William the Bloody & The Kiss of Death
by TalesOfSpike & t_geyer

(US NC-17 UK 18)

Epilogue I - Live and Let... Whatever
L.A., 9 a.m. the following day

"The Kiss of Death. According to legend it's been killing vampires on touch for nearly a thousand years. List of all the vampire notables it's alleged to have been responsible for killing, believed to come from Peru originally, whereabouts unknown for over fifty years until someone pops up and tries to cut himself a deal with the De Beauvoirs. Wes, I've already seen this. Why are we going through it again?" Angel looked at the pages Wes had passed over to him from the file he held tucked under one arm.

"There are a number of reasons, Angel." The watcher perched on the arm of the sofa beside where Fred was sitting, and the Texan's arm shifted, not to move out of his way, but so that her fingertips brushed against his outer thigh, not actually touching by the time her arm returned to rest on the leather but well within the watcher's personal space. "Not least of which is that the others should be aware of precisely what you knew when you picked Spike out of all the possible candidates to go to New Mexico and get the medallion."

"It was vampire business. I thought that it would be best handled by a vampire."

"I brought that report to your attention to prevent the item being used to harm you. You took that information and used it to place a rival in danger, and you made sure that you did it when the only other person who knew the full story was on the other side of the Atlantic so there was no way he would find out that he was being set up. Frankly, Angel, I've been somewhat concerned about the effect that power has on you. It was apparent even when you were in charge of Angel Investigations. Since you came here, it's been even more so. Almost on day one you killed a human on your own staff. There were other incidences that seemed to be justified, not all human, but I found myself wondering how many of these really merited summary execution and how many should have been dealt with by our personnel department."

"What is this? An intervention?" Angel interrupted.

"No, Angel... Not an intervention."

"In that case, maybe if all you intend to do is bandy about accusations, we should call the meeting to a close."

"And perhaps we shouldn't. There are things which need to be said, and it appears that I'm going to be the one to say them. Coming here was a mistake. It has already changed all of us to one degree or another. Thankfully, our experience with Lilah made me check out all our contracts very carefully before we signed up, so I feel quite safe in offering you this." Wesley stood and made his way over to Angel's desk. He turned over the folder in his arms to show another one underneath. From this, he took out four separate documents, laying them on Angel's desk. "My letter of resignation, Fred's, Lorne's and Harmony's. You'll find that she's already left, but I'm sure with the letter of recommendation I wrote for her she'll get something very soon. Convenient that when I took her out of the steno pool I arranged for her old contract to be superseded by the new one.

Gunn, here, is prepared to wait things out and see how matters go. However, I personally find it unlikely that the senior partners will wish to retain your services after they receive my report on the happenings of the last few days and, after all, who knows whether one of us will be the next one sent on one of your little suicide missions? Not that any one of us hasn't taken chances before, but we rather prefer to know when and why we're doing it."

Angel broke in before he could continue. "Look, okay, so I set him up. It was Spike. I mean anyone who's shared a room with him for more than an hour would thank me. He was the one that attacked me when we went for that cup, not the other way around. Now there's only one candidate for the Shanshu prophecy, everything should be back in balance. If anything, I've done the senior partners a favour."

"I believe you might have done... though isn't that exactly what we set out not to do? Let's just say that the report which I just read to you was compiled by one Sirk. It appears, for whatever reason, possibly for money, possibly just to get his own back for not being made head of my section, he seems to have deliberately omitted an entire section of the passage he was supposed to translate. As you say, the part that you had seen spoke of how every vampire who has touched the medallion has been turned to dust. However, the passage should have continued...

'For so long, that had been the medallion's only purpose that its duality, the reason why there were two sides to the coin, was almost forgotten.

It is true that for those vampires so removed from humanity, that they cared not whether they destroyed it in their will to exist, that they stood apart and watched men wither and die as men themselves watch the leaves fall from the trees in autumn, then to them it will bring destruction, as represented by the relief showing the vampire taking a human life.

However, for the vampire who embraces...' Now, the word they used could be equally translated as either humanity or a human. 'For the one whose ties to' humanity or that human 'are strong enough that he would bind his life to theirs in preference to watching them wither and die even as he remains unchanged... If, inside himself, he carries enough of the person he once was that his human spirit has not been overwhelmed by the demon and enough of the man he once was remains to make this possible, for such a one the medallion can make that happen. For what does death deserve but death in return and should not love be answered with love, as represented by the shared embrace depicted on the other side of the disk.

Even so, to be reborn to humanity means to be reborn to mortality and even as' the human or humanity 'gives him the gift of life, she must in the same breath condemn him to his eventual death. Therefore, to any of the walking dead, who come into contact with the medallion, it shall be The Kiss of Death.' or at least that's roughly how it should have been translated. A little wordy perhaps, but I'm sure you get the point."

The watcher reached into his trouser pocket and removed a cell phone, passing on the briefest of messages. "You can come in, now."

Angel had risen from behind his desk and was staring at the former watcher, his eyes alight with hope. "You mean the Shanshu... It's tied to this medallion?"

Wesley shrugged. "The passage doesn't express any requirement for a soul or that the vampire be a champion. It seems that originally the two ideas would have been totally separate.

Now, however..." The watcher paused for a second or two, until the double doors opened and Spike and Buffy entered hand in hand. "Thanks to your efforts, I believe they have been linked. Spike has become human again. The traditional vampire signs of damnation, vulnerability to sunlight and holy items, no longer apply, which to me indicates that his sins have been lifted from him as mentioned in the Shanshu prophecy."

Buffy gave the vampire a patently insincere smile. "Gee, Angel, when you said you wanted me to find someone I could go out in daylight with, I didn't know you were going to make him specially..."

"But thanks ever so." Spike's grin was undoubtedly at the remaining vampire's expense. He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out the medallion. Holding it up, looking at one side and then the other before tossing it onto the centre of Angel's desk. The vampire looked like he would grab it until Spike's warning tuts made him pull back when his fingers were inches from the piece.

"You know that prophecy of yours... the Shanshu thing, it only actually mentions one vampire champion with a soul becoming human..."

Buffy favoured Angel with another incandescent smile before chipping in. "And, have to say, Angel, those champion credentials are looking kinda tarnished round about now and there's no guarantee the disk would work like that more than once anyway, but we did test it on a few soulless vamps-."

Spike shrugged. "Our flight got in late. We couldn't sleep. Figured somebody might as well keep the streets safe for all these poor helpless people."

"Anyway, all the vamps we met just did the dusty thing," Buffy finished off.

Spike gave a smirk. "By the way, I think we agreed to a fee of a thousand bucks for me going out there and fetching that. Haven't had time to sort out a bank account, but if you send the cheque to her address in Rome an' make it payable to Buffy, I'm sure we'll work it out. I told Luba that Wes there would appraise the thing and see she got fair market value for it. He's already authorised the cheque for fifty thousand, so I guess it's yours, fair and square.

See you around, Angel."

Everyone except Gunn began to make their way to the door, Fred's arm wrapping around Wes's waist as she leaned in to ask him more about Rupert Giles and the sort of work he might have for them within the council's Los Angeles office. Lorne was already working on plans for an upscale version of Caritas. After all, the Hollywood glitterati had destinies too.

Spike simply pondered what his grandsire would do. His best guess was that the vampire would have the disk removed from his office and hidden away in storage somewhere. He had been so convinced of his own damnation that Spike couldn't envisage him willingly chancing a one-way trip to hell. If that was the way it went, Spike doubted he'd be overcome with guilt. Angel had all the facts. Unlike Spike, he'd been given the freedom to make his own choice.

Spike wasn't convinced that there was much chance the transformation would be successful. Angel was always more the boss and not so much the friend. In Spike's opinion he was in love with the idea of Buffy rather than Buffy herself and his moping over the comatose seer hadn't exactly stopped him flirting with either Eve or the puppy dog, neither of which really qualified under the heading of humanity in Spike's book. Angel liked the idea of love, but he lacked the passion to give in to it and let it have its way. Nevertheless, if he finally worked up the courage to try and the transformation was successful, it really wouldn't matter to Spike. Mortality and a clean slate were nothing more than additional bonus prizes as far as he was concerned. Those, he was willing to share. He dropped Buffy's hand, wrapping an arm around her shoulder instead and pressing a kiss against her temple while they waited for the others to clear the doorway.

When they reached it, Buffy paused and turned to look at Angel one last time, saying goodbye to the image of man she had once thought she loved, even though she knew his experiences had altered him, so that he wasn't the same man any longer. Her smile was bittersweet, as were her parting words.

"You know what they say... 'Live and let...' whatever."