Giles barely had time to throw up a protective spell, and as the power slammed into it, the spell dissipated like it had been made of tissue paper. Angel threw his sword, and Naomi sent out a shock of electricity, but by the time both hit their targets, the man (?) was gone. “I hate the disappearing ones!” Xander exclaimed, but he failed to disguise the tension in his voice.

All Giles could conjure up was another type of protective spell, but he already knew it wouldn’t hold any longer than the first one. He needed a better idea what he was dealing with to adequately formulate a response, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get the chance to figure it out. That was the whole point, was it not?

He felt a burst of energy from behind them, hard enough to send a physical shock through his spine, and as he turned to face their attacker, he saw that everyone else was frozen in place, although the electricity Naomi had gathered continued to drip off her hands, as it wasn’t a biological entity. He could see standing in the middle of the street, a dark clad, familiar figure. “Santerelli,” he grumbled, wondering if there was anything he could conjure up that would help. Santerelli was a combat spellcaster for the Council, and this brought up some awful possibilities. “Don’t tell me - the Council would like a word with me?”

He grunted in ill humor. Santerelli was a short but broad shouldered man with short, curly black hair and black eyes, a master of the white and black arts. If they sent him, the Council meant business. “I think the time for talking has past, don’t you?”

That was never a good way to start a discussion. “What are you going to do to them?”

Santerelli looked at the frozen tableau of Angel, Bren, Naomi, and Xander, and shrugged. “I wasn’t sent for them. You should be more concerned about yourself, Rupert.” He held his hands several inches apart, as if cradling an invisible globe, and molten orange energy began to fill the gap between his palms. If he wasn’t wrong, that was an immolation spell. Oh joy.

He searched his mind frantically for a counter spell that he could use without any special prep, when quite suddenly the fire in his hands died. Even Santerelli looked confused, his eyebrows scrunching down into an almost demonic V as he glared down at his own hands.

“Really?” A man’s voice said. “This is the best the Council’s got? Merde.”

He looked back towards the building that housed Angel Investigations. Standing in front of it was Ruby, wearing a cable knit blue sweater, canvas pea coat, and khaki pants that seemed too hot for the L.A. weather (if you could call it that), and standing beside her was a sleek man in a long coat who also looked overdressed, but could have been an agent or a movie producer of some sort. Dear lord, was that Mordred?

“Carlo,” Ruby chided, shaking her head in disbelief. “I thought you were better than this. Doing the Council’s dirty work.”

Everyone was unfrozen, and deeply confused. “What the hell just happened?” Angel asked him.

Xander looked at Ruby and clearly didn’t recognize her, but he recognized the man beside her. “Oh no, it’s the French guy again.”

Mordred scowled at him. “The name’s Mordred, Human.”

“Which is kind of sucky,” Xander replied flippantly. “And I know about sucky names, ‘cause mine’s Xander.”

It was Santerelli’s turn to frown. “Mordred? Aren’t you dead?”

“How do you kill magic?” he replied sharply.

“Who’s the British chick?” Xander asked.

Ruby raised an eyebrow at him, her gaze harsh and unforgiving. If he‘d known who she was, he‘d probably have been wetting his pants. “Did you just call me a “chick”?”

Angel raised his hands, and said firmly, “Hold it.” He then pointed at Santerelli. “You are?”

He looked like he didn’t want to answer, but he glanced at Mordred and Ruby and realized there was no point in holding out, but he still didn’t like it. “Carlo Santerelli. I’m a combat spellcaster for the Watcher’s Council.”

Xander gaped in shock. ”You had those? Why didn’t they ever send any to Sunnydale?!”

Everybody ignored Xander, which was typical. Angel turned towards Ruby and pointed at her. “And you are?”

“Ruby Von Allman, ex-Watcher, friend of Giles. And why must I explain myself to you, vampire?”

Annoyance flashed through Angel’s eyes, but he let it go. He turned to him instead, and asked, “Giles, why is the Council hunting you?”

Here again was a conversation he never wanted to have. But he broke it down as succinctly as he could, leaving out details here and there, such as Logan and Kier being in Toronto hunting for the Brotherhood of Vestus. It was more than likely that the Council didn’t know about them, and he wasn’t about to mention them in front of Carlo. To say Angel looked nonplused was perhaps an understatement.

“It gets better,” Mordred chimed in, with gleeful ill humor. “The Ascendant is the vessel the vampires are looking for. Isn’t that great? You guys are better than Monty Python sometimes.”

Giles looked to Ruby. “Is that true?”

She nodded grimly. That was horrible - how could the Council allow such a thing to happen? No wonder they were killing to cover it up.

“And this has what to do with us?” Naomi wondered. “Except for coming after you, of course.”

“It’s a … long story,” he finally said. “I think we may have a more pressing issue to deal with.” He looked at Carlo, and everybody followed suit, until Carlo shifted nervously, although he did his best to looked dignified and unafraid. He almost succeeded.

“Oh yes,” Ruby agreed ominously. “What are we going to do with you?”

“I have some suggestions,” Mordred said. “And one of them might be legal in some states.”

“We have to send a message to the Council,” Ruby said, and it sounded like a warning. “Or they’ll keep after us.”

Which was true, and Carlo suddenly looked very nervous, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. “You don’t want to make this worse,” he cautioned, as if he was honestly trying to help them.

“You mean that’s possible?” Giles asked curiously.

Carlo knew better than to answer that, but then again, that wasn’t the type of question that had an answer.

Giles wondered how Kier and Logan were doing, and hoped that they were doing a bit better.

8

So, his entire life was a lie. Wonderful.

Of course this was a vampire death cult leader, so he could just be fucking with him. It wasn’t like he wasn’t in a shitty spot, what with Logan holding him by the throat and Marc standing by, ready to paralyze him or stake him, whatever the case may have been, with the figuratively glowing shirtless Rags standing there, ready to grab him and make him light up like winter bonfire. He may have just been digging a figurative knife in since he had no chance of actually doing it with a real one.

He was implying that his parents knew they were “special” and had to keep a low profile, which was why this clown - and he said his name was Revol, but Kier knew a clumsy stage name when he heard one - was shocked that they “let” Kier pursue an acting career. He felt there was also an undercurrent of “let you be gay”, but of course he didn’t say it, because he really didn’t want Marc to kill him. The shock was made worse when they discovered another vampire had changed him.

“So why the hell did you get the kid up here?” Logan growled, giving him a brief, hard shake. If Revol had been Human, he’d probably would have suffocated from having all the bones in his neck crushed by now. “If he’s already a vamp, you can’t undo it.”

Revol glared at him, not wanting to say anymore, but Dolph apparently thought of Logan as some kind of colleague thanks to the war experience only he remembered. With a brief amount of hesitation, he volunteered. “There’s a ritual that would have allowed Vestus to enter the vessel anyways. Since he’d be the stronger entity -”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” Revol snapped.

Dolph ignored him. “ - we assumed Vestus would kill off the other vampire.”

“What if you were wrong?”

“Uh, hey,” Kier interjected. “I don’t want to be anyone’s vessel, okay? Hell, I don’t even want to be a vampire in the first place! Thanks for asking and all.”

The look Revol gave him could have stripped paint. “It’s your destiny, imbecile. You were made to be a vampire.”

“Fuck you! I don’t believe that!”

Logan scowled, looking around. “Where the hell’s Dru?”

Oh damn it. They all glanced around, but clearly the batty vamp had flown the coop … to totally mix several different metaphors. Logan shook Revol again, who was looking really pissed off about that. “Where’d she go?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?! That crazy bitch does shit I don’t even wanna think about!”

“She probably just ran off,” Dolph said. “She was terrified of you.”

Logan snorted disdainfully. “She should be. So where the hell’s Kayla? And she’d better be alive.”

“She is,” Dolph said hurriedly. “We kept her alive on the off chance the ceremony didn’t work, and … Kier’s death would pass on the ability, whatever it is.”

Kier gaped at him in disbelief. “Wait - if the ritual didn’t work, you were gonna dust me?”

Dolph had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed. “If worse came to worst, yeah.”

“It’d be a mercy killing at this point,” Revol sneered at him.

Logan punched a single set of claws right through Revol’s gut, letting the vampire go so he could double over in a soundless scream before he yanked his claws out with needless violence and made him drop to his knees, clutching the gaping wound of his gut. “You forget who’s in charge here?” Logan snapped. “I don’t really have a reason to keep you alive anymore, do I?” He glanced at the big Russian. “What’s your name?”

“Jack. Well, er, that’s what people call me now.”

“What’s your real name?”

He looked unwilling to answer, but after a moment, admitted, “Sergey.”

Logan nodded. “Sounds better.” He then reached down and hauled Revol back to his feet, bringing him face to face with him. “Okay, dirt bag, do we get a location, or do I start lopping off bits?”

He sneered, but it was cut by a grimace of pain. “She’s in a warehouse on Baldwin Street. I’ll take you there.”

“No, you’ll tell us where to find it.”

He snorted, which brought a bit of blood to his pale lips. “And give you a reason to kill me? I don’t think so.”

Logan smirked in a way that would have made his blood run cold - if, in fact, the undead had a proper circulatory system. “I don’t need a reason to kill you. Keep that in mind.” He turned and hauled Revol around with him in a single graceful motion, then shoved him forward. The vampire stumbled and almost lost his balance, making him look incredibly undignified. “Lead on, shithead.”

Kier was glad Logan had taken over, because he was still trying to grasp all this. If you could believe these vampires - and why would he? - he was the culmination of a legacy of lies, and was at his core not quite Human. Oh, he was mostly Human, but he had some other little bit, one that gave him an edge over other vampires, and just maybe allowed him to retain some sense of self. But that meant his continuous suspicion that he was a better vampire than he ever was a Human was true, and he never could have been a good Human - it just wasn’t in his nature, wasn’t what he was intended to be.

No! How could he believe that? He didn’t believe in “predestination” or any of that stuff - shit happened! Maybe some people could see it coming, some psychics or oracles or whatever, but they couldn’t see everything. (Could they?) If he believed this, he’d have to believe his entire life was a complete waste of time; he was born solely to die. And how did you live with that? (So to speak.) How did you accept that? He wasn’t sure he could. If he did … why did he go on? What was the point? If he had to die to live, he shouldn’t still be hanging around. The thought was stunning in its implacable gloominess.

Revol led them back through the night shadowed park, with Logan right behind him, claws still out. (If he cared about anybody else seeming them, it wasn’t apparent.) Sergey/Jack followed him, with Marc close enough to reach out and grab him, and Kier was close to him, while Rags trailed after them, far enough back that the heat he gave off was minimal. It was like a conga line of the damned, an idea which would normally fill his head with amusing pictures, but he couldn’t quite manage it this time. He knew he should have been happy that Kayla was alive (if she indeed was), as that was what he came here for. He didn’t care about the whole Ascendant thing, or being a vessel for some big vamp kahuna in a wacky demon version of Scientology - none of that mattered. This could all be lies, every single bit, although he didn’t know the purpose of it.

Damn. He missed Bren. He wished he was here, if only just to hash this out. Maybe he could’ve made some sense out of this that he couldn’t. He was smarter than he was, and he never forgot a damn thing.

They were a few hundred meters out from the entrance of the park, and in a rather dark part of the bike path, where trees loomed up on either side, blotting out the dim light of the moon and the few artificial lights around the grounds. Logan paused suddenly, grabbing Revol by the shoulder to stop him too, and glanced up. Kier looked up too, didn’t see anything, and then realized Logan was flaring his nostrils, sniffing into the breeze. He followed suit, just to see if he could pick up something. Marc was looking out into the darkness, and reported, “Multiple contacts, both heat and cold. Dead men walkin’ and probably something this side of lizard.”

Logan grunted, flexing his neck and making something in his shoulders crack with a sound that was just vaguely metallic. “Should’ve known the Ressiks wouldn’t give up that easy.” He pulled Revol closer to him, and put a single claw across the base of his neck. “Show yourself now, or your boss is compost,” Logan called out into the dark.

Marc had already grabbed his big rifle off his back and was aiming it into the night, sweeping it back and forth in slow arcs. Kier could sense what he was seeing, but probably not as clearly. He could only feel the living ones, the ones with blood pumping through their veins, even if it was too tainted for him to drink. Fellow vampires were simply annoying little buzzing gnats in his peripheral vision.

A Ressik appeared ahead of them on the path, dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt, his skin a rather spinach-y shade of green. His yellow eyes almost seemed to glow as he smirked, his lipless mouth curving up in what could have been a smile or a leer; it was hard to tell. “Go ahead and kill him,” he told Logan casually. “We’ve already been paid.”

Logan didn’t, but he didn’t look impressed. “What do you want?”

“Technically? For you people to stop this nonsense. If you don’t give yourselves up and come along quietly right now, we’re gonna start killing people at random all throughout this park. Oh sure, you’ll stop us eventually, but how many people will be dead by then? A dozen? Two? What do you think?” He pulled a wrinkled pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and tapped one out. “C’mon man, time’s a wasting. Tick tock. What’s it gonna be? Mass slaughter or a reasonable discussion? Make your choice.”

They all looked to Logan and waited for him to decide. Kier couldn’t help but think that, either way, they were going to lose.