Angels and Demons

Angel, despite his own misgivings, found himself compelled to defend the situation. "Buffy and Spike are coming to help. They want Wes to be part of the team. They say that there may be some form of magical deterrent and they're right. If there is, Wes is the best shot we have, short of bringing in an outside contractor. Now, I can't think of any magic user for hire that I want to trust to share a thirty three mil payday... Not that I really trust Spike with thirty three million either.

"You want English here, after everything he did, then you can make up your own damn rooms," Gunn argued.

"I'll do it," Fred offered more to try to keep the peace than anything else. They all knew that whether it was cleaning up lopsided pentagrams, disposing of bodies or making beds, Angel was always excused, basically because he always seemed to assume that he should be. It was the 'Can somebody...' syndrome. He seldom directly gave that sort of order, but the job always seemed to fall to anyone else. 'Can somebody clear that mess off the floor?', 'Can somebody dismember that, burn the pieces separately and scatter the ashes over as wide an area as possible?'... Can somebody do the jobs I think I'm too good for... only this time Charles wasn't going along with it.

"No," Angel insisted. "We need you going over those plans, looking for our way in."

Fred looked slightly uncomfortable. "He's doing the kiddies' story hour... down at the library."

Angel scowled at Gunn. "Fine. I'll go fix the rooms... but, Gunn, when they get here, you better can the attitude. Remember why we're doing this."

"I remember. If it wasn't for Cordy I'd be kicking his Anglo Saxon butt out the door the minute he got here."

"He's coming. Live with it. I have to." Angel slammed the office door behind him as he headed for the stairs.

Buffy looked back and forth between the two closest people in her life as Spike maintained a stony silence, his jaw clenched tight.

"I somehow doubt the whole 'punk is deader than you' speech convinced him of your sincerity, Dawn... Even if it is."

"Fine. I'd rather stay at the motel with Rogue and eat McDonalds than go out to dinner with Angel, anyway."

"Actually, if you mean the nice motel with the pool where a gang of psychotic vampires terrorised all the staff looking for us, we're not staying there." Buffy's words were cautious, as if she were bracing for impact.

"Well, we can't be staying with dad and his floozy, not after the last time we were here..." Dawn's mouth formed into a silent O as comprehension settled in. "You're joking? Right?" Dawn nodded at Wes. "You can't expect him to stay there."

"All I know is that in theory Angel's invited us to stay. If the invitation doesn't apply to Wes then we'll all go elsewhere."

"There's no need," Wes interrupted. "Honestly. When I quit my apartment, I had to give a month's notice, so, technically-."

"Technically, it's a few empty rooms with a bare mattress and no utilities," Buffy replied. "We'll... Look, we shouldn't be staying overnight, anyway, but if we need to, we'll get rooms somewhere. We pretty much roped you into this, so one way or another, we're in it together."

Wes shook his head. "Lorne may have asked me to come because you and Spike wanted me, but I'm here because Cordelia at least used to be my friend. You don't need to feel like I'm your responsibility."

"We don't. We just feel like your our friend." Buffy rolled her eyes at Dawn and Spike. "Why else would you put up with two hours of The Cold War?"

Spike pulled off the freeway, the DeSoto merging into the downtown traffic. Buffy just hoped that once they reached the hotel and she got a chance to talk to Spike privately that she could get him to ease up a little, not so much for Dawn's sake, but for everyone else's.

Bee waited while Marie moved enough files from the bench she was sitting on to make room for the blonde to sit down. She passed one of the two mugs of frothy coffee that she was carrying to the attorney who was watching over her child playing at the far end of the garden.

"Judging by the smile on your face, your date went a bit better than mine," she commented.

"It didn't go too badly," Marie admitted, "except for the whole breaking up incident, but that probably only lasted about five minutes. You?"

"The jerk was charming, funny, considerate. We had dinner at Bringazi's." Bee raised an eyebrow as she mentioned the most exclusive restaurant in Sunnydale that catered to demons.

"Okayyyy... This is sounding rather better than your average date, so, I have to ask where the problem comes in."

"Well, he brings me home... and you could just tell that Rupert was going to act all jealous, but, no, turns out..." Bee strung together a string of tuts and clicks. "...Even managed to win the little monster over. That might have been something to do with bringing home salmon in a kitty bag, though. But how often does that happen? So we've got a great guy, we have a happy Rupie, we've got Enigma, we've got a couple of Mojitos and all is going rather well... until... Let's just say anatomical incompatibilities and leave it at that."

Marie's eyes opened large in surprise, but then she shook her head. "You're right. I don't want to know."

Bee continued regardless. "Turns out Waruni men have certain commonalities with your average domestic cat."

"They have barbs where... well, you can guess. So, I mean, one minute full steam ahead, the next I'm seeing him to the door and it's awkward as hell because he's this really great guy but there is just no way. And I just can't believe that my doctor was the one who set us up. And now every time I have to go for a check up I'll be thinking about... you know..."

The demi-demon sighed and took a deep draught of her cappuccino. "Tell me you and the boss were having more fun."

"We did the whole break up thing. Rosa came trotting over and talked us out of it. We had dinner, watched a film, put madam to bed, watched another film, tried out the jacuzzi... and before you ask he was wearing trunks and I wouldn't tell you anyway, and then we fell asleep on the sofa before the other film finished."

"Damn! You could at least let me have some vicarious thrills seeing as how my date was a total wash out. Smoochies?" the blonde demanded. "There had to be smoochies."

"Don't ask. He went with Spike and Buffy. He didn't tell me and I didn't think as an ADA that I wanted to know."

Bee lit up a cigarette and exhaled a long plume of smoke. "Well, damn," she said in an exaggerated drawl. "My boss is cheating on me."

Spike flung open the double doors between the kitchen and the hotel reception. When he spotted Angel with Fred in his office he barged straight in without any preamble. "Where's these plans, then?"

"Spike," Buffy snapped. "At least try to be civil. It's not their fault that you're..."

"And I'm quite sure grandpa doesn't give a toss about civil, just so long as I'm useful. This them? Let's have a look, pet." He swivelled Fred's pad toward him, comparing the words on it to the plans on the desk.

He poked at one section of the notes with his forefinger. "Too complicated. Periscopes."

Even as Fred saw how the vampire's mind was working, Buffy was trying to get him away from the group.

"Angel, I think we should take our things up to our rooms and maybe freshen up a bit before we get too involved in all the planning."

"Sure, I'll show you where they are." He rose from his seat at the desk, leading the way from the room. "I put you and Spike in the same room you had last time. Wes is in the room next to it and Dawn's just the other side of that... Wes... Dawn." Angel nodded to each of the two who had yet to make it into his office. There was no warmth in his voice as he addressed the watcher and only little more as he spoke to Buffy's sister but at least it passed for the frigid side of civilised. Buffy took Spike's hand with a firmness that was not to be denied as she followed her ex out of the office. Short of a major scene, he had no option but to tag along.

The group made its way to the third floor cloaked in a blanket of uneasy silence. Angel passed out the three room keys, and if he made particular efforts to avoid coming into physical contact with Wes, then, most people wouldn't have noticed, but, he wasn't dealing with most people.

"We'll be downstairs when you're ready. Dawn, maybe you could show Connor some of the places where you used to hang out when you lived in LA."

"Let me guess, he's not allowed to get involved either. Like I haven't stolen more than all the rest of you put together."

"You have something constructive to add to the plan, then, fine," Spike snapped, "but I think you'll find that we're talkin' about a step or ten up from five finger discount on lipsticks and tacky jewellery, and as to what the rest of us have done or are capable of doing, you have no bloody idea."

"Okayyy," Buffy pulled Spike into their room. "We might be a little while. See you guys downstairs."

She pushed the door with her foot, so that it shut with a loud click. "We are not leaving this room until you are done acting like some volcano that's one step short of a major eruption. So what's it going to be? Talk, fight, screw or all three?"

Angel cleared his throat, coughing to cover his surprise and discomfort at what he had just overheard.

Dawn flounced into her room, with all the aggrieved righteousness her fifteen years could muster, leaving Wes and Angel alone in the corridor. The watcher opened the door to his room just enough to slide the bag he had brought inside and then jogged a couple of paces to catch up with the vampire as he headed back downstairs.

"I know I'm only here on sufferance, but I'm still glad you allowed Lorne to ask me and I wanted you to know that even though I'm not sorry for what I did, if I had been able to see any other possible alternative then I would have taken it."

Angel stopped as he reached a landing between floors, turning to face the other man. "Don't you think that I know that? Even in the hospital, I knew that, but I lost my boy. I lost him and even though he's back and he's living here in this building, I don't know if I'll ever be able to really get him back and regardless of what I know, I can't help but feel like you're to blame. So, for Cordy, I can put up with you being here, but if you're looking for forgiveness you're plumb out of luck."

Wes shook his head. "I don't need your forgiveness, Angel, because so far as I'm concerned, I have nothing to feel guilty for. If Justine hadn't slit my throat, she would have taken him from Lorne just as readily, though perhaps, given her predisposition regarding demons, she might have taken a few extra moments to ensure that he was dead rather than just leaving him."

"You know how much Connor means to me? How could you take him away and say it's nothing to be guilty about?"

"Because I knew if I didn't prevent the prophecy coming to fruition and you were responsible for his death, then it would destroy you. At least, my way, you hated someone else rather than yourself." Wes moved downstairs again, his piece said, but Angel stayed where he was while Wes's words sank in.

Connor, too, paused to absorb all that he had overheard before making his way to the back stairs and heading for the reception area via the kitchen.

"Oh... My... God!" Cordy was too overawed by the sheer animal magnetism that Spike seemed to radiate like heat from a forest fire to consider whether his and Buffy's talents would be better employed elsewhere.

They didn't even have to touch. With six feet between them. Buffy slid off her coat, her eyes never leaving his, and the vampire followed suit. All his previous anger had been sublimated in a matter of seconds to a brutal passion that centred solely on Buffy and she was more than ready to reciprocate in kind. They each discarded item after item of clothing or footwear, throwing them aside without ever allowing their gazes to wander from the other's face.

Finally, when Spike wore nothing but his jeans and Buffy was dressed only in her underwear they grabbed for each other, Buffy's arm wrapped around his neck, and her other hand tangled in his curls, pulling his lips down within reach of her teeth. Spike lifted her with one hand on either side of her pelvis, slamming her back against the nearest wall and then lifting a knee, pressing it upward between her thighs to keep her pinned with her feet off the ground as his hands rasped their way along her sides and on up, pulling her hands from his hair and drawing them upward until he could clasp both her wrists with one hand. His other hand unfastened his belt and his jeans with an economy of movement born of years of practice.

Buffy writhed against him, not in fear but in impatience and, as she moved from tasting his lips to his neck and shoulders, her teeth sank more firmly into his flesh every time, inciting him even further.

With an effort of will, Cordy broke off her surveillance, returning to the scene in the hotel reception, where both the plans of the security system and the notes Fred had made so far were passed around for general discussion. Cordy fanned a hand in front of her face, even though she knew, with no real physical presence, her "flush" had to be psychosomatic. "You know, I was kinda thinking after the whole rescue thing, maybe soft lights, sweet music... Now, I'm kinda thinking that Tall, Dark and Broody best just get me out of here and screw me into the carpet."

"That's fine," Angel bluffed, not wanting to admit that he had been too distracted by his efforts to keep track of how often he had heard Buffy reach orgasm to pay proper attention to Fred and Wesley's plan for that night. His recollection of being with Buffy was that her pleasure had been indicated by quiet sighs and breathless gasps. Her unrestrained cries that seemed, to his vampire hearing, to be impossible to ignore, even from the reception area three floors below, had him wondering if Spike was somehow fulfilling her more deeply than he had been able to achieve. Certainly, according to his count, even in the past hour, he seemed to be doing it more often.

"Which? Fred's original plan or Spike's suggestion?" Wes asked. "Both have their merits."

"Are you calm enough to tell me what's really wrong, yet? I know you don't get that worked up over material stuff and it's not your normal sort of mad..." Buffy tried to keep her knees from shaking as the vampire carefully sponged her body with soothing strokes, beneath the water's spray.

Spike stopped what he was doing and took a step backward, but not before Buffy could briefly pick up on his feelings. "I wanted to hit her, Buffy. I wanted it so bad and I knew with the orbs if I did, all it would take was just one punch. So easy."

Buffy wouldn't let him shy away from her, though. She took his hands in hers and wrapped them around her waist, stepping in toward him and sliding her arms around him until she could hook her fingertips over his shoulders. "You didn't, Spike. You don't have to worry. You were strong enough not to do it this time. You will be strong enough if it happens again. I believe in you, Will."

"I wasn't afraid I would do it, love. Well, I was... but not right now. I was afraid you would kick me out for even thinking about it, and I think you would be right if you did."

"Spike, do you really think that I haven't thought about hitting her? I even wanted to hit her today. I love her. I do, but it doesn't mean that she can't be brat enough to try my patience."

"Yes, and you still did it. Now, are you going to tell me why you were so angry?"

Spike shook his head and for a second she thought he was going to refuse, but he was just clearing his thoughts, while he worked out what to say. "It's like she took away my memories. I didn't buy that tape. I made it. Granted, I don't get to many record fairs what with the whole sunlight issue, but I haven't come across any other bootlegs of that particular gig. S'far as I can tell it was a one-off. For twenty odd years that tape has been around an' somehow it never stretched or got chewed up or had beer spilled on it or anythin'.

It managed to make it all over the bloody world. That tape isn't just a collection of songs. It's hundreds of nights on the road, memories of places and times that Niblet couldn't even imagine and a good chunk of them she wasn't even born for. The good times... It's like where you would put on 'Walkin' on Sunshine', I'd listen to the Ramones. An'... well... Don't take this the wrong way, an' don't think that was why I was listening to it, but it's like... It's like there was a little bit of Dru there an' she destroyed it. She's just a bit more dead, a bit further away, less real and I'm not ready for that, at least not yet. It seems like we haven't had five minutes to stop and think since before she died. We've just lurched from crisis to crisis..."

"And you've never had a chance to grieve properly or to even think through what happened and then Dawn pulls her little stunt."

Spike didn't say anything. He didn't need to. With their arms around each other and his forehead resting against her hair she could sense the pain that had fuelled his anger.

"It won't fix things, I know, but it's not that she doesn't respect you. If she had even considered that your feelings might be hurt, I know she wouldn't have done it, but she's was just being your average self-absorbed fifteen year old kid. She just heard something on the radio and wanted to tape it before it was too late and she just grabbed the first tape she found. She probably thought you would have the same thing on vinyl or CD and you could make another copy."

"Spike, she doesn't get it, and unless you want to share all this with her, she won't get it. She knows that she was in the wrong, but she thinks you're making something out of nothing, so instead of saying sorry she has her own little hissy fit, but it's just those teenage hormones talking. The other week, when she was off school, she was listening to some punk compilation that Brandon had taped for her, so I would take the stuff she said with a pinch of salt."

"And so do you... along with some great ones." Buffy tilted her head back slightly and drew the vampire's lower lip into her mouth in a teasing kiss before she became serious once more.

"Look, if you want to stick with what you said about not buying her a dress and her not having dinner with us tonight as punishment, I'll go along with that, but you need to talk to each other before this gets too... weird. I can have a word with her first, if you want, maybe try to calm her down a little so that the pair of you don't just start another fight."

"Maybe." Spike tightened his hold on the tiny woman in his arms and lowered his head to lick away the water that ran down the side of her neck.

Buffy's entire body began to tremble but she pushed him gently away before he could switch sides and get to the spot where the hot water mingled with her blood, the legacy of their renewed bond, consummated once more at the height of their first frantic coupling. "Later, baby... We've only just got everything cleaned up from before and I think we've kept everyone waiting for long enough. We've got a robbery to plan, Wes is going to need time to work on those pictogram thingies and I need a new dress... if dinner tonight is still on."

"Dinner tonight has got to still be on. It's our cover story if anyone starts asking questions about why we're all here."

Spike frowned. "Okay. She wins for now, but there has to be some sort of consequences... unless you want her turning out like Red."

Buffy tried to console the vampire. "We'll nail her windows shut and make her stay in her room with no air-conditioning until she writes a ten thousand word essay on why she shouldn't touch other people's stuff."

"Yeah, like you'd want to read a diatribe about evil sisters and cruel step brothers who imprison poor Cinderella types and how they should be reported to the social services."

Buffy untangled one arm from their embrace in order to stroke the planes of his face. "Okay, point taken but we'll work it out."

Spike sighed. "Come on, love, your fingers are gettin' wrinkly. I'll go see what the watcher can come up with on our drawings. You see what you can do with Bitty... unless you need some help with other things." He quirked his eyebrow and his mouth formed a wicked one-sided grin.

Buffy gave him a playful push. "Shoo! I've been using tampons for long enough now that I think I can manage to put one in on my own... preferably in private... and much as you might like to convince me that your tongue is a viable substitute, you don't need any more slayer blood in your system. Go put some clothes on."

The vampire gave a mock pout. "Give me a chance later and I might get you to change your mind on that one."

"As you wish, sweet thing." Spike brushed fleeting kisses against her lips, nose and forehead. "I guess I better go see if I can help plan a robbery."

"You do that and I'll join you as soon as I talk to Dawn... 'cause the sooner that's sorted out the sooner I can hit Rodeo."

"What have I missed?" Spike rejoined the group who pored over the plans. Angel, Lorne, Connor, Wes and Fred were there, along with Rogue who couldn't seem to understand that the fashion conscious Pylean did not want either canine hairs over his clothes or drool on his lap. Gunn was still conspicuous by his absence.

Spike rolled his eyes as the dog came bounding over to him, planting her front paws on his chest and panting in his face, as if he had been gone a month rather than just over an hour. "Huh, think you can come back to me after you've been makin' eyes at the big green guy, you great hussy?" he asked as he scratched the dog behind the ears.

"It's beginning to look like a plan. We think we've got our way in, we can deal with the security cameras. We probably need to practice getting through the lasers a couple of times, especially carrying the thing, and Fred is going to sort out the tools we need and talk us through how to cut the alarm when we take it off its pressure pad."

Spike picked up the auction brochure and pointed at the picture of the axis resting on a pedestal which was draped in a brocade cloth. "The fact that when you lift the thing all these nice little Egyptian-style piccies that you can't see because of the cloth there are going to turn that whole vault into a fireball, which might be just a touch inconvenient."

"Gettin' to be quite the norm." Spike handed Wes a piece of paper. "That sort of describes what they seemed to look like and it's in the order that they started glowing which was sort of top to bottom and right to left. If you can find something with examples of the symbols I might be able to tell you whether they're right or not, but gramps is the artist in the family."

Wes shook his head. "It seems to be some form of hieroglyphics, but they aren't Egyptian, or any of the variants of which I'm aware. Given our time frame, I think, perhaps I should get some help."

Wes called Spike and Buffy over to look at the screen of Cordelia's computer. "Is that what you saw?"

"Close enough to put it down to differences in handwriting, except the jewel thingy was a horseshoe," Spike answered.

"You don't. If a Derelian mage lays down that sort of hex, it stays there until he either dies or removes it himself."

"Sure, you can set it off. Anyone within anything from twenty feet to a couple of miles radius, depending how powerful your spell caster is, will end up in the hell of everlasting flames, but after it goes off, then, someone else could theoretically take your axis-thingy, if they were outside the original blast. Or you take the easy option..."

"So, how formal is this restaurant?" Buffy quizzed Lorne for details before she and Dawn took Fred along for their shopping trip.

"Just pick something you'd want to be wearing if you got invited to The Oscars. That'll cover it."

"Honey bun, with those cheekbones and that tuchas the maitre d' would let him in wearing sack cloth and ashes, though a good suit is more the norm."

"I'm guessing that means Connor is going to need some new clothes, as well?" Fred asked.

"I would say so, pumpkin." He gave a frown. "Gunn and Angel might get away with the suits they had for the ballet, I suppose."

"And Wes didn't know about the meal, so he won't have brought anything," Dawn reminded her sister.

"Spike?" Buffy called across the foyer. "Leave Rogue with Angel. You, Wes and Connor are coming with us."

"My guess? Denim doesn't feature as part of the dress code for the restaurant this evening."

Spike shrugged. "If it makes her happy." He gave a salacious smile, making it obvious that he expected to be more than amply rewarded for his efforts. "I'm sure as hell not goin' to get in an argument about it while her ex is hangin' around. An' besides, I clean up better than the old man does anyway." Spike held the door open for Buffy and the others to go through, Fred taking Connor by the arm to forestall any arguments.

"I am not old." Angel called after them, but they had already gone. "Well, not that old. The Master? He was old... And what do you mean you look better? It takes height to carry off a good suit... And all that shouting before... just because he bit her. I could have made her scream like that if I'd claimed her. That's all it was."

"Will you get over it already?" Cordy asked. "Who cares what age you are so long as you look hot? ...which, newsflash, you do, despite the 'I have no mirror' hair. Forget about the sartorial elegance, and the fact that your ex is getting it from someone else... and by the way that little fixation is so unattractive... and go find those aerosols and ropes and stuff instead of trying to convince the dog that you're not pathetic. Then, maybe... eventually... you'll get around to remembering me... You know? The one you're supposed to be in love with now. As if all the Buffy crap wasn't bad enough when I was dating Xander Harris."

Spike ignored Buffy's protests all through the whole three minutes it took him to select the items he required.

"I'm not your bloody Ken doll, pet, an' I've had enough practice to know what I look good in an' what I don't. So long as these are the sizes that they say they are on the labels, I'm done. Go hassle Junior if you want to play dress up."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Feel free to pick out a spare shirt or two, if you must, an' that's it."

Buffy would have argued further but the attendant manning the door of the men's changing rooms barred her way. For a wicked second it occurred to her that maybe she should point out to him that the guy who was about to try on the expensive suit, that might or might not fit him, would be doing so without the benefit of underwear, but then if he followed Spike into the cubicle, there would be the whole thing where he might realise that Spike had no reflection, so she decided it was safer not to.

Wes raised an eyebrow as he walked past her with his own neatly folded pile of clothing and she realised that she had missed her second chance. Making the best of the situation, she decided to help Fred and Dawn in picking Connor's first suit.

"Spoilsport," Buffy complained about the fact that Spike hadn't even let her see what his clothes looked like on, as she passed over the plastic to pay for the three men's suits and everything to go with them, not to mention half a dozen extra shirts. Wes had wanted to pay for his own, but Spike had insisted that the meal was their way of saying thank you to the people who had helped rescue Dawn and so were the clothes. Finally, when Buffy pointed out that they were bickering over the bill like two old women in a coffee shop, the watcher had conceded the argument.

"Apart from anything else, pet, if I'd tried on all the stuff you were lookin' at we'd have been here till about five o'clock. You wouldn't have enough time left to get your frocks an' find shoes and make up to match and get back to the hotel in time to get ready."

Spike picked up the bags, shuffling closer as he spoke until they were as near as could be without actually touching. "I'll take these back to the car and then we'll sort out the rest of the stuff we need for tonight. You girls just find what you need to make yourselves even more beautiful and give me a call when you're ready to be picked up."

"Sweet talker." Buffy raised her lips to his, so that no other part of their bodies touched and yet somehow they were so aware of each other that their mere proximity made their blood sing. "You think you'll be able to get everything?"

"Wes lived in LA for two, three years. I think we'll manage to find what we need. There's nothing too complicated on the list." Spike spoke softly, his lips less than half an inch from Buffy's own.

"Good." Buffy still hovered so close to his familiar body with its scent of spicy cologne and those hard muscles that looked so innocuous wrapped in leather and cotton but which could reduce either an opponent or a lover to a quivering mass with equal effectiveness.

"Hey... if you two are going to go get a room... again, then one of you better hand over some plastic so that the rest of us can go shopping." Dawn's joking comment broke the tension, as she'd intended. Thanks to Buffy's intercession, she and Spike were back on a more normal if still slightly tentative footing. Her punishment was, as yet, undetermined but both of them were trying to act as normal as possible and hoping that if they did the veneer of awkwardness would dissipate.

"And the day I let you loose in LA with my credit card is the day I volunteer to go back to that clinic." Buffy threw her arms around Spike's neck, the pair saying their goodbyes with a series of brief, open-mouthed kisses that somehow managed to walk the tightrope between public decency and eroticism. Stepping back, Buffy licked her lips in a subconscious gesture and, inclining her head toward the blond, she repeated her earlier promise as a farewell. "Later."

As the other males waited for Spike to either give up watching the motion of Buffy's butt as the women walked away or for the girls to turn into one of the many shops, Connor looked at Wes and asked, "Are they always like that?"

Wes twisted his head to look at the boy for a second before he watched the women again, his mind on someone else entirely. "If they're very lucky, yes. It's how love is supposed to be." He turned back to the youth once more with a wry grin. "...Though our friends here are rather more overt in their affection than most."

"I am just shopped out." Fred dropped a selection of plastic bags onto the bed next to her boyfriend. "Have you been up here all day?"

"Sure he is. He already helped himself to Angel's kid. Who's he going to help himself to next?" Gunn's eyes flicked up Fred's body and back down again.

"You didn't even notice I wasn't there, did you? You and Wes, busy doing the thinking for everyone."

"And when was that? When exactly did you fit this in between shopping for dresses we can't afford and visits to the hairdresser?"

"'Round about when you were busy nursing that huge chip on your shoulder. Charles, I told you when we came back from Sunnydale that I picked you, not Wesley. I don't know where you get this idea that there's something between us."

"Anyone who wasn't blind could see he's been in love with you for years. I just never thought you were interested until you saw him with that woman, like he leaves town and a week later the fact he's been makin' eyes at you for years just goes out the window, and I'm not hypocrite enough to pretend that I want to see him sniffing round my woman."

"Since, I'll be fetching my dinner from the taco stand down the block, I doubt it."

People were beginning to straggle into the hotel's reception area, one by one in preparation to leave. Wes gave the slight brunette one of his most charming smiles. "It seems unlikely that your usual escort is going to be available. Perhaps you would permit me to take his place?" He held out his arm.

Dawn twined her own arm around it. "If you don't mind people thinking you're my sugar daddy, again, and Marie and Rosa aren't going to mind, I can live with a tall, dark and handsome escort."

"I'm sure the ladies would approve under the circumstances and I don't mind people jumping to conclusions... provided you don't encourage them."

Fred blinked a couple of times to keep back the tears that blurred her vision. A heavy arm settled around her shoulders. "Smile, my little cup cake," Lorne whispered in her ear. "I can't claim to be the guy that's stupid enough to be up in his room when he should be down here, but I can give you an arm to lean on for the night."

The bed bore dishevelled witness to Buffy and Spike's earlier activities even if the naked vampire, barely covered by the white cotton sheet, hadn't worn the satiated look of a dairy cat as he lay there, watching her with hooded eyes, one arm behind his head and the other hand holding a lit cigarette. Buffy rose from the stool in front of the dressing table, her make up finished, only needing now to discard her robe and put on her stockings, dress and shoes.

"Come on. You're the one that organised all this. The least you can do is to get ready in time."

Spike stubbed out the remains of his cigarette, and pushing the sheet back he padded into the bathroom, where he had hung up his new clothes, so that the steam from their showers would cause any creases from their sojourn in the trunk of the car to drop out. Buffy heard the sound of water running and she busied herself with getting the floral lace of her nude hold-up stockings to sit correctly, before slipping off her thin robe.

She opened the wardrobe and took out the dress she had bought for that night, its colour chosen to tone with the clothes that Spike had picked. The silk dress was the deep purple-blue of a summer solstice midnight, a few shades darker than the shirt Spike had selected to accompany his black three piece suit. She wrapped the high collar around her neck, covering part of Spike's mark as she fastened the three small buttons at the back with some difficulty. The dress needed no other fastenings as it left her back totally bare, even as it sheathed her in form-fitting modesty from the front. The slim-fitting shape of the front fanned into a small train at the back, allowing her to walk freely. She slipped on a pair of delicate sandals in the same colour, and as she lowered her foot from the stool to the floor after fastening the second of them, she heard the bathroom door open once more.

Spike emerged, his hair once more gelled firmly in place, his face freshly shaven. His gaze seemed fixed on the stiff new shoes that he wore, but then he twisted his head somehow to almost look at Buffy shyly, his head tilted slightly on one side, as if he expected her to tease him about his formal attire. Buffy could no more have teased him than she could have told him how distinguished he looked, for he had quite literally taken her breath away. The high V of his waistcoat framed the shimmering material of his shirt, metallic cornflower threads cross woven with black to catch the light as the muscles beneath the fabric moved. At his neck he wore no tie, but instead the collarless shirt fastened with a silver stud which matched the links he wore in either cuff, where they protruded three quarters of an inch below his jacket sleeves.

He made his way slowly over to where Buffy stood. A pale fingertip skimmed the skin just beneath the edge of the dark silk, barely brushing the curve of Buffy's breast, before his eyes rose to meet her own. Even without the communication of their shared bond she could have read the pleasure, adoration and desire in their sapphire depths. "For me?" he asked in a husky whisper.

Finally, Buffy found her voice. "For you, so that there will be nearly as many men in that restaurant who will wish they were you as there are women wishing they could be me."

"You could make every man in the place do that in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, my love."

Buffy pressed her lips against the tip of his nose before turning him toward the door and, pausing only to pick up her matching wrap and pass Spike the bag of clothes he had prepared for later, she slid her arm through his. "They wouldn't let me in wearing jeans and a t-shirt."

Dawn fidgeted nervously as the blonde couple were the last of those who planned to attend to make their way downstairs. They arrived with barely enough time to make it to the restaurant on schedule. She disentangled her arm from Wes's. "This, I have to do on my own."

As she made her way forward she kept one hand behind her back until she reached the couple. "I wanted to say sorry. I guess from what Buffy said it would be more or less impossible to replace it, but maybe this will help."

She took a squarish gift-wrapped and beribboned parcel from behind her back. Spike cautiously took it from her and began to unwrap it. As soon as he broke through the wrapping the parcel seemed to slide into two almost equal halves. Spike looked in incomprehension at Dawn's CD walkman until he saw the double CD of The Ramones greatest hits that came with it.

Dawn rushed to explain. "The walkman's a loaner. I thought maybe I could save up and get you a proper car CD player in a month or two... but I know you've only got the CD drive in your computer, so for now I thought you would probably need it."

Spike looked at the items he held in his hands for a couple of seconds before he wrapped his arms around the teenager. "This doesn't mean you get off with it, Bitlet," he told her. "But, I guess it helps. Come on. If we don't get a move on Brood Boy is gonna frown so hard his face is gonna crack."

Angel picked up the holdall that carried his and Spike's props for the night. "Let's do this."

"And about time. We're not all going to stay young forever." Cordy paused and then looked at her hand, trying to decide if there had been any visible signs of aging since her demonification. "At least, not so far as I know.

And how come hers puts on a suit and looks like a rock star and mine ends up looking like a lawyer? Hang on... That is the same suit you wore when you broke into Wolfram & Hart. Let me guess... you have a dozen different leather coats but you only own two suits and the other one still has baby vomit on it?

And tell me that's some sort of interplanar distortion and not a singe mark on your butt..."

"You're sure that this place is soundproof and doesn't have any sort of security cameras?" Buffy asked, having to raise her voice so that Lorne could hear. The group were seated around a large circular table and, with the exception of Fred who sat directly opposite, Lorne and Angel were the two farthest people from the slayer. The Summers girls' move to keep Wesley between them when they were seated had left Spike next to Connor on his left and placed Dawn on Lorne's left.

The Pylean shook his head. "They bank on it. There are more shady deals and illicit assignations go on in this place than honest to god dinners. Privacy is as much their stock in trade as the food."

Buffy continued to appear sceptical as she looked around the windowless room. So, they had a private dining room and lounge with its own private bathroom to themselves. So, the waiter only appeared when he was summoned by someone tugging on a Victorian style bell pull. So, according to Lorne the lacquered screens in the corner concealed another door that led to a room where, for an additional fee, the clientele could be even more relaxed... So what? She still found it impossible to believe that there was no way for the proprietors to know if any of their patrons were about to skip out on their bill.

"Look, honey, the restaurant was set out this way before security cameras were invented. Demons don't just come in all shapes and sizes, they come with all sorts of appetites and one species' delicacy is just a disgusting plate of live, wriggling worms to someone else, not to mention the fact that we're not all one big happy brotherhood of hellspawn. So, they build the place with all these separate rooms to keep everyone apart. Then, they realise that people are bringing their mistresses or having all these other meetings they don't want people to know about, so they move the waiters out of the rooms and have them on call instead and they make it a selling point. Then, they add the bedrooms... and there's no way they're going to disturb anyone in there without them ringing for room service."

"But if it's as easy as climbing in and out of a window, how do they stop people leaving without paying their bills?"

"Believe me, pop tart, they have trackers that would make a bloodhound weep. And if you don't pay up in money, you'll pay in blood and teeth and broken bones."

"Okay," the slayer grudgingly conceded. "I get it, but how come I end up looking like the slut in the vampire sandwich?"

Dawn's mouth twisted into a grin. "Just lucky, I guess," she told her disconsolate elder sister.

* * * * *

"I want to watch." Angel leaned over to whisper in Spike's ear. The group had moved from the dining table to the sofas and armchairs at the other end of the room, where they waited while the table was cleared away and after dinner drinks and cigars were brought to them.

Spike's reply was equally sotto voce. "You always did, sire, but I'm disinclined to perform and even less inclined to share, which is where your watching always ends up. If you wanted a woman, you shouldn't have brought a boy as your date."

In a flash, Angel's taloned hand gripped the blond's throat like a vice, his voice still inaudible to the humans in the room. "You will perform. If you can't get it up for your little toy, you'll perform on the end of my dick and when I move on to your little plaything her screams won't be because she's enjoying herself." Angel pushed Spike away from him and rose from the sofa. He lifted a half-empty wine bottle from the table and raised it to his lips before addressing the waiter in charge of the team clearing the table. "We want the key to the other room."

The waiter gave a deferential bow and moved over to the door, opening it with a master key and then lifting another key from a shelf just inside the room. He passed this second key to Angel. "As you wish, sir."

Spike glared daggers at the elder vampire from his seat until the table was cleared and moved into a corner of the room. Several bottles of champagne, a bottle of port and a bottle of brandy were brought in on a drinks cart along with the requisite glasses and a box of cigars. Then, just as the waiters were leaving, Spike stood and picked up one of the bottles of champagne and a pair of champagne flutes in one hand and pulled Buffy toward the bedroom with his other. Angel's grim smile widened as he followed them into the room and closed the door.

* * * * *

"That little scene had just a bit too much verisimilitude for my liking." Buffy's brows almost met in a frown. "I want to say, 'Tell me you guys didn't do that for real', but then I'd be kinda scared I might not like your answer."

"Where did you pick up a word like verisimilitude, pet?"

"I know... words. I know lots of words," Buffy blustered.

"Well, yeah. But a goodly proportion of them aren't known to mankind outside the bounds of California and not many of them run to six syllables." Spike's smile and soothing tone softened what might have been harsh words. "Lord knows you can think on your feet. You're sharp as a fresh scalpel blade, but to date you've not exactly been one for reading dictionaries."

"Hah!" Buffy teased, tugging gently on the lapels of Spike's suit. "I'll have you know that you're talking to a future college graduate, who might well major in English Lit, which by my reckoning is more than you can claim."

Spike's face formed into a lopsided grin and then he gave a quiet chuckle. "Nice try, pet, but I'm still not saying nothing."

"One of these days I'll find out what you did, my William."

"But not today. Do I get a kiss for luck?"

"Maybe..."

"Maybe?"

Angel rolled his eyes and moved a chair over to stand beneath the window. "I'm going before you two get even more like a Harlequin paperback."

"Maybe, if Angel gives us some privacy."

Spike grinned and Angel sighed, climbing out of the window with a grace only slightly impeded by the slick soles of his dress shoes. Buffy tugged a little harder on Spike's suit.

* * * * *

"You two are disgusting. I could hear you all the way from here."

"Like you're not plannin' to jump the cheerleader's bones the second you get her back?" Spike asked, as he opened up the DeSoto's trunk to remove the bag of clothes he had prepared earlier. He tossed the bag and the blanket that he kept in the trunk into the backseat and then leant with his forearm on the top of the doorframe while he spoke to Angel.

"It wasn't first on my to do list," the older man tried to avoid the issue.

"Okay, once you've checked on what happened with the Mark II and you make sure she sent him packing and you make her admit how she feels because you're too gutless to say it first and you find someone who can do you a little something to stop that soul of yours from running a mile, then you were planning on screwing her senseless."

"Maybe, but even if this thing helps us find out where she is, we've still got to work out how we get there and bring her home."

"Well, that's the other reason why, when you know a guy like Boy Watcher, you don't treat him like shit."

"The other reason?"

"Well, apart from the fact that now you've got a soul, you've got no excuse for acting like a total git." Spike climbed into the back of his car to get changed and pulled the door shut, leaving Angel to do the same in his own.

* * * * *

Spike listened carefully for any sound that might betray the presence of someone other than the two vampires, who were in the ventilation system. This was the most likely point in the whole plan for them to be discovered, provided Flabby Butt didn't trip the lasers in the chamber where the axis was, Spike reminded himself. Satisfied they were alone and in the correct location, Spike pushed the vent cover carefully outwards with gloved hands until it came loose and then he turned it so that he could pull it into the vent where he was lying. He eased forward until he could look down on the first of the security cameras they had to manipulate.

He pulled a small unobtrusive object from the holdall they had brought with them. Checking he was holding it the right way, he leaned over and stuck it over the camera lens. Now, they just had to wait a few minutes to make sure no one appeared to investigate. because they had noticed either the moment he added the small periscope onto the camera or the practically imperceptible difference the device caused to the camera's field of view. True to form Spike counted to sixty and then decided that was long enough to wait. The rest was fairly simple. So long as they added the periscopes to the cameras in the prescribed order so that they approached each one from the side or behind to cover it, the ones they had already covered would continue to show an empty corridor. After all, what is a periscope but a pair of parallel mirrors? Other than that they simply avoided the pressure pads on the way to the electrical panel that they needed to access and Fred talked them through the procedure to disable the alarms which would have been triggered as they moved around from one area of the building to another. Then, when they reached the room where The Axis was housed they had to negotiate a maze of lasers.

Spike had practically waltzed through the simulation they had set up in the hotel lobby the first time and every time since. Angel, with his larger frame, had brushed the massive cat's cradle they had used on all of his first six attempts though he had cleared the maze successfully four times in a row before they stopped.

It would be an exaggeration to say that everything ran totally according to plan, but except for a brief period where the vamps played ring a rosie with a security guard, keeping a stack of packing crates between them and the oblivious guard until he moved on to the next area on his patrol route, they didn't encounter any problems for which they were unprepared. Finally, the pair stood beside the horseshoe-shaped axis on its pedestal. Now, their lives depended on Bee's interpretation of the markings on the pedestal base being accurate. The demon half-breed had suggested that the defensive spell was activated only by the removal of the artefact, so Angel was going to perform the ritual to find Cordy right there. Of course, if at this point a security guard appeared, they were screwed big time.

* * * * *

"And thank god. Your butt was about a quarter of an inch from blowing your chances of finding me all to hell. I don't suppose you even considered that stuffing yourself with profiteroles might not be the best way to prepare."

* * * * *

"God, she's beautiful!" Angel sighed.

"I suppose... If you're lookin' to shag a nightlight," Spike conceded. "Still looked better before she hacked all her hair off but if that's what wags your tail. Just get to the important bit. Where is she?"

"Can't you tell? She's on a higher plane. She's become a higher power."

"An' I'm one of the bloody seraphim. Don't talk daft."

"Spike!" Angel's tone of voice boded violence if Spike continued in the same vein.

"If they were lookin' for someone to turn into some sort of angel, there's a lady in Sunnydale as is a damn sight closer an' a good deal wiser than the Perfect Princess. An' if anybody up there's listening you can't have her yet. Why the hell would they take your bit of skirt when they could have Joyce or someone like that who's finished down here and who knows a thing or two about life?"

"Cordelia's different now."

"That's a bummer. I didn't mind her how she was but I'm telling you if she's a higher being, then either somebody's up to some sort of jiggery pokery or there's some other Cordelia Chase somewhere that they meant to get an' they cocked it up."

"You just don't get it do you, Spike? For weeks I've been trying to find her, to bring her home."

"Yeah? So work out the interplanar road map, find out where we're going and we'll go an' get the bint."

"No, Spike, we don't need to bring her home. She is home."

* * * * *

"Are you some sort of retard? I mean, I know Champion of the Powers and all that. This place doesn't even have a shoe store. How could you think this could be home? Do I look happy?"

* * * * *

"What sort of a dozy pillock are you, ya daft wanker? You're supposed to be in love with the bint. Where's your bloody spine? You're just goin' to sigh away and tell everybody how pretty she looked and play the bloody martyr card again, aren't you? I can tell you for a fact that the tasteless tart is stone cold gone for you. If it was her here with me apart from the fact we'd have a dozen security guards and half of LAPD on the way because they'd have spotted her walkin' round the corridors, you can be damn sure she'd be working out a way to haul your arse back to this hell hole of a city you live in. It's a higher plane. It's not heaven, or at least if it is, don't you say anything like that to Buffy. Now, hurry up and find out where she is. There's a couple of people I want to check on while we're here and if you don't shift your arse the guard will be due back."

"Spike, it's where she belongs. I can't take her away from that. She has her own destiny now."

"Let me get this straight. You're the guy with the photographic memory, right?"

"Well, not that I like to brag, but... yeah, pretty much."

"Then how come you can't remember which sounds go with which lip movements? You honestly saying that in a quarter of a millennium you haven't worked out enough lip-reading to recognise 'Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.'?" Spike asked, enunciating the last few words as if he had been taking lessons from Professor Higgins and exaggerating the movement of his lips. "'Cause your lady has just been calling you worse than mud for the last five minutes for being too stupid to go fetch her."

* * * * *

"Darn skippy she has been... Skippy? Skip. Tell the big lunkhead to find Skip. That double-crossing weasel of a supposed guide."

* * * * *

"What do you mean she wants me to get her out? But, she's all glowy and higher power and stuff... And are you saying she can see us?"

"Well, I guess if she knows you wanted to just leave her up there she must be able to or maybe she normally calls you retard? Maybe it's a pet name or something? Now bloody hurry up and backtrack or whatever you do to work out how we get there."

"Cordy wouldn't call me a retard... Okay, she would, but she'd do it to my face."

"Well, since you want to leave her face in a different dimension maybe that wasn't an available option."

* * * * *

"Hello? Would you stop arguing with the Neanderthal and turn around so you can see what I'm saying, Mr Interpreter For The Trapped In Another Dimension Against Their Will? Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip. S. K. I. P. Skip."

* * * * *

Spike arched an eyebrow. "You say this bint was your secretary? You must have been hard up. She's bloody dyslexic. It's Spike. S. P. I. K. E. Spike... Or the trip to the higher plane has warped her noggin. Could be damaged goods by the time you get her back, you know?"

* * * * *

Cordy let rip a scream of frustration, her hands reaching up to pull at her hair before she remembered that it wasn't really there... but then neither were her hands.

* * * * *

"Are you still trying to tell me that she's happy to be there?" Spike asked his grandsire.

"Give us a few minutes, will you, Ang?" Spike looked over at the taller vampire, who was once more dressed in a suit and tie.

"Sure. I'll see if I can bring the others up to speed." Angel left the room and closed the door gently behind him.

"What? If you think we're going to do what we're meant to be doing for real, just so I look mussed up for the waiters, you can think again."

"No, love, though I think maybe some mussing up might be in order. There's, well, there's something I thought you should know, you and Bit, really but... Look, we had that thing an' it meant we could find people in other planes. I, well, I thought there was someone you might want me to check on."

"Mom?" Buffy almost didn't dare to ask, but the fact that he had indicated the person might also be close to her sister gave her hope.

Spike gave a small nod. "She was happy, pet. She looked about the age you are now, hair all down her back and she was on a beach. There was a man with her, about the same age, light brown hair, too tall and thin to be Hank."

"Could he have been related? Mom had an older brother who was killed in a car crash when she was about Dawn's age."

Spike thought back. "It could have been... either that or maybe her high school sweetheart or... well, I don't know how these things work, but whoever he was, she looked happy with him. Didn't really have time for more than a quick squint in case the guards came 'round. I wish you and Bitty could have seen her."

"Says the man who came up with the whole periscopes idea, just to stop me going with you..." Buffy's voice bore no malice, instead she teased the vampire. She knew that he had done what he had out of concern for her and for Dawn, and she was touched that he had thought to check up on her mother. Even second hand confirmation that her mother was in whatever passed for her own heaven was welcome.

"It wasn't just you... It was Wes as well. Rosa would kill me if I got her new dad locked up. An' you've seen CSI. You know they can track you down from the stupidest little thing. And it was a damn sight easier than trying to get into the security room and record loops of tape and it meant when the guard was doing his rounds they could see him."

"Yeah, yeah... but still not why you thought of it."

"No, but I wish you could have seen her just the same."

"Share it with me... tonight." Buffy slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

"If I can, I will," Spike promised, knowing that while they could at times direct their shared dreams, at others one or other of their subconscious minds took charge.

With a grin, in an abrupt change of mood, Buffy pushed her fingers through his gelled locks and wriggled them until every last trace was gone and his hair sat in short curls.

In response, Spike ducked his head to administer a searing kiss to Buffy's lips that left them swollen and her lipstick smeared. With one finger he lightly traced the edge of the high collar of her dress where it partially covered his bite. Buffy's heart was racing and her pupils were dilated by the time she pulled away, gasping for breath.

Spike drew the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping off the make-up that coated his lips. "Think we might pass muster now, pet. We better make a move... before I give in to temptation. The night's not over, yet. Gramps has got a demon to beat up. Maybe if you ask nice, he'll let you do it instead."

"As if." She shrugged. "...But he might let us help."

* * * * *

"We ready to roll?" Spike asked, looking around the hotel's reception, dressed once more in his normal combination of denim and leather.

Angel led the way through the portal that formed when Wes set the two parts of the key spinning into motion like a top, the vampire's face grim. Connor was at his side, Spike and Buffy at his back, all of them wearing the same look of determination. It was almost enough to make a person feel sorry for the demon they were going to find, if he hadn't been responsible for abducting Cordelia.

The portal closed behind the quartet and Wes set to work preparing the things he needed to keep Skip imprisoned on this plane when the others brought him back, as well as some which might entice him to communicate more freely.

* * * * *

With one punch, Angel knocked the sword wielding demon across the room, and then stooped as he went past its limp form to pick up the weapon with barely a pause in his stride.

"Having fun yet, gramps?" Spike asked as he watched.

Angel's mouth remained set in a firm horizontal line. "I'm not here to have fun, Spike. I'm here to find out what happened to Cordelia."

"And you haven't heard of multi-tasking?" Buffy asked before Spike could.

"Angel?" Skip almost bumped into the group as he appeared from a side tunnel. "Jeez, what d'you do? Arrange a family discount?"

"Skip?" Angel tried to keep his voice light and conversational. The more information he could get out of the grey demon before the fight started, the easier things would go. "I was expecting you to be further in."

Skip shrugged and bowed toward Buffy. "Powerful demon Skip at your service. It's only you dead guys that don't need to use the can every now and then. Come on in. I got a few beers and there's a Nicolas Cage film starting in ten."

"We're not here to socialise," Angel told him. "We're trying to find Cordelia."

"Who?"

Spike's impatience got the better of him. "Cor-de-li-a. You were her guide when she became half-nightlight, so Caveman Brow says. Great big scary lookin' fairy godmother schtick? Ring any bells, now?"

"Ah..." the grey demon looked at Angel. "She told you that, huh?" The demon looked uncomfortable for a second. "Look, I wanted to tell you, but the Powers... You know how they're all need to know..."

"And just how much did you need to know?" the vampire asked.

"Look, I know it's going to be really hard to accept but Cordelia has ascended to a higher plane."

Spike tossed aside his cigarette butt. "We know that. Just tell us how to get her on the 'Down' escalator."

"You want to bring her back? Look, nobody comes back from paradise... Okay, a slayer, once-."

"I got bored." Buffy gave Skip a faux-sweet smile and stepped out from beneath Spike's arm. "From what I hear, she's bored, too. So why don't you tell us about how you sent her there?"

"You brought a slayer along? That's hardly friendly... You planning to sick her on me?"

"Actually, we promised that if it turned out you weren't taken for as much of a ride as everyone else in this whole thing, that we'd just watch," Buffy told him. "So, Cordelia's ascension, how did it go down?"

"What do you mean if I wasn't taken for a ride?"

Angel moved up to stand between Buffy and the large demon. "Well, in a way, it was Wolfram & Hart that sent me here the first time, and you just happened to be here. Then, someone, either them or The Powers That Be, sent you to do this whole turn back time spiel for Cordy and got her agree to become part demon and then you are the one who was responsible for her ascension to a higher plane that she can't wait to get out of. So either you were just as big a dupe as the rest of us or you know exactly what's going on."

"Angel, buddy, whatever's going on, I'm telling you true..." The demon raised his arm flexing it so that a foot-long sword-like bone projection stuck out over the back of the demon's hand. "...Not a dupe. If the rest of you guys want to take a number, I'll get to you all in a few minutes."

Angel raised his borrowed sword to parry. Skip seemed faster and Angel barely met the larger demon's thrusts and slashes. Angel's sword was knocked from his hand and Spike was forced to sidestep out of its way as it sailed the breadth if the corridor. "Come on, grandpa. Try hitting back now and again."

Skip grabbed Angel by the neck and held him up, so that his feet didn't touch the ground. "Not like the last time, is it, monkey boy?" He hurled Angel about ten yards along the corridor toward the chamber where the demon had held Billy prisoner. The vampire landed on the floor like a limp dish rag and a few seconds passed before he began to pick himself back off the floor.

"Yes!" Spike's excited cry earned him a baleful glare from the other vampire as he made it to his knees.

"You're supposed to be on my side."

"Nope, you made us promise not to help you. You didn't say we couldn't cheer on the other guy."

"D'you mind?" Skip asked sarcastically as he gripped Angel by the throat again. "You know the worst part about signing on for this gig was having to take a dive when you rescued that runt Billy from his box of fire." This time he threw Angel into the room where Billy had been held. The vampire hit the far wall and then sagged into a heap. "I mean, come on. Do you really think a guy built like this would be so easy to drop? This time we'll do it for real, champion. This time... you lose."

The grey demon continued to pick Angel up, slamming him into one wall or another at will and every time he did Angel took just a little longer to get back up, but still he kept going.

"Well, now..." the larger demon pointed out. "This is just embarrassing."

"You're telling me," Spike retorted. "I'm embarrassed just to be related to him... But then, that's nothing new."

Skip turned around and glared at the blond. "Just what are you doing here?"

Spike raised his hands as if to surrender. "Me? I'm just here to gloat... and collect on a bet. See, when gramps, there, told me what sort of demon you were, I bet him that you let him win the last time..."

Angel took advantage of Skip's distraction with a weak shoulder charge at kidney height. Spike side-stepped pulling Buffy with him, but the blow only made Skip take a single steadying step forward.

"Tell me... what happened... to Cordelia."

"Or what? You'll lie on the floor and pant at me some more? Must say I thought there would be a bit more blood by now."

"Use your pointy arm thing more," Spike pointed out helpfully before being nudged in the ribs by Buffy.

Angel seemed to struggle to his feet and landed a few ineffectual punches on Skip's solar plexus, while the armour-skinned demon simply looked down in disdain as the blows landed.

"You know, I've always wondered how many chunks you gotta hack off a vampire before he goes all dustbunny."

Spike raised his hand. "That'd be one, provided you start with the head. Go on. Tell him what an idiot he was and how he's been taken for a ride all along. Tell him what's going to happen to his princess when he doesn't get her out of there."

"Nah, not a Bond fan. I prefer to send him back to his grave, wondering just why the woman he loves is where she is and never knowing what's going to happen to her."

Angel effortlessly straightened up and punched Skip in the face. The grey demon winced in pain and then blinked as if wondering what had changed. "In that case, I guess I get to beat the crap out of you until you talk, instead." Angel reached out with both hands, his right hand grasping the top of the scythe-like protrusion on the left side of Skip's head and the heel of his left hand driving the demon's chin back as he pulled down with his right as if he were pulling the handle on a slot machine. The horn snapped off where it joined the demon's skull and Skip screamed in pain, trying to cover the resulting hole with one hand to prevent the green slime which seemed to act as a substitute for blood from oozing out.

"Oooh! Told ya they didn't like it if you pulled those bits off," Spike gloated even as Angel bludgeoned the stunned demon into unconsciousness with one more punch.

"And I told you that he wouldn't tell us anything unless we beat it out of him."

"Yeah... but it was fun watching him throw you around like a rag doll... and I was right about you needing the orbs."

"I'd have managed, somehow," Angel said as he put the two pieces of the key back together again, turning them with a flick of his wrist as he dropped them to the floor.

"You'd have managed to look like a two hundred an' fifty pound lump of tenderised beef." Spike let his arm drop from around Buffy's waist and moved forward to pick up one of Skip's arms and pass it around his neck, even as Angel did the same at the other side.

"I could have taken him... and I'm not two hundred and fifty pounds."

"Like you've looked in a mirror lately... an' I didn't say you couldn't. Just said you would have looked like hamburger by the time you did."

Buffy and Connor watched them carry the demon through the portal with a combination of bickering and instinctive co-operation that you only get with family.

* * * * *

"He is not fat. He might be big boned. I mean you don't get to be six foot whatever without being big-boned. It's not his fault. Okay, so he probably wouldn't fit into his leather Angelus pants any more... unfortunately..." Cordy paused for a minute or two to remember how fine he had looked that night in the Sunnydale mall before Buffy had blown The Judge apart with a rocket launcher. "So, maybe if I ever find out when his birthday is, I buy him a gym membership... No big deal.

The man... is a bona fide hero. He kicked Skippy's monochrome butt. What did you do? Apart from cheer for the other guy, well, and loaning him those orb thingies, which I guess helped a bit."