•••

“This is not how I wanted to spend the evening, you know,” Wil muttered from the back seat.

“Yes, well, it is your job,” Wesley shot back, shouting over the din of inner city traffic.

Angel smirked, glancing around the car at his coworkers. It would take almost an hour to reach their destination, plenty of time for him to play brooding vampire and think about things, primarily his childe.

Wil had improved greatly over the past four months. Angel had been surprised at how quickly the blonde had adjusted to having a soul. Wesley and he had discussed it and the vampire had, in the end, agreed with the ex-watcher’s theories. Wes had hypothesized that between the circumstances under which Wil had gotten his soul, the younger vampire’s involvement with fighting evil beforehand, and the nature of his human self before he was turned, along with the support he got from Angel, worked together to help Wil adjust. Wil had taken on his soul voluntarily, as opposed to being cursed like Angel was. He also willingly fought alongside the Slayer without a soul. And, before he was a vampire, Wil was a pretty good human, whereas Angel had been a right bastard, in Wesley’s words. Lastly, Angel had had no help, left to drift around the world for nearly a hundred years. Wil had Angel to help him, and a mission from The Powers, even though that mission was currently rather vague.

Angel was privately rather proud of Wil. The blonde vampire became more and more like the human he used to be with every passing day. Well, somewhat like that human—Wil was definitely stronger and wiser, and a lot less vulnerable. Angelus would have hated what Wil had become. The thought made Angel smile. He and Angelus had very different tastes. Angelus liked Darla and Drusilla. Angel, on the other hand, loved Buffy. Apparently he rather liked Wil as well. The thought bothered Angel somewhat; he felt himself getting quite attached to his newly ensouled childe, something he did not want to let happen. Such attachments could serve to weaken him. He could also easily fall in love with the younger vampire; his unsouled self had certainly taken an interest in Wil’s violent alter ego Spike. His emotions were complicated by their Sire-childe relationship; since his return to Angel, Wil had worked hard to rebuild their bond, reaching out to Angel out of need. The older vampire was honest with himself; he liked his role as Sire, with its responsibility and devotion. It was yet another thing for him to watch over carefully.

Angel was brought out of his ruminations as they neared their destination—a rundown brick building situated in a row of old warehouses. “This the place?” He asked.

“Yes, it would appear to be the location in Cordelia’s visions,” Wesley replied, arming himself with swords and daggers.

“Right. Let’s get to it, then.” Wil swung out of the car.

The three men entered the building as quietly as possible, trying to ascertain the demons’ location. All too soon they found them, a half-dozen tall, well-muscled figures surrounding a group of four teens who were bound to an altar. They were just in time; it looked like the bloodletting was about to begin.

Wesley and Wil circled around the sides as Angel took on the leader. In a matter of seconds all three were engaged in combat, holding their own rather well against far stronger opponents. Angel managed to disable two of the demons, Wesley a third, and Wil a fourth, when the remaining two began chanting. All three men fell to the ground, writhing in pain, their screams echoed by the youths tied to the altar.

With the last of his strength, Angel threw a knife at one of the remaining demons. It embedded in the creature’s shoulder, not doing enough damage to kill it, but managing to interrupt the spell. With the spell broken, Angel managed to stand up and approach the demons again, who chose to flee the building at that point.

Wil found a stray knife and cut loose the bound humans. The four youths took off at a run, one of them calling the police on a cell phone. “Guess that’s our cue to exit stage left?” He walked over to Wesley, pulling the human up off the concrete floor.

“I suppose we should leave now, before we have questions to answer,” He said, looking around at the carnage. “I wonder, though, what type of incantation was that? It appeared to affect all of us equally.”

“We’d better get out of here.” Angel led the way to the car and the tree men piled in, sore but generally unharmed.

•••

“Did you get them?” Fred asked, bouncing around the lobby.

Angel grinned. Fred could be a bit bloodthirsty at times. “Most of them. We got the kids out, though.”

“So, did they look like Star Wars extras or what?” Cordelia asked from her perch on the counter.

“Indeed they did look like Chewbacca’s cousins,” Wesley agreed, throwing himself on the couch. “And we have a spell to investigate.”

“Spell?” Cordelia asked.

“The demons used some sort of incantation that managed to incapacitate all of us, as well as the other humans there. It was quite painful, unlike anything I’ve ever felt.” Wesley noticed Wil and Angel looking pensively at each other. “What?”

Angel looked at Wesley, then back at Wil. “I think I know what it is.”

“Well, what? We may need to find something to counteract it.”

“If I’m right, it’s a spell to rend souls from their bodies.” Wesley inhaled sharply at that pronouncement. “My guess is that the demons knew we might be coming. The spell wouldn’t have any effect on vampires, unless they had souls.”

“Do you think they knew about Wil?” Cordelia asked.

“If they didn’t before, they do now. Two got away. It reeks of Wolfram & Hart. It’s just too well orchestrated,” Angel spat.

“The fact that the warehouse is owned by the law firm probably helps that theory, doesn’t it?” Cordelia said. “I made some phone calls after you left.”

“Why would anyone want to take away your souls?” Fred asked.

Wil turned to stare incredulously at the young woman before he remembered that she didn’t know everything about Angelus and Spike. “Well, luv, you wouldn’t want to meet me & Angel without our souls. We’re…bad-tempered.”

“Oh, that whole Scourge of Europe thing?” Both Angel and Wil looked at her in shock. Cordelia and Wesley laughed nervously. The two vampires turned to them, looking more than a bit angry.

“What? She needed to know. You do have a habit of misplacing the damned thing, you know,” Cordelia defended tartly.

The two vampires growled a bit before giving up. “Fine. What do we do?” Wil asked.

“Yes, we must find something. Once Wolfram & Hart know that the spell will work, they will not stop until Angel is destroyed, and probably Wil along with him,” Wesley said. “Perhaps you should visit the Oracles, Angel?”

Angel thought about it. Perhaps he should visit the Oracles. It was worth a try. “Ok, but maybe the rest of us should start researching. Maybe there’s a binding spell…”

“Yes, perhaps. I’ve been searching for something for a while now.” The gang was soon engrossed in research while Angel went to visit the Oracles.

•••

“Wesley, what about this one?” Fred carried a large, thick book over to the ex-Watcher. She pointed to a complicated binding incantation covering several pages.

“Let’s see…” Wesley studied the spell, one of several hundred the group had dug up during the past few days. At the moment, they had had no luck in finding something that could withstand Angel’s curse, much less the powerful soul-rending spell they were trying to counteract. The Oracles had been their usual vague selves, simply telling Angel to work with what he had.

“What’s it like, Wes?” Angel asked, ever hopeful. The entire group was on edge; every time they went out there was the chance that they’d run into one of Wolfram & Hart’s flunkies trying to cast the spell. They’d already encountered the remaining Kragrlange demons, who had attempted to use the spell again, although they were easily defeated.

“It does show promise. I need to translate it, though, to get a better idea.”

“Oh, I did that already. Here.” Fred handed over a translation of the spell. Wesley took it, comparing it to his own work.

“My, I didn’t realize you’d gotten proficient at neo-Thalonili, Fred.” Indeed the translation was dead-on. Wesley read the translation, then the original, with growing excitement. “I think that Fred may be onto something here.” He took the spell over to Angel and Wil, pointing to specific lines of text.

“How so?” Wil asked.

“It is a binding spell, much like the others we’ve looked at previously, but this one specifies binding the soul to a specific corporeal form—such as a body. As long as the body exists, the soul cannot be separated from it, by any means.” He read some more of the incantation. “However…”

“What?” Angel asked.

“However, if the corporeal form is destroyed, the soul cannot be reclaimed. That is, the soul would go to hell, or heaven, and could not be brought back as yours has been in the past. There would be no risk of Angelus returning, but Angel would be lost as well.”

“Seems right. I mean, if we died, then we’d go to our ends, and that’s that?” Wil summarized.

“I believe so. It is a rather powerful spell—I seriously doubt that Wolfram & Hart could come up with anything strong enough to affect it,” Wesley said, continuing to study the spell. “I think it was created to prevent people from being turned into vampires—from the way it reads, a person under this spell would either remain human despite the effects of vampiric blood, or die in the process.”

“Are you sure it wouldn’t kill vampires?” Cordelia asked, worried that they might inadvertently do away with their friends.

“I see no reason why it should. It worked to prevent vampirism by keeping the soul intact—which would interfere with being turned. It doesn’t seem to matter what the soul is in—it just can’t get back out.”

“What about the clause?” Cordelia asked, referring to Angel’s happiness clause.

Wesley peered over the book at Angel, who stared back with great interest. “This binding spell is far more powerful than the curse—there isn’t any happiness great enough to overcome the ties this incantation would put between the soul and the body.” Angel exhaled audibly.

/No more happiness clause?/ Thoughts swirled in Angel’s mind. /No more…/

Wil watched his Sire, sure that Angel was thinking of Buffy. With nothing standing between them…he would lose his Sire to the Slayer, the older vampire’s one true love. He loved both of them, Buffy and Angel. At this point, he could live without the Slayer, but his Sire? Angel had become the center of his world. And now he would be free.