 |
TITLE: Crying Game
AUTHOR: Tesla
RATING: R
SPOILERS:
CHARACTERS:
DISCLAIMERS:
SUMMARY:
NOTES: Crossover w/The X Files, AU. A/N: This is a third in a series, that's collected under "Vamp!Mulder" in my memories. I asked what people would like to read, and Mulder won. Well, Vamp!Mulder did.
-----
"You can just stay there until you tell me the truth," Angel said, and locked Mulder into the former coal cellar. Mulder looked around, seeing nothing in the darkness. No light, no sound except the receding footsteps of the so-called Champion. No cell phone, no radio, nothing. No one to talk to, nothing to read.
Mulder slumped against the wall, and slid to the floor. Shit. Spike was right, the old Sire was a master of torture.
The problem was, Mulder was telling the truth. No one believed him.
He banged his head against the wall. How did he, the vampire formerly known as Agent Fox Mulder, FBI, get himself into these situations? He thought all the stuff would be over with, now that he was dead and all.
Hell.
He closed his eyes, and began to mentally review his case-files about zombies. Wesley had said that he had fought zombie cops, and hey, who didn't like zombies?
Sheesh, he just thought he was doing his job around here: protecting Fred, protecting the hotel.
Previously:
Cordelia was auditioning for a pilot, and Angel and the rest had gone out on a vision-case. Mulder had to stay, because----
"Your moves still stink," Gunn had said, tossing his axe from hand to hand. "No offense, but we can't use a gun on these demon-types. Besides, Fred could take your gun away from you."
"It's quite true," Wesley said. "And, besides, it's just as well that someone is here to answer the phone and make sure no one, er, breaks in."
"Order Chinese," Gunn suggested. "See if Fred'll switch take-out cuisines."
So, they left, and Mulder placed the order for Chinese. He was standing just outside off the sidewalk, smoking. He broke a slender branchlet from one of the trees, and buried his cigarette butt. That was when the bus full of dead people pulled up. That is, he didn't realize they were dead until the doors folded back, and the miasma of fear and bloody death came out in a gust of cooled air.
The blonde woman carefully stepped down, and Mulder thought: Vampire. Coming inside.
Coming for Fred.
And he threw the broken end of the twig right into her heart.
Three things happened: The blonde roared as she dusted, the bus driver drove off like a maniac, and a baby materialized out of no where.
Mulder caught him, with sheer demon reflexes. The baby screamed murderously, so his lungs were fine.
Mulder ran inside the Hyperion, clutching the baby to his chest.
"Holy cow, Mulder?" Fred said, peering over the mezzazine railing.
"It came out of a vampire!" Mulder said. "Do we have any milk or anything?" Mulder trudged up the stairs, gingerly holding the baby, who was now peeing into his teeshirt. "Listen, we've got to call the all night drug-store and see if they'll deliver some formula and diapers and shit!"
"Shit bein' the word," Fred observed. "Let's get a lot of stuff." She peered into the tiny shrieking face. "Do you get many vampire babies?"
"I didn't think there were any, " Mulder said.
The door opened downstairs.
"Take my wallet and go pay for the food," Mulder said.
Fred hestitated.
"Okay, hold the baby," Mulder said.
Fred stuffed her hand in his front pocket and grabbed his wallet.
::
Now:
"Really, Angel," Wesley said. "Do you think that locking Mulder in a closet like a recalcitrant child is going to help matters?"
"You don't have any better ideas, do you?"
"Why didn't you just hit him upside the head and ask him where he found the baby, then?" Gunn asked.
"You don't know Mulder," Angel said. "He'd enjoy it."
A voice spoke up from under the desk. "Yeah," Fred agreed. "Mulder likes fightin' with Angel more than he likes smokin' weed. And he really likes that."
There was a strained silence, as Fred returned to picking the cashews out of her order of cashew chicken.
"I thought her parents were comin' to get her," Gunn whispered to Wesley.
Wesley replied, "Mulder called them and said she had been in a religious cult and was still being de-programmed. They've been on the phone with her."
"See?" Angel demanded. "Mulder couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it!"
"Well, it doesn't, does it?" Fred asked again. "Besides, I told him I didn't want to face them."
"Fred," Wesley said, "come on and join us. You needn't be sitting there like a dormouse in a hole." He held his hand out, and Fred put the box of chicken into his hand, and scrambled up. Wiping his hand on a paper towel, he continued, "Besides, Fred, I thought your Vegas trip helped you with this---sensitivity to people."
"That was scientific research," Fred explained. "Maybe I need another research project."
"Fred," Angel said, quietly, "what did Mulder tell you?"
"What he told y'all. A blonde vampire got out of a bus, full of people she'd killed, and he staked her as she was comin' in the hotel. And he said---"
"A blonde vampire," Angel interrupted. "He didn't say anything about her hair color before."
"Maybe he had a vision?" Cordelia asked, distractedly. "Listen, never mind what he said---what are we gonna do with this baby?"
"He looks like Angel," Fred offered. "That's what Mulder said. He said, 'Jeeze, Fred, don't you think this kid's got a huge melon?' And I said, yeah, and he said, 'He looks like Angel.' And he does."
The other four stared at her, then they all bent over the baby, who was angrily gnawing his fists in the padded laundry basket.
"I think Dead Fed is right," Gunn said.
Part 2.
Things had kind of gone to hell anyway, in the non-ironic way, when Angel learned that the Slayer was resurrected. He'd roared off to Sunnydale, or somewhere in-between, before Mulder could even realize that yes, maybe there had been a reason that the PTB gave him a vision of her hand all Carrie-like from the grave.
And shit, he hoped that Spike wasn't involved, because the old Sire was capable of ripping his head off. Mulder was going to steal a car and drive down, himself, just to check, but Fred had cried and trembled and said she wouldn't feel safe with both her vampires gone, and the Tro-Clon event on the horizon. Not that anyone knew what the Tro-Clon was going to be, and Mulder thought that their should really be more communication between the LA Do-Gooders and the Sunnydale gang.
And if he got out of the god-damned coal cellar, he was going to write a nasty e-mail to Giles.
Mulder was composing a query for the Lone Gunmen to do some hacking into the Watchers' Council database, when Angel opened the door.
"Blonde vampire?" he asked.
Mulder remained silent.
Angel sighed. "So maybe I lost my temper. Come on out." He left the door open, and led the way back down the hallway.
"We waste a lot of time with this dominance shit," Mulder said, getting up, and swiping dirt from the seat of his jeans, and trailing Angel. The last time Angel had gotten this ratty, he'd had to stake those two old pals from his past, James and Elizabeth. So, actually, Angel had been acting hinky before Buffy crawled up from the dirt. (The whole thing was typical of that Rosenberg girl, sticking souls into people who hadn't asked for them, raising the dead and not sticking around to dig 'em up. It wasn't that much fun for vamps to kick their way out of a casket, and it was a good thing that poor Buffy was a Slayer. Mulder took his hat off to Spike and Angel, actually liking being around-----
He was aware that they were looking at him, all of them, in the office. Fred stuck her head out of the knee-well of the desk. "Mulder, they want you to describe the mom, again."
"Hey, the kid's quiet," Mulder noticed. "Good work."
"Not so loud," Cordelia said. "And we're gonna have to do something, newborns need shots, or something?"
"It's a baby, not a puppy," Mulder said. "Listen, we need to get on the phone to Giles and ask him about mystical pregnancies---and it wouldn't hurt to get hold of Frohike."
Angel folded his arms, and looked at Wesley. Wesley opened a file. "Was the vampire you saw---her?"
"Yeah," Mulder said, suddenly intent. "Who was it? Why was she coming here?"
"Darla," Wesley said to Angel.
"Who's Darla?" Fred asked Gunn, behind Mulder.
"Angel's old flame that died and came back."
"The Slayer? "
"No, the other one."
"Y'all got a chart or something?"
"In the files. I'll show you and Mulder later."
Meanwhile, Angel was looking----well, if he still had a digestion, Mulder would have said, constipated. Cordelia and Wesley were glaring at him.
"So how did this little bun get in Darla's oven?" Cordelia asked, in a accusing hiss.
"Why do you think---" Gunn asked. "Because just looks ain't enough to make Angel the baby daddy. Which ain't possible for vampires, anyway, or else we'd have baby vamps dropping out of trees on us."
"This baby isn't a vampire," Wesley said impatiently.
"The baby smells like Angel," Mulder said.
"You smell Darla," Angel said, quietly. "She sired me."
Mulder blinked, but quickly recovered. "We need to get hold of Giles. And Spike." Hearing the baby stir before the humans did, he bent and picked him up from the nest of blankets. The baby shot him a look, but seemed to recognize the sour smell of his own spit-up milk on Mulder's sweatshirt, for he snuffled for a moment and then let Mulder pat his back.
Angel said, "Let me," and picked the baby up. He promptly screamed his fury at this interruption.
Over the baby's roars, Mulder said, "Spike has an in to Wolfram & Hart. And it wouldn't hurt to find out if the Watcher's Council has a line on the Tro-Clon." To Angel, he said, "You gotta give him his Nuk."
"This is my kid, Mulder," Angel growled.
::
On the phone, Spike said, "Yeah, I'll come up and talk to Lilah, why not? Worth a laugh. But I want Mulder to come down here an' talk to the Slayer."
"What? No!" Angel said. "Cordy, I don't think he likes this formula."
"What?" Spike asked. "Mulder was a psychologist, right? An' he had to crawl outta his own grave, right? Slayer ain't dealin' well with bein' back to life, and Mulder's got a soul and no history with the girl."
Giles' spoke. "Actually, that's---that's a very good suggestion. Meanwhile, we'll drive up, first thing, with my research materials."
Cordelia picked up the telephone, taking it off speaker-phone. "Giles, listen. let me ask you about something." She turned her back to the others and began murmuring something.
"And we'll take the baby to the hospital for a check-up," Gunn said. "Gotta do it, man."
"And call Lorne," Fred said, peering over Angel's arm at the baby.
"Yeah," Mulder said. "Personally, I think he's the Kwisatz Haderach."
Everyone but Cordelia, who was still on the phone, gave him a dirty look.
Part 3.
Because Spike had taken Mulder, and a stolen car, to meet Lilah before, he insisted on Mulder going with him to see her again. Without discussion, they left out the "stolen car" bit, but Mulder knew that they'd have to show up in a Lexus at the very least.
"We're meetin' her at some martini bar," Spike said. "All these downtown types are alike, have to have the latest froofy drink."
"Yeah," Mulder said. "There's probably a hell of a lot of demon business goin' on at those. But why not meet at Caritas?"
"We don't want the Jolly Green Giant readin' us, " Spike said, slapping the back of Mulder's head.
Angel, who was on the phone with a diaper service, looked up and showed Spike a hint of fang.
"Hey, he was my boy before he was yours, " Spike muttered, but leaned elaborately away from Mulder. "Let's go, cab's waitin'."
Giles and Wesley were in earnest consultation via the Internet with Frohike and Langly about the Tro-Clon. It looked like some serious shit was going down, but Mulder thought, When was there not?
::
Frankly, Mulder didn't pay a lot of attention to what Lilah and Spike were murmuring. They were bitching about Angel and his soul and how the Senior Partners had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to bring Darla back as human. Then all about another lawyer, who'd gone 'round the bend and fallen in love with Darla, and had Drusilla vamp her.
That was why he didn't recognize her smell, Mulder thought. She had the memories of a Sire, but she was just a fledge, younger than Mulder. Good to know that Drusilla was still among the unliving.
Lilah was talking a hell of a lot, and it was weird, like she was drunk, or---- Spike threw him a wicked look, and winked.
He sat up straight, impressed.
::
"Yeah, I enthralled her," Spike said casually, spilling cigarette ash over the interior of the Lexus. "Bet you'll be doin' it in a few years. Dead easy, since Dru was our Maker. 'S her gift, and we got it." He was going through the owner's CD collection and tossing disks in the backseat. "Angel can't do it," Spike added, with intense pleasure.
"So, she doesn't know anything about Darla's baby, " Mulder said.
"Nope. I didn't bother to tell her that you got the visions, either. Seems like they were tryin' to mess up the cheerleader somehow, in some damn fool scheme to get Mr. Personality to get someone out of demon jail. Couldn't figure out why he didn't care, so they're thinkin' that Cordelia's either dead or lost the visions. Don't know anything about you at all, in fact, people seem to think you're Angel. Or you're Wes. You don't go out that much, and they think you're still my boy, merrily drinkin' the blood of the guilty."
"Hey, I like REM," Mulder protested.
Spike snorted around his cigarette. "You would." He put in a Pink Floyd album. "One good thing about that bar, when you order a pitcher of Bloody Marys, you bloody well get blood."
"Yeah," Mulder said, brightening. "That was great. Angel and his pig blood. Tastes like ass, compared to the real thing."
"Tell me about it," Spike groused. He looked at the sky. "We'd best be gettin' back, so show me where you dump all your cars."
"It's not far from the hotel, and the sewer is practically bone-dry," Mulder said. "And here I thought, being dead, that at least I wouldn't be ruining my shoes running through sewers." Mulder did a u-turn, making several expensive cars jump the median.
"That's what you get for thinkin'," Spike said. "Pull in at the magazine stand and let me get me a tit magazine."
Mulder swerved, and drove up on the sidewalk. Spike reached out and grabbed a handful of magazines and someone's latte. "Here," he said, handing the cardboard cup to Mulder. "I don't like cinnamon."
"Thanks," Mulder said, driving with one hand.
::
During their wasted evening, the LA Scoobies (as Spike referred to them) had got the baby properly checked out, and he and Angel had both acquired first names. Angel was now Geraldo Angel, and the baby, Connor.
"Next we have to have him baptized," Angel was saying, when Spike and Mulder came up from the basement.
Spike turned to Mulder. "The old man's just a church perv."
The breathers were ready for a little sleep. Since Angel was suspicious of Spike, chip or not, Mulder, Fred and the baby all went up to Angel's suite. The baby was grumbling at Cordelia handing him, and his bottle, over to Angel.
"Hey, a crib," Mulder said. "I like the little ducks." He felt, all at once, sad for Scully. Poor Scully so wanted a baby, and out here vampires were having babies.
"He doesn't like any of us," Fred said, unnecessarily. "We can't get him quiet."
"Make funny faces at him," Mulder advised Angel, and took off his suit jacket, throwing it to the floor. He bent and began fiddling with the mobile attached to the end. "I think you've got the wrong shapes on here. Developmentally speaking---"
Angel was hanging over the baby, talking in baby-talk, but at that, he looked up and growled at Mulder. It was something he didn't usually do, but Angel was obviously exhausted.
The baby, Connor, stop crying, and looked up, intent.
"How about that!" Fred said, scrambling over the bed. "Do it again."
Angel hesitated, then went into full-on game face. The baby cooed.
"That's my boy!" Angel said. "Yes it is, he knows his Daddy!"
"Both daddies," said Fred.
Mulder accidentally snapped off one of the mobile arms.
Part 4.
It took forever for Wesley to decide---to mediate---just who would go to Sunnydale. Giles pleaded urgent business and had already gone back, with his books.
The Kwisatz Haderach showed a definite preference for Fred's company, to Cordelia's outward hurt feelings and inward relief. He was fine with Angel, until Angel began stressing and asking weird questions; then, he wanted the uncomplicated company of Gunn or Mulder.
"We've been around babies before, right, Dead Fed?" Gunn said, holding the bottle of formula at exactly the right angle.
Mulder forebore saying that most of the babies he'd seen had been floating in museum jars. "Right," he said.
"Some one has to go with Mulder and Spike, though, and you're the one with the most sense and the one least likely to dust either of them," Wesley said.
"That's true," Gunn said. " 'Sides, I wouldn't mind meetin' a Slayer. Seein' her in action."
"Pure violence in motion," Spike said enthusiastically. "It's a treat to see her in action, 'long as you're not on the receivin' end."
"Right, that's settled, then," Wesley said, watching Gunn place the baby in Fred's arms.
"Y'all better come back," Fred said. "Charles, make sure he doesn't stay down there with Spike."
"Naah," Spike said, pulling his duster from the back of a chair. "I'm sendin' him right back to you and Batman."
"We'll take my truck," Gunn said. "May come in handy, down there." He pointed at Spike. "You got a chip in your head, right?"
"Yeah, how many times do you lot have to rub it in?" Spike asked.
"Just checkin'," Gunn said, picking up his hub-cap ax. "Just checkin'."
::
"I love this truck!" Xander Harris said. "Giles, this is what we need here. Look at it! A stake cannon!"
"Hm," Giles said, skeptically. "I don't know if we have quite the volume that Mr. Gunn has. I'm most impressed at what Wesley tells me about your neighborhood watch groups."
"Had to, you know? The bigger the city, the easier it is for demons to roam around and massacre people and the law can turn a blind eye." He looked around tolerantly at the main street, quiet under the street-lights. "Here, hard to hide bodies."
"You'd be surprised at the level of denial," Giles said grimly.
"Bet I wouldn't," Gunn said. "My own sister was turned." And I staked her, was the unspoken addition.
"Harsh, man," Xander said, sympathetically. "It was my best friend in high school, and that was when my eyes were really opened."
"Does it to you," Gunn said.
"I wonder what they're talking about?" Anya asked, looking towards the front of the shop, where Buffy was sitting with Mulder. "Remember, Giles, you told her that you couldn't afford to hire her, as well." She looked at Xander. "What? It's true."
::
"Naturally, you'd be traumatized," Mulder said. "It's a horrible experience."
"Yeah, and I didn't recognize anything. I was in a daze, at first."
"What were they thinking of?" Mulder asked. "Scully gave away my Prada shoes and left the wing-tips that needed resoleing from alien phlegm. And my basketball shoes? Forget it! Trashed. When I called her on it, she said they smelled bad. Air Jordans."
"Yeah, and they say they didn't give anything away, but when I went through the closet, all my cutest tops were gone. Don't tell me that my sister didn't lend them to her friends. And she claims she kept all my earrings to feel closer to me and to dress the BuffyBot, but where are they now?" Buffy thought a moments. "And, now that you mention it, there's a pair of Pappagallos that I haven't seen, even before the Hell-God."
"Hm," Mulder said. "I had a shape-shifter assume my identity once, and try to get in bed with my partner. Talk about an eye-opener. My first thought was, Does my hair really look that weird?"
"So, at least I was alive," Buffy said. "But you woke up, dead, and then got a soul. What was that like?"
"Good fun until your pal Rosenberg ensouled me," Mulder said immediately. "Frankly, I just wished I'd been staked. Being a vampire is all about the instant gratification and the dark side. Want it? Take it. Having a soul is just like being a zombie and not being able to eat brains."
"Yeah," Buffy said thoughtfully. "And I thought it was all over and I didn't have to fight anything, anymore. That I'd---you know, that stuff they say at funerals here, that I'd fought the good fight and run the race and finished." She ran one hand over her face. "It's like I've lost a layer of skin, all over. Everything is too loud and too bright and too harsh and too hard."
Mulder thumbed his chin, rasping his stubble. "If the material situation---the bills, the health insurance, the house---was taken care of, would it help you adjust? I mean, would you be interested in going back to school?"
Buffy blinked. "And I'd also like a new car," she said bitterly.
"No, seriously," he said. "Spike filled me in---wait, listen, we can't help it that we hear everything. The girls talked in front of him all the time."
"And Xander," Buffy said. "He's not discreet."
"I was including Xander in the girls," Mulder said, grinning. "Anyway, here's what I see as the target. Sell the house or let it go back to the mortgagor. You're not responsible for the upkeep and it won't impact your credit. There's a perfectly nice third floor above this shop that could be a nice two-bedroom loft apartment. I have friends who can put the arm on your father and enforce the child support agreement." He leaned forward. "If you don't want to take it, fine, but he agreed to pay for your college expenses, and he should definitely pay for Dawn's appetite." He looked down, self-consciously. "My parents died before I did, so I've been through it. Sold their houses, and cars. And I had a little sister, once."
Buffy half-smiled. "You want mine?" He noticed that,even at what, nineteen? she knew not to ask what had happened to his sister. She pushed her hair behind her ears. "Seriously, though, why are you doing this? Because Spike wanted you to? Spike," she said.
"He's my brother," Mulder said, simply. He knew that saying, Shyeah, I do what Spike tells me to, because he's Spike, would not create the effect Spike was looking for.
"Have you told Giles any of this?" she asked, suddenly the nervous, suspicious girl.
"Not yet," Mulder said, perfectly honestly. "But the loft apartment is a good investment, the kind of thing that he can borrow money to do. Then, get the rent money out of the Council."
"You don't know them," Buffy said, bitterly. "They wouldn't do anything to help me."
"Actually," Mulder said, "I do. I was up at Oxford with some of them." He didn't feel it was necessary to say that he was going to divert some of his Roush inheritance to her use.
"As long as I don't have to arrange it," Buffy said. "I can't stand it. Can I just show up and kill things?"
"That's what I like to do," Mulder said. "You remind me of my old partner. She's a short redhead with a medical degree and a gun. She would make a great Slayer."
"I thought a psychologist would be all 'how did that make you feel?' " Buffy said.
"Federal investigators aren't encouraged to ask stupid questions," Mulder said. "You feel like shit. I feel like that every single day. That's why I smoke so much marijuana."
Unfortunately, that last was a little louder than Mulder intended. Spike came over, fingering his belt buckle in one of his most obvious tells. "Brought you here to talk to the Slayer about dyin' and comin' back, nothin' else," he said.
"Baby steps," Mulder said equably. " Baby steps. Get her out of that death trap of a house first, into a nice apartment with steel-core doors and double glazing. Set up charge accounts against a trust fund." At Buffy's ecstatic expression, he added, quickly, "Not that it would hurt you to have a part-time job---" Mulder said. "Something that would let you move around town easily. I bet the paper carriers have a short shelf life in this town."
"We don't even have them here," Buffy said. "I can find part-time jobs,it was full-time." She waved Giles over.
::
"She's got to learn to manage," Giles said. "She doesn't need a fairy godfather."
"Got the fairy part right," Spike snorted.
"No, she doesn't," Mulder said, patiently. "She's a kid. And from what Spike and the old---Angel, tell me, Slayers don't live very long. Angel says you've got a Slayer locked up in prison, upstate, and your Council's not doing a thing to help her."
"She killed people," Xander said. He had remained, after Buffy went home to break it to the witches that they'd have to pack up and move back to the dorms. "Killed at least two, here, and how many in LA?" At Mulder's non-response, he said, "Oh, that's right. You don't wear a long dark coat so I forget that you're a vampire."
"I killed people before I was turned," Mulder said, expressionlessly. "Wore a long dark coat, had a Glock paid for with your tax money." He turned back to Giles. "I'll make the wire transfers to your checking accounts tonight. Xander's people can do the conversion of the rooms up there, right?"
"What, is this some FBI trick?" Xander asked. "You can spot the calluses on my hand, tell that I'm a carpenter?"
"That, and Spike told me," Mulder said, reaching in his jacket pocket for his credit cards. He looked past Xander's shoulder. "But I forgot to tell Gunn that Anya's living with you," he said, nodding at Gunn, in conversation with Anya, at the cash register.
Xander leapt back to the counter as if Mulder had fanged out.
"Charlie don't like demons," Spike said, lighting a forbidden cigarette, and holding the pack out to Mulder.
"Xander doesn't know that," Mulder said, tranquilly, and shook a cigarette out of the pack.
Giles surprised them by bursting into laughter.
Mulder turned on the charm, and held out Spike's pack. "Cigarette?" he asked.
"No, thank you," Giles said, taking off his glasses. "How long do you stay, Mulder?"
"He's got to get back or Tall Dark and Borin' will start creatin'," Spike said. "Mulder isn't old enough to stay here at Sunnyhell too long."
Mulder sighed.
"You hold your human face very well," Giles said, studying him much as Scully used to study her corpses. "And as Xander said, it's difficult to remember that you're a vampire."
"Hangin' around with Angel," Spike said, shaking his head. "Never met a fella so embarrassed about bein' what he is. Shows lack of self-esteem, if you ask me---oughta put him on Oprah with Dr. Phil."
"You ready, Mulder?" Gunn asked, coming over to the round table. "I want to get out of this crazy-ass town. I got a good thick tarp in the front, you can wrap up in that. I don't want to have to get fried Dead Fed out of the car seat."
"Yeah," Mulder said, reluctantly standing up, and looking at Spike's pointedly averted profile. "And Muad Dib's probably driving them all crazy." It was a comforting thought.
"Who?" Xander asked, as if he couldn't believe his ears."
"Muad Dib," Mulder repeated. "Connor. Angel's kid."
"Who?" Xander asked again.
"I'll, er, tell you later," Giles said hurriedly.
Part 5
It wasn't that he was embarrassed about being a vampire, Mulder thought. Hell, shit happened and he supposed he'd rather be vamped and having a decentish unlife, than be locked in a cage in Russia with black oil dripping into his eyes. Or be a clone, thinking you were a real human, only to boil away in some kind of green acid. Having the memory of Drusilla biting him, his heart slowly stopping, and then drinking her blood. His own life warming her blood even as the warmth drained out of him.
And then there was the mystery, the demon itself, the same demon that animated Drusilla and a line of others, stretching backwards, creatures of the night, of the earth. Waking up and crawling up through the soil like a swimmer up from a deep pool dive. There were worse deaths, worse memories----Duane Barry's came to mind.
No, he held his vampire face not just because the blood that made him was old, but because the demon was comfortable with him with Fox Mulder, once upon a time, FBI. Some of the fledges he'd seen were raw, uncontrollable, just hunger on two legs. Himself as a man was not so far off, apparently, from a vampire. Especially a House of Aurelius vampire, being trained by the oldest survivor member.
Aside from everything else, Angel showed him that learning to feed on pig blood taught patience. Mulder thought it was stupid to not buy real A neg, but the pig's blood on tap kept him calm, kept him from wanting to go find some heroin dealer or child-abuser and put the quietus on them. Like, immediately.
He still thought pig tasted like ass. He'd have to do what Spike did, put pepper in it to give it, well, bite.
That's what he had to think about on the drive back from Sunnydale. Gunn thought he was asleep under the tarp, and that was fine with Mulder. He didn't want to give Gunn any apprehensions at all, because Gunn could probably dump him out in the middle of the sunlit interstate, and so much for existential angst.
Back at the hotel, Angel was letting the girls take some of the Connor-watch. Since Wesley was researching, Gunn had gone back to his place, and Angel was sleeping the broken sleep of the single parent, Mulder wandered around the place.
He heard a weird buzzing, and discovered a surveillance camera. The fuck? He tracked it to the source, and got online with Frohike. "Just disconnect it," Melvin e-mailed. "Then you'll see who comes around."
He did so, and came back out of the closet where the telephone wiring was kept. "Hey, bossman, when did you let someone in here to wire us for sound?" He flung the cables and connectors on Wesley's desk.
(If Wesley said "Good Lord," and polished his glasses, Mulder was going to have to bite him.)
Something of that must have been in his face, because Wesley just picked up the miniature transmitter. "I saw that you had been online to the Gunmen," he said. "Mr. Byers tells me that you have abundant experience with being bugged."
"Yeah, I do," Mulder said, moodily. "Looks like some things never change." He dropped into one of the chairs.
"We were inspected by what I thought were municipal assessors," Wesley said. "That's when it was done."
"Look, we've got to get our own security system around here," Mulder said. "Anyone could break in here, and I should know, I had an apartment back east that may as well had a fucking revolving door."
"Yes, yes, your sad life as a federal agent," Wesley said.
Oh, there was his demon, flaring along all of his nerve endings.
"It wasn't a joke," Mulder said, standing back up. Wesley stared up at him, unflinchingly.
"Mulder," Angel said, quietly, from the doorway. "Put the fangs away."
"Fine," Mulder said. He hadn't realized that he'd vamped out. "I'll go outside, see how many fucking cameras are outside."
"You do that," Angel said, still quietly. He came in the office, carrying the baby monitor in one hand. "We were kind of distracted."
Mulder stamped out, and heard Wesley begin, "Angel, there was no reason for him to fly at me---"
"Don't bait him," Angel replied.
Outside, Mulder leisurely climbed the fire-escape so he could walk the roof-line, and incidentally, smoke. After a while, he noticed the same person making a slow circle around the block, across the street. Mulder climbed down the fire-escape on the other side of the building and followed him. There was a black SUV, lights out, motor running. No way, a tac operation?
And there was a damn serial-killer looking van, coming up to the main entrance. The fuck? They were circling, too.
Yep, the first guy was casing the place. Just like he'd thought. And he was calling someone, calling in the team.
Mulder didn't hesitate; he came up behind the guy, as he stepped into the garden and took him out with a quick throttling, grabbing the cellphone. Then he ran back up the steps, and streaked through the lobby and into the office. "Someone's calling in a SWAT team," he said. "Get the kid and Fred and---" he looked at Angel.
Angel switched off the baby monitor. "Go up to the roof and go down into the un-used wing," he said to Wesley.
"Give me my gun," Mulder said. "Give it back." Angel cut his eyes at him, and hustled Wesley out. Mulder yanked open Wesley's desk drawer and grabbed his Glock and his spare clip.
"We've got two sets of people here," Mulder said.
"Let's go up, find a more defensible position."
::
"You know, they're after me," Angel hissed to Mulder. "They don't know anything about you." This was as they watched the front door guys---well, guy, directing a gray-skinned demon crew---demolish the military-type wetwork ops. "I know this man. I---" and dumbfounded, Mulder saw Angel jump from the mezzazine and go try to talk to the brown-coated guy.
Mulder didn't listen to the conversation. He watched the demons completely ensnare Angel. The boss, the human, was involved in some kind of ranting. Vengeance and a fanatic's heat came off this guy like smoke. "I'm surrounded by fucking drama queens," he thought.
Then Angel blew himself out the elevator door.
During the distraction, Mulder stood up and carefully aimed, and blew off the top of the human's head.
The man sank to his knees, blood and brain matter in a mist, and at the same time, Mulder swung one-handed over the rail to the lobby floor. "Hey, looks like our bosses are both, uh, gone," he said to the demons.
The man's body finished crashing to the floor.
"So, you guys want to help me get rid of these bodies?" Mulder asked cheerily, his Glock levelled at the demon closest to him.
"Take him back to Sahjahn, Flarmar." one of them said to another. "We don't fight without a Jefe."
"Yeah, tell Sahjahn that he's messing with the Feds," Mulder said. He toed the crossbow away from the dead guy's body. "Who are these other guys?"
The demon, Flarmar said, "I've seen them around. They come from Downtown, that's all I know."
"Weird that you guys work for humans. Got a card or anything? Ever go to Sunnydale? My sire lives there."
"Not likely," Flarmar said. "We don't go to Slayertown." He dropped a token of sorts onto the marble lobby floor. "That will raise any of us." He bent, and with the same staffs that had held Angel, they lifted the body up. Blood dripped.
"Hey, you! Wrap the head," Mulder said. "You're making me hungry."
After the gray demons went out the front, Mulder bent and patted down one of the tac guys. He pulled out a lanyard and "Wolfram & Hart" ID. The tac guys were all dead, not a heartbeat among them. But their blood was reasonably fresh, he thought, cheering up. And then I can get the SUV, drive it around back, and load all these dickheads inside.
Hey, may turn into a decent night after all.
Other Fic Archive
back to top |
 |
