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How to Treat Your
Lover
by Tami
Chapter 49
Chapter 49-A: Step 3 – Estrangement (Part 16)
Los Angeles, Night
Angel tried everything to stem the flow of blood from the gaping hole in Spike’s chest. It had already been eight minutes and seventeen seconds since Angel had pulled the stake from Spike’s body. Eight minutes and eighteen seconds and yet Spike still hadn’t opened his eyes.
Eight minutes and nineteen seconds . . .
Twenty seconds . . .
Twenty-one seconds . . .
Twenty-two seconds . . .
Angel’s existence had been drastically reduced to counting the seconds since Spike was shot in the chest by Holtz. Any one of those seconds his boy could open his eyes. From the moment he had woken as a fledgling vampire his boy had been so full of life. Spike had broken every myth about vampires. He was not a dark, lonely, soulless creature. Spike was an abundance of energy and a vital part of the Scourge of Europe. Angel had done everything he could to protect Spike from his enemies, from Buffy, even from himself.
Angel laid his forehead on Spike’s chest, gently touching the area around the wound as unnoticed tears slid down his face. His relationships with Buffy and Darla seemed a lifetime ago as Spike had become his whole world in the last few years. Spike kept him grounded. Spike had worshipped him as a fledgling and annoyed him as a mature vampire. He couldn’t imagine a world without Spike.
As that last thought crossed his mind, Angel sat up, threw his head back and let out a mournful wail that sounded more like the howl of a wolf that carried on for miles.
Slowly, Angel dragged himself to his feet, gently picked Spike up off the ground and carried him to the stolen SUV. He carefully placed Spike in the backseat, climbed in and sped back to the hotel, looking back on Spike whenever he could afford to look away from the windshield.
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Los Angeles, Wesley’s Apartment
Gunn and Fred walked away from Wesley’s building, heading to Gunn’s truck.
“We got to find his diaries,” Fred said anxiously.
“We got to find him,” Gunn amended.
Fred opened her cell phone and punched in Wesley’s number again.
Gunn thought it was futile to keep calling. “I think if he was answering his cell phone, he would’ve the first forty times you called.”
Fred gave him an incredulous look. “Are you telling me to quit trying?” When he looked hurt, she whispered, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he assured her as they got into the truck. “And keep trying.”
Fred tried to call Wesley again as Gunn drove away from Wesley’s apartment. Several feet away in the park a cell phone lay on the ground. The LCD screen displayed the caller ID as ‘Fred’. A hand stretched through the weeds towards the ringing phone. Wesley lay where Justine left him with his throat slit, barely conscious. Hope went out of his eyes when the ringing stopped.
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Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
“This is making less and less sense,” Gunn said as he paced the lobby. “You expect us to believe that Wesley,” he gestured towards the office, “That Wesley just told Holtz where to find Spike and kill him?”
“They’ve been meeting secretly. I got that much from my contacts,” Lorne insisted. It had taken him a while to come back to the hotel after taking Kim home. He had run into someone that had frequented Caritas and they told him about Wesley and Holtz.
“Then they got it wrong. They fed you a line,” Gunn said.
“He wasn’t meeting Holtz for picnics, Gunn. He was betraying Angel’s one weakness to his mortal enemy. The one thing that would break Angel was to have his enemies know how much Spike means to him. I’m not even sure Spike knows. Angel’s always kept his feelings for Spike close to the vest.”
“God,” Fred breathed. “Why would he do that?”
Before Lorne could reply, the front doors of the hotel burst open, startling the trio, as Angel came through carrying an unconscious Spike.
“I don’t care why,” Angel stated. He was oddly calm as he held his burden close to his chest. “All I care about right now is Spike. Then, I’ll deal with those responsible. They’ll all pay – including Wesley.”
Lorne, Fred and Gunn looked at each other. Things could only get worse as far as they were concerned.
When Angel’s words finally sank in, Fred gasped, “Spike!” When she rushed up to see the vampire’s condition for herself Angel clutched his mate tighter and turned away in a defensive maneuver.
“Don’t Fred,” Angel said anxiously. He sidestepped her and headed for the stairs. “I have to make him better.” As he climbed the stairs, he yelled over his shoulder, “Find out everything you can on Holtz and a time-traveling demon named Sahjahn.”
Angel carried Spike to their room. Removing his coat and shoes, he laid Spike back on the bed. He proceeded to rip the torn shirt open to get a better look at the wound. Vampire abilities had started to heal it somewhat, but Spike needed human blood and maybe some stitches. It was a miracle that he hadn’t dusted. That was the only thing keeping Angel relatively sane.
Rather than risk leaving Spike alone, Angel pulled out his cell phone and dialed Gunn’s number. After a couple of rings there was an answer.
“Gunn, I need you to go to the blood bank and get as much human blood as you can,” Angel said.
“Is he that bad off?” Gunn asked.
“Yeah, it’s not looking good right now. His regenerative abilities aren’t curing the wound as fast as they should be. Whatever he was shot with has deliberately slowed the healing process,” Angel explained.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a bit,” Gunn said and hung up.
Angel closed his phone and set it aside. He leaned forward and gently caressed Spike’s face, tracing the angles of his boy’s features. This cataleptic version of his childe was foreign to him. He’d never known Spike to be still for so long. He wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed beside Spike and hold him. But there were tasks he had to do first, things to hunt down, people to kill. He would make them all suffer as he was suffering. Holtz thought he’d found retribution for what had happened to his family by doing this to Spike. As he caressed his boy’s face, he made a mental note of everyone that even remotely had a hand in his mate’s current condition. Wesley, Lilah, Holtz, Linwood, Sahjahn, every one of them would pay for this. Then, Holtz would really know what revenge was about.
A half an hour later, Gunn showed up with a container of blood bags and left Angel alone to take care of Spike while he and Fred researched Sahjahn.
Angel pulled Spike’s clothes off and settled him into bed, careful of the open wound. He popped a couple of blood bags in the microwave, keeping an eye on Spike from the kitchenette while he waited for the ding. Taking the heated packs over to the bed, he shifted to his demon and ripped a hole in the bag before pressing it to Spike’s mouth. Angel wedged the open end between Spike’s lips and used his other hand to massage Spike’s throat to make him swallow.
“That’s it, baby boy. Drink for me,” Angel encouraged when he felt Spike try to swallow on his own. “I’m so sorry, William. I should have been there with you. I shouldn’t have taken so much blood from you the other day. I’m supposed to be a champion for the Powers That Be and I couldn’t even protect you from Holtz. And Wesley . . . Wesley will pay for his part in this.”
Angel squeezed the last of the blood out of the first bag, and then opened the second bag to repeat the process. He’d have to ask Lorne to come up and watch over Spike while he hunted down the people responsible. To hell with being a champion, Spike was his priority right now.
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Hyperion Lobby
Fred sat at the computer while Gunn leafed through the file folders and Lorne flipped through a stack of books.
“I’m not finding anything on the name ‘Sahjahn’. Are you sure that’s what Angel said?” Fred asked.
“That’s what he said: Sahjahn,” Gunn said. “Maybe you’re not spelling it right.”
“I’ve tried every permutation – in English anyway. Could be it’s a nickname. Which would probably be cross-referenced in Phisto’s Dictionary of Demons and Dimensional Spirits –” Fred started rambling to herself.
“Okay –” Gunn said.
“But it’s in Ga-shundi, and I don’t read Ga-shundi,” Fred cut in.
“That should go well with my job then. These files are in English, but Cordelia’s filing system isn’t,” Gunn commented.
“I know she was keeping some kind of list of time/space-shifting entities,” Lorne spoke up.
“Okay, so is that under ‘time’, ‘space’, ‘shifting’, or ‘entities’?” Gunn asked sardonically.
“Just check them all,” Fred suggested. “It’s Monday. I wonder what time it is in Mexico.” She reached for the phone when suddenly Angel was there. He snatched the receiver from her.
He had come downstairs to check on their progress only to find Fred with the phone in her hand.
“What are you doing?” Angel asked in an accusatory tone.
“Calling Cordelia?” Fred replied, startled to see the vampire standing there.
“Why?” Angel hissed.
“What do you mean ‘why’? I think it’s pretty obvious, don’t you?” Fred replied.
Gunn tentatively stood among the strewn files, ready to jump in and defend his girl if need be.
“We’re not going to ruin Cordelia’s holiday,” Angel said adamantly as he put the receiver back in its cradle.
“Angel . . . don’t you think she’d want us to call?” Fred beseeched. “Shouldn’t we tell her what happened? Maybe she could help . . .”
“No,” Angel said flatly, panic and grief over the fatal condition of his mate laced his voice. They stared at each other for the longest time.
“Angel . . .” Fred tried to reason with him.
“She’ll be back soon . . . and when she does she’ll . . .” Angel’s throat developed a hitch as he fought back the overwhelming emotion that threatened to escape. “Spike will be healed by the time she gets back. Okay?” It sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than Fred.
Tears ran down Fred’s cheeks as she saw the devastation etched on Angel’s face. She nodded. A strained silence fell on the room. Wide-eyed, Angel looked over the mess of books and files.
“I’m sorry . . .” he said quietly.
“No,” Fred started to reassure him. He was hurting. He didn’t need to apologize to her.
“This isn’t working,” Angel said as he backed away towards the entrance. “Look, just . . . forget all this. I got to go.” He nearly tripped over his own feet when he turned and left the hotel. His departure took Fred, Gunn and Lorne off guard. In his haste to leave, he had forgotten to ask Lorne to look after Spike for him.
When the doors slammed shut, Lorne stood up and moved to the reception desk.
“Did he just tell us to forget about all this?” Fred asked rhetorically.
“Yeah, he did,” Lorne verified.
“You don’t suppose he’s decided to skip right to the ‘dealing with those responsible’ part, do you?” Fred inquired.
Gunn considered the possibility and then dropped the files he held. “I think we need to find Wesley.”
“Yeah . . .” Fred agreed.
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An hour after Fred and Gunn left, Lorne looked up at the sound of the door opening to see Angel lugging in a semi-conscious Linwood Morrow over his shoulder. Abandoning his books, Lorne hurried around the reception desk.
“Angel, what are you doing?”
Angel ignored him. Setting Linwood in a chair, he searched around behind the desk for some rope and duct tape, using that to bind Linwood to the chair. Lorne watched in shocked silence as Angel found things around the room to use in torturing the human.
“Angel . . . who is that?” Lorne asked as delicately as possible.
“Linwood Murrow,” the human said groggily as he opened his eyes. “Division president of Special Projects for Wolfram & Hart, and you are?”
Lorne watched Angel as he replied, “Deeply troubled.”
Linwood nodded. “You and Angel have a lot in common. Abducting an employee of Wolfram & Hart . . . then again, he might be too troubled to consider the consequences.” Addressing Angel, Linwood continued, “Once the firm finds out what you’ve done --”
“They’d kill you before they’d kill me,” Angel finished.
Knowing the truth in that, Linwood’s threats faded. He didn’t have any leverage to hold over the vampire.
As Angel searched for more implements, Lorne sidled up to him and whispered, “Angel, this isn’t some slime-demon you’ve got trussed up here – he’s a human,” he glanced at the man in question, “Marginally, but still . . . this isn’t going to make Spike better.”
Angel pulled a serrated steak knife out of a drawer and replied darkly, “No, but it’ll make me feel better.”
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Lorne asked anxiously.
“At last count the charges were kidnapping, assault and battery, attempted murder –” Linwood started to say.
He was interrupted when Angel slammed an end table down in front of him. He lined it with several knives and razors. Linwood turned pale as he looked over the accouterments with fear in his eyes for the first time.
“None of which I intend to press,” Linwood said, changing his tune at the idea of what Angel had in store for him. “In fact, let’s not press anything, shall we? You want to find this Sahjahn character? I can guarantee you the full force and faith of Wolfram & Hart will be at your disposal.”
Seeming to ignore him, Angel picked up the message spike and held it threateningly close to Linwood’s right eye.
“How do I get my hands on Sahjahn?” Angel asked in a deadly voice reminiscent of Angelus.
Linwood’s charming smile turned out to be a pathetic appearance of a frightened grimace. “If you’ll just hit three on my speed dial --” He gave a small nod towards his jacket, “On my cell phone.”
Angel reached in, pulled out Linwood’s phone, punched three and held it up to the human’s ear.
“Lilah? This is Linwood. I’m sending over a client, and I want you to listen very carefully, because I have explicit instructions on how to deal with him,” Linwood said as he glanced up at Angel then quickly looked away. “Give him anything he wants.”
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Hyperion Hotel, Angel’s Suite
Spike lay prone on the bed in the same position Angel left him. For all outward appearances, he hadn’t moved. Inwardly, his mind was in turmoil. He couldn’t wake himself up even if he wanted to. The normal consensus after someone was shot was to have their life flash before their eyes. In his case, his life was playing in slow motion, nearly lethargic.
When he crawled out of the grave and met Angelus for the first time he was awed by mere size of the man . . . In the beginning when Angelus took over the Sire-Claim from Drusilla and made him feel safer than he had ever been since waking up . . . . When he went on hunts with his Sire and they’d spend the night trying to outdo the other in seduction techniques to lure unsuspecting prey . . . The nights Angelus would reluctantly feed him when he couldn’t find enough to satisfy his hunger . . . . The overwhelming sense of loss when Angelus was cursed with a soul and abandoned him to a life with Darla and Drusilla, until Darla grew bored and left them alone . . . . When he took care of Drusilla all those years until she finally left him in South America . . . . Then he found the Gem of Amarra and lost it to Angel only to have his Sire send him back to Sunnydale reclaimed.
All these memories and more filtered through his foggy mind as he lay in repose, waiting for his body to heal itself. He reached out with his senses but all that came back was a cold, dark room. He could smell the carton of blood packs sitting nearby. He knew he was in the bed he shared with Angel, but the elder vampire was not there. He was in too much pain to get a sense of his Sire’s presence in the hotel itself. All he could do until Angel saw fit to return was relax and let his body heal . . . slowly.
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Los Angeles, Wolfram & Hart
The two most unlikely people to ever meet on common ground walked down a halfway of the law firm: Angel with a grim expression on his face and Lilah Morgan who looked impressed and apprehensive all at once.
“Kidnapping Linwood, you’re really steppin’ up to it,” Lilah praised. “And the White Room . . . I mean, they don’t just talk about it.” She shuddered at the thought of it. “God, the White Room. I was here three years before I even heard of it. Did he tell you what was in it?”
“Answers,” Angel stated as they stopped at an elevator. “Up or down?”
“Up.”
Angel pressed the appropriate button. When the doors dinged open they both entered. A moment later, the doors closed.
“Did he tell you how to . . . get there?” Lilah asked, hoping to get something useful out of the impassive vampire.
Ignoring her, Angel pulled out a piece of paper and punched a series of buttons as per the instructions.
“There was this guy in litigation. He went to the White Room in September. He’s in an asylum now.
Angel finished the sequence and hit the emergency stop button. Then there was a soft whirring sound as the elevator jerked into motion. A few seconds later, a blank white button materialized above the panel.
“Wow,” Lilah sounded impressed. Glancing at the paper in his hand, she suggested, “I should probably hold onto --”
Angel put the paper back in his pocket and punched the white button. It lit up but nothing happened. They waited for a while and then the elevator suddenly enveloped in blinding whiteness. Seconds later, they stood in a giant white room. The unlikely duo walked further into the room.
“Hello,” a small voice said.
They stopped and turned around to see a ten-year-old girl wearing a party dress and Mary-janes. She sat in a child-size Windsor chair with her knees together and hands on her lap. Angel and Lilah stared at the little girl who hadn’t been there a second ago. Her demeanor of complete normality was chilling.
“Angel. Lilah,” the little girl addressed them in turn. Noticing Lilah’s bright red nail polish, she commented, “Your fingernails are pretty. I love red.” Addressing Angel, she said, “You have a taste for red too. And revenge. I know it’s so much more fun than forgiveness. So, what’s up?”
“A demon named Sahjahn brought an old enemy back and they’ve nearly killed a friend of mine. He’s barely hanging on.”
“Ahh, do you want him back? He’s more than just a friend isn’t he? He’s much closer to you than a mere friend,” the little girl stated.
Lilah’s expression turned to one of surprise. She shook herself just in time to stop Angel from advancing on the little girl. “Oh God, don’t!”
“Your friend is dying. What you want is Sahjahn. You think he can restore him. Sahjahn’s a Granok. Nowadays you can walk right through ’em, but in the past they were something else . . . . They were all about torture and death. You can relate I’m sure. Well, they caused a lot of trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I like trouble – but I hate chaos. So we changed ’em.”
“You made them immaterial,” Angel said.
“Smart boy,” the little girl sneered. “Now they watch and they can no longer touch.”
“How do you capture them?” Angel asked.
“Well, there’s your special urn . . .” the little girl replied. “But you don’t want his essence in a jar. You want someone you can sink your teeth into.” Angel glared at her. She turned to Lilah.
“That’s a yes,” Lilah interpreted Angel’s answer.
“You know these things always come with a price,” the little girl hedged. Addressing Angel, she ordered, “Kill her.”
Lilah’s blood suddenly ran cold and her breath caught in her chest. Angel grabbed her head and was about to twist her neck when the little girl laughed merrily.
“That’s good for now. I can see why they respect you,” the little girl said as Angel released Lilah. “Now, for your demon made flesh. It’s a big ritual, and it’s all here.” She held out her hand revealing a folded piece of paper. As Angel reached for it, it suddenly appeared in his hand. “Can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
Angel and Lilah were engulfed in blinding whiteness.
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Hyperion Lobby
Angel stood up from his task, his hair in disarray and a few black paint smudges on his cheeks. His intense gaze was focused on the floor. Lorne came down the stairs from looking in on Spike and took in the new decoration on the lobby floor. Then he looked at Angel.
“Angel, please – do not do this thing. We’ll find some other way,” Lorne beseeched.
“There is no other way,” Lilah said from her position of leaning against the reception desk with the spell instructions in her hand.
Glaring at her, Lorne replied sarcastically, “I think not speaking would be a really good look for you.”
Ignoring Lorne, Angel asked Lilah, “How’s that?”
Examining the symbol on the floor and comparing it to the drawing on the paper, Lilah said, “Looks about right.”
Angel stepped back and looked at the large, sloppily-painted pentagram on the lobby floor. Linwood, still tied to the chair, was near the stairs.
“What’s next?” Angel asked.
“What’s next is we stop and reconsider this,” Lorne insisted. “Angel, you’re messing with primordial powers of darkness here.”
“Next?” Angel prompted Lilah.
Before she could respond, Lorne stepped in front of Angel and forced the vampire to look at him. “Is this how you want to bring Spike back? He’s lying up there in that bedroom and he needs his Sire, his mate.”
Angel glared at Lorne. “I promised him I would do this. Now, step aside.” Addressing Lilah, he bit out, “What’s. Next.”
Looking up from the instructions, she said, “Human blood.”
Angel looked at her. She got the message. There were only two humans in the room. One or both were going to have to draw blood. She picked up a large ceremonial knife from the items on the reception desk then turned to Linwood. She considered making him bleed, but he was still her boss. Instead, she gave him a half-smile and maintained eye contact as she held up her left hand and cut her palm.
Seeing that Angel had drowned out common sense long before now, Lorne gave up trying to talk to his friend and backed away into a corner and braced himself for what was to come.
Lilah moved to the center of the pentagram and squeezed her fist over the design, dripping blood onto the pentagram and then stepped aside.
“Corpus Granok Sahjahn Demonicus,” Angel intoned, facing the pentagram.
Lightning flashed. Beams of light shot out from the candles set at various points of the pentagram and the lobby and converged in the center of the pentagram. A form took shape in a translucent sphere of light. It grew to a couple of feet in diameter.
Angel stepped back and reached for a battle-axe he had set aside, preparing himself for the thing that would appear before him. They all squinted from the bright light. Suddenly it burst like a bubble, releasing a shockwave of wind and light that nearly knocked everyone over. Then, there was silence.
Angel looked at the center of the pentagram, but there was no Sahjahn.
“Where is he?” Angel glared at Linwood, demanding, “Where is he?”
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Culver City, Main Street
A few cars drove down the street in the light industrial neighborhood. Suddenly, a spherical burst of light flashed and Sahjahn materialized in the middle of the street. He was shocked to find himself yanked from wherever he was and transported to the city street.
Sahjahn looked around. “What the . . .?”
He tried to gain his bearings but turned when he heard a car horn just as a two-ton truck ran him over, swerved and hit the side of a station wagon that was heading in the other direction.
Horrified at what happened, the truck driver sat in shock with his hands deadlocked on the wheel. Through his cracked windshield he saw a family in the station wagon. After a moment, his truck started to shake. It tipped and flipped over on its side. Sahjahn stood up between the truck and station wagon. His only causality was a small cut on his forehead.
“Now this is more like it,” Sahjahn said to himself.
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Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
The chair made a ka-thump sound as Angel dragged it up the stairs with Linwood still tied to it. There was no emotion on Angel’s face. He was well past anger and into coldhearted vengeance. He had nothing left. Lorne stood at the foot of the stairs agonizing.
“Lilah! Do something,” Linwood begged.
Calmly she took out her cell phone and dialed a number.
“Angel, killing this creep isn’t going to solve anything,” Lorne tried once more to reason with the vampire. “Please, trust me: you don’t want to do this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Angel said finally acknowledging him. “Spike wouldn’t be coming back from the brink of death if it wasn’t for this piece of shit and Holtz and that time-traveling demon.” He started up the stairs again, dragging the chair and Linwood with him.
“We had a deal, Angel. I gave you everything you asked – what more do you want from me?” Linwood asked plaintively.
“I want a lot of things. I want you to stay out of my life. I want Spike back to the way he was. I want --”
“Hey! Whoa! Flag on the play!” Lilah said from the bottom of the stairs. Angel looked over his shoulder at her. “The firm’s TAC team just registered a severe bio-plasmic disturbance on Taber and National, same time as the spell.”
“Sahjahn?” Angel inquired.
“Whatever it was flipped a two-ton truck like a Tonka toy,” Lilah replied.
Angel suddenly released his grip on the chair and Linwood toppled down the stairs with it. Lilah rushed to help her boss as Angel strode past them and headed for the door. Just then, Gunn and Fred rushed into the hotel. For a moment, they were taken aback by the chaos and the giant pentagram decorating the lobby floor. As Angel moved to pass them, Fred stepped in his way.
“We need to talk,” Fred said.
“Not now,” Angel said dismissively. He moved to sidestep her, but she moved with him. “Fred --” he warned.
“There’s something you need to know before you --” Fred started to say.
Angel sidestepped her again, quicker this time and headed for the door. He made it by a few feet.
“The champion will fall from grace!” Fred blurted.
Angel stopped with his back to them. He turned, waiting for Fred to go on. She and Gunn both moved toward him.
“There was a prophecy in the Nyazian scrolls. Wesley checked the translations, the commentaries, he even went to mystic oracles, but he couldn’t disprove it. He thought that Spike would replace you, by force. The champion will fall from grace. Everything was telling him that Spike would kill you. He and Spike haven’t exactly been on the best of terms since the whole thing with Billy’s blood. So, he took the prophecy to heart and ran with it. And with the sidebar of Holtz and Sahjahn, he felt he couldn’t take any chances. Wesley was trying to protect you,” Fred explained.
“Same as we’re doing right now,” Gunn said.
Angel turned to leave again but Fred rushed to block his exit. “Angel, the prophecy --”
“It’s a lie. Spike and I are fine. He wouldn’t do that,” Angel denied. “Now move.”
The look he gave her said that he’d physically move her if she didn’t do it herself. Chagrined, but realizing she couldn’t stop him, she stepped aside as he walked out.
“We have to go after him,” Fred said as she watched the door swing shut.
“We can’t,” Gunn said. “If he lays a finger on you, I’ll have to kill him myself.”
Fred and Gunn turned at the sound of painful groaning and saw Linwood – now freed from his bonds – and Lilah.
“What are they doing here?” Gunn asked.
“Wolfram & Hart,” Lorned replied as if that answered everything, then elaborated, “There was a kidnapping and a spell, dark magick.”
“Let’s get you out of here, okay?” Lilah said as she tried to help Linwood up.
“Don’t touch me!” Humiliated, he shook off her assistance. “He’s going to pay for this.”
“It was really bad,” Lorne added.
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