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Chapter 43
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The White Room was silent enough one could hear the air move after the Partners’ minion announced that Mr. Wolf was going to be sitting in for Mr. Ram. The room was filled with enough famous faces to please even the most jaded celebrity stalker in the world. There were a lot of unknowns present as well, exuding power the way a courtesan exudes perfume. These were the real powers on Earth: the manipulators
of history and commerce, the builders and shapers of the future. They all paid regular homage to the oldest power known to them, the Senior Partners.

They would have all preferred reporting to Mr. Ram; he was by far the most civilized of the trio. Mr. Hart threw wonderful parties but hadn’t chaired a summit in at least half a century. That Partner’s interests had slid down the slope of decadence and self-pleasure, taking less and less interest in the
affairs of mankind. Mr. Wolf, however, caused the blood to run cold in more than one human gathered in the blindingly white room.

"Good thing the demon worlds meet separately then, don’t you think, Mr. Prime Minister?" asked a mitered cleric to the luminary seated next to him.

"No sense adding even more fuel to the fires of hell, eh?" The Minister replied and winked.

The religious leader looked down his nose at the mere elected official and replied, "Hardly a cause for jest, young man. This is serious business for demons, as well as humankind. There are herds to be handled and plans to see to fruition. I hardly think a flip attitude will go far in placating Mr. Wolf."

Silence once more reigned as all who heard the brief conversation thought to their own spheres of influence. Each hoped against hope that the others had screwed up their own areas, taking the heat off himself.

Wolf’s consiglieri, Fridtjof and Aeneas, entered the room ahead of their lord and master. Fridtijof announced Wolf’s arrival to the standing room of dignitaries. "The great Lord Fenris--Apollo, son of Zeus--has deigned to chair this meeting. You may give your thanks to him for this great honor at the end of the meeting."

Wolf strode to the head of the long table, ignoring the dais and microphone, glancing from face to face and taking note which of these vassals squirmed the most. He would be sure to look closely at their individual reports. Nervous minions generally had something to hide.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated," Aeneas ordered and shut the great doors to the room.

"Let’s get on with this. I have some pressing business to take care of as soon as we get through here. Ram’s……indisposed and Hart has finally retired." After the quiet murmur of comments that greeted his announcement, Wolf continued, "Yeah, well, no loss, right? I mean the last original evil plan Hart came up with was the invention of pantyhose. Guy lost his edge. You’ll get the straight shooter this
time. No mollycoddling from me. Some of you heard rumors of how the last summit went that displeased me. I don’t think I need to warn any of you of what’s expected, right?"

Faces blanched at the implied threat they all knew he was fully capable of delivering on.

"Let’s start out with the industry and information division. Gates, when are you finally going to manage to get the back doors open for those MAC users? Lots of great worms and viruses going to waste there. Windows 2000 was brilliant, but you really have to step it up on breaching those walls!" Wolf glared at the nerdy-looking billionaire.

Reports were given in the realms of Commerce, Industry and Information without any violence from the fearsome demon and the room filled with humans began to relax a bit.

"What about civil unrest? War, terrorism and insurrection are all going on schedule, but there’s been a real let-down in the holocaust division. Someone want to explain that little problem or should I just start pacing around with a game of musical chairs and start bashing heads?" Wolf looked at the grouped world leaders and religious heads in distaste. "Come on, boys and girls, get with the program! I mean that whole political correctness crap did a great job of turning people against themselves and all, but now most of them wouldn’t raise a hand to defend their own kids. Makes me look back fondly at the nationalistic fervor of the old days!"

There were excuses and promises meant to placate the testy Partner, followed by assurances of a stepping up of civil unrest and bloodshed.

One of the leading lights in the Religion and Entertainment division rose to offer a ray of hope. "Lord Wolf, sir, may I call to your attention the wonderful strides we have made in turning humanity from The Powers That Be? Our concentrated efforts to pervert the various holy words and the doctrinal scrimmages setting sect against sect have gone a long way toward making simple faith and hope a thing of the past. We have done so much to be seen as purveyors of hatred and hostility that the average human is confused at the very least and outright turned away from the words of Light at best. We are quite proud of the accomplishments in our sector. The last big wins we had date back to the Inquisition and the Crusades before that."

"True, fewer of these mud babies crawling around on your planet seek the old golden path. Makes the lot of them a depressed, hostile, hopeless bunch. You’re on the right track. It’s a win-win situation. Those that cling to the spiritual paths of their fathers are more and more entrenched in doctrine and suspicion, making everybody else hate them while others just reject the whole thing. Keep this up and TPTB won’t have any followers left. Kudos, boys!" Wolf acknowledged.

"My legal eagles have done a bang-up job thanks to the tag words of ‘civil liberties’, ‘personal freedom’ and ‘basic rights’. Hell, we even have soccer moms afraid to speak out against kiddy porn on the Internet in the interest of tolerance and anti-censuring. You people are so easy to play!" Wolf actually broke into a grin at the reminder of how easily people could have their very best intentions pave their way to hell.

"Okay, I want to see the latest charts and reports from the News and Propaganda divisions. I believe some people are starting to catch onto the manipulation. Gotta go for subtle here, people! I am happy to see the progress from the fluff media sector though. All those impossible standards of beauty have even started to reach the males. Everybody’s nice and insecure, trying to achieve impossible goals. It’s almost funny watching idiots get down to skin and bones and still diet, I have to tell you!"

"Nice cross-department cooperation with the assault on language. People can't even understand their own native tongues half the time with all the deliberate misspellings and corruption of standards. You guys in the Education sector helped out a lot by lowering those standards and churning out dumbed-down graduates. Before you know it we'll have a work force unable to do a thing but take their place as a cog in the wheel. Won't even be able to communicate their unhappiness at this rate, much less understand what's happening and organize to stop it. Great job!" Members of the chuffed divisions visibly preened in pride at Wolf's praise.


There was an easing in the tension as Wolf appeared more pleased than displeased over the state of affairs of mankind, compliments of this group of movers and shakers. He made suggestions to tighten up the current directives and alternately warned, threatened and praised as each group gave their reports.

Lunchtime was approaching with eager anticipation from those already weary of listening to the prattling and backslapping of the political branch. They had
received the highest praise from Mr. Wolf for the one-two punch of blurring the distinctions of political parties and simultaneous forwarding of the plan to obliterate the political boundaries that bound humanity into national identities. The day of ascending to open rule of this dimension was fast approaching. Now if his minions had only captured the damned half-breeds and that bitch of a slayer, Wolf would have a banner day.


~~~

"Any more of them?" Spike asked Angel. The older vampire had been carefully watching the progress of the search party. So far they had managed to avoid detection.

"Just a couple in the next room. I think we can move back into that room and regroup once they’re sure we’re not there. My guess is Wolf’s not where we can get him just yet. Whatever this meeting is, it’s important enough to take him away from going after us. Damn! Wish we could find that meeting room and really shake things up!" Angel got that mulish look that showed his desire to just plunge in and take no prisoners.

"Maybe not such a great idea, Angel. Remember how we got into this mess in the first place? ‘Circle of the Black Thorne’ ring any bells? Let’s not turn this into another suicide mission, okay? I just got my girl, not too eager to be all Mr. Dusty again any time soon." Spike had begun to entertain the idea that there was still lots of his unlife ahead of him before punching his final ticket. Might not be a bad time to remind his sire that he had some unliving yet to do as well.

"’Sides, you’ve got that cute wolf-girl and your boy to consider. Turn into a regular family vamp at the rate you’re going, Peaches." Spike suggested.

"Don’t even tell me." Buffy held up her hand to silence the explanation she could see Angel preparing. "Obviously we both rebuilt our lives after the great movie ending that was our romance. I’m glad, really. It’s a good thing that you moved on, Angel. You deserve to find a love that fits the mold you used to have me in. I don’t fit in it anymore and I don’t think you’d really like how I’ve baked actually. You don’t owe me any explanations."

"No, but I’d like to think we can be friends when this is all over. I’ll always care about you, Buffy. You know that. Even care about this idiot." Angel looked at the startled vampire at Buffy’s side.

"Works for me. We are sort of family in a way," Buffy suggested.

"Wouldn’t go quite that far, love. Distant cousins, maybe, but not the kissing kind," Spike put in.

Finally, the search team moved from the basement and the trio crept into the adjoining room to devise their war plan.

~~~

Lunch had gone rather smoothly and the atmosphere was bordering on giddiness in the delegates’ relief that thus far no one had gotten their brains splattered on the large conference table.

Friddtjof sidled up to Wolf and whispered the progress report of search efforts to his boss. One look at the powerful demon’s face caused storm clouds to gather on
the formerly bright horizon and fear once more took a seat at the table. Whatever the message from his advisor, Mr. Wolf was no longer in a pleasant, laid-back mood. It didn’t bode well for the Plague and Disease division due to make their report immediately after lunch.

"They can’t get out of this dimension without my blood and there is no way that is gonna happen. They aren’t invisible or invincible. It’s a bubble-headed Slayer and two soul-afflicted vampires, for the love of Me! Just look harder. I don’t want to hear any excuses. I expect all three tied up and ready for some smackdown when I get finished with this pack of ass-kissers. No excuses, you hear me?" He had spoken softly, but there was as much authority as in his earlier bellow. Heads were going to roll before this day was finished. It was only a matter of making sure you kept your own head intact.

"Now, where were we?" Wolf licked his lips, golden eyes glowing, as he reconvened the meeting. "Let’s see that data on the whole Mad Cow scare first." Nervous hands passed a sheaf of papers toward the head of the table as a small scurry of Hyeeder demons began to clear the table of the remains of lunch.

~~~

"So, frontal assault?" suggested Angel.

"I’m thinking sneak attack, personally," replied Spike.

"Whatever gets the job done, if you ask me. I think whichever way we go with this, the fewer skanky minions he has around, the better. Spike, how about you tell us what you see when you look at this wolf guy, ‘cause he was, you know, Giles-y to me." Buffy wanted them all on the same page for this battle.

"Big wolf, without all the cute doggie parts. I think I didn’t really get a good look at him on account of being kind of a mess at the time, but he’s really big and his snout has enough sharp teeth to give a vamp fang envy. I know he usually has that whole Greek god look when dealin’ with his troops. Dresses like a bad Mafia movie don though. Keep expectin’ him to say stuff like ’Guido, put this guy to bed with the fishes’ or some such." Spike used a bad Marlon Brando imitation that made both Angel and Buffy laugh out loud.

When the laughter subsided, Spike continued. "Got a feeling he’s a lot bigger than what I got to see. Power rolls off him so you can almost taste it. One thing in our favor is his ego. I’d bet he doesn’t really think we can take him. We can use that."

Angel nodded sagely while Buffy remembered back to the night when Spike explained how he had defeated two slayers in the past. "It won’t hurt that I was acting like a silly school girl with The Immortal. If this Wolf saw us after we got here, he can’t think I’m too much of a threat."

"My reputation for chargin’ in half-cocked might help, too. I’m a bit of a wild card they don’t really know what to expect from. Angel might be a different matter." He looked at his fellow vamp. "You put up a long fight and got the best of them more times than not. I think he’ll know you’re a possible threat. Wonder if we can make Wolfie think you hate me even more than you want to do him in…little dissention in the ranks, eh? Get you in close, maybe lull him into thinkin’ you might play in his toy box. That’s what they kept trying before, yeah?"

"Could work. They know how I felt about Buffy. Maybe if they think I’m pissed that you got the girl, they might buy it," Angel agreed.

"This might be a good idea. You two don’t need to act too much to have a believable pissing contest. We just need to have someone see a little scene without being able to capture us while they’re at it. How about surveillance cameras they must have some around here somewhere…the lobby maybe? Buffy suggested.

"Time to untape Dilby again, you mean," Spike smiled. "I think I have an idea!"

"And why does that worry me?" muttered Angel.