! That's put-on, if I ever heard put-on. I'll bet...you're a northerner. York?"

"No."

"Hull?"

"No! I grew up near Berwick, if you must know. You got that from my accent?"

"No, I just feel things like that. I could do that much before I was turned. Me dad used to trot me out at parties and have me tell what people had done that day, until the chap he worked for got embarassed. Deserved it, too, in a bawdy house at two in the afternoon. Me dad almost lost his place, though. That's when me mum decided I was evil."

"Ah, yer mum had a steering oar up her arse." Spike leaped to the top of the crypt and dropped a plastic bag in Drusilla's lap. "No pistachio, love. We got butter pecan. Will that be okay?"

"Lovely. Would you like some, Wesley?"

"Oh, is it Wesley, now?" Spike glared at the other man.

"Be nice, Spikey, or I'll start calling you by your right name. There are spoons downstairs, Wes."

"I can't. I really just needed a break from the books."

"If you're sure."

"He's sure, pet. Oi! You, Harmony! See this git back to the real Watcher's! I'd hate to have some vamp get him stuck in his teeth."

"And she can bring Darla back," said Drusilla. "She shouldn't be out alone, yet."

******

"It's dark," Harmony said as they approached the house. "Where are they?"

"Giles says he often stays late and trains with Buffy once the shop has closed."

"Where's Cordelia and Darla?"

"Asleep?" Wesley took the house key from under next door's potted bay tree. "You've been invited?" he asked.

"Yeah, ever since... this really changed everything, you know?"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"It's like we were shut up in that little basement waiting, like we couldn't start to live until this happened."

"Have you thought about what those books say?"

"I don't like to think about it."

"How so?"

"‘Cause when I got turned, it was like I could do all the things I couldn't do before. I could actually do all the little nasty things that my mom said popular girls just didn't do, and no one could stop me. No one but Spike, and he didn't want to. Now the rules are all back. We killed a coyote tonight. Do you know what coyote tastes like?"

"I don't think I want to know. So, where is everyone?"

"That's what I said. I don't smell anybody."

"How can you smell anything over the books? The must almost deadens my nose, much less yours. Harmony?"

"They're gone."

"I can see that."

"No, your precious books are gone! God, Dru is going to have a conniption fit!"

Wesley finally thought to turn on the light. Harmony was right. Where the Jesuit annals had been there were only a few smears of dust. Of Darla and Cordelia there was no trace at all.

******

The phone was answered after the third ring, but no one said anything. Wesley couldn't even hear breathing. Of course, that was only reasonable.

"Angel?"

"Don't try to stop me, Wes.

"What is it that you think you're doing?"

"This has nothing to do with you."

"Oh, it's a vampire thing." In the background Wesley could hear Darla sobbing, and Cordelia comforting her. "You're frightening the fledge, you know."

"Fledges are meant to be frightened."

"Did she frighten you, so long ago?" There was no answer. "Bring them back, Angel. They're only books."

"They're lies."

"All right, but would it not be useful to know who told those lies, and why? We won't ever know unless we look at them."

"Don't wheedle, Wes."

"Just think about the consequences of what you're doing. You're going to lose your family. You're going to lose your friends. You're going to lose all the ground you've made up in this quest for atonement, all over a few scraps of paper."

"Scraps that say I didn't have to do it in the first place."

"Scraps that say that every one of you needs to do it. You're in the business of healing souls, Angel. If those books tell the truth, your market just expanded enormously."

"I have to go."

By the time the call ended, Giles's living room was crowded once more with humans and vampires. Gunn was just ending a call of his own on Giles's phone.

"Kate's gonna meet him at the hotel."

"What good is that?" asked Spike.

"In the face of authority," Wesley said, "if Darla and Cordelia say they want to leave, he'll likely release them. If not, the LAPD will regard it as a hostage situation, and his movements will be restricted until we arrive."

"It's exactly what they wanted," said Drusilla. "Lindsey's people, I mean. They wanted him to go all to pieces."

"He's not broken yet," Wesley told her.

"It's almost dawn," said Willow.

"Will he have time to get home," Buffy asked, "or will he have to hole up somewhere?"

"That's our best chance," said Giles. "If he's stuck in a motel some room...."

"We can't move in the sunshine, either," said Spike, as if to a very small child.

"Yes, well, some of us can." said Wesley.

"You can't fight a master vampire on your own!"

"We do it every day," said Buffy.

"Yeah, and I'm still bloody well here, aren't I?"

"If he gets as far as Los Angeles, Spike," said Giles, "there will be plenty of time for you to join us. Come on, you lot. Let's be about this."

Drusilla caught at Wesley's good hand.

"Darla doesn't know any of them," she said, "and the ones she does know, she never wants to see again."

"I'll take good care of her," Wesley promised.

"Well, you'd better," said Spike, "or chip or no chip, I swear...."

Wesley couldn't resist. He caught the sputtering blond by the shoulders, smacked a kiss right in the middle of his forehead and was out the door to join the others in the car before Spike's headache kicked in, followed only by gales of laughter from Dru and Harmony.

******

They found Angel's car in the asphalt lot of a pothole and neon hotel beside the Interstate. Buffy called the room on her cellular, and while they were talking Wesley knocked and called out, and Cordelia opened the door.

"You're too late," she said. "He tossed them in a dumpster just before dawn."

******

"Gawd," said Spike, "you lot smell like week-dead goats! What did the poof do to you?"

"You should complain," Darla told him. "You didn't have to ride back with them in a closed car."

"You did have the option of going to Los Angeles with Cordelia and Angel." Giles reminded her. Darla burrowed deeper into Drusilla's embrace.

"Angel didn't do anything," Wesley told them. "We spent most of a summer day in southern California crawling around in a landfill looking for books."

"Oh, gods, that means they'll stink themselves. So where are they?"

"Still in the landfill, I'm afraid. We didn't find them."

"So that's it?" said Harmony. "All the soul stuff is over with, and we can go back to being vampires?"

"No, that is not it," Giles told her in his best high school teacher voice.

"It's really not," Wes told Drusilla. "Don't you see? You wouldn't have been so desperate to know what was in them, you wouldn't have wanted a soul, unless you already had one."

"I can hear what our Angel will make of that."

"It doesn't matter what he makes of it. What matters is how you choose to live the rest of your life, each and every one of you. The evidence for your souls isn't in the books. It's in your lives."

"Then we're the poster children for soullessness," said Harmony.

Spike spoke slowly, as if letting each word sink in.

"I spent the last hundred years and some with no joy but carnage," he said. "Are you telling me that that is your evidence for a soul?"

"No. The evidence is what you do about it now."

"You shouldn't ask too much of him," Drusilla said, and Spike almost growled at her.

"What should I ask of you? Or rather, what will you ask of yourself?"

"Will you help me?" she asked.

"Always," he said. "I'll always be there for you."