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Xanpet
Hal had been out for hours. She’d initially gone straight to the lab, but other than the body and Nathan Reed; there wasn’t a lot to see. She’d spoken to Mike though. Michael was a lizard looking demon, with a snake like face and patterned skin. He appeared to be just an animal, a lab rat, but he was smart and had a language. A language Halley had just neglected to tell anyone else about.
“Got any grasshoppers there, Doc?”
“What did you see, Mike?”
“Not a lot, you already know they’ve been taking spawn. The Dex just bolted.” He used the lab’s nickname for the soul creature. It was officially the Dexta Hydroxate Beast, but Dex was somehow warmer, kinder.
“Thank you.” Hal tossed a handful of grasshoppers into the cage and watched Mike catching them with his sticky tongue. One day she would have to release this guy.
As she turned to go, Mike said, “Be careful Doc, they’re gunning for you and that Reed is a real reptile!”
Why was her creation, her child, behaving this way? Connie was dead! The Dex hadn’t been bred to kill. She was so glad she’d thought to insert identity chips. She looked again at the gauge in front of her. Close. She turned into San Pedro and then again into Avalon. The creature seemed to be heading right for the heart of the Avalon Gardens Project.
Then she saw it or at least what she thought approximated her creation, her baby. Something had mauled or injured the demon, into a deformed and hideous mess. And it smelt. It was rotting flesh and burning tyres, stagnant water and stale faeces. It was as if the city itself had poisoned her child. But its eyes, how could anyone do anything but pity the owner of those eyes.
It looked at her, soul meeting soul, howled and took off into the sprawling mass of apartment blocks. She carried on tracking it for a while and then gave up. It was late and she wanted to go home. Nothing was being achieved out here.
She slipped into the darkened apartment, took off her clothes and climbed into bed. She huddled next to her boyfriend and kissed his shoulder. She was grateful that he had chosen to stay.
“What happened?” He asked.
“One of the Dexes escaped. Couldn’t catch it. Lindsey, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes,”
“Can you find out what Nathan is doing with the Dexes? They are being removed at twenty weeks gestation and they really need at least thirty or the soul isn’t properly integrated. This is all real experimental stuff, I just…I just need to know what’s going on.”
Lindsey felt an uncomfortable sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Don’t ask me to do this Hal,” he thought, “Don’t ask me to split my loyalties in this way. I will not come down on your side.”
But out loud, he said nothing; he merely rolled over and kissed her lightly on the nose. She hugged him tight thinking she had her answer.
“Gunn, where the hell have you been?” Snapped Angel as soon as the young man walked through the doors of the hotel.
“Hey, when you’re quite done with the yelling. I’m here now, so it’s cool. New client?” He approached Spike who was sitting on the sofa, still looking decidedly green around the gills. He held out his hand. Spike raised his head and a mischievous look crossed his face. He took Gunn’s hand and shook it.
“Wow, cold hands, you look like you had a bad night. Still, Angel’s a miserable guy but he’s the man if you want anything done demon wise.”
“Really,” Said Spike, his evening was picking up, “So what does he do for demons?”
“He kills ‘em. Hey, you English? Relative, Wesley?”
Wesley almost choked. “I don’t think…er…that is…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Said Spike, “Me and the toff, we’re like that,” He crossed his fingers, “We was at school together, Winchester weren’t it? Jolly nice. Hooray Henry ‘ere was me fag…”
“Cut the crap, Spike,” Angel barked, and then addressing Gunn, “He’s a vampire.”
“I thought we went through this shit with the chick.”
Cordelia shot him a look, “Don’t call her a chick, its not PA.”
“I think you intended to say PC.” Said Wesley.
“That’s a computer. Da, and you people invented the language?”
“Can you three wisht a minute?” Angel’s frustration with them brought the Irish demon closer to the surface. “Yes, he’s a vampire but he’s mine.” Angel dared them to make another comment with a look. Spike shuddered at the possessive but said nothing. After all, he’d asked for it, asked to be a fledge again.
“We have more important things to worry about. Spike what happened out there and I need answers not bullshit.”
“I hit it, I up-chucked.” Angel glared and started towards him, “Okay, okay but this is humiliating, need emotional support and…compensation.”
Angel grabbed Spike by the collar and dragged him to the stair well, “Don’t you ever tire of prostitution?”
“Not while I have something to sell, you want it, pay for it.”
“Do I have to remind you…”
“That you’re a vampire, my Sire? Nah. But how much do you want to show your lackeys of your demonic side? Go on…. Beat me. Rape me. Public space Angelus…and you likes an audience. Always playing to the gallery.” Angel said nothing. “Or maybe you could do me a favour.”
“Other than the one I’ve already done?”
“I want financial independence.”
Angel didn’t reply. What was Spike up to now?
Spike dropped his tone to that barely above a whisper, “You left me Angelus. Fucked off without a word, I was barely fledged. Eighteen years is nothing, most humans don’t leave home ‘til their twenties. And I had ‘er in tow. I’ve spent the best part of my existence caring for a lunatic. I loved her with all my being but she left me too.” He paused; the whole room was watching them even though they couldn’t hear.
“I lied, I am tired of prostitution, I’m tired of surviving on handouts and sleeping in hovels or on other people’s floors. I’ve rarely owned anything Angelus, not as a human, not as a beast. Me smokes and me motor, and the car’s stolen. Well actually so are the fags. You want redemption? You’ve been looking in the wrong places shit-for-brains. You keep on trying to gain forgiveness from them. They’re human. They’re our food. There are only three creatures on this planet that you require forgiveness from, your childer: Penn the Zealot, Drucilla the Insane and me, William, the Big Bad. The ones you killed, the ones you drove mad, the ones you warped and perverted and let loose on the world.”
Angel sighed, Spike was right as usual, his insight uncanny. Hadn’t he had that very thought? “Penn is dust and Dru is beyond anything you or I can do now.” He said.
“Then I guess I’m your last chance. Don’t expect me to make it easy.”
“I put stuff away for the others. Valuables, stocks, cash…”
“But not for the interloper, I get it, not for the cuckoo in your little nest.”
“She should never have touched you, you were already mine.”
“But she did, and now I’m all you got. So, what’s it to be?”
There was a pause while Angel regarded his Childe, he wanted him, he wanted to make him truly his own. “I’ll sort something out, but in return I require Sire’s rights.”
Spike understood, nodded his assent and walked back into the room. He wanted this done in front of witnesses. He actually felt positive, his Sire would claim him and he’d belong, then the healing could really begin.
Angel began the ritual, a mirror of the one from the night before.
“I Angelus, of the order of Aurelius,
Do hereby claim and desire Sire’s rights.
Owed to me by my Childe, William.
My blood is his blood, his blood is my blood.
As it was in the beginning and as it ever shall be.
He owes me his life, I owe him his death,
Until the debt be repaid, we are bound.”
It was so different from last night. This was like coming home; it was the prodigal son returning. Only Spike could help his Sire now, only William could grant what Angel wanted most.
“I William, of the order of Aurelius,
Do hereby accept and desire Childe’s duties.
Claimed from me by my Sire, Angelus.
My blood is his blood, his blood is my blood.
As it was in the beginning and as it ever shall be.
He owes me my life, I owe him my death.
Until the debt be repaid, we are bound.”
This time Angel did not need to ask, Spike offered up his neck willingly and Angel felt his fangs descend as he nuzzled into it. He drank greedily; vaguely aware of the spectacle they were putting on for the others. There was no heartbeat to slow, but a gradual losing of consciousness told Angel that it was time; he brought Spike’s head to his own neck and lapped at his wounds to stimulate him. He felt Spike’s fangs pierce his jugular and the other vampire began to drink. He had all but been destroyed and was now reborn in the blood of his Sire. Spike drank hungrily as if he hadn’t fed in days. They drew apart and the look that passed between them was that of love but it was brief.
“If this ritual is complete, may we please get on with the task at hand, Spike?” Wesley had clearly had enough of the display. Even though he usually deferred to Angel, he was still a trained Watcher and the one thing he knew well was a vampire. They thrived on strife and William the Bloody could cause plenty of it. “Not under this roof!” He thought. The first sign of discord and he would take charge. He would act.
Spike plonked himself down on the sofa and sprawled across it. He was buzzing from the blood of his Sire and only too happy to tell his little tale. Though, in his animated state, his accent became almost impenetrable, “Got this chip didn’t I. Didn’t quite ‘ave me eye on the ball and wham, GI Joe caught me wiv me trousers down. It’s a little bugger, I can tell you. They put it in me brain see, an’ when I goes to bite anyfink, or inflict pain on anything, even if wot I’m ‘olding is fake like, I gets this searing pain in me loaf, so I’ve stopped.”
“Stopped what?” Cordelia asked.
“Hunting, Princess. Can’t hunt. Can’t kill. Can’t feed.”
“How do you survive?” Angel could scarcely keep the shock from his voice.
“Same as I always did, Sunshine, sell what I have and steal what I don’t.”
Angel was horrified, this wasn’t some Gypsy curse, this was torture. It never ceased to amaze him how shortsighted human beings could be. He had thought his own curse to be the prime example. Punishing the demon by having him possessed by the dead soul of the man he was sounded fine, but who was getting punished here? The demon had no soul. The only thing that felt his pain was his human one and if it should seek happiness, as surely all souls must, then it would be sent back to limbo to wait for purgatory and the demon was released back into the world, just as vicious as it ever was. Totally untouched by the punishment and free to kill again.
The curse didn’t keep his demon caged, he did. It was his soul’s fear of the tyranny of the demon and how it would punish his friends that kept him going. If he received redemption then his soul would be free and the demon finally destroyed. But at least he could feed, defend himself, even exact his own punishments and revenge.
This was mutilation, it was cruel, it was - evil.
“Why Spike?” He asked aware that his features were in constant flux in his rage.
“How the hell should I know? Didn’t even realise it was there ‘til I went to bite…someone.” He was careful not to say whom. “I guess it was ‘cos I escaped. The Government lab, soldier boys, boffins, they’re all gone now. No one to ask. I’m just an experiment that went wrong. The scariest thing is, I don’t know what it’s doing in there? It could be eating away at the inside, it could be a ticking time bomb, one hundred attempts to kill and you’re dust. It might just malfunction, you know I could simply vanish while sitting here, I don’t know,” He looked so sad, “I just don’t know.”
“This is all very well, but what has it got to do with tonight?” Wesley was getting impatient.
“Well, I socked that dratsab with everything I ‘ad and the pain was unreal. Hence the pavement pizza.”
“Ah, the creature was human.”
But neither Angel nor Spike thought so. There had been no discernable heartbeat and it certainly hadn’t smelt human. Spike remembered Giles being turned into a Fyarl Demon. At the time, he had only recognised Giles from his speech, and that because he just happened to speak Fyarl. Mind you, he hadn’t actually tried to thump him. Still it proved that such spells existed and Wesley immediately got to work on the research, issuing orders and calling for texts. Everyone was assigned a task, everyone that was, except Spike. Wesley still didn’t trust the vampire and couldn’t see what use he could possibly be.
Angel was fussing round his Childe, “When was the last time you fed?”
“Just now, off you. Wow, was it that memorable?”
Angel sighed and went to the fridge. He brought back a mug filled with pig’s blood. Spike sniffed at it and put it into the microwave. Cordelia saw him.
“Can you say gross? Nothing from that machine passes my lips, like ever!” And she shuddered. “It was bad enough watching my former best friend drink the stuff.”
“Well as long as he neither puts gum on anything or feeds blood to the computer.” Wesley muttered.
“You will never let her live that down, will you?”
“Your so called friend…”
“Harmony, she had a name, it was Harmony.”
Spike’s jaw dropped to the floor and then he laughed. “Harmony? That silly tart was ‘ere? What did she want, someone to find her half a brain? What?” They were all staring at him, “Look I didn’t send her, nailed her to the bed, both metaphorically and literally, but you don’t send some Californian airhead to do anything. Not guilty your Honour, except maybe of poor penis judgement.”
Cordelia flew at him, “How dare you?” She screamed, “How dare you stand here with that sewer mouth and trash the memory of a girl you killed.” She snatched a stake from the desktop and made ready to destroy him. Only Angel held her back.
That was it. Wesley hauled Spike out into the courtyard of the hotel. The night was still pitch, with no sign of impending dawn. He flung Spike down onto the flagstones and then dragged him up again and thrust him against the wall.
“What stops me from finishing what she started?” He said, icily.
“No stake?”
Wesley produced one from his pocket and held it against Spike’s chest. He used his superior height to bear down on the vampire. It was an effort to intimidate but Spike was quicker and merely batted the stake away. It fell with a clatter to the floor.
“No stake.” He said again. Before Wesley could pick it up, he had his foot on it and was in full game mode. “You know, men have died for less. Had this chip not been here, I would have ripped out your lungs and worn them as a hat for manhandling me like that. I would have knitted a sweater with your still living intestines. But…” He slipped back into his human guise, “…as it is, I guess we’ll just have to talk this through like men, well man and beast.”
He kicked the stake into the corner and sat down on the edge of the central flowerbed. “I didn’t turn her.” He said, “I found her. She’s the lowest of our kind. A minion turned her. You know as well as I do what that means, and there was no master to the nest. To make matters worse her so-called Sire discarded her. When I found her every vamp in the county was hounding her. She was a fuck toy. She was frightened and alone. I showed her what she could be, gave her a home, created her a nest and allowed her to belong somewhere.”
“Why?” The question came from the doorway and it was Cordelia.
“Because, Sweetheart, I know what it feels like to be lost, being a demon is powerful but that power can be overwhelming and she was a fledge. Just call me Jude, eh?”
“Thank-you.”
He looked puzzled, “What for Honey?” But she turned and went inside without answering, Wesley followed her and Spike was left alone. Had he finally done something right? He hoped so; he was going to have to survive with these people a long time.