Goodnight L.A.
Angel
The dragon was beautiful – black leather wings and shimmering body. It screamed – long, loud, joyfully – and in that moment Angel almost felt a kinship with it. If ever there was a time to exult in demon nature, now was it.
The beast swept down, talons outstretched, but Angel lunged to the left and brought his sword up into the creature's neck.
Another scream, this one of anger, and Angel slashed again, fangs out, his battle lust singing in the rain and blood.
One would fall to end this dance.
Angel sure as hell wasn't going to let it be him.
Spike
Spike ran with the single-mindedness of desperation, his feet beating painfully against the pavement, the screams of Hell echoing behind him. Stumbling forward, he cursed the awkward tangle of his duster, the cacophony, the blinding rain.
The absurdity of it struck him and he doubled over in pain or mirth – he wasn't sure which – and ducked into a bar brimming with humans and laughter.
"Scotch," he muttered.
The bartender smiled. "It's on me."
Spike downed the liquid, relishing the alcohol's burn.
And then, he returned to the one fight he knew he would lose.
God, it's good to be home.
Gunn
Something blurred and gray struck from just outside Gunn's peripheral vision, catching his shoulder and slamming him down. Coughing blood, he staggered to his feet, weaving, swinging blindly with a battle-dulled axe that had definitely seen some better days.
He'd been only half-kidding when he'd told the others to take the thirty-thousand on the left. He'd lost track long ago of how many demons he'd killed.
His arms ached; his head swam; he could barely stand. Some part of him knew he was dying.
But he'd said he was going to make these ten minutes memorable, and memorable they were.
Illyria
She fought them one by one and in groups, her limbs flying at impossible-to-predict angles, her sodden blue hair whipping her face as she spun to face new enemies. Wesley, she thought, punching a whirlwind of destruction through the group of demons that swarmed to her right. Wesley, Wesley, Wesley.
Her blows fell now to the rhythm of his name, one contact for each syllable, each touch bringing forth a fresh surge of deadly anger. Though they pressed around her, she did not falter.
I wish to do more violence, she'd said.
She'd never meant anything more in her life.
Lorne
From just outside Los Angeles, Lorne watched the city burn. Flames licked high at the night sky; the sirens of every available fire truck wailed uselessly at the stars.
Something vital inside him had died long ago, and seeing the flames stretch like this, soaring above the skyscrapers where he figured the gang had probably gone, he was reminded of it. A feeling close to remorse surged through him, but he turned away, folded back into his car, and drove coastward, away from the life that had failed him.
Reflected in his rearview mirror, the sun began impudently to rise.