Night fell with instant blackness over the grey buildings of St. Petersburg, fully three hours before the sun was supposed to fall that night. The darkness was pervasive and almost palpable, and even those who used the strong vodka of the Russians to escape the harsh reality of capitalism and the free market felt through their intoxication, sobering up if only for a moment to sense that to which they should never have been subjected outside their darkest dreams. There was no light; this was no natural night, the very stars themselves obscured by thick clouds that blanketed the sky, rolling and flashing with blue light. Thunder clapped with instant noise that just as quickly fell to silence, to be interrupted again when next it shattered the odd peace that descended on the city, as though it was waiting. The older residents, those who had survived Stalin's paranoia and the advance of the mafiya remembered the terrifying blasts of the German guns; they had laid siege to the city for two years, never getting through but destroying much of it with the terrifying efficiency of their vaunted .75s. They remembered the long nights, shivering beneath the ruins of stately homes that even the Communists in the full fury of their twisted modernism had left alone in a pride of the achievement of Russian culture; they remembered scavenging in the ruins for rats which constituted a feast for one more day of terror that the Germans might finally through, and do to them what they had done to so many of their compatriots. Few had doubted the scale of intended German vengeance that would be wreaked on a target that had so long thwarted them with the full defiance of the Motherland, the rodina. But the city had held.

Those who remembered were not so certain now as they had been then that the city would weather whatever had now been inflicted on it. The city founded by Peter the Great as a window to the Baltic could now see nothing but darkness; even the sea to the north seemed black, a moving pit of tar that extended to a horizon that had become invisible. The ground did not shake as it had sixty years before with the impact of the German shells, but some imagined that it was.

Far beneath, two hundred metres beneath the surface, beneath the tunnels that had been hewn during the dark days of the siege when only the caverns over which the city had been built had provided protection from the German artillery and bombers, another war was unfolding, one that was more limited but even more vicious.

The circle of flame had fallen, but none moved; none wished to yield the advantage of commitment. Akhenaton was in prime position, with Aurelius and Jounn'I eyeing each other and their enemies with equal parts loathing and fear. The darkness of the cavern was illuminated with flickering flame that danced red shadows on the dusty, unused walls of black and brown stone. The eyes of the vampires glowed red in the firelight, staring at one another with implacable animosity that went beyond the mere desire for power.

Quintus Eranus' face was dark, the light casting shadows on his impossibly handsome face, the angular lines of his pureblood Roman features seeming the chiselled stone of a classical sculpture. His grey eyes watched the others carefully, with the military assessment of threat which had not left him after two and a half thousand years of stalking single prey.

Drusilla returned his stare, aware that she was his primary target, her assessment of her own strength and that of her order ripped to shreds by Spike's ingenious treachery.

Jur'Khan Chung watched the others, knowing full well the weakness of his order, but his eyes were drawn to the Roman who had killed his Sire with all the ease that they had all here dispatched hundreds of thousand of mortals screaming into the darkness, some without knowing what had happened to them.

Spike and Buffy stood side by side behind Patricius, between Vost and de Guise-Montcalm, just in front of Serim. The addition to the ranks of Akhenaton should have created jealousy and animosity in the other Masters, but they knew full well that this was not a struggle that could be won without risks, and the one which their ancient Sire had taken might be well worth the cost of leaving the two children alive. Children was what Buffy and Spike were in this gathering, beside the concentrated evil of the others, those who had prowled through the pages of history leaving little but tears of terror and grief in their wake.

The tension was more than a mortal could bear, but the only mortals cowered hundreds of metres above, frightened of the dark.

'Let us have done with this,' Patricius said at length, his perfectly modulated voice shattering the still silence, his eyes on the gladius.

'Let it be done,' Jur'Khan Chung replied and, with a glance in the direction of Drusilla, he turned and marched, his followers behind him, to stand by her side, his Masters standing with Dracula and Angelus.

Seven against six.

Buffy knew that it was his only chance, the only chance of either Jounn'I or Aurelius, was to fight together against Akhenaton, for individually they were outnumbered with addition of Buffy and Spike. She could feel his cold hand in hers, colder, and she squeezed it. She looked at him, and smiled, though her other hand tightened on the hilt of the sword which she carried into the last battle which she would fight as a Slayer. He had been with her through all of it, and he would stand by her side, protecting her life at the cost of his own if it came to that, she knew, though she knew little of what she would do if he fell and she did not. Die, she supposed, for she could face eternity only with him at her side.

Patricius smiled, and behind him Vost snorted his contempt. Akhenaton had been the most powerful of the Orders for more than a millennium; its Lord had chosen wisely with his offspring. Could the others, even Angelus or Dracula, creators of their own legends face the likes of the Bavarian Butcher, who had fanned the flames of religious hatred when the Hapsburgs had made their last play for power? Or de Guise-Montcalm, who provoked a demented girl to raise the siege of Orléans? Or Serim, who provoked the destruction of Tunis? Or The Slayer of Slayers, enhanced by his love for the most powerful Slayer to ever live, still imbued as she was with the power of Thoikaris, one of the First Four? They had nothing now but numbers, and numbers were fickle.

The Roman walked forward as the other Lords watched carefully, and leaned down over the dying flames to grasp the hilt of a sword, hundreds of thousands of which had built an empire at the bloody hands of the legions. Withdrawing it from the rock, he lifted it with practised skill that had not left him. It glowed black for a moment, then faded.

As one, Jur'Khan Chung and Drusilla, too, moved forward, though they watched each other no less carefully than they did Patricius, who had fallen back to the ranks of his own to stand at their head, as he once had his legion to battle the hardened mercenary hordes of Hannibal, and the Carthaginians who had ravaged Italy before they themselves were destroyed at Zama.

Drusilla raised her sabre, which glowed the same black as did the Roman gladius and the katana of Jur'Khan Chung. They were ready, they knew.

The longsword of Thoikaris stood alone, its heavy blade and razor steel gleaming silver in the faint light. There was no heir to the fallen Order to wield it, for all of Quintus Eranus' calculation.

Buffy looked to Spike, and he leant down, their cold lips meeting in a kiss of vampire passion to the likes of which she could never have experienced as a mortal, and endless more which to could look forward if she survived this day. The kiss was pure light and darkness, the call for blood mingling with the call for passion, the natural impulse of the warriors that they were.

The battle began, to end the war.

Drusilla launched herself at Serim, withdrawing a dagger from within the folds of her black dress that made her beautiful in the dark as Angelus and Dracula took Vost and de Guise-Montcalm. The Moroccan fell back, buying time with space, though she was outmatched; for all that she was a powerful Master, she was not a Lord, and Drusilla was more powerful than any in the history of her Order since Cornokalen had fallen. She moved like quicksilver, her sabre flashing silver in the light, matched time and again in desperate defence by the scimitar of Akhenaton's scion. Serim knew that she was fighting for her life and that of her Sire, but she had fought worse than Drusilla in her time and managed to survive for more than a thousand years, and she would live yet. The dagger carried by Drusilla made her doubly dangerous but, for all her power, she was barely a hundred and fifty years old, her enemy five times that, with ten times more experience.

Patricius took Jur'Khan Chung directly, knowing that he was all that the Mongol would see through his rage-blinded black eyes that had seen the Golden Horde reduce Russia to a quivering mass of peasants frightened of the dark and what it would bring, the hoofbeats of the steppes ponies who had conquered an empire under the banner of Temujin, the Lord of the World. His katana should have been a superior weapon to the shortsword of the Roman, but the gladius was wielded by a Lord who had survived two and a half thousand years of warfare and dominance, and he was more than a match for the Mongol, who wanted only his death. If only the slant-eyed bastard had realised by Julia Erenia had had to die, Patricius reflected coldly as he fought for both life and death, though he would not allow himself the indignity of dying at the hands of one like this, his inferior in every aspect of the dark craft into which they had been born. Jur'Khan Chung fought with the fury that his vengeance demanded; his opponent fought with ice of a passionless existence since the death of Helena, hoping only that Serim would hold Drusilla off long enough that he could have done with the Lord of Jounn'I and turn to deal with the avaricious killer of his lover.

The cavern was filled with the imminence of the finality of mortality, as it was by the sounds of clashing steel, and the grunts of the warriors within it, while those above cowered in darkness.

Buffy and Spike, outside the Hierarchy now yet choosing to fight within it, fought Chihiltipec and Khilthizezi with an ease that they would not have expected, their swords carving dazzling arcs of shining steel in the darkness in which they could see perfectly. None had yet called forth the extra strength of their demons; they fought as humans, though humans could never have matched this deadly grace.

Jur'Khan Chung had been right in his assessment of the strength of his Masters; with the exception of Hatukani, who fought the unnaturally skilled de Guise-Montcalm beside Angelus, who was no swordsman, none of the three who fought under the banner of Jounn'I were strong enough for this kind of battle. Against humans they were invincible; against a vampire of Spike's precocity and lust for battle Khilthizezi was a child for all his five hundred years, and against the most powerful Slayer in the annals, made worse by the power of Thoikaris, Chihiltipec had no more power than did the victims who had fallen screaming at the alters of the priests of his long-vanished culture.

De Guise-Montcalm was the first to fall, for even her for all his skill could not long ward off both Angelus and Hatukani, his head falling to the ground in a shower of dust that was barely noticed amid the carnage. Dracula fell then, Vost skewering him through in a parody of his preferred method of execution. The vampire lord of literary legend gasped in pain, his sword falling to the ground with a crash that none could hear, his black eyes wide, seeing as he could his mortality for the first time since he had fought the Turks centuries before in the shining arc of steel used by Vost to take the head from him. He could not use his power here, and he fell, this time forever.

Vost turned just in time to block both Angelus and Hatukani; for all the samurai skill of the Japanese vampiress, she was not the equal of the sadistic German, and Angelus was little more than an irritant, sent flying across the room with a grunt of pain, to be forgotten by Vost until he could deal with the scion of Jounn'I, whose eyes widened with fear, meeting for the first time in her long memory an opponent of equal determination but, worse, superior skill. She weaved her defence desperately, but his dark eyes never wavered in concentration as he pushed her inexorably back.

Serim had had her fill of Drusilla, whose arrogance was infuriating. The Lord of Aurelius fought furiously, but she could not penetrate the defences of the Moroccan, and did not even have the skill to recognise that Serim was toying with her, keeping her alive long enough for Patricius to deal with Jur'Khan Chung, who was pressed up against the wall of the cavern by the sublime skill of the Lord of Akhenaton, who felt with pain the death of de Guise-Montcalm while, ten feet away, Buffy and Spike neared the end of their fights; neither opponent was worthy of them, all they had was age, and that was not enough against the fury of the two lovers.

'I've had enough of you,' Serim growled at Drusilla, and twisted. The eyes of the vampiress opened wide with horror as Serim dived to the ground and rolled with incredible speed, her scimitar coming back around as she came up, slicing Drusilla across the midsection almost to her spine. The wound was not mortal, not for a vampire, but the scream of Drusilla's pain as she sank to the floor shattered the eerie silence where before there had only been the clash of metal.

Spike finished off Khilthilezi easily in time to hear the scream of his Sire, and he turned. Though he could no longer feel the bond that had sustained him through a century, neither could he easily ignore her pain. He watched her sink to the floor as Buffy decapitated Chihiltipec, who fell unnoticed by her Lord, who fought no longer for power, or even vengeance, but simply to survive. Angelus raised his dazed head from the wall, feeling the agony of his Childe and Lord, and launched himself through the air, directly at Serim, barely missing Vost, who ended his toying with Hatukani quickly. He, too, had felt the death of de Guise-Montcalm, and would miss the Angevin Frenchman, in whom he had discovered a kindred spirit. The best he could do was deal with his killer, which he did quickly, though he was not able to turn in time to stop Angelus.

The Scourge of Europe crashed into Serim, bearing her to the ground as Drusilla struggled vainly to rise, the awful wound in her side not yet starting to heal. Angelus brought his sword around to take the head from Serim, who was momentarily stunned. The eyes of the master sadist gleamed with anticipation as he swung.

The impact of his sword against Spike's was terrific, jarring. With no less energy, Spike had launched himself also across the room, leaving Buffy, who was as yet unaware of the plenitude of her power. The Slayer of Slayers was able to block the blow that would have killed Serim, though he did not do it for her. A century of rage infused Spike, who was no longer retarded by any hint of deference for his grandsire, and he fought with all of his energy against the older vampire. The hatred of Angelus was no less intense, and they fought to finally end their age old rivalry.

It seemed an eternity to them as they fought, though Buffy and Vost, watching carefully, knew that it lasted a bare minute. Spike could see nothing but the hatred that he bore for the man who had blazed the trail that he had been all his life forced to follow, nothing but the desire to end the life of the one creature against whose perverted ethics of death Spike's rebellion had made him what he was. Their swords clashed continually. Angelus' hopes of a quick victory were dashed; he had been contained too long by the iron cages of Angel's soul, and it was not for nothing that Spike had battled so long with Buffy, without learned to fight with more skill than Angelus could ever have imparted. Spike was a warrior, Angelus an assassin. Strong enough when he had the upper hand, he was unused to fighting on equal terms. All Spike's rage gave him a strength that he never thought he might possess, and grimly he pushed Angelus back.

It would have ended quickly enough, had Drusilla not chosen that moment to strike at her errant offspring. Though nearly crippled, she was not completely helpless, and she raised her sword.

It took Spike in the leg, and Serim, nearby though still slightly dazed, could have done nothing about it. Spike snarled in anger at the pain, more an annoyance than a hindrance, and would have rounded on his Sire, had not Angelus then pushed forward. Distracted, Spike could not block the blow aimed for his neck with all the hate and fury that his grandsire could summon, expressed in an animalistic growl of pure malevolence. In that moment, Spike saw his death.

But not his lover, whose sword took Angelus directly in the chest, driving him the ground with a snarl of agony. She stood over him, debating, with a quick grin at Spike while, behind, Serim rose to stand with Vost.

Spike turned, limping slightly, turned to Drusilla, who had managed to rise, her sword red from Spike's blood, but it was her last throw of the dice. The wound inflicted by Serim would have weakened her for days, and she could see in Spike's eyes that she had barely seconds. There was nothing of affection, and barely anything of recognition in the blue eyes of the vampire who had loved her completely and cared for her with perfect attention for more than a century, protecting her from every impulse of enmity her delusional insanity provoked, and at the end almost sacrificed his life to restore her to health. He turned, and raised his sword. In that moment, for the first time since she had gained all the power that had enabled her to mount the failed challenge for dominance for which she had risked everything, and now lost equally as much at his hands by his betrayal, she knew fear.

'Goodbye, Dru,' he said softly.

'William,' Patricius called from the far side of the room, where he stood, with Jur'Khan Chung in his knees in front, facing forward, a gaping wound in his chest enabling his unbeating heart to be see. Holding his sword in one hand, Patricius leaned forward and, without expression on his face, reached deep into the barrel chest of the Mongol, who screamed with agony, then crumpled to the same dust in which so many of his victims now lay. Beyond the cavern, a thousand or more vampires descended from Jounn'I fell, without knowing why.

His heart followed a moment later, and the Roman casually blew the dust from his hand, striding forward with a purpose that might have been threatening had all there not known his intent.

Angelus tried to rise, but was sent crashing to the ground with a quick, contemptuous sneer by Vost, who stood then beside Serim, waiting.

'What?' Spike asked of the Roman, who walked alongside him as Drusilla stared at the two of them, Buffy right behind her, waiting to finish it if they would not. She would not suffer the vampiress to live, nor could she.

Behind her, the longsword of Thoikaris started to glow; white, not black like the others.

'Leave her to me, if you would,' Patricius asked softly, his eyes never leaving those of Drusilla. 'She has done more to wound me than ever she did to you.'

Spike's eyes flickered to those of Buffy's. His lover nodded, and they stepped forward into each other's arms, their embrace a sweet celebration of their survival, though still neither of them saw the longsword of Thoikaris. Never in either of their lives had either felt so close to anyone else as they did now, for before there had not been time for them to celebrate the formal consummation of their union. Bonded together forever in a way that Spike, for all of his adoration of the petite form in his arms, could never have hoped, and Buffy could never have understood until this day. Human love magnified a hundred fold by vampire determination and patience, they leaned against each other without words, for no mere words in all the languages of humanity, living or dead, could have expressed the depths of their feeling for each other.

Patricius knelt in front of Drusilla in anticipation for he, too, had once known such love as was being celebrated in front of him.

'You took from me the one thing for which I lived for two and a half millennia,' he said to her, though his voice was colder than the air around him, and without expression, his face blank. Vengeance was an infertile thing, breeding nothing but its own increase, and it was cold comfort at the end, he knew. Yet, though it achieved nothing, it demanded an answer to its call. And it was an answer the strength of defiance to deny could never have been expected from the magnitude of such a crime as that committed by her against him.

'Die,' he whispered, and brought his sword around.

Her dust fell to join with so much more as Patricius rose. He wanted now nothing more than to join her, but not yet, he knew as he heard Angelus' scream of agony from behind him.

Unlike Buffy and Spike, who saw nothing but each others' eyes, he could see the glowing sword behind them, and he knew what it meant; he had been told by his Sire, so many thousands of years before. He had nothing left for which to live, he knew, but he had something left to do.

Walking past Buffy and Spike, who still stood in each others arms contemplating the eternity together that lay in front of them as Angel picked himself up from the floor, his soul again in place and Angelus gone now forever with the demise of the Lord of his Order, Patricius walked to the centre circle that had been guarded what seemed an eternity before by hot flames.

Sighing, he saw the sword which was never meant for him to wield, and he knew nothing of what would happen were he to touch it. He remembered the snarl of fury with which Thoikaris had been cast into the void, raging that she would return, with every fibre of the power which she had inherited from the First she would not allow her enemies to be victorious in the war which he himself, alone of the company here both alive and dead, remembered. He had been the most junior of the vampires who had stood that day, a mere two hundred years old beside Cornokalen of Aurelius and Qui Chi of Jounn'I, but he had fought with all the controlled aggression that had set his people on the road to an Empire whose bones were still visible today, whose legacy still drove western civilisation and had, by the extension of Europe to every area of the world, influenced history in a manner in which none alive then could have anticipated. That one small city in one peninsula could have done that much, his city, was still a source of pride to him, pride that shone in his dark eyes as he reached down.

So focused was he on the sword, so focused were Buffy and Spike on each other, and so focused were Vost and Serim on the panting agony of Angel as his soul was returned to him with a wrench worse than anything which he had endured when he had lost it, that none of them saw who entered the cavern.

Patricius did not see her, though he felt her, and looked up with a level of surprise on his face which he had never revealed since he had been human.

Buffy pulled away from Spike, who also felt a shiver in his spine, and they turned, their hands still entwined, as they would be for the eternity to which they both looked forward.

Vost, Serim and Angel slowly turned, not believing what they felt.

Resplendent in black leather, and projecting such power steeped in a malevolence ageless in its constancy and determination, the faint light of the cavern seeming to shy away from her as she walked with a malicious smile on her face Thoikaris, the vampire queen so far beyond both Lords and Masters in the cavern with her, walked nonchalantly into view.

'Faith,' Buffy breathed.