The servant girl had a black eye, Darla noticed. It was a minor detail, of no consequence, certainly not compared with what the girl was saying. "Yes, Lord Dalton's been very concerned. He very much wishes to see you."

Darla hesitated on the step. Not enough. "Are we invited in, then?" Despite her raging fury and grief, she forced herself to simper convincingly. "I -- I never thought to be invited in by a member of the nobility." Behind her, Spike gave a short cough intended to signal both his amusement and irritation at her game.

"Certainly, ma'am," the servant girl said. "You're very welcome to Lord Dalton's home."

She extended her arm and smiled encouragingly, no doubt expecting Darla and her companions to remain timid and unsure. Darla had no more patience for play-acting and swept inside, not even bothering to look back at Spike and Dru.

Play-acting, she thought, with a pang of something that might have been heartache in a mortal woman. If you hadn't had such a weakness for theatre, my darling boy, then you wouldn't be --

Darla closed her eyes tightly for a moment. She couldn't think of it now. First things first.

She pushed the manservant aside and threw open the doors. Seated at a small reading table was a man whose slight stature, bald head and tiny, wire-rimmed glasses made him look more like an academic than a nobleman. His dressing gown was silk -- Darla could always tell -- and so perfectly pleated and tucked that he might have been lounging about in the afternoon, rather than roused from his bed in the hours before dawn. He rose to his feet instantly, manners and practice overcoming his surprise. "Madam! I had expected you to be announced --"

"What did you do to my husband?" She used the title as a tactic; it would give her rights in this foolish man's eyes, make him speak. Yet the feel of the word on her tongue made her shiver for no reason she could name.

"You are -- Mr. Angelus' wife? I had no idea --" Lord Dalton looked embarrassed, then covered for his friend's lapse. "He was, of course, a very private man. I should not have presumed that he would introduce me to his family so soon."

"I know his habits far better than you, sir." Darla snapped.

"He eats up light," Drusilla sing-songed as she stepped up behind Darla. "He drinks tears."

Lord Dalton's gaze flickered over to Darla's companions, and she took a moment to despise the necessity of dragging them along with her. But how could she cast them aside now? Though she was loath to admit it, if she didn't have Spike and Drusilla, she would now have nothing. "Tell me what you did to my husband," she said. "The gypsies got to him. Did you tell them where he was? Lead them to him?"

"The gypsies!" Lord Dalton looked shocked -- and yet, Darla thought, not as astonished as he might have. "But of course! When my servant girl was on her way to your house last night, they waylaid her and treated her most brutally. Come, girl, show them your face."

The servant girl came into the room, her black eye now explained. So, Darla thought, the gypsies found us on their own. This foolish creature just got in the way. No answers to be found here. At least it serves my other purpose.

"Is Mr. Angelus hurt?" Lord Dalton said. "Is he missing?"

"Yes," Darla said. "As are you."

"I beg your pardon?"

She smiled, a tight, sarcastic little smile. "You came to Romania to find vampires, Lord Percy." Darla let her face shift into its demonic visage and reveled for a moment in his surprise and terror. "Well done, sir."

Darla grabbed his shoulders and bit into his neck savagely, with no thought for finesse or even for the stains on her gown. Lord Dalton's hands pawed weakly at her, scrambling to push himself away, to no avail. In the corner of her eye, she could see Spike making short work of the servant girl; behind her was some thumping and gurgling that probably signaled the manservant's death and Drusilla's lunch. Darla kept gulping down Lord Dalton's blood, needing the strength more than she could ever remember before.

As his heart began to flutter and fail, she let him flop back. His eyes were glassy, his skin waxen. Angelus' voice, so loud and distinct that it startled her, echoed, "I forbid you to turn him."

He had been speaking of a paramour that never existed, not this ludicrous creature, and yet Darla felt the old defiance blaze up inside her again. She brought her wrist to her mouth and bit in deeply; the pain seemed to belong to someone else. "Drink," she said. "Drink, and you'll know the truth to all the stories."

Lord Dalton drank. Then he died. His body collapsed to the floor, and Darla stared down at him until Spike and Dru came to her side.

"You turned THAT git?" Spike said. "Mark my words, he's not going to be any fun. Worse than that dolt Penn, more than likely."

"He won't be up for a while," Darla said. "A day, maybe two. I drank too much."

"Not like you, getting careless," Spike said. "Vamping some idiot who can't be of any use for a day or so, dragging us off from our perfectly good villa, running off from our perfectly good hotel rooms that were waiting later on --"

"He can't find us," Darla said quickly. "He mustn't find us."

"Who? Angelus?" Spike looked at her in disbelief, then cackled in glee. "Oh, this is brilliant. You're pretending to run off from Angelus again, just so he can chase you --"

Against her will -- against every instinct she had, vampiric and otherwise -- Darla felt her eyes filling with tears. "Be silent," she hissed. "It's not yours to question what I do."

Drusilla's fingers stroked through Darla's hair, as slender and cool as the teeth of an ivory comb. "Drink up your tears, little baby grandmother," Dru said. "Spike doesn't mean to be unkind."

"Yes, I do," Spike said.

"They won't beat us," Darla said. She knew she was making less sense even than Dru; she didn't care. "I won't let them win."

Drusilla smiled. "Not this time."

Fred tried very hard to remember the last time she'd looked around to see where she was and been happy about the answer. It had been a disturbingly long time ago, and, to judge by where she thought Angel was leading them, it wasn't going to happen again anytime soon.

"Uh, Angel?" Cordelia said, breaking the shell-shocked silence that had lasted since they'd left the cave in the Romanian woods. Now they were winding their way through the pre-dawn streets of Sighisoara, and there was no longer any doubt about where they were going. "Is it my imagination, or are we headed in exactly the wrong direction?"

"We're going to the villa," Angel said. "Where Darla, Dru, Spike and I lived."

"Hence my use of the phrase, 'exactly the wrong direction,'" Cordelia said. "Angel, I know the whole apocalypse-timeshift-Wesley thing was stressful -- it was for all of us --"

Charles cut in. "What she's asking is, are you insane?" Fred winced. After what she'd seen before -- the second crazed attack Angel had made on Wesley, or a version of Wesley, anyway, in two weeks -- that question seemed far too close to the bone.

But when Angel answered, he sounded calm. "Not yet," he said. "Believe me, I don't like this any better than you do. If there were anywhere else -- but there isn't. Darla will be trying to avoid me. That means she's going to be anywhere but the villa."

"She thinks you -- as in, past you -- might be coming back here?" Fred said. When Angel nodded, she said, "How do you know you won't?"

"I didn't before," Angel said. "I know that's no guarantee, but it's got to be a good sign. We can stay there today, bide our time, rest, get some supplies. Maybe some money."

"She won't have taken it all with her?" Cordelia said. "Shame to leave good money lying around."

"We took possessions we particularly liked," Angel said. They were getting close to the villa now, and Fred found herself thinking gratefully of whatever brief rest they might get. She'd had only one afternoon's nap since their first trip back in time yesterday -- two days ago? How long was it? She couldn't think of how to calculate it anymore. "But only our favorites. What we could carry easily, no more. You could always steal something newer or better the next day."

"So we can get clothes," Charles said. "Which would be good, seeing as how the gypsies aren't going to be loaning us new outfits again." Fred nodded; she felt ridiculous in her 21st-century gear, even though the streets were utterly deserted at this hour.

Cordelia said, "We SO do not need to visit the gypsies again. I mean, I see where they're coming from, but there are some serious hostility issues at work with those guys."

"But we have to see them!" Fred said, so surprised she stopped walking. The others halted as she said, "Spike and Darla are going to kill them. We know that."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. It was Charles who answered her, "Fred, we ain't here to see that they don't die. We're here to make sure they do."

Fred took a moment to consider it. "It's like the servant girl, isn't it?" she finally said. "Except this time we know. They have to die."

"Yeah," Angel said. "They do."

Cordelia quickly said, "Let's just get to this villa, okay? It's freezing out here, and if I'm going to have to fight for my life, I'd like to do it before I'm completely numb."

They came to the villa; Angel motioned for them to stand back, then went and tried the door. It was unlocked, apparently, as it swung open at his touch. For a few moments, she and Charles and Cordelia stood there, breathless and waiting. At last, a lamp came on inside, warming the windowpanes with its glow. Fred breathed a sigh of relief. "See?" Cordelia said. "Completely safe."

Charles rolled his eyes at Fred as they went inside, and she smiled. Then she got a look at the place, and froze on the spot. "Oh, my God."

The room had been ransacked. Everything breakable was broken; trunks lay in the hallway, open and obviously rifled-through. A few scraps of cloth -- clothing or linens -- hung on chairs and banisters. Fred wondered if the dark stains in front of the fireplace were blood, then decided she didn't want to know.

Even Angel looked surprised. "It wasn't like this when I left," he said. "Darla must have -- she would have been angry. I mean, she was angry."

"When you left that night to meet Lord Dunstan or Dalton or whatever it was?" Cordelia said. "Not this time. You guys were way too cozy, and now you've reminded me." She began to peer into the trunks and sift through their contents, scowling all the while.

"No, not then," Angel said. "When she came back and found me later -- a few hours ago, I guess. When she realized I had a soul."

Cordelia's face brightened. "A-hah!" She held up a roll of something that was obviously money, even if Fred didn't recognize the currency. "Angel, is this a lot of money? Please say this is a lot of money. If we're gonna be stranded back in time, I would prefer to be stranded and rich." Something about what Cordelia said sent a shiver down Fred's back, and she gripped the side of the trunk.

Charles said, "How did you find that?"

"She can smell it," Angel said. He smiled at Cordelia then, a gentle, familiar smile that was more relaxed, more human, than any expression Fred had seen on Angel's face in weeks. "Remember when I used to hide a couple twenties around the old office?"

"My surprise bonuses," Cordy said, squeezing his arm. "So, have we won the nineteenth-century lotto? Or is this like Italian lira, where you need something like eighty thousand to buy a Coke?"

"It's substantial," Angel said. "We can't buy a house with it, but we can live well for a month or two. Buy what we don't find here."

"First off, we need clothes," Fred said. She was still cold; the house was almost chillier than outside. Maybe that was why she was shaking. She pulled a dove-gray dress from the trunk. "Angel, was this Darla's or Drusilla's? I think I could maybe wear something of Drusilla's --"

He looked at the dress, puzzled. "It's possible that I just don't remember, but I don't think that belonged to either of them. In fact, I don't remember these trunks at all."

Fred shrugged. "I guess we can check the closets, too."

"Try the trunks first," Angel said quickly. "It's just -- I just might not remember."

"Nothing to do but try some stuff on," Cordelia said. "I hope none of this is Darla's. I don't want anything that belonged to that skank."

Angel started to say something, then evidently changed his mind. "I'm going upstairs. Darla wouldn't have taken my things with her. So my own clothes should still be up there." He started to climb the stairs.

"Any guy clothes in that trunk?" Charles said.

"Wait," Fred said. She wasn't aware of having said it especially loudly or abruptly, but everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her. They sensed it too, Fred realized; the same fear that was making her shiver was there inside all of them, but it had fallen to her to speak about it first. "Guys -- if we don't succeed -- not that we won't! But if we don't stop Dru from undoing Angel's curse, what are we gonna do?"

Quietly, Angel said, "Then we have to kill him."

"Angel, no!" Cordelia whirled around to face him. "Are you out of your undead mind? If we stake that Angel, then there's not gonna be this Angel -- you know, the YOU Angel." She turned back around to Fred. "Am I right? That's the way it works, right?"

"I don't know," Fred confessed. "The field of temporal dynamics is completely theoretical, or it WAS, before today, when we proved Delaney's hypothesis about -- oh, never mind." She sighed. "If we hadn't changed reality so dramatically, then yes, Angel would cease to exist after we staked -- well, let's keep calling him Angelus just to stay clear here. That might be instantaneous, or it might not happen until Angel attempted to leave this time for the restored future."

"See?" Cordelia said, folding her arms in front of her. "No staking."

"Wait," Charles said. "Cordy staked the Drusilla from 1898 -- but that didn't make 2002 Dru pop out like a light bulb. We know she stayed around and changed history and screwed up the future we saw in Rome. The same thing would have to apply to Angel, right? So we could stake Angelus, save the future and go home in time to get pizza." He was trying very hard to look hopeful, so hard it made Fred's eyes almost tear up. For all his anger, all his jaded posturing, Charles could work so hard at hope.

"Maybe," Fred said. "Nobody knows for certain. When the timeline diverges irrevocably, if we're still here, then Angel might no longer be the future version of this Angelus. Instead, we'd all be artifacts from an entirely separate reality, almost like another dimension. Changes we made here wouldn't affect us at all. The disconnect could be complete. In that case, Angel would survive our staking Angelus -- but none of us could ever go home again."

Charles groaned. "My head hurts. This is what I get for dropping outta tenth-grade physics to take shop."

"Maybe doesn't cut it," Cordelia said. "We can't stake Angelus and 'maybe' kill Angel too. We can't 'maybe' get stranded in ye olden days forever."

Angel said, "Cordelia, we have to." Before Cordelia could protest, he continued, "The alternative is letting reality become what we saw in Rome. We can't let that happen. Not if it kills me. Not if it kills all of us."

Everyone was quiet for a few moments. Cordelia ducked her head so that Fred couldn't see her face. Angel came down a couple of steps toward her, but she shook her head quickly. Charles rubbed Fred's back, a quick motion that somehow comforted her far more than it should have done.

"Okay," Cordelia finally said. "Okay, then. Let's just all -- get some sleep. We can think about this after we get some sleep."

Someone knocked hard on the door. Everyone jumped. Fred clapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Cordelia looked back over at Angel and whispered, "You said they wouldn't come back!"

"They wouldn't," Angel said. "They also wouldn't knock." He came back down the steps. As the heavy hand knocked on the door again, he called, "One moment!" then added a phrase that Fred suspected meant the same in Romanian.

"We gotta hide," Charles said, gesturing at their clothes. Angel pulled something from one of the trunks; Fred realized it was a cape. She went with Charles and Cordelia into the next room, where they flattened themselves against the wall behind the door, next to one of the abandoned trunks. They all tensed as they heard the door open.

A voice said, in heavily accented English, "Sir, here to move you into Hotel Lebada, yes?"

"The Hotel Lebada," Angel said. Fred thought his voice sounded as though he were remembering something. He was more certain as he answered, "Yes, of course."

"This is the hour requested," the caller's voice said. He did not sound very happy about this hour -- still well before dawn -- being the one requested. "All to be ready to move at this hour, it is said."

"I'm sorry for the confusion," Angel said. "As you can see, we were robbed. We're all very shocked."

As the caller, apparently an employee of a local hotel, expressed his horror and sympathy, Cordelia muttered, "As soon as Angel gets rid of this guy, we can crash. Well, bolt the doors shut, then crash."

"I need sleep worse than I ever have in my whole life," Fred said. "But I almost don't see how I can sleep until this is over. If we have to stake --"

"Don't say it," Cordelia said. When Charles looked at her, long and hard, she said, "If I have to do it, I'll do it. But don't expect me to deal with that idea one single second before I have to."

In the following silence, Fred heard Angel say, "We'll be ready to move in just a few minutes. Hold the carriage."

"Move?" Charles said. "Who said anything about moving?"

"Apparently," Fred said, "Angel just did." Cordelia looked indignant.

Angel poked his head into their room. "Change of plan."

"Yeah, thanks for consulting us," Cordelia said. "I thought this was the one place Darla and co weren't gonna be today. So why are we leaving?"

"We're going to the other place they won't be," Angel said. "There was somewhere else I could possibly have found Darla in the past. We'd arranged to move from this villa into some hotel rooms, in preparation for a ball that was being held -- I guess it's tonight."

"Anyplace the vampires aren't is okay by me," Fred said. "And you know I mean evil vampires, right? But still, Angel, why move? Seems like we could be more secure here -- you know, we can nail boards across the doors and windows without a bellhop asking us to quit. That kind of thing."

Angel shook his head quickly. "We want to get closer to that ball," he said. "We're going. Because I'd bet anything Darla's going."

"Usually I seize the few chances I get to combine our mission and formalwear," Cordelia said. "But get real, Angel. Look at this place. Darla's freaking out. Her whole world just got turned upside down. Why would she still go to a party?"

"You have to understand -- that's exactly why she WOULD go." He spoke quickly, clearly trying to organize complicated memories as he talked. "Darla -- she doesn't -- I mean, she didn't ever admit anything was wrong unless she had to. She never even explained my curse to Drusilla and Spike; they didn't know for sure what had happened to me until they got to Sunnydale. She always tried to pretend that things were the way she wanted them to be, until she could either make them that way or destroy them. As a philosophy, it worked pretty well for her. And she knows I might try to go to her at the hotel, but there's no way I could have pulled myself together enough to go to the ball."

Fred's memory of Darla was of a desperate pregnant woman who had said ugly things to them all, suffered terribly, then died at her own hand, all in the space of a few days. None of those experiences fitted with what Angel was saying. But she could see both Charles and Cordelia nodding slowly; their greater knowledge of Darla apparently matched up. It was Charles who said, "If Darla's coming to this throwdown, chances are she's gonna have Dru in tow, right?"

"Chances are," Angel said. "I don't know for certain. I don't know anything for certain. But it's a safe place to stay for the day, and it sets us up to have a chance at finding them tonight. Plus you guys can get something to eat."

Fred's stomach grumbled hopefully. Cordelia still looked skeptical. "We could just go to this ball tonight anyway, right?"

"I remember the Hotel Lebada was very luxurious, for this era," Angel said. "It might even have flush toilets."

"We're packin'," Cordelia said quickly. "Clothes. We need clothes!"

Angel smiled. "I'm going upstairs for my things. Get ready."

He went back out to the hallway as the others began rummaging quickly in the trunk. Fred tugged out a bonnet and put it over her head, then drew one of the capes around her. Cordelia found a hooded cape and draped it around her jeans. Charles, unfortunately, wasn't having much luck. "This is all girl stuff!" he said. "The guy stuff is all the trunks out front."

"You could get by the hotel staff in drag," Cordelia suggested. "It worked for Tom Hanks."

Charles shot her a dark look as he kept searching the trunk, increasingly desperate. Fred said soothingly, "It's all right, Charles. We'll come up with some story -- maybe sing the Gilligan's Island song again --"

"No, no and NO," Charles said, giving up on the trunk and beginning to search the rest of the room. "First of all, I ain't ever singing that song again in public, and probably not in private neither. Second --" He hesitated. Fred could hear the catch in his voice that meant he didn't want to say any more. She stepped closer to him, but he shook off the hesitation, kept looking under furniture, in an empty closet. "I don't want to be some kind of freak here. It didn't mean much when I thought it was just for a couple of days -- but if it's forever -- let's face it, the only way I even get into this hotel is pretending to be your servant or something. And I can't do that. Even pretending. Even for a day."

Cordelia didn't look too sympathetic; then again, Fred thought, Cordelia seemed to enjoy pretending to be people she wasn't. It didn't affect her pride, because that was something that was as much a part of her as her blood. Charles' pride, on the other hand, was a fragile, difficult thing at times. Fred knew how it felt, the combination of panic and degradation that clawed and hurt. She'd known that feeling ever since the first time a Pylean called her "cow."

Respect, Fred thought. Her mind zigzagged from one possibility to another. Pretending to be someone else, she thought. Like in a play. Like the theatre -- that comedy last night, with the man in the vest and the turban --

Quickly, she tore down the curtains and draped a length of blue velvet over Charles, who for a second was too surprised to do anything except let her. He looked, Fred thought, like a statue about to be unveiled. "Very Siegfried and Roy," Cordelia commented. "And so not helping."

Fred tugged at the curtains, pulling them into a shape that bore a slight resemblance to a set of flowing robes. "Haven't either of you seen 'Gone With The Wind'? Curtains can be clothes! Work with me here!"

The door opened, and the hotel servants took two whole steps in before gaping at Charles. Angel, slightly behind them, gave them a glare that clearly meant, "You were supposed to be ready." Cordelia shrugged. Charles looked somewhere between frightened and angry.

Fred gave the fabric one last tug -- a mistake, as it caused one side of the curtain to slip off Charles' shoulder, revealing the T-shirt underneath. Too late to do anything about it now. Fred stepped back, presenting Charles with a flourish. "Where are your manners?" she cried, not knowing if the servants knew sufficient English to understand her. Her tone of voice should be enough. "You are supposed to bow when you enter the presence of the -- of the -- of the Caliph of Madagascar!"

One of the servants quickly bowed, towing the others down with him. Angel and Cordelia both looked too surprised to say anything. Charles stared at them for a moment, then swung the velvet curtain over his shoulder grandly. In a deep voice, he said, "You may rise."

"Begging pardon," said one of the servants. "This is not told to us."

"What?" Angel said, picking up Fred's outraged tone with a barely suppressed smile. "My instructions were specific."

"Please to forgive," the servant said. "We beg the pardon of the Caliph --?" His voice rose, making it a question.

Charles' expression flickered for only a moment. "My name is --" He smiled broadly and stood up even straighter. "Muhammad Ali."

Fred wanted desperately to see the looks on Angel and Cordelia's faces, but she didn't dare meet their eyes. Forcing herself to remain serious, she said, "You may carry out the Caliph's belongings. We're ready to leave now. Aren't we?"

"Yes," Angel said. "We are."

The servants stepped aside expectantly; Charles stared at them for a moment before catching the hint and walking imperiously out the door. Angel took Cordelia's arm to lead her behind him, and Fred took up the rear, followed only by the servants struggling with the trunk. As they went through the hallway, she noticed a half-open closet door. Huh, she thought. Somebody left a shoe in there.

Then she realized the shoe was actually still attached to the foot, and possibly more, of a person who was undoubtedly dead. And only then did Fred realize the last and unspoken reason Angel had wanted them to leave the villa for the hotel. She was glad he'd insisted.

There were three pairs of feet sticking out of the pantry door -- the maidservant's, the manservant's, and Lord Dalton's. The door wouldn't close, and when Spike tried to force it shut, there was an unpleasant crunching sound. "They won't all fit," he said.

"Crack, crack, crack of bones, music like a xylophone!" Drusilla sang to no particular tune. "Do it again!" She cupped her hands to her ears and started to dance around the kitchen, her elbows knocking pots and serving ladles off their hooks as she twirled manically. The sound of metal pans and cooking implements crashing on to the kitchen's stone floor brought Darla's already stretched patience to breaking point.

"Drusilla, stop it. Stop that NOW." Drusilla ignored her, and so the next time she danced within arm's length, Darla seized her arm and threw her down on to the floor. Dru fell heavily and sat for a second, her face as blank and stunned as a child's. Then, slowly, her lip began to tremble and a series of low sobs started to shake her frail body. Instantly, Darla regretted her actions -- not because she had made Drusilla cry, but because the sound of it was more grating than the crashing of a moment earlier.

"Oh, don't take on so, you're not hurt," she said roughly, but Drusilla only sobbed more loudly. Spike dropped to his knees beside her, comforting Dru while glaring up at Darla with greater defiance than he would have dared show in Angelus' presence. Dru wept on, her sobs all the more ugly to Darla because she knew a word from Angelus would have quieted her.

But Angelus was gone. The gypsies had taken away her magnificent creation, her darling boy, and replaced him with the sniveling, odious creature who'd whined about guilt and reeked with the fetid stench of a soul when he'd crawled back to her. His presence, his very existence, had been unbearable to her, and she'd thrown him into the street. He'd been crying -- actually crying -- as she slammed the door on him. Angelus had wept, and the noise had filled Darla with such a depth of loathing she'd almost reached for a stake to finish the gypsies' work for them.

She hadn't, and until now Darla hadn't known what had made her pause. But as she watched Spike cradle Dru on the kitchen's stone floor, she felt the beginnings of understanding.

"There's a knife in his chest," Drusilla whispered. "Metal, not wood, so the pain goes on and on and on. He feels it. He feels everything, now."

Darla stiffened. It was always a mistake to become too reflective around Drusilla -- her words had an unnerving habit of echoing other people's thoughts. If Drusilla knew about the curse the gypsies had put on Angelus -- if her broken mind had somehow intuited the truth -- how long would it be before she told Spike? And when they both knew, the façade of normality Darla was straining to maintain would crumble away, and she would have to admit to herself that Angelus really was gone.

He was not gone. He could not be.

"Spike," Darla said sharply, "Go and check the rest of the house. I want to be certain no one else is here."

Spike was still holding Drusilla in his arms and didn't appear keen about ending that arrangement. "If there was anyone upstairs, the screaming will have chased them."

Furiously, Darla said, "I am TELLING you what you are to do --"

"Oh, you're telling me?" Spike repeated. "Then why don't you tell me some other things, while you're at it? Such as, what's happened to Angelus and why you're as ready to explode as a bitch in heat --"

"Spike," Drusilla crooned. She had stopped crying and was as calm as she had been inconsolable a few moments earlier. She lifted her hand and drew one fingernail along the side of his neck. "Spike, there's a chambermaid hiding in the bedrooms. Her heart beats, thumpetty thump. Make it stop, for me?"

Spike smiled, and leaned forward, so his forehead touched hers. "Anything you want, sweet."

He left the kitchen; Darla watched him go, the looked down at Drusilla, feeling a strange and completely novel sense of complicity with her. Slowly, she hunkered down on the cold kitchen floor next to her. "Drusilla," she said, "what do you know?"

Drusilla giggled. "Oh, many, many things!" She reached out one skeletal finger and prodded Darla in the stomach. "You're going to grow a little person."

That, Darla thought, was about as probable as Angelus taking vows and becoming a monk. Ignoring Dru's ramblings, she struggled to keep her temper. "What do you know about Angelus, Drusilla? What do you know about what's happened to him?"

Dru's expression became sad. "The knife. The knife in his chest hurts and hurts. I hear his screams echoing down the years. But he will come to love the blade that twists inside him." She glared at Darla. "He will love it as he never loved you."

Darla slapped her, hard. Drusilla wasn't fast enough to turn her head away, and the jewels in Darla's rings tore her cheek. Darla stared at her hand. She'd never professed love for Angelus, or expected to hear similar sentiments from him. All she'd asked was that he amuse her and indulge her, satisfy her whims and desires whenever they arose. Love was for humans; like them, it was weak and easily consumed.

But, a small voice in the back of her head reminded Darla, both she and Angelus had been human, once.

"What are we going to do?" Darla asked. She wasn't talking to Drusilla. She wasn't sure who she was talking to.

Drusilla got up and walked with serene calm to the rack where the kitchen knives hung. There were a dozen or more of them, hung in order of size, from an inch-long blade for paring vegetables to a meat cleaver. Drusilla chose a shining carving knife and held it up under the flickering light of a lamp.

Then she plunged it into her own chest.

She didn't stop until the blade was no longer visible, the knife's handle nestling in the hollow between her breasts. Drusilla gasped and tipped her head back, her face alight with a grotesque mixture of agony and pleasure. Tottering a little, she walked back across the kitchen.

Once they were facing each other, Drusilla lifted Darla's hands and placed them on the carving knife's ivory handle. "Take it out," Drusilla rasped. Her voice was rough, and there was an unpleasant bubbling sound somewhere at the back of her throat. "You have to take it out, before the flesh closes up around the wound. Quickly, now!"

Darla tightened her grip on the knife and pulled. Drusilla gasped as the blade slid out between her ribs, leaving a blotch of deep crimson on the bodice of her dress.

Take out the knife, before the wound seals up around it.

Of course.

"We'll find them," she whispered. "We'll find the vermin Kalderash and make them undo it. We'll show them such terror as they've never known, and when Angelus is restored to us, he will finish our revenge. It will be perfect."

Drusilla laughed, a ghastly sound filled with gurgling from deep in her chest. Blood sprayed from her lips as she giggled, "Yes, yes, yes! That's how it should have been!" She seized Darla by the wrists and pulled her around the kitchen in a mad, spinning waltz; for once, Darla let her. They must look like two lunatics, not one, she thought, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

They didn't stop until Darla grew dizzy and Drusilla began coughing blood from her new wound. But as Darla put a hand to her head to steady herself, she felt a bony hand grip her wrist. Drusilla was staring intently at the strange but beautiful bracelet Angelus had given her. She twisted her head, looking at it from different angles, as fascinated by the shifting colors and shapes as Darla had been.

"They came back," Drusilla said. There was a strange look -- strange even for Drusilla -- on her face as she spoke. "They're here again, and they want to tell the bad story. Can they, when the pattern shifts and moves all the time? It looks solid but you can't touch it. You're just like me, pretty little hologram."

"Pretty little -- what?" Darla looked down at her bracelet. "It's not hollow." Drusilla laughed and laughed; Darla was not accustomed to being laughed at. "Why is that funny?"

"Hologram, hollow gram," Drusilla said, shuffling over to tap the blades of the hanging knives as though they were bells to ring.

Darla stared at Drusilla, sensing for the first time something awry. Drusilla was given to singing tuneless songs and making up nursery rhymes which invariably ended with throat-slitting, but Darla had never known her to invent nonsense words. And Drusilla had examined the bracelet with a kind of intensity that was almost lucid. Darla had the distinct impression that, while she had been preoccupied with keeping the truth about what had happened to Angelus from Drusilla and Spike, somehow she had failed to see that something was being kept from her. Right now, she couldn't begin to guess what it was -- but she was certain she could find out.

"Bloody hell!"

Darla looked around and saw Spike, standing in the kitchen door. There were flecks of blood around his mouth and his face was flushed from a recent feed. But Spike's attention was focused on the knife that lay on the floor between Darla and Drusilla's feet, the blade streaked with blood. He stared at Darla with open hostility. "If you've hurt her --"

"Lovely hurt," Drusilla interrupted. She lifted her hands, and showed him her fingers, the nails black with already-crusting blood. "I did it all myself, Spike."

"If I wanted either of you gone, I wouldn't choose a toy like this to do it," Darla said, nudging the carving knife with her toe. "I'd use a real weapon."

Spike sneered knowingly. "Is that what's happened to Angelus, then? Did one of your tiffs get out of hand and you dusted him?"

Darla didn't answer; instead she exchanged a look with Drusilla, one Spike was meant to see. Their shared secret was safe and, however curious he was, while Darla and Drusilla were in collusion, there was nothing he could do about it.

There was a hook behind the kitchen door, and a selection of servants' capes and cloaks hung on it. Darla selected the largest and threw it at Spike. He caught it, and looked at both the cape and Darla curiously. "What's this for?"

"You'll need it to keep the sun off you," Darla told him. "You're going out."

"What's so urgent it can't wait until dusk?"

"There are gypsies camped somewhere near the city. I want you to find them before they move on." Spike still looked doubtful, and something told Darla this was an occasion to use persuasion rather than brute force to make him do her bidding. Lowering her voice, she said, "I'm in the mood for slaughter. I'm tired of delicate killing, choosing society victims with care. Think of it -- fifty or a hundred mongrel gypsies who no one will miss."

Drusilla brought her hands to her lips and closed her eyes, her face alight with anticipation. "A bloodbath, a lovely bloodbath."

Spike grinned. "Now THIS is more like it. We ought to ditch Angelus more often, if this is the effect it has on you." He picked up the cape and turned to go.

"Spike," Drusilla called.

Spike stopped and looked back.

"Don't kill anyone without me," Dru said. "It's no fun unless we all do it together. No killing yet."

Spike shrugged. "No killing yet. Fine."

"No killing!" Drusilla repeated, more urgently.

"All right!" Spike said, pulling on the cape. Darla watched him walk away along the passage that led up to the main entrance hall, muttering all the time about people who didn't credit him with any self-control.

"It's all going to be different," Drusilla whispered. "Different and wonderful."

Darla laughed and took Drusilla by the arm. "For once, you're making perfect sense," she said. "Come upstairs. You and I have a ball to prepare for."

Drusilla spun around in a circle, letting the knife-blades tear at her fingertips as she whirled. "Second verse," she chanted. "Not the same as the first."