A STITCH IN TIME

"Museum closes in ten minutes, folks. Please make your way to the exit."

Vern's voice, raspy with age and a thirty-a-day habit which his doctor said was going to kill him, cut through the silence of the main display hall of the Museum of Victoriana. The three visitors left in the room -- a middle-aged man who had an air of academia about him, and two elderly Japanese tourists -- looked at Vern with, respectively, annoyance and incomprehension.

For the benefit of the tourists, Vern pointed at the clock hanging above the "Great Exhibition of 1851" wall display, then at the way out. After a brief discussion in Japanese, the couple shuffled toward the door. A second later, the professor-type followed them, shutting his notebook with a firm snap.

"Thank you," Vern said pleasantly. "Come again."

Once the Great Exhibition room was empty, he switched off the lights, and continued on his last circuit of the museum for the day. Panels on the walls directed visitors around the various exhibitions, but Vern didn't even have to glance at them on his way past. The displays sometimes changed, but Vern's route never did. Main concourse, exhibition rooms, cafeteria, gift shop, lights out, lock up.

The last stop on Vern's tour was the small display room, used for temporary exhibitions. The current installation was dedicated to Victorian china dolls -- row upon row of them, with hard, white faces and glassy eyes. Vern wouldn't have admitted it, but the doll exhibition creeped him out. At least he wasn't alone -- visitor numbers had been especially low, and the small display room was usually empty.

Tonight, it wasn't.

"Museum closes in five minutes, miss," Vern said.

The girl didn't answer -- just kept staring at the dolls, enraptured -- so Vern came into the room. Up close, she almost looked like a doll herself. Her hair was uniformly dark and glossy, as if it had been woven instead of grown, and her skin was chalk-pale. She looked as if she belonged here, in a room filled with mannequins.

"Miss, it's time to leave," Vern said, more firmly.

"Time," the girl said, drawing out the word into a sigh. Her accent was -- English, maybe? Vern thought so, but he wasn't sure. She didn't sound like any of the British visitors who'd come to the museum recently.

"Time," the girl said again. She reached out and lifted the nearest doll from its stand. Holding it up, she said, "Time is naughty. It makes everything change. But we don't change, do we?"

"Put the doll back, please, miss," Vern said. "It's not permitted to touch items on display."

The girl ignored him and instead held the doll up higher, her fingers tugging the silk bow in its curly hair before stroking the green velvet of the miniature ball gown it wore. "Such a pretty dress," the girl said. She looked down wistfully at her own dress -- a crimson-red slip of chiffon that showed a little leg and a lot of back, the sort of things girls wore for special occasions, not for visiting museums. But this dress looked as though it had seen a few special occasions too many: The hem was torn in several places, and Vern could see a few dark stains. "We used to have real dresses, not scraps and handkerchiefs," the girl continued. "Real dresses. Beautiful dresses. And there was music and dancing and everyone said I was beautiful."

Vern fought down a sigh. What was it about museums that attracted crazies? "Look, we're closing now, and you can't stay here tonight, you understand? There's a shelter on Stanford Avenue where they'll give you a bed and a hot meal." As he said it, Vern noticed how pitifully thin the girl was. "You look like you could use it."

The girl leaned toward the doll, and whispered to it, "I had a clock, but it only ran forward. I wanted to know if the clock ran backward, would time follow it?" She lowered her voice. "It didn't."

"No kidding," Vern said dryly.

"I pulled out all the springs to see what made it go. And then there wasn't any tick-tock any more. It went all quiet." The girl turned around, looking at Vern for the first time. Her gaze, unlike the rest of her manner, was focused and intense, almost hypnotic, and Vern was filled with the unnerving conviction that if he looked too long into those dark eyes, he might never be able to look away again. "People are like clocks, you know. Tick-tock, tick-tock, and then nothing -- unless they start up again." She smiled. "I started up again."

"Okay, that's it," Vern snapped. "It's time for you to go." Reaching out, he took the doll away from the girl and put it back on to its stand.

"Time to go," the girl repeated, her voice a lilting sing-song. "Time to go. It's time to go, but I haven't found what I came for yet."

"You've seen the dolls," Vern said.

"Not the dollies," she said scornfully. "I came for something much prettier."

Vern put his hand on the girl's arm, intending to guide her to the door. She didn't move, and when he tried to pull her away from the display of dolls, he felt her body stiffen, muscles tightening. Her thin arm hardened to iron in his grasp. She was stronger than she looked.

Attempting to sound persuasive, he said, "Whatever you came see, it'll still be here tomorrow."

The girl smiled, and suddenly Vern wasn't standing beside her anymore. He was on the museum floor, pinned down by a yellow-eyed, smiling monster.

"There isn't any tomorrow," Vern heard the girl whisper, as if from a great distance. "There's only yesterday."

That was the last thing he heard.

"So, the beach was really beautiful," Cordelia said. "You should have seen it. At night, of course, unless Coppertone now makes SPF 8000."

Angel knew she was trying very hard to make a joke. He knew he ought to smile. He wanted to smile, to ask her about her trip, to do his best to be happy for her and Groo.

But he didn't care about the trip, and he knew she didn't either. It was just something to talk about, so they didn't have to talk about what they were doing, which was boxing up Connor's things.

"They had a limbo contest," Cordelia said, stepping sideways. She had on her oldest jeans and a soft-green T-shirt white-flecked with bleach; a simple clip held back the bangs of her newly short, newly blonde hair. From that angle, her body almost hid the little pile of baby blankets she'd folded. "Groo just couldn't see the point of the limbo. Not that there really is a point to the limbo. But yours truly took third place."

Connor's teddy bear. Its fur was matted together with soot and grime from the fire. Angel stared down into its glassy, doll-like eyes. "Only third place?"

"Hey, I'm proud to say that my knees don't bend as wide as some people's."

If he shut his eyes -- even for a moment -- he could feel Connor in his arms. His son's living warmth, his weight, the faint pressure of each breath. The overwhelming desire to protect him, take care of him --

Angel felt a moment of disorientation, then shook his head and tried to concentrate on Cordy. She was studying his face carefully, looking, he knew, for any sign of strain. Quickly, he cast about for another topic. "What's that you're wearing on your arm?"

"Oh, right. This." Cordelia looked, if it were possible, even more awkward. She held out her slim wrist; the strip around her arm shimmered in a dozen colors. "Behold the hologram bracelet, available from only the beach's finest souvenir shops."

She was grimacing slightly as she looked at it. Angel shook his head. "Let me guess. They don't have holograms in Pylea."

"Groo thought it was pretty," Cordy said with a sigh. "Apparently, if you've never seen a hologram before, it looks like a beautiful, wonderful, shiny miracle bracelet instead of, well, beach crap. I guess Groo just needs to be in L.A. a while longer before he figures out that haute couture generally costs more than $3.99."

"It's like I always say," Angel said. "You can't go wrong with jewelry."

He'd given Darla and Dru jewelry whenever he could procure it -- through murder, through theft or, on very rare occasions, through legitimate purchase. For one moment, he could see them as vividly as though they were in the room: a crystal tiara glittering in Drusilla's dark locks, a choker of black pearls sheathing Darla's swan-white neck --

-- Darla, lying on the pavement in the rain, begging Angel to take good care of their son --

"Angel?"

He snapped his head up. Cordelia had a pained look on her face, but right now, Angel didn't want her pity. He turned back to his work, stuffing Connor's mobile in a box more roughly than he meant to. "So, what else did you guys do?"

"We -- well, we --" Angel didn't have to look up to know that Cordelia was trying to figure out whether or not to draw him out or keep trying to distract him. She chose the latter. "We ate out a lot -- I figured it'd be a good way to introduce Groo to Earth food. Turns out he loves Mexican. Should give him and Fred a lot to talk about."

Angel was hungry. He hadn't eaten in days, not since the last time he'd drunk his son's blood. He hadn't wanted to. "Glad Groo enjoys that." Connor's little shoes would fit in this box too. Everything his son had owned would just about fit in two boxes.

"And -- oh, I went and got my hair done. What do you think?"

Angel didn't look up. "I don't like it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry," he said flatly. "I don't." He glanced up finally to see that Cordelia was staring at him, hands on hips, nostrils flaring in an unflattering manner. He'd made her mad, and Angel dimly knew he should feel worse about that than he did.

"Okay, we're picking you up a copy of Tact for Dummies," Cordelia said. "You can't just tell someone you don't like her hair!"

"You asked me," Angel pointed out.

"Yeah, but -- but --" Cordelia gestured with one hand. "The question, 'do you like my hair?' is in the same category as 'does this make me look fat?' Honesty not required."

Cordelia's hair used to be long and soft and dark. He'd buried his face in it once, drunk in the scent. Angel hadn't been himself at the time, but more than a year later, he could still remember the smell, the feel of it against his skin. "The cut is okay," he said. "It shows off your neck --"

"So NOT the compliment I was looking for from you."

"-- but the color's all wrong." Angel could tell Cordelia was going from merely angry to furious, but he still didn't care. In fact, weirdly, he felt himself getting angry in return. No -- it wasn't anger -- something else building up inside him, pressure tightening all around him, inside him.

"Well, excuse me for expecting good advice from a hair-gel addict."

"You asked me what I thought --"

"I didn't expect you to TELL me!"

Angel slammed his fist into the wall and yelled, "I just want everything back the way it was!"

Cordy stared at him. He stared at the wall. The plaster had cracked all around his hand, a spiderweb of cement. His fist hurt, and he felt his throat closing up. "Cordy -- oh, God, Cordy, I'm sorry."

"Jesus," Cordelia breathed. "Angel -- are you --"

"It's like I can't concentrate," Angel said. "I can't think about Connor, and I can't stop thinking about Connor, and nothing makes any sense to me anymore."

She flung her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "I know you didn't mean it. I know you're upset. I'm being so stupid, talking about my hair -- I just don't know what to say."

Angel hugged her back. "You don't have to say anything," he said. "You're here."

"I want to say something to make it all better, and I can't, I can't make it better --"

"It's okay. It's okay, you can talk about anything, I won't get mad again, I promise --"

Cordelia lifted her head and blinked several times, hard. She forced a smile. "You know what? On reflection, I'm not sure 'Golden Shimmer' was the right shade after all."

Angel tried to smile in return. "You're always beautiful to me."

"Are y'all okay?"

Fred's voice from the doorway brought Angel back to something like clarity. He realized that Fred, Gunn, Groo and Lorne were all staring at them -- brought up the stairs, no doubt, by the sound of his punching the wall. Now they were all staring at him and Cordelia.

Angel stepped away at the same moment Cordelia did. She smiled and wiped quickly at her eyes. "Everything's fine," she promised. "Angel and I were -- we were talking about my hair."

Gunn nodded sympathetically. "I figured you had to be upset about that. Don't worry, Cordy. It'll grow out."

"Excuse me?" Cordelia scowled.

Gunn held up his hands. "But, hey, what do I know about hair?"

"I see you kids have been busy," Lorne said, stepping gingerly through the debris. "It's no longer a federal disaster area in here. I'd downgrade this to a plain ol' mess." Lorne patted Angel's shoulder. "What say I get some of this out of your way?"

Angel looked down at the two boxes sitting on the dresser. Once they were gone, Connor would be, too. "Not yet," he said quietly.

Groo put his arms around Cordelia's waist. "Truly you have worked miracles, my princess. So much has been done in so little time." He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and she smiled up at him.

"Maybe that's your demon power, Cordy," Fred suggested. "Amazing cleaning-up ability."

"What demon would that be from?" Cordelia asked. "The Tidy-Bowl Man?"

"Sounds like a demon candidate to me," Gunn said. He, too, was joining in the forced cheer. "I mean, you gotta wonder why the man's choosing to float his rowboat in the toilet in the first place."

"I do not understand," Groo said. "You explained what the toilets are for, princess, but you never spoke of boats."

"Stick with the first explanation," Cordelia said quickly.

Angel kept looking at the cracks in the plaster. Just like a spiderweb. Drusilla had loved spiderwebs. She pretended they were bridal veils and tried to put them in her hair, and when they broke she cried and cried --

All at once it came together. The glassy doll's eyes of the teddy bear. The memories of the tiara, of the feel of dark, silky hair against his hand. The need to protect. The need to attack.

"Drusilla," Angel whispered.

Everyone stared at him. Finally, Cordelia said, "Drusilla -- what?"

"She's here," Angel said. "In Los Angeles. Not far away."

Cordelia looked skyward. "And I thought it could not get worse."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Gunn said. "How do you know this, Angel? You got spidey-sense or something?"

"Something like that," Angel said, though he didn't have slightest idea what "spidey-sense" was. "I could always tell when the vampires in my line were close by. And Drusilla's close by now. I've been feeling it for a while. I didn't realize it earlier because -- well, I didn't."

"Um, I think I didn't get the memo," Fred said. "Who's Drusilla?"

"Bad-ass vampire from Angel's own bad-ass days," Cordelia supplied. She stepped away from Groo, already all business. "If she thinks she can waltz in here and kick Angel while he's down, she's got another think coming. Assuming Drusilla thinks anything at all." Fred frowned. Gunn held his hand up to his temple and twirled his finger around in the international sign for "crazy as a loon."

"Just peachy," Lorne said. "You sure about this, big guy? Not just a bad dream, some tuna salad that was just a smidge off?"

"I'm sure," Angel said. Now that he'd identified the sensation, he couldn't believe he hadn't recognized it before. Drusilla was very close, within a few miles.

Groo held up one hand uncertainly. "Of course I wish to join in the slaying of the Drusilla beast," he said. "But what of the vampire attack Cordelia has foreseen? I am certain we all remember the eventful vision of this morning, and the unfortunate fate of the pancakes."

"Oh, great," Cordelia sighed. "We have to be at LAX in an hour and a half, Angel. Any chance Drusilla's hanging out at the airport?"

"She's closer than that," Angel said.

"Here's a plan," Lorne said, stepping to Groo's side. "How about the Boy Wonder and I cruise down to the terminal and take care of the undead ruffians? That frees you guys up to hunt down Drusilla."

"You are willing to go into battle with me?" Groo said. He smiled at Lorne. "I am surprised, for your unwrinkled clothing and well-trimmed nails do not speak of a warrior. But I salute your courage, my groomed friend."

Lorne closed his eyes in a pained wince. "I can go with Groo," Cordelia offered quickly.

"Oh, no, you don't," Lorne said. "I haven't met Dru for myself, but I've gotten a peek during Angel-cakes' musical numbers. And there is no WAY I'm going anywhere near that chick. She makes Anna Nicole Smith look stable, and my head will probably explode if she so much as hums."

"That settles that," Gunn said. "Only question is, where's Drusilla?"

"Someplace she likes," Angel said. "Someplace -- fun."

"That could be anyplace where people can bleed," Cordelia said. "Can you narrow it down?"

Angel took a mental tour of the surrounding blocks, then remembered a museum he'd passed before. He'd thought of Drusilla then.

"I think I can," Angel said.

Fred lowered herself through the skylight, straightening her arms slowly while pressing her feet together to avoid the shards of broken glass still clinging to the edges of the shattered pane. It was hard work, and before she was halfway through her arms ached with the effort. Then, just as she was sure she was about to drop the rest of the way and land in an ungainly heap on the floor, she felt broad shoulders rise up under her feet, bearing her weight. Strong arms gripped her legs, anchoring her.

"I got ya," Charles said from below her, and Fred felt herself sinking smoothly and gracefully toward the floor, like a ballerina descending from a high lift. Once she was safely on the ground, she tugged her T-shirt back into place and peered into the gloom around them, trying to make out the details of their surroundings. The Museum of Victoriana had probably looked very elegant 25 years ago. But the wood paneling was darker than was now fashionable, the ceilings a little low. The wall-to-wall carpeting had worn thin. Fred thought it looked genteel but shabby -- a place built with care and then forgotten.

Cordelia, who was standing next to Angel, frowned. "THIS is your idea of 'someplace fun'? Angel, I've been in morgues with more atmosphere."

"Not my idea," Angel said. He sounded distracted, Fred thought, as if he were only half-concentrating on talking to Cordy. "Drusilla's. She always liked museums. This way."

He set off along the hallway; first Cordelia, then Charles and Fred, followed him. As they walked, Fred's attention was drawn by the paintings and even some photographs of men and women in stiff poses and stiffer clothes that lined the museum's hallways. In the gaps between the wall displays there were cabinets filled with strange, old-fashioned objects. Fred had always been more interested in science than history, but even so her fingers itched with the desire to pick things up, shake them, figure out what they were for and how they worked.

"Museums ARE fun," she said. "All these things are little pieces of time, preserved like -- like the marshmallows in a gallon of rocky road." Fred broke off and frowned to herself. "That wasn't a very good analogy."

"Worked fine for me," Charles said, taking her hand lightly in his. "Hey, my uncanny sixth sense is tellin' me you might want to go grab a midnight sundae after this. Am I right?" In reply, Fred squeezed his hand and smiled at him.

"The summer we went to France, I visited the Louvre in Paris," Cordelia said. "It was okay, I guess, although after a while you start wondering how many marble statues a country actually NEEDS. And the Mona Lisa looked like she was about to say -- ohmigod!"

Somehow, Fred sensed that quote wasn't from the Mona Lisa. Charles tightened his hand around hers, and together they hurried to catch up with Cordelia, who was standing in the doorway of the next exhibition room.

The room was filled with dolls from floor to ceiling. A hundred or more glittering eyes gazed down at Fred unblinkingly. The dolls' painted faces were individually benign -- but there was something unnerving about the sight of ranks of undifferentiated perfection.

"Creepy," Fred said.

"Creepier," Cordelia amended. She pointed at the floor.

The body lying in the middle of the room belonged to a man in his late fifties or early sixties, gray-haired and jowly. Or he would have been jowly, if most of his throat hadn't been ripped out. But Fred saw straight away that Cordelia hadn't been talking about the gore.

The man on the floor had been killed savagely, by something that had taken pure, visceral pleasure in the act of violence. But, after the kill, the same something had rolled the body on to its back and tucked a cushion under the corpse's head and a teddy bear into the crook of its arm.

"Drusilla wants to care for things," Angel said. "But she doesn't know how."

Charles slipped his hand free from Fred's and flicked his wrist. When she looked down, she saw he was holding a stake. "If she's crazy, that plays better for us. A vamp that doesn't think straight is a vamp that's easier to dust."

Sharply, Angel said, "That's the biggest mistake you can make about Drusilla. She's insane, but she's smart. She thinks differently -- but she does think. That's how she's survived this long. That's why she's so dangerous." Suddenly, his stance changed, becoming harder, tenser, and his face darkened. "Isn't that right, Dru?"

As he spoke, Angel stepped to one side and turned around, revealing the figure who had been standing behind him, in the doorway of the doll room.

In the last year, Fred had slowly grown used to the idea that vampires looked like the people they had been when they'd died -- normal people, fat or thin or ugly or handsome, superficially no different than anyone you might see on the subway, except a whole lot more dangerous. Well, maybe a little paler, too. But the girl who was gliding toward Angel carried about her an aura of the supernatural so strong it seemed to make the air around her hum. Her skin glowed moon-white, and her black hair rippled over her shoulders like a veil of mourning. Her lips and cheeks were flushed, and her eyes glowed feverishly. The body sheathed in its grubby red dress was skeletal even by L.A. standards. There could be no mistaking this vampire for a normal person. "My thoughts are wasps," Drusilla said. "They sting my brain all over. Pzzzt!"

As she spoke, she lifted her hand and waved her finger through the air, mimicking the helter-skelter flight of an insect. Her gaze followed her fingertip as it spiraled and danced in front of her; the sight seemed to entrance her, as if she had no idea what direction her hand was going to take next. Maybe, Fred thought, she really didn't.

Drusilla's finger darted toward her bare arm, like an insect diving to attack. Her nails, talon-sharp, left a red score on the delicate skin.

"That's enough, Dru," Angel said.

Drusilla's hand continued to arc and dip in the air. As Fred looked on, she realized that there was a rhythm to the apparently random motion, a pattern that was strangely soothing, even hypnotic --

"I said that's ENOUGH."

Fred blinked. Angel's hand was wrapped around Drusilla's thin wrist, encircling it easily, preventing her from moving. He was gripping her tightly -- so tightly that Drusilla gasped. Then she gave a soft moan which was equal parts pain and pleasure. She looked up at Angel and smiled. "Hurt me again."

Angel stared at her, then at his fingers digging into her arm. Slowly he released his grip. "No. I know what you want from me. But I'm not going to give you what you want anymore."

Drusilla cradled her wrist to her chest. She looked up at Angel with huge, sorrowful eyes. "Why did you go away? That was when all the bad things started. You all went away, one by one, and now I'm the only one left. I'm all alone."

Cordelia glanced at the body on the floor. "Keeping friends is easier if you don't brutally murder everyone you meet. I'm just throwing out an idea, here."

"Spike's gone away. They put metal in his mind, and now he can't drink. It poisons him from the inside out." Slowly, Drusilla's voice was taking on a dreamy quality; she sounded as if she were telling a story she had rehearsed many times to herself. "She was next. I wasn't there, but I felt her crumble, with remorse in her heart and little hands and feet in her belly."

A tear rolled down Drusilla's cheek; her gaze had turned inward, and she didn't appear to be aware of anyone else in the room. Softly, Angel took a step back, then another. He motioned to Charles, who silently threw him the stake.

The movement caught Drusilla's attention. She lifted her arms toward Angel in a gesture of entreaty. "Daddy," she said.

Angel froze. In a low voice that sounded as if it might crack, he said, "Never call me that again."

Then he struck.

Angel moved fast, the motion a blur in the dimness, but Drusilla was faster; she seemed to know what he was going to do before he did it. Fred heard his stake clatter to the ground and saw a slash of red chiffon and black hair dart through the door of the doll room.

Led by Angel, they ran after her, but the hallway outside the doll room stretched emptily in both directions, and there was no sign of Drusilla.

"She's going to get away," Fred said.

"Not this time," Angel said. He sounded as determined as Fred had ever heard him. "She's caused too much suffering. I've let her go too many times already. It's time to end this."

"I'll second that," Cordelia added. "Did you see the stains on her dress? I'm adding 'crimes against couture' to the list of reasons why Dru's gotta be dusted."

While she'd been talking, Angel had been looking intently up and down the corridor. Now he pointed to an exhibition room just a few yards away. The doors to the room were quivering on their hinges, not much, but enough to indicate that someone had recently passed through them. "She went in there."

Fred read the sign above the door out loud. "'The Old Curiosity Shop: Victorian Inventions and Curios.' Well, that sounds interesting."

"More importantly, it sounds non-lethal," Cordelia said. "Unlucky for us if Dru holed up in the Antique Weapons Gallery."

Charles was studying a museum floor plan on the wall. He tapped it to draw their attention. "There's no other way out of this room. She's trapped."

Angel nodded. "Then let's finish this." He pushed the door open, and they looked into the room.

"Jeez," Cordelia said. "It's the garage sale that time forgot."

Fred saw what she meant. The room they entered was more like an attic that hadn't been cleared out in years, instead of an organized museum exhibition. Some of the objects in cases and on stands around her were old-fashioned but recognizable -- Fred saw a sewing machine and a telephone in the 'Household' section -- but others were entirely mysterious. A printed label on a black box which spewed copper wires identified the device as an early X-ray machine, but what was the equally strange contraption resting on a tripod next to it?

A high pitched, reedy giggle broke the silence. "Cold!" Drusilla's voice sang out. "Cold, colder, coldest."

Gunn started. "What the hell?"

"It's a game," Angel said in a low voice. "Hide and seek." He took several careful steps forward.

More laughter. "Coldest, cooler, warm."

Cordelia shook her head in disbelief. "She's giving us HINTS so we can find her and stake her? Whatever."

Fred tipped her head, trying to place the source of the laughter. "She's over there."

Directed by Drusilla's voice, they ventured further into the exhibition hall. It seemed to Fred that the further they went, the more arcane and fantastical the objects on display became, until it was impossible to tell what any of them might have been intended to be. Fred was unwillingly reminded of how she had felt as a child waking up from a bad dream to find her bedroom suddenly a strange and unfriendly place, filled with distorted, wavering shapes. In Pylea, she had crouched in her cave, overwhelmed by the same sense of dislocation, but on a massive scale. The memory still made her shake.

Ahead of them, Drusilla's voice was growing louder. "Hot. Hotter. Flames licking all around, hot coals!"

But she'd been alone in her cave, Fred reminded herself. Now, she could reach out and take Charles' hand. And that made all the difference.

"Burning," Drusilla whispered.

She was crouching inside one of the exhibits, sitting cross-legged in the base of a pyramid which seemed to be made of some kind of black stone. The pyramid was so large it had been placed on a plinth by itself, apart from the other exhibits; it had a square base and four sides that tapered to a sharp point some ten feet above. The near side was hinged, to make a door. Fred had never seen anything like it before. "The game's over, Dru," Angel said. "You know how this is going to end."

"I know how it began," Drusilla said. "Such a long time ago, like a bedtime story. You used to tell me wonderful stories, with screaming in them. The ending stays the same, but the beginning can change. I'm going to tell the story the way it should have been."

And she quickly pulled the door at the front of the pyramid closed, sealing herself inside.

No one spoke for several seconds. Finally, Cordelia said, "Is it just me, or did Dru just do a really, really stupid thing?"

"She ran into a dead end, told us how to find her, then went and locked herself up right in front of us," Fred said. "Tactically, not the smartest moves."

Charles looked at Angel. "What was it you said? Oh, yeah -- 'She's insane, but she's smart.' Man, I think you should've just quit at 'insane'." Angel didn't respond; he just kept staring intently at the pyramid.

Cordy was eyeing the black pyramid as well. "How heavy do you think that thing is? I mean, could we load it on Gunn's truck, take it outside and open it up after sunrise? Because I'm thinking simple, risk-free Dru-disposal."

Tentatively, Fred stepped up on to the plinth, and rapped the outside of the pyramid with her knuckles. It was smooth and cool to the touch, and felt solid -- could it be marble? Given the pyramid's height, even if the sides were only six inches thick, that would still imply a mass of at least -- Fred did some quick mental calculations and frowned. "This is way too heavy for us to move."

Without warning, the door of the pyramid started to swing open again. Fred heard Charles shout, and she stumbled back, trying desperately to get out of Drusilla's reach --

-- But Drusilla was gone. The space inside the pyramid was empty.

"Damn, that thing's got a back door," Charles said. "She musta got out."

Fred peered inside the pyramid and, when she was completely certain it was empty, went inside. The interior was surprisingly roomy -- there was enough space for at least a few people -- but there was nowhere to hide. The floor was solid, and although the walls were covered in all sorts of intriguing dials and levers and golden rings, there was no other door. "I don't think she could have."

"She's not here," Angel said. "Not even close. She's -- gone."

"Pardon me for asking the obvious question," Cordelia said, "but what the hell is that thing, and what's it doing in a museum filled with nineteenth century English stuff?"

Fred started to read the notes for exhibition visitors, displayed on a board attached to the side of the plinth. "According to this, it belonged to the fifth Earl of Ashford. He was an eccentric millionaire."

"Eccentric?" Charles said, raising one eyebrow.

"As in, died in Bedlam," Fred said. "He was an amateur Egyptologist --"

"A lot of Victorians were," Angel said.

"And he built this as a -- as a --"

Fred's eyes went wide. The silence stretched out, and she knew the others were impatiently waiting for her to speak again, but no words would come.

"Fred, you wanna help us out here?" Cordelia prompted.

She still couldn't come up with anything to say, so Fred just read the plaque's words aloud. "The Earl of Ashford's many delusions included his belief that the ancient Egyptian religion held the keys toward practicing various forms of magic. Experts disagree on the interpretation of this device, though most believe it to be a private sanctum of worship. But theories are as diverse as experts -- some think it was a mausoleum, others a sculpture, and one writer even posited that it was intended as a --" Fred took a deep breath. "As a time machine."

There was a short pause. Then Cordelia said, "I don't guess there's any hope for the 'sculpture' option?"

"This is not a time machine," Charles said. "Ain't no such thing."

In a quiet voice, Fred said, "Then where'd Drusilla go?"

For a long time, no one spoke. Fred was aware that her stomach was churning, her mind humming with surprise and fear, and she wondered if the others felt the same way. Finally, Angel said, "I've been around a long time, but every time I think I've seen it all, something new comes along. A time machine -- is that possible, Fred?"

"There's no technology -- not even an approximation of the technology -- for that," Fred said. "But there's a whole heap of different ideas. Some people don't think you can travel in time, even in theory. Some think you could go back, but not forward. But, as a general principle, do most physicists think it's possible? Yes."

The other three were staring at her. No, Fred realized, not at her -- past her, at the black pyramid, looming silent and empty behind her.

"This is NOT a time machine," Charles repeated, shaking his head.

"I know it sounds farfetched," Angel said. "But Drusilla used that device to do something -- to go somewhere. We have to --"

"No, no, NO," Charles said. He started pacing. "No time machines! Absolutely not. I mean, okay, vampires are real. Found that out a few years ago. Freaked out, dealt with it. Then I found out that zombies are real. Werewolves are real. Witches are real. Freaky telekinetic chicks with personal problems are real. But not time machines! Okay, maybe every single other weird-ass thing out of a horror movie is real, but not this!"

"Charles?" Fred wasn't used to seeing him out of control, and it unnerved her more than it should have done. She looked around at the others to see if they were as worried as she was. They didn't seem to be.

Charles looked at them all in a mixture of frustration and misery. "I just want one damn thing not to be real," he said. "Just one fake thing. That's all I ask."

"I hear the Easter Bunny is a crock," Cordelia offered. She patted his shoulder and smiled ruefully. "I know how you feel. I've been there myself. You just have to face it -- that moment when you realize, no matter how high your weirdness threshold gets, it's never gonna be high enough."

Fred went to Charles and squeezed his arm. "This is weird, I know. But we have to focus. I think we might be in a lot of trouble."

That seemed to work, and Fred was relieved. Charles breathed out. "A time machine. That's -- crazy. I mean, you'd have to be crazy to even --" He broke off, his face changing. "You'd have to be crazy."

"Suppose that thing is a time machine," Angel said, "and suppose Drusilla just used it to go somewhere, then -- hypothetically -- what kind of damage could she do?"

Cordelia said, "Just before she closed the door, she was ranting about changing the beginning."

Fred felt her heart flutter as her mind started to work out the implications. "She could go back to the beginning of human history and kill the first homo sapiens. Or create so many vampires that human civilization never develops past the stone age. She could --"

Cordelia held up a hand, cutting Fred off. "Okay, so she could do very bad things, up to and including wiping out civilization as we know it." She frowned, then brightened. "Wait a second. Dru can't have changed the past -- if she had, we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation. Right?"

She looked so hopeful that Fred hated to let her down. "It's called the ripple effect. Reality is a little like the surface of a pond. Drop a stone in it, and the waves move out from the point of impact. So if the past has changed, we probably haven't got that long before the effects work their way to 2002."

"We have to figure out where Dru went -- when she went," Angel corrected himself. "Then we have to follow her."

Charles grimaced. "Man, I KNEW you were gonna say that."

"Fred --" Angel said.

Fred nodded and hopped on to her feet to enter the pyramid again. "There's some kind of writing in here, around all the dials and such. It looks a little like Egyptian hieroglyphics."

Angel, Cordy and Charles crowded into the space inside the pyramid. Four bodies was a crush, but there was just enough room for them all. "Can you read it?" Angel asked.

"Math is my thing, not languages. I mean, I've picked up bits and pieces from W--" Fred stopped herself from saying the name just in time. It didn't make any difference -- from the uncomfortable looks on Charles and Cordy's faces, she knew they were thinking the same thing she was. But, as useful as Wesley's presence would have been right now, Fred doubted he was ever going to get the opportunity to do any translating anywhere near Angel, ever again. "I've picked up a little, but not enough. I can't read this."

"Lemme see," Cordelia said. As she jockeyed for a better position, she nudged against Fred. Fred put her hand against the wall of the pyramid to steady herself, and felt something give under her fingers. The pyramid door swung smoothly shut, and they were suddenly confined in darkness.

"Cozy," Gunn's voice said. She heard him fumbling in his pocket, and then he pulled out his lighter and flicked it. "Now we can see exactly how much trouble we're in."

"This had better be a time machine," Cordelia said, "because I do NOT want to have to explain how we got trapped in here to the museum staff when they open up tomorrow."

"What are all these rings for?" Charles said. The highest level of the pyramid was covered in small, carved hooks; from each hung a small golden ring. No, Fred realized -- from all but one. One of the rings had been taken. Acting on instinct, she reached up and took one herself.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Charles said.

The ring shone dully in Fred's hand. "Why not?"

"Didn't you ever see an Indiana Jones movie? This thing could be booby trapped."

"Decapitated by a museum exhibit," Cordelia said. "Yeah, that's gonna look really dignified on my death certificate."

"Something's happening," Angel said.

He was right, Fred realized. On each of the four walls of the pyramid, individual hieroglyphs were starting to glow softly. She counted seven -- no, eight -- in all, each one exuding a soft lambency. Each was under one of the dials; Fred didn't understand the settings, but she knew not to change them. She touched the nearest glowing symbol. Immediately, it went out. "I think you're meant to use the rings to activate the machine. Like -- like the key of a car. You use the dials to set it, to determine where you're going, maybe like the steering wheel. And the symbols record -- something."

"What kind of something?" Charles asked.

"I'm not sure. The most recently used settings, maybe?" She frowned. "I can't think of anything like that on a car."

"You mean, these could be the settings Drusilla used," Angel said.

Fred shook her head. "I'm not sure."

"Only one way to find out," Cordelia said determinedly. She reached up and placed her fingertips on two more of the glowing hieroglyphs. Both instantly went out, making the pyramid's interior noticeably darker.

Charles pressed the two lit shapes closest to him, and Angel took two more. Now only one symbol still glowed.

"If we press this, and nothing happens, we are gonna feel so dumb," Cordelia said.

Fred's hand hovered over the last glowing hieroglyph.

"Do it," Angel said.

Fred touched the symbol. It went out. For a moment, she was kneeling in perfect darkness, the musty smell of the museum in her nostrils and the feel of three bodies -- two warm and one cool -- close by.

Then the floor vanished.

Fred screamed. She thought they all screamed, but she could only hear her own terrified cries. She felt herself tumbling and falling through a vast and empty void, and in her terror, her only clear thought was that this time there wouldn't be anyone there to catch her at the other end.