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Shadows of
Yesterday
Chapter 4
by Tami
Booth slowly moved in the dark mist, his gun drawn. He was hunting a predator but he didn’t know why. He didn’t know who the perpetrator was or what he’d done. Looking off to his left, all he saw was darkness. He knew Angel and Spike were out there somewhere hunting in their own way. They were as silent as the person he was hunting. It was quiet here. Not even a cricket chirp could be heard.
He nearly tripped over the edge of a wooden box sticking an inch out of the ground. It was covered by brush. Booth stepped back and aimed his weapon at the box as he gave one hard, swift kick under the lip and busted the lid open. There was an indent in the cushions of the coffin a small body, a child’s body.
Booth looked around and saw nothing. Then, he heard a rustling sound. Pointing his weapon in that direction, he peered through the darkness. As if she materialized, Drusilla walked out of the mist in a shimmer of white holding a child’s hand.
“I saved him for you, Seeley-Daddy . . .”
Booth woke up with a jolt. It was still dark, probably an hour or so before dawn. Glancing around, he didn’t see Drusilla anywhere. It was all a dream. He lay down and tried to go back to sleep but his pulse raced a mile a minute. The blood pounded in his ears. The same feeling he got while aiming his gun at a target when he was a sniper.
“I saved him for you, Seeley-Daddy,” echoed through his mind.
The hell if Booth knew what that meant. Who was Drusilla talking about? Was this the effect of being bitten by three vampires? Angel and Spike never mentioned that strange dreams were a side effect. Whatever it was, the dreams had to stop or he’d never get any rest.
Booth looked at the door when he heard the knob turn. The door opened slowly and Parker stepped inside as quietly as he could manage. The small boy had a crown of wild curls and still wore the clothes from the previous night. His eyes were blurry with sleep. He tiptoed around the bed and seemed surprised to discovery that his father was awake.
“Daddy?” Parker said in a loud whisper.
“Hm?” Booth hummed.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Booth’s reply was to pat the empty space on the bed beside him. Parker crawled up on the bed, over his father’s body. It took several minutes for the boy to get settled. When he was finally still, Booth looked over and saw that his son was sound asleep. Following his example, Booth rolled over, closed his eyes and willed sleep to come without the dreams, even if it was only for a few hours.
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Las Vegas, Angel Investigations Redux
The air was still tense between the vampires. They still worked together, but they talked in one or two-word sentences and replied the same way. Their co-workers didn’t know what to make of it. They were used to Angel and Spike yelling at each other and snarking and then it was back to normal. Now Angel barely said two words. Spike would glare at Angel’s back before returning to his work. Even Chase was confused and he was a witness to the knockdown-drag-out in the alley that started the Cold War in the office.
Angel walked past Spike on the way to the inner office without a word. Spike glared at his back as his slammed the drawer closed on the file cabinet. His task momentarily forgotten, Spike followed Angel into the office and slammed the door closed.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Spike demanded.
Angel looked up as he sat behind the desk. “What do you mean?”
Spike could have slugged the innocent look off his Sire’s face. The elder vampire had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since Angel tracked him down at the hotel and asked him to come back. They didn’t share the bed anymore. If Angel fell asleep first, Spike slept on the couch and vice-versa. It was as if the ghost of Nina Ash was standing between them.
“I mean your attitude for the last two days! Ever since Nina died, you’ve ignored me, talked around me, talked about me as if I wasn’t here. If you don’t want me here, fine! I’ll move back to the hotel. At least, I’ll get a better reception from room service over there. I told you I was sorry! I didn’t realize who the werewolf was until she turned human! What more do you fucking want from me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angel scoffed.
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Booth opened the door to Angel Investigations, Redux and let Parker in only to hear Spike bellow at the top of his lungs, “What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Booth shut the door behind him and cautiously led Parker into the office. Denise, Frankie, Chase and Cassidy didn’t even notice them. Their gazes were riveted to the closed door that led to Angel’s office. Angel’s calm, detached voice could be heard and then Spike’s growled answer. Something about not knowing a girl named Nina.
“Who’s Nina?” Booth asked the room.
The quartet turned to look at him for the first time. Parker stood in front of him with a melting hot fudge sundae and spoon in his small hands. Before anyone could answer, a crashing sound could be heard behind the office door. Booth watched, dazed, as the four other members of Team Angel rushed to the window to try and peek through the blinds and see what had happened.
“Is this a bad time?” Booth inquired half-heartedly.
“If you wanted her so bloody much than why didn’t you just run off and find her after the fight in the alley? I didn’t need you ponce! I’ve survived a hundred years without you interfering in my life.”
“Wait here, buddy,” Booth said with a gentle squeeze to Parker’s shoulder. Booth stepped up to the door and put his hand on the knob. With a steadying breath, he opened the door, stepped inside and shut it behind him.
Booth leaned back against the door and took in the scene before him. Everything that had been on Angel’s desk was now littering the floor. Both Spike and Angel were on opposite sides of the desk glaring at each other.
“I don’t want her. I chose you, didn’t I?” Angel asked as calm and detached as Booth had ever heard him. By the tone of Angel’s voice, something was definitely wrong. It sounded like he had lost someone close to him, a lover maybe. Were they fighting about Buffy again?
“How nice of you to remember that,” Spike shot back. “You normally ignore the fact that it was your decision to stay with me. I didn’t force you. Don’t go around accusing me of offing your girl when it was an accident. I wish to hell she had stayed away. We have to put as much distance between us and that law firm as we can get. Any connections to our old life will only kill the kids we got helping us now.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Angel challenged. “You think I’m blind to the implications of her showing up here? What it could mean to them? What it could mean to us? I’m well aware that any association – with me especially – could put them in danger.”
“How are you going to handle it this time, Sire? I don’t think you can slip through their little circle undetected anymore. They’re on to you after the alley. The machine, as you called it, did not come to a grinding halt for a second. The only thing killing the Circle of the Black Thorn managed to do was piss them off more. As if Chase’s hybrid blood didn’t already put a target on our backs, now Nina shows up out of nowhere in full hair-suit. Who the soddin’ hell knows what she brought with her or who followed her,” Spike disputed.
“We have to find out whom or what followed her then,” Booth spoke up from his position by the door.
Angel and Spike broke their mutual glare to look at the newcomer. Booth looked relaxed as he leaned against the door in a muscle t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. The vampires shifted away from each other and turned their attention to Booth.
“How long have you been standing there, mate?” Spike asked.
“Long enough to know that some girl who is not Buffy has turned Angel’s life upside-down by showing up and that her appearance might bring unwanted company,” Booth said as he straightened up and stepped forward. “Anything I can do to help with that?”
“We wouldn’t ask that of you, Booth,” Angel replied. “You’re here on vacation with Parker.”
“I’m here to spend time with family. And, if my family wants to go out and investigate why this girl was here and anything connected to it, I’m all for it.”
“What about Little Boots?” Spike asked.
In reply, Booth turned around and adjusted the blinds so that they could see into the outer office. Denise, Frankie and Cassidy were flocked around Parker, entertaining him. Even Chase was playing with him. Peals of the boy’s laughter could be heard.
Gesturing towards the scene, Booth said, “I think he’ll be occupied for a few hours.”
“Okay then, where do we start?” Spike asked, addressing Angel. “Last I checked there weren’t many left alive after the alley, just Lorne and us.”
“Wolfram & Hart has offices all over the place, at least one in every major city. They’ve been quiet so far, but that isn’t to say they haven’t been pulling strings in the background. Such as locating Nina and giving her an all-expenses-paid trip to Sin City in order to fuck with me,” Angel replied.
“So what, do we storm the fortress of law offices and demand answers?” Booth asked as he sat down in one of the empty chairs in front of Angel’s desk.
“Can’t,” Spike replied as he reclined in the chair next to Booth, “Unless we want to fight armed guards and vampire detectors.”
“They have vampire detectors?” Booth asked curiously.
“Yeah, Wolfram & Hart is an inter-dimensional law firm. They know about us, among other things,” Angel grumbled as he sat in his chair.
“So, how do you propose we enter Fort Knox?” Booth inquired.
“Don’t worry about it,” Angel said casually. “Breaking into Wolfram & Hart used to be a pastime of mine.”
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