"I need to know what he wants," Malachi said, clearly frustrated.

"You already have the school under your control," Jo replied, sounding a little bored. "You're too powerful for Ella, why are you so obsessed with Tom?"

"Because I want the entire school. Tom, Leon, Roxanne, the whole lot. How am I supposed to bring about the End of Days if I can't even control Medenham?" Malachi sat up, and reached to get his clothes.

Jo sighed, relaxing in the bed. "All right, what do you think he wants? What have you tried?"

"I've had all the girls under my control throw themselves at him, and he just pushes them away!" He stared through the window, at his succubi and incubi, walking around, sitting on the grass, and at Leon and Ella, who were sitting far away from the others. "D'you think he wants Ella? I've tried to use her before, but he pushed her away too."

"If he wants Ella, you'll have to give up on him," Jo told him. "At the moment, her greatest desire is killing you."

Malachi smiled to himself. "Well, that's not going to work. I think I'll just try Alex again, Thelma said he wanted her."

"Are you sure she can be trusted?"

He shrugged. "She's reliable enough, and Ella did kill her little girlfriend. I just need Tom to relax a bit, get some drink into him."

"And tell you what he wants," Jo said, smiling.

Malachi grinned. "Exactly."

***

The Alex thing had completely failed, and now Malachi was dragging Tom to his room, and he was heavier and more uncoordinated than Malachi had thought. Eventually, he managed to get Tom on his bed safely, and set to work taking off his shoes.

Tom slurred something about seducing him, and Malachi laughed. "I know I'm not your type, Tom. Who is?" It wasn't terribly subtle, but with some luck, Tom was too drunk to notice.

Tom smiled sleepily. "'s a secret," he said. "Big secret."

Malachi sighed. It must be pretty embarrassing if Tom still wouldn't talk. "But I'm your friend, Tom. You can trust me. It'll be nice to talk about it."

Tom shook his head, still smiling. "'s stupid. I'm stupid. It wouldn't work."

So Tom wanted someone unattainable. Well, Malachi could probably make that someone a lot more attainable than Tom suspected. "And why not? Does she have a boyfriend?"

Tom giggled at that, and rolled on his side. "No boyfriend at all. Definitely not."

"What's so funny?" Malachi asked, frowning.

Tom looked at him, smiling again. "You said 'she'," he slurred.

Malachi grinned as he realised what was going on. "Yes, I did."

Tom stared at him, still smiling. "You're not freaking out," he said, sounding amazed.

Malachi gave him a reassuring smile. "'Course not. You're my mate. Doesn't matter who you like, so long as it's not me."

"Not you, don' worry," Tom told him. "Worse 'n that, it's Leon."

"Follows Ella around like a puppy Leon?" Malachi remarked. Because he could work with that. He could definitely work with that.

"I know, hopeless, isn't it?" Tom said. "Wouldn't be so bad if he could jus' find a nice girl. I want him to be happy."

"He doesn't deserve you," Malachi said, already plotting how to make it work.

"Yeah," Tom sighed. "You won't tell him, will you? I'll die if he finds out."

Malachi smiled. "Not a word." He patted Tom on his shoulder, then left him to fall asleep.

Well, this was certainly an interesting development, and not just because he had learned Thelma had been lying to him. He'd deal with that later. First, he would have to make sure that Leon got his greatest desire, and then he would have Tom and Leon under his control. Ella would be left with Thelma and Roxanne. He wished her good luck trying to avert the End of Days with only the help of a ghost and Medenham's answer to Mother Theresa.

***

Leon was just too easy, as it turned out. All he wanted was to prove to Ella that he could be her equal, that he could help her fight Malachi, and it was also easy to arrange Alex sleeping alone in her room. She'd been getting on his nerves lately anyway, and he'd get two more incubi out of it, which, as far as Malachi was concerned, was a pretty good deal.

He ordered Leon to carry on as normal, and to make sure that his mark was covered whenever Ella could see it. He also suggested that Leon might want to spend more time with Tom, as he had neglected his friend and roommate rather a lot lately, and he could tell Ella he just needed a bit of normalcy to balance out the weirdness. Malachi thought Ella would approve of Leon doing normal things, and that she wouldn't find it suspicious in the least.

***

"Don't you think it's weird that Alex has gone missing?" Tom said that evening, as they were hanging out in Malachi's room. "And no one's got a clue where she's gone."

Malachi had made sure no clue had been left behind. "She probably decided she had something better to do than be here."

Tom picked at the label on his beer bottle. "Well, yeah, but I can't believe she wouldn't say anything."

"You worry too much, Tom," Leon said, and put an arm around Tom's shoulder, pulling him close. Malachi had ordered him to flirt, but without being obvious about it. So far, Leon was doing surprisingly well. "Alex'll turn up."

"Exactly," Malachi said, and watched as Tom smiled a little, pleased at Leon's sudden affection and the reassurance. "She's probably only doing it to get attention. And speaking of women who demand attention, Leon, how's Ella?"

"Don't know," Leon told him. "Don't care. And I'm better off without her, right, Tom?"

Tom nodded a little, still smiling. "She didn't make you happy," he said.

"She made you miserable," Malachi said. "Women, who needs them?"

"Not me," Leon said, clinking his beer bottle with Malachi's and Tom's. "All they do is tell you what to do."

"You've never really had a girlfriend, have you, Tom?" Malachi asked.

Tom shook his head, muttering something about not having met a girl he liked enough.

Leon laughed. "You're not missing out on anything, trust me. You're better off with us."

"The sex is nice, though," Malachi said, grinning and thinking things were definitely going well as he looked at Tom and Leon on the other side of the bed, sitting close.

"Well, yeah," Leon admitted. "But it doesn't outweigh the downsides, does it? Besides, Ella chained me to a tree that one time! What kind of lunatic does that? Tom, you wouldn't chain me to a tree, would you?"

Tom flushed at that. "N-no, of course not," he said.

Leon grinned. "And that alone already makes you better than Ella." He put his bottle down on the floor, and said he needed to take a piss.

Malachi watched him walk down the hallway, a little unsteady, but nothing too bad. "Well, I think your situation isn't as hopeless as you thought," he said, smiling at Tom, who looked mortified.

"You told him, didn't you? You told him and you two are having a laugh."

"I haven't told him a thing," Malachi said. "Honestly. And no one else has either. Just consider yourself lucky that he's seen the light, and enjoy it."

Tom looked unsure. "Maybe he just feels guilty for hanging around with Ella so much," he said.

"Or maybe his experience with Ella has turned him off girls forever," Malachi told him. "Wouldn't surprise me." What kind of issues did Tom have? Why couldn't he just accept his luck and go for it? "Take your chances. If it goes bad, it's end of term soon anyway and you won't have to see him for a while."

"He's my roommate," Tom argued. "It'd be weird and it would all go wrong and then he'd hate me."

"Live a little, Tom," Malachi said. And he had thought getting Leon would be the difficult part of the plan. "Him being your roommate is perfect. No having to sneak through the hallways at night, and you already know all his annoying habits anyway."

"You're still wrong," Tom said, but he sounded happier than before. "But thanks."

"You can thank me in the morning," Malachi said, and winked suggestively, making Tom snigger.

"What's so funny?" Leon asked, walking back in. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing," Tom insisted quickly, giving Malachi a quick look.

Malachi smiled, and nodded. "Nothing."

***

Tom and Leon walked back to their room, chatting about videogames and football practice, and Tom thought that it was good to have things back to normal. Well, sort of normal, because Leon was still acting a bit strange, and the way girls seemed to do whatever Malachi told them to was also odd, but then Tom had never pretended he understood how girls worked. He sat on his bed, taking off his shoes and socks. "It was a good night, wasn't it?" he remarked.

"Yeah, it was. I've spent way too much time hanging around Ella," Leon replied. "You're far better company."

Tom smiled to himself, but didn't know what to make of that. "You should find someone who makes you happy," he said. "Someone who isn't a lunatic." He knew that people who were mentally ill usually couldn't help it, but he still wasn't entirely comfortable with Ella being back at the school after her weird outbursts a few weeks ago. Everyone else seemed to stay clear from her as well.

"Oh, I think I already have," Leon said, grinning at him.

Tom hoped that whoever it was didn't lead to Leon abandoning him. They'd only just started hanging out together again. "Really? Who is it?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Leon walked over to him, putting his hands on Tom's shoulders. "Who looks out for me? Who knows me better than anyone else in this school?"

He couldn't get his hopes up, and didn't look up at Leon. "David Tyrel?"

Leon laughed at that. "No, not David Tyrel, you idiot," he said fondly. "You."

"Me?" Tom asked, nervous and surprised and confused and this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening, because Leon was very much straight and had spent far too much time talking and looking at girls to suddenly decide he was interested in guys as well.

"Yeah," Leon said, and leaned in to kiss him. It was different from his dreams, because in his dreams, there wasn't the taste of beer and no confusion about what he was supposed to do with his hands, but this was real and therefore miles better already.

Tom backed away. "Leon, stop. You're drunk and confused and you just broke up with Ella and –"

Leon kissed him again, which a part of Tom thought was an excellent reply, while another part protested that they should talk about this before doing anything stupid or rash.

"Stop worrying, Tom," Leon told him softly, smiling. "You always worry so much. Relax. Live a little."

And wasn't that really why he liked Leon in the first place? Carefree, careless some might argue, but Tom had envied him for being like that. "Just wondering what started this off, is all," he muttered.

"We'll talk about that after," Leon promised, and pushed Tom onto the bed.

"After?" And Tom really hoped that didn't sound as embarrassing and squeaky as he suspected it did.

Leon grinned, and crawled over him, straddling him. "After," he said, and kissed Tom again.

While a small part of Tom was still panicking at the fact that yes, Leon was trying to have sex with him, the rest decided that 'after' was just fine. He reached to pull Leon closer, to wind his fingers through Leon's hair, like he had done so often in his dreams. He shivered involuntarily when Leon slid a hand up his shirt, and then started to pull at Leon's clothes. Those definitely had to come off.

Leon chuckled. "Eager, are you?"

"I've only been dreaming about this for ages," Tom told him, pulling at Leon's shirt, and only then realised how stupid that made him sound.

"Dreaming? Really?" Leon asked, sounding interested, and sat up to pull his shirt over his head. "About what?"

"I'll tell you after," Tom told him, and reached to pull Leon closer. "All right?"

"All right," Leon muttered, and started sucking at a surprisingly sensitive patch of skin on Tom's neck.

***

While Malachi did think Leon and Tom's constant displays of affection were annoying, they did at least knock it off when he told them to. "Leon, I think Ella is going to be suspicious if she suddenly finds you giving Tom a blowjob in the hall," Malachi said, glaring at Leon as he got up. Tom looked distinctly annoyed by the interruption. "We have a plan, remember? You're going to distract Ella and keep her away while I check the Book of Orokiah to see what it says about killing Anointed Ones, and Tom's keeping an eye out for Thelma."

"Why can't we chop off her head?" Leon asked. "It'd be quicker."

"It also wouldn't work." Malachi was fairly certain of that, or else his father would've done it years ago. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner you two can go back to doing things I don't even want to know about."

***

Squeeze the last drop of blood out of her? That would take ages. Still, it was doable, Malachi thought, as he closed the Book of Orokiah and put it back where he found it. He went into the hallway where Tom was keeping an eye out. "Seen Thelma?"

"Not around here," he replied. "You done?"

Malachi nodded. "Yes, go on, go get your boyfriend. I've got something to do for him."

Tom frowned at that. "Well, I've got something to do for him as well."

"It can wait," Malachi told him, annoyed. "Trust me, once Leon does this one little thing, the two of you can do whatever you like, as long as you like."

"Fine," Tom sighed, and walked off to find Leon.

Malachi walked away too. He'd have to find some St. John's Wort – there might be some left in Ramiel's stash that hadn't been cleared out, and otherwise he'd just have to go into town and get some. He'd get Leon to slip it into her drink, and when she was suitably weakened, Malachi would have the pleasure of bleeding Ella dry himself. Maybe it would be more fun if he made it part of the end of term celebrations, invite the entire school to watch his triumph. He didn't think his father would approve of something that showy, but he was in control now. He was going to do things his way, and he was going to enjoy it.