Angel stood by the window in his office, his eyes closed he took in the sunlight. The window was necro-tempered as was the rest of the building, it allowed the vampire to take in the rays from the sunshine without bursting into flames.
Harmony snuck up beside him, “Hey boss. Taking in the sunshine, I see. Y’know just the other day I almost walked out into the street at lunchtime. Can you imagine if I had?”
“Would’ve been terrible,” Angel said sarcastically as he turned and went to sit down. “What’s the matter Harmony?”
“Someone left a letter for you, said it had to come right up to you.”
Angel became all business. “When did it arrive?”
“About three days ago.”
There was a moment of silence as Angel considered this.
“Three days to come straight to me.” Angel raised an eyebrow.
“And it was the express route.”
“Three days is express here? First thing I gotta do is work on this place’s standards.”
“Okey-dokey,” inspiration struck Harmony, she grabbed a pencil from a nearby table, “shall I take a letter?”
Harmony grinned delighted at her own self-styled genius.
“I’m sure I’ll remember.” Angel extended his hand, Harmony looked back confused.
“Harmony, the letter.”
Harmony shrugged her shoulders as she realized and handed the letter straight to Angel.
“So if that’s all I’ll be going,” Harmony turned and made a hasty retreat towards the door. Before she could exit Angel called her back. Her face fell.
“Harmony there’s blood on the letter.”
Harmony made a last minute decision to try and conceal the truth. “Oh my Vigeous, the writer is a psychopath!” she said with attempted horror.
“That could be argued,” Angel said as he looked into Harmony’s eyes, “but it’s more likely it was a clumsy secretary.”
“How’d you know?” She said with a pout.
“I can smell it. Pigs blood mixed with a little bit of otter. Sound familiar?”
“Okay but I only read it to see if it was urgent or magickal or poisoned or even if it had any bad languages. I may have spilled some blood on it but it was only because I was concerned.”
“Harmony. I don’t care how concerned you where. You don’t read my mail. Understand?”
“Okay, Angel I’m sorry, won’t happen again.”
“Yes it will but next time you won’t have an excuse.”
Harmony again headed for the door but this time reached it and left Angel alone to read the letter.
Fred and Knox where in the lab, Spike was standing in front of them.
The two scientists where performing a number of tests on Spike’s behalf. Since his enforced arrival and stay at the Wolfram and Hart offices, Spike had been experiencing a problem which caused him to disappear and had led Fred, Knox and Spike to believe that he was wanted on the other side.
Spike had sacrificed himself to prevent the world being overrun by the First Evil and it’s army of Turok-Han’s. Using the power of his soul, enhanced by a amulet given to him by Angel he had caved Sunnydale, the Hellmouth into a crater.
The amulet had been given to Angel by his first contact at Wolfram and Hart, Lilah Morgan. Intended to be used solely by Angel, the amulet bound Spike’s spirit exclusively to Wolfram and Hart.
Exclusively to the Wolfram and Hart building
And therefore exclusively to Angel.
“Well this is bloody ridiculous.” Spike said breaking the silence.
Fred looked up offended, “What is?”
“I’ve been standing here for two bleedin’ hours is what. How do you computer-types do it?”
Knox piped in, “Spike, waiting is ninety percent of our job.”
“And what d’you do for the other four percent? Ogle our Fred.”
Knox looked down at his equipment and Fred simply turned and continued to key information into her computers.
At that exact moment the office phone rang.
“Hello, this is Winifred Burkle, head of science division. How can I help you?”
“Fred, it’s Angel. Are you free to come up to my office.”
“Well, Knox and I are trying to see what’s wrong with Spike.”
Angel cut her off, “So you’re free then.”
“If you want me I’ll be there.”
“I do.” Angel hung up and Fred went back to Knox and Spike.
“I gotta go, Spike could you stay here and let Knox finish up on you?”
“I’d rather I finish up on you but in my current state not sure that this is gonna happen any time soon. At least not if our boy Knox has got anything to do with it.” Spike gave Knox an unpleasant smile.
Knox looked away.
“Spike,” Fred began, “just stay here would you.”
“’Course. Now off you run to Angel and solve some problem for the wonderful people of Los Angeles.”
Spike and Knox watched and waited for Fred to leave.
Knox was the first to speak. “Could you just stand there for me please sir?”
Spike gave Knox a tut and turned away.
Knox was sure what his subject was going to do but asked to be sure. “Umn, Spike. Where – where are you going?”
“You think I’m waiting for you to stare at me for another two hours when there’s an Angel to be annoyed? All this researching stuff and you still not noticed what I’d prefer?”
And so with that Spike left to find the Wolfram and Hart CEO.
The corridors of Wolfram and Hart were full of lawyers, researchers and other groups of employees that Spike didn’t have a broader term for yet. They milled around and moved out of Spike’s way, giving him a smile.
A smile? Spike was confused, I was one of the worst killers in history and people are smiling at me? How could they? Don’t they know what I’ve done?
Just then a man stepped in front of him and held his hand out.
Spike passed straight through it.
“Whoa,” the man said, “you went straight through me.”
“Yeah, that’s been happening a lot recently,” Spike informed him.
“Are you…a ghost?” The man asked.
“What all the people are telling me. And you are?” Spike was getting impatient.
“Oh, my goodness I’m sorry,” the man laughed to himself, “my name’s Hugo Calder, I’m a lawyer.”
Spike mocked surprise, “A lawyer…in a law firm that’s crazy, it must be a sign of the Apocalypse.” The lawyer looked shocked at Spike’s outburst. “Sorry mate but I’m a bit busy and I really don’t care.”
Spike went to move past him.
That’s a habit I can get out of soon. I can walk through people now.
Spike carried on walking.
“I heard you where working here.” Calder called after him. “I didn’t believe it at first.”
Spike ignored him and carried on walking, he turned the corner. Calder followed him relentlessly.
“I’ve been following your work for my entire life. It’s what inspired me to work here really.”
“Aint that great,” Spike turned and looked Calder straight in the eye. “Look mate, you may not have heard but I’m a changed man. Not least that I’m possibly a bloody ghost but also that I’ve got a soul.”
“Really?”
“For my biggest fan you don’t seem to have checked the website for updates. I thought that good old Wolfram and Hart had info on all its property.”
“Oh they do but I’m a low level worker and so I’m not exactly privy to the classifieds.” Calder smiled. “All I know about you is what we have in the history books.”
“Well then I’m going to have to disappoint you because I’m not that man anymore.”
“I don’t think that you can exactly just give up on a history like that can you?”
“You’d be more than amazed at what a soul can do for you.”
“Oh come on, I’ve got a soul and I signed on to join the evilest law firm in this and other dimensions.”
“Oh God. I understand that you didn’t hear about my soul but if you tell me you don’t know that Mr Goody of the Two-Shoes folk is running the show down here now.”
“Of course I know that but I don’t have to like it do I?”
“Suppose not,” Spike attempted to walk off for the third time and was again was stopped by Calder. “Look mate. I know you like me and that would’ve been very flattering about a year ago but I’ve got to go and piss off Angel and easy as that may be I take it very seriously now go away!”
Spike stormed off through a wall, somewhere where he doubted Calder could follow, and carried on towards Angel’s office.
Calder stood in the corridor fuming.
“Hey, Calder,” came a call from the other end of the corridor.
Calder turned knowing exactly what would come next.
He was right, Chip Donovan stood their, dressed as always in a pressed Armani suit and grinning at Calder.
“You get turned down again?” Donovan laughed and carried on, “that guy just got his soul back and he couldn’t find it within himself to try and be nice to you. You are such a pain in the ass.”
Calder was about to erupt into tears when he turned and an idea stuck him.
It’s the only way, he thought, it’s the best thing to do. Chip deserves it.
And Calder went back to his shared office and reached into his bottom drawer. He pulled out the gun with reverence and then headed for Chip’s office.
In Angel’s office the group sat around the main desk whilst Angel prowled the front.
Wesley and Fred where on one side with Gunn and Lorne on the other. When everyone was comfortable Angel dropped the letter dramatically on the front of the desk.
He began, “This is a letter from a local faction of Ymojoi, they claim that a group of vampires have been treading in their territory and Wolfram and Hart are not honouring their protection deals.”
Fred interrupted, “What’s an Ymojoi?”
“The Ymojoi has a venom within its teeth that can render a vampire paralyzed if it come in contact with their blood.”
Gunn interrupted, “Ymojoi also don’t like vampires in their territory which is marked with a pheromone. They consider a vampire in their territory, they consider it an act of war.”
“So if you where to spread some Ymojoi pheromone in a vampires lair, and then let an Ymojoi in,” Fred ventured, “the Ymojoi would do what exactly?”
“Claim it as their own and then spread out, an Ymojoi is no different than any other animal in that all it wants to do is dominate the planet.” Gunn revealed.
Lorne said, “Fair enough sugar-pie but what can we do about it?”
Angel answered, “Gunn has agreed to attempt a negotiation, but if that fails then we’ve got a war on our hands.”
“Another one,” Spike came strolling through the door. He stood just inside before saying, “this is just getting boring.”
Fred stood up and knocked Wesley’s coffee cup over all of Angel’s files. “Spike! What are you doing up here? Has Knox finished?”
“No but he was looking at me funny, made me feel uncomfortable. Thought I’d come up here and make Angel feel the same way.”
“Fred,” Angel asked, “are we any closer to getting him out of our hair?”
Spike gave a pointed laugh, “I’d have a tough time trying to get out of that mess. All the Brylcreem you put in, even an Ipeare demon would have a hard time getting through and they can chew through a metal floor.”
Gunn chipped in, “They also have real issues with Fyarl demons.” Everyone looked at him, he shrugged, “I love my new brain.”
There was a frantic knocking on the office door followed swiftly by a whirlwind of Harmony, she came in speaking unintelligibly and stopping only when Wesley grabbed shoulders.
“Harmony,” Angel said, “what the Hell are trying to tell me?”
“Someone’s gone mad,” she answered.
“Other than you?” Spike said.
“Ha, ha, very funny you blonde…” she trailed off, then on, then off again, lost for words.
Angel interrupted, “What’s happened?”
“Someone’s gone made.” Harmony repeated.
“Yeah, we covered that peaches but could we expand the story?” Lorne pleaded.
Harmony pulled out her notepad, “ A Mr Hugo Cider has taken a whole meeting room hostage on the third floor.”
“Why’s that?” Spike asked.
Harmony continued offhand, “Cider says that people keep ignoring him or something, didn’t catch it all.”
Angel was shocked, “You weren’t listening?”
“He was shooting. What am I supposed to do? Hold the phone to my ear and shorthand while I’m deafened, my Vigeous.”
“Harmony,” Angel cried, “if the gun was at your head, you still shorthand okay.”
Spike butted in, “And also the way you’re using Vigeous is totally out of context.”
“Geez,” Harmony put her arms to her side, “next time I might not tell you what’s happening.” Harmony turned on her heel and left.
“Wouldn’t be noticed,” Angel said as Harmony slammed the door. Then he turned back to the group. “So, who’s going to do what?”
“I’ll go and see if we can’t make a deal with the Ymojoi,” Gunn said, standing, “Fred, want to come along?”
Fred agreed and they took the elevator down to the motor-pool.
“It looks like it’s us four then,” Wesley said. “Shall we go?”
Spike replied, “Or we could let them all die.”
Outside of the room Lorne, Angel, Wesley and Spike listened up close to the door.
“Well, I hate to say it gang but there are some seriously bad vibes coming out of that room.” Lorne said, backing away.
“What do you think we should do?” Wesley asked looking at Angel.
“We’ve not got any time to mess about so we need to get in there and take him down.”
“I agree and if that’s what you choose to do I’ll stand here and wait for you to come out,” Lorne said from behind the others, “but don’t you think that a dramatic entrance’ll send this guy over the edge. I say we send Spike in through the wall and get him to talk this guy down.”
“Hold on there mate, you may not know this but speaking’s not my strong point.”
Angel realising time was running out and tried to coax Spike into intervening, “Well, pretty much nothing is your strong point Spike but this guy is so far gone he may just relate to you.”
“Angel you old charmer you. That may just be a point you have there, and hey if I can’t talk him round maybe I can get him to come out and take you out.”
“Well if it comes to that I’ll be glad of the escape from you.”
Lorne interrupted, “While this word-duel is really funny and impressing the nobody around I’m pretty sure the people in the meeting would be glad of salvation rather than a hearty laugh.”
“Fine but don’t think you’re safe from the psycho now,” Spike said pointedly to Lorne before stepping through the wall.
Angel turned to Wesley and Lorne, “Is he pissing anyone else off?”
Spike stepped through the wall and was immediately greeted with a scene of carnage. Though nobody had died the gunman had shot at least one man in the stomach Spike knew then that he had to act fast if that man was to survive.
He turned and was face-to-face with the man he’d met earlier in the corridor.
“Oh bloody hell,” Spike said before going for the friendly approach, “How you doing? Mister Cider was it?”
“Calder, actually. I only met you earlier.” Calder paused for breathe, “I thought you’d remember.”
“Yeah sorry about that. I think it’s got something to do with the whole vampire-with-soul-then-a-ghost thing, playing havoc with my memory. I see you’ve forgotten that pretending shooting at people was supposed to stop just after puberty when you also put down the Superman cape. Now what do you think you’re going to prove by doing this?”
Calder stumbled, unsure of his reasons himself, “I was going to prove that I can be as heartless as you are. My whole life I tried to be just like you but nobody took me seriously.”
Probably because you’re short and wear glasses mate, not a look I’d go for.
“You always seemed so…so…happy.”
“I was mate, but I didn’t have a soul. What’s your excuse?”
There was silence for a moment and the only sound that could be heard was the shuffling of wounded lawyers.
“A soul doesn’t matter,” Calder insisted.
“A soul doesn’t matter, is that what you think,” Spike continued regardless of the tears welling at Calder’s eyes, “now if you’d come to me two years ago and told me that I would have believed you. That was before I went halfway round the world to get a mine back. Being a vampire was the worst thing that could happen to a guy like me. All my life I was trodden on by people who didn’t want to get to know me, I got offered the easy way out. I could kill ‘em and not bother a thing because I didn’t have a pesky soul to worry about.”
“Do you think that just because I wasn’t a vampire I was any less soulless?” Calder asked, tears cascading down.
Spike observed him with curiosity.
Calder continued in a rage, waving the gun above his head. “You had your soul taken away from you. I had mine slowly torn out.” The venom in his voice was palpable, “For fifteen years I was put down at every opportunity. I never recall once anybody saying that they loved me. Do you know how that makes a person feel?”
“Yeah, I do” Spike said, “I had it for a lot longer than fifteen mate. For a hundred and twenty two years I had no soul, I was told I was loved plenty. Me and Dru stuck together through thick and thin, for most of it. But we never did love each other, we said we did but we didn’t. Then I went half way around the world to prove my love for someone and I got my soul back.”
Calder lowered the gun and looked at his hero, the lethal Spike.
Spike continued regardless, “How do you think I felt then?”
Calder struggled through the tears, “Ha-happy…”
“You really are stupid for a bona-fide genius.”
Calder did nothing.
“When I got my soul back I had one hundred and twenty two years of guilt to catch up on. Every thing that I did wrong came flooding back, actually drove me mad. I completely changed myself for a woman and when I got back she didn’t love me. Least I don’t think she did. Not had a chance to see her since your firm had me locked here. The point is that you spent your whole life trying to be William the Bloody the Second, and you’re welcome to that because when you realise what you’re doing you’ll be so sorry you can’t imagine.”
Calder lifted the gun.
“You take a look around. Is this gonna make anyone love you?”
Calder cocked the gun.
Spike turned and headed towards the door, stepping over bodies as he went.
Don’t really have to but gotta show a bit of respect after that little chat, Spike thought.
As he walked through the door and turned down the hall he heard the sobs of Calder.
Then came the click.
Then the bang.
Then the drop.
Calder was dead.
“You convinced him that he was better of dead.” Angel was less than approving of Spike’s solution to the problem.
“I didn’t put any ideas in his head if that’s what you are thinking, I just asked what he’d think and he didn’t like that.”
“But you didn’t try and talk him out of it did you.”
“Why the bloody hell should I? He’s made enough to try and take out a room full of his co-workers he’s the kind of man who needs to be gotten rid of.”
“That’s not how it works in the real world Spike and the sooner you learn that the better.”
“Yeah well I haven’t wanted to learn much about this kind of life. All I bloody well want is to get my body back and go to Europe to be with Buffy.”
“Well who doesn’t want that?”
“I think the question is who doesn’t she want?”
“You think that I want to be stuck here fighting against the people I work with. I have lost three friends that I loved fighting this fight and it’s beginning to piss me off.”
“No one asked you to stay.”
“No one asked if I wanted to come along in the first place. The point is that I’ve accepted that my job is to save people’s lives and you need to come to terms with that. Just because Buffy’s not here to be impressed you’d better start to co-operate or I’ll find a way to get rid of you faster than you came.”
And with that Angel stormed out of the corridor leaving Lorne and the clean-up team to see to the casualties and corpse.
In his office, Angel continued to look through some regulatory paperwork and had given Harmony strict instructions not to allow anyone in under any circumstances.
According to an answer-phone message the negotiations with the Ymojoi had not gone as well as was hoped and this would require immediate attention but true to form Harmony had failed and about an hour and a half into his isolation Angel’s peace was shattered as Eve walked through the doors.
“How’s it going boss man?” she asked off hand.
“Eve, I’m in the middle of something a little bit major at the moment so if you could come back in a little while I’d appreciate it.”
“Who’s a little bit grouchy this morning?”
“I’ve been up all night trying to deal with all the problems that your hiring only evil people has caused me.”
“Hey, even not-evil people go crazy at some point. Your file has something on you about three years ago, an incident with Darla and Drusilla.”
“Orchestrated by your firm.”
“Now it’s your firm too.” Seeing that Angel was in no mood for witty word play Eve promptly turned and headed for the door just before she left she looked Angel directly in his eye. “Don’t you feel lucky?”
As Eve closed the door behind her Angel looked at the desk and considered the day’s events.
“Not the word I’d use.”
to be continued…
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
