|
|
Edges of My Mind
by Tami
Chapter 16
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
Cordelia was sitting behind the reception desk, flipping through a Marie Claire magazine when an object overshadowed her light. She looked up to see a very male thing with forward-pointing ears like a donkey, but with the face of a human, and huge hands with webbed fingers like a pig, if pigs had hands.
“Eek!” Cordelia shrieked, jumping back off the stool behind the desk and produced a cross out of nowhere.
The thing looked strangely at her with its head cocked to one side. “I’m not a vampire, so that cross isn’t going to work on me,” the thing said in a gruff, scratchy voice.
“Who are you? What are you? And, why are you here?” Cordelia demanded still holding the cross up as a shield.
“Name’s Frank,” he said. He pulled up his hand to reveal Riley’s battered face. “I’ve come to see Angel.”
“Who’s that?” Cordelia squeaked.
Frank looked at it as he didn’t recognize it either. “Someone Angel told me to bring to him. It’s the thing that attacked Spike a few months back.”
Cordelia’s eyes darted back to the battered human face. She winced when she heard a groan from him. Then, her eyes flicked back to the demon. “You’re the people-eating Boraro demon?”
Frank nodded and lowered the hand holding Riley up.
“You kill humans and you’re here!” she shrieked again.
“Hey! I only kill humans when I’m hungry!” he said defensively. “What’s your excuse?”
“Excuse me!?” Cordelia asked taking offense to what he was inferring.
“You kill animals for food correct?” he asked.
“Well, not me personally! I’m a vegetarian!” Cordelia said. When Frank eyed her disbelievingly, she sighed, “Okay, there was that time I ate a roast, but that was only once and it was a holiday dinner!” When he still looked at her, she said defensively, “It wasn’t the whole roast!”
“Uh-huh,” Frank commented.
Cordelia looked around desperately for anything to get her out of this conversation with the ugly looking demon. “ANGEL!”
Just then, Angel and Spike were coming in the back entrance with Fred who was eating an ice cream sundae and giggling at something Spike was saying. When Angel saw Frank his face lit up.
“Hey, Frank. Didn’t expect you to get here so soon,” Angel greeted as he stopped at the reception desk.
His position didn’t allow him to see what Frank had with him. Cordelia looked wide-eyed between the two men, if Frank was a man. She wasn’t exactly sure what he was.
“You’re friends with him?! He’s a human flesh-eating demon, Angel,” she exclaimed.
“He only kills to eat, just like I only killed to eat,” Angel pointed out. Then, he thought about it. “Well, I didn’t only kill to eat really . . . I’ve maimed and tortured a great deal.”
“Yeah, but you can live off the blood of anything,” she cut in. “He’s eats people, and he has a body with him!”
“Cordy, calm down or you’ll end up like his last wife,” Angel chuckled.
Behind him, Fred had gone up to her room and Spike came over and leaned against the reception desk. Angel turned to Frank. “Did you bring him?”
Frank’s answer was to lift his hand again and raise the head attached to it.
“Did it come with the rest of the body?” Angel asked with a raised brow.
“Unfortunately,” Frank answered.
Spike’s eyes were drawn to the battered face of his attacker and he froze in place. Every hair on his body stood up and the dead blood in veins took on a life of its own, rushing so fast it made him dizzy. He willed his legs to move. Nothing happened. He tried to speak and it was as if his jaw was wired shut. It wouldn’t open for anything. Spike just stared at Riley’s face, mottled with dark bruises. Angel felt the apprehension come off Spike in waves.
“Take him down to the basement,” Angel said.
When Frank left with his burden, Angel turned to face Spike. “Are you sure you want to do this? I can handle it by myself.”
Spike gazed numbly at Angel. Riley Finn was here. He expected to be pissed at seeing him again, and he was. But, Spike didn’t count on the underlying terror that made the dead blood in his veins even colder. He thought he was making great strides toward mental health, but seeing Finn, even with the battered face, threw him back four months.
“Spike!” Angel said louder. The booming sound startled Cordelia.
“Geez, Angel, you don’t have to scream at him,” she said as she slid off the stool and went around the desk to stand in front of Spike. Cordelia snapped her fingers in front of Spike’s eyes and he blinked. “Well, he isn’t comatose.”
Angel looked annoyed at her. “Thanks for the diagnosis, Cordy. I think seeing Riley sent him into shock.”
“He’s not in shock. For that to happen, he’d have more of a distressed expression on his face,” Cordelia said as she looked at Spike stunned expression and then back at Angel. “Wouldn’t he? What is with vampires only having one expression? Maybe he got that from you?”
“Cordelia!” Angel growled.
“I’m just making an observation,” Cordelia said as she held her hands up in surrender.
“Make a better one! He’s been waiting for months to get payback on Riley for what he did. It’s no good if he’s barely coherent to enjoy it,” Angel said apprehensively.
“Well, how would you like it if the person from your nightmares was standing right in front of you?” Cordelia asked.
Angel just looked at her. The fiasco with Wolfram & Hart and Darla hung in the air between them.
“Okay, so you do understand. What do we do about him?” she asked, gesturing towards Spike.
“Get him down to the basement and he can watch me work on Finn until he snaps out of it,” Angel suggested.
“Are you sure that’s the best idea? Spike and Riley in the same room again?” she asked.
“Worst case scenario? Spike snaps out of it and kills soldier boy,” Angel said casually.
“Angel!” Cordelia scoffed. She couldn’t believe he was suggesting such a thing.
“What? That army punk beat and raped him. I’m not seeing Spike killing him as a bad thing, are you?” Angel asked with a raised brow.
“He’s a human being! You can’t condone the killing of a human being,” Cordelia argued.
“Why not? Spike was chipped and unable to defend himself when Finn attacked him. I’d say let Spike have him!” Angel argued back.
“First a cellar full of lawyers, and now this? You can’t play God, Angel,” she countered.
“I’m not playing God. Spike needs closure or he’ll never fully recover. If killing Riley gives him that and helps him sleep easier knowing he won’t be attacked again, then by all means,” Angel replied.
“So, you’re just going to kill every person who ever hurt him when he was chipped?” Cordelia inquired.
“No, just this one,” Angel said all-too-quickly.
“Spike is an evil, soulless demon! Riley Finn is human! He has a soul,” Cordelia argued.
“Spike may be evil, but he didn’t deserve to be beaten within an inch of his life, such as it is, and raped for fucking some girl that Riley had his eye on. Besides, it’s not like Finn has done anything worthwhile on this planet,” Angel shot back.
Cordelia held up her hands again. “Hold up! I agree that Spike didn’t deserve to be raped, but the girl he was fucking is the love of your life – unlife, whatever – and second Riley was ridding the world of demons. So, I’d say he was one of the good guys.”
“I know who he was fucking and that isn’t the point right now. Riley’s no better than Lindsey McDonald, only Lindsey dresses better,” Angel said.
“Angel . . .” Cordelia started to say.
Angel was leading a still-dazed Spike to the basement door. “Enough, Cordy. End of discussion. Spike needs this and I’m going to see that he gets it, if only to help him heal. You don’t have to like it or even agree with it. You know where the door is if you want to leave.”
With that, Angel disappeared down the stairs with Spike and slammed the basement door.
**************************
Angel stopped at the bottom landing of the stairs and helped a still-catatonic Spike to sit down. “Whenever you’re ready, you can join in,” he whispered low enough that only Spike and possibly Frank could hear.
He ran his fingers over Spike’s hair and then turned and walked down the small flight of stairs to where Frank was tightening Riley’s restraints on a Saint Andrew’s cross. Riley’s head hung on his shoulders, but he managed to glare at Angel when he got close enough.
“So, you are awake,” Angel mused. “I thought Frank had knocked you out. Not looking so tough now are you?”
“Fuck you,” Riley grated out in a low mumble.
“No thanks. I don’t take my ex-girlfriend’s leftovers,” Angel replied. “Didn’t the beating I gave you a couple of years ago teach you nothing?”
Riley just glared at him, silent. He barely winced when Frank tightened a restraint, but it was enough for Angel to notice it.
“You think you can touch something that’s mine and I not know? Where my family is concerned, I always know.” Okay, so that was a small lie, he hadn’t known about Spike until his childe told him, but Riley didn’t need to know that. “You beat and raped Spike for no reason other than you were pissed that he was fucking your ex-girlfriend.”
“She’s your ex-girlfriend too,” Riley pointed out in a low rasp and coughed up a little blood for the effort.
“Yeah, she is. But, I never took my anger at her sleeping with a vulnerable demon out on the demon. Spike is what he is. He’s evil. He’s soulless. He’s everything I taught him to be. He’s an excellent killer. Anything he did against Buffy, he did without a soul. You, on the other hand, have a soul and you attacked him while he was chipped and defenseless against humans.”
“He got what he deserved. He deserves worse. He should be staked, just as you should be,” Riley stuttered through a coughing fit.
“What he deserves is up to debate,” Angel growled. “You are neither a God nor a judge to punish anything you see fit to abuse. You committed a grave offense against one of mine and for that you have a slim chance of making it out of this basement alive.”
“I’m human. You can’t kill me. I have a wife,” Riley choked out.
“You should have thought about your wife before you assaulted Spike. Besides, who said I would kill you?” Angel asked casually.
Gaining a bit more confidence, Riley asked, “So, what, you’re going to beat me up until he decides to show his face and then feed me to him?”
“You know? I hadn’t had any plans outside of torturing for an unbelievably long time until you died from the shock or the blood loss. But, now that you bring it up . . .” Angel pondered out loud.
“You’re a sadistic fuck, you know that?” Riley asked, coughing up a lung in the process.
“So I’ve been told,” Angel replied calmly and then raised an eyebrow. “Was that supposed to be an insult?”
“Go to hell,” Riley said.
Angel chuckled. “I’ve been there before too, sent there by Buffy herself. It’s a bit dry for my tastes. Is that the best you can do? I got to say, you aren’t much for a proper comeback when you’re chained up.” He leaned into Riley’s face, taking the battered features in his hands and looked into his eyes. “I have a talent for slow, painful torture and your half-assed insults are just pissing me off. That’s okay though,” Angel said with an exaggerated nod. “That just means I’ll keep you alive longer. I can break every bone in your body. As long as I don’t break your neck, you will still live . . . paralyzed maybe, but alive.”
“I thought you were out seeking redemption and now you’re torturing me for a pathetic excuse of a demon?” Riley grated out.
“People like you are what get in the way of my redemption. I figure if I get rid of you, I may get bonus points. Because, beating and raping a defenseless creature to prove your manhood . . . you’re no better than . . . well, me,” Angel said.
“Bloody hell, Angel . . . just kill him already before he dies of old age,” Spike’s voice sounded weak and tired from the stairs.
“Spike, my boy!” Angel’s face lit up with a smile and he turned to face his childe. “Come and help me decide the best way to eviscerate Agent Finn here.”
“If you want to eviscerate him, be my guest,” Spike replied. He got to his feet and joined Angel looking at Riley hanging from the cross. Then, he leaned forward as if he were sharing a secret with the human. “Angel likes to talk a good game, but he takes forever in execution.”
“Would you want to drink it if I did?” Angel asked.
“Well, no, not from him. I might catch something,” Spike grimaced at the thought.
“He’s done the most damage to you. What do you want to do with him?” Angel asked.
“I wasn’t much for the torture aspect. I just want him gone from my life,” Spike said tiredly.
“I seem to remember a few bouts of torture with railroad spikes,” Angel pointed out.
“Yeah, well it’s not like we have any here, is it?” Spike replied agitated.
Angel reached over to a stack of crates and produced a railroad spike.
“Where the bloody hell did you get that?” Spike asked, ignoring Riley for the moment.
“Does it matter?” Angel replied with a smirk as he handed it over. “And look, it still has your notches on it.”
Spike inspected it closely and, sure enough, there were notches carved into the side. He looked up at Angel in confusion. “You kept it?”
“I kept a lot of things,” the dark vampire said as he watched his companion.
“For someone who despised the sight of me for a hundred and twenty years, you’re awfully nostalgic for the past,” Spike mused shaking his head.
“Hey guys, can we take the trip down memory lane later? I’m getting hungry and the annoying human is just hanging there like a slab of beef,” Frank interrupted.
Both vampires cleared their throats and turned back to the reason they were in the basement in the first place. Riley was hanging there still glaring at them. Spike walked up to the human and smirked with his tongue behind his teeth.
“Before I kill you, I’d like to let you in on a few things.” Spike looked off in the distance as he thought about how to say it. “When Buffy came back from the dead, I was the only one that hadn’t up and left her. She came to me, probably because I was familiar, safe to an extent and . . . oh yeah . . . unchangeably dead. So, naturally, she ended up fucking me.”
Riley gave a semblance of a growl to that.
“Yeah, I say ‘fucking me’ cause she always took over. I don’t know if she even knows how to follow someone else’s lead during sex or otherwise. But, I digress . . . can I digress? Anyway,” Spike waved his hand dismissively and jabbed the end of the spike in Riley’s chest. “You showed up out of the blue carting around a wife and decided to throw that in her face. That’s why you found her with me. The girl needed to know someone still cared about her. But then, you barged in making threats about a situation that was none of your concern and she followed along, ’cause God forbid someone find out that she’s fucking the undead again. But, you just couldn’t leave town, could you? Had to get your end away . . . if you think about it, a human raping, essentially a dead body, that would make them party to necrophilia.”
“I should have staked you years ago, put you out of everyone’s misery,” Riley rasped.
“You would have never gotten away with it if you did,” Spike said casually. “’Even if Buffy didn’t go after you, the vampire behind me would have. Angel and I have our differences just like any family, but one thing that has always been there is a sense of loyalty.”
“You’re a soulless demon, what do you know about loyalty,” Riley asked.
“Enough of enough, I’m through talking, mate. Just wanted you to know why you’re in this position.”
With that, Spike stabbed his weapon into Riley’s inner thigh and pulled up until he jerked it against his balls. He sneered at the sound of Riley’s hoarse scream. A waterfall of blood pooled below the writhing body. After a moment of Riley thrashing around in pain, Spike yanked the spear out of his thigh to the sound of louder screams.
Angel was perched against the stack of crates with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the scene. The screams were music to his ears. Sure, he had a soul and felt remorse for those deserving of it. However, Riley Finn was not one of those people. If the soldier had just left Spike alone, he wouldn’t be here now. Angel couldn’t even gather any feeling to care one way or the other about Riley’s fate. Deep down, Angelus was enjoying this. He felt a thrill go through him when Spike stabbed Finn in a new place and another peal of blood-curdling screams rent the air.
Okay, so maybe even he was enjoying this. How could he not when Spike was doing his best to emulate Angelus in a game of torture? Spike had a flare for it even it wasn’t as methodical as his soulless counterpart.
Frank moved closer to the dark vampire. “Like father, like son, eh?”
Angel gave the Boraro demon an amused smirk.
“Think he’ll be done soon, there’s not much flesh to stick that spike in,” Frank observed.
“Maybe now he can relax and get some actual sleep for once,” Angel said concerned. “When you’re done with the body, try to be discreet about dumping it. We don’t need some unsuspecting human finding it.”
“Discreet is my middle name,” Frank commented.
“I thought it was Alexander?” Angel teased.
“Which is Latin for discreet,” Frank replied.
“Actually that would be modeste or prudens,” Angel corrected.
“Smart ass,” Frank grumbled.
“Just correcting your grammar, my friend,” Angel chuckled.
“Bite me, Aurelius.”
“Sorry, Boraro demon blood is too caustic for my palette, like drinking acid,” Angel informed him.
The eerie silence was what got Angel’s attention away from the conversation. There were no more hoarse human screams. All he could hear was the sound of dripping blood down from the body to the drain under it. Angel looked around Frank’s hulking form to see Spike staring sightless at the body of his attacker.
“Spike?” he called out as he straightened up.
Angel moved closer to the blonde vampire and touched his elbow, but Spike didn’t acknowledge him. He turned his childe away from the hanging corpse to look at him. Angel pried the weapon from Spike’s bloody hand and blindly handed it to Frank. Then, he put his fingers under Spike’s chin and raised his head to look up at him.
“Are you in there?” Angel asked quietly.
Spike continued to stare at him. Angel could tell he was trying to keep it together. His Will had always been expressive. A soulless vampire wasn’t supposed to feel anything, but his boy had deep emotions. Angelus spent so much time trying to get William to hide them, to lose them so that something like this wouldn’t happen. But it didn’t work. Spike would always be that young, naïve poet inside.
“I’ve got to get him upstairs, clean the blood off him before they see him,” Angel said to Frank while still looking into Spike’s catatonic eyes. He led his childe upstairs. “Take what you want of it and get rid of the body.” Angel’s tone was a monotone.
Frank cut the body down and took it with him.
**************************
Angel led Spike into his room. Drusilla’s bed was large and imposing in the darkened bedroom. Luckily, Fred was in her room when they came up the stairs because Angel had no clue how to explain the blood on Spike’s clothes, hands, face and neck.
Angel directed Spike into the adjoining bathroom and helped him up on the counter. This scenario was becoming so common that he had a sense of déjà vu. He pulled Spike’s shirt over his head and threw it in the hamper. He ran a washcloth under the warm water and wiped the blood off Spike.
“You know, if you keep this up, I might have your ass imprinted on my sink,” Angel said in casual humor.
Spike just stared into space.
“Cordy and Fred have been worried about you. Maybe when you snap out of the shock, they’ll stop giving me strange looks as if I’m the one that caused it, hey,” Angel continued.
Angel squeezed the water out of the washcloth and draped it over the faucet, grabbed a towel and dried Spike off. He helped the younger vampire off the sink and into Drusilla’s bed. Pushing him to lay down, Angel unfastened his jeans and pulled them off. Angel got Spike under the covers, then undressed and joined him.
“Riley’s dead, you can rest a little easier now. Buffy’s in Sunnydale, it would be dumb on her part to come back again. You can stay here and help out as long as you want.” Angel’s lips quirked up. “I’m sure you’ll be back to being the annoying pain in my ass soon enough.”
Angel watched Spike for a while before he drifted to sleep. Some time later, Angel was half-sleep when he felt the younger vampire tighten his hold around his waist, and then felt tears against his neck. At least, Spike was starting to come out of shock. Things could only get better from here . . . hopefully.
|
