Before the sun had completed its rise to the zenith, Deirdre, Giles and the abbot were on their way to the standing stones. "A binding ritual should be fairly simple," Giles explained. "The difficulty is, I need to be able to return through the stones -- if such a thing is possible."
"It should be." Father Ambros assured him. "You were brought through the stones for a reason. Presumably, once that reason is fulfilled, then you shall return."
"Let us hope," Deirdre murmured.
In the sunlight, the stones looked like what they were, worn lumps of granite, blasted by sea winds into random shapes. Giles crossed to one of them, the one he had been standing by when he had taken his sudden, unscheduled trip. Tentatively, he placed his hand on it.
Nothing.
Deirdre turned to Father Ambros. "What should we do?"
The abbot opened his Book and began to recite prayers, calling blessings down upon the place, asking for intercession from Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget. While he spoke, Giles searched his memory for rituals, rites, anything that he could use. Drawing on his limited practical experience, he began to cast a Circle whose purpose was much the same as the monk's prayers: an appeal to whatever Powers to protect this place, to keep creatures of darkness from using and exploiting it.
Deirdre said nothing, merely wandered from one stone to the other, pausing here to think, there to lightly brush her hand over the weathered rock. "I feel it," she said finally, haltingly. "Whatever is here. I... *know* it." She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand. But the power is here."
"We're ready," Father Ambros said.
"For what?" Giles snapped. "To bind the power of the stones? To what? I've seen a demon bound to a book and a mechanical body. I've seen a vampire bound to a mystical portal. But to what do we bind this power to that will still let me use it?"
"The sun," Deirdre said quietly.
Both men immediately looked up, and automatically blinked against the bright light. "Don't you see?" Deirdre continued. "The power in and of itself is not evil, but the *purpose* that it might be put to if the greatest evil we know could harness it is what we fear. But if we linked the power of these stones to the one thing that they cannot tolerate...." She spread her hands in an all-encompassing gesture and shrugged.
"Well done, lass," the abbot said. "Well done. Now then, Mr. Giles, since I freely admit that this is quite outside of my own experience, I'll defer to you to your greater experience."
"All right then." Giles took a deep breath. "Father, if you would be so good as to stand opposite me. And Deirdre, over there, to make three points of a triangle...."
********
The shadows were lengthening by the time the three returned to the monastery. Giles began marshaling his arguments. Deirdre needed to know what she was fighting. But... would it help or hinder her to know precisely how close to her heart Darla would strike? Would it give her the will to survive, or would it, as the abbot had said, drive her hot-headed temper into a blind fury that would result in her death?
Before Giles could even begin to try to explain, a young man with dark hair intercepted Deirdre. "Liam, no --" she said, automatically pulling away.
"Deirdre, listen to me. I need to talk with you. Please." He was a year or two older than his brother, Aine, and bore a strong resemblance, although did not quite have the otherworldly beauty of his brother.
"I've given you my answer already," Deirdre said quietly.
"And it makes no sense!" Liam burst out. "You *can't* marry me? Explain it! You have no calling to the Church, you do not love another --"
"You know I love you," she said, her voice fierce with her emotions.
Father Ambros touched Giles' arm. "Let's leave them," he murmured low. "It is an argument that will never be settled, yet they must fight it whenever they meet. They are well-matched... perhaps too much so."
Slowly, with a heavy heart, Giles made his way back to the garden. He pitied Deirdre, for being so young and in love and completely lacking any choice in her life. Yet she was strong enough to try to protect Liam, to try to keep him far enough away that the demons she fought couldn't touch him --
Giles froze in the entryway of the garden, hidden from view. Angel knelt before a vegetable patch, halfheartedly pulling weeds.
And, carefully keeping out of the sun's rays, was Darla.
"Greetings," she called. Angel turned towards her, startled. A brilliant shaft of sunlight touched his face and turned his shining dark hair into a gleaming pelt. "I hadn't seen you here today."
Rising politely, Angel bowed to the woman who was a guest of the abbot. "I am Brother Angelus. Or will be, when I take my vows. I've been inside most of the day. In the scriptorium."
"Really?" Darla tilted her head in an almost cartoonish parody of interest. "Now why would you want to spend the day trapped in a room full of dusty old books?" she purred.
Angel smiled slightly, and took one step towards her, not immune to the lure of a beautiful woman. The wind played in the trees, casting dancing shadows over him. "Ah, lady, but they are not. They are the key to the world for me. The closest I shall ever come to seeing that world for myself." Giles flinched at the bitterness in the boy's voice, a bitterness that he had obviously hidden from those he had loved.
Darla's lips curled into a smile. "So... you do not wish to become a monk to serve God?" she asked delicately.
"If I had a choice..." Angel's voice trailed off.
"Yes. If you had a choice, what would you choose?" Diffuse light danced in the golden threads of her hair, brightened the china blue of her eyes. Giles knew better, and still wondered how a creature so innocent-looking could be so deadly.
"I would choose... everything." Angel's voice was low and strained with want.
Darla watched him for a very long moment. ~I must warn Deirdre,~ Giles thought. ~It will be tonight, sooner than I had hoped.~
Without altering her gentle, sweet smile, Darla raised her hand and beckoned. "I can give it to you. Everything your heart desires. Power, knowledge, wealth. Enough to rule the world. Come to me."
Slowly, Angel moved forward. His hand slid into shadow, took hers, and then he fell to his knees at her feet. "Lady," he said, bringing her hands to his lips, his head humbly bowed. "I will serve you as best I may. Your patronage means the world to me."
"I know." The voice was no longer sweet. Angel looked up -- into her demon face.
He did not even have time to scream before her teeth were in his throat. It happened so quickly, so very quickly, that Giles was frozen in horror. Before he could react, Darla lifted her blood-stained mouth from Angel's neck. She tore at her wrist with her own teeth, and pressed it to Angel's mouth. "Drink, my Angelus, my angelic one. Drink, and wake to your new life."
Before it was done, Giles finally forced his paralyzed muscles to move. He stumbled away, into the courtyard proper of the monastery, before being violently ill. The heaves wracked his body for long minutes, but nothing was worse than the thought that pounded in his brain. ~Too late. Too late. Too late.~
When his mind began working again, he forced his body to move. He didn't want to. He wanted to remain curled on the ground, time halted, so that the destruction he knew was coming would not come. But his cowering would not stop it. He had to find Deirdre, to warn her. Tonight, the vampires that the abbey had so trustingly sheltered would repay their hospitality with slaughter. And Angel would be among them.
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