Chapter Text
“Spike, you do not need an office!”
The tension was thick in the conference room, and tempers were beginning to fray. Wesley was on the verge of rising from his seat, barely keeping his anger in check, and Gunn’s frustration was clearly evident on his face. Spike kept his cool though, mainly because he knew it would infuriate them even more, something that never ceased to amuse him. The weird thing was the great blue fairy, who usually remained indifferent or absent in these discussions, but this time Spike could have sworn he occasionally caught the faint twinges of a smile playing around the corner of her mouth. Hell, maybe they had more in common than the strong urge to punch things every now and again.
The stupid thing was that it was only half nine in the sodding morning, the sunlight streaming harmlessly through the necro-tempered miracle glass, and already they were at each others’ throats. Ok, so half nine was late for him, and he was somewhat at an advantage when it came to throats being in close proximity. Yet all the same, it seemed early in principle, and that left him doubly agitated. It appeared obvious to him, of course; Mr Forehead was away, so he, as the only other ensouled vampire in the building (and on the whole bloody planet), should be left in charge. But no. Couldn’t leave Spike in charge now, could we? We might end up coming back from the Bahamas to find the house had burned down, after all. Spike absently cast his mind back to all the times he really had left houses burned down, and his resulting fond smile did little to appease the former Watcher.
“Damn right I do,” he snapped back at them, “’m tired of all that hero Spartan existence bollocks, I think it’s about time I got somewhere decent to hang my hat. Anyway, you’ve all got one, I’m meant to be part of the team now, remember?”
He could just move into Angel’s office, he supposed. The poof wouldn’t be back for a good few days, should be plenty of time to change the locks, chuck out the Rat Pack albums, and shag the secretary. Admittedly, he had a habit of doing that anyway, but that wasn’t the point. He was about to voice this aloud when Gunn responded, cutting off whatever Head Boy had been going to say.
“Just give him an office, Wes, we’re hardly short of space, and it’ll shut him up for a couple of hours.”
Wyndham-Price held his tongue, holding his ground for a few moments, then hanging his head in despair, and shaking it in acquiescence. Spike, in an unusual moment of sensibility, a sure sign he didn’t drink enough these days, decided to stay quiet, to not gloat and rub it in their faces as he normally would.
He glanced around again. Illyria sat beside him as if carved from stone, but he thought he still caught an air of amusement from her, something he was sure the others had missed. Gunn and Wes sat on the other side of the conference table facing them, Gunn in his usual baggy trousers and t-shirt, orange today, busily scanning his list in front of him of the various things they were meant to be discussing during the meeting, and had been before the argument about the office. The other wore a non-descript dark purplish shirt and corduroy trousers, with the top button undone and no tie, and seemed to be regaining his composure, ready to move on. Spike, as usual, couldn’t resist.
“How come Angel gets an executive holiday, anyway?”
Wesley gave him a withering look, and droned his response, repeated for at least the thirtieth time in the last week.
“Because he is the CEO, and he works and sleeps solidly inside this building. The same reason he has a helicopter, the same reason he gets paid more than us, and the same reason he’s the one who has to answer to the Senior Partners.”
“Not out of pity over the no sex thing he’s got going on?”
Completely ignoring Spike, Wesley smiled at Gunn and Illyria before addressing them.
“Charles, what, according to the agenda, are we supposed to be discussing?”
Charlie boy scanned the paper on the table in front of him, pursing his lips when he reached a point half way down.
“Two client meetings, one involving a piskari demon accused of statutory rape, the other allegations of goat theft. Our competition from New York is stepping up the heat on the Winson case, it’d really help if we could get a definitive answer on the blood spattering. Clearly I’ve got some preparation to do, they’ve set the court date for the Foxwold case, you know, the trans-dimensional immigration one?”
Spike drifted off, entirely bored by the day-to-day proceedings at Wolfram & Hart. All his life he had heard men talk of how the years rushed by, but he had never quite known what they meant. He lived every day exactly as he wanted, savouring every moment and all that. Yet now he could almost relate to them, the tedium of the nine to five routine was beginning to get to him, waking up and going to work at the same time every day, and he could easily see a decade passing in the time it took him to turn around.
Reaching down beside his seat, he thumbed open the catches on his briefcase. Yeah, he had a briefcase. A black leather one, no less. And if he stayed here long enough, it might even contain proper briefcase stuff, perish the thought. As he scrabbled around inside it trying to find something, his hand passed four cans of lager, his clipboard, a pair of sai, and finally reached the thing he was after, a copy of the morning paper.
Wesley was of course openly critical when Spike pulled out the paper and began flicking through it in the middle of the meeting, and Spike hardly bothered denying that causing mild irritation was a large part of his reason for doing so.
“Just checking the headlines,” he said without looking up. “Seemed easier than having some of our guys keep an eye on him.”
Those across the table met his eyes with confused expressions, completely lost and clearly expecting an explanation. Spike sighed and started to respond, when Illyria spoke up.
“He speaks of your leader. He checks for reports of the violence that would occur if his true self emerged.”
“You think Angel’s gonna turn evil on us again?” Gunn asked, surprised and just a little defensive, while the Watcher raised his eyebrow at Illyria enquiringly.
“I heard him asking the blonde one about the cost of hiring men to observe the half-breed,” she admitted, oddly demurely, fixing a glare on Harmony through the glass office walls to indicate who she meant by ‘the blonde one.’ Harm, as usual, saw her watching and ducked slightly lower behind her desk.
“I’m not saying a romantic getaway with wolf girl will make him go the whole 12 black rainbows, but it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Better safe than screwed, I reckon.”
And besides, he had to do something, and this beat listening in meetings about stuff he had no idea about. He wasn’t really set up for this whole legal angle, in fact he’d spent his entire unlife on the other side of the fence. So it was keeping a probably-unnecessary eye on his grandsire, or doing completely sod-all. The little green man had gone for the latter, and Spike didn’t want to end up like him. It still wasn’t quite right without Lorne, the mood tended to be much too serious, but the man had been right about one thing, he’d had no place here. Well, he’d been right about it being corrupting, soul-destroying and evil too, but as far as Spike was concerned it was still far less torturous than a karaoke bar, or wherever the Hell Lorne was now.
The others had gone back to discussing the new cases, dropping the subject of his keeping tabs on Angel. If he’d been paying attention, he might even have caught the slight nod of approval from Wesley. Spike was still lost in his thoughts, reflecting on how much death surrounded them.
He and Captain Forehead were both dead, that was a given, but with Lorne gone, the whole place seemed dead. Fred was dead, and as a result, Wes might as well have been. In the not-too-distant past, Gunn enjoyed the delights of a gruesome death on a daily basis, and Illyria was, well, not dead, but not chirping with positive energy either. Unfortunately Harmony was, pretty much overruling her technically being dead too, but as soon as the subject of unicorns came up, which happened at least every two hours, Spike started wishing she’d bitten the bullet a bit more permanently. The place had been livened up briefly by Cordelia’s reappearance, only to find out that she had been dead all along, which seemed almost typical of life at Wolfram & Hart. Everyone I love is dead. Or they think I am. Bollocks.
What kind of moron would cross a couple of acres of parkland, complete with several shadowy clusters of trees and bushes, at one in the morning? Spike pondered over the question as he ran, leaping a small bush, quickly gaining ground on his quarry. Unfortunately, so was the competition, the reason for the screams that had dragged him away from his quiet walk home. It had been a long, useless day, and he didn’t begrudge the call to action too much, it was something he could actually do, without having to consider it from every sodding angle before making his move, only to then have it criticised by the former Watcher.
The other pursuer was rapidly closing the distance, and Spike sprinted for all he was worth. He was too late though. The other guy, a big, hulking guy, with speed belied by his appearance, leaped at the fleeing aforementioned moron, and brought him bodily to the ground, scrambling quickly on top to sink fangs into his neck. Spike dived on top of them, but not before the other vamp had reared up sharply, clutching his head in agony. Very shaken, Spike completely missed the pair, landing on his front and skidding across the grass beside them. He instantly rolled over and jumped up, but knew he needn’t have bothered. He’d recognise that reaction anywhere, the blinding flash of pain, and he knew the vamp was no longer a threat.
What he didn’t know was how the Hell a vampire in LA, probably an American Football player from the look of him, the stupid pansy, got a chip stuck in his head. The guy couldn’t have been older than 20, and certainly hadn’t been in the game long. Spike didn’t recognise him at all from his time in that sterile white Hellhole, and he was sure he’d known all the other demons there, by sight at least. Which could only mean…
“Run!” he barked at the skinnier man, sprawled on the ground, who then wriggled his way out from beneath the massive vamp and pegged it. Spike got slowly up and strolled over to the ponce still writhing on the ground, holding his head and moaning.
“I know a man in Africa who can stop the pain,” Spike told him, standing over him. The sorry loser couldn’t have looked more pitiful if he tried, and Spike’s heart went out to him. It would have done, at least, if it worked, and if the guy wasn’t clearly a right wanker. But his situation? That, Spike had sympathy for. He crouched down on one knee over the vamp and continued.
“’Course, comes at a high price, bit more than your usual pack of Aspirin. But he can make the pain in your head go away.” It comes back stronger in other places. “Think the soul might be a bit out of your price range, mate. Luckily I know a handy alternative treatment.”
Long before the other could react, Spike whipped out a stake and slammed it through his chest. He turned his head to avoid his eyes being filled with dust, but he caught a glint as something small and metallic fell to the ground. Running his fingers through the newly-formed pile of pale dust, he stopped when he felt something solid, fishing it out and holding it up in front of him.
Though the moon was mostly obscured in cloud that night, enough light showed to reflect clearly off the coin-sized metal object. He could do nothing but stare at it, his eyes trying to bore holes in it, and he became absently aware of a low, feral, growl from somewhere near by, and realised a moment later that it came from his own throat. Wanting nothing more but to crush the hated chip, he instead tucked it away in his coat pocket.
“Done you a favour,” he told the pile of dust, “and saved you a truck load of misery.”
He stood up, turned around and headed off, quickly checking that that evening’s victim was nowhere in sight. You’re welcome, he thought, but he wasn’t convinced the pleasantry had been aimed at the human.
The next day, Spike arrived at Wolfram & Hart carrying a box. Due to his sleepiness at the time, it had taken him most of the day to remember, but he was sure that the previous morning the others had agreed to let him have an office. And so he had brought with him a box of random keepsakes, the sort of thing he imagined an executive would fill their office with, pictures of their kids and cars, golf trophies and the like. Only, Spike had none of those, so he had improvised.
One advantage of the sewer entrance was that it was open all hours, so that creatures of the night like he could work on a more comfortable timescale. It was bizarre walking past Harm’s desk with her not there, with no one walking around the rest of the lobby, and Angel’s office empty. But Spike did what had to be done, and if getting into work at seven was what it took, that was exactly what he did. Only once, though, he thought it fair to say he was not a morning person.
He didn’t remember ever seeing the guy who had the office next door to Brooding Misery’s, but Spike hoped that he wasn’t massive, with a history of violence. Though at this company, that wasn’t unlikely. It was just that his office looked good, and having his working space this close to Angel was likely to be very entertaining. The office door was of course unlocked, and Spike snuck inside, closing the door behind him in case anyone else decided an early start was called for.
His stealth was short lived, as the next second he tripped over a box of files on the floor, tumbling arse over tit, his own box going flying in the process. He might have let out a disappointingly unmanly exclamation of surprise, which he tried to cover with a good deal of swearing when he hit the floor. He picked himself up and stayed quiet for a few seconds, listening for any reactions to his outburst. It was likely he was the only person on the entire floor, so he was probably safe.
He turned away and bent down to rescue the former contents of his box when he took in the rest of the room. The carpet was barely visible, as the floor was covered in boxes and papers. Most boxes were missing their lids, revealing more files inside. The desk was also covered in several layers of official-looking papers. He was just beginning to wonder whether the office’s former occupant had been inexplicably unorganised, or if a bomb or vortex or something had turned the place upside down, when the door opened a few inches, and he spun around to face it.
“Harmony?!” he exclaimed, as her head popped ‘round the door.
“Blondie b… How come you’re in here? And why are you here so early? You usually don’t show up ‘til, like, one, or something.”
She stepped fully into the room, and Spike was granted a full view of her outfit, which, somewhat predictably, was a pale pink. Well, her skirt and jacket were, her top was a deeper pink. All in all, Spike was reminded of a chewing gum ad he saw recently. Though the advert hadn’t featured as much cleavage, or quite such a pretty girl. Or that much cleavage.
“Oi! I get in long before one. Mostly. Sometimes. How come you’re here at this ungodly hour, anyway?”
“Oh, Angel asked me to come in early while he was away,” she said with a slight shrug. “He said if I could get stuff organised early, it’d run more smoothly for the others trying to fill in for him.”
She shrugged again and smiled, then looked around at the chaotic office. Spike knelt down and began picking his stuff up from the floor, glancing up at her frequently.
“And does it?”
Harm looked thoughtful, which Spike found a little bit funny, but also rather sweet. He continued refilling his box of random things, which was oddly pointless since he meant to unload the stuff in this room anyway.
“I guess. I mean, no one really tells me either way, so I wouldn’t know for sure.”
“So,” he responded, now standing up and setting his box down on the cluttered desk, “you’re here two hours before everyone else, working to make their day go better, and they don’t even say thank you for it?”
When she nodded reluctantly, he raised his eyebrow sharply at her, and continued in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Ever thought of not doing it?”
Harmony considered it, and Spike set about finding homes for the various things in his box. He took out a pair of broadswords, they’d have to be crossed on the wall behind his chair to make his desk look more imposing. How the Hell do they actually attach these things to the walls?
“Well, he’s kinda the boss, he’d probably shout at me or something. I mean, he’d shout at me anyway, but…”
“Give it a try. Bet the others don’t even know it’s you that prepares all this stuff, so they won’t know who’s given it a miss this time around. And if it gets back to the boss, you said yourself, he’d find something to get worked up about anyway. The man just isn’t happy if he’s happy…”
Oh, she had probably totally ruined her chenille jacket and her dry-cleaner would kill her, but for once in her life she wasn’t going to complain about that. Well, she would later, but not now. Now was the time of fuzzy and warm and, balls, she’d have to get dressed again and go back to her desk in, like, ten minutes. Now she remembered why it had taken so long to leave him in the first place, why it was only when she saw him there with Buffy and Drongo, or whatever her name had been, that she’d finally had enough.
And then, last time she’d been this close to him, she’d got possessed by, uh, no idea what by actually, but her eyes had started bleeding and she’d tried to bite him, and Spike had punched her. That had really hurt, too. Not really in, like, a physical, actual hurty way, but one of those deep, emotional things.
“Harm? Can I jump on your computer for a couple of minutes later?”
My computer? But the boss would probably see and then ask her why he was there and why she wasn’t working and then he’d flip at her and, Ooh, Angel isn’t here! In that case, it was no problem, but anyway, why would he want to use it?
“No problem. But anyway, why would you want to use it?”
“Need to print out a photo of Buffy from Facebook.”
Asshole! How could he still be thinking about the Slayer, with herself lying so close to him? After what they had just done together? Oh my God, was he thinking about her the whole time? Harmony had also forgotten what a total bastard Spike could be sometimes. Spike caught her look of daggers, and explained slightly, but only made it worse.
“Gonna put it in the empty frame on the desk, beside the signed one of Johnny Rotten where he spelled his name wrong.”
Harmony snapped and started hitting him with all the force she could muster. Since she was lying on the floor with no clothes on, that wasn’t actually a lot of force, and it came out as a volley of very weak slaps which he easily batted away.
“Spike,” she ground out between blows, in a voice so cold she was rather proud of it, “why would you want a photo of the Slayer?”
He started laughing, which only made her more furious, and he had to shield himself with a raised elbow as she tried to slap him as many times as she possibly could.
“Because,” he said between snorts of laughter, “it would really piss off Angel.”
She certainly hadn’t been expecting that as a reply, though the he and the boss were always bitching about each other. She stopped trying to hit Spike, instead deciding to pout at him.
“Couldn’t you just have a picture of me instead?”
“Harm, the office walls are glass. If I look up from my desk, I can see you for real.”
It’d be nice all the same… Spike sat up and started scrabbling around for his clothes. Was it really time to get dressed already? Working sucked. Although, she wasn’t wearing a watch, and couldn’t see a clock anywhere, could he be leaving early?
“Got a meeting to get to,” he said when she looked up at him questioningly, which sounded like an exit strategy to her.
“Have you really? Or are you just making excuses to get rid of me?”
Spike, having now found and put on most of his clothes, bent down to pick up his trenchcoat, shrugged it on, looked down at her, and seemed almost to sigh a little.
“I’m not lying to you. A, I don’t care that much,” he said pointedly, starting to count reasons on his fingers in front of her, “B, the meeting is in the next room, and C, you were the one that told me about it in the first place.”
He turned and headed out for the exit, half turning and waving to her as he went through the door, and closed it behind him. Harmony was left alone in the silent office, which now looked even more of a bombsite than it had been to begin with. Probably time to put some clothes on…
The white-haired one raised his voice too often, she noted irritably. It disturbed her from her musings, something few others had ever dared considering, yet he offered no apology, in fact he did not even seem to realise he was bothering her. So there she sat, bothered. She had once told Wesley that she was only bothered because she was bothered, but now it rankled even deeper than then. Now, not only was she bothered, but she was accepting it, not responding, not grinding them beneath her heel as they grovelled for pardon. ‘Progress,’ the humans would have called it.
She did not think of it so. Progress was the conquering of valuable territories and the vanquishing of multi-phasic rivals, these humans knew nothing of world domination or the way things should be. They knew very little at all. And yet they were all she had. Inevitably, this was the conclusion she reached with every chain of conscious thought, which did nothing to ease her disposition.
“…You cannot allow them to control a demon against its will!”
The half-breed was very close to shouting, and his words gained her attention. He was arguing with the dark-skinned one, sitting across the table from him, defending his position with strong hand movements, but not yet raising his voice as animatedly.
“Way I see it, bunch of vamps running around LA unable to bite people, no biggie.”
A screeching filled the air as the vampire pushed his chair out from the desk, and though the others did not flinch, they clearly felt pain at the sound.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said firmly, standing up and drawing his animalhide skin around him, “to be powerless to defend yourself.”
The human also pushed back his chair and stood, but much more smoothly and without sound. He leaned over the desk on his fists and spoke in a low, controlled manner.
“I know exactly what that’s like. And as I recall, it was because of all those uncontrolled demons.”
“Bit different when it’s your own body that’s being held in check, when you’re helpless against those you once fed upon, living among the cattle.”
“Yeah, and as you put it like that, I rest my case.”
The half-breed did not reply immediately, visibly shaking from the effort of not doing so, and Illyria smelled the delectable aroma of imminent violence. After a few seconds of intense standoff, he shook his head, muttered “Sod this,” turned and left, slamming the door behind him.
It was true that most demons bars looked remarkably similar, but all the same, he missed seeing Willie behind the bar. I wonder where he got to in the end? There Spike sat, the Blue Princess of Hell beside him, drinks on the table in front of him, on the hunt for information. They’d found nothing so far, which meant that this time around, the Initiative were being a lot more subtle. Hell, maybe they’d even gone so far as to employ soldiers who weren’t college students.
“It is regrettable that Wesley would not assist you in your quest. His methods are not as tiresome.”
He gave her a cool look, taking a deep swig from his pint before replying.
“Nothing tiresome about sitting in a pub. ‘Sides, you said you’d never been to one before.”
Now it was her turn to fix him with a look, in her case filled with impatience and contempt.
“And now I have visited nine. This one provides no more of use than its predecessors. I was hopeful that your retreat into your office after you sharply left the conference room had been in search of reference texts, yet you carry none.”
“Nah, just had to set my voicemail, to say I’m out of the office.”
Ok, the look she now gave him was impressive, conveying a scarily high level of scorn. Hmmmm. And he’d thought she was warming to him.
“You halted your quest for justice and vengeance for this detail of pointless politeness?”
“Yeah, well, trying to look professional and all that,” he snapped in defence.
It wasn’t like she’d ever understand, of course, but he could sort of see why she was disparaging of it. He probably would have been himself, not too long ago. But then, since Angel got made CEO, and since the poof went on holiday and left the rest of them in charge for a bit, Spike had come to appreciate the power behind being at the top of the corporate ladder. Of course! What he needed was a secretary!
“And these tossers are a modern military outfit, doubt the ancient books have much to say about them,” he pointed out.
Of all the enemies from his past that could have reared their often-ugly heads in LA, it had to be the one likely to have access to more firepower than Wolfram & Hart. Not the pissed off son of a slayer, not Sorvad or the Countess or even that bloody ponce Dracula, but the sodding Initiative. Or Dru…
He’d not heard anything from Drusilla since the last time she’d come back to Sunnydale, but he thought she was in South America. And he desperately hoped she stayed there. He knew if he ever saw her again, now he had his soul back he really shouldn’t be attracted to someone that had caused, and continued to cause, that much suffering. He knew he’d have to warn her to stay away, and drive a stake through her heart if she refused. But he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of her, that he’d fall straight back in love all over again. He was a bad, bad man.
“Whaddaya know, it does provide some use,” he told Illyria, taking in what he had been absently watching while lost in his thoughts. She cocked her head on one side, as if examining him, and he clarified quietly.
“The vamp up there at the bar, the one in the brown leather jacket, he’s buying bags of blood from the bartender. What self-respecting creature of the night would pay for blood when he could get it from the source on the moonlit streets of LA?”
She looked around at the guy in question, and for a brief moment Spike thought about warning her not to look or draw attention to themselves, but then realised the hassle he would have explaining to her why that would be a bad thing, and thought better of it.
At the bar, the vamp noticed her watching and immediately turned away, heading for the door. Illyria got up to follow, leaving Spike to down the remainder of his pint, and then, after getting up and making it half way across the room, returning to their table to finish hers.
By the time he had got outside, Blue already had the guy pinned up against the wall by his neck, his feet lifted several inches above the ground. Subtlety really wasn’t in that girl’s vocabulary, he noted with a smile. He came to stand behind her left shoulder, hands in his pockets, looking up at her captive with a bored expression.
“Now, what’s an able-bodied vampire, that’d be you, doing buying blood over the counter?”
“Screw you, man,” spat the vamp as he tried to kick out at Illyria as hard as he possibly could. When she didn’t even flinch, his shoulders slumped a little. As much as shoulders could slump, that was, when being held up by the throat. He really was just a kid, couldn’t be any older than 20, and had only been turned within the last few months.
“Ugh, I don’t have time for this. I’m a busy man, you know, things to kill, evil government scientists to put a stop to…”
Exactly as predicted, the kid looked up at this, and the suspicion on his face was soon thrown to the wind in favour of hope. Just a bit more encouragement, and he’d spill the beans and show them where to go. And then they really could get on with the killing and scientist stopping part.
“Just tell me where they are,” Spike pushed, managing to keep himself from sounding too hostile. He laid a hand on Illyria’s shoulder, letting her know to relax a bit and put the guy down, wondering if she’d do it, or if she’d turn and punch him.
The vamp’s feet touched the floor, and he leaned forwards, clutching his throat. The Blue Meanie stayed within arm’s reach, ready to lash out if she deemed it necessary.
“I don’t know anything,” he said miserably. He kept his head down, but snatched wary glances up at the pair of them from time to time.
“I was out one night, a couple of blocks from here, trying to feed, when I got zapped from behind. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a gutter with this thing in my head.”
Though vampires were able to keep up with the rapid movement of others of their kind, as he swept in Spike doubted the kid knew what hit him when he was grabbed and held against the wall again, this time by the front of his coat.
“Not good enough,” Spike snarled, his face barely two inches from the other’s. Illyria remained still, looking only mildly interested, which seemed to unnerve the kid even more.
“We’re gonna lay a trap for them,” he continued to growl, “in fact, we’re gonna spring one of theirs. So all you need to do is point yourself in the direction of where you were caught, and run like Hell.”
“Huh?”
Being met with a blank look, Spike chose that moment to pull the young vamp away from the wall and wave his arm out, emphatically gesturing to start running. When this still did not come to pass, he turned to Illyria.
“Would you mind?”
In one single movement she had closed in, shifted her weight and swung her arm out wide, catching the kid’s jaw with the back of her fist. There was a delicious crunch of bone, and a body flying at least fifteen feet backwards. Having been on the receiving end of several of those in the training room, Spike grimaced slightly in sympathy. No time for that now though, he thought as his fangs descended and he roared into the night.
“I said run!”
They had barely been going five minutes when the blast came. The jolt of electricity hit him from behind, just like before, every bit as unpleasant as last time. With the stress of his captivity and then the chip and all, he’d forgotten how nasty the actual blast had been. He had no doubt that Illyria, from her rooftop vantage point, had seen everything, he only hoped she didn’t try to interfere, if she acted now she’d annihilate their only lead. Then a curious thing happened; Spike fell to the ground and the world went black.
You wake up in a cell. Not a pristine white cell like last time, this one is more of a plain room from a small flat, but still definitely a cell. Though the furniture looks wooden, the door is clearly steel, as are the bars over its head-height window. You nervously reach up to the top of your head and run your fingers through your hair. It’s ok, a little ruffled, but nothing shaved or sliced, they haven’t cut open your skull again yet.
Remarkably, he’d managed to avoid a headache from that jumped-up taser blast, he didn’t think he’d been so lucky last time. Although, that might have been because of the surgery they’d performed before he’d even regained consciousness, and if they hadn’t tried that this time around, they’d either changed their policies, or they recognised him and wanted to interrogate him first. Or there was a queue.
He wasn’t too worried about them trying to put another chip in him, he thought as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, feet dangling off the edge of the bed. One of the nice things about Wolfram & Hart was that they would be able to remove it, and certainly would want to. After all, having him scientifically unable to kill any of the good guys would make achieving their corruptive agendas far more awkward.
He continued to muse on the subject for a while, and was still doing so when he realised he was being watched. Though he wasn’t facing the door, he could feel that someone was looking in on him through its barred window. A brief look around showed an unsurprising lack of anything he could sensibly use as a weapon, and so he simply turned his head and regarded his observer coolly.
A woman, the scent had told him that much before he had even looked, but he could now see her to be around thirty years old, with dark eyes and slightly wavy blonde hair, stretching out of sight below the window frame that was level with her shoulders. She was quite a pretty thing, but didn’t stand out immediately as the ‘bite me’ kind. Though he couldn’t see the size of her heels, she appeared to be just above average height.
“Can I help you?” he drawled at her, and she seemed slightly taken aback.
“The idea is for that to be the other way around here, we help you.”
His eyebrow arched entirely of its own accord, and he barely suppressed a snigger. He turned slightly to face her more head on, pulling one leg up onto the bed.
“Come on, tell me you’re too smart to really believe that. I know what it is you lot do here. I wouldn’t call it helping me.”
At that, she did snort a little, and he was treated to a sardonic smile, before she ruefully raised her eyebrows, accepting his point and responding.
“Better than the alternative, isn’t it? And it’s true, we’re more focused on helping normal people, those who don’t kill and drink blood for a living.”
“And still we’re not even living,” he finished for her. “Does that make it easier?”
Again she smiled, and again he wasn’t too reassured.
“I sleep soundly enough. We’re full to overflowing here, but by the time we’re done we’ll have cleaned up the streets, made them safe again.”
The chick really did seem to believe that, and Spike admitted to himself that she did have a point, in spite of the naïve, or at least uncaring, mindset.
“Yeah, but at what cost? By taking away the ability to decide how to act?”
She appeared indignant, but for a split second, she had to think about it. Spike smiled, at least he wasn’t completely wasting his time.
“I’ve yet to meet a vampire who decides to act any differently to feeding and killing,” she told him pointedly.
“You’re looking at one, pet.”
She gave him a withering look, followed by a do-you-think-I’m-stupid one.
“When we caught you, there was a young man running for his life.”
“Should’ve looked closer. Wasn’t a man. In fact, think you ‘helped’ him recently.”
She let out a quiet sigh and looked down for a few seconds, Spike had a feeling she was playing with her nails. She looked up again, her head tilted on one side, giving her half smile a malicious edge.
“Somehow, I don’t believe you. Though I am intrigued by some of the things you had on you when you were caught. What would a vampire be doing with several wooden stakes?”
“Oh, them. Tools of the trade.”
Interest, confusion and disbelief flittered across her face, and so he clarified.
“Judean Peoples’ Front business. You know, suicide squad.”
She managed to contain any snorts of laughter or further upwards twitching at the corners of her mouth, but couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice.
“Is that so?”
Spike nodded and looked away, grinning at the position she’d manoeuvred him into.
“Sod it, I’m stuck now… You don’t believe the truth or the lie, so I don’t really know what to tell you.”
He looked back at her and caught her smile, which carried the disdain he’d expected, but also a trace of warmth. And woah, she was pretty damn cute. Right, time to put a name to a face.
“So what do they call you around here?”
“My name is Dr. Bowman,” she said after a second. “And you?”
“Well, if we’re going with titles… call me William The Bloody.”
She had left a short time later, something about duty calling, leaving Spike on his own to enjoy the pleasures of his isolation. It wasn’t all bad, here there was no one telling him what to do, no lawyer stuff to make him feel out of his depth and guarantee a longing for the good old days. Unfortunately though, there was only so long he could spend sitting silently in a darkened room without feeling like Angel.
He heard footsteps approaching outside and looked up to the door. A face appeared at the window there, that of a bird older than the last, at least mid-40s, still good looking but clearly overworked, the bags under her blue eyes giving her an exhausted look. She had dark hair cut off at the shoulder, only slightly tinged with grey, and like his last visitor she wore a white lab coat. What was obvious, however, was that she was the girl in charge of the place.
“I’m beginning to think you people get paid to talk to the prisoners.”
“We do,” she replied. She had a strong voice, but it was gentle, almost motherly, and the compassion in her face echoed this.
“We try to maintain a caring atmosphere,” she continued, “a comfortable air, so our patients may feel as at home as possible.”
Spike smirked, twitching his eyebrows in interest.
“Of course, clearly we’re patients now, not captives at all.”
“Absolutely. We’ve reached the age where technology can allow humans and demons to coexist peacefully, that’s all we’re trying to facilitate here.”
She went quiet, and he looked intensely sceptical.
“A few years ago there was a place like this a couple of hours upstate, they were big on the demon experimentation. It got out of hand, and everybody died. The one escapee was already dead.”
She looked regretful, he assumed with regard to all the death, but couldn’t quite rule out that she was mourning the demon experimentation going tits up. Suddenly her face hardened, and lost all of its former kindness.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you, Spike?”
He froze, having been studying the bed sheets while she talked, and looked up at her sideways-on. Wasn’t expecting that. Guess they kept records after all. Well, she knew now, no point in hiding it. Spike got to his feet and spread his arms wide in a mock bow.
“Hostile Seventeen, at your service.”
She looked him up and down in an appraising fashion, and he couldn’t help being slightly disappointed with himself when he felt the goose pimples raising on the back of his neck.
“Now that’s exactly what I mean,” she said crisply. “Every patient here keeps their name, and if they’re here longer than one night, we bother to learn what it is.”
“Still not really feeling the love,” he muttered.
“No. But vampires aren’t really known for love, are they? Take this city’s body count of roughly 29 victims a night, for example.”
“Well, a vamp’s gotta eat, and pigs’ blood raises the cholesterol, you know.”
“The feeding, I accept, is natural,” she said with a grimace. “What I object to is the innate cruelty vampires display. In the last three months, 19 bodies of young girls have been found, tortured beyond recognition, but clearly vampire work. Many were under fifteen.”
Spike was quiet for a moment, as there wasn’t a lot he could say to that. He soon found, though, he could only maintain the silence for so long before speaking up to defend himself.
“If you’d actually done any research, or, you know, asked, you’d know that I spent a century, most of my damned existence, madly in love with someone.” Or at least, in love with someone mad. “So don’t tell me about love. It’s something I know an awful lot about.”
Far too bloody much about, in fact.
At the door, she nodded slightly, clearly still convinced she was absolutely right, but lacking the necessary comeback. She turned and headed off down the corridor, and he leapt up and rushed to the door to call out after her. This close, he could hear a tiny hum from the door frame, and having not seen any keyholes or bolts, would put money on the locks being electromagnetic.
“Doctor,” he called after her, and she stopped and looked back at him.
“It’s Matron, actually,” she told him sternly, “Matron Fisher.”
She didn’t really smile, it was more of a slightly calculating look he received, and he swallowed before replying.
“If you’re really so big on this mi-casa-es-su-casa thing, do I get my one phone call?”
“Gotta call anyone in particular?” She sounded intrigued, but not interested.
“My mother,” he sneered. The Matron considered it for a few seconds, then thankfully relented and said she would send along a guard to escort him there.
“Good evening. This is Spike, acting CEO of Wolfram & Hart. I’d like to make an acquisition. I want the firm to purchase all the assets of the LA Initiative Complex, my scary colleague with the blue hair should have given you the location. Once you have it all, kill the power and completely shut the place down.”
It took slightly longer than he expected. He had a feeling that the acquisitions department might have done some checking around first, making sure he really did have that authority. He did, pretty much. It was true that technically the four of them were meant to be collectively in charge while Forehead was away, but one advantage of being the only nocturnal one was that everyone else was blissfully asleep while he was out, which gave him complete control for eight hours a day. Eight hours a night.
After fifteen minutes or so though, it happened. The lights in his cell flickered and died, and shouts of alarm echoed down the hallway outside. There were crashes and bouts of commotion, and the shouts quickly turned to cries of horror and pain as the electromagnetic door locks shut down, bringing to mind certain scenes from Jurassic Park. Right then, time to check out. Spike stood, stretched upwards and felt the individual joints in his back clicking in turn. Then he made his way to the door, having no trouble seeing in the pitch black, opened it and headed out.
There was no light in the corridor either, and shapes of various sizes, most growling unpleasantly, were scurrying around here and there. The corridor was wider than he had realised, at least the width of his cell again, but didn’t stretch that far lengthways, having only twenty or so cells on each side. He started walking, choosing the direction both his visitors had taken after leaving his cell, and was nearing the end of the corridor when a vamp came running around the corner and crashed straight into him.
“That’s a really nice coat,” Spike said admiringly as he took in the other’s appearance, wrapping his arms around himself and wishing he had his own. The vamp looked taken aback, even more surprised when Spike punched him hard in the nose and slammed his head against the wall. Spike pulled the coat off the dazed vampire, finishing the job by snapping his neck.
Git, he thought as he whipped it around and onto him, feeling its familiar weight, this is my coat. The stakes in his pocket were just where he left them, he took one in each hand and set to work, following his nose deeper into the complex. Well, actually, mostly following the screams.
He swung at demons he passed, sinking stakes into vampires and letting nothing get past him. He lamented not bringing a broadsword with him, he had been growing used to the reassuring weight of carrying one, but it hardly would have been subtle. And I forgot.
As he pulled the head off a chaos demon, he rounded the corner and burst into what must have been the operating chamber, where it appeared that the human scientists were making a last stand against the forces of darkness. The emergency power must have been working in there, as the ceiling lights glowed fitfully and flickered, at times plunging the room into total darkness again. The floor was strewn with bodies and bloodied white lab coats. He recognised the form of Matron Fisher staring up at him with lifeless eyes, her chest pierced several times.
The humans had turned over several tables, forming a crude and mostly ineffective barricade, against which a wall of demons snapped and clawed, often drawing blood and screams from those behind it trying to repel them. He leapt in and tore at the demons from behind, staking some and throwing others away from the barrier, then turning to fight them.
In the midst of the battle, he knew the human numbers were dropping, the heartbeats he could hear were down to just three. It was at that point that the wall on one side of the room blasted inwards, filling the air with dust. The fighting continued, and Spike felt in his skin the human pulses diminishing to two. From the hole in the wall came violence itself, knocking demons flying across the room and bringing gargling sounds from them that made even him shiver. With the ongoing fighting, the dust did not so much settle as thin out, and Spike recognised the new form, a blue-haired whirlwind of destruction. Violence herself, he thought with a smirk.
“Got my back?” he asked, deciding a brief lull in the demon tide she had offered would be a good time to jump in and rescue the humans on the other side of the barricade. She looked at him quizzically, and as he turned away from her to look for the best way past the barrier, he felt her hands grasp the back of his jacket, one level with his shoulders, the other his waist. Before he could respond, she had picked him up and hurled him high over the barricade, meeting the wall on the other side in a distinctly unpleasant fashion.
“Not quite what I had in mind,” he managed to choke out, shaking his head clear and pushing himself to his feet. He stumbled around to find the two humans, one of which was lying on the floor, the other crouched over him. His ears told him the one on the floor was dying, nearly gone, and his eyes told him it was due to a couple of nasty claw wounds to his abdomen.
“Time to go, pet,” he called to her, swooping in beside her and slipping his arms around her waist, lifting her up trying to pull her away, but she was having none of it.
“He’s dying!” she shouted hoarsely, scrambling away from him and back towards her comrade, desperately trying to apply pressure and stop the bleeding, but to no avail.
“In less than a minute, he’ll be dead, and you with him,” he snapped, “unless we go right now.”
Whether or not that would have convinced her they would never know, for at that moment the barricade broke, and a heavyset piar demon and two vampires landed on top of them.
“The Slayer and the First – they were wrong.”
The voice cut through the strange dreams and pools of black that filled her mind when her eyes were closed. The voice was not terribly familiar, but she had heard it before. The accent was that of the rough end of London, England, but the careful cadences it formed suggested an expensive education, not the characteristically harsh speech that Hollywood too often tried to copy. Though she could smell a saturation of years of nicotine and tobacco, the voice lacked the gravely tendencies usually displayed by a long-term smoker.
She felt weightless, and she felt like she weighed a thousand tons, both at the same time. She was floating, lying back, supported below her shoulders and behind her knees, but she felt the floor might buckle under her weight and drag her into the depths below. Tentatively, she tried opening her eyes.
“It’s not about power. Power is a ‘how.’ The more important matter is ‘why.’”
A figure towered over her, dressed all in black, but with shining white hair, and he was carrying her out of the light, into the darkness of a long corridor. He seemed to move incredibly slowly, his footsteps seemed so far apart, the noise somehow distant, each movement almost frozen in the air. Occasionally she caught the odd flash of movement, shadows flittering around in the dark. There were faint noises that echoed forever, wails and cries of things that could not possibly be human.
“When you get right down to it, it’s about choice.”
He glanced down at her as they moved – as he walked – and in the flickering light, she saw his face. It was firm, but still gentle, like the way he held her, and his eyes seemed far too wise for his age, which could not be more than 25. But as she puzzled with that, her memory steadily became clearer. There was no shock revelation, no moment of fright, but she became aware of what he was, of who he was, and of who he said he was.
“See, these demons can choose to be good, like me, or to be bad,” he told her, then flashed her a grin showing his pearly whites and added “like me.”
She thought that ordinarily she would have felt a tremor of fear at that, but was currently too dazed to react properly. She hadn’t really considered the free choice angle before, and it was true that the work of the Initiative would definitely be considered a violation of human rights. But the subjects weren’t human, raising the question of did a demon have rights? And since a human had a right to life, and the demons seemed bent on undoing that, did they forfeit their own rights through their behaviour if those did exist?
“They can choose to end the world if they bloody well please – they’ll have to take the consequences that come with it…” he warned, breaking off unexpectedly to rapidly shift her weight and sling her over his shoulder. Her head was hanging upside down resting on his back, pressing against a sea of battered black leather. She felt him adjust his balance as his hand slipped into his pocket, then again for a quick burst of energy, followed by the noise of two vampires exploding into dust.
Turning her head, she could see another monster following them, one she didn’t recognise. It wore a scab-red armoured jumpsuit, made of what looked like leather again, but deflected swords with ease, and as it flailed around pummelling other demons with shocking strength, she noticed blue streaks in its hair. It caught her eye, its own massive irises a pale shade of blue, and this time her blood did run cold at the sight. The entrails it was forcefully removing from another demon may have had something to do with that.
She wanted to cry out, to warn her rescuer to watch out, but as she was drawing breath to do so, the creature straightened and fell into step beside them, keeping a watchful eye on them and holding the other demons at bay.
“…But, they still have the right to make that choice.”
Before transferring her back to a cradling position, they passed the polished steel columns that marked the entrance to the compound. She could have been mistaken, it was only for a split second as they passed, but she could have sworn she saw his reflection.
They were standing on the edge of the rooftop, looking down on the disguised entrance to the Initiative Complex, slightly further down the street from them on the other side. Spike guessed the time to be about half three in the morning, too early for most of the city, though taxis glided past from time to time. The wind was not strong, but the open rooftop left them very exposed to the elements, and he could feel the breeze in his hair, very glad to have his jacket back.
“I don’t think we’re gonna see any, not after this long. I guess you got them all.”
Though her voice did not falter, she spoke quietly, and he guessed she was still shaken, but trying to hide it. As for whether there were any stragglers yet to emerge from the complex, he wasn’t so certain, and wouldn’t have minded staying a while longer to make sure of it.
“I left no survivors,” Blue’s voice carried to them from a few feet away, where she was busy looking up at the stars, “but I like the rooftop.”
They all fell quiet at that, partly lost in their thoughts, and partly not feeling up to arguing with the God-King. Not that the other girl knew about Illyria’s divine past, but it was generally accepted that blue hair and a penchant for ultra-violence was a combination best not disagreed with. Perhaps some introductions were in order, in case the poor girl thought they were from a weird branch of the A Team obsessed with leather and hair dye.
“So, Dr Bowman, what will you do now?”
She looked at him and hesitated for a second, glancing over at Blue and then down at the entrance they had been keeping an eye on.
“It’s Coral,” she said, “just Coral now.”
Taking in her tone, not broken, but subdued and lost, he added more companionship to his own before responding.
“Spike,” he told her, “and the stargazer over there is Illyria.”
When she didn’t respond, but continued to look out over the illuminated cityscape, he carried on.
“We’re from a company called Wolfram & Hart.”
Though she met his eyes for a second, she showed no hint of recognition at the name. Not from around here, clearly. Well, that might make this a little easier, not having our reputation to work against.
“You’re clearly pretty up on the demon science mojo,” he observed, and have already been working at one demon-obsessed firm with highly questionable morals. And based on that…
“We’d like to offer you a job.”
Billy sat on the bed, his knees drawn up before him and his hands crossed around his ankles. He was rocking backwards and forwards slightly, staring at the blank wall in front of him, lost in his thoughts and desperately looking for the way out. The guy with the peroxide had been right, an able-bodied vampire had no place paying for blood. He was useless, he was crippled and unable to feed himself or fend for himself. The two of them had proven that, threatening him, striking him, and then chasing him through the streets. And with the things he had done, the lows he had gone to begging for food, he knew he was at rock bottom.
The bottom was supposed to be the point where he turned his unlife around, when he saw the light and started the long climb towards it. As he at last lifted his gaze from the wall, he found he could indeed see the light, the glow behind the red curtains in his room, the sunlight creeping in at the edges. His face stiffening in resolve, he got up, and he headed over to the window. He took a deep breath, and then burst out laughing, realising how unnecessary breathing was. He opened the curtains and took one last look at the world, still laughing as he realised that after rock bottom, he had managed to find his way back to the light. His last thought was of how easy it had been.
6.01: Reflections of Angel: Still Falling, written by Out For Bloody Summer and edited by Monotone is based upon the work of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, to whom the ownership of all canonical characters belongs. Hope you enjoyed the show, all comments welcome, but please see our extended setup blog. Join us next time for Episode 2.