In a quiet house, in a quiet village in the West Midlands in England, the morning post arrived. A brightly coloured envelope, with pictures of clouds and aeroplanes bore the occupier's name in clear type face. Gronmann tore open the envelope carefully and pulled out the contents. Travel documents, import licenses and a timetable sat in his hands. He looked at he travel date and smiled. A warm glow filled his heart as he reached for the phone and dialled the contact number on the covering letter. He knew this firm, new the demon that ran it. But he hadn't instructed him to arrange this travel for him and his charges. That mystery needed to be solved before he could let his excitement have full reign.
If the details of the letter were accurate he would be in Los Angeles in three days. 72 hours until he would see his beloved boy for the first time in nine decades. He had had so many letters from him over the years, but they were not the same as seeing his Alicia's youngest son on a daily basis. His William hadn't really ever know his real father, nor much of his actual vampiric sire.
He was going to be with his dear son in three days time.
The phone was eventually answered by a voice he knew well. A fellow Trasker demon.
"Nemalian? I greet you, brother Trasker, and pray to the Pantheon that life treats you well. It is I, Gronmann that does greet you. I received from your company some three set of travel documentation. May I enquire as to the origin of the instruction to issue such documents?" He waited for a response before he let his hopes rise even further.
"Gronmann? I greet you too brother Trasker. It has been such a long number of years since you moved throughout the world as is only right. But, rest assured your devine task is almost at an end. Your documentation was called for by the high Goddess herself. I was given the privilege of sharing words with her. My praise to you dear friend that you raised such a fine son as your human child William. He is her very right hand! And she sang his praises to me as she bid me bring her dear William's father to his side. I will have a team of helpers over to your residence on the hour of ten tomorrow to assist you packaging everything for the journey. Everything is arranged for you." Nemalian sounded like an over excited child rather than the coolly logical adult demon Gronmann knew him to be. He had been a friend of his own parents whilst he had been little more than a child. Gronmann had known this demon that long and this behaviour was so atypical that it added to his own building excitement.
"It will be good to see my son again. To know that if he has recalled my charges then his heart is his own once more. I always knew he would return to the way of living beings. Maybe he is still a vampire, but his heart is no longer the demon's to rule. Did the high Goddess say anything directly about my son? Is he well? Happy?" Gronmann's voice trembled slightly at he idea of being greeted by his son's embrace in three days time.
Three days plus the flight over there. He would count the hours but was unsure how many he should count.
"How long is the flight?" He asked his old friend.
"The flight is of 9, maybe as much a 11 hours if the wind is wrong. The Goddess did not say much of your William, she may not have known that I had knowledge of the boy from meeting the man demon as a human child. But I think he needs his father's hand to help him. She said he had need of his father, as children are wont to do as their lives change. She said he made her tasks on this world possible. That she valued him as a she would a child of her own. Such fine words for a Devine being as she to utter about a child born human and childered in such an unsavoury fashion. Give your son warm greetings from my heart and let me wish you a fair and swift journey to his side." Nemalian sighed as he pictured the moment his old friend's son and his human born child would meet up before the eyes of one of the Devine ones.
"I thank you for your information and for your warm greetings. I will share them with William gladly, in three and one half days hence. May they who are the Devine go with you and guide your choices and course!" Gronmann smiled as he spoke the traditional benediction of his people for the first time since he last bid farewell to his William.
"And may they go with you too and guide your hands in your endeavour and your steps in your journey. I will see you in three days before you board the plane. Till then dear friend..." Nemalian hung up.
As the dialling tone sounded in his ear Gronmann could still hear his friend's unspoken excitement, that their people's stories of equality and a fair share of the sunshine were about to come true. That humanity was finally going to have to remember their demon brothers and sisters as something other than a nightmare filled with hate and loathing. After all, his own dear grandfather had told him of life when they could walk the Earth as equal as humanity. Of the time before the new Gods had deposed their own Devine Beings.
The only thing he lamented was that he would never walk beneath Apollo's sun with his dear William again. Sharing only the night was nothing compared to the joy of sharing all of the day.
But he would accept with a full heart a walk in the night with his beloved William. He welcomed the hope of sharing his son's life once more. In three and one half of a day hence.
Gronmann put aside his urge to run around his home and shout for joy. He had a journey to prepare for. He had his goods and chattels to pack away. He had his guests to inform of their impending reunion with their body's own souls. Not that he thought they might hear him, but it seemed the only polite thing to do.
"My dear friends, we unite with William in three and one half of a day from now. The final days of your forced sleep is here. Patience just a little longer my friends." And he set to washing and dressing his charges for the day. Planing what he must pack himself and what his dear friend Nemalian's people could safely be left to pack for him.
***
In Hades domain two demons stood side by side as their old friend Gronmann's voice drifted to them. Eighty four hours and counting until they faced their dear sweet William once more. They were as eager as Gronmann to see what changes time had wrought on their efficient, yet almost terminally shy William. Would his cheeks still bear the ruddy hue of a ready blush? Would his voice still quaver slightly when relaying orders or organising his team into their given tasks? Would he welcome their return or fear their supposed wrath?
"Has our Aunt said anything about our dear William? He still does not blame himself for out hurried departure, surely?" Conners asked his eternal companion and brother.
"For truth, brother, I have heard nothing. For you surely know I would not keep sweet morsels like whispers of our William to myself?" Becker looked up, as all souls did when thinking about the living, or the undead even. "I fear we are being prepared for some form of surprise."
"I don't like surprises. Especially when it is our family that are creating them!" Conners sighed as he too looked up.
"We should be of good cheer. We can not go to greet our sweet William as if we suspect the world must end. Everything will be just fine!" Becker looked from life to his brother beside him in the realm of death.
Silently they agreed that having waited this long, they could wait patiently a few days longer.
"If we are to return, then dear Lindsey must also be set to return. Come, we shall tell him the good news. Someone should be of good cheer at this news. And perhaps his good cheer will wash away our own doubts." Becker didn't wait for his brother's response he simply wandered off looking for Lindsey's soul and knew his brother would follow.
"He will be so excited! To know he is to return! Excellent!" Conners murmured to himself as he followed in his brother's footsteps.
That they never found his soul not in Tartarus, not in Elysia not even in the crowded plains of Asphodel. They did find another lost, modern soul wandering the gray plains, waiting for Hades to finally devise what he judged as the most fitting purpose.
In the absence of Lindsey, then their dear William's Grandsire would have to do.
"My word, it is the lady Darla?" Conners had put a hand to Becker's arm, stopping his dear brother in his tracks. With a rock steady hand he pointed at the vampiress they had sent on a wild goose chase all over Cumbria in the summer of 1873.
"You think she would remember us after all these years?" Becker asked, pulling his brother into the lea of a score or more meandering souls. Asphodel was the most heavily populated area in all of their uncle Hades' realm. The vast majority of those that fall under his hand for judgement, the neither good, nor the wicked. And those awaiting his word, his decree.
"Should we risk the chance that she may? After all, we remember her. Granted, our dear friend Lindsey did say she risked her eternity to bring him his key of light. Mayhap we should avail ourselves of this chance encounter and offer what comfort we can?" Conners watched the vampiresss' shade drift aimlessly between the other shades on the gray plain. Whereas the others drifting apart to let her pass were quietly bemoaning the boredom of their fates, Darla almost glowed with an inner joy.
"Other than that she has no one to tell of our presence here, no one that would care that is, I do so want to know what drives her inner glow!" Becker turned to his brother and smiled, a look of utter mischief alighted in his eyes. "She was out William's sire's sire. The same childe that kept our sweet William alive to free us from our self inflicted captivity also is the cause of her being here. Her darling Angelus forsook her in his favour upon a chance meeting, and still does to this moment." The last sentence was spoken with such utter sarcastic delight that he chuckled, a deep rolling sound that had the grey shades around them scatter before their tormenting delight.
The spreading wave of souls left no barrier between them and Darla. She raised her head and looked at them. And remembered them. It was not by luck that she had survived 400 years amongst demons. She recalled every demonic being she met, and every mortal she didn't kill in her passing. The ones that got away always remained with her, just in case the chance to rectify that omission happened along.
"Cumbria!" She muttered at them, and looked away. They were souls, linked to this place somehow, like herself, they were dead, what would be the point in pursuing them? To which point she looked the other way and walked as far as she could get from them and their incomplete story.
Her ignoring of them irked Mister Conners and Mister Becker. In their haste to follow her they quite forgot their continuing search for Lindsey. The quest for Darla's attention had begun. Death was fun again.
***
In the wide tunnels of the underground sewer system that served Los Angeles, a small army of vampires, slayers and humans made their way towards the basement level of their enemies outpost. Even as they all moved quietly, several pairs of eyes followed one of their number wherever his steps took him. Never leaving him alone. It was a scrutiny that was beginning to drive him to distraction.
From his position in the vanguard of their army he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. His abrupt halt caused his audience great worry, they crowded round him to make sure he was all right.
"What is it with you people? I've felt your eyes on me since we left Night and Day's basement! I've seen you all looking away when you realise I'm looking right back at you?" Spike was in the middle of a huge mood swing, paranoia crowded in on him in the confined space of the sewer, yet he managed to keep sufficient control to keep his voice lowered in that echoing place.
"I'm worried about you, both of you!" Buffy blushed as she tried her very best to meet his piercing gaze. "I... I don't think you should be taking Vanguard. You are too vulnerable, you're carrying too precious a cargo to put yourself at risk like that!" Buffy finally met Spike's capricious gaze and felt the force of yet another mood swing.
"Well... that's... I suppose that's a fair enough point, what about the rest of you? Why were you all watching me, staring at me like some slab of meat on a countertop?" Spike met every guilty looking gaze that surrounded him.
"I was trying to make sure you were waring your chain mail." Willow was all business with the pregnant vampire, she had found it the best way to approach him, openly, honestly. He had had enough lies and deceit cast his way for several lifetimes.
"Erm, so was I actually. Don't want to have to break in a new partner. Too much like hard work that!" Oz was embarrassed to be in accord with his former lover. He was also annoyed at having to be in close proximity to her anyway.
"And me!" Harmony's concern was part of her self appointed tasked she performed as his adopted childe. She thought is showed him she was grateful for his shared status as a member of the Order of Aurelius.
"I never even thought about that chain mail. It didn't do you any good against Glory. And I was just thinking how lucky I am that you've given me another chance." Angel blushed at his intimate revelation.
His honest words brought about yet another hissed war of words as Buffy and Faith decried Spike as a damned fool if he trusted Angel not to become Angelus over nothing important and hurt him all over again some time in the near or far future.
"Enough!" Hera hissed at both slayers. Buffy's reaction she could understand, but Faith hardly knew Spike. In fact hey had not met until they stepped into the courtroom to have her plea for parole heard. Taking a deep breath she sighed long and hard as she realised what was driving both slayers to over protect her William. She glanced and saw that all the vampires were just as bad, just as afflicted as Angel and Harmony and the slayers, and Oz too. It was William's pheromone signature, it cried protect me to all who could smell it. This could be awkward once they fully turned Lindsey, he'd have even less control over his urge to react to that almost there smell.
She took another cleansing breath.
"William, my dear, your giving off a very strong pheromone signature that's drawing everyone to you with the almost mindless urge to take care of you. If you try to not over react to us, we'll all try to not over react to you. OK?" Hera smiled at her champion and was rewarded with a shaking, hesitant smile in return.
"Ok!" He whispered. "Only, it's creeping me out, ok?" A sea of eager faces all nodded at him, smiling inanely. "Oh Gods, lets get this over with! The sooner we get into air conditioning the sooner we'll maybe all cope a little better, hmm?"
"Sounds like a sound idea. But, can I walk beside you?" Angel smiled at Spike, a pleading look in his eyes.
"Anything for peace!" Spike walked on, flanked by Angel, closely followed by the slayers and Oz. And Hera. Everyone else strung out behind them, every eye on the two vampires in the lead. As if waiting for one to fall and the other to fail.
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