"Presenting his Most Royal Majesty, the Caliph of Madagascar, Muhammad Ali!"

Gunn entered the room first, nodding slightly at the many finely dressed people who turned to stare. His turban was tucked, his velvet curtain draped and his demeanor exactly correct: formal, proud, even regal. Angel smiled. He never would have guessed Gunn had it in him.

"Presenting Mistress Winifred Burkle and Mistress Cordelia Chase of the United States of America."

Angel hung back for a moment, then followed the rest of his party. Gunn's entrance, unsurprisingly, had prompted a ripple of interested murmuring, and Angel was able to slip into the ballroom unobserved and, more importantly, unannounced. If Darla and Drusilla were already at the ball, Angel had decided he would prefer not to give away his presence too soon.

Fred sighed as she looked around. "This has got to be the most beautiful place I've ever been."

The ballroom's floors were cream-colored marble flecked with gold, the high ceilings carved and gilded and lit by elaborate chandeliers with crystal facets that sparkled. Oil panels illustrating each of the seven Muses decorated the walls, with nubile girls and fat cherubs in sky blue and rose pink. Candelabra on the tables provided a little more light, and the band was playing a simple tune, not intended for dancing. Women in satin gowns and men in black silk nodded and curtseyed and bowed -- mostly to Gunn, who didn't seem displeased with the attention. The jewels they wore glittered almost as much as the crystals overhead. Same old, same old, Angel thought. But before he could say that this was a fairly provincial affair, he saw the awe in Fred's eyes, and the delight in Cordelia's, and he kept silent.

"Okay," Cordelia said in a low voice, "I've panned-and-scanned the room twice now, and no Darla or Dru."

"No," Angel said. He tried to sense them, as best he could -- but in the first crush of the party, with more than a hundred human heartbeats pumping blood in rhythm around him, his senses weren't at their most acute. "Maybe they haven't arrived yet."

"So what do we do until they do?" Cordelia said. "Mingle? Because these guys look like a bunch of stiffs." She gave one of her best smiles to an older woman who passed near them.

The tension and uncertainty of the past weeks rose up inside Angel again -- everything that had ever mattered to him depended on making the right decisions and taking the right actions in the next few hours. But giving into his fears wouldn't help either; he forced himself to relax, to focus, to find one element of this chaotic situation that he could happily concentrate on.

Cordelia's dress was the color of fireplace embers, fitted tightly around her waist and breasts, flaring into puffed sleeves that framed her face. Her white gloves called attention to her slim hands, and the earrings caught the shining light in her eyes. The band readied its sheet music and the crowd began reacting, getting into place for the first number of the evening. "Until then," Angel said, "we dance."

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "You're gonna dance?"

"I'm not doing anything invented after 1910," Angel said.

"Guess that rules out that breakdancing contest for later," Gunn said. "Should I, like, try an accent?" Fred shook her head quickly.

"But before 1910 -- that's okay." Cordelia's smile was partly teasing, but partly happiness.

"Exactly." Angel took her hand and began leading her to the floor. "We'll have to make do with the waltz."

"Oh, I think I can handle that," Cordelia laughed.

Hearts like drumbeats, thump thump, thump thump. The drums were loud and fast, like in a nightclub. What was the nightclub Spike had liked so much, the one where she'd collected all those ears?

"See Bee Gee Bees," Dru sang happily.

"Very nice," Darla said absently as they walked closer to the ballroom. Grandmummy wasn't really listening, because she never did when it wasn't Daddy talking, or when it wasn't knives sticking out of people. The cut in Dru's chest still hurt, and she wondered if it would bleed as she danced, making a red rose in the middle of all her white ruffles.

"Roses are the reddest hearts of all," Dru said. "Spike shan't cut the flowers down, this time. They will grow without thorns, and Daddy won't have to bleed ever again."

Darla's eyes were sharp, cut glass, broken windows. "You almost made sense again."

"Sorry," Dru dropped her eyes. "I'm trying to cut back."

They went past a mirror in the entryway, and it was as naughty as all the other mirrors, and it would not show Dru how pretty she looked in her white satin dress. Spike and Angelus hadn't been there to tell her, and Darla only had eyes for her own frock, which was black as night. "You are the sky," Dru said. "I am the moon."

"We're about to be in public, Drusilla," Darla said sharply. "Save your poetry for those who appreciate it. Children and corpses and Spike."

The music had already begun, and the dancers whirled around the floor, confetti and coffee spoons. The man at the doorway was going to ask them for their names, and then he would say them very loudly. Dru did not like for just anyone to say her name. She looked into his eyes and beyond them, pulled up the damp rag inside him and wrung it out as she said, "We haven't any names. Not any at all."

"Not any at all," he repeated quietly, and he stepped aside to let them pass. Wring wring. Grandmummy was leading her into the room -- and then she stopped. Then Dru saw why.

Angelus was there. No, not Angelus -- Angel, awful Angel, Angel who set fires and dug up all the things that should be left buried. And the girl who saw things like she did, but differently than she did, and those others too.

"How -- how can this be?" Darla gasped. Her eyes were wide with shock, one hand to her throat. Around her wrist, her hologram bracelet glittered with all the little dancers.

Dru frowned, and all the lovely dancing lights in her head, the ones that had zoomed in when she read the book about the time machine, seemed to go out at once. "They came back," Dru said. "Didn't see that. Didn't see that page. Someone ripped it out, and tearing books is very naughty."

"Came back? They?" Darla repeated the words, but she only stared at Angel. "How can he be here? How can he be -- dancing?"

"Didn't see," Dru repeated. It was all wrong, all wrong, ink on the coverlet, screams near the policeman, holy water in Angel's eyes. She stamped her foot. "This is MY ending!" she insisted.

"Your ending? What do you mean?" Darla grabbed Dru's arm very, very hard. She stared at her with eyes that stabbed. The cut in Dru's chest hurt again.

"Blades," Dru whimpered. "Too many blades. The paper dolls are in little pieces. A hat, a foot, a head."

"Tell me about your dollies," Darla said, watching Angel glide across the floor with the girl in orange. "Tell me about the one with the dark hair."

"You won't listen," Dru insisted. "You've ribbons in your ears, Grandmummy."

"Try me," Darla said.

"The ladies do not wear turbans, of course," Charles said grandly to his small audience of rapt listeners. "They dress their hair in elaborate ways, with beads and braids, and wear fine cloaks of -- lemur fur."

The people around him looked suitably impressed. Fred tried very hard not to let her jaw drop. She'd known Charles for almost a year, during which she thought she'd seen just about every side of his personality: the angry side, the funny side, the gentle side, the ballet-crazy side. But she had never guessed that right down at the core, the guy was a complete ham.

"Your Majesty," one woman said breathlessly, "is the Caliph the ruler of all Madagascar?"

"Of course not, Bertha," her husband said with an apologetic smile in Charles' direction. "You should know what a caliph is. They are Islamic leaders, the direct descendants of the prophet Mahomet himself, and they are believed to be the divinely ordained speakers of God's will on earth. I had thought the caliphate was dismantled in the 13th century, but apparently it survives on in local custom, what?"

That's what a caliph is? Fred thought. I thought it was just a sheik or something. Charles looked similarly confused for a moment, but he just put one hand on his chest and smiled. "Yes. I'm -- one of them."

He glanced over at Fred, as if hoping that she would help him out. She smiled, hoping he'd see what she saw: Charles Gunn didn't need any help at all, not in this century or any other. Charles must have gotten the message, because he grinned in return.

A portly old man with a handlebar mustache boomed, "I say, is there much tribal warfare in Madagascar?"

Fred watched Charles consider being offended, then start being amused. "We have great and terrible wars," Charles said, in his best this-is-CNN voice. "Even now, my tribe -- the Lakers -- struggles to defeat our enemies, the Sacramento Kings."

"Ohh," the crowd said. Fred flipped her fan up in front of her face so she could grin unseen.

One-two-three, one-two-three --

Cordelia hadn't lied about the deb circuit; she'd had her white lace dresses and her pearls, the escorts who smelled like the beer they'd drunk in the parking lot. Her main memories of the balls were of having to juggle cheerleader practice around them. Certainly the dancing lessons she'd taken to get through had dropped off the radar screen, and now it took most of her energy to just remember what she was supposed to be doing.

Fortunately, Angel was a good lead, his hand strong against her back, guiding her gently around the floor. Cordelia had never seen Angel attempt club-style dancing, and she was pretty sure she didn't want to see him try, ever; however, when it came to this kind of dancing, it was clear he knew exactly what he was doing.

The chandeliers spun above their heads. Angel was smiling down at her. She was breathless from the corset, and from the dancing, and just from the strange joy of it. Weird but true, Cordelia thought: The deeper the trouble you're in, the more you want to enjoy what you've got.

"I don't believe it," she said. "You're a good dancer."

"I'm really not," Angel said. "I don't think I can stress that enough. But I know how to do this. It's not any different from swordfighting, really."

"Except for the swords. And the fighting."

He gave her that little half-smile. "Not like that. I meant -- you know how your body's supposed to move. You learn the motions and the timing through experience. Then, when you're in the moment, you can just -- go."

That sounds like something besides swordfighting, Cordelia thought. She was about to say as much when Angel's curse in all its permutations rose up in her mind, and she decided that was a mean thing to mention. She just smiled at Angel instead as they went through the last few steps, wondering why her spirits seemed so much lower all of a sudden.

By the time the dance ended, the corset was cutting into Cordelia and she had to gasp a little to catch her breath. As Angel led her back to where Gunn and Fred were waiting at the side of the ballroom, she stole a glance at the other female dancers, and noted with envy that none of them looked even slightly winded. There must be a knack to successful corset-wearing, she decided.

As they rejoined their friends, Gunn was looking unduly pleased with himself, and Fred was shaking her head. "Having fun?" Angel asked.

"Oh, sure," Fred said, quirking her mouth. "Nothing like hearing the Caliph here tell people they haven't lived until they've eaten lemur-kabobs."

"Lemur-kabobs?" Cordelia blinked, totally unable to get past the word.

"Pardon me," said a waiter -- no, Cordelia realized, not a waiter. But he was apparently part of the staff, and he was holding out a tiny branch bedecked in brilliant golden blossoms. "I was requested to bring this to you."

"Flowers," Gunn said, then started. "That's a message, right, Angel?" When Angel nodded, Gunn added, "Which one of the gi -- the ladies is this flower for?"

"For neither," the servant said, nodding in Angel's direction. "I was requested to bring it to this gentleman."

As the servant stepped away, Cordelia peered at the green-and-yellow branch in Angel's hand. "I don't know those flowers."

"They're -- acacia," Angel said haltingly, clearly recalling the information from a far-distant corner of his memory.

"So what message do acacia send?" Fred said.

"They symbolize secret love," Angel said. "That, or --" He was quiet for a few moments before he finished, "Or the immortality of the soul."

Cordelia turned even as Angel did. Darla stood several feet away, wearing black-satin and a dark-lipped smile. She spoke quietly, her voice barely carrying to them over the murmuring of the crowd. "Are you going to ask me to dance, Angelus? Or -- will I have to break protocol?"

Cordelia got the very distinct sense that when Darla said, "break protocol," she meant something a lot more obvious -- and dangerous -- than asking Angel to dance.

Angel's face was unreadable as he walked forward and offered his arm. "Please do me the favor," he said by rote. Darla took his arm and sailed off with him toward the dance floor.

Gunn spoke first. "How come Angel's dancing with her instead of wrestling her into a headlock?"

"Because the other vamps aren't here," Cordelia said, looking around. Spike and Drusilla were either not at the ball or not in her field of vision -- in other words, still unknown factors. "Taking out Darla doesn't do us much good if Spike and Dru are still on the loose."

"This is just -- not good," Fred said.

Cordelia threw all Angel's words about formality to the winds and folded her arms in front of her. "Ya think?"

"The mazurka is a fine dance, don't you agree?" Darla asked. She was positioned opposite Angel on the dance floor; he was lightly clasping her cool fingers as she executed the dance's slow, graceful steps in perfect time with the music the band was playing. "The waltz has passion, but the mazurka is refined. It is the dance of aristocrats."

Angel didn't reply. He was still concentrating on remembering a sequence of dance steps he hadn't used in more than a century, and concentrating even harder on Darla. Her gown was jet black, and that alone made her unique in a room filled with scarlets and blues and jades. If he knew Darla -- and he did, so very well -- it would amuse her to take traditional garb of demure mourning and turn it into something scandalous. If that had been her aim, she had succeeded: the sleeves of her gown were cut from muslin, leaving her arms outrageously exposed almost to the shoulder, and the gown's neckline plunged daringly low. Her lips were red and her hair was pinned into an elaborate cascade of tight curls.

She looked the way she had the very first night Angel had seen her in a tavern in Galway, a creature so exotically perfect she hardly seemed real.

"A pity you weren't alive when La Volta was the rage," she said. "Elegance and athleticism and scandal, all in one dance. It would have suited you admirably." Darla placed one foot behind the other and lowered herself into a curtsey. As she rose, Angel linked his arm with hers, and they circled each other.

"You dance well," Darla said. "I wonder if you remember who taught you how."

She was testing him, Angel realized. Still unsure exactly who he was, Darla had chosen to ask him something only he and she would know. "It was a Frenchwoman called Madame Voltaine," Angel said. "The year after we met. You arranged for private tuition because you said I should be able to pass for a gentleman." He took a step forward; Darla stepped back by the same distance.

Darla smiled. "And when you'd learnt what you needed to know, we made sure she never danced again. Those are such happy memories, aren't they?"

"Maybe for you," Angel said. "My perspective is different, now."

"Then the acacia was an appropriate token." Darla was no longer smiling, but beyond that, her face was unreadable.

"Yellow roses would have been even better."

Darla's expression was blank for a moment; then she gave an abrupt laugh. "To symbolize the death of our love? Oh, no, I don't think so. Yellow roses also stand for joy, and we had that in great measure. Or have you forgotten?"

Joy. She could look back on the things they'd done, the horrors they'd visited on the world, and she could call it joy. "I remember it better than you do. I've learned to see it in ways you can't."

"You learn what you're taught and no more," Darla said scornfully. "As you always were and will ever be. We're immortal, my darling. We don't change."

"I changed, Darla. You will, too."

Suddenly, he saw Darla not as she was but as she would be: lying on her back in an alleyway while the rain pelted down around them. Her face had been bare of makeup, contorted with pain from the contractions that wouldn't stop and wouldn't allow their son to be born. Her hair had been tangled and gray with filth washed into it by the water coursing along the gutter, and as she pushed the stake into her chest, Angel had seen in her eyes sorrow for what she was and love for their unborn son. That night, she hadn't been perfect. But she had been beautiful -- more beautiful than he had ever known her in all the centuries they'd spent together.

Angel realized -- of all the things Darla had been to him, and she had been so many -- only one mattered to him anymore. Darla was Connor's mother. She was the mother of his son. It outweighed everything: the murders, the sex, the torture, the betrayal, even his own death and damnation. It all had led to Connor's short life. His son had been in Darla's belly longer than in the rest of the world. Angel felt the quick, irrational urge to touch her there -- right beneath her navel, right where he'd felt Connor kick so long ago, where he would feel Connor kick in days yet to come. His hand was at her waist, so close --

Darla was looking at him intently, and he realized his face had revealed more than he'd intended. "There," she purred. "You still can't stop looking at me, can you? I see it in you. I'll believe many things, Angelus; I'll even believe in Drusilla's fantastical stories. But I'll never believe that our love could die."

Drusilla's fantastical stories --

Oh, God. Darla knew -- what did Darla know?

Her eyes glinted up at him, full of something that was half-mischief, half something far more dangerous.

Angel looked to the side of the ballroom, searching for Drusilla, but he couldn't find her. She must have wandered off while he'd been concentrating on Darla, he realized, and he hoped Cordelia and the others had been paying more attention to her movements than he had. But before she'd gone, Drusilla had managed to derail history again by telling Darla -- how much? He had no way of knowing. He would have to choose every word carefully, in case he inadvertently gave away some key piece of information.

The music shifted, the melody echoing itself and becoming more layered and complex. Around Angel and Darla, the other dancers paused for a single beat and then, in unison, slowly began to circle in the opposite direction. Darla dropped her left hand, made a half turn, and raised her right hand for Angel to take.

On her wrist, Cordelia's hologram bracelet -- the same one Groo had given her, the same one she had sold to the English tourists -- shone in the lamplight, scattering a myriad of tiny rainbows on to Darla's ivory skin. Angel blinked in surprise, then tried to hide his reaction. How the hell had Darla gotten that?

"Now," Darla said, "the dance becomes interesting."

Some things about the past, Drusilla decided regretfully, weren't as good as she remembered them. The dancing, for example.

From where she sat she could watch all the people, lined up in boring rows, repeating the same tiny movements over and over again like clockwork toys. Pull out the springs and they would all stop dancing. She wished they would stop. Dru thought about how people danced in the future, packed together in the dark and drowning in noise, a mass of bodies seething to the thudthudthud of music that wasn't. That kind of dancing had no rules, no discipline, and Drusilla loved to lose herself in its beautiful, blissful chaos. She'd forgotten that there had been a time when dancing had been all about rules. Drusilla hated rules.

She had tried to show some of the people moving in constricted little circles how dancing would be in the future, but the band wasn't playing the right kind of music at all and nobody seemed to want to join in with her. So now Drusilla was sitting by herself at the side of the dance floor, pouting and feeling bored.

Grandmummy had gone to dance with wrong, wrong Angel -- Dru could see them from where she sat, circling around each other like scorpions, freezing and scorching the air between them by turns. Grandmummy had gone to him even after Drusilla had told her who he was, and Dru didn't understand that at all.

At least Darla had someone to dance with her. Drusilla wanted Spike to come back. In the future, he would like the new way people danced. She was certain he would like it now, if she showed him how it was done.

Suddenly, Dru straightened up. Someone was watching her, someone's eyes and thoughts fluttering around the edges of her mind.

On the other side of the ballroom, a young man was standing apart from the crowd, holding a drink and watching Drusilla. He thought she hadn't noticed, silly-billy. His face was as blank as a tailor's dummy, but underneath Drusilla felt a brief, hot flash of lust, followed quickly by shame. Lovely thoughts, sweet like rotting fruit! Was his blood as sweet? Drusilla shivered in delight and anticipation. Flies were buzzing in her ears; they liked the fruit.

Lowering her fan, she smiled at the young man. His eyes darted from side to side, and when he realized there was no one else standing near him who she could be smiling at, he smiled back.

Still smiling, Drusilla held his gaze, and held it and held it and held it. Then, like a Venus flytrap closing around an insect, she caught his thoughts in hers and held him fast.

On the other side of the ballroom, the young man's hand dropped limply to his side, and his full glass crashed to the floor, shattering. As he began to cross the dance floor, walking in a straight line toward Drusilla, one of the servants moved in to mop up the spill.

"Little fishy on a hook," Drusilla said to herself. She held out her hands to him and he stumbled closer, brushing against couples as they whirled past, unheeding.

Angel and Darla wove in and out of the other couples, dancing together with enviable smoothness and grace. Of course, Cordelia thought sourly, if she'd had a couple of hundred years to practice, she'd be able to do the waltz or polka or whatever it was just as well. But what was bothering her most right now wasn't the way Angel was dancing with Darla but the way he was looking at her -- focused, intense, as if she were the only woman in the room. Just that look bothered Cordelia more than it should have.

Then again, Cordelia reminded herself, getting worried when Angel went anywhere near Darla was a rational response, given that she seemed to know exactly how to tie him up in knots without even trying. Maybe that was something else that came easily after several hundred years of practice.

"You watch the dancing with such attentiveness, it is truly an injustice you are not participating."

The voice speaking had an American accent, which in itself was enough to make Cordelia look around abruptly. The owner of the voice was a man about the same age as herself, although the formal evening he wore suit made him look older. "Huh?" she said, then remembered Angel's advice: Be controlled. Be formal. She raised her fan in what she hoped was a demure and ladylike manner. "I decided to sit this one out," she said.

The man smiled graciously. "It would not be healthy to over-exert yourself."

"Right," Cordelia agreed. "Plus, dancing in a corset isn't exactly easy."

The man paled in something akin to shock; his eyes went to the ceiling, then the floor, then back to the floor again. Ooops, Cordelia thought. Mentioning underwear obviously a major no-no. In an attempt to get the conversation back on track she said, "So, you're American, right?"

The man nodded and smiled, clearly relieved to have moved to a safer topic. "From New York, although I'm currently completing my studies in Paris." He bowed politely and, holding out his hand, said, "Barnaby Scott."

Cordelia took his hand and shook it -- probably, she thought afterward, a little too vigorously for a nineteenth-century lady. "Cordelia Chase. It's nice to hear a familiar accent." As soon as she said it, she realized how true it was. She hadn't realized until now how wearing it was, to be in a strange place, constantly surrounded by strange people speaking a strange language. "It really is."

Barnaby Scott nodded in agreement. "I have been fortunate to have the companionship of a fellow student during my time in Europe; however, one longs after a while to hear news from home."

News from home? Cordelia struggled to remember her high school history classes. "Well, it's been kind of busy what with, uh, Reconstruction and everything --" Out of the corner of her eye, Cordelia saw Fred hurrying toward them. Grabbing her by the arm, Cordelia pulled Fred into her conversation with Barnaby. "Fred -- uh, Winifred knows exactly what's happening back home in 1898, don't you?"

Fred looked a little flushed -- probably from the effort of carrying the weight of all that taffeta on her tiny frame -- and also distracted. Without really registering Barnaby, she said, "We annexed Hawaii and went to war with Spain over Cuba. And -- Cordy, I just saw Drusilla."

Barnaby's face registered confusion. "Hawaii? Do you refer to the Sandwich Islands?"

"What do sandwiches have to do with it?" Cordelia frowned as she squeezed Fred's arm. "Drusilla was here? You didn't tell me?"

"I saw her -- she was all in white, and I thought, that looks like Drusilla. And right as I was trying to figure out if it WAS Drusilla, she was gone." Fred shook her head. "I didn't see her leave. She was there, and then she wasn't. She's got that stealthy thing going on."

Barnaby said, "The war with Spain has far more complex causes than --"

"-- we don't need the geopolitics. Or the sandwiches," Cordelia said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's Drusilla we have to worry about."

"What is this word -- geopolitics?" Barnaby said, sounding increasingly bewildered. "And who is Drusilla?"

Cordelia said, "Drusilla is our -- friend. Sometimes she acts a little bit flaky, so we have to make sure she doesn't wander off alone."

"Maybe you saw her," Fred said hopefully. "She's got long, dark hair and she's wearing a cream gown with a red stole, and she's very pale. I mean, very, very pale."

Barnaby thought for a second. "Why, I saw Walter speak just a little while ago to a girl of that description."

"Walter?"

"My traveling companion," Barnaby said. "We are both studying in Paris --"

"Right," Cordelia said, cutting him off. From the look on his face, interrupting men while they were talking was something else genteel young ladies didn't do. "And you saw Drusilla talking to him?"

"He looked quite rapt," Barnaby said.

"I just bet he did," Cordelia muttered under her breath. She glanced to where Gunn was still regaling a small crowd with increasingly outlandish tales of daily life in Madagascar, and realized there was no way she and Fred could extract him without attracting the attention of the whole ballroom. Fred had clearly reached the same conclusion.

"Come on," Cordelia said to Fred. "We're gonna stop Dru helping herself to snacks."

The band played faster, and the dancers steps quickened accordingly. When the dance required a full turn, Angel used the opportunity to scan the ballroom. There was Gunn, seated in the middle of a small knot of people who were listening to him in breathless wonder. Where Gunn was, Fred wasn't far away, and Angel spotted her at the side of his fanclub. Then he saw Cordelia, talking to a young, attractive man who was paying her more attention than he should --

"Jealous, my dear?" Darla asked. He looked at her, and saw her gaze had followed his own. "Don't be. She's only human, and a common, ill-bred human at that. She doesn't even know how to hold herself. But I know you, and I know why she fascinates you."

Tightly, Angel said, "You know much less about me than you think."

Darla smiled and executed a perfect turn. When she was facing Angel again, she said, "Really? I know she has the Sight. Isn't that what you found so delicious in Drusilla? Perhaps you're not so different as you would like to believe."

'I know she has the Sight.' Darla's words struck Angel with a deep, cold sense of dread. He put his arm around Darla's shoulders and they joined the other couples to form a long line of pairs. "What else has Drusilla told you?"

Darla laughed. "All kinds of secrets. Yours -- and theirs." She looked, deliberately, to Cordelia and Gunn and Fred, standing at the side of the dance floor. Her gaze lingered longest on Cordelia. "I don't pretend that it makes sense. I don't know what's the truth, and what's just Drusilla's gibberish. You were always her great interpreter, not I. But what I do know -- it's interesting, Angelus, what's become of you. What could become of them."

The line of couples broke apart, and Angel and Darla were dancing by themselves again. Darla raised her hand for the dance's final turn; Angel took it, but instead of holding her fingers lightly, he crushed her hand in his fist with all the strength he had. Darla stifled a gasp and instinctively tried to get free. Angel didn't let go.

In a low voice, he said, "Hurt her -- or any of them -- and you'll find out there are some ways I haven't changed at all."

She had to be in agony, but somehow Darla was still smiling. "That's what I'm hoping, my darling."

The band stopped, and the dancing couples broke apart and bowed politely to one another. Reluctantly, Angel released his grip on Darla's hand. Her fingers were clearly injured, and she quickly hid them in the folds of her dress.

"Until our next dance," she said as she walked away.

"I wish you would stop using crazy as a pejorative term," Fred said. "I'm not saying it's inaccurate; I'm just saying that mental illness can happen to anyone."

"What am I supposed to call her?" Cordelia muttered as they started to walk again. "Sanity-challenged? The girl's a loon. Tact won't change that." Fred noticed that Cordy seemed less nervous and more excited about their impending confrontation; after a long night of pretending to be demure and helpless, the urge to take action made sense.

At least, as much as confronting a craz -- a mentally unstable vampire in an alleyway ever made sense.

Fred pushed open the heavy door, allowing Cordelia to be the first to go outside and try to see Drusilla before Drusilla saw them. Although Fred didn't lack courage, one of the unwritten rules of Angel Investigations was that the people with superpowers should generally be the first into risky situations. When Cordelia motioned for her to follow, Fred went out into the alley herself; in an instant, her dress went from stiflingly warm to inadequate against the night chill.

Neither of them said anything as they began moving through the darkness, although they shared a glance as they realized how loud the rustling of their many petticoats could be in the silence. Fred fished in her tiny net-and-velvet evening bag and pulled out her stake. Cordelia would already have done the same.

Then she heard a man's voice, so slow and slurred that at first she thought he must be drunk: "You dance most beautifully."

"It's all jumping in the future." Fred had only heard her once before in her life, but there was no mistaking Drusilla's voice -- musical and broken and Cockney and ethereal all at once. "Jump and bounce and grind." The rustle of silk signaled how close she was -- just ahead, just around the corner where the alleyway met the street. Fred took a deep breath, but slowly, the better not to be heard. "I want to see you dance the way I dance. Then we'll eat. Can you jump for Mumsie?"

They paused in the last moment before they'd turn the corner. Cordelia gave her an encouraging glance, then counted silently with her fingers in the moonlight. Three, two, one --

Fred and Cordelia whirled around the corner as one. A man in an evening suit was doing a very, very poor imitation of 21st-century dancing. Drusilla's back was to them, but they could see her clapping. "So lovely, so lovely," she sing-songed. "Shake your groove thing."

In a very quiet voice, Cordelia said, "Apparently drinking her victims' blood isn't enough for Dru anymore. Now she's humiliating them to death." She pulled her stake back to strike. Fred held her breath. Could it be this easy?

Of course not. Drusilla spun about instantly, skipping back a step, neatly out of harm's way. Then, to Fred's astonishment, she beamed. "You're here!" Drusilla said. "Come and dance with me."

"We're not here to dance, Dru," Cordelia said.

Fred felt the back of her neck prickle, felt her every hair stand on end. "Um, Cordy?"

Through her teeth, Cordelia murmured, "Kinda busy here, Fred."

"I just have this funny feeling that Drusilla's not talking to us."

Fred and Cordelia each half-turned and saw him. He had a muddied overcoat, torn, with a few bloody fingerprints on one lapel. His eyebrows were raised, a sardonic half-smile on his face. Caramel-blond hair flopped over his forehead.

"Let me guess," Fred said. "This is Spike."

"My reputation precedes me," Spike said, swaggering toward them. "Brilliant. I'd ask your name now, except for the part where I don't care who you are so long as you die entertainingly."

"Spike, I hate to tell you this," Cordelia said, "but your hair's only going to get stupider as the years go by."

"What are you on about my hair?" Spike unconsciously reached up to touch his hair, which was when Cordelia punched him.

Drusilla screeched in anger, and Fred used one of those moves Gunn had taught her -- backwards hammer fist, and hard -- to whack her without even turning around. In the split second that both vampires were stunned, both she and Cordelia took off running. Almost as soon as they'd begun, Fred could hear Spike and Drusilla gaining on them, their original intended victim apparently forgotten.

"Gotta get -- to Angel -- " Cordelia gasped.

Fred nodded, trying to catch her breath and wondering how Cordelia could even move in a corset. "How did you know -- to insult -- his hair?"

They swung back through the door, their slippers sliding on the wood. The door slammed against the wall behind them -- the vampires were so close --

"Easy," Cordelia said. "You can always -- count on the vanity -- of a man who -- wears nail polish."

"I can hear you!" Spike yelled.

What would Drusilla have told her? There was no knowing, no guessing. Angel was sure of only one thing: Drusilla would have told Darla what she had to do with the gypsies to remove his soul -- or, at any rate, she would have tried. Did Darla understand her? If she didn't yet, she would eventually. Soon. It was only a matter of time before Darla came up with the answer and began the work of undoing his curse -- and all of history with it.

Darla was moving away from him through the crush of dancers, a lone storm cloud among the brilliant colors and laughter. She was cradling her crushed hand, and he felt a strange, terrible jab of guilt for hurting her. It was absurd -- beyond absurd -- to feel that way about a creature who had murdered thousands and would murder thousands more, among her victims his human self. But Angel could only remember that hand reaching for a stake, preparing to condemn herself to hell to give their son a chance to live.

That only happens if you stop her, Angel reminded himself. Quit brooding and move, dammit.

Angel quickly cut through the crowds to reach Gunn's side. He now had almost two dozen people circling him, enraptured. "Of course I keep a harem," Gunn was saying. "A man in my position has all the most beautiful women of the kingdom from which to choose. Women such as Naomi and Tyra and -- But perhaps I should say no more with ladies present."

"Oh, my," said an older woman, her cheeks quite pink. "It's all quite different if it's a matter of, ah, native custom --"

"Pardon me," Angel said as smoothly as he could. "I need to address the Caliph on a personal matter."

Gunn's eyes narrowed, but he was still calm and magisterial as he nodded to his listeners. "You will of course excuse us." Buzzing animatedly, the crowd dispersed and Gunn leaned closer. "What's up with your ex?"

"She knows a hell of a lot," Angel said. "Drusilla's told her about all of you, at least in part."

"How much can she possibly know about me and Fred?" Gunn said. "I got the impression that even Cordy hadn't seen too much of her."

"Drusilla knows -- more than she ought to," Angel said. "She sees the future, sometimes. She sees dreams. Sometimes she creates dreams. Don't underestimate her."

"After that whole world-on-fire business? No chance of that." Gunn scanned the room. "Speaking of Drusilla, I still haven't seen her. Or this Spike guy -- I mean, I wouldn't know him, but I figure the random bloodshed might give him away."

Angel realized who else was missing. "Did Cordelia and Fred -- have they gone back to the hotel, or --"

"No. And no. Damn," Gunn said. "We gotta find 'em."

"Angel!" Cordelia yelled. He turned to see Cordelia and Fred running into the room as fast as they could, all pretense to gentility gone. And behind them --

"What have we here?" Spike shouted jubilantly. "It's PARTY TIME!" He grabbed a violin from one of the musicians and brought it down, with a crack, on one of the dancers' heads. People began to scream.

"And that's Spike," Gunn said. Angel nodded.

"It's my party, and you'll die if I want to, die if I want to, die if I want to --" Drusilla crooned.

Cordelia's alive, Angel told himself. All three of the vampires I need to catch are here in this room, and we've got them outnumbered. Why doesn't this feel more encouraging?

"You heard the man," Gunn said, pushing up his sleeves as he and Angel began charging forward. "Let's party."

Fools. Worse than fools.

Humans were screaming and carrying on; at least four women had already swooned, and some of the men looked likely to follow. Darla stared at Spike and Drusilla in undisguised contempt. Her plan -- the one and only plan they had to save Angelus from a fate so much worse than death -- had in just moments gone from risky-but-likely to almost impossible. All so Spike and Dru could have a brawl.

"My God! That man -- he's not a man --" someone cried, pointing at Spike.

Darla savagely punched the man who'd shouted in the solar plexus. As he doubled over behind her, she muttered, "The sooner they have their fun, the sooner we can get out of here."

When it was all over, she'd tell Angelus how they'd nearly ruined everything. And then maybe they could finally rid themselves of Spike and Dru for once and for all.

In the meantime, she'd have her own fun getting rid of some of the obstacles to their plan, starting with the brunette in the orange dress.

Cordelia felt rather than saw Angel coming toward her; when Drusilla was jerked out of her line of sight, she knew it was Angel who had grabbed her. Knowing Angel was fighting near her was just about the only thing that made it possible to run forward toward Spike like it was no big deal. Just another vampire. No worries.

Spike was smashing his way through the bandstand, enjoying doing damage to the musical instruments more than the musicians, at least so far. He side-kicked a cello into pieces, strings popping everywhere. "Whoa! Flying wood," he laughed, ducking his own debris. "Very bad."

"Staking wood," Cordelia said, bringing up her stake as she got in front of him. "Even worse."

"You," Spike snarled. In an instant he was at her side, out of striking range. "First, what the hell is nail polish? Second, anyone wearing earrings like THOSE shouldn't be talking about vanity."

Cordelia whirled around again, keeping him facing her, keeping him engaged. Where were some demon powers when you really needed them? she thought frantically. The stupid Powers really could have left her an instruction manual or something. Demonic Powers for Dummies. As it was, she was probably only going to be able to stall him until Angel got there. Together, they could take him. "You'll find out about the nail polish," Cordelia said. "Unfortunately for us all."

"You're a rather confident young lady, aren't you?" Spike said. "Quick with the japes and the stakes. Are you one of those Slayers I hear tell about?"

"Me? A Slayer?" Cordelia started to laugh, genuinely surprised and a little flattered.

In the moment her eyes half-closed with laughter, Spike's hand clamped around her neck. 'Vanity, vanity," he whispered. "All is vanity."

Cordelia swung the stake backwards -- stubby end first -- into Spike's groin. Spike howled and loosened his grip for the one moment she needed to pull herself free --

Another hand grabbed her by the wrist. Cordelia's eyes went wide as she saw Darla smiling at her.

"You're a pretty thing," Darla said. "I'll admit that."

Then she jerked Cordelia's arm behind her savagely, spinning Cordelia around and sending shockwaves of pain through her whole body. The world went gray around the edges, and Cordelia felt herself reeling from agony and shock.

She gasped in a breath to scream, but instead cried out again, "Angel!"

Angel's arm was raised, poised to drive the stake he held into Drusilla's chest as she lay on the floor in front of him. He'd only have a second before she came out of her daze, but that was okay with Angel. This time he wasn't going to hesitate. No regrets, no split second indecision, nothing.

"Angel!"

Cordy. She was in trouble.

Instead of staking Drusilla, Angel whirled around, leaving Drusilla on her knees on the dance floor, where he hoped Gunn would finish her off. Drusilla was a lot less important right now than Cordelia. Angel shoved his way through the still panicking crowd, so jammed together in the hall that they could barely flee. There she was, with Spike AND Darla on her, hanging awkwardly from the arm bent at an unnatural angle behind her. Darla was gripping Cordelia's arm savagely; she saw Angel and smiled brightly. She meant to kill Cordelia as he watched.

Darla reached down and buried her long, white fingers in Cordelia's dark hair. Her fingernails were just at the hairline, and Angel knew what she meant to do. He'd seen her do it often enough, a slash of the nails, a superhuman tug on the hair, and the scalp would peel off just like a -- wig.

"What?" He could hear Darla's amused bewilderment as she brought up only Cordelia's dark wig in her hand. Cordelia's head slumped forward slightly; she was clearly disoriented from the pain. Angel brutally shoved a few people out of his way, struggling to get closer before Darla stopped laughing. Even now she was focusing her attention on Cordelia again --

WHAM! A silver tray slammed into Darla's head. Angel blinked as he saw who had swung it: Fred, who looked both panicked and fairly pleased with herself. Darla lost her grip for a moment, and Cordelia fell to the floor.

Angel got to Spike first; he was doubled over and somewhat dazed. He looked up at Angel and said, "Oh, there you are. Where have you been?"

Angel punched Spike hard in the face. Spike staggered back, swearing in surprise and fury -- then suddenly jabbed out with something pointed and wooden. Angel felt a second of panic as he realized he wasn't going to be able to dodge the blow, which swiftly turned to relief when he saw Spike's improvised weapon pierce his stomach, not his chest. Finally pure, sharp pain washed away relief and, for a long moment, everything else.

Angel looked dully at the wood sticking out from his abdomen as blood began to pool on the front of his tuxedo shirt. Funny, he thought when he could think again. Who would've thought being run through with a violin bow would hurt so much --

And then he thought, Dammit, impaled AGAIN.

With his last of his strength, Angel lifted Spike up and threw him, as hard as he could, into Darla. Both vampires went sprawling onto the ground, and Angel staggered, trying to keep his footing despite the agony in his gut. Cordelia was on her knees beside him, holding her arm. "Angel -- my shoulder -- "

"Charles!" Fred cried. Drusilla had gotten her second wind. Angel saw Fred running to Gunn's aid, but he couldn't go to help them -- Spike and Darla were getting up, and Cordelia couldn't fight, so he would have to protect them both, somehow. His head reeled with the pain in his belly, and Angel forced himself to focus. He tried to ball his hands into fists -- he could if he had to.

"Drusilla!" Darla called. "Come here!"

"But I'm only getting started!" Drusilla whined. Spike sneered at Angel and started to throw himself forward, but Darla's hand shot out, holding him in place.

Darla said. "Both of you! We're leaving! Now!" She looked at Angel -- bleeding, weak, and, he realized, obviously unable to follow her -- and smiled. "Forever," she said. "We promised each other forever. And I keep my promises."

Angel wanted to say something, but at that moment his legs gave out and he crumpled on his knees beside Cordelia. Spike started laughing as Drusilla ran to their side; Darla looked at Angel for one more lingering moment before pulling them both away.

"Angel? Cordy?" Gunn panted as he ran up to them, his turban now somewhat askew. "Y'all okay?"

Angel took hold of the violin bow with one hand, put his other hand in his mouth, then yanked out the bow. His teeth broke the skin of his palm, and the splash of his own blood on his tongue was enough to keep him from passing out. As soon as he could speak, he said, "Follow them."

"The vampires?" Fred said. "But -- if we're going to fight them -- we need you guys --"

"I can't fight right now," Cordelia said. She was slowly flexing the fingers of her injured arm. "It's not broken, but it's not good."

"Don't fight them," Angel said. "Try not to let them see you, if you can help it. If they're going after the gypsy camp tonight, we have to know it. Find out where they're headed, then come back for us. I'll be all right in a couple of hours, and Cordelia -- I'll take care of Cordelia."

"Follow the vamps," Gunn said. He glanced around the now-empty room, littered with fans, flowers, sheet music and canapés. "These Victorians sure know how to throw a party."