Anya woke on a panicked breath. Rupert had just moaned in her ear, and not in a good way.

She took stock. Because they hadn’t fully drawn the curtains last night, a blade of early sun sliced across their bed. It was already hot, too, and his body crowding into hers radiated even more furnace-warmth. The bed-hog had kicked off all his covers and most of hers in his staking of territory, which at the moment she didn’t mind, and his face was half-buried in her pillow. What she did mind was the way the muscles of his broad back shivered and the way his breathing sounded like pain.

"Honey?" she said, her hand going to him to ease, maybe to push his bad dreams away –

The phone rang.

And then another phone rang, sharper and more alarming.

Putting aside the impulse to soothe, she slapped him on the back. "Rupert, phone. It’s on your side."

One more full-body shudder, then he said, as if he’d been awake for hours, "Er, right." Without opening his eyes, he rolled over, fumbled for the receiver on his bedside table.

She looked around for the other one – the MI5 phone, she realised with a sinking feeling. With a long stretch to her own night stand, she grabbed it. Clicking on their phones at the same time, together they said, "Yes?"

On her line Zoe said, "Tuppence, sorry for the early Sunday call. We’ve got some work for you; a demon death, this time one of Tommy’s informants. We’re in a terror campaign, I’m afraid."

"Was it Nalph?" she said.

Rupert cast a quick glance at her, then said into his phone, "Sorry, Wood, I missed that. What did you say?"

Zoe said in Anya’s ear, "No, it was the Greenwich contact, Grittnak. He was found off the Deptford docks early this morning. Same sigil-tattoo and missing body part as yesterday’s demon."

"Oh, that’s so not good." Her hand went out to Rupert, who slid over in the bed in order to catch hold of her. His jaw had tensed in a way that alarmed her, but no time – she said to Zoe, "Do you want us to look at the body or something?"

His fingers interlaced with hers. "Go on," he said to either Wood or to her, she couldn’t tell.

Zoe said, "Later, possibly, but we’d like you to check out the informant’s home today. Neither the Yard nor our people feel comfortable enough, or know what to look for...."

A thud rattled the ceiling. A muffled noise, then one more thud. Anya sighed; Andrew must be awake, as graceful as ever.

After she told Zoe that they’d go investigate that morning and report back, she hung up and tossed the spy phone on the night stand.

Rupert was saying, "Right. But no markings on the body? – Other than that, nothing? – Yes, we’ll take care, and if we find out anything, we’ll let you know. Speak to you later."

He put his receiver back on his table, then tugged on their linked hands and pulled her over him. Their sweat-dampened, naked bodies flowed together, slippery and twisty, until she planted her hands on either side of his head and braced herself. A beard-burn kiss, morning-sour, more sweet, before he said, "Hello, darling. What’s happened?"

"Morning, honey." She kissed him again, just because, then said, "That was Zoe. Grittnak was found dead, a ritual killing just like the Morq; she wants us to go to Greenwich to check out his place. So what did Wood want?"

"Oh. That’s....where was he?"

"River, like the other one," she said. "Again, what did Wood want?"

His hand came to cradle her cheek, although she didn’t know which one of them it was intended to soothe. "He called to tell me of a Watcher’s death. Young Geoff Perry, the archivist at the Museum whom I met with on Friday."

"You didn’t tell me he was a Watcher!"

"Didn’t I? Well, his appointment hadn’t been officially confirmed, but he was in. He applied when Robson put out the word a couple of months ago." She eased down on his chest, resting her head on his shoulder. They both knew Robson had stepped up the recruitment after Rupert had told him they were leaving; she figured this murder unfortunately was not only a tragedy but also a trigger for Rupert’s over-active guilt. After he brushed a whiskery kiss on her forehead, he continued, "Anyway, his body was found chained and beaten, also in the Thames. The boy didn’t have any family, so Cleveland got the call."

"It couldn’t be just a random murder? London has all kinds of crooks and bad guys, and in my experience the river has always served as a sort of collection point for all the bodies – okay, never mind. Do you think it was demon-related? Yeangelt-related?"

Above them came another thud, then a Dawn-shriek. Nobody in the multiverse could squeal like the younger Summers. Rupert ignored the noise, however, in favour of his hand stroking up her spine. "Yes. Busy night for the demons, apparently."

"‘London is changing, in ways surface and deep,’" she quoted. Sliding up so that she could hold his gaze with hers, she said, "Honey, are you okay?"

"I’m fine." The liar – he glanced away into the sunlight as he spoke.

"Really. Because even before all the murder-announcement phone calls, you seemed to having a nasty dream."

As he pressed his fingertips into her back, massaging in that way he had, she could feel a little tremor. All he said, though, was "Busy night for all sorts of demons. Don’t let it worry you, darling."

"You don’t think that you can get away with a cryptic statement like that, do you –"

"Yes, I do." Lifting, he caught her mouth with his. A deep kiss this time, pain and pleasure and a bite of desperation, before he fell back against the pillows. Then he smiled. "We should get ready for our investigation. Do you want to take your shower first?"

She could have cheerfully hit him for the evasion. However, a smack was often her opening move in those tricky discussions of his most private feelings, for which they didn’t have time at the moment. "No, honey, I’ll wait for you."

After one last kiss, he slid out from under her and headed into the bathroom. Once the door shut, she grabbed one of his shoes off the floor and threw it at the ceiling, where overhead Andrew and Dawn now were imitating a herd of Mykin demons, all big feet and bellows. "Hey, you guys!" she shouted. "We have to go to Greenwich for a work thing! Do you want to assist?"

There was a moment of silence, broken first by the water going on in the master bathroom, and then by twin shouts of "Yes!" and two sets of footsteps above pounding off in separate directions to their rooms.

Sighing, she crawled back on the bed. Rupert never took very long in the shower; she would just lie there and rest for a few moments. Her arms went around the pillow they had shared – she could still feel the dampness, the mingled heat from them both – and her hands locked to hold in her nerves and her property. The thin gold ring she’d forgotten to take off last night was already slippery on her finger.

It was going to be even hotter today. Yet she shivered, just like he had done.

***

A lack of air-conditioning made summer car rides kind of icky, Andrew thought; luckily they were almost there. His window was down as far as it would go, and the hot wind felt heavy, like rocket afterburn on his face. He stopped thinking about rockets, though, because that way lay memories of Warren and Jonathan, emptiness and blood.

The heat didn’t seem to bother Dawn, sitting next to him. Her hair was tied back in a complicated braid (at which he’d assisted, although she never would agree to try Leia’s hairdo from Episode Four) that lifted in the wind. Slurping on a Diet Coke, she also played with her pen, doodling on her Watcher-in-training notebook before the big task. Giles had asked her to be responsible for writing down his observations.

Andrew’s grasp tightened on his Giles and Jenkins PDA and his own job. Anya, beaming over the breakfast table, had told him that since the dead demon had cultivated plants and insects, he and she would be the ones investigating that area. "If anything is left, that is," she’d faltered, smile dying. Giles, who’d been making toast, came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, dropped a kiss on her hair; although he hadn’t said anything, it didn’t seem to matter. Her smile came right back.

He looked toward the front seat. No smiles now, he thought. Giles drove, Anya sat on the passenger side, and between them Andrew could practically see the tension. He guessed it wasn’t from the CD thing – when they got in the car, Giles had put in some mournful English-guy rock music, Anya had hit Eject and substituted a Motown mix with special emphasis on Diana Ross, and the resulting discussion of car-stereo etiquette and appropriate music for work had lasted from Islington to London Bridge. After that, Giles had turned off the music altogether. But Andrew had heard enough parental fights to know that surface disagreement could point to deeper problems.

Yeah, Tucker’s brother knew all about that.

He looked back out the window. The car was turning onto a street that was almost hidden to the casual eye, kind of like a more accessible Diagon Alley. Andrew squinted at the sign flashing by – Demon Street. Crooked houses shimmered by in the heat as the Saab jolted up the lane.

And oh man, there was a small pack of Romut demons, many-clawed creatures he’d once thought about summoning but was too frightened of to do so, hovering by the railings of the most decrepit house. "Um, Giles, those demons–?"

"We’ll get past them," he said shortly, pulling into a parking spot in front of the house.

Anya turned around and smiled at them. "Let me and Rupert handle this, okay? We’ll instruct you on tactics later."

"No argument from me," Dawn said.

After Giles and Anya had a brief, low-voiced discussion and Anya rummaged around in the bag she carried, the two lead investigators got out. As their doors shut in unison, Dawn whispered, "I wish I knew more what to expect. Maybe we should start reading Anya’s mysteries."

"Yeah, or find a good RPG manual for detective-spies," Andrew said. Then he stuck his head out the window to watch and learn.

Giles, hand outstretched, went first. He nodded to the three demons who blocked the gate and said, "A friend of the dead, come to seek entrance."

Anya stepped up beside him, holding out a packet to the Romuts. The demons barked at it. She clicked her teeth five times – a signal of good faith, Andrew vaguely remembered – then shrieked, so loud that the stones rang with the sound.

After the demons exchanged glances and clicks of their own, the tallest and most claw-happy shrieked back even louder. Giles and Anya bowed, before Giles put his own hand on Anya’s – funny, Anya was wearing a ring that Andrew had never noticed before – and they extended the packet once more. The tallest demon grabbed it, sniffed, then clicked five times.

"Come on, you two," Anya said.

They were out of the car in a second, treading on Giles’s and Anya’s heels so as not to be left behind or made into Romut snacks. As the demons tore into the package with pleased growls, Giles opened the gate and then ushered everyone up the walk. Dawn asked quietly, "Hey, Giles, what was in that?"

"Smoked salmon," he said.

Anya said, "It really should be Tk-Tk cod with a garnish of bitterdeath root and sage, but salmon was all we had in the pantry. Since Rupert had noticed the neighbourhood Romuts on his last visit, we prepared for the ritual greeting."

"I’ll enter that in the records, Anya," Andrew said, nodding.

Dawn said, "This demon-negotiation thing takes some getting used to. In Sunnydale it was usually just smash-bash-dead-demon."

"That technique works well for Slayers, Dawn, not for Watchers," Giles said. "We– er, you’re different." Out of the corner of his eye Andrew saw Anya slip her free hand into Giles’s for some reason.

When they reached the broken open door, Giles held them back for a second. After he tested the threshold with his bag, he said, "The wards are gone. They must have...never mind. We can safely go in."

It was hotter, stuffier, inside. The entry stank with blood, a long scrape of it discolouring the bottom of the staircase, and Andrew put his hand over his nose. Giles said, "Be careful, all of you. Dawn, you and I will check out Grittnak’s office first. Anya –"

"Yep, Andrew and I have the garden. Come up when you’re done, though, honey." After a quick squeeze, she released Giles’s hand, then threw Andrew a smile. "Up we go!"

The rooftop was like nothing he had ever seen. The collection of demon-plants would have made Anya’s greenhouse seem suburban and ordinary, if it weren’t for the devastation: crushed or ripped plants in unearthly colours; pot shards everywhere; three cages of broken demon-insects with small, random buzzes from their corners. She said, "Oh, this is terrible. So much waste – and where did the boium tree go?"

"The boium tree? Oh, that’s–"

"Yes, a large plant with highly volatile leaves, especially when mixed with certain demons’ blood. The Yeangelt gang had ordered Grittnak to give its leaves as tribute, then used it to murder people. They must have taken the whole tree." She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, but said, "Okay. Let’s put on our gloves and get going."

They worked their way from the south end to the north: she identified plant and insect remains and searched for clues (other than Grittnak’s blood, spatters of which were everywhere and made Andrew’s stomach hurt), while he entered and cross-referenced the findings. Several times she made little whimpers at a piece of destruction, then carefully picked up a leaf or a cutting to put into her sack. The last time she said, "It’s criminal to let these specimens die. It’s criminal. Which is obvious because they’re an evil demon gang, but it really bothers me."

"We’ll be planting later?" he said.

"Yes. We have to rescue what we can." Then she turned toward the corner and gasped. "The laceprigs! Oh, the laceprigs and the Kizzyoits, oh Andrew...." Falling on her knees, she stretched out a hand to a tattered web of something-something. A few black flecks hung on the ripped shreds; the smushed bodies of two pixie-like demons, each of which looked like a cross between Tinkerbell and a squirrel with really big teeth, lay underneath. She dug in the supply-sack for a jar.

Laceprigs were important somehow, but he couldn’t remember – "What about them?"

"Rupert and I were harvesting on the night we became a couple; it’s like they helped us get together. Also, the Sleep-More potion which has them as a base ingredient is a big seller," she said. Carefully she took several of the black flecks off the web and dropped them into the jar, then added some of the web and the surrounding earth, sifting it through her fingers. As she screwed the lid back on, though, she said, "Hey. Hey, what’s that?"

Although he hadn’t seen what she was looking at, he could see the dirt-encrusted envelope she pulled out from behind the ruined web. "What’s it say?" he asked, craning over her shoulder.

From behind them came the sound of footsteps and Dawn’s "Wow, this is totally wrecked."

When Andrew turned around, Giles was standing in the middle of the garden, squinting against the sun. He looked upset, although trying to maintain Gilesian cool: "Darling, what did you – oh, the laceprigs."

"Yes, I don’t know if any can be saved," she said. "But see what I found, Rupert."

Andrew shifted back enough to let Giles pass, then bend down by Anya. That was Dawn’s cue to hurry over to join him and say in his ear, "We discovered some clue-age about how long the tribute’s been demanded, but Giles also found twenty years’ worth of letters between him and Grittnak. The demon-guy had been saving them all this time? Anyway, Giles got all silent and stabbed-to-the-heart about it."

"You mean, like that?" Andrew said.

Fallen to his knees, staring at the envelope, Giles looked like someone had just light-sabered him. "Robert Gordon. Bloody hell," he said, ripping it open.

"Who’s Robert – good grief, is that another one of your aliases? It’d be helpful if you’d give me a damn list sometime," Anya snapped. But she pulled off her gloves in order to rest her hand on Giles’s back.

"Yes, it’s what Grittnak called me," Giles said. "He left this for me. He must have – Christ, he must have known they were coming for him."

"Oh, honey." She threw her arms around him.

His hand covered hers, even as he read the paper he’d pulled out. "Not much here. Beresfords only....maybe he means that Pennith doesn’t know who we really are. The cup stays in the family. Cursed gold from the furthest fires, from the west, opens one and three."

"‘Cursed gold from the furthest fires?" Anya said. "That could be a couple of different dimensions, although ‘the west’ also suggests human-make. Huh. Andrew, we’ll start looking tomorrow."

"Got it," Andrew said. As always he felt a weird little thrill at her use of ‘we.’ Bending his head, he entered the words, murmuring them under his breath.

But Dawn said, "Um, Giles? Are you okay?"

"Honey?" Anya said, more loudly.

Giles was staring at the paper. "Griffin Hartman. Of course. Well, at least that’s not in sodding code." With a harsh exhalation, he shook off Anya’s arms and got to his feet, then helped her up. "What mobiles did we bring?"

"The Beresford one and the private line, why?" Anya said. "Stop being a spy for a second and talk to me."

Without answering, he opened her purse and got out the MI5-phone, placed a call. After several seconds: "Miss Carter? – Yes, Tommy here. If I make a business appointment in Brixton tonight, could we have backup?"

"Rupert, seriously, what is it?" Anya said, poking him in the side.

Giles coughed, then said into the receiver: "Actually, I’ll be going in alone, but I’d like people close, to watch with Anya – Right. Er, I’ll call you back in a minute." Then he tossed the phone to her.

Andrew caught Dawn’s arm, whispering, "Oh, this could be bad."

"Yeah. Run, run away," Dawn said. They sidled to the furthest edge of the roof.

Anya crowded Giles, going up on her toes to get in his face. "Rupert Giles, what do you think you’re doing? Planning some stupid scheme, talking about going alone into where the hell ever? And who or what is Griffin Hartman?" Yikes, Andrew thought, that shrill blast was the true voice of a millennium-old vengeance demon. It made him gulp and edge further back, and he wasn’t even her target.

Giles, however, seemed unfazed; he was busy fishing in his shirt pocket, then pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Since when did he smoke? "Tell you in a minute, Anya. I need the other phone."

"Well, you’re not getting the other one until – Rupert, for God’s sake!"

Somehow Giles managed to light a cigarette and reach in to steal the other mobile out of her purse at the same time. Either his dexterity or his ignoring her anger acted like a stun-gun, because she went quiet and still, staring at him.

Turning his back on them all, he exhaled smoke, did something slouchy and un-Giles to his spine, then clicked on the phone. After seeming to search his memory for something, he punched in a sequence, took another drag on his cigarette. A breath or two, then, in a tough-London-guy accent Andrew had never heard before: "Hey. I need an appointment with the Griffin for tonight. – Yeah, a change to an old tattoo. A Special." He gave a dark, rolling laugh, one that made Andrew’s stomach hurt like the scent of blood. "‘Course I got it there, mate, why the fuck else would I call? Not every would-be sorcerer sod can do the real magicks, yeah, and I need the magicks."

Saying quietly, "Oh, I get it. And I’m hating this already," Anya went to Giles’s side. Andrew didn’t know why she curled her hand around Giles’s bicep, why he flinched at her touch.

Another puff of smoke, white against burning blue sky. Giles said, "Yeah. Just say it’s Ripper."

***

When the figures on the screen fell in pixels of blood and death, Andrew groaned. "That wasn’t supposed to happen!"

"Sorry, you killed ‘em good," Dawn said, patting his shoulders. "Maybe you’ll do better at protecting them next time. You know, if you actually think about what you’re doing."

"Being a hero’s really hard work," he said with a lame attempt at sarcasm. Then he smiled. "But that’s okay. Do you want to take your turn now?"

"Not this second, because it’s almost time for Buffy to call. I’m going to go wait downstairs."

"Urg. Better you than me, " he said, as he reset his game. "It’s kinda foreign-film down there – and not the good chopsocky kind."

He wasn’t wrong, she thought as she started downstairs. It had been a weird ride home from Greenwich, with Anya trying to talk to Giles and Giles barely answering; when he had finally put on her Motown CD, she’d covered her mouth with her fingers and gazed out the window for the rest of the trip. The sun had really bounced off that new ring Anya was wearing, Dawn thought.

When she hit the first-floor landing, she actually could feel the floor tremble from the music Giles was playing in the study. He’d gone upstairs after lunch, saying something about e-mailing Willow and Wes and planning the evening work, yadda yadda, but the guitars and blues vocalist had cranked up right after that. When Anya had heard the first notes, she had picked up the plant stuff from Grittnak’s and stomped out to the back garden.

As Dawn came down the last flight of stairs, however, Anya stood at the entryway table, bringing candles out of a sack. "Hello, Dawn," she said without looking up.

"Whatcha doing?"

"Replacing the candles, obviously." After collecting the dead ends of the beeswax pillars currently in use, she tossed them in the sack. Then she placed a fresh pillar on each of the four holders – two big ones in the front, a smaller one to each side – murmuring something with each movement. Next, she got the candle-lighter out and touched flame to each wick, murmuring again.

"I’ve been wondering – are you doing a protection spell or something?" Dawn asked.

"Close enough. A wish." Apparently thinking that was enough of an answer, she scooped everything into the sack and headed into the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, "Waiting for Buffy?"

"Yeah." She followed Anya in. "Do you think I should go get Giles, so he can talk to her too?"

"I don’t think he needs more harassment – " Anya began, just as the music overhead stopped. With a snap, she threw the sack into a cupboard. "Never mind. That man’s a glutton for punishment."

"Come on, Anya! Why shouldn’t he talk to her?" Dawn said. But when Anya stared at her, she hesitated. "I know it might be...but Buffy’s just trying to... see, it’s hard for her."

"Agreed. And it’s not difficult for anyone else?" Anya crossed her arms, frowning in a vengeance-y way.

But here was Dawn’s chance. "Please tell me – what did Buffy say to him? You know, that day?"

"You’d have to ask your sister." After a hum of discomfort, she came over and gave an Anya-hug, awkward yet kind. "However, you should know that even though it’s inconvenient and very expensive and not at all the way Rupert and I planned our new life, we really don’t mind having you and Andrew living with us." A harder squeeze. "Well, you specifically. And since Rupert hasn’t threatened to kill Andrew in over a week, I think we’re safe there as well."

"Simply an oversight on my part," Giles said from the doorway – which made Dawn jump, she hadn’t heard him come down the stairs. Smiling a little, he put his arms around them both in a fleeting British-guy embrace. "But yes, we’re happy to have you here."

Luckily the phone rang at that moment, or she would have started crying or something, which would have been extremely uncool. She said, "I’ll get it. You guys come in when you want, I’ll put it on speaker."

After sprinting across the hall, she picked up the phone and said, "Giles Jenkins Summers Wells residence."

"Hey, Dawnie." After she pressed a button, Buffy’s voice was loud and clear, filling the living room. "Just thought I’d check in per the schedule. I guess Giles gave you the message?"

"Duh, hence my speedy answering the phone. And also, hey back." She fell into the nearest chair. "So where are you, and why can’t you e-mail me with the information regarding phone check-ins?"

"I’m in Romania on a Slayer job. Haven’t seen Dracula yet, though I ‘ve been looking double-close at every bat. And I e-mailed Giles because you didn’t answer my last messages."

"Oh. Yeah, that." She gestured at Giles and Anya, who hovered in the archway. "Sorry, I got busy. ‘Cause first I had a meeting at the academy, a sort of get-to-know-your-tutors party, and then we’ve been doing eighty million work things, and Anya took me out for this great Indian meal with Zoe, who’s one of their colleagues–"

"Don’t forget the unapproved running off to Forbidden Planet with Andrew," Anya said. Grabbing Giles’s free hand, the one not holding a bottle of water, she pulled him to the couch.

"Not to mention your fencing lessons," Giles said as they sat down. "And hello, Buffy. How are you?"

"Oh. Hi, you guys," Buffy said. Even miles of distance couldn’t disguise the lack of enthusiasm. "Sounds busy-busy. And you’re letting Dawn run around without supervision, huh?"

"You missed both the ‘unapproved’ and ‘completely harmless comic-book store’ thing," Dawn said. "But hey, I made up for it, I worked like a good little girl on some prophecies. Giles is a stern taskmaster, you know."

"Yes," Buffy said. She didn’t say anything else.

When he shifted uneasily, Anya put her hand on his leg and said, "We do look out for Dawn, Buffy, but she’s a junior Watcher. She’s got to be allowed to go out on her own."

"Yeah, I remember that was always Giles’s thing. Do it for yourself, stand on your own, think of the mission, whatever." Buffy’s voice was scary-sweet. "But part of the whole living-in-London deal is that you guys are responsible for her. She’s not a Slayer, she doesn’t have to make the same choices I did."

"No, you’re quite right," Giles said. "We’ll try harder to, er, guard her, if that’s your wish. But, as Anya says, Dawn’s going to be a Watcher. It does necessitate some harsh...knowledge." He looked down, wrapped his fingers more tightly around his bottle of Tynant Blue. Quietly: "I’ll do my best to keep her safe, while she learns what she needs."

"Let’s emphasize the ‘keep her safe,’ and less of the ‘do my best,’ okay? Based on my own experience of your best," Buffy said. "Besides, you’re not a Watcher any more –"

"You’re quite right, of course," Giles said again, in a very different tone. "Thank you for your instructions, Buffy. Take care of yourself, and I’ll leave you to talk to Dawn now." Giving her a tight smile, so painful that she wished he wouldn’t, he got up and left.

"A damn glutton for punishment," Anya muttered, before saying sharply, "Buffy, your crap stops now. Whatever past history bothers you, you let it go before you call here. I’m not letting you talk to him that way again."

"You’re ‘not letting’–"

"That’s what I said. You at least pretend to respect Rupert, or you’re not going to speak to him again, I don’t care how much he misses you." Anya slammed off the couch, said "Dawn, talk as long as you want," then went after him. It sounded like her heels were spiking through the floorboards.

"Smooth, Buffy, really smooth," Dawn said. "Do you want to screw up everything for me like you’ve screwed it up for yourself?"

"That’s not fair. Besides, he always leaves just when – "

"It is so fair. Look, do you even get how much Giles and Anya have done for me? How happy I am, how much I’m learning?" She thought of their fencing bouts, and how that morning in Grittnak’s office Giles had not only given her notes but asked her opinion. "I’ve found my place, and it’s not just trailing after you. Why do you want to mess this up?"

"Dawn, I don’t. I let you go." Her voice was small, not like the Queen Slayer. "I let you go when you asked me."

"And I’m grateful, and I love you. You know that, right? I love you. But you don’t have to pretend to be Mom any more, okay. Just be my sister." Whoa, she hadn’t even known that was going to come out of her mouth. At the muffled chokes coming through the speaker, she added, "Oh, nice. You always snort like a pig when you cry."

"Bitch," Buffy said, half-laughing, half-not. "It’s more complicated than that, things you don’t understand –"

"Yeah, it probably is, but that doesn’t matter. You fix what you need to, or hold whatever grudge you need to, but be cool when you phone us. I mean, I don’t expect you’ll ever come visit–?" The silence at the other end confirmed it. Slayers were so stubborn. "Okay, whatever. Now tell me about your exciting business trip to Romania. Are you hunting the big Drac, or looking for new Slayers, or what?"

"You’re being awfully grown-up and Watchery. I think I hate it," Buffy said. But then she went on to talk about Romania and a new Slayer, Dracula and a very cute pair of shoes she’d found in Mexico City on her last trip, and made arrangements to call more often.

It wasn’t until Buffy had hung up that Dawn remembered she was going to ask about Spike and if there’d been contact. Still, there was always next time.

She got up and stretched, then found herself wondering where Giles and Anya had gone. She was a little worried about them. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered hearing the back door shut.

Padding through the hall, she went past the ground-floor guest room and Anya’s potions-and-packaging room, which in some previous house incarnation had been the dining room. At the good magic and murmurous voices hanging in the hot afternoon air, she smiled. One of the French doors had swung open; she peeked through first, as it was a good idea to check before barging in on them. It saved on eye-burning moments.

Giles was sitting in one of the deck chairs on the brick patio, with Anya curled up on his lap despite the heat. They were holding hands, a simple link of fingers that for no reason made Dawn feel a little weepy again. Through the open door she could just hear Anya: "...got to talk to me. It’s not healthy for you to repress all this."

"I know. And I do try, darling," he said.

"Okay then. We have a great deal to argue about, including this Ripper nonsense, but let’s start with this morning when you lied to me about your nightmare –"

"No, I didn’t."

"You didn’t answer my question, which counts as a lie for the purposes of this discussion, and if you call it strategy, you’re getting punched in the stomach. Now go."

A sharp, small laugh, a glance away at the herb garden, before he said, "My nightmare. Right. Er...."

"No stalling, Rupert." Dawn didn’t think a command would work, and in fact Anya immediately added "please?"

"Right. Er, well, in the dream you’d left me. Alone. Cold."

"I’d left you? Honey, that’s crazy talk."

"Perhaps. But you had done, and I was freezing to death." He said it so matter-of-factly, Dawn thought, like he’d say ‘The best source for that demon identification is in Fletcher, Chapter Two.’

Anya leaned up to kiss him, her free arm banding around him like she’d never let him go. "Oh, please. If you’d just opened your eyes – I’m right here with you, and here’s where I’m staying." Another kiss, then: "Okay, that’s settled. Now let’s discuss this stupid Ripper idea of yours."

Dawn suddenly remembered that even in a house of spies it was extremely bad manners to, you know, spy, and she backed away before the yelling and/or hardcore smooching could start. Besides, she wanted to steal a Diet Coke from Anya’s supplies, and then she thought she’d go upstairs and play Grand Theft Auto, if she could wrestle the Playstation away from Andrew.

When she went by the four candles burning in the entryway, though, she stopped and made a couple of wishes.

***

The windowless room was silent, hot, with only the faintest traces of death still hanging in the air. Pennith thought he might have to do something about that soon. But at the moment – "Do you have any information on how to keep this thing alive?"

When his hand brushed against the leaves of the boium tree taken from the late tribute-giver, he felt a slight acid-burn along every nerve-ending. The pain made him smile, but he also took a step back. No use in wasting good material.

Wrapping himself more tightly in his cloak, Master Hat sniffed at the leaves. "We do have the brief instructions we beat out of Grittnak before we killed him. Moderate sunshine, distilled water, fertilise three times a week with crushed bones of Noothian canusses. We didn’t actually get a source for the canusses, however."

Pennith sighed. "If it needs sunshine, why is it here? Inside, in the dark?"

"Because you asked for it, sir."

"Ah. Of course. But I’ll ask you to put it outside now. You’ll also have to find the fertiliser, you know. Kill what you need to."

Master Hat growled, a clearing of the throat. "Yes. May I also say-- we’ve had reports that others are interested in Grittnak’s collection."

"Really?" He crushed a leaf between his fingers, added the hiss of searing scales to his thoughts. "Who?"

"Unfortunately, it was the local Romut pack who told us; it’s hard to make much out of them at the best of times, sir. But it seems that four humans went inside Grittnak’s abode, prowled around, then left."

"Four humans....the Beresfords and the Alleyns, perhaps?" He tried to repress the flare of magick he felt, tried not to breathe out fury and pain. No use in wasting it.

Master Hat said, "From their vague description – fish-drunk, the Romut fools – I’d say it was at the very least the Beresfords. There was stink of Watcher from the older man, apparently, and hints of it from the others."

"Interesting. That is interesting indeed." He began to pace. "Perhaps Garrison and Bixp should be sent to investigate, see if the humans left anything behind." He shot a look at his associate. "See if they can redeem themselves after that fiasco at the Museum."

"Sir, how were they to know that someone had set wards on the files? And who would have predicted the British Museum humans would have been stupid enough to use fire as a safety feature in that particular room?"

"Yes, yes, but we’ve lost an excellent lead on the Cup of Xet through their misjudgement. Perhaps we need to – correct – them?"

Although Master Hat bowed in response, the folds of the cloak susurrating on the floor, Pennith saw that the creature was backing away even as he made obeisance. That might bear watching. He forced himself to smile, saying, "Just send them, Master Hat. I’ll deal with possible rebellions later."

He clearly took the appropriate meaning. The hood falling over his eyes as he bowed his head again, he murmured, "I’m sure that rebellions will mean nothing once the Rising Time is here, sir. And, if you’ll excuse me –" He collected the boium tree, holding it like the prize it was. "I’ll just put this outside."

"Well done, Master Hat. The Rising Time shall be your reward," Pennith said in dismissal.

Once alone, Pennith sat down at his desk and shuffled the few notes he had gleaned regarding the Cup of Xet’s location. Pity that Grittnak or the would-be Watcher hadn’t known anything, but nothing to be done about it. They would serve to feed the river.

He lit the black candles he always had at the ready, and breathed in the enhanced smoke of blood and death. Yes, a little meditation was in order before the evening’s work. Souls and demon-spirits didn’t just take themselves, even with expert help.

***

The back of the MI5 surveillance van was dimly lit and uncomfortable, but it was the fucking heat that was getting to Giles. The heat, and the edginess.

Anya fell against him when they took an especially sharp turn around a corner. Although her shoulder dug painfully into his, she kept on chatting to Zoe about some plot twist in the Tommy and Tuppence books they’d been exchanging, with the tech specialist Malcolm occasionally putting in his own view. Still furious that she’d lost the battle about tonight’s reconnoitre, it seemed; as angry as she’d been all afternoon, he might be enjoying domestic silence for a good long while. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to talk about his bloody feelings any more.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Wished he had a cigarette. However, that would come later. Now he needed to breathe, recall who he was supposed to be –

Danny’s voice interrupted. "Hey, Giles. No sleeping on duty."

The MI5 man, all teeth and dark gleam, was grinning at him when he opened his eyes. Giles said, "For fuck’s sake, Danny, shouldn’t you be preparing for your contact rather than bothering me?"

"I’m ready to rock and roll, mate. Bernard Oyo is a prize, and with my interrogation stylings, he’s sure to tell all about Cassa Dreams."

"Don’t you think it’s odd that with all your resources, you lot have only found the last client?" He remembered the young man vaguely from that night: the sobs and the cries from inside the Working Room, the tracks of tears still on his dark cheeks, the way he’d promised to return. For what, Giles wondered – but then it was Danny’s job to find out.

"Bit worrying, maybe." As the van braked, Danny said, "Ah, I think this is our stop. The night life of Brixton, nothing like it."

"Yes," Giles said. "I remember." He wished he didn’t.

A shove made him blink. Anya was close, her smile like the surprise of cool water in the desert. Carefully she rolled up first one of his sleeves, then the other, exposing what was left of his tattoo. Under her breath she said, "Don’t forget, you’re not allowed to do anything stupid. More stupid, I mean."

"Thank you for your faith, darling." Once she let go, he checked his earpiece, saying to Zoe, "I still don’t think you’ll be able to hear anything – the equipment failed when we were at the medium’s, and Griffin’s magick will be at least as powerful. Don’t storm the place if the comm link goes down."

Zoe said, "I run this op, Giles. If you’re in there too long, we’re coming in; all you’re doing is gathering intel, remember. Don’t be a hero."

"No worries. It’ll be fine," he said, hoping against hope he wasn’t lying.

Danny threw open the back door, letting in even more heat. "Right, mate, we’re on."

As soon as the van door shut behind them, Danny wandered down the street toward the council estate where Bernard Oyo lived. Even in Giles’s uncorrected vision – cos Ripper didn’t wear specs, right – he had lost all traces of the rising young MI5 star he was. Looked like a thug. Looked right at home.

They were in one of the less savoury areas of Brixton: a couple of empty building sites along the road, full of charred boards and rubbish; neon and fluorescent light flickering over the cracked pavements, and the people who moved in and out of shadow. From a warehouse nearby came the thud-thud-thud of dance music, overlaid with laughter that sounded like screams.

One foot up on the kerb, Giles lit himself a cigarette. When his boot scuffed against an oil stain, he rubbed the stuff on the other leg of his jeans. Nice smudge there, made it look real. Slouching, he took off in the other direction.

The remnant of the mark of Eyghon was starting to burn.

Griffin Hartman’s tattoo shop Body Frontiers was only a few doors down. Giles made himself inventory the shadows around it, note the days-old Nuyy slime trail on the pavement, smell the dried blood. Yeah, the shop hadn’t fucking changed much in almost thirty years.

Zoe said in his ear, "We’re reading sounds just fine. And we’ve got visual to the front of the shop."

He made a non-committal noise, while he mentally went over the spells he’d checked with Willow that afternoon. Not that he could let himself think of Willow, or Buffy who so despised him, or his Anya waiting for his return. Couldn’t let himself remember anything but his cover.

He took another drag, blew out a stream of smoke, and then reached up to grab a handful of grey. "Tutamen," he whispered, then let it go. The smoke curled once around his body, a veil of ash, before dissipating into the night. His old mark scorched higher, flame under a burner. He’d done that one right.

When his hand pushed open the door of Griffin’s, he could feel the dark magic surround him – and the feedback, then silence, in his earpiece told him he’d lost contact.

The public area of the shop looked normal enough: dark in the corners, heavily scented with antiseptic and incense, a low-level machine buzz in the background, but with normal chairs, needles and equipment, with an ordinary wall of tattoo designs. A small, aging woman, a needle in her hand, bent over a young man stretched out on his stomach, but she glanced up at the shutting door. "Can I help you?" she said in a rasp.

"Yeah. Here for a Special. Name’s Ripper."

She looked at him, then pressed a button on her workstation; a hidden door, part of the wall of designs, swung open. "Go on, then," she said, bending again to her work.

He tossed the cigarette on the floor, crushed it out with his boot. The rotation carried him back almost thirty years – ‘Go on, Ripper,’ Ethan had said, pushing him forward from one side. Diedre’s hand molded his spine from the other side, her whisper under Ethan’s: "Go on, Ripper. It’s only going to hurt for a little while."

He walked through the open door into the black room.

***

"You can try to fix your sound link all you want, Malcolm, but it’s not going to help." Anya tapped her foot on the van’s floor, trying to resist her competing impulses to wrap her arms and her fear around herself, or to go grab Rupert by the collar of his black spy-shirt and drag him back to her. "This isn’t technology, it’s bad magick."

"That’s ridiculous," Malcolm the geek-guy said. "Let me just tweak a few things –"

As he started to play with his controls, Zoe leaned forward. "Anya, are you okay? Perhaps you shouldn’t be on the team if the op worries you so." When Anya stared at her, though, she backed off. "Or not. Of course Tuppence should be here, waiting for Tommy."

"That’s correct. Of course I should be here," Anya repeated, in case anyone had missed this important point. "And how long has it been now?"

"Only ten minutes, five since we lost contact. You have to give him time," Zoe said.

"I know that." Seeking distraction from nerves and irritation, Anya opened her purse. Wallet, work mobile, The Fashion in Shrouds (Campion was just as stupid as Rupert, it was turning out), a bag of crushed bitterdeath for breaking wards in case she had to go get him...oh here, her Giles and Jenkins PDA. It might be soothing to look at their tasks for tomorrow, since Andrew had loaded them this afternoon.

When she pulled up her calendar, however, she paused at the second entry. Something about the the address of the Minton property she and Rupert were about to start researching... she said, "Does anyone have a London A to Z handy?"

Malcolm’s hand went to his laptop computer. "Got an even better database in here, Anya. Why?"

"I’m curious about another job. Its location?" She crawled across the van, then showed him the address from Lady Rosemary’s file.

Squinting for a second over his glasses, he put it into his computer. After a second or two, he said, "Odd. That address is on the next street. Wait. No, actually, it’s behind the tattoo shop. See, the empty site?" His finger pointed at a black spot on the map.

Anya’s heart lurched; she neither liked or believed in coincidence. As she dug in her phone for the work mobile, she said, "Okay, before I start jumping to conclusions and getting even more nervous, tell me where we are." If only she’d ever done a vengeance job down here, no, not vengeance, but if only she knew what to look for –

"Brixton. You know that," Zoe said. "What’s this about, Anya?"

"Is the place called anything else, though?" Checking the PDA, she found Lady Rosemary’s number. Even though it was probably past the old lady’s bedtime, she began to punch it in anyway.

Smiling, Zoe said, "Well, I remember when we were kids, we’d say it this way: Brixton, borough of Lambeth, city of...."

And Anya’s breath seized hard. "‘Lambeth’? We’re in a part of Lambeth?" At Zoe’s and Malcolm’s questioning looks, she snapped, "You know! ‘Ian Gold, Lambeth’! The original information Harry gave us? Because Rupert and I found out that it wasn’t Ian Gold, and because of something Nalph said – oh no, Nalph – we figured it wasn’t Lambeth either. But what if it is?"

"Anya, you think the site you and Giles are privately researching might have something to do with the Yeangelt matter?" Zoe said.

"Maybe. And maybe whatever the hell Rupert’s walking into right now has something to do–" When the phone connected, she said to whoever answered, "Oh, hello. Is Lady Rosemary available? It’s Anya, um, Giles, from Giles and Jenkins, Investigations and Acquisitions. We’re doing some – Okay, it’s late, I’m sorry. Could I leave a message for Lady Rosemary? Or, wait, do you have a contact number for Jools Siviter? – No, a message. If either one could call the Giles and Jenkins number as soon as possible; we’re checking on any possible buyers for her Lambeth property – Yes. Thank you, sorry again."

After throwing the mobile and PDA back into her purse, she did allow herself to wrap her arms around her stomach, to hold in the upset and fright.

"You’re afraid that Pennith or his associates might be trying to purchase that land, then," Zoe said. "Which might have a link to Body Frontiers– Right. Malcolm, anything on the comm from Giles?" At the tech guy’s shake of the head, she wiped her hands on her trousers and muttered, "So this must be how Tom always felt."

Even as scared as Anya was, she felt a twinge of curiosity. "What Tom?"

"My old section-chief, who had a breakdown and disappeared a few months ago," Zoe said quietly. "Your, er, friend Tara gave me a message about him, remember. I’m trying to find him, bring him back home."

"Oh. That Tom. The one whom everyone thought was a traitor. Yes, Rupert told me." Anya’s foot began tapping again, each click a mark of time passing, time passed. After she cast a glance at the video monitor Malcolm had rigged, and at the completely Rupert-free pavement in front of the tattoo shop, she said, "What time is it now?"

"Anya, it hasn’t been long enough," Zoe said.

***

The black room of Body Frontiers, the heart of the shop, was much as he remembered. Dark lacquered paint everywhere, one wall of burned-down candles and another of glass containers of inks on built-in shelves, a fall of Ihioo skulls in one corner, the worn chairs and glittering machinery. Even the false door in the back wall was familiar, as was the magick circle deeply cut into the floor–

As was the tall, unkempt man standing by the largest chair. A little shaggier, greyer, tattoos now covering every inch of exposed skin below the neck – but the same man, with the same power.

"Griffin," Giles said. "Long time."

"Ripper. Decades, hasn’t it been? Never thought I’d hear from you again," Griffin said. "Where are all your mates?"

"Gone." But he couldn’t spare a thought for those lost to Eyghon, or to Ethan, found dead in that Initiative prison. "The last one standing, yeah."

"Then sit down," Griffin said, gesturing to the chair. "And tell me what Special I can get for you. We can catch up while I work."

Taking a deep breath, Giles moved to the chair. Although his tattoo burned, he could feel the protection spell pushing against whatever Griffin was working. He wouldn’t have much time before it broke, however.

As he sat down, he said, "I want you to close the circle on my chaos mark. Shut down the power."

"That’s not one of my Specials, which you know very well. I call power, not reject it. I take, I do not give," Griffin said softly. When he bent forward to look at Giles’s arm, he gave a low whistle. "And you’ve had someone else touching my art. Ruining it."

This was true enough, Giles thought: before the coven would pool their goodness in order to help Willow, Gillian and Margaret had been deputised to cleanse him. They’d made him listen to whale music and chant while they drew out the worst of the old magick and pigment – a painful business all around. "Not enough to ruin it, mate. I can still feel the mark." This was true as well.

Griffin were only a few inches away now, with his tattoo artist’s gloves wrapped tight around Giles’s arm, already stretching the skin for the needle. "I’m sure you do. What would you like to replace the call of Eyghon, Ripper? Keeping in mind the needs of my art, of course."

He’d researched this carefully all afternoon, thought about what he could get away with. And he’d thought then, as he thought now, of Grittnak and that devastated garden in the sun. He said, "Cover it with a web. Not a spiderweb, but like it, in shades of blue."

"Webs aren’t fully closed. Holes everywhere, don’t you remember?"

"They’re strong enough to hold treasure, though," he said, remembering a winter night and luminescent wings and Anya.

"They also hold prey." Griffin’s smile widened. "A fine compromise between your, er, request and my talents." Then, with a sudden move, he sniffed at Giles. "What do you smell of, man?"

"Cigarettes, mate. Just cigarettes. Must be catching a whiff of that incense in the other room."

"Oh, that must be it." A trickle of laughter, before he moved to the shelves full of bottles. For the first time, Giles realised that a repeated thud, like bass from a stereo, was coming from a distance, vibrating the walls. As Griffin’s hands moved over the glass, lifting then putting back this and the other, inspecting one or two in the candlelight, he said, "Now, Ripper, what will you pay me to, um, close the circle? Your last tribute years ago was magnificent; the potion you found at your old tutor’s house, do you recall? Hellsbane-based, wasn’t it?"

‘Tribute’, Giles thought, Grittnak had steered him straight – but in Ripper’s voice, he said, "Fucking hell, it’s ‘tribute’ now?"

Griffin turned around, opaque glass jar in hand. "Did I say ‘tribute’? I can’t imagine why. I meant ‘payment,’ of course."

"Yeah? What are your rates these days?" Giles said, as he watched Griffin pull up a stool next to the chair, arrange the needles and intake mechanism, and then breathe a spell over the implements. At the magick, the remnants of the Eyghon-mark flared so hot that he had to bite down on a groan. When he could, he said, "More hellsbane, something like that?"

"Not exactly. I want only what you already have." As he reached for another, larger opaque jar, Griffin produced a cloth from nowhere. He poured a few drops of green liquid onto the material, listened to it hiss. "Now then, Ripper. Let’s prepare the canvas before we actually start the needle."

The protection spell rippled like smoke over Giles’s skin. He watched the cloth come closer, could feel the hiss even as the sound dissolved into air, into that strange distant thudding – and just as the acid burned through the veil of protection, he realised what the liquid had to be.

Boium-distillation. And if it had Uih blood –

Moving through the burn, he drove his free hand into Griffin’s nose. The man screamed, fell back against the shelves; the impact set the glass jars sliding, ringing against each other. "Don’t want to cross that particular frontier, Griffin," he said, scrambling out of the chair.

"Just another boundary, isn’t it?" the man choked. He moved like water, like ink, away from the next punch Giles threw. Slithering past, he picked up a needle, dipped it in the first jar he’d brought down, then drove it down into the crook of Giles’s elbow, at the bottom point of the mark of Eyghon.

Giles felt hidden chaos burst to the surface of his skin, drawn by the needle just as his blood was. It was old pain, new pleasure, one sharp tear in the fabric that separated reason from madness –

And, his hesitations shredding like a knife through a web, he threw the sorcerer into the shelves one more time. The shelves cracked hard. Glass shattered.

As Griffin’s head collided with wood and broken glass and the spill of what wasn’t ink, he cried, "Who are you now?"

Giles pulled Griffin up. "Don’t need to know, mate," he said, and he shoved the man, face first, into the back wall. Made a fucking nice sound.

As Griffin collapsed onto the brick, the back door that Giles had thought was false cracked open. The sound, the rhythm – it was the amplified bass of dance-music, pouring out of wherever that door led.

Giles took a deep breath, exhaling adrenaline and bad magick as best he could. Then he checked Griffin. The man wasn’t dead, just unconscious; didn’t seem likely to be going anywhere anytime soon. Next, he looked at his own wound, found a clean cloth and fashioned a quick bandage to stop the bleeding. He was going to be in such trouble for this, he thought, but the lingering trace of chaos in his veins and in his head overrode his domestic concerns.

It was the lingering trace of chaos that made him pick up one of the candles from the wall and open the door wider, step inside a dark, earthen tunnel.

It was hotter here than in the black room. The dirt shook underfoot and overhead, pulsing with the music’s beat. Since the candlelight didn’t show very much, wavering even in the dead air, he put his hand out to the wall. Ground crumbled into his fingers. Unstable, very unstable.

He kept going toward the bass, though, until the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and his hand touched splintery wood. It was a door, yet there was no handle. No way to get in.

Most of whatever Griffin had dosed him with had bled or been breathed out, he could tell. Reason was returning to him, and it was in no way reasonable that, unprepared, he should go further at the moment. He needed to research. He needed to get back to Anya.

So he turned around and headed back, ignoring the beats that shook the tunnel. After a few moments, he could hear a new sound, bell-chime sweet and piercing: "I am going to murder him. I am going to murder him slowly and extremely painfully, and where the hell is that torch, Zoe?"

Hurrying his steps, he walked into the black room. Anya had Zoe by the arm and was dragging her toward the door. Smiling, he blew out his candle. "You can stop threatening now, darling, I’m here."

"You idiot!" And she hurled herself into his arms. Repressing a groan at the pain, he brought her close to him, buried his face in her hair. She whispered, "Are you okay? You scared me, honey. Don’t scare me like that again."

Dimly he heard Zoe say, "Well, at least you’re all right. But where’s Hartman?"

"What?" He looked up, tried to focus. The shelves and glass were still shattered, signs of their fight everywhere, but no sign of Griffin. Trying not to panic: "He was passed out right there when I left! Well, er, knocked out....Did you not see him leave?"

"We saw nothing, Malcolm’s video got nothing. The place was empty when we stormed in to rescue you because I couldn’t wait any longer," Anya said into his shirt. She sniffed hard, then looked up. "Okay, so we have a disappearing bad-magick-practitioner. Guess what else we, and also Danny, found out while you were being stupid?"

***

"So, Danny’s contact was losing his mind," Dawn summed up. "Like, crazy-mean. Soul-losing crazy-mean."

"From some potion administered by the mind-controlled Cassa Dreams," Andrew said, clarifying the story. "The same potion that the disappearing sorcerer-dude tried to give Giles."

"And there’s a secret passageway between Body Frontiers and that warehouse nightclub place. Which is probably, no, 99% certain evil and Pennith-controlled." Dawn looked at Andrew, her lower lip going out. "It is so wrong we had to stay home tonight."

Anya sighed. One hand on the arch between hall and living room, she kicked off her heels and rubbed at her sore toes, saying, "Never mind. Like I said, you’ll probably be called upon for a special spy-mission tomorrow night –"

"No, they will not. Did you not hear Buffy this afternoon?" Rupert said from behind her.

She looked around. His shoes discarded, he’d wandered off somewhere after setting the wards on the house – but he was back now with two glasses of Scotch on the rocks, which meant it was her time. They hadn’t had a chance for private discussion in the MI5 van on the way home, and she had several points to make about male arrogance and the folly of allowing bad-magick practitioners with needles near one’s tender skin. He probably needed a proper bandage. And she needed him.

"Oh, Giles, come on!" Dawn began.

Anya shook her head, stopping her in mid-whine. "We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Time for you two to go upstairs, and we’ll see you at breakfast." As they trooped toward the stairs, she added, just for Dawn’s ears, "I’m on your side. Also, thank you for lighting the candles while we were gone."

Dawn smiled. "Made a wish, too. And thanks right back."

As junior Watcher feet tramped up the stairs, Anya turned to her errant man. His eyes looked a bit odd, all glittering and dark, but his smile was sweet. He held out one of the tumblers. "Nightcap, darling?"

She took it, took a mouthful of fire, then said, "But do you think you should be having any liquor? Who knows what that horrible Griffin person stuck in your arm, there could be an adverse reaction –"

"‘m fine, stop fussing." His unhurt arm dropped heavily over her shoulders. "I’ve locked up. You ready for bed?"

"Yep." As they started upstairs, she said, "I think we should discuss exactly what happened–"

Then his mouth stopped hers. Pulling her into his body, he somehow managed to lift her up a step yet keep on kissing, deep and a little smoky and heated. Somehow she forgot the topic of her planned scolding. Something about... God, he tasted good... no, it was gone. She caught at balance, caught at him.

Lifting his head, he smiled against her lips. "You go on, darling, take the bathroom first. Be there in a second."

"You’d better not be going to listen to music this late," she said, even as she went up the next steps. "Besides, I thought you’d be tired from investigating evil in such a very idiotic –"

His hand smacked her bottom, sharp and hot. "Go," he said.

While ordinarily she’d have mentioned something about crankiness and unacceptable commands, there was something in his voice and in the tingles his hand left behind that made her hurry.

Catching up her silk nightshirt – although it was hot enough to sleep naked – she went into the master bathroom. Even as she slipped out of her clothes, washed up, and optimistically dabbed perfume between her breasts, she listened to the odd sounds coming from their bedroom. What was he doing, what on earth was he doing –

The remnant tingles spread upward, a web of desire through her stomach, across her breasts, into her throat. A couple of sips of Scotch just intensified the connections, the warmth. He had looked like silver and sex when he’d come out of that tunnel, she thought, like all her comfort and all her dark dreams. He had come back to her one more time.

When she walked out of the bathroom, she lost her breath. Already undressed, his silk pajama trousers almost slipping off his hips, he leaned against the foot of their bed, sipping from his glass. And he watched her, his eyes darker now than before in the flicker of the candles he’d lit. "There won’t be any talking about work tonight," he said quietly.

"‘Kay. I see the candles, honey." She glanced at his wounded arm: not much left to clean up. "Do you want a bandage for that?"

"Don’t need one," he said. There was something funny about his voice, a roughness she wasn’t used to. Her breathing quickened, speeding even more when he said," I need you to come here."

"‘Kay," she said again. "But, um, I’ve got this glass, and I need to take off my jewellery."

He reached her, took her glass away and put it with his on the bookcase. A kiss, harder and deeper than on the staircase, and then his hand closed possessively on hers. "No, don’t take your ring off, darling."

"But it’s –"

"Don’t." Before she could continue, he had spun her around. Off balance, she grabbed at their bedstead, her hands locking on the wrought iron. And he was behind her, crowding her, his hot breath on her neck. She could feel his erection, urgent pressure on her back. "Here’s the thing," he said in her ear. "I feel bloody strange tonight."

He felt great, but – oh, right, she got it. "It’s whatever that Griffin person did, isn’t it. All bad magick and what not, calling up who you were."

"Maybe." He kissed the length of her neck, tongue licking delicately on the vein. The web of desire tightened, and she clutched harder at the bedstead. "Or maybe it’s the heat. Maybe, dearest, it’s just you."

His hand wrapped around her hand with the ring, pressing her fingers almost painfully into the iron. His other hand stole under the silk, over the hipbone and down. He crowded closer, hardness riding her back.

Overhead something fell hard enough to shudder the floor, then Dawn squeaked over Andrew’s protest.

In Anya’s ear Rupert said, so low it was almost a growl, "I realised something. You know why I don’t talk when I’m inside you? Cos I like to listen to the sounds you make. The things you say, the way you moan, Christ –" And she did moan, an exhalation of pleasure, when his finger stroked inside her. "But I need you to be quiet tonight, don’t want the children to hear. Can you be quiet?"

"Are you going to talk, then?" she said, or tried to say. Could barely breathe, could only feel.

Two fingers now sliding wetly inside, then out; his pressure on her back, pressure on her heart. "Yeah. Give it a shot," he said, his voice even deeper. "But first, darling, can you step into these shoes?"

As his legs moved against hers, silk and heat and iron, she forced herself to look down. Oh, he’d dug out her five-inch fetish heels from the back of the closet. Her heart constricted, love and desire knotting together. She pushed herself up enough to get one foot, then the other, in the heels. Even as he let his pajama trousers fall, she rose against him, the angle changing.

Then his hardness slid down, then forward. The tip of his cock touched her right there, sharp pleasure, just enough pressure, a motion mimicking what would follow – oh God oh God, she needed to cry out. But he wanted her to be quiet. She could be quiet for him.

He spread out the fingers of their joined hands on the bedstead, evening out their weight so that the ring didn’t cut so much. With his other hand he unbuttoned her nightshirt, fingers fluttering against her skin. He didn’t stop the movement of his hips, sliding against her over and over; not inside yet, time not right yet, but any minute now. He whispered against her skin, "Making different, better choices for you... my dearest, my treasure... so hot and sweet." Then he positioned her for him – "Never leave you, don’t leave, mine–"

With the last word he did thrust in, hard and smooth. His other hand slipped around to cup her, bring her closer, pleasure and pressure inside and out. "I’m yours, and you’re mine, isn’t that right–"

"That’s right, honey," she whispered despite instructions. "I’m yours, and you’re mine."

Different, better choices, she thought hazily, through the love that held her fast. And as soon as the current crisis was over – oh God oh God, he was right there, so good, so good – she was going to make sure of him.

He always said he wanted her to have what she wanted, after all.