1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
Wordsmith
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wesley was deep in a conversation with a Noxxian when Lorne stopped by their tiny out-of-the way table. "Lovely, you better get ready to leave. I have a feeling your party is clearing out. You have trouble at home."
Wes apologized to his companion in the being's native tongue and laid a number of bills on the table, more than necessary to cover the drinks they had shared. He followed Lorne over to where Cordelia was still sitting with Lindsey and the witches. Wes felt eyes tracking their movement and turned to see Miller nudge Finn and nod to Gunn over by the bar. The three men moved with purpose and demons stepped out of their way as they too converged on the Seer. Angel appeared swiftly, standing behind Cordelia's chair, looking both concerned and protective.
"Fred called, you have uninvited guest. She was scared and not too clear, but she's not alone. She handed the phone to Dawn. Dawn said they would hide and that Spike and Xander were en route," Lorne said.
Almost as one they headed for the door. Lorne stopped Cordelia with a touch on the elbow. "I know everything will be fine, but call and let me know that, all right?"
"Sure. Of course, if Spike gets a hold of anyone going near Dawn, I am so billing him for the cost of cleaning." She smiled, but her eyes were worried.
~~~~~
Dawn added Xander to the mental tally of Scooby traits that Fred possessed. They had scampered up a cordoned off stairway to the more derelict levels of the hotel. Not content to just find an out-of-the-way closet and wait for rescue, Fred was setting traps. Quietly, she would scan a room and grab an object and then move to the next room. She had chosen a corner suite as their hide-out. Now Fred struggled to lift an old-fashioned fire extinguisher half as big as she was up almost to ceiling height.
"If you tell me what to do, I'll help," Dawn whispered.
Fred jumped as if she had zoned to some place inside her where she was alone in this. Dawn watched her swallow and wondered if she were trying to remember how to talk.
Unfortunately, once she focused on Dawn she not only would tell her what to lift or tie off, but ramble on in a disjointed whisper about the physical principles behind the traps they were rigging. She sounded a bit like Willow when she was thinking of combining two or more spells and somewhat like Xander when he was arming and assigning patrols. Either way, it was TMI and making Dawn more nervous.
Dawn was just glad they had managed two calls before the battery on her cell phone died. Xander was going to kill her if he found out she had drained most of it during the fashion show, IMing Stephanie, who had sat next to her.
~~~~~
The look on the vampire's face was one of shocked confusion as his companion suddenly dissipated in a cloud of ash for no apparent reason. Unbelievably, a human pushed him back against the black Mercedes they had requisitioned from the firm to come check on the hotel. Gavin had told them that the listening devices had all suddenly cut out in the early hours. Given the chaos that had plagued the security division, he wasn't surprised. This was supposed to be a routine mission, just wait outside while the sweepers went through and checked and replaced the bugs. If it hadn't been another vampire's lair the firm wouldn't have bothered to send vamps as look-outs.
The dark eyes of the human that held a gun to his throat were hard and crazed. The vamp knew all the faces of Angel's people, and this wasn't one of them. Must be one of the vigilantes that worked with Charles Gunn. The vamp almost smiled in anticipation - he was going to have a snack. The gun turned until it was just under his chin, pointing up toward his brain. Sure he was strong enough to toss this human a good twenty feet, but if the guy got off a shot, would he want to survive with a big hole in his head?
"It's a squirt gun, moron. Filled with holy water," the human said levelly. That was disturbing, the vamp thought. That, and the obvious lack of fear in the human's scent. "How many?" The gun began to burn against his neck and the vamp realized that if the human pulled the trigger he would be dust. "How many others? What's your mission? Make it quick or I go find out myself, and you'll join your friend."
"You won't shoot? Promise?" The vamp looked into the hard eyes of the human and wondered if he were dead either way.
"You have my word; if you tell me the truth, I won't shoot," the human said.
"Three. Technicians. They're to check the basement, the lobby and the two floors above it. This is just a security sweep. We," the vamp thought quickly, "we're part of a service. The owner hires us to monitor his security system."
"Any other sentries?" The human didn't blink at the lie, and the vamp hoped he bought it.
"No," the vamp said.
"What's the all-clear sign?" the human asked.
"What?" the vamp asked.
"How do you let who... ordered the sweep know that everything is fine?" the human asked.
"I file a report with my superior... Why do you need to know?" The vamp felt the stake and realized he was about to meet his partner's fate.
The last sound he heard before oblivion was a deep accented voice say, "Well, Pet, you kept your promise. You didn't shoot him."
~~~~~
Cordelia floored the gas pedal before taking the car out of park. Angel, of course, had dashed off to his car before the rest of them had made it out of the club. Gunn, Graham and Riley had run down the block to where Gunn's truck was parked and she had gotten Wes and the witches. Wes had parked Cordelia's car around the back of the club after taking Fred home. It seemed to take forever for the four of them to get in her little Neon. She swung out onto the main drag, cursing her father and missing the shiny red sports car she had had in high school. She knew Angel would get there first but hoped they would get there before the boys; the witches had the best shot at keeping down the body count. Fred might annoy her at times, but no one was hurting Cordelia Chase's family.
She saw a light change ahead and cut illegally through a gas station and out the other side, swinging back onto the street beyond of the paused traffic. Wes was braced in the front passenger side, hanging on to the 'oh shit' handle. The witches slid around the back seat, into each other and the doors. Cordelia spared a brief thought to the packages in the trunk and ran the next light.
~~~~~
Lilah waited for the elevator, then on a whim walked to the security station on that floor. She hoped that the guards had checked on Glorificus recently and she wouldn't have to risk a visit. She slowed as she heard voices arguing. Gavin was hissing out orders to one of the guards to send someone to check on his people.
"Well, well, you have people now? You are moving up in the world. What are you doing here Gavin? You're not on the list of people cleared to be in the building," Lilah said. She briefly turned her attention to the three security guards, who rapidly found some other place to be under her calculating stare.
"There... was a break down in communication. I was merely seeing that security continued to monitor an important project," he covered smoothly.
Lilah longed to make this obsequious boy sweat. How dare he think he could play in her league? Did he really thing she was as gullible as his last boss? His machinations had earned him a promotion but he had no idea the kind of players he was up against - she could work with that. Come to think of it, he might make the perfect fall guy when the Diva project went down the toilet. Now to just find out what kind of trouble he was up to on his own.
"Unfortunately for you, this kind of break in communications is fatal. I have the authority to have you executed for being here during a lockdown," Lilah said smoothly.
"What?" Gavin lost some of his oily smoothness as he looked around to see if they were alone.
"Don't even think about it," Lilah interrupted his train of thought. "What have you screwed up? I'm not having the senior partners find out I let a bumpkin like you stumble around a supposedly secure site."
"I haven't 'screwed up' anything. I sent a patrol over to sweep the Hyperion. Surveillance cut out this morning," he said.
"Surveillance?" Lilah hissed. "By whose authority did you plant surveillance equipment around Angel? This hasn't been sanctioned. You're going to end up as spare parts if 'your people' implicate Wolfram and Hart in any illegal activity. Angel is far too important for the likes of you to deal with - "
"MacDonald is back. He's staying in the hotel," Gavin said.
"What? Damn it! How long have you known?" Lilah glared.
"Less than twenty-four hours..." Gavin gulped at the look.
"And it never occurred to you that that might have something to do with your surveillance cutting out?" Lilah said.
~~~~~
Angel expected to see many things after finding the abandoned car out front, surrounded by the scent of holy water and two piles of dust. Two humans in black coveralls dangling upside-down from leg irons attached to the frame of the chandelier wasn't one of them. The chain that lifted and lowered the chandelier had been adjusted so that the human's faces hung at eye level. He knew the shackles would support their weight, having been designed to hold him, should it be necessary. However, he had his doubts about the ceiling joists of the old hotel, as his enhanced hearing picked up the ominous creaking from above.
The sound of scuffling from the stairway leading down to the parking garage and gym drew his attention away from the flailing humans. Xander manhandled his captive up the stairs and sent him sprawling onto the floor of the lobby. "Hey! Deadboy! Just in time for the fun. Let's make popcorn."
"Xander..." Angel's attention jarred once again, although he didn't take it entirely off of the wild-eyed young man, to the sound of Fred and Dawn coming down the stairs. They were helping Spike walk, one under each shoulder. Fred was apologizing at a rapid rate and Dawn was begging Spike not to kill Fred because Dawn liked her.
Xander's captive made the mistake of trying to stand, only to have one of Xander's large feet placed in the center of his back and push him flat onto the floor again. Xander ignored the man's cry as he was stepped on and crossed to his mate. "What happened?" Xander lead Spike to a couch and sent Dawn to get blood.
It was Fred, who came over to clutch Angel's arm, that broke his stunned speechlessness. "I'm so sorry I hurt your Childe, Angel. Really. I didn't mean to... well, it worked, the trap, and I meant that, but I didn't want that... not that I didn't want it to work, but I wanted it to work on whoever was here and well, he was here but he wasn't... I may have used to much centrifugal force..."
"We hid upstairs," Dawn clarified, as she sat on Spike's other side and offered him a mug of blood. "Fred and I made traps, she's real smart," Dawn directed the last comment to Xander, who merely nodded and stroked Spike's now-healing skull. "We rigged this real heavy fire thingy to fall when the door opened, um... a dead weight, right?" She looked at Fred, who nodded and scooted a bit further behind Angel. "It worked, but the bad guys never made it up that far, only Spike did. It fell, caught him square in the chest and sent him about twelve feet through the air to land head first in a plaster wall, which, by the way, is now pretty much toast."
"At least you didn't damage your piercing," Xander whispered, brushing his lips against his lover's hair.
"You got pierced? Oh, that's so cool! I want one!" Dawn said, just now noticing it.
"No, not until you're sixteen," Spike and Xander said together.
~~~~
Cordy pulled to a stop next to Angel's convertible just as Gunn's truck pulled up behind the Mercedes. When the two groups emerged from their respective vehicles, they looked at each other over the piles of dust and realized two things. One, all the lights in the lobby were on, and two, neither of them had grabbed Lindsey when they left the bar.
Together they filed through the main entrance, only to interrupt a fight between Angel and Xander over whether or not to add the third intruder to the chandelier. Dawn was sitting next to Spike, dabbing at his hair and remarking that she hoped the blood wouldn't ruin his new color. Fred walked out of the kitchen with an enormous pink bowl filled with popcorn, thus silencing Angel and Xander.
"Now there's a woman who knows how to think in a crisis," Xander said, relieving Fred of her burden and joining Spike and Dawn on the couch. "If we haven't told you," he added to Dawn, "we're very happy you got those calls out." She smiled and traded him her bowl of bloody water and her damp cloth for the popcorn.
Tara and Willow hugged Dawn and took her up to bed to debrief her on her day with Stephanie and make sure she was really as okay as she said she was. Cordy called Lorne, both to let him know Fred and Dawn were safe and to make sure he still had Lindsey. He did, and Gunn went to retrieve him, hopefully before Angel realized he had been misplaced.
~~~~~
Gavin drove by the Hyperion. The company car was parked out front and the services
van was down the block. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree, but no one
was outside. He let two security guards out and they each drove one of the vehicles
away. Once the lawyer was sure no one had seen them leave, he followed. He wondered
if he would be able to pad the Diva project with the cost of the missing team.
Judging from the ash on the Mercedes, Lilah was not going to be happy.
~~~~~
Xander yawned hugely. Angel had lowered the chandelier so that the intruders were on the floor, but had left the leg irons on them and still attached to the frame of the chandelier. He looked at Spike, who rolled his eyes. He could almost read Spike's mind. The fun was over. Angel wouldn't let them even scare humans. If it had been back in Sunnydale, Xander would have wrung out every last scrap of information out of them. He knew that whoever they worked for would terminate them, whether they talked or not, and if someone was out there gunning for him or his he wanted to know about it. But this was Angel's town and Angel's enemy; as long as his people weren't the target he would let Angel handle it. It wasn't like they would be here that long.
It was too late to pack up the girls and head for Sunnydale without risking getting stuck on the road at sunrise. Not to mention, Dawn's life would be utterly ruined if she didn't see designer boy tomorrow.
But unless Deadboy leveled with them tomorrow, they were out of here at sunset. Willow should be able to keep a magical eye on Dawn while she did the town with Cordy. They should be safe in public places, at least with the witches keeping an eye on them, magically speaking.
Xander figured Angel needed some privacy to talk this over with the fang gang. He wanted to hash this out with Spike; more than anyone, Xander trusted Spike's instincts when it came to protecting Dawn. They needed to talk, and Xander needed his lover's cool strong arms around him to help soothe the adrenaline that was still rushing through his system from this near miss. He caught Spike's eye and felt that odd vertigo that sometimes hit when they seemed to be almost one entity. He knew with utter certainty that Spike wanted to talk as well.
"Well, thanks for dinner. You got a real interesting town here, Deadboy. We're going to turn in. Good night," Xander said.
"Xander?" Cordelia said. "You're just going to bed?" She gestured to their captives.
Xander shrugged. "Not really our business, is it? Say good night, Spike."
"Good night, Spike," Spike said dutifully, winking at Fred as he went past.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18