Opening the driver’s side of
his black convertible, Angel sat down and started the engine. Spike leapt the passenger door and plumped
himself into the seat. “On on,
Batman.” He quipped and they took off
through the city streets towards the laboratory.
Angel touched his nose
gingerly, but it had already begun to heal and hurt lots less. He was glad of his sluggish vampire
circulation. It meant he wouldn’t be
walking around with two black eyes for a week.
He glanced at Spike, “Why do you do it?” He asked.
The other vampire just
stared at the road as if he hadn’t heard.
Angel thought he wasn’t going to get a reply but then out of nowhere
came softly, “Cos I can.”
“But acting out doesn’t give
you any real power.”
“It doesn’t? Look, can we just finish this? If I’m about to be treated to a lecture from
your soul, I’d rather be in a place where I can fall asleep in comfort.” The blond began to search his pockets for
his cigarettes and lighter.
“It’s not my soul I’m
worried about. Maybe for a little while
you feel powerful, but you must be dying inside.”
Spike lit a fag and glared
at his Sire. What did that cunt
know? “Thinks he can stick his hampton
up y’jacksie and suddenly all is forgiven?”
He thought with venom.
He took a long drag, “For a
little while I feel powerful…. For a
second I feel like a GOD!” He barked,
“You wouldn’t understand.”
But Angel thought he did,
“You think I’ve haven’t done things just to feed on other people’s weakness?”
“Yeah, I think you did call
boys!”
“Is that what this is all
about?” Angel slid the car into the
side of the road and killed the engine.
He knew speed was always of the essence, especially when dealing with
Wolfram and Hart but at this moment, his childe was the most important thing to
him. He turned to face Spike and their
eyes met. Spike’s were at their coldest
and most soulless. No hint of what lay
hidden within. Could Angel reach
it? Touch it?
It was Spike that spoke
first, “Did you kill my Jack?”
Well that came out of left
field and for a minute Angel was stunned, “Jack? Was he another rent boy?
Oh Wil’, was he special to you?”
“I’ll never know. He could have been – one day.” Spike closed his eyes against the emotional
pain. He knew that if he reached for
his soul, all he would feel were the agonies of the last century. Wil’ was dead. Wasn’t that what he’d told Xander? Only Spike here now. But
the wound had been worried and Angel was picking at the scab. Spike couldn’t stop the tumble of vicious
words.
“I came to you to find him
and all I found was torture, pain and death.
DID YOU KILL MY JACK?”
“I don’t know – I really
don’t,” The cursed vampire lowered his head in shame, “So many boys.”
But Spike was impervious to
the pain he was causing, “Let me help you.
Blond, straight hair cut in a pudding basin. I did it meself. Eyes
like storm clouds at sea and a split lip.”
“Ye Gods Spike, I don’t
know! What do you want me to say? How can I know?”
“You know what? Say nothing at all. Just drive and don’t ask any more bloody
stupid questions!” He stubbed the
remains of his cigarette out on the side of the car and tossed the butt onto
the sidewalk.
They continued on their way
but the tension was palpable. The
ringing cel phone took them both by surprise.
Angel answered it, rather relieved at having something else to think
about. None of Spike’s outbursts were
ever comfortable but that…. It was easy
to be a murderer if your victims had no names and at this moment, all he wanted
to do was run away, hide, brood.
It was Wesley on the phone,
“I think I’ve solved it.”
“Good. We’ve had some success here too. We’re on our way to a laboratory.”
Spike grunted at that word.
“Is William there with
you? Can you ask him a quick question?”
Angel didn’t think Spike
would answer, especially if he’d heard the ex watcher call him William, but
still, “Go on.”
“Ask him if Anthony and
Cleopatra are human?”
“WHAT THE FUCK?! Is this about Spike’s stupid little
game? I don’t believe this.”
“No.” Said Spike in answer to the question, “And
he’s not to call me William.” Nothing
wrong with his childe’s vampire hearing, then.
“Their fish aren’t
they? Goldfish. The draught from the open window blows the
heavy curtain, knocking the fishbowl off the highly polished table. The bowl breaks and Anthony and Cleopatra
suffocate, lying in a pool of water and glass.”
Wesley sounded triumphant
but Angel growled dangerously. “We’re
here, Wes. At the lab,” He swung the
car into the parking lot. “Please tell
me you have something more relevant than fish!”
“Well actually yes. Fred’s little device seems to have come up
trumps. We think the demons have an
artificial soul. It’s a clever little
chemical, which is the essence of living things. It’s like spiritual DNA and it’s what Spike’s chip detects. Listen carefully Angel; the beast may be
able to absorb this chemical from the people around it, effectively draining
them of their souls. It may well find
damaged or corrupted souls easier to absorb.
Be careful.”
“You think it could take my
soul. Break the curse?”
“Fred doesn’t seem to think
so. She says you give off a molecule in
the cis transfiguration, whereas the living, give off trans molecules. The chemical seems to alter on death.”
“Well that make’s sense,”
Angel thought. He’d been wondering just
how Spike was managing to cause him so much pain without setting off the chip.
“I don’t pretend to
understand it myself,” Wesley went on, “I’m a rogue demon hunter not a chemist,
but she is quite insistent that Wi…Spike is sending out the same signals as the
living. She says, tell him he’s to come
back smelly. He’ll know what it
means.” Then he rang off.
Angel looked at Spike. He’d been right, Wil’ had never really died,
his soul hidden long before his turning happened, “Got that?” He said, “Not
just me worried about your soul, it seems.
Be careful in there. If not for
me then for her.” Spike just stared at
him and raised a brow.
The buildings were quiet and
in darkness. There were no security
guards and no dogs. Hal had refused
these measures even after the Dexes started to escape, actually especially after
the demons got out. She wanted no one
else killed and that meant the demons as well as her employees. The security tracking devices were supposed
to be enough.
The two vampires made their
way past the main entrance, sprinting by the cameras so fast that nothing could
be filmed, and entered the building through a side door using Halley’s security
number and swipe card. Angel stopped by
an electrical cupboard and wrenched the door open. Taking a great bundle of wires, he pulled and a shower of sparks lit
up the corridor. For a split second, it
was dark and then they were bathed in a dim orange glow as the emergency
generators kicked in.
At the end of the corridor
was a steel door. There was no swipe
here as this was the fire exit. Spike
backed up and launched a flying kick to the door, his steel toe capped boots
instantly buckling the metal and two more kicks removed it from its hinges
altogether.
The vampires stepped
inside. Laboratories! How Spike hated laboratories. This looked like a cross between a hospital,
a morgue and something from a bad Frankenstein flick. The smell of formaldehyde and disinfectant made both demons
choke. And then he saw it. A stainless steal gurney with restraint
straps and beside it surgical instruments.
The word rage did not even
begin to describe the feeling that welled up inside him. “Ahhhh!”
He roared and, lifting the gurney above his head, hurled it across the
room. He swept an arm across the
workbench and Pyrex test tubes clattered to the floor.
Spike was going to take the
lab apart piece by piece. Angel could
see instantly that this was the most dangerous thing Spike could do. He was risking exposing his soul to any of
the chemicals and demon spawn, perhaps losing it before he’d even begun to
accept what having a soul really meant.
The only way of saving him was to find the demons and kill them himself.
Spike made as good a job of
the lab as he had of his room. Benches
upturned, test tubes smashed and stools sent flying into cupboards and
shelves. Unrolling the fire hose Angel
turned on the water to try to dilute any dangerous chemical that might have
spilt. It was as much as he could do to
keep up with his youngest.
Leaving Spike for a moment,
he tore open a door at the end of the lab and there were the holding pens. He could count maybe three Dexes at the
most. He smashed the glass and with
frightening speed, leapt inside the cage.
He throttled the first before breaking its neck. There was no joy in the kill for him. The second and third he dispatched with
equal efficiency.
He stared at the corpses of
the demons. These creatures had had
souls as pure and innocent as a newborn’s and they’d not put up a fight. They’d died so that Spike’s sins might be
forgiven and, through Spike, maybe his own.
Redemption was a painful and sorry road.
Spike erupted into the
holding area, game faced and still furious.
He kicked and punched at a glass-fronted cage, but this one would not
break. A lizard looking demon came to
the front of the glass. “Have you quite
finished?” It asked in perfect English.
Spike was so surprised that
he stopped dead. “What!?”
Mike stepped right up to the
glass. “I asked you if you’d quite
finished. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize
vampires were hard of hearing. The lab
is wrecked, honest. The Dexes are all
dead. So incidentally is the Doc. If that was your goal, you’re done now.”
“I don’t see why you should
be bothered. You’re a prisoner, a lab
rat. They butcher us in the name of
scientific progress and ‘ave the fucking, damned, bloody front to call us
evil! If you don’t want to be free,
stay where you fucking are. See if I
care.”
Smiling at Spike’s enraged
outburst, Michael put his hand against the glass as if testing its
strength. Both vampires could hardly
believe their eyes when he stepped right through it, along with several
grasshoppers. The window closed behind
him, leaving one or two insects stuck in the glass.
“I’m neither a prisoner nor
a lab rat.” He said, pleasantly, “But I
am the last of my race. My species
isn’t immortal, just extremely long lived and I am elderly. Without the genetic work the Doc was doing,
we will cease to exist at all once I die.”
He caught a grasshopper as it flitted by and chewed it
thoughtfully. “This was my home, you
know, but there’s little point in me staying here now.” And with that, he faded like the Cheshire
Cat and was gone.
Angel and Spike looked at
one another. For a moment, they
appeared to be about to argue and then Angel put his arm around the shoulder of
the other. “There are always consequences,”
He said, “Learning to live with them, that’s the trick.”
Spike just nodded.
They left the way they’d
come in and headed back to the Hyperion.
The hotel was quiet by the
time Angel and Spike returned. Stopping
briefly at his desk to pick up some papers, Angel headed for the stairs and
bed. Spike followed close behind. He thought he might stay. There was a kind of peace in existing for a
purpose instead of just existing. Forever
was a long time when you were bored, hungry and alone. He gently touched his Sire on the arm and
Angel turned round. “Are all your cases
that interesting?”
Angel just smiled. He reached out to stroke the scar above
Spike’s left brow. “Did I do
that?” He asked. Spike nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m sorry.”
Out of all the heinous
things he had done to William, both as a human and as a vampire, this seemed so
small, so insignificant and yet the apology was all the more powerful for it,
summing up all the rest in one small symbol.
Spike knew it was his turn
to make a tiny step towards reunion, but it was still hard. “I may have a soul, Angel but I am still a
demon and my soul is useless. It’s
disaffected, shut down, damaged, in pain and in hiding. I can’t redeem you or absolve you and after
tonight, I don’t think the latter is such a fucking good idea anyway.”
“Then don’t, Spike. You came to me for shelter and you still
have it. Let’s not worry about
redemption or absolution; let’s just work on reconciliation, you and me. Here, you asked for these.” Angel held out the things he’d taken from
his desk. There was a chequebook and
ATM card, both in the name of W J Hayter and a small bundle of stocks and
bonds.
“I’ve closed all of Penn’s
accounts. He doesn’t need them anymore,
so little brother can have them.
Everything is set up so that it’s possible to pass it all on from father
to son as you need to.”
“You trust me?” Asked Spike. This was a powerful thing to give an unredeemed demon.
“We have to start
somewhere. There’s always consequences
but the price seems fair.”
The younger vampire lifted
his head and Angel bent for the kiss.
It was powerful and sweet.
Cordelia appeared on the landing above, “Oh please! We’re in a hotel. Get a room…” She never finished.
The vision hit so fast and with such force that neither vampire had time
to move more than a few steps before she came tumbling into their arms. Her head was filled with violence and pain.
Angel waited until the
convulsions had died down, “What did you see ‘Delia?” He asked but she shook her head.
“The message wasn’t for
you. It was for Spike.” She looked at the blond vampire and said,
“It’s Xander. He’s in trouble!”
Spike and Xander will return in: ‘Parenthood.’