Lateral Thinking

By Xanpet

Chapter Ten

Lindsey had been out for less then twenty minutes before he found the missing Dex. It was almost as if it had found him, like it was trying to find home. He bundled it into the truck and drove back to Halley's apartment. It was remarkably co-operative. There was no fight left in the beast, and it's sad eyes looked tired and weary of life. In a lot of ways, Lindsey knew how it felt.

"What are we going to do now?" He asked the creature. He tried to phone Hal but her cel phone was off. For a moment, he would have given anything for the demon spawn in front of him to take all his worries. He hid it in the spare room and locked the door. He poured himself a drink and sat down to wait for Halley. Somehow phoning the Hyperion never occurred to him. She'd come home eventually. He wasn't risking his neck any more.

Suddenly he decided he needed more than just the wine Halley kept in the house. He took his keys and headed for the door. The Dex would be all right. He would just go to the bar on the corner and sink a few beers. He deserved it. Inside the locked room the Dex grew a little sadder.

---

An uneasy truce hung between the two vampires as they made there way towards the address Halley Dillinger had given them. Angel's nose stung like crazy and his demon seethed that his childe had dared to touch him in that way. Bloody William and his bloody antics. "Why does he have to be like this?" Angel thought.

They pulled up outside an apartment block just in time to see Lindsey leave on foot.

"You think you can take an order and just do it?" Snapped Angel. He didn't wait for a reply. "Follow him."

Spike jumped the car door and leaned in to kiss his sire on his broken nose. "Okay." He said and was gone.

---

Lindsey stepped up to the bar and ordered two beers and two double whiskey chasers. He downed the first whiskey as soon as it arrived and banged the short glass on the counter for a refill. He felt strange, almost euphoric and he hadn't even been with the Dex that long. Maybe he was just in greater need of a soul cleansing than most. Of course getting drunk while the woman you loved was in trouble wasn't exactly the most moral thing to do but what the heck? The Dex would absorb his sin and everything would be fine. He wondered if it took the hangovers as well.

A stranger sat down next to him and ordered a JD, neat. "You put an ice cube in that and you die." Said the man to the bar tender, cheerfully. Lindsey eyed the newcomer up and down. He was dressed head to toe in black. It contrasted sharply with his pale skin and bleached white hair. He wore various cheap silver rings and his stubby fingernails were painted black. There was something about him however that screamed power, even though his frame was wiry and compact. Something in the chiselled features, bright blue eyes and confident almost cocky manner.

"Drinking for two?" The man said in an accent that was almost certainly British. "That's a sure sign of heartache."

"Did I talk to you?" Lindsey snapped belligerently.

But Spike carried on, "You know, them what wallow in self recrimination usually 'ave a soul what's sick. Some of us would call it brooding."

Lindsey moved away but Spike just followed him down the bar. "I've tried it you know, the booze. Don't heal y'soul."

"If your one of those born again deals, just forget it. I'm a lost cause, so go preach to someone that cares!"

Spike laughed, "Born again. Yeah, you could say that. Thought I'd lost me soul too. Funny things, the soulless." As he talked the pieces of his existence began to fall into place. The pain of his life before his change, the humiliation by Cicely, Dru leaving him, his unrequited passion for the Slayer and his eventual leaving of Sunnydale, it was possible all these events could be attributed, in part, to him having a sick soul. He wasn't man enough to be a demon and he wasn't demon enough to be a man.

"I'm not soulless!" Lindsey was shocked by that last comment.

"No? Well maybe not yet but you're well on the way."

Lindsey pondered on this for a minute, "My boss said the soulless live forever."

"Yeah, but that can be a very long time. And in the long run - it don't bring 'em happiness. Existence ain't life."

"Tell that to most vampires. Oh but I don't suppose you believe in such things." Lindsey said, still thinking he was talking to some religious nut.

"Oh I believe. All I'm saying is you can't cure the soul by means of the senses. I think that's what makes Angelus so bloody straight laced." Spike thought that maybe this is what he'd been trying to do ever since he was a human child, the big bad image, the acting out, and all vain attempts at soul curing.

"You know Angel? Did he send you after me? Tell him this is Halley's problem, not mine. This time my conscience is clear."

"Which is why you are in here, drinking for England!"

"Look I'm free. I don't have a thing to worry about. I could work for good like you, if I wanted, I just don't want."

But Spike just laughed again. The man clearly thought he was one of Angel's pets. He didn't work for good, he worked for profit. Rather like prostitution but at least it kept your soul intact, such as it was. Rather too well as he'd found out. Not that he was going to reveal his more philosophical side to this arsehole.

As quickly as the laugh appeared it went again and his chiselled features became stone. "I don't work for good!" He snapped outloud, "I work for profit."

Lindsey said nothing to that. Who was this strange man Angel had sent after him? Or was he a man at all? Lawyers worked for profit and all it made them was sick. It poisoned the soul and the Dex was proof of that.

Giving a wry snort, Lindsey asked, "Ever read Oscar Wilde? He said, 'Your soul can be bought, sold and bartered away. It can be poisoned or made perfect.' Whoever or whatever you are, tell Angel he's to stay away from things that don't concern him or he may lose more than he bargained for."

"I'm not your errand boy. You can tell 'im yourself when you finally roll home."

It took a while for that to sink through the alcohol. "Brilliant distraction, Angel." Lindsey chided himself mentally and without another word, he headed for the door.

Spike snickered to himself. Doing good was always so much more fun when you could be evil at the same time. He followed Lindsey out of the bar.... Without paying.

Chapter Eleven

As soon as he saw Halley Dillinger arrive, Angel got out of the car and followed her up the steps to her apartment. "Miss, ah...Dr Dillinger, may I speak with you?"

He knew straight away that he'd moved too quick and too silently when she jumped and whirled round. He backed off quickly.

"What do you want?" She asked. "Have you found it already?"

"No, but I need to ask you a few more questions. Ah, may I?" He indicated the door with his head.

"Oh yes of course. Come in."

It was always rather a relief when he got the invite like that straight away. It saved on the awkward doorstep conversations.

He knew instantly that the Dex was in the house. It smelt so bad but the doctor didn't seem to notice and made some excuse about not taking out the garbage that morning. "You know how it is when you work all day." She said.

Angel nodded. "So, where did you say you worked?" He asked.

"I didn't." She replied.

"Why don't we stop with the games," He said suddenly. "I know you have some connection to Wolfram and Hart. I saw Lindsey McDonald leave here not twenty minutes ago. He's dangerous."

"I hired you to do a job. Sticking your nose in where it's not wanted wasn't it."

That remark made him cross, "Lindsey is a dangerous unprincipled, lair, who'd sell his own Grandmother if he thought it would win him a case. I've run him out of town once and I'll do it again."

Hal didn't have time to defend her boyfriend because Lindsey burst into the apartment at that moment with Spike hot on his heals. Spike would have burst into the apartment too but for the invisible barrier that kept all uninvited vampires out. He leant on it and snarled dangerously. There was no point in being subtle, the very fact of its existence said what he was.

Looking from person to person, Lindsey couldn't believe his eyes. There was Angel standing with Hal and he'd sent another vampire to keep the lawyer out of the way. "Born again! Hah, very funny!" He thought.

"Come on in and join the party." He said out loud and Spike strode through the door. "Well lookee here my best girl and my worst enemy."

He dumped himself on the sofa and Halley noticed he was detached and disinterested. The investigator had accused him of being callous and now he seemed to be living up to that. She yelled at him, "Don't you care? People say such terrible things about you, Lindsey."

Angel looked from person to person. Spike positively bristled with nervous energy. He was clearly enjoying the strife. There was no indication that he possessed a soul of any kind. Halley was obviously in pain. Her agony was plain on her face, as she hid nothing. And Lindsey? Well he sat impassively, lounging back on the sofa as if nothing could touch him. Suddenly Angel had the answer. "Of course he doesn't care." He said, "He's had his soul removed!"

Hal was horrified. The man she loved had been harmed by her work. Had Reed given Lindsey a Dex? The Firm was going to destroy them both. But no, there weren't enough missing Dexes for her lover to have had one for that long. An agonising realisation began to dawn on her. He must have the Dex she'd sent him after. She'd done this to him. She'd destroyed him herself.

Halley began to cry. Lindsey didn't turn a hair even though the woman he loved was in tears in front of his worst enemy and some strange vampire. "I did this to you!" She wept, "And I'm so sorry. So very sorry."

It was heartbreaking for Angel and even Spike could no longer just watch. He moved towards her and she fell broken, into his arms. He shushed her, rocking gently as he used to do with Dru. Gradually the sobs became less.

Angel turned to Lindsey and said in scathing tones, "You represent what is evil and you come to represent evil itself."

"Are you saying I'm evil?" The lawyer's voice was a cold monotone, "I'm not creating it; it's there, it's business. If it weren't you'd be out of a job. You trade in it too, Angel."

Angel ignored him, "Where is the beast, Lindsey?"

For a moment, Lindsey McDonald was scared but the fear quickly turned to anger. "You want to see the Dex I have? You want to see my soul?" He opened the door to the spare room and the smell literally drove the two vampires back across the room. The hideous beast was festering in his offences. Its face was lined with worry and pain. It had gnarled hands as if it had done a lifetime of hard labour and yet its body was bloated with excess. There were pustules of sin erupting from its leathery hide and the whole creature shuffled as if it was very old.

"Christ, Lindsey, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!" Halley exclaimed.

In the Dex, Angel saw his own, suffering soul and he wondered what state Spike's was in. In the same way as the Doctor must have somehow created the demon, he had created Spike.

The Dex was in a state. It was as if leprosy and necrotising bacteria were eating it from within. Disease crept over the hands of the Dex and its fingers dripped blood. The beast could not control whose sins it absorbed. Between Lindsey, Angel, Spike and Halley they had aged it faster than even LA itself could.

"I loved you too much." Hal said shaking her head. "And now I'm being punished for it. But you know what? You loved yourself too much as well and now we are both being punished."

"Give me the demon." Angel said, "I will dispose of it."

Lindsey just stood and placed himself between the vampire and creature. Hal tried to regain her composure. She disentangled herself from Spike and moved towards her lover and the beast, "Give it to me, Lindsey. Then we can start over. It needn't be like this, we'll move away..."

"No! You can't come near it. I will deal with the Dex. If you come for it then it's over between us."

"You can't stop me from seeing my own work!" She screamed. She'd never seen him so angry, but she was sure if she could just get him alone, she could get the thing away from him and destroy it. "This is still fixable." She thought.

She turned to Angel and said in a low whisper, "Let me deal with this. You go to the lab and destroy all the rest of the Dexes."

Angel hesitated, glancing towards Lindsey, still furious and cold. Hal saw his concern, "It's okay. I'll be fine. Just go quickly." She hurriedly scribbled some directions and gave him her swipe card. "Now go!"

With a last look from Angel and a shrug from Spike, they left and Halley was alone with Lindsey and the beast. She looked at him hard. Maybe if she appealed to the love inside him. The love he had so often shown her, "Lindsey, I love you. You are my inspiration - please! You are more important to me than the Dex or the Firm."

"Oh don't be ridiculous!" Yelled Lindsey, "You have killed my love. You used it to make me hope and dream now I can't be bothered with you. You have no effect on me any more. I loved you because you were wonderful. You had genius and intellect and you've thrown it all away."

Hal tried to reach out for the Dex. It was repulsive but if it would follow her, she could get it out of the apartment.

"What are you doing Halley?" Lindsey asked. His eyes were dead and soulless. Now she was really afraid and she began to back away. Lindsey raised the letter opener from the desk and she didn't have time to turn. He thrust it into Hal's chest and blood spurted from the wound. "I'm good looking, I'm powerful, I'm successful," each claim was punctuated by a stab, "And you won't change that."

Hal stumbled and fell with the ferocity of the attack. She reeled in pain but managed to pull herself to her feet, using the edge of an occasional table. On it stood an onyx-based lamp.

The room swam as she lifted the lamp and for a moment, Lindsey thought he was her target but instead she went for the Dex. "Look!" She screamed, "See, I can destroy my art." Still in pain from the stab wounds, she began to beat the Dex around the head. Its blood soon covered her hands and splattered her face, mixing with hers on her blouse and into the wounds themselves. She struck it repeatedly and the Dex seemed to become less of a monster, its body morphing with each blow.

Eventually exhausted she sank into its arms, and with a small whimper, she died. The Dex looked up at Lindsey briefly. It was a beautiful creature now and the look it gave him was one of love. Then it too died and Lindsey was left with his guilt.

That final look returned to him everything that had been taken and nausea took a hold. He retched, bringing up acrid smelling alcohol and bile. He couldn't stand the pain in his soul. His lover was dead at his own hands and his career ruined. He felt the blackness of despair overwhelm him.

As if in a daze, he went to the draw in the desk and took out Halley's gun. He checked the chambers methodically and returned calmly to the centre of the room. He knelt down next to the body of his lover but couldn't bring himself to touch her.

"I don't know how you stand it Angel." He murmured, placed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Twelve

Opening the driver's side of his black convertible, Angel sat down and started the engine. Spike leapt the passenger door and plumped himself into the seat. "On on, Batman." He quipped and they took off through the city streets towards the laboratory.

Angel touched his nose gingerly, but it had already begun to heal and hurt lots less. He was glad of his sluggish vampire circulation. It meant he wouldn't be walking around with two black eyes for a week. He glanced at Spike, "Why do you do it?" He asked.

The other vampire just stared at the road as if he hadn't heard. Angel thought he wasn't going to get a reply but then out of nowhere came softly, "Cos I can."

"But acting out doesn't give you any real power."

"It doesn't? Look, can we just finish this? If I'm about to be treated to a lecture from your soul, I'd rather be in a place where I can fall asleep in comfort." The blond began to search his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter.

"It's not my soul I'm worried about. Maybe for a little while you feel powerful, but you must be dying inside."

Spike lit a fag and glared at his Sire. What did that cunt know? "Thinks he can stick his hampton up y'jacksie and suddenly all is forgiven?" He thought with venom.

He took a long drag, "For a little while I feel powerful.... For a second I feel like a GOD!" He barked, "You wouldn't understand."

But Angel thought he did, "You think I've haven't done things just to feed on other people's weakness?"

"Yeah, I think you did call boys!"

"Is that what this is all about?" Angel slid the car into the side of the road and killed the engine. He knew speed was always of the essence, especially when dealing with Wolfram and Hart but at this moment, his childe was the most important thing to him. He turned to face Spike and their eyes met. Spike's were at their coldest and most soulless. No hint of what lay hidden within. Could Angel reach it? Touch it?

It was Spike that spoke first, "Did you kill my Jack?"

Well that came out of left field and for a minute Angel was stunned, "Jack? Was he another rent boy? Oh Wil', was he special to you?"

"I'll never know. He could have been - one day." Spike closed his eyes against the emotional pain. He knew that if he reached for his soul, all he would feel were the agonies of the last century. Wil' was dead. Wasn't that what he'd told Xander? Only Spike here now. But the wound had been worried and Angel was picking at the scab. Spike couldn't stop the tumble of vicious words.

"I came to you to find him and all I found was torture, pain and death. DID YOU KILL MY JACK?"

"I don't know - I really don't," The cursed vampire lowered his head in shame, "So many boys."

But Spike was impervious to the pain he was causing, "Let me help you. Blond, straight hair cut in a pudding basin. I did it meself. Eyes like storm clouds at sea and a split lip."

"Ye Gods Spike, I don't know! What do you want me to say? How can I know?"

"You know what? Say nothing at all. Just drive and don't ask any more bloody stupid questions!" He stubbed the remains of his cigarette out on the side of the car and tossed the butt onto the sidewalk.

They continued on their way but the tension was palpable. The ringing cel phone took them both by surprise. Angel answered it, rather relieved at having something else to think about. None of Spike's outbursts were ever comfortable but that.... It was easy to be a murderer if your victims had no names and at this moment, all he wanted to do was run away, hide, brood.

It was Wesley on the phone, "I think I've solved it."

"Good. We've had some success here too. We're on our way to a laboratory."

Spike grunted at that word.

"Is William there with you? Can you ask him a quick question?"

Angel didn't think Spike would answer, especially if he'd heard the ex watcher call him William, but still, "Go on."

"Ask him if Anthony and Cleopatra are human?"

"WHAT THE FUCK?! Is this about Spike's stupid little game? I don't believe this."

"No." Said Spike in answer to the question, "And he's not to call me William." Nothing wrong with his childe's vampire hearing, then.

"Their fish aren't they? Goldfish. The draught from the open window blows the heavy curtain, knocking the fishbowl off the highly polished table. The bowl breaks and Anthony and Cleopatra suffocate, lying in a pool of water and glass."

Wesley sounded triumphant but Angel growled dangerously. "We're here, Wes. At the lab," He swung the car into the parking lot. "Please tell me you have something more relevant than fish!"

"Well actually yes. Fred's little device seems to have come up trumps. We think the demons have an artificial soul. It's a clever little chemical, which is the essence of living things. It's like spiritual DNA and it's what Spike's chip detects. Listen carefully Angel; the beast may be able to absorb this chemical from the people around it, effectively draining them of their souls. It may well find damaged or corrupted souls easier to absorb. Be careful."

"You think it could take my soul. Break the curse?"

"Fred doesn't seem to think so. She says you give off a molecule in the cis transfiguration, whereas the living, give off trans molecules. The chemical seems to alter on death."

"Well that make's sense," Angel thought. He'd been wondering just how Spike was managing to cause him so much pain without setting off the chip.

"I don't pretend to understand it myself," Wesley went on, "I'm a rogue demon hunter not a chemist, but she is quite insistent that Wi...Spike is sending out the same signals as the living. She says, tell him he's to come back smelly. He'll know what it means." Then he rang off.

Angel looked at Spike. He'd been right, Wil' had never really died, his soul hidden long before his turning happened, "Got that?" He said, "Not just me worried about your soul, it seems. Be careful in there. If not for me then for her." Spike just stared at him and raised a brow.

The buildings were quiet and in darkness. There were no security guards and no dogs. Hal had refused these measures even after the Dexes started to escape, actually especially after the demons got out. She wanted no one else killed and that meant the demons as well as her employees. The security tracking devices were supposed to be enough.

The two vampires made their way past the main entrance, sprinting by the cameras so fast that nothing could be filmed, and entered the building through a side door using Halley's security number and swipe card. Angel stopped by an electrical cupboard and wrenched the door open. Taking a great bundle of wires, he pulled and a shower of sparks lit up the corridor. For a split second, it was dark and then they were bathed in a dim orange glow as the emergency generators kicked in.

At the end of the corridor was a steel door. There was no swipe here as this was the fire exit. Spike backed up and launched a flying kick to the door, his steel toe capped boots instantly buckling the metal and two more kicks removed it from its hinges altogether.

The vampires stepped inside. Laboratories! How Spike hated laboratories. This looked like a cross between a hospital, a morgue and something from a bad Frankenstein flick. The smell of formaldehyde and disinfectant made both demons choke. And then he saw it. A stainless steal gurney with restraint straps and beside it surgical instruments.

The word rage did not even begin to describe the feeling that welled up inside him. "Ahhhh!" He roared and, lifting the gurney above his head, hurled it across the room. He swept an arm across the workbench and Pyrex test tubes clattered to the floor.

Spike was going to take the lab apart piece by piece. Angel could see instantly that this was the most dangerous thing Spike could do. He was risking exposing his soul to any of the chemicals and demon spawn, perhaps losing it before he'd even begun to accept what having a soul really meant. The only way of saving him was to find the demons and kill them himself.

Spike made as good a job of the lab as he had of his room. Benches upturned, test tubes smashed and stools sent flying into cupboards and shelves. Unrolling the fire hose Angel turned on the water to try to dilute any dangerous chemical that might have spilt. It was as much as he could do to keep up with his youngest.

Leaving Spike for a moment, he tore open a door at the end of the lab and there were the holding pens. He could count maybe three Dexes at the most. He smashed the glass and with frightening speed, leapt inside the cage. He throttled the first before breaking its neck. There was no joy in the kill for him. The second and third he dispatched with equal efficiency.

He stared at the corpses of the demons. These creatures had had souls as pure and innocent as a newborn's and they'd not put up a fight. They'd died so that Spike's sins might be forgiven and, through Spike, maybe his own. Redemption was a painful and sorry road.

Spike erupted into the holding area, game faced and still furious. He kicked and punched at a glass-fronted cage, but this one would not break. A lizard looking demon came to the front of the glass. "Have you quite finished?" It asked in perfect English.

Spike was so surprised that he stopped dead. "What!?"

Mike stepped right up to the glass. "I asked you if you'd quite finished. I'm sorry, I didn't realize vampires were hard of hearing. The lab is wrecked, honest. The Dexes are all dead. So incidentally is the Doc. If that was your goal, you're done now."

"I don't see why you should be bothered. You're a prisoner, a lab rat. They butcher us in the name of scientific progress and 'ave the fucking, damned, bloody front to call us evil! If you don't want to be free, stay where you fucking are. See if I care."

Smiling at Spike's enraged outburst, Michael put his hand against the glass as if testing its strength. Both vampires could hardly believe their eyes when he stepped right through it, along with several grasshoppers. The window closed behind him, leaving one or two insects stuck in the glass.

"I'm neither a prisoner nor a lab rat." He said, pleasantly, "But I am the last of my race. My species isn't immortal, just extremely long lived and I am elderly. Without the genetic work the Doc was doing, we will cease to exist at all once I die." He caught a grasshopper as it flitted by and chewed it thoughtfully. "This was my home, you know, but there's little point in me staying here now." And with that, he faded like the Cheshire Cat and was gone.

Angel and Spike looked at one another. For a moment, they appeared to be about to argue and then Angel put his arm around the shoulder of the other. "There are always consequences," He said, "Learning to live with them, that's the trick."

Spike just nodded.

They left the way they'd come in and headed back to the Hyperion.

The hotel was quiet by the time Angel and Spike returned. Stopping briefly at his desk to pick up some papers, Angel headed for the stairs and bed. Spike followed close behind. He thought he might stay. There was a kind of peace in existing for a purpose instead of just existing. Forever was a long time when you were bored, hungry and alone. He gently touched his Sire on the arm and Angel turned round. "Are all your cases that interesting?"

Angel just smiled. He reached out to stroke the scar above Spike's left brow. "Did I do that?" He asked. Spike nodded almost imperceptibly. "I'm sorry."

Out of all the heinous things he had done to William, both as a human and as a vampire, this seemed so small, so insignificant and yet the apology was all the more powerful for it, summing up all the rest in one small symbol.

Spike knew it was his turn to make a tiny step towards reunion, but it was still hard. "I may have a soul, Angel but I am still a demon and my soul is useless. It's disaffected, shut down, damaged, in pain and in hiding. I can't redeem you or absolve you and after tonight, I don't think the latter is such a fucking good idea anyway."

"Then don't, Spike. You came to me for shelter and you still have it. Let's not worry about redemption or absolution; let's just work on reconciliation, you and me. Here, you asked for these." Angel held out the things he'd taken from his desk. There was a chequebook and ATM card, both in the name of W J Hayter and a small bundle of stocks and bonds.

"I've closed all of Penn's accounts. He doesn't need them anymore, so little brother can have them. Everything is set up so that it's possible to pass it all on from father to son as you need to."

"You trust me?" Asked Spike. This was a powerful thing to give an unredeemed demon.

"We have to start somewhere. There's always consequences but the price seems fair."

The younger vampire lifted his head and Angel bent for the kiss. It was powerful and sweet. Cordelia appeared on the landing above, "Oh please! We're in a hotel. Get a room..." She never finished. The vision hit so fast and with such force that neither vampire had time to move more than a few steps before she came tumbling into their arms. Her head was filled with violence and pain.

Angel waited until the convulsions had died down, "What did you see 'Delia?" He asked but she shook her head.

"The message wasn't for you. It was for Spike." She looked at the blond vampire and said, "It's Xander. He's in trouble!"

~Fin~