From The Ashes (Chapter 2/?)
Chapter 1~ Burning Fire
Chapter 2~ Wreckage
She called Giles from the airport.
“There has never been anything like it recorded, Buffy,” he marveled from his end of the line. “The information is only just trickling in, but it looks like Angel took down the entire L.A. branch of Wolfram and Hart. Quite literally, from the inside out.”
He grew quiet. Only now, was the whole story beginning to piece itself together. It hurt him deeply to realize how undeserving Angel had been of his disdain. Buffy, on the other hand, had worked herself into a nervous rage.
“Stupid ass. Stupid, stupid, stubborn ass. Why didn’t he tell us Giles? Send a note, something. ‘Hey, it’s me, going on a suicide mission to avert yet another Apocalypse. Just thought you should know.’ Really not that hard. And, hello! Slayer here! Apocalypse is kinda my area of expertise.” Buffy sobered from the outburst. Her next words were quiet. “I could have helped him Giles. We should have helped him.”
“We did not exactly make it easy for him to think that we would. The last time he called me for help, I….” Giles trailed off sadly, not wanting to complete the thought that caused him such shame and regret.
Buffy let the unspoken words hang in the air. She had not known about the incident until after it was too late. She wasn’t sure her relationship with Giles would ever be quite the same. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.
“What do you need me to do Buffy?” He was trying. It was a start.
“Just do the book guy thing. Try to find Willow, I might need some spellage down the line. I’ll keep you posted.” She added softly, “We have to find him, Giles. We owe him that. At least that.”
She hung up, wondering if there was anyone left to find.
It plagued her the entire flight. When she’d first felt it inside, she’d been sure he was gone. But the emptiness and darkness had receded, replaced instead by a dull ache. It was as if she’d lost a limb in battle. Yet somehow, she still felt him, in her blood, in her soul, and she allowed that tiny bud of hope to persist. If he were dust, she would know it. If he were dust, that despairing emptiness would never leave her.
She slept restlessly, her right hand resting against the place where he had marked her neck, the left clutching the place where he had marked her heart.
It was the longest 13 hours of her life.
***
Faith was uncharacteristically on time. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, dark circles under her eyes. She looked troubled.
“Glad you could make it. How’s it hangin’ B?” Her voice feigned lightheartedness; her eyes betrayed her worry. Buffy’s nerves were stretched too thin to humor her.
“How long have you been here?”
“Couple of days. High-tailed it over soon as I heard.”
“Why?”
Faith looked at her like she had three heads.
“L.A. went boom. I figured it had to be the big guy. Kinda his M.O. Not big on the subtle.”
“And you hopped a flight to join in on the fun?”
It had come out harsher than she intended.
“Angel saves me. I save him. It’s kinda how we work.”
She said it with a simple certainty that struck Buffy to the core.
“And anyway,” Faith continued, “I can’t believe all you boneheads thought Angel had gone over to the dark side. He’d never do that, not unless he was Angelus again. And I personally watched him kick that sick freak’s ass.”
Buffy bristled. Despite the uneasy peace that the two slayers had found with one another since those last days in Sunnydale, the long-standing resentment Buffy felt towards Faith always lingered within her. Now, it smoldered with the intensity of the fire that had burned through L.A. Faith and Angel shared something, some unspoken understanding and likeness between them. Buffy had always hated that she couldn’t be a part of it. But now it was even more than that. Faith had been inside Angel’s mind, had been down in the deepest part of him, and that bound them forever. Buffy was afraid that when all was said and done, Faith now knew him better than she ever could.
“I didn’t…Forget it. Doesn’t matter now. What’ve you got?”
Faith shrugged.
“Not too much. Hit up ground zero. Somethin’ scorchin’ went down there, B. Big hole in the ground. Lots of bodies, not so much with the human. Paid some visits to the demon hot spots, but no one’s talkin’. No one’s seen Angel or his crew.” She paused, not sure what else to say. “The Hyperion’s still standing, somehow. I’ve been crashing there.”
“So, if you’ve got nothing, why do you think that Angel….” She trailed off sadly.
A corner of Faith’s mouth curled up in what was once her trademark grin.
“Didn’t say nothin’, said not too much. Check it out. There was something big in that carnage, real big. Just bits and pieces left of it now. But in all that mess, under it, I found this.”
She reached into the knapsack at her side and pulled something out. It was filthy, covered in god-knows-what, torn to shreds, barely there. Buffy reached out and touched it with trembling fingers. The leather was still smooth. She could still feel his presence on it.
“His jacket?” she whispered. “But that doesn’t mean…”
“Haven’t gone on the hunt with you in a while, maybe you make ‘em get naked before you stake ‘em now, but hey, who am I to judge?” Faith quipped. Then, more seriously, “For real B, when was the last time you dusted a vamp and he left his clothes behind?”
Faith was right. But it only meant that he had been alive at some point in the battle, not that he still was. It meant next to nothing.
“That’s quite a leap Faith.”
“Whatever B. Think what ya want. But if anyone found a way to survive that mess, you know it’d be him. If he got out, he’s hiding somewhere, trying to avoid the Big Bad. We find him, he’s got backup. We don’t, he’s dust.”
And so it was settled. But they had nothing to go on, and nowhere to start. All they could do, was go back to the beginning.
***
The law offices of Wolfram and Hart stood large and dark and looming, a hollowed out shell that lay broken and ruined against the L.A. sky. It was hard to believe that this place had housed evil incarnate; even harder to believe that Angel had called it home. It stood now, teetering at the edge of some invisible precipice, and she imagined him tearing it down with his bare hands.
“You think we can check it out without the whole damn thing coming down on us?”
Buffy shrugged, heading for the entrance.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
They made their way through the gloom. An image of one of those old castles Giles loved so much came to view, pillaged and ransacked by some unholy crusade. She could make out the grandeur of what it had been before Angel decided to take on the Devil and made the Earth shake. It set her teeth on edge and made her Slayer-sense tingle. This place was still tied to Wolfram and Hart, and she could feel the extent of the rage that had rained down upon his head. Not for the first time, she wondered what he had faced, what he still faced, and shivered.
They made their way up, floor by floor, searching for signs of life, or unlife, or any clue as to what had happened here. It looked like someone had taken a giant sledgehammer to the place. But besides the wreckage, there was nothing.
They reached the executive floor. It seemed as if the brunt of the damage was here. Beams and walls and ceiling made up the rubble, floor slanted in defiance of gravity. There had been some sort of battle here. They checked Angel’s office, or what was left of it. Despite the corporate trimmings, it felt like him. The stone wall adorned with rare weapons, something long and broad missing from the centre. The large mahogany desk, ancient and intricate, like him, yet strangely not out of place amongst its modern surroundings, also like him. As Faith rummaged through the remnants of the room, Buffy’s eyes strayed to the massive windows, an incredible view of the singed city and the smog-filled sky. She pressed her fingers to the cool expanse in wonder.
“It must be some kind of special glass…”
She imagined how he had stood here and watched the sunrise break bright over the L.A. skyline, as she danced and slayed half a world away in the shadow of the moon. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her. She thought about how his face would look in the sunlight and blinked rapidly, the idea so foreign and yet somehow achingly familiar. As if that beautiful sight had once been hers to behold.
Faith was banging on something, and Buffy turned toward the sound. Tucked into the corner of the room, elevator doors were on the receiving end of Faith’s wrath.
“Dammit,” she muttered in exasperation, fingers running fiercely through dark hair. “What do you wanna bet this leads up to his place?”
Buffy joined her. Together, they tried to pry the doors apart, slayer strength and urgency at fever pitch. And, for Buffy, a sudden overwhelming desire to be surrounded by him, the private things that he had owned and touched and made part of this strange new place he inhabited. If she could see and feel, maybe she could force the tether that bound them so intricately together to yank on him, wherever he was, and awaken within her the knowledge of where it lead. But it was no use. There was no way up, and they left the crumbling edifice on leaden legs and with heavy hearts.
***
When they got there, the place was immaculate, as if he had known he would never set foot here again. Everything was in its place. Two large boxes sat on the desk, seemingly expecting them.
“Didn’t touch anything when I was here before,” Faith offered. “Just saw no one had been here and figured I could grab the stuff later.”
There was a strange sensation prickling at Faith’s senses, the memory of being here with him jarring. She had been hurt then, and he had been almost… kind, even though he had every reason to despise the sight of her. Quiet, but full of strength and purpose.
You have to be willing to take it all the way, Faith.
She had forced herself not to resent him for it, then. For pulling her out of the balance she had finally struck within herself, and reminding her that to catch a monster, she had to become one again. All the way. But she couldn’t resent him now. Evidently, he himself had lived by that credo, maybe even died by it. It was still strange to think of Wes that way; Angel’s steadfast lieutenant unto whatever end may have befallen them.
She watched as Buffy took in the small, neat apartment, full of ancient books and strange artifacts.
“Once a Watcher, always a Watcher.”
Faith smirked.
“I guess. Last time I saw him, he was looking a bit…rugged.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Wesley Wyndam-Price is now a hottie?” The disbelief was evident in her voice.
Faith shrugged, but Buffy could see it was an affirmation.
“And that is absolutely something I refuse to believe.”
They investigated the boxes. The larger one held an assortment of weapons. They were practical, and some were the likes of which they had never seen before; Wes had obviously chosen those he deemed of the greatest value in battle. The other was full of journals, an extensive recording, as if there were still a Watcher’s Council to account to. From this box, Buffy plucked out some envelopes and an unfolded sheaf of paper. There were three letters; one to Wes’s parents, one to Giles, and one to Angel himself. That one had no postmark, no address, and Buffy felt a sliver of fear prick up her spine. The lone sheet also, was addressed to no one in particular. Clearly he had only hoped that someone would come, but had no real way of knowing that someone would.
The note gave the reader instructions on what should be done. Everything, except for the two letters, would go to Giles. He had no other possessions, no money to speak of, and no one left to whom to bequeath anything, even if there had been anything to bequeath. He hoped his former colleague could make sense of it all. The note also told them where he had gone.
***
They went to Vail’s and found him. He lay in the expanse of the room, the wound in his abdomen telling the deadly tale. He had obviously been there for days. The two Slayers knelt in silent mourning over their former Watcher, then mumbled quiet apologies and Godspeeds. The arrangements had all been made, the note had told them, and they called the number, to impart where the body could be found. Then they left him, heads bowed with sadness and regret.
***
They headed for the Hyperion. Buffy decided she would call Giles and give him the news in a few hours, after they finished the reconnaissance for the day. They would drop off the boxes and Buffy’s bag, then go back to the alley. The one that had looked like ground zero; the one where Faith had plucked his jacket from the ash.
The hotel was what she expected from him. She could see how he must have loved the main lobby, with its huge ceiling and vastness, the courtyard with the lush garden, now overgrown. She could picture him sitting there at night, broad shoulders hunched, the sketch pad in his hand illuminated by the rays of the moon. No one had been here in quite some time, but for some reason he had kept the place, and small tokens of the life he had led here remained. A coffee maker. Some books strewn across the shelves in the back office. A few weapons in the cabinet, arranged in a haphazard way that probably had him complaining endlessly. She could sense that he had been at home here, and felt both grateful and jealous for it. He had known a modicum of peace, and she hadn’t been a part of it. She admonished herself for the thought. It didn’t matter now. Whatever tenuous calm had existed for him had been ripped away, and wherever he found himself now, she was certain there was no peace or comfort.
***
She gasped when she saw the carnage. Nothing surprised her anymore, but whatever had happened here was massive. It was amazing that the city hadn’t cleaned it up yet, but she of all people knew how humans could turn a blind eye when their worst nightmares threatened to breach their carefully constructed world. The block was littered with corpses, not human. She felt pride swell within her at how many demons he had slain. Faith motioned to her and she followed, coming to stand at the rim of a crater in the earth. It looked like a bomb had detonated here, but she knew it had been something much bigger, much worse. She could see a colossal carcass in the center. Bones and rotting flesh was all that was left now, but she could make out the glint of a dagger jutting out of one of the more meaty parts. This was where Faith had found his jacket. He had been alive, in this very spot. She looked around. Where would he go from here? If he had fought until dawn, where would he seek shelter from the sun’s deadly rays?
They saw it at the same time, a little ways from where most of the battle had taken place. Of course…
“Sewers,” they exclaimed simultaneously, running for the manhole cover, relieved that there was somewhere else to search. Buffy cursed herself silently. Angel would know these tunnels like the back of his hand, would necessarily have an access point from inside the Hyperion, would stalk L.A.’s underground streets in the harsh light of day before emerging skyward into the safety of the night. This should have been the first thing she thought of. Too much partying, not enough slayage of late. She wondered how many other things she’d overlooked because she had allowed the warm Roman sun to fry her brain and lull her into laxity.
Faith flipped up the manhole cover, and they headed down into the damp darkness, where only a vampire could hope to find refuge.
Chapter 3~ Remnants Of A Broken Life
Chapter 2~ Wreckage
She called Giles from the airport.
“There has never been anything like it recorded, Buffy,” he marveled from his end of the line. “The information is only just trickling in, but it looks like Angel took down the entire L.A. branch of Wolfram and Hart. Quite literally, from the inside out.”
He grew quiet. Only now, was the whole story beginning to piece itself together. It hurt him deeply to realize how undeserving Angel had been of his disdain. Buffy, on the other hand, had worked herself into a nervous rage.
“Stupid ass. Stupid, stupid, stubborn ass. Why didn’t he tell us Giles? Send a note, something. ‘Hey, it’s me, going on a suicide mission to avert yet another Apocalypse. Just thought you should know.’ Really not that hard. And, hello! Slayer here! Apocalypse is kinda my area of expertise.” Buffy sobered from the outburst. Her next words were quiet. “I could have helped him Giles. We should have helped him.”
“We did not exactly make it easy for him to think that we would. The last time he called me for help, I….” Giles trailed off sadly, not wanting to complete the thought that caused him such shame and regret.
Buffy let the unspoken words hang in the air. She had not known about the incident until after it was too late. She wasn’t sure her relationship with Giles would ever be quite the same. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.
“What do you need me to do Buffy?” He was trying. It was a start.
“Just do the book guy thing. Try to find Willow, I might need some spellage down the line. I’ll keep you posted.” She added softly, “We have to find him, Giles. We owe him that. At least that.”
She hung up, wondering if there was anyone left to find.
It plagued her the entire flight. When she’d first felt it inside, she’d been sure he was gone. But the emptiness and darkness had receded, replaced instead by a dull ache. It was as if she’d lost a limb in battle. Yet somehow, she still felt him, in her blood, in her soul, and she allowed that tiny bud of hope to persist. If he were dust, she would know it. If he were dust, that despairing emptiness would never leave her.
She slept restlessly, her right hand resting against the place where he had marked her neck, the left clutching the place where he had marked her heart.
It was the longest 13 hours of her life.
***
Faith was uncharacteristically on time. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, dark circles under her eyes. She looked troubled.
“Glad you could make it. How’s it hangin’ B?” Her voice feigned lightheartedness; her eyes betrayed her worry. Buffy’s nerves were stretched too thin to humor her.
“How long have you been here?”
“Couple of days. High-tailed it over soon as I heard.”
“Why?”
Faith looked at her like she had three heads.
“L.A. went boom. I figured it had to be the big guy. Kinda his M.O. Not big on the subtle.”
“And you hopped a flight to join in on the fun?”
It had come out harsher than she intended.
“Angel saves me. I save him. It’s kinda how we work.”
She said it with a simple certainty that struck Buffy to the core.
“And anyway,” Faith continued, “I can’t believe all you boneheads thought Angel had gone over to the dark side. He’d never do that, not unless he was Angelus again. And I personally watched him kick that sick freak’s ass.”
Buffy bristled. Despite the uneasy peace that the two slayers had found with one another since those last days in Sunnydale, the long-standing resentment Buffy felt towards Faith always lingered within her. Now, it smoldered with the intensity of the fire that had burned through L.A. Faith and Angel shared something, some unspoken understanding and likeness between them. Buffy had always hated that she couldn’t be a part of it. But now it was even more than that. Faith had been inside Angel’s mind, had been down in the deepest part of him, and that bound them forever. Buffy was afraid that when all was said and done, Faith now knew him better than she ever could.
“I didn’t…Forget it. Doesn’t matter now. What’ve you got?”
Faith shrugged.
“Not too much. Hit up ground zero. Somethin’ scorchin’ went down there, B. Big hole in the ground. Lots of bodies, not so much with the human. Paid some visits to the demon hot spots, but no one’s talkin’. No one’s seen Angel or his crew.” She paused, not sure what else to say. “The Hyperion’s still standing, somehow. I’ve been crashing there.”
“So, if you’ve got nothing, why do you think that Angel….” She trailed off sadly.
A corner of Faith’s mouth curled up in what was once her trademark grin.
“Didn’t say nothin’, said not too much. Check it out. There was something big in that carnage, real big. Just bits and pieces left of it now. But in all that mess, under it, I found this.”
She reached into the knapsack at her side and pulled something out. It was filthy, covered in god-knows-what, torn to shreds, barely there. Buffy reached out and touched it with trembling fingers. The leather was still smooth. She could still feel his presence on it.
“His jacket?” she whispered. “But that doesn’t mean…”
“Haven’t gone on the hunt with you in a while, maybe you make ‘em get naked before you stake ‘em now, but hey, who am I to judge?” Faith quipped. Then, more seriously, “For real B, when was the last time you dusted a vamp and he left his clothes behind?”
Faith was right. But it only meant that he had been alive at some point in the battle, not that he still was. It meant next to nothing.
“That’s quite a leap Faith.”
“Whatever B. Think what ya want. But if anyone found a way to survive that mess, you know it’d be him. If he got out, he’s hiding somewhere, trying to avoid the Big Bad. We find him, he’s got backup. We don’t, he’s dust.”
And so it was settled. But they had nothing to go on, and nowhere to start. All they could do, was go back to the beginning.
***
The law offices of Wolfram and Hart stood large and dark and looming, a hollowed out shell that lay broken and ruined against the L.A. sky. It was hard to believe that this place had housed evil incarnate; even harder to believe that Angel had called it home. It stood now, teetering at the edge of some invisible precipice, and she imagined him tearing it down with his bare hands.
“You think we can check it out without the whole damn thing coming down on us?”
Buffy shrugged, heading for the entrance.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
They made their way through the gloom. An image of one of those old castles Giles loved so much came to view, pillaged and ransacked by some unholy crusade. She could make out the grandeur of what it had been before Angel decided to take on the Devil and made the Earth shake. It set her teeth on edge and made her Slayer-sense tingle. This place was still tied to Wolfram and Hart, and she could feel the extent of the rage that had rained down upon his head. Not for the first time, she wondered what he had faced, what he still faced, and shivered.
They made their way up, floor by floor, searching for signs of life, or unlife, or any clue as to what had happened here. It looked like someone had taken a giant sledgehammer to the place. But besides the wreckage, there was nothing.
They reached the executive floor. It seemed as if the brunt of the damage was here. Beams and walls and ceiling made up the rubble, floor slanted in defiance of gravity. There had been some sort of battle here. They checked Angel’s office, or what was left of it. Despite the corporate trimmings, it felt like him. The stone wall adorned with rare weapons, something long and broad missing from the centre. The large mahogany desk, ancient and intricate, like him, yet strangely not out of place amongst its modern surroundings, also like him. As Faith rummaged through the remnants of the room, Buffy’s eyes strayed to the massive windows, an incredible view of the singed city and the smog-filled sky. She pressed her fingers to the cool expanse in wonder.
“It must be some kind of special glass…”
She imagined how he had stood here and watched the sunrise break bright over the L.A. skyline, as she danced and slayed half a world away in the shadow of the moon. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her. She thought about how his face would look in the sunlight and blinked rapidly, the idea so foreign and yet somehow achingly familiar. As if that beautiful sight had once been hers to behold.
Faith was banging on something, and Buffy turned toward the sound. Tucked into the corner of the room, elevator doors were on the receiving end of Faith’s wrath.
“Dammit,” she muttered in exasperation, fingers running fiercely through dark hair. “What do you wanna bet this leads up to his place?”
Buffy joined her. Together, they tried to pry the doors apart, slayer strength and urgency at fever pitch. And, for Buffy, a sudden overwhelming desire to be surrounded by him, the private things that he had owned and touched and made part of this strange new place he inhabited. If she could see and feel, maybe she could force the tether that bound them so intricately together to yank on him, wherever he was, and awaken within her the knowledge of where it lead. But it was no use. There was no way up, and they left the crumbling edifice on leaden legs and with heavy hearts.
***
When they got there, the place was immaculate, as if he had known he would never set foot here again. Everything was in its place. Two large boxes sat on the desk, seemingly expecting them.
“Didn’t touch anything when I was here before,” Faith offered. “Just saw no one had been here and figured I could grab the stuff later.”
There was a strange sensation prickling at Faith’s senses, the memory of being here with him jarring. She had been hurt then, and he had been almost… kind, even though he had every reason to despise the sight of her. Quiet, but full of strength and purpose.
You have to be willing to take it all the way, Faith.
She had forced herself not to resent him for it, then. For pulling her out of the balance she had finally struck within herself, and reminding her that to catch a monster, she had to become one again. All the way. But she couldn’t resent him now. Evidently, he himself had lived by that credo, maybe even died by it. It was still strange to think of Wes that way; Angel’s steadfast lieutenant unto whatever end may have befallen them.
She watched as Buffy took in the small, neat apartment, full of ancient books and strange artifacts.
“Once a Watcher, always a Watcher.”
Faith smirked.
“I guess. Last time I saw him, he was looking a bit…rugged.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Wesley Wyndam-Price is now a hottie?” The disbelief was evident in her voice.
Faith shrugged, but Buffy could see it was an affirmation.
“And that is absolutely something I refuse to believe.”
They investigated the boxes. The larger one held an assortment of weapons. They were practical, and some were the likes of which they had never seen before; Wes had obviously chosen those he deemed of the greatest value in battle. The other was full of journals, an extensive recording, as if there were still a Watcher’s Council to account to. From this box, Buffy plucked out some envelopes and an unfolded sheaf of paper. There were three letters; one to Wes’s parents, one to Giles, and one to Angel himself. That one had no postmark, no address, and Buffy felt a sliver of fear prick up her spine. The lone sheet also, was addressed to no one in particular. Clearly he had only hoped that someone would come, but had no real way of knowing that someone would.
The note gave the reader instructions on what should be done. Everything, except for the two letters, would go to Giles. He had no other possessions, no money to speak of, and no one left to whom to bequeath anything, even if there had been anything to bequeath. He hoped his former colleague could make sense of it all. The note also told them where he had gone.
***
They went to Vail’s and found him. He lay in the expanse of the room, the wound in his abdomen telling the deadly tale. He had obviously been there for days. The two Slayers knelt in silent mourning over their former Watcher, then mumbled quiet apologies and Godspeeds. The arrangements had all been made, the note had told them, and they called the number, to impart where the body could be found. Then they left him, heads bowed with sadness and regret.
***
They headed for the Hyperion. Buffy decided she would call Giles and give him the news in a few hours, after they finished the reconnaissance for the day. They would drop off the boxes and Buffy’s bag, then go back to the alley. The one that had looked like ground zero; the one where Faith had plucked his jacket from the ash.
The hotel was what she expected from him. She could see how he must have loved the main lobby, with its huge ceiling and vastness, the courtyard with the lush garden, now overgrown. She could picture him sitting there at night, broad shoulders hunched, the sketch pad in his hand illuminated by the rays of the moon. No one had been here in quite some time, but for some reason he had kept the place, and small tokens of the life he had led here remained. A coffee maker. Some books strewn across the shelves in the back office. A few weapons in the cabinet, arranged in a haphazard way that probably had him complaining endlessly. She could sense that he had been at home here, and felt both grateful and jealous for it. He had known a modicum of peace, and she hadn’t been a part of it. She admonished herself for the thought. It didn’t matter now. Whatever tenuous calm had existed for him had been ripped away, and wherever he found himself now, she was certain there was no peace or comfort.
***
She gasped when she saw the carnage. Nothing surprised her anymore, but whatever had happened here was massive. It was amazing that the city hadn’t cleaned it up yet, but she of all people knew how humans could turn a blind eye when their worst nightmares threatened to breach their carefully constructed world. The block was littered with corpses, not human. She felt pride swell within her at how many demons he had slain. Faith motioned to her and she followed, coming to stand at the rim of a crater in the earth. It looked like a bomb had detonated here, but she knew it had been something much bigger, much worse. She could see a colossal carcass in the center. Bones and rotting flesh was all that was left now, but she could make out the glint of a dagger jutting out of one of the more meaty parts. This was where Faith had found his jacket. He had been alive, in this very spot. She looked around. Where would he go from here? If he had fought until dawn, where would he seek shelter from the sun’s deadly rays?
They saw it at the same time, a little ways from where most of the battle had taken place. Of course…
“Sewers,” they exclaimed simultaneously, running for the manhole cover, relieved that there was somewhere else to search. Buffy cursed herself silently. Angel would know these tunnels like the back of his hand, would necessarily have an access point from inside the Hyperion, would stalk L.A.’s underground streets in the harsh light of day before emerging skyward into the safety of the night. This should have been the first thing she thought of. Too much partying, not enough slayage of late. She wondered how many other things she’d overlooked because she had allowed the warm Roman sun to fry her brain and lull her into laxity.
Faith flipped up the manhole cover, and they headed down into the damp darkness, where only a vampire could hope to find refuge.
Chapter 3~ Remnants Of A Broken Life