By Moadine
For Disclaimer and Author's Notes, see Prologue.
Chapter Three:
He needed to find Angel and he needed to do it soon. He could feel himself being called to Buffy’s side as surely as he’d ever felt the need for blood as a vampire, but he also knew that Sunnydale was no more- as evidenced by the fact that the three who had brought him back had chosen L.A. as the setting for his rebirth. Therefore, he needed to find out where Buffy was and the quickest way to do that was to talk to Angel… or at least ransack his room, looking for any spot of information on her. Spike grinned at the thought.
He had spent a day and a night in L.A. before finding the Winfield’s. His injuries had been caused by the mode of transportation when a mini-coven of three witches (self-appointed servants of the First Good, or so they said) had brought him back to life- life, his thoughts buzzed at the memory of hearing his heartbeat- in the middle of a mini-tornado. Somehow, he had managed to escape, but only after suffering what had seemed like hours of torment at the un-hands of the unnatural force. Fortunately, that had made it easy to fake a gang beating and robbery.
Luckily, they had provided him with a pair of underwear upon his arrival. If they hadn’t had the good sense to think ahead, he might have appeared to be an insane man rather than a victim. After all, the made-up thugs would have had to have been really desperate to have taken his underwear. Then, it had taken a full rotation of the sun and moon before his groaning had been caught by a pair of caring ears. Of course, that was how he had ended up in his current situation.
Interrogation of the local vamps before dusting told him that Angel wasn’t too far away. He apparently had a business in some hotel or other. Spike hadn’t really listened after they gave him the directions; he had just dusted them anyway with a piece of a crate he had found that first night in the alley after the witches had finally left him.
The hotel was easy to break in to. Or, at least, Angel’s rooms were. Knowing he would probably encounter Angel at some point, he left the window he entered through wide open, so as to let the sunshine pour in. Of course, since it was daylight, Spike supposed his grandsire to be sleeping the hours away in some posh bed nearby. Stupid poof had always liked things easy and comfortable.
Because he didn’t want to talk to the vampire, he made as little noise as he could make while searching for the desired information. Then, not finding it, he began to throw things around- not too noisy, just enough to let Angel know somebody was looking through his things.
Sure enough, the doors to Angel’s room burst open moments later. Angel, looking through eyes nearly blinded by the sunlight, was at first forced to trust his vampire senses. “Buffy?” he asked happily. His tone quickly changed as his eyes adapted and he could see the man standing before him with arms crossed over his chest. “Spike.”
Obviously, Buffy hadn’t told Angel that he had died if he was being so calm about his reappearance. Before Spike could dwell too much on that thought, he said what he had come to Angel’s place to say. “Angel. Where’s Buffy?”
The vampire shrugged. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked since I left Sunnydale. In fact, I wouldn’t even know that she was all right except that Willow called to tell us what happened.” The silence crackled between them with all-too-obvious and familiar loathing. Then, Angel spoke again. “Wow, Spike. What insidiously insane hair stylist attacked your head? And whose clothes are you wearing?”
Spike ignored the insults, but surged forward anyway and grabbed Angel by his loose shirt. “You mean to tell me that she hasn’t said a single bloody word to you since you gave her the trinket?”
Angel pointedly removed Spike’s hands from his shirt and spat out, “No. Not a single… bloody… word.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re the one person she loves most in the world and you want me to think that she hasn’t said a word about where they’re living now?”
Angel’s dark eyes were flashing dangerously under his low eyelids. “Go ahead,” he growled. “Search everything, search my desk drawers, search my books, my e-mail; interrogate my friends and get a copy of the phone records if you can. You won’t find anything.” He sighed and dropped down into a chair on the far side of the room. Even Spike could tell how worried he was. For that reason alone, Spike decided he would believe his grandsire just this once. He sighed and started toward the window.
“Wait a minute. Weren’t you there with them at the battle?” Angel asked.
“Yep. It was terrifying, but she did well. You’d be proud of her.”
“Well, if you were there, then why are you here?”
“Because I got separated from the group near the end of the battle and they left thinking I was dead,” Spike answered. Well, it wasn’t a complete lie if you discounted the fact that he had been dead at the time.
Angel grunted. “Good for them. Maybe they’ll get you out of their hair for a while.”
Spike clenched his fists and bit his tongue in order to distract himself from staking Angel right at that moment. When that didn’t work, he thought of how much Buffy would hate him if he gave in to the temptation. That eased the feeling a bit. Enough to get back out the window without another word, anyway.
The thought that dissipated any lasting anger toward his grandsire was contemplation of Angel’s reaction when he discovered that the small collection of ancient coins he had gathered over the years was suddenly missing. Spike smiled and flipped one of them in his hand. At least the trip hadn’t been a total waste.
*****
It wasn’t until hours later that Angel realized that he had watched his grandchilde step out into the sunlight and walk away in it unharmed.
On to Chapter 4
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