Episode 2: The Wolves, My Love, Will Come (Part 3)
This is the third part of an episode, read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
The knock at the door was a welcome relief, and Angel looked up from his desk almost eagerly. It wasn’t that looking over next quarter’s projections gave him a headache - ok, it was - but his main problem was that it meant spending several hours alone with Hamilton, whose company left him almost able to taste the greasy taint of Wolfram & Hart on his soul. Harmony’s head appeared around the door, looking absently cheerful, and Angel hoped his sense of relief wasn’t misplaced.
“Wesley’s all done giving the new girl the tour, should I send them in?”
Angel nodded, asking Hamilton to excuse them, and suggesting they finished off the projections later. They both stood, and Wesley and Coral entered the room, followed by Harmony closing the door and skittering off back to her desk. Hamilton headed out, casting an interested look at Coral as he did.
“So,” Angel began, and was immediately interrupted by the phone ringing. Resisting the temptation to grab the handset and snap at the person on the other end, almost certain to be Harmony, he instead took a deep breath and calmly pressed the speakerphone button. The instant he did so, Gunn’s voice burst from the speaker, the audible levels of tension and worry in it were only exacerbated by his heavy breathing, making it obvious he was talking while running somewhere.
“We lost,” he said simply, “and have been ordered to cease all efforts to protect the pair of them. I’m on my way up, but I don’t think the wolves will be far behind me.”
*
All heads turned when the door to Angel’s office opened, and he stepped out into the main lobby with them, followed by another man slightly less clean shaven, and a blonde woman in her thirties, neither of whom Rose recognised. She might have given the other man a second glance, had he not been standing next to Angel - she couldn’t help it, tall, dark and brooding had always been her type - so she snuggled up closer to Ed. He’d know she’d been looking, after all, he always knew, and there was no harm in reassuring him that while she had him, the rest of the male population might as well be impotent. Though she had noticed him checking out Angel’s secretary, but his comments had revealed that he thought as little of her brain as Rose did of the girl’s blood-red outfit.
Dawn, the nicer secretary who had been chatting to them, had trailed after the vampire in the trenchcoat, leaving just the other one and the two of them in the lobby, and all now got up to head over to Angel and the others to hear the news. From the look on his face, it wasn’t good.
“We need to get you two out of here,” he said without preamble, clearly indicating Ed and herself.
“So much for demon justice,” Ed grumbled beside her, folding his arms. She slipped her arm around his waist, knowing her doing so always calmed him; the last thing they needed now was for someone to kick off.
“We can still protect you, but we lost the court case, which means we need to get you out of this building before the wolves arrive.”
“Where will you take them?” asked the man at his side anxiously, revealing a British accent, at which Angel paused, demanding options.
“Well, we have access to several holding dimensions,” he began, “but they’re all easily traceable from here.”
“The Initiative complex downtown is now vacated,” the girl suggested, which Angel clearly considered, but then dismissed aloud as being too exposed.
The other man, Wes, Angel had called him, rattled off a few more suggestions, all soon discarded, before the lift doors opened across the room, and Charles Gunn burst out into the room.
“We’ve got ten minutes, tops!”
He was panting heavily and covered in sweat, and Rose remembered the mile long walk through the sewers from the Pantheon they had travelled earlier, guessing he had just run it.
Gunn quickly joined the debate of where to go, and she listened closely until Ed took her hand in his and led her away to the secluded corner beneath the stairs. He looked worried, something she’d never really seen on him before. It wasn’t often that he showed his emotions at all, but fear she had certainly never witnessed. Wanting to comfort him, she clasped his hands with hers and pulled him close.
“I think we’d be making a mistake to run,” he whispered in her ear. She backed off to look into his eyes, aghast, before replying.
“You do know that, statistically speaking, it greatly reduces our chances of dying, don’t you?”
He made an exasperated sound, agreeing with her summary, but not her conclusion.
“If we start running now, we’ll never stop. They’ll always be chasing us, and we’re never gonna escape them.”
“Again, with the not dying,” she told him, “still an obvious advantage of the other plan.”
He looked at her kindly, a look she recognised, but always had trouble deciding if he was being sympathetic or patronising. Often, she suspected it was both. She’d like to think that in this case his caring side had taken precedence, but would also feel a little slighted if he hadn’t taken every possible opportunity to patronise - that would have been a sure sign that something was really wrong.
“We should fight them, here, and now. The wolves will come, but I don’t plan to go gently into that good night. Certainly not quietly.”
He looked off to one side a little, not distracted, but lost in his imagination as he continued.
“’Til shade is gone, ‘til water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last Day.”
She smiled and gave him a patient look, drawing him into an embrace and replying with her head against his chest, her smile coming through clearly in her voice.
“Yes dear. You know, you’ve really got to stop reading those fantasy novels.”
He smiled at her, and gently lifted a strand of hair away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
“As you command, my dragon mistress, my white lion of Andor.”
She sighed theatrically, raising a hand to her brow, and led Ed back to Angel, Gunn and the other two, still debating where would be best to hide them away.
“And here was me thinking time was an issue,” Ed grumbled in her ear, but loud enough that the rest of them could also hear. Angel opened his mouth to respond, but Rose stalled him with a hand on his arm.
“Forget it, we’re staying,” she told him, “Aragorn here thinks we’d be better off giving them a fight.”
Angel and Gunn both immediately burst out with protests, and as a result she heard neither. She looked blankly from one to the other, and after a few seconds they piped down. It was only then that the other man in the group spoke, Wes, his voice quiet and calm.
“There are at least 20 of them, and every one of them could kill you both without serious risk to its life. You saw how unintimidated they were by Angel last night, they have very little fear and a fierce pack mentality. I don’t think it’s a fight you have a hope of winning.”
“We can’t help you,” Gunn chipped in, “if we tried, it would only make things worse. We, as a company, can have nothing to do with this. Nor can any member of this company as an individual,” he said more forcefully, directing that last line at Angel, overriding his stammers of protest.
“Fine, I quit,” he snapped.
“Court order still counts,” Gunn responded instantly, and Angel’s face fell.
“So what we really need,” Wes said slowly, “is someone with enough firepower to take on the wolves, but no official connection to Wolfram & Hart.”
“Ah, if only we knew someone like that,” a voice called across the lobby to them, and Rose turned to spot the blond vampire she’d seen prancing around earlier sauntering towards them.
“Harmony,” he continued, turning to the vapid secretary and her lurid red dress, “do you know where we could find such a person?”
The girl looked at him blankly, clearly missing Dawn pointing emphatically at the vampire himself, who looked at her disparagingly for a moment before turning to Angel.
“How does this work? Do I go kill them and send you an invoice?”
Angel folded his arms and scowled, while Wes spoke up.
“Even with Illyria, you'd be hard pressed to take them all on, we've seen at least 20 of them.”
“And this isn't about killing the wolves,” Angel added, “it's about protecting these two.”
The blond vampire shrugged, unperturbed.
“Actually, it was the other bit I was more interested in, when do we get the money?”
Angel shifted to stand more confrontationally and opened his mouth, no doubt to snap, but Dawn slipped into the circle of conversation and forestalled them, laying a hand on the blond's arm and speaking to him quietly.
“I'll take care of it.”
Angel shot Dawn a venomous glance as she turned away, but it became a slightly envious one as she headed back to her desk, and he looked reproachfully at his own secretary, who of course missed it entirely.
“Don't be getting too upset if you happen to kill them all in the process,” Gunn said to the vampire quietly, who smiled wickedly back.
“Right,” Angel asked snidely, “well now we've decided it's ok to overwhelm them when they outnumber us, do we even need to worry about how?”
The other vampire looked at him confidently, almost as if savouring the moment, quickly casting his eye around. Rose had a sneaking suspicion he was checking to make sure everyone else was listening.
“As long as I’ve got Elizabeth, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
A short silence followed, first as the others waited for him to continue or explain, then as they looked at each other, almost dreading the answer to the obvious question. After a second or two, Wes took a breath and reluctantly asked.
“Elizabeth?”
Blondie stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, grinned at them and answered briefly.
“Big gun. Come and see!”
Gesturing enthusiastically with his arms, he led them over to his office, making sure every person in the lobby was coming with him. Dawn jumped up and ran to the door, likely at a discrete signal from him, throwing it open when the group got there. Rose followed closely behind the others, Ed taking her hand in his, and peered over their shoulders to try to see into the vampire's office.
“Well, the man wasn't lying,” Ed whispered in her ear, and just as he did so she caught sight of it, sitting on the floor beside an opened crate, and her jaw dropped. That really was a big gun. She didn't think anyone else was close enough to hear Angel whisper to the other vampire.
“You named your gun after...?”
“Yeah yeah, you'll get over it,” the blond interrupted, sauntering forwards into his office to stand proudly beside the, uh, cannon, on the carpet.
“And clearly you won't...” Angel added quietly, though judging from the flicker in the other vampire's eyes, he had heard. Enhanced vampire senses, she supposed.
Everyone else was still staring dumbstruck into the office, unable to speak, but it seemed Gunn was beginning to break the giant gun's hypnotic spell.
“See, if I'd have gone and bought a chaingun, y'all would have made jokes about drive-bys and gangster rap.”
Wes clapped a hand on Gunn’s shoulder in mock-consolation, before the woman in the group, blonde, and slightly older, who had otherwise stayed pretty quiet, spoke up.
“Actually, technically, that’s a minigun, as it has more than one barrel.”
Gunn nodded absently, then after a moment turned to stare at her. In silence, the others copied, one by one. Soon faced by a wall of people staring at her, she explained herself to the silent onlookers.
“I was with the military in South American jungle for 18 months. Ever seen Predator?”
A few more nods greeted this, but the quiet was only broken when the blond vampire spoke up, a little sheepishly.
“…Don’t suppose you could come with me and show me how to load the thing?”
The woman's eyes flicked to Angel for a second before responding.
“Sure.”
The blond bent down to lift the huge gun, slinging a thick strap over his shoulder to carry it with, as the woman turned to Angel again.
“Get going,” he said without hesitation.
*
It would have been more convenient for her if Los Angeles were red. The abundance of concrete and steel contrasted too severely with her carapace to make camouflage an effective strategy. She had once contemplated altering the hue of the appearance of her shell, yet the shell was now all she had, all she was, and she was unwilling to compromise her own existence as others required it. She would have found it more pleasing if the city were instead repainted to match her.
“It disgusts me that we are reduced to sneaking in this fashion,” she announced bitterly, “no less cowardly now it is my only viable option for survival.”
She spoke to Spike sideways as they walked, and he responded without halting his vigilance around them.
“Yeah, well, Lizzie here might be able to fix that, but let’s make sure she works first.”
He patted the side of the steel beast with affection, and only turned to her after a pause to finish his reply. Once a half-breed would have screamed for days for addressing her with such familiarity, now even she herself took only marginal offence, and she did not make it evident. All had come to nothing. The shell was truly all she had left.
“And that’s a Hell of a strong dose of self-loathing you’re on there.”
She glanced across at him quizzically, before looking to Wesley walking behind them as she replied.
“I learned from an expert.”
Illyria lacked practice at determining human facial expressions, and so was not certain if Wesley’s was amused or distant. Beside him walked the scientist, saying nothing, which Illyria respected. It troubled her that she felt respect for a creature she had rescued six days earlier, when she should have crushed one of such weakness, yet silence was such an infrequent occurrence among humans that she treasured it. She felt revulsion, knowing that this was to be her life now, escorting and protecting those weaker than her, a task far beneath her dignity.
“Here ought to do,” came the voice of the scientist, and Illyria surveyed their chosen site. Overlooking the entrance to the Wolfram & Hart structure, they had a fine view of the battlefield, and their elevated stance on the scaffold opposite the steps leading to the front entrance gave them an ideal location to rain violent justice upon their enemies. Illyria smiled at the notion, and the scientist, the one Spike had named as Coral, appeared intimidated. This, Illyria could also respect, too few in this world feared her as they rightfully should. And causing terror, pain and death were now what Spike had called her job description. Perhaps her new life would not be entirely without merit.
As she watched, the dark-haired vampire emerged from Wolfram & Hart, leading the tall man and the shorter woman. The vampire had called them clients, but Spike had used the term ‘bait.’ As soon as the three figures stepped out onto the concrete, a howl came from bushes nearby, echoing around the dark streets. Illyria instantly dropped to a crouch, and the howl was followed by several more, revealing concealed enemies on all sides, some within immediate proximity.
Illyria leapt sideways from the scaffold, her legs gliding over her head and down to bear her as she touched on the ground. Even in her weak form, she endeavoured to retain as much grace as her shell would permit. She remained pleasantly surprised by the delights of having hair, the way it would swing when she turned her head or threw herself into battle. She felt it cut through the air behind her as she spun to deliver swift kicks to ribcages, savouring the sound of each one imploding before the impacts carried them away from her.
She felt a slight pressure on the ankle that remained planted on the ground supporting her, and looked down to see one of the man-dogs attempting to sever it. She peered at the beast curiously, trying to understand why it thought it would be able to do damage to one of her stature, observing how its teeth ground ineffectively against the shell. Her curiosity lasted scant seconds before indignation took preference, and she tore the creature in half.
She extended her arm out behind her to catch the sword Spike threw, and swept it in a wide arc, decapitating two and severing the spine of a third. In death, these creatures made noises that would satisfy her, at least temporarily. She danced from end to end of the base of the scaffold, preventing any of the man-beasts from getting close enough to damage Spike, Wesley or the scientist.
The humans had again failed, with all their praise of the wondrous steel beast that would drive metal through the hearts of their enemies. She had been wrong to worry that she would be surplus to requirements, as the machine had yet to fell a single foe, and she had destroyed twenty seven. Twenty nine, she updated as she pirouetted and lunged again.
“Just a few more seconds,” Spike called down from the scaffold, and she adjusted her position to fend off the man-dogs, rather than to aggressively force them back. Though she had given him warning of the dishonour it would cause her, Spike had insisted that she retreat from the glorious fray once his new weapon was breathing fire, lest it cause harm to her shell.
She attacked with the broadsword a final time, aiming delicately, but without reducing the speed or force of her swing. The move opened up two throats, and bought her the time to climb up the side of the scaffold, ascending swiftly and effortlessly. Her arrival beside Spike coincided with the steel monster coming to life, and she watched as he directed its fire across their foes. The metal teeth tore apart the enemy, felling them in waves as crops before a flood.
Illyria bathed in the rich copper smell of blood, mixing with the fiery aroma coming from the cannon to bring her deep satisfaction, and she felt herself laughing and throwing her head back with delight she had not known in an age. The steel beast, Elizabeth, was good, she decided.
*
“So what happened? Where are Ed and Rose? Are they ok? Did you get all the wolves?”
Spike, sitting at his desk, was nearly driven backwards into the wall the second Dawn entered their office with an eager barrage of questions. He motioned at her with his hands to slow down, and when that made no audible difference, tried instead miming for her to remember to breathe. When she had finally run out of questions, Spike waited a second before responding, cherishing the silence.
“No, in a word. No, we got this lot, but they'll keep coming. And therefore no, the two of them are not ok, they're safe for now, but it won't last.”
Dawn appeared crestfallen, and Spike thought he normally would have tried to cheer her up, but the events had left him feeling rather gloomy himself.
“And where are they now?”
Leaning back in his chair and setting his feet up on the desk, Spike gave her a half smile. Across the room, Illyria was silently hanging her various swords and daggers back on their respective perches. Elizabeth sat in the middle of the floor, still gleaming.
“The girl mentioned heading out of town, I don't know if she'll be taking him with her.”
Dawn's eyes widened in surprise, and Spike remembered seeing her speaking with the couple earlier. Bonding with the clients, never a good move.
“Turns out,” he continued, “that it's actually only the girl that the wolves are after. Don't know why, some archaic tradition I think. But the pair of them know that now, and I don't know how they plan to deal with it.”
Spike's eyebrow raised only a little as he noticed Dawn help herself to the chair beside the door, crossing her legs as she sat down, looking concerned.
“Their chances of victory are significantly increased if they are together,” Illyria chipped in.
“This is true, but that means dragging the bloke into mortal peril completely unnecessarily.”
Spike watched as both girls appeared to consider that, one staring out of the window and frowning slightly, searching for a solution, the other with her head askew, blue pupils impossibly wide.
“If they stay together, they'll be happier, but never at peace,” Dawn began.
“And apart, they will live longer, but remain in misery,” Illyria finished.
“And there you have it,” Spike said into the silence that followed. “Love is the most terrible force in the world.”
6.02: The Wolves, My Love, Will Come, of Angel: Still Falling, written by Out For Bloody Summer and edited by Monotone, is original work copyright 2009. Please seek permission from the authors before distributing, and only do so on the condition that the original text and this notice are intact and no charge or fee of any description is levied for it. "Angel" and all related properties are trademarks of and copyright 20th Century Fox Television, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Telecision, and David Greenwalt Productions. The authors are not connected in any way with the copyright owners. No copyright infringement is intended or implied by this non-commercial exercise. All characters and events depicted here are entirely ficticious, which is probably a good thing. Hope you enjoyed the show, all comments welcome, but please see the extended setup blog for our policies on replying. Join us next time for Episode 3.
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The knock at the door was a welcome relief, and Angel looked up from his desk almost eagerly. It wasn’t that looking over next quarter’s projections gave him a headache - ok, it was - but his main problem was that it meant spending several hours alone with Hamilton, whose company left him almost able to taste the greasy taint of Wolfram & Hart on his soul. Harmony’s head appeared around the door, looking absently cheerful, and Angel hoped his sense of relief wasn’t misplaced.
“Wesley’s all done giving the new girl the tour, should I send them in?”
Angel nodded, asking Hamilton to excuse them, and suggesting they finished off the projections later. They both stood, and Wesley and Coral entered the room, followed by Harmony closing the door and skittering off back to her desk. Hamilton headed out, casting an interested look at Coral as he did.
“So,” Angel began, and was immediately interrupted by the phone ringing. Resisting the temptation to grab the handset and snap at the person on the other end, almost certain to be Harmony, he instead took a deep breath and calmly pressed the speakerphone button. The instant he did so, Gunn’s voice burst from the speaker, the audible levels of tension and worry in it were only exacerbated by his heavy breathing, making it obvious he was talking while running somewhere.
“We lost,” he said simply, “and have been ordered to cease all efforts to protect the pair of them. I’m on my way up, but I don’t think the wolves will be far behind me.”
*
All heads turned when the door to Angel’s office opened, and he stepped out into the main lobby with them, followed by another man slightly less clean shaven, and a blonde woman in her thirties, neither of whom Rose recognised. She might have given the other man a second glance, had he not been standing next to Angel - she couldn’t help it, tall, dark and brooding had always been her type - so she snuggled up closer to Ed. He’d know she’d been looking, after all, he always knew, and there was no harm in reassuring him that while she had him, the rest of the male population might as well be impotent. Though she had noticed him checking out Angel’s secretary, but his comments had revealed that he thought as little of her brain as Rose did of the girl’s blood-red outfit.
Dawn, the nicer secretary who had been chatting to them, had trailed after the vampire in the trenchcoat, leaving just the other one and the two of them in the lobby, and all now got up to head over to Angel and the others to hear the news. From the look on his face, it wasn’t good.
“We need to get you two out of here,” he said without preamble, clearly indicating Ed and herself.
“So much for demon justice,” Ed grumbled beside her, folding his arms. She slipped her arm around his waist, knowing her doing so always calmed him; the last thing they needed now was for someone to kick off.
“We can still protect you, but we lost the court case, which means we need to get you out of this building before the wolves arrive.”
“Where will you take them?” asked the man at his side anxiously, revealing a British accent, at which Angel paused, demanding options.
“Well, we have access to several holding dimensions,” he began, “but they’re all easily traceable from here.”
“The Initiative complex downtown is now vacated,” the girl suggested, which Angel clearly considered, but then dismissed aloud as being too exposed.
The other man, Wes, Angel had called him, rattled off a few more suggestions, all soon discarded, before the lift doors opened across the room, and Charles Gunn burst out into the room.
“We’ve got ten minutes, tops!”
He was panting heavily and covered in sweat, and Rose remembered the mile long walk through the sewers from the Pantheon they had travelled earlier, guessing he had just run it.
Gunn quickly joined the debate of where to go, and she listened closely until Ed took her hand in his and led her away to the secluded corner beneath the stairs. He looked worried, something she’d never really seen on him before. It wasn’t often that he showed his emotions at all, but fear she had certainly never witnessed. Wanting to comfort him, she clasped his hands with hers and pulled him close.
“I think we’d be making a mistake to run,” he whispered in her ear. She backed off to look into his eyes, aghast, before replying.
“You do know that, statistically speaking, it greatly reduces our chances of dying, don’t you?”
He made an exasperated sound, agreeing with her summary, but not her conclusion.
“If we start running now, we’ll never stop. They’ll always be chasing us, and we’re never gonna escape them.”
“Again, with the not dying,” she told him, “still an obvious advantage of the other plan.”
He looked at her kindly, a look she recognised, but always had trouble deciding if he was being sympathetic or patronising. Often, she suspected it was both. She’d like to think that in this case his caring side had taken precedence, but would also feel a little slighted if he hadn’t taken every possible opportunity to patronise - that would have been a sure sign that something was really wrong.
“We should fight them, here, and now. The wolves will come, but I don’t plan to go gently into that good night. Certainly not quietly.”
He looked off to one side a little, not distracted, but lost in his imagination as he continued.
“’Til shade is gone, ‘til water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last Day.”
She smiled and gave him a patient look, drawing him into an embrace and replying with her head against his chest, her smile coming through clearly in her voice.
“Yes dear. You know, you’ve really got to stop reading those fantasy novels.”
He smiled at her, and gently lifted a strand of hair away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
“As you command, my dragon mistress, my white lion of Andor.”
She sighed theatrically, raising a hand to her brow, and led Ed back to Angel, Gunn and the other two, still debating where would be best to hide them away.
“And here was me thinking time was an issue,” Ed grumbled in her ear, but loud enough that the rest of them could also hear. Angel opened his mouth to respond, but Rose stalled him with a hand on his arm.
“Forget it, we’re staying,” she told him, “Aragorn here thinks we’d be better off giving them a fight.”
Angel and Gunn both immediately burst out with protests, and as a result she heard neither. She looked blankly from one to the other, and after a few seconds they piped down. It was only then that the other man in the group spoke, Wes, his voice quiet and calm.
“There are at least 20 of them, and every one of them could kill you both without serious risk to its life. You saw how unintimidated they were by Angel last night, they have very little fear and a fierce pack mentality. I don’t think it’s a fight you have a hope of winning.”
“We can’t help you,” Gunn chipped in, “if we tried, it would only make things worse. We, as a company, can have nothing to do with this. Nor can any member of this company as an individual,” he said more forcefully, directing that last line at Angel, overriding his stammers of protest.
“Fine, I quit,” he snapped.
“Court order still counts,” Gunn responded instantly, and Angel’s face fell.
“So what we really need,” Wes said slowly, “is someone with enough firepower to take on the wolves, but no official connection to Wolfram & Hart.”
“Ah, if only we knew someone like that,” a voice called across the lobby to them, and Rose turned to spot the blond vampire she’d seen prancing around earlier sauntering towards them.
“Harmony,” he continued, turning to the vapid secretary and her lurid red dress, “do you know where we could find such a person?”
The girl looked at him blankly, clearly missing Dawn pointing emphatically at the vampire himself, who looked at her disparagingly for a moment before turning to Angel.
“How does this work? Do I go kill them and send you an invoice?”
Angel folded his arms and scowled, while Wes spoke up.
“Even with Illyria, you'd be hard pressed to take them all on, we've seen at least 20 of them.”
“And this isn't about killing the wolves,” Angel added, “it's about protecting these two.”
The blond vampire shrugged, unperturbed.
“Actually, it was the other bit I was more interested in, when do we get the money?”
Angel shifted to stand more confrontationally and opened his mouth, no doubt to snap, but Dawn slipped into the circle of conversation and forestalled them, laying a hand on the blond's arm and speaking to him quietly.
“I'll take care of it.”
Angel shot Dawn a venomous glance as she turned away, but it became a slightly envious one as she headed back to her desk, and he looked reproachfully at his own secretary, who of course missed it entirely.
“Don't be getting too upset if you happen to kill them all in the process,” Gunn said to the vampire quietly, who smiled wickedly back.
“Right,” Angel asked snidely, “well now we've decided it's ok to overwhelm them when they outnumber us, do we even need to worry about how?”
The other vampire looked at him confidently, almost as if savouring the moment, quickly casting his eye around. Rose had a sneaking suspicion he was checking to make sure everyone else was listening.
“As long as I’ve got Elizabeth, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
A short silence followed, first as the others waited for him to continue or explain, then as they looked at each other, almost dreading the answer to the obvious question. After a second or two, Wes took a breath and reluctantly asked.
“Elizabeth?”
Blondie stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, grinned at them and answered briefly.
“Big gun. Come and see!”
Gesturing enthusiastically with his arms, he led them over to his office, making sure every person in the lobby was coming with him. Dawn jumped up and ran to the door, likely at a discrete signal from him, throwing it open when the group got there. Rose followed closely behind the others, Ed taking her hand in his, and peered over their shoulders to try to see into the vampire's office.
“Well, the man wasn't lying,” Ed whispered in her ear, and just as he did so she caught sight of it, sitting on the floor beside an opened crate, and her jaw dropped. That really was a big gun. She didn't think anyone else was close enough to hear Angel whisper to the other vampire.
“You named your gun after...?”
“Yeah yeah, you'll get over it,” the blond interrupted, sauntering forwards into his office to stand proudly beside the, uh, cannon, on the carpet.
“And clearly you won't...” Angel added quietly, though judging from the flicker in the other vampire's eyes, he had heard. Enhanced vampire senses, she supposed.
Everyone else was still staring dumbstruck into the office, unable to speak, but it seemed Gunn was beginning to break the giant gun's hypnotic spell.
“See, if I'd have gone and bought a chaingun, y'all would have made jokes about drive-bys and gangster rap.”
Wes clapped a hand on Gunn’s shoulder in mock-consolation, before the woman in the group, blonde, and slightly older, who had otherwise stayed pretty quiet, spoke up.
“Actually, technically, that’s a minigun, as it has more than one barrel.”
Gunn nodded absently, then after a moment turned to stare at her. In silence, the others copied, one by one. Soon faced by a wall of people staring at her, she explained herself to the silent onlookers.
“I was with the military in South American jungle for 18 months. Ever seen Predator?”
A few more nods greeted this, but the quiet was only broken when the blond vampire spoke up, a little sheepishly.
“…Don’t suppose you could come with me and show me how to load the thing?”
The woman's eyes flicked to Angel for a second before responding.
“Sure.”
The blond bent down to lift the huge gun, slinging a thick strap over his shoulder to carry it with, as the woman turned to Angel again.
“Get going,” he said without hesitation.
*
It would have been more convenient for her if Los Angeles were red. The abundance of concrete and steel contrasted too severely with her carapace to make camouflage an effective strategy. She had once contemplated altering the hue of the appearance of her shell, yet the shell was now all she had, all she was, and she was unwilling to compromise her own existence as others required it. She would have found it more pleasing if the city were instead repainted to match her.
“It disgusts me that we are reduced to sneaking in this fashion,” she announced bitterly, “no less cowardly now it is my only viable option for survival.”
She spoke to Spike sideways as they walked, and he responded without halting his vigilance around them.
“Yeah, well, Lizzie here might be able to fix that, but let’s make sure she works first.”
He patted the side of the steel beast with affection, and only turned to her after a pause to finish his reply. Once a half-breed would have screamed for days for addressing her with such familiarity, now even she herself took only marginal offence, and she did not make it evident. All had come to nothing. The shell was truly all she had left.
“And that’s a Hell of a strong dose of self-loathing you’re on there.”
She glanced across at him quizzically, before looking to Wesley walking behind them as she replied.
“I learned from an expert.”
Illyria lacked practice at determining human facial expressions, and so was not certain if Wesley’s was amused or distant. Beside him walked the scientist, saying nothing, which Illyria respected. It troubled her that she felt respect for a creature she had rescued six days earlier, when she should have crushed one of such weakness, yet silence was such an infrequent occurrence among humans that she treasured it. She felt revulsion, knowing that this was to be her life now, escorting and protecting those weaker than her, a task far beneath her dignity.
“Here ought to do,” came the voice of the scientist, and Illyria surveyed their chosen site. Overlooking the entrance to the Wolfram & Hart structure, they had a fine view of the battlefield, and their elevated stance on the scaffold opposite the steps leading to the front entrance gave them an ideal location to rain violent justice upon their enemies. Illyria smiled at the notion, and the scientist, the one Spike had named as Coral, appeared intimidated. This, Illyria could also respect, too few in this world feared her as they rightfully should. And causing terror, pain and death were now what Spike had called her job description. Perhaps her new life would not be entirely without merit.
As she watched, the dark-haired vampire emerged from Wolfram & Hart, leading the tall man and the shorter woman. The vampire had called them clients, but Spike had used the term ‘bait.’ As soon as the three figures stepped out onto the concrete, a howl came from bushes nearby, echoing around the dark streets. Illyria instantly dropped to a crouch, and the howl was followed by several more, revealing concealed enemies on all sides, some within immediate proximity.
Illyria leapt sideways from the scaffold, her legs gliding over her head and down to bear her as she touched on the ground. Even in her weak form, she endeavoured to retain as much grace as her shell would permit. She remained pleasantly surprised by the delights of having hair, the way it would swing when she turned her head or threw herself into battle. She felt it cut through the air behind her as she spun to deliver swift kicks to ribcages, savouring the sound of each one imploding before the impacts carried them away from her.
She felt a slight pressure on the ankle that remained planted on the ground supporting her, and looked down to see one of the man-dogs attempting to sever it. She peered at the beast curiously, trying to understand why it thought it would be able to do damage to one of her stature, observing how its teeth ground ineffectively against the shell. Her curiosity lasted scant seconds before indignation took preference, and she tore the creature in half.
She extended her arm out behind her to catch the sword Spike threw, and swept it in a wide arc, decapitating two and severing the spine of a third. In death, these creatures made noises that would satisfy her, at least temporarily. She danced from end to end of the base of the scaffold, preventing any of the man-beasts from getting close enough to damage Spike, Wesley or the scientist.
The humans had again failed, with all their praise of the wondrous steel beast that would drive metal through the hearts of their enemies. She had been wrong to worry that she would be surplus to requirements, as the machine had yet to fell a single foe, and she had destroyed twenty seven. Twenty nine, she updated as she pirouetted and lunged again.
“Just a few more seconds,” Spike called down from the scaffold, and she adjusted her position to fend off the man-dogs, rather than to aggressively force them back. Though she had given him warning of the dishonour it would cause her, Spike had insisted that she retreat from the glorious fray once his new weapon was breathing fire, lest it cause harm to her shell.
She attacked with the broadsword a final time, aiming delicately, but without reducing the speed or force of her swing. The move opened up two throats, and bought her the time to climb up the side of the scaffold, ascending swiftly and effortlessly. Her arrival beside Spike coincided with the steel monster coming to life, and she watched as he directed its fire across their foes. The metal teeth tore apart the enemy, felling them in waves as crops before a flood.
Illyria bathed in the rich copper smell of blood, mixing with the fiery aroma coming from the cannon to bring her deep satisfaction, and she felt herself laughing and throwing her head back with delight she had not known in an age. The steel beast, Elizabeth, was good, she decided.
*
“So what happened? Where are Ed and Rose? Are they ok? Did you get all the wolves?”
Spike, sitting at his desk, was nearly driven backwards into the wall the second Dawn entered their office with an eager barrage of questions. He motioned at her with his hands to slow down, and when that made no audible difference, tried instead miming for her to remember to breathe. When she had finally run out of questions, Spike waited a second before responding, cherishing the silence.
“No, in a word. No, we got this lot, but they'll keep coming. And therefore no, the two of them are not ok, they're safe for now, but it won't last.”
Dawn appeared crestfallen, and Spike thought he normally would have tried to cheer her up, but the events had left him feeling rather gloomy himself.
“And where are they now?”
Leaning back in his chair and setting his feet up on the desk, Spike gave her a half smile. Across the room, Illyria was silently hanging her various swords and daggers back on their respective perches. Elizabeth sat in the middle of the floor, still gleaming.
“The girl mentioned heading out of town, I don't know if she'll be taking him with her.”
Dawn's eyes widened in surprise, and Spike remembered seeing her speaking with the couple earlier. Bonding with the clients, never a good move.
“Turns out,” he continued, “that it's actually only the girl that the wolves are after. Don't know why, some archaic tradition I think. But the pair of them know that now, and I don't know how they plan to deal with it.”
Spike's eyebrow raised only a little as he noticed Dawn help herself to the chair beside the door, crossing her legs as she sat down, looking concerned.
“Their chances of victory are significantly increased if they are together,” Illyria chipped in.
“This is true, but that means dragging the bloke into mortal peril completely unnecessarily.”
Spike watched as both girls appeared to consider that, one staring out of the window and frowning slightly, searching for a solution, the other with her head askew, blue pupils impossibly wide.
“If they stay together, they'll be happier, but never at peace,” Dawn began.
“And apart, they will live longer, but remain in misery,” Illyria finished.
“And there you have it,” Spike said into the silence that followed. “Love is the most terrible force in the world.”
6.02: The Wolves, My Love, Will Come, of Angel: Still Falling, written by Out For Bloody Summer and edited by Monotone, is original work copyright 2009. Please seek permission from the authors before distributing, and only do so on the condition that the original text and this notice are intact and no charge or fee of any description is levied for it. "Angel" and all related properties are trademarks of and copyright 20th Century Fox Television, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Telecision, and David Greenwalt Productions. The authors are not connected in any way with the copyright owners. No copyright infringement is intended or implied by this non-commercial exercise. All characters and events depicted here are entirely ficticious, which is probably a good thing. Hope you enjoyed the show, all comments welcome, but please see the extended setup blog for our policies on replying. Join us next time for Episode 3.
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