Spike stared around him at the now light mauve faces and wrinkled his brow
"Let me get this straight. Red and a couple of Angel's girlies have gone missing. All of you have had your heads too far up your bums to notice and some demon saw them in some else's head bein' attacked?"
He paused as five heads nodded in agreement
"He told Angel, Angel told you and you all put your heads together and decided the best course of action was to dye us all purple?"
Giles scowled
"Of course not, don't be ridiculous. Lorne deduced there was a reason the girls had run off and figured that the most likely reason was that we were all being threatened or held over their heads in some way. We performed a simple revealing spell to see if we had any traces of dark or powerful magic on us and voila!"
He waved an irritated hand through the air and Spike frowned
"He dyed us all purple?"
Buffy sighed
"Keep up. We're purple because we've been cursed."
Spike nodded slowly
"Aah. And why am I being dragged into this again?"
He turned and looked over his shoulder as a voice spoke behind him
"Simple, my little Billy Idol wannabe, obviously someone thought that you were of some importance to the little red head and included you in the hex-fest. Lucky you huh?"
Spike stared for a moment at the muddy brown face with the little horns beaming at him from the screen of the laptop
"What the bleedin' hell are you?"
Lorne looked offended at his tone
"Well I can see the whole sucky personality issue isn't just a localised side effect for the one souled vamp. It's an across the board thing, huh?"
Spike scowled deeply as he heard his grandsire's voice from off screen
"Hey!" "Is that the poof?" Lorne nodded
"Yup, he's busy brooding at the moment but I'm sure when he's pulled his thumb out from his butt he'll be only too happy to speak to you."
Spike opened his mouth to deliver a scathing reply but before he could utter a word the demon disappeared from off screen and Angel's glowering face replaced it
"Spike."
Spike curled his upper lip and snarled
"Poof."
The two vampires eyed each other with mutual disdain
"Still a big prancin' wanker then?" "Still chasing things you can't have, William?"
Buffy stepped forward hurriedly
"Ok, kinda chokin' on the testosterone here boys. Angel, be nice, Spike has a soul now remember? Spike, just be…..not you for a few minutes, `k?"
Spike curled his lip
"Twat." "Wannabe."
Buffy scowled
"Guys enough already. Our friends are missing and need our help and we're all under some kind of curse, get a grip!"
She watched as Spike obligingly took his seat again and pretended not to see when he flipped Angel the bird. She was also struck temporarily blind when Angel returned the favour with the international gesture for `dickhead'. Giles cleared his throat
"Well, now we have some clue as to what led to the girls' disappearance, what do we intend to do about it?"
Everyone turned back to face the laptop as Angel growled
"We find whoever's done this and we kill them. All of them."
Spike grinned mockingly
"Well, well, look who's grown a pair in LA. Didn't think you had it in you."
Angel's face turned away from the screen briefly and then everyone jumped as he howled "You bastard!" and lunged off screen. Buffy ran to the counter top and yelled frantically
"Angel! Angel! Come back! Angel!"
>From off screen shouts and yells could be heard and then Lorne's face beamed uneasily out at them
"Hi, we're going on a short break now, normal service will be resumed when we've drugged the big guy to the gills. Angel, not the window!"
A loud crash was heard and then the screen cut out suddenly, Buffy turned to face the others
"What the hell is going on?"
A Very Cheap Motel Room.
"What the hell is going on?"
Cordelia snarled the question and unwittingly echoed Buffy as she stared down at the man before her. Lindsey shifted uncomfortably on the bed and flexed his wrists in their bonds behind his back. He looked up into Cordelia's furious eyes and said dryly
"You know, when someone saves your life it's traditional to buy them a drink and say thanks, not tie them up and interrogate them for hours in a smelly, roach infested motel room."
Cordelia placed her hands on her hips
"Oh excuse me born-again-boy, I didn't realise you were on the forty eight hours out of the year where you actually give a shit. And for the record, you didn't save my life; you merely shaved a few minutes off the stretch between me and dinner. `K?"
She turned and accepted the sweet smelling tea that Willow offered her and then almost bit through the mug when the other girl sat beside Lindsey and held an identical cup to his lips.
"Willow, stay away from him."
The red head glanced at the seer and said calmly
"He's tired and thirsty and it wouldn't hurt you to be a little more accommodating."
Cordelia spat tea over the floor
"Accommodating? He's a prisoner. Hello? Am I the only one that gets that?"
Willow nodded and said with just a hint of reproach
"I get that. I just don't get why you're all `Nazi Bitch From Hell' over it. He helped us and then we tied him up and let you rag on him for hours. I think he deserves a little courtesy."
Lindsey dimpled at her
"Thank you."
Willow rolled her eyes
"I said courtesy, not roll out the welcome mat and slaughter a fatted calf. There's still the matter of blowing up Wesley, trying to drive Cordelia insane and raising Darla in a box to work through. I'm nicer than she is, I'm not stupid."
Cordelia smirked as the redhead stood up and went to rejoin Fred on the opposite bed and Lindsey's face fell.
"Hah."
She took a long sip of tea and fixed her eyes on him as she swallowed
"So tell me again why you're here?"
Lindsey sighed and for what seemed like the hundredth time in an hour said
"Lorne got a vision you were in danger and sent me to help you while he went to Angel. I'm your protector."
Cordelia smirked and waved her hand mockingly towards him indicating the scratch at his throat from her axe and his bound hands
"Good job." "Again I'll draw your attention to the saving of your life." "You did NOT save my….."
They both paused as Fred spoke up from her cross-legged position on the bed
"Will you two quit it? Cordelia, come and look at this."
Cordelia sent one last poisonous look at the seriously disgruntled ex- lawyer and crossed to her friends to peer down at the laptop before her. On the screen was a full colour picture of Lorne on stage at Ellie's club and down on the right hand side was a smaller picture of Lindsey singing on the same stage. Cordelia swallowed suddenly a lot more worried, she looked at her two friends and Willow said sombrely
"We may have a problem."
The three girls turned back to look at Lindsey and he frowned as he took in their pale faces
"What?"
They continued to stare at him and then Fred reached out to lay a trembling hand on Cordelia's arm
"I think he's on the level."
The seer closed her eyes and summed up the situation in one fierce, succinct word
"Shit."
LA
"What the hell were you thinking? Of all the hair brained, dumb ass, chuckle headed things to do. I'll tell you big guy sometimes I have to wonder how the hell you made it through the last two hundred and fifty years in one piece."
Lorne dampened his cloth in the bowl of warm water at his side and then slapped the sodden cloth against the scowling vampires head and began to clean the long gash there uncaring of the pained wince or the low growl as Angel caught sight of the cause of his anger
"Oh don't be such a baby."
Angel's eyes flashed yellow as he glared around the Host's body and snarled at a nervous looking Wesley being cleaned up by Gunn and Connor. Lorne slapped the vampire briskly around the head
"Stop it, he's here to help." "He took my son."
Connor looked over at the pain and rage in the low voice and his eyes met the tortured gaze of his father for a second, their eyes held and then the young boy turned back to taping a cut on the Englishman's arm
"Will you cut it out? He nearly died, you tried to smother him and now you've thrown him through a window, I think you're even."
Lorne stepped back and eyed the slightly damp vampire
"There, as good as new. Unfortunately."
He rolled his eyes as Angel jumped to his feet and pushed past him intent on getting his former best friend the hell away from his son and ejecting him once and for all from his unlife. Gunn took a step but Connor beat him to it and calmly stepped in front of his father
"If you touch him I'll leave and I'll never come back."
Angel recoiled at the cool words and a look of hurt and betrayal came over his face. He raised his hand and pointed at the huddled form on the lobby couch
"He's the reason you grew up in that hell. He's the reason we lost all those years. He's the reason you tried to bury me in a box at the bottom of the ocean for all eternity and now you're trying to defend him?"
His voice cracked at the end of his impassioned speech and Connor's face softened briefly as he met the anguished eyes above him and then his mouth firmed and he straightened his shoulders
"No, I'm not trying to defend him. I'm trying to keep him alive so he can be of use to us in finding Cordelia and Fred. That is what is important now."
He gestured behind him and kept his eyes on his father as he said levelly
"I will do what ever I have to if it means they come back alive and you should want to do the same. He is paying for what he did. When I found him he was so poisoned with alcohol and bitterness he could hardly stand. Smell him, smell the sickness."
Angel sniffed the air and hid a wince at the sour smell of Wesley's flesh and sweat as the alcohol in his body worked its way around his bloodstream. He smelt the decay of a once fit body and he saw with his own eyes the decay months of abuse had caused. Connor continued in the same level tone
"He's lost everything. His family and friends, his work, his purpose and most of all his dignity, he'll suffer for his actions until the end of his days."
The boy took a breath and forced the next words out knowing how much they would hurt his parent
"If you hurt him now then you really are the monster I always thought you were and there will never be any part of you I can call Father."
Angel blinked in shock and reached out a hand imploringly to his son and said pleadingly
"Connor, he took you away. Please."
Connor remained silent and Angel spun away from him with what sounded suspiciously like a sob and headed for the stairs
"Fine, he stays, but the minute we get the girls get back he's gone and I don't want to see him again."
Connor turned to Lorne with wide eyes as his father disappeared around the top of the stairs and the green demon shrugged
"Well, that could have gone better."
He smiled at the boy's stricken expression
"Don't sweat it hun, he'll come around."
I hope
Sunnydale
Xander followed Giles as the older man went to the bathroom and snagged his sweater as he opened the door
"Giles, I need a word."
Giles turned with a pained expression
"Can't it wait? I just need a moment."
Xander shook his head and glanced over his shoulder making sure none of the others were in earshot
"No, I think I've got an idea."
He spoke in a low, rapid voice and Giles' impatient expression changed into one of cautious hope and, slightly hurtfully, shocked surprise
"Good God, Xander I think you might have something there."
The young dark haired man grinned
"I have my moments."
Giles shook his head slowly
"I really think it might work."
He shifted uncomfortably
"Just give me a minute and we'll put it to the others."
He turned to go into the bathroom and then stopped and looked over his shoulder saying seriously
"You know every now and then you amaze me."
He disappeared at speed behind the door and Xander leaned against the wall grinning goofily at the wall opposite
"I know the feeling."