Best Souvenir
A/N: I can't even begin to express how much a2zmom influenced this chapter. She guided me in turning it from something I hated into something that's bearable. Many of the best lines are flat out hers. I can't begin to express how grateful I am or how wonderful it is to work with someone who understands these characters like she does.
Chapter 8
“Guten Tag,” he replied to someone on the other end, and then proceeded to fire off a rapid stream of German.
Buffy’s eyes widened. How come the smelly bum she had found on the side of the road knew German? She’d thought he was nothing but a fledgling with hygiene issues and a chip, and the plan had originally been to beat him until he helped her find out about Angelus so she could stake him. All of the sudden, he was Angelus, and he wasn’t smelly, and she wasn’t staking him. Now he was helping her voluntarily, saying he had a Swiss bank account, and speaking perfect German. The language sounded violent, guttural, and somehow sexy coming from his throat.
An alarm bell went off in Buffy’s head. “Hey.” Angel went on talking. “Hey!” she snapped, more loudly. “Angel. In English. You know, Ingles?”
This time, Angel moved the phone away from his mouth when he spoke to her. “Buffy, he’s Swiss. Was?” he murmured, bringing the phone up again. “Nein. ”
“I don’t care what kind of cheese he is,” Buffy said flatly, her tone brooking no protest. “If you’re making plans to kill me or ambush me, I want you to do it in English so I can stake you before they get here. Got it?”
Angel looked at her for a moment, then briefly nodded his assent. “Entschuldigen Sie bitte,” he said into the phone. “I want to conduct this transaction in English. Yes, you understand.”
The alarm bells in Buffy’s head increased in volume tenfold. He said “you understand” forcefully, as if he didn’t expect the person on the other end to disobey, as if he was someone used to getting what he wanted. Buffy’s eyes narrowed as she examined his expression-not hesitant, not petulant, not frustrated. He was rattling off numbers and dates into the phone, his voice was smooth, confident, condescending, even. He looked firm, intelligent, in control. He was no longer slouching, and Buffy noticed for the first time just how broad his shoulders were, how powerful. His hands were no longer just big and sexy, either; they looked strong, capable. They were hands that could kill a man with little or no effort.
She’d given him her phone with a mixture of skepticism and amusement. An impotent, homeless vampire with a hang up on fashion designers was going to get her a tub with jets? At the time, it had been funny. Now, it was no laughing matter. He could be speaking in code, for all she knew, hiring vampire henchmen to gang up on her after all.
She was of half a mind to jump up and grab the cell from his disgustingly white hand. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was a bum and she was the Slayer. She was in control; she called the shots; vampires were beneath her and this one shouldn’t be different than any other.
She heard Angel’s voice rise. “No,” he said, his tone hard and distinct. “No,” he repeated forcefully into the phone, after he had waited a moment. “Not likely. I won’t be-” He stood up, pacing back and forth across the room, ignoring where Buffy sat on the bed. When he spoke, his voice was impatient. “Yes, but you can’t-” A pause. Angel’s jaw was set tightly, his eyes dark and impenetrable. “Yes. Yes, I see.” He paused, and she could see fury blaze briefly in his eyes. “No. I will get back to you.” He took the phone away from his face and stared at it for a moment, his hand convulsively clenching around it. “I want to hang up on them,” he growled lowly, thrusting the phone at her. “How do I do it?”
Buffy’s lips twitched. She took the phone and looked at it, as if studying it. “Well,” she said thoughtfully, “you press ‘end.’”
He scowled and grabbed the phone back. After a moment, he pressed a button, then tossed the phone on the bed in disgust. He stalked over to the chair and flung himself into it, looking frustrated and intensely unhappy.
Buffy suddenly felt much better. He may be able to conjure up that commanding, no-nonsense aura, but that didn’t mean anyone was going to listen to him. He couldn’t even hang up a cell phone.
Still, a part of her was annoyed-at herself, for not taking into account when she gave him free reign of her cell that this vampire was more than he seemed, and at him, for . . . for speaking German so well. She still needed to be careful, to find out what exactly was up with this guy. “So,” she said, her voice purposely very even, “how did it go?”
“They wouldn’t give me my money.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, some of the tension leaving him as he waved a hand in the vague direction of the phone. “It wasn’t like I remembered. They’ve upped security. I haven’t accessed the account in a long time and . . . they want to make sure I’m who I say I am.”
“Well, can’t you prove you’re you somehow?”
His eyes met hers briefly, then quickly, uncomfortably sidled away. “They wanted me to arrange a meeting. They happen to have an executive in Manhattan on business tonight. I think he just needs to see me to verify that I’m still. . . Angelus.”
Buffy pursed her lips and asked bluntly, “Are you still Angelus?”
Suddenly, he looked miserable. “I don’t have much of a choice about that.”
She shrugged. “So, tell them. Go see ‘em and make ‘em give you your money bags.” She tilted her head. “Does it come in bags? With dollar signs, like on Duck Tales.”
His eyes jerked back to hers, startled. Then he closed his mouth, swallowing. “Alright, Buffy,” he said softly, eyes steady on hers. “While I’m out, I’ll catch a show. Maybe if I get hungry afterwards,” he added, “I’ll grab a neck to eat.”
Buffy inhaled sharply. She wasn’t sure whether she’d really meant that he should meet with the bank alone, conveniently forgetting that he was a dangerous vampire she wanted to keep chained to her radiator, or whether she hadn’t even thought about it when she made the suggestion. Either way, she wasn’t being careful, and it ticked her off. “I’d go with you, of course,” she said irritably.
“No.”
“What?” she demanded, unsure whether she’d heard right.
“No, you couldn’t go with me.”
Buffy studied him for a moment. “See, usually a vampire tells me ‘no, don’t do that,’ when I’m about to put part of a picket fence through him. The funny part is I do it anyway. Because getting told what to do by blood breath? So not my thing.”
“It’s the bank,” Angel explained, standing up. He turned away, running an impatient hand through unkempt hair. “It’s evil.”
Buffy made a face. “What bank isn’t?”
Angel shook his head, swinging back to face her. “EEK is an arm of the demon world. It’s run by humans, but it has a demonic clientele, and its shareholders don't have any moral qualms. If the bank or the clients think their secrecy is threatened, they’ll take care of it the way demons do. If I came with the Slayer, they'd assume me and all of my connections were a liability. I wouldn't get the money, and we'd probably both be dead.”
Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me you were trying to get money out of a demonic bank which would come and kill me if they knew just who’s cell phone you were using?”
He looked mildly defensive. “I told you it was chartered by vampires.”
He was right; she should have known. In fact, she should just be assuming the worst when it came to Angel. After all, the Immortal was after him, and the Immortal had his finger in many evil, demonic pies. Which, come to think of it, might actually prove convenient in this instance. Crossing her arms over her chest, Buffy tapped her fingers on her elbow. “An arm of the demon world?” she repeated slowly. Tilting her head, she asked, “Are we talking severed arm, or well-attached and functioning arm?”
“What?”
“I mean, is this bank of yours well connected? High profile? All that ‘know how to win friends and influence people’ mumbo-jumbo?”
“What are you saying?”
“We could use this,” she said, biting her lip. She glanced at him quickly and amended, “I could use this. Look, the Immortal and I have been playing Where’s Waldo for three weeks, and I’m just lucky I found you first. But this-conveniently evil, thank you-bank could send your name down the demon grapevine and bring the Immortal’s little pretties straight to you in a jiffy. Then I could figure out what the Immortal wants with you. And kill a lot of bad guys in the process.”
The idea was growing on her. Information with a side of carnage was always good. Besides, whenever the world was being threatened (which was, admittedly, always) it felt good to have a plan, even a hackneyed crazy one. In fact, hackneyed crazy ones were the best kind, because that kind was hers, and her plans worked. Most of the time. Buffy tapped her lip, brow furrowing. “The evil tellers don’t know I’m the Slayer. Can’t we just, you know, not tell them?”
Angel shook his head. “They'd know right away you’re human,” he pointed out.
“Thought you said it was run by humans?”
“For the most part. I’m not exactly sure how they work. But they would know.”
“And me being human and you being a vampire and us being together isn’t exactly kosher,” Buffy said thoughtfully. Impatiently, she waved a hand. “There has to be a way.”
Angel merely stared at her, his muscles tense, his features impassive. For a single, strange moment, she felt as though the air in the space between them was thinner somehow, and it was hard to breathe.
Resolutely, she began to pace, as if that could break the pull of his stare. Instead she could feel his eyes following her, and all she could think of was the feel of his gaze on her skin. She wondered whether he was doing it on purpose, distracting her from thinking of a solution simply by a look on his face. He could, she realized once again, have the capacity for a little bit of thrall.
Buffy stopped suddenly. An image of Xander sucking on spiders slipped through her mind. Riley confessing something, and being . . . ashamed. And . . . Giles? “Dracubabes,” Buffy announced happily.
“What?”
“Dracula’s skank trio. Think Christina Aguilera, multiplied by three and even sluttier. Anyway, they had a thing for my Watcher. I don’t think they wanted to turn him, more make him their boy toy. And that’s disturbing on about a million levels. Wouldn’t something like that work?”
“Lovers,” Angel concluded flatly. “You want us to pretend to be lovers.”
Buffy felt as though she’d landed on a solution of which he’d been perfectly well aware. He stood stock still, staring at her in the exact same way-as if willing her to think of a different answer. Buffy shifted her weight, feeling as if she’d somehow been left behind in this conversation and not liking the feeling. “You mean like-like,” she started. “Um. I could pretend to be your girlfriend.”
“Sort of.” His hand curled into a fist at his side. “No. Not . . . really,” he said, gritting his teeth. “You could pose as my . . . mate. Which,” he continued, as if grudging the explanation, “would excuse your . . . humanity.”
“Well?” Buffy put her hands on her hips, annoyed that she was still obviously missing something. “Girlfriend, mate, potato, pahtado. Sounds like semantics to me.”
“You’d be-” He quickly changed the direction of his sentence. “It’s more involved than . . . that.”
Buffy scowled. “You mean I’d be like your wife?”
His eyes widened momentarily, still fixed on the floor. “Vampires don’t . . .” His hand jerked in a small, awkward movement, the first uncontrolled move she’d seen him make. Then his eyes went dark again, impassive, and he was very, very still. “Matrimony is holy. This . . . wouldn’t be.”
Involuntarily, Buffy’s gaze darted toward the bed. Just as quickly as he had, she looked away. She swallowed. “You mean because there’s a lot of biting,” she announced abruptly, lifting her chin. “You’d be drinking my blood and stuff.”
“No.” Angel’s lips were a flat line, his eyes burning little holes into the floor. “No,” he said again, more softly.
“Well, it’s not like I’d ever let you bite me,” she said. She was nibbling on her lips, thinking. Abruptly, she nodded. “But this could work. I could be like . . . your own personal donor. This evil EEK ought to understand that. You know, one bank to another. Blood, blood money, it’s all the same, really.” She went over to the bed and picked up the phone. “Let’s call them and find out.”
Angel frowned at the phone, his eyes flicking from it to her and back again until they came to rest on her at last. “If EEK finds out who you really are, they’ll come for you. And they’re not people you want to upset.”
She was unconcerned. “I’ve upset worse. I upset a god. I upset the root of all evil. I upset a lady with a snake head that looked kinda like a penis, and found out Doublemeat is a vegetarian enterprise. And the fast food conglomerate? Now those are people you don’t want to upset. So you know what? I’m all set up for some upsetting.”
He shook his head, stepping forward. “We don’t even know how many of the Immortal’s lackeys are actually here in Manhattan.”
Buffy shrugged dismissively, resisting the urge to back up. “I’ve taken them on before.”
He stepped forward again, nodding, acknowledging the truth of her words. “But not en masse,” he added. He took another step forward, now so close it would be so easy to touch him. “And not while fighting EEK at the same time.”
“And yet, somehow, I’m not afraid.”
Brown eyes peered down at her, hot, intent, thoughtful. “Maybe you should be,” he said softly.
He was standing much, much too close. There were tingles all down her spine, and her palms were beginning to sweat. It wasn’t fair that he could do this to her. She reached out, grabbed his hand, jerked it up, and placed the phone into it. Then she closed his fingers over it in a fist, her other hand still in a hard grip on his wrist. “I’m tired, Angel,” she grit out. “I’m tired of the Immortal and I’m tired of New York and I’m tired of you. I just want to get rid of you so I can go home and have some peace and quiet. Now call your bank and tell them we’re coming, or I’ll be forced to do something even more drastic.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to disobey her. There was a flash of something across his face, something like longing, and then his eyes dropped to where her hands held his fist. His other hand covered hers, his fingers cool, and then he began to pry her fingers loose. Realizing that he couldn’t call anywhere if she was locking his hand over the phone that way, she let go. He didn’t look at her, and turned away. She saw him dial, and bring the phone up to his face. His back was like a wall.
Go to: Chapter Nine
Chapter 8
“Guten Tag,” he replied to someone on the other end, and then proceeded to fire off a rapid stream of German.
Buffy’s eyes widened. How come the smelly bum she had found on the side of the road knew German? She’d thought he was nothing but a fledgling with hygiene issues and a chip, and the plan had originally been to beat him until he helped her find out about Angelus so she could stake him. All of the sudden, he was Angelus, and he wasn’t smelly, and she wasn’t staking him. Now he was helping her voluntarily, saying he had a Swiss bank account, and speaking perfect German. The language sounded violent, guttural, and somehow sexy coming from his throat.
An alarm bell went off in Buffy’s head. “Hey.” Angel went on talking. “Hey!” she snapped, more loudly. “Angel. In English. You know, Ingles?”
This time, Angel moved the phone away from his mouth when he spoke to her. “Buffy, he’s Swiss. Was?” he murmured, bringing the phone up again. “Nein. ”
“I don’t care what kind of cheese he is,” Buffy said flatly, her tone brooking no protest. “If you’re making plans to kill me or ambush me, I want you to do it in English so I can stake you before they get here. Got it?”
Angel looked at her for a moment, then briefly nodded his assent. “Entschuldigen Sie bitte,” he said into the phone. “I want to conduct this transaction in English. Yes, you understand.”
The alarm bells in Buffy’s head increased in volume tenfold. He said “you understand” forcefully, as if he didn’t expect the person on the other end to disobey, as if he was someone used to getting what he wanted. Buffy’s eyes narrowed as she examined his expression-not hesitant, not petulant, not frustrated. He was rattling off numbers and dates into the phone, his voice was smooth, confident, condescending, even. He looked firm, intelligent, in control. He was no longer slouching, and Buffy noticed for the first time just how broad his shoulders were, how powerful. His hands were no longer just big and sexy, either; they looked strong, capable. They were hands that could kill a man with little or no effort.
She’d given him her phone with a mixture of skepticism and amusement. An impotent, homeless vampire with a hang up on fashion designers was going to get her a tub with jets? At the time, it had been funny. Now, it was no laughing matter. He could be speaking in code, for all she knew, hiring vampire henchmen to gang up on her after all.
She was of half a mind to jump up and grab the cell from his disgustingly white hand. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was a bum and she was the Slayer. She was in control; she called the shots; vampires were beneath her and this one shouldn’t be different than any other.
She heard Angel’s voice rise. “No,” he said, his tone hard and distinct. “No,” he repeated forcefully into the phone, after he had waited a moment. “Not likely. I won’t be-” He stood up, pacing back and forth across the room, ignoring where Buffy sat on the bed. When he spoke, his voice was impatient. “Yes, but you can’t-” A pause. Angel’s jaw was set tightly, his eyes dark and impenetrable. “Yes. Yes, I see.” He paused, and she could see fury blaze briefly in his eyes. “No. I will get back to you.” He took the phone away from his face and stared at it for a moment, his hand convulsively clenching around it. “I want to hang up on them,” he growled lowly, thrusting the phone at her. “How do I do it?”
Buffy’s lips twitched. She took the phone and looked at it, as if studying it. “Well,” she said thoughtfully, “you press ‘end.’”
He scowled and grabbed the phone back. After a moment, he pressed a button, then tossed the phone on the bed in disgust. He stalked over to the chair and flung himself into it, looking frustrated and intensely unhappy.
Buffy suddenly felt much better. He may be able to conjure up that commanding, no-nonsense aura, but that didn’t mean anyone was going to listen to him. He couldn’t even hang up a cell phone.
Still, a part of her was annoyed-at herself, for not taking into account when she gave him free reign of her cell that this vampire was more than he seemed, and at him, for . . . for speaking German so well. She still needed to be careful, to find out what exactly was up with this guy. “So,” she said, her voice purposely very even, “how did it go?”
“They wouldn’t give me my money.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, some of the tension leaving him as he waved a hand in the vague direction of the phone. “It wasn’t like I remembered. They’ve upped security. I haven’t accessed the account in a long time and . . . they want to make sure I’m who I say I am.”
“Well, can’t you prove you’re you somehow?”
His eyes met hers briefly, then quickly, uncomfortably sidled away. “They wanted me to arrange a meeting. They happen to have an executive in Manhattan on business tonight. I think he just needs to see me to verify that I’m still. . . Angelus.”
Buffy pursed her lips and asked bluntly, “Are you still Angelus?”
Suddenly, he looked miserable. “I don’t have much of a choice about that.”
She shrugged. “So, tell them. Go see ‘em and make ‘em give you your money bags.” She tilted her head. “Does it come in bags? With dollar signs, like on Duck Tales.”
His eyes jerked back to hers, startled. Then he closed his mouth, swallowing. “Alright, Buffy,” he said softly, eyes steady on hers. “While I’m out, I’ll catch a show. Maybe if I get hungry afterwards,” he added, “I’ll grab a neck to eat.”
Buffy inhaled sharply. She wasn’t sure whether she’d really meant that he should meet with the bank alone, conveniently forgetting that he was a dangerous vampire she wanted to keep chained to her radiator, or whether she hadn’t even thought about it when she made the suggestion. Either way, she wasn’t being careful, and it ticked her off. “I’d go with you, of course,” she said irritably.
“No.”
“What?” she demanded, unsure whether she’d heard right.
“No, you couldn’t go with me.”
Buffy studied him for a moment. “See, usually a vampire tells me ‘no, don’t do that,’ when I’m about to put part of a picket fence through him. The funny part is I do it anyway. Because getting told what to do by blood breath? So not my thing.”
“It’s the bank,” Angel explained, standing up. He turned away, running an impatient hand through unkempt hair. “It’s evil.”
Buffy made a face. “What bank isn’t?”
Angel shook his head, swinging back to face her. “EEK is an arm of the demon world. It’s run by humans, but it has a demonic clientele, and its shareholders don't have any moral qualms. If the bank or the clients think their secrecy is threatened, they’ll take care of it the way demons do. If I came with the Slayer, they'd assume me and all of my connections were a liability. I wouldn't get the money, and we'd probably both be dead.”
Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me you were trying to get money out of a demonic bank which would come and kill me if they knew just who’s cell phone you were using?”
He looked mildly defensive. “I told you it was chartered by vampires.”
He was right; she should have known. In fact, she should just be assuming the worst when it came to Angel. After all, the Immortal was after him, and the Immortal had his finger in many evil, demonic pies. Which, come to think of it, might actually prove convenient in this instance. Crossing her arms over her chest, Buffy tapped her fingers on her elbow. “An arm of the demon world?” she repeated slowly. Tilting her head, she asked, “Are we talking severed arm, or well-attached and functioning arm?”
“What?”
“I mean, is this bank of yours well connected? High profile? All that ‘know how to win friends and influence people’ mumbo-jumbo?”
“What are you saying?”
“We could use this,” she said, biting her lip. She glanced at him quickly and amended, “I could use this. Look, the Immortal and I have been playing Where’s Waldo for three weeks, and I’m just lucky I found you first. But this-conveniently evil, thank you-bank could send your name down the demon grapevine and bring the Immortal’s little pretties straight to you in a jiffy. Then I could figure out what the Immortal wants with you. And kill a lot of bad guys in the process.”
The idea was growing on her. Information with a side of carnage was always good. Besides, whenever the world was being threatened (which was, admittedly, always) it felt good to have a plan, even a hackneyed crazy one. In fact, hackneyed crazy ones were the best kind, because that kind was hers, and her plans worked. Most of the time. Buffy tapped her lip, brow furrowing. “The evil tellers don’t know I’m the Slayer. Can’t we just, you know, not tell them?”
Angel shook his head. “They'd know right away you’re human,” he pointed out.
“Thought you said it was run by humans?”
“For the most part. I’m not exactly sure how they work. But they would know.”
“And me being human and you being a vampire and us being together isn’t exactly kosher,” Buffy said thoughtfully. Impatiently, she waved a hand. “There has to be a way.”
Angel merely stared at her, his muscles tense, his features impassive. For a single, strange moment, she felt as though the air in the space between them was thinner somehow, and it was hard to breathe.
Resolutely, she began to pace, as if that could break the pull of his stare. Instead she could feel his eyes following her, and all she could think of was the feel of his gaze on her skin. She wondered whether he was doing it on purpose, distracting her from thinking of a solution simply by a look on his face. He could, she realized once again, have the capacity for a little bit of thrall.
Buffy stopped suddenly. An image of Xander sucking on spiders slipped through her mind. Riley confessing something, and being . . . ashamed. And . . . Giles? “Dracubabes,” Buffy announced happily.
“What?”
“Dracula’s skank trio. Think Christina Aguilera, multiplied by three and even sluttier. Anyway, they had a thing for my Watcher. I don’t think they wanted to turn him, more make him their boy toy. And that’s disturbing on about a million levels. Wouldn’t something like that work?”
“Lovers,” Angel concluded flatly. “You want us to pretend to be lovers.”
Buffy felt as though she’d landed on a solution of which he’d been perfectly well aware. He stood stock still, staring at her in the exact same way-as if willing her to think of a different answer. Buffy shifted her weight, feeling as if she’d somehow been left behind in this conversation and not liking the feeling. “You mean like-like,” she started. “Um. I could pretend to be your girlfriend.”
“Sort of.” His hand curled into a fist at his side. “No. Not . . . really,” he said, gritting his teeth. “You could pose as my . . . mate. Which,” he continued, as if grudging the explanation, “would excuse your . . . humanity.”
“Well?” Buffy put her hands on her hips, annoyed that she was still obviously missing something. “Girlfriend, mate, potato, pahtado. Sounds like semantics to me.”
“You’d be-” He quickly changed the direction of his sentence. “It’s more involved than . . . that.”
Buffy scowled. “You mean I’d be like your wife?”
His eyes widened momentarily, still fixed on the floor. “Vampires don’t . . .” His hand jerked in a small, awkward movement, the first uncontrolled move she’d seen him make. Then his eyes went dark again, impassive, and he was very, very still. “Matrimony is holy. This . . . wouldn’t be.”
Involuntarily, Buffy’s gaze darted toward the bed. Just as quickly as he had, she looked away. She swallowed. “You mean because there’s a lot of biting,” she announced abruptly, lifting her chin. “You’d be drinking my blood and stuff.”
“No.” Angel’s lips were a flat line, his eyes burning little holes into the floor. “No,” he said again, more softly.
“Well, it’s not like I’d ever let you bite me,” she said. She was nibbling on her lips, thinking. Abruptly, she nodded. “But this could work. I could be like . . . your own personal donor. This evil EEK ought to understand that. You know, one bank to another. Blood, blood money, it’s all the same, really.” She went over to the bed and picked up the phone. “Let’s call them and find out.”
Angel frowned at the phone, his eyes flicking from it to her and back again until they came to rest on her at last. “If EEK finds out who you really are, they’ll come for you. And they’re not people you want to upset.”
She was unconcerned. “I’ve upset worse. I upset a god. I upset the root of all evil. I upset a lady with a snake head that looked kinda like a penis, and found out Doublemeat is a vegetarian enterprise. And the fast food conglomerate? Now those are people you don’t want to upset. So you know what? I’m all set up for some upsetting.”
He shook his head, stepping forward. “We don’t even know how many of the Immortal’s lackeys are actually here in Manhattan.”
Buffy shrugged dismissively, resisting the urge to back up. “I’ve taken them on before.”
He stepped forward again, nodding, acknowledging the truth of her words. “But not en masse,” he added. He took another step forward, now so close it would be so easy to touch him. “And not while fighting EEK at the same time.”
“And yet, somehow, I’m not afraid.”
Brown eyes peered down at her, hot, intent, thoughtful. “Maybe you should be,” he said softly.
He was standing much, much too close. There were tingles all down her spine, and her palms were beginning to sweat. It wasn’t fair that he could do this to her. She reached out, grabbed his hand, jerked it up, and placed the phone into it. Then she closed his fingers over it in a fist, her other hand still in a hard grip on his wrist. “I’m tired, Angel,” she grit out. “I’m tired of the Immortal and I’m tired of New York and I’m tired of you. I just want to get rid of you so I can go home and have some peace and quiet. Now call your bank and tell them we’re coming, or I’ll be forced to do something even more drastic.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to disobey her. There was a flash of something across his face, something like longing, and then his eyes dropped to where her hands held his fist. His other hand covered hers, his fingers cool, and then he began to pry her fingers loose. Realizing that he couldn’t call anywhere if she was locking his hand over the phone that way, she let go. He didn’t look at her, and turned away. She saw him dial, and bring the phone up to his face. His back was like a wall.
Go to: Chapter Nine