Snake Eyes

I wait. He closes the door, and walks over to the bed. Flicks off the one dim light on the table on his side of the bed, pulls the covers back and kneels facing me. He reaches out and takes the cig out of my hand and, twisting around, puts it out on the wooden surface of the end table under the lamp. I freeze. He turns around again and looks at me. I look back, left hand and arm across my chest, right hand on my thigh. His eyes are golden. Quicker than I can think, his hand cups my balls in his left hand and squeezes, hard. I arch my back and neck and gasp. He moves closer never letting go until his chest is against my shoulder and his mouth is on my hair. With the index finger of his right hand he pushes against my temple and rubs the finger along the bone behind my ear so hard I feel the nail dig in and draw blood in a thin line around and down until reaches my neck.

Cordelia tried to tell me the line was being crossed. Should have listened. More like a membrane than a line. Usually tough and thick, but tears, tiny holes are forming and Angelus is leaking through. Darla’s doing, I know. I am away three weeks and come back to this. I am lying in this bed waiting for Angel to come home, and what I get is some sort of freaking combination of demon and soul that intends to protect its litter. It doesn’t care about the cost to them.

I think hard. He gets up and goes back into the bathroom. I stay where I am, stay expressionless. He picks up his silk shirt and puts it on. Starts buttoning it. It hides his erection. He looks at me with a face hard and gray as cement. I don’t look him directly in the eye. Still not sure who I’m dealing with, so I’m careful. Darla. That bitch was always trouble.

I take a few minutes to think. Been awhile since Angelus used me like that. Still hurting some, I move to the edge of the bed, cover over my lap and lean forward toward the floor. That eases the pain a little more and I try standing up. My take on this is that he’s decided Angel Investigation is at war and he’s put some kind of martial law into effect.

After a minute I reach for my clothes and get dressed. Then I sit on the bed and wait till the pain is completely gone. I get up and walk out to the lobby. Cordelia and Wesley are sitting on the sofa. Wesley is in research mode, leafing through a big, ancient text of some sort. Cordelia is twisting her hair with the thumb and index finger of one hand and stirring a fresh cup of coffee with the other.

“Angelus believes he owns us. We are his property. We are his children, if you like. He will protect us because we belong to him and nobody messes with him or any extension of him, like his belongings. Angel loves us, and would protect us because he needs us and cares for us. So, in a way, we’re doubly safe. But. The big, nasty, BUT, Mates. If Angelus stays out, then things will change. Change in ways we can’t understand yet and won’t till this mess is finished.”

Wesley and I take the pails, go out the front while Cordelia stands at the door and keeps lookout. We work from both sides of the door going in opposite directions, pouring the powder along the cracks between the foundation and the dirt of the grass filled gardens that used to bloom around the place. We meet in the center of the back of the building. Then we walk together to the front and go inside. Cordelia locks the door.

I go back out to the lobby. Wesley is back in his book trying to figure out which demons Wolfram and Hart will send after us. Cordelia is behind the front desk making more coffee. I hear the Bonneville pull up outside. A few seconds later Angel and Gunn come through the door. Angel walks by us and into his suite. Gunn flops down next to me on the sofa and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Wesley keeps flipping pages.

I get up and go to the desk and get a mug. Cordelia pours coffee into it and then into one for herself. She says, “Gunn, coffee?” He nods yes. She pours it and takes it to him. “Wesley? Or do you want tea?” He tells her coffee is fine. She comes back and pours. I take it to down to him and sit across from him next to Gunn. Cordelia sits next to Wesley.

“You don’t know him as well as we do. He’s been acting strange. You remember how he was sleeping a lot. We know that was Darla, but there are other things too. He is more remote. He always was broody and stand offish, but now he’s remote. Nothing is funny to him. He acts like we don’t exist. Spike just came back from three weeks in Sunnydale and Angel barely acknowledged him except to do something nasty that Spike won’t talk about. We were happy around here for several months, and now it’s all changed. But you apparently don’t see it.”

Wesley puts on his patient educator expression. “You know that Angelus is the vampire demon. Angelus is evil, Gunn, not just bad. Not just Angel’s darker side. For 140 years, Angelus ravaged Europe. He tortures, maims, terrorizes, kills on a whim. He is devious, clever, and big, fast, and stronger than anyone, I at least, have ever seen. If Wolfram and Hart have designs on him, then they are to be pitied really. They have consistently underestimated the demons they employ. Angelus could be their worst possible mistake.”

I walk down the hall to 102 and open the door. Bloody hell. I should care? Motherfucking Angelus. Motherfucking Angel. Motherfucking Darla. I sit in the dark, right side to the window and light another cig. I put my feet up on the sill and look out at the parking lot and the street trying to memorize the shadows and the alley entrances, the store fronts. Need to know what’s normal, so I can tell when it isn’t.

I sit through 3 smokes this way. Then I hear voices in the lobby. The front door closes and I see Gunn head for the truck. He pulls away. I hear footsteps coming down the hall. There is a soft knock on my door. I don’t answer. I hear the knob turn, the door opens and light from the hallway spills in. I stay where I am and keep my attention out the window, but every muscle in my body is coiled. He walks up behind me. I don’t move. He doesn’t say anything. Instead he rests two fingers lightly on my shoulder. The two fingers move down my arm to my hand. I wait. Four fingers wrap over my wrist around to the underside and the thumb presses down on the top. The fingers dig into the nerve that runs into my palm. I move fast. He is bent over, so when I come to my feet his head is below me. I tear my wrist away from his hand and smash my right fist down as hard as I can on his cheek bone. He crashes to the floor. I am over him and out the door to the lobby, through it and then into the kitchen before he can recover. I stay there and wait.

The steps come to a halt outside the kitchen door. Then they fade away and I know he’s gone into his suite. I select the meat cleaver and fantasize what he’d look like in little pieces before I stake him, return with it to 102 and lock the door. It’s 4:17 AM. I go back to my chair. I suppose I doze because the dawn through the window an hour and a half later wakes me. I close the curtains. Black paint would be a good idea. Make a list for Gunn later. Wouldn’t want some minion yanking curtains open on me. Unlikely they’ll pull anything during the day, but doesn’t hurt to be careful.

He walks to the desk and goes around it to the small refrigerator. Cordelia is still on the stool, elbow on the counter, head resting on her hand. He opens the refrigerator, takes out a bag of blood and empties it into a mug. I hear the microwave door open and the timer start. He turns around. He looks at the back of Cordelia’s head. I stiffen. He just looks.

“Thanks for yer clear understandin’ of me orders, boyo. Might be well if ye carry that cleaver around with ye when yer checkin the perimeter.” He takes in a lungful of air and expels it across my face. I smell salt air and hay and entrails. We hear Gunn’s truck pull up. I go to the door, unlock it, and let him in. He joins Angel and the two of them head for the stairs down to the tunnel entrance. Neither looks back.

Cordelia and Wesley settle down for a long wait. I am too restless. I decide to check the boiler room again and figure out the booby trap. I head down the stairs. The boiler room might not need to much work because it’s so full of junk from years of hotel history. Anyone coming in without a light would trip and crash. It’s got everything from broken lamps and furniture to old picture frames, cracked sinks, a couple of rolled up rugs, and dust over it all. Except for one item. I notice a table with smeary looking streaks in the dust. I go over to it. Finger marks like someone’s moved the table recently. Alarm bells go off. What if we’ve already been breached?

I look under the table. Two cardboard boxes of more junk, but I can see they’ve been moved. I pull them out. Directly behind them is a brown leather satchel, an old piece of luggage. I grab one of the handles and drag it carefully toward me. Just the sort of thing that might hold a bomb. I examine it for wires. Nothing. I pick it up and shake it very gently. Something shifts inside. I unzip it an couple of inches. The zipper sticks a bit. I get it open about 12 inches and pull it into the light.

Money. Lots and lots and lots of it. A bomb of a type, as I am not expecting anything like money, this much money... so much money. One of the Poof’s stashes. Know he has them, just don’t think about it much. All vampires have them, yours truly included. Dru had them all over the place. But now I sit and wonder about this dough. If all this Darla crap goes down wrong, some of us are going to have to make a new start.

I zip up the satchel, shove it back in its place, replace the boxes and go back upstairs. I get some newspapers from the bin and go back down. I move everything again and take out the case. This time I open it all the way and remove all the packets of cash. I fill the bottom with newspaper and replace two stacks of bills. The rest I wrap in more newspaper, then I close the bag and put everything back. I go back to the kitchen. Under one of the counters I find some large soup pots with lids. I stuff the paper wrapped money into two of these big pots. Then I go back to the lobby.

Cordelia is reading a magazine and Wesley is staring into space. I walk back to 102 and pick up the cigarette cartons sitting outside my door. I take them back across the lobby to the suite. I open the suite door and throw them in so they scatter across the carpet and some end up by the bed. Then I close the door. But a small sound makes me stop and stand for a second listening. Something is moving in there.

I back away from the door, all my senses focused. Smell and hearing especially. What an idiot wanker I am. Who could miss it? Bloody Hell. I’ve gone soft being around that sodding soulful bastard. Am I so besotted with those brown eyes, that I miss the obvious? I come home after 3 weeks, get into bed with a cigarette--that’s it. The fags masked it. No, I masked it. Not looking for it, I don’t see it, smell it, hear it. Simple, Willy Boy, you were otherwise occupied and it went right on by. A bit confusing too, this scent. It smells of Bellodgia but it smells human too.

He nods again, turns around and goes to Cordelia. They head for the closet behind the desk in the office. In a few seconds they are back with an axe and a crossbow. A gun would be nice right about now, but since guns normally don’t work too well on our kind it isn’t much use having them around. Like to put a few holes into Darla with a railroad spike right now though.

She is smiling that lovely smile that belies one of the coldest hearts on the frigging planet. She hated Dru. Would have killed her, if Angelus hadn’t been there to stop it. Now that we are face to face I see my problem more clearly. What’s wrong with Angel is standing in front of me. It’s not something I did and it’s right here in our room. She is what’s between us and behind the holes in the membrane that keeps Angelus and Angel clear of each other. She is going down if I have anything to say about it.

Cordelia shoots but Darla is ready and is past me, into the lobby and running toward the door. It’s locked. She spins around and darts up the stairs. Cordelia is grappling with a new arrow and lets it fly , but it misses wildly. Wesley runs to the desk and grabs the cell phone. He punches in Angel’s number. I grab it away from him and shut the power off. I start for the stairs. I am going to get that bitch. She’s mine. Behind me I can hear him dialing again along with several clicks as the bow is being reloaded. I follow her as she runs down a hallway and to the door that opens into the stair well. Chip be damned, this she-devil is the source of our trouble and she stops now.

I move closer to her. There is two feet between us. I go into game face. She blanches and pushes back against the door. My head is starting to pound. I ignore it, focusing on her neck. I reach out and grab her hair and pull her to me. Thunder crashes in my brain. The pain is so intense I feel like a truck has slammed me. I hang on to her and snarl at the pain and at her and at Angel/Angelus and the hundred years of lost time and Buffy, and the Initiative. I howl at the universe and sink my teeth into her neck. The pain roars through me but I hang on and bite down. Then the door behind her pushes forward into us and Angel comes through hard and fast. It is enough of a jolt to knock us both down and I lose my bite. She breaks free and runs up the stairs. I look up at Angel, still in game face, blood on my mouth and face. He looks down at me and then up the stairs. In one leap he’s over me and after her. Gunn comes panting through the door. I get up and morph back to human face and start after Angel. By the time I get to the landing, I see the door to the second floor hall closing and I head through it, Gunn breathing hard behind me.She runs down the hall and back to the stairs down to the lobby. We hear pounding on the outside doors below. She runs to the door. Through the glass I see the detective, Kate Lockley. Darla pounds against the door from the inside. Angel stops behind her and looks out at Lockley who has three other police officers behind her. Angel reaches out and grabs Darla by the shoulder and whips her around. He shoves his hand down the front of her dress and jerks it back out. It is holding a wire and a small listening device. Wolfram and Hart must have heard the whole thing and called the cops.

She has her back flat against the glass panel in the left side of the door, bleeding all over the place. Lockley is pounding and yelling at us to open up at the glass to the right. Angel reaches again for Darla but suddenly Wesley is there between them. He is facing Darla and pushing back against Angel. He twists his head back toward Angel’s face and says quietly, “No, Angel. “ He pushes with his body and Angel takes a step back. Cordelia slips in and opens the door wide. Kate darts forward and is stopped hard by the binding spell. She looks amazed. She tries it again and is thrown back. Cordelia grabs Darla by the wrist and shouts at Kate, “You want her, you got her.” and yanks Darla through the door and into Kate’s arms. I reach forward and close the door before the cops can get their wits together.

“ Work to be done? Arrangement? Nah, son. It’s me fortune to kill, bite, feed, torture, maim, whatever comes to mind, lad. Whoever comes to mind. I’ve never felt I could rightfully take money for such pleasure. An’ bye the bye, I like the sound of yer voice. Ye have a sexy tone and under other circumstances, we’d pIay. But right now I wouldn’t mind stretching yer entrails up along Hollywood and Vine fer what ye’ve done to my family here.”

Silence on the other end. “Are ye there, lad?” Slow, measured, courtroom delivery on the other end. “Sakes, son. No need to get stuffy. Ye know, yer not goin to be hard to find. Contemplate a slow death without resurrection, lad. Say some hail Mary’s and before ye know it, Angelus will be with you.” Silence and broken connection on the other end.

We make sure the tunnel door is sealed. I listen there for awhile but don’t hear anything. Not sure how long it will take Police Woman to remember it. We can keep them out of the building for now until, as Angel says, they realize that talking is the way out of this for them as well as us. Cordelia and I go back up. On the way I lead her into one of the rooms that looks out onto the parking lot. I can see Lockley and a couple more cops talking animatedly. I wonder where her head is, whether she’s starting to read the problem more clearly. Then I see a man in a suit with a clip board and a cameraman and assistant in tow coming rapidly across the pavement to Lockley. She looks at them. She is facing the building and they are in between, so I can see her expression. Suddenly she realizes. You can tell. She doesn’t know what to say to them. How do you tell the citizens of LA that the most vicious criminal who has ever lived, is alive and well in LA and is going to go down sucking as many of them dry of blood as he can (and that will be quite a few) before anyone can take him out if anyone is daft enough to try? How do you tell them that he is a vampire, undead, and that there are others like him and that they walk the alleys at midnight and that life as humanity knows it has just been wrenched from them?

“Katy, me dear. I am a bit put out with Darla. She had the good sense to turn me into a vampire way back in the 1700s and we had some fun for awhile. Then she got a wee tiresome. Always jealous, always carping about the little things. I did my best to please her, but ye know how pleasin’ others goes. Never really is appreciated. So I turned a sweet young pure thing who obligingly went insane. She made Will, here. Nice a hoodlum as you’d ever want to come across in a dark byway, if you wanted a shag and your throat slit for a farthin’. Good vampire material, our Will. The four of us traveled together. Pleasant little family group just enjoying life and love and murder and mayhem, but you researched all that. Then a nasty thing happened Œround the turn of the century. I got my soul back and deserted our little nuclear gang. Will here had the stones to take over. He and Drusilla lived and murdered together till two or three years ago. Darla went off on her own. We got together again and had a bit of fun for a time. I had to stake Darla because she wanted to kill somethin’ of mine. Naughty lass. Then I spent awhile in Hell. When I came home, I moved here to your City of Angels. This little chit with the big eyes decided I should become a sleuth. Root out evil wherever we could find it’s lair. So here we are, darlin’ Kate, rootin out evil like it’s some kind of indecent obsession. Darla came back courtesy of our friends at Wolfram and Hart and I’m afraid she’s up to some devilment. Ye should watch her. Now it’s your turn to say what it is ye got to say. “

I say, “Angelus talks too much. Angel’s cryptic, Angelus her runs off at the gob. I’ll make it simple. He’s thinking that he’d like to string you up by the heels, whip you until your blood runs, suck you nearly dry, then tear out your intestines and strangle you with them. Maybe somewhere in there he’d like to fuck you in the arse, too. He may look like a large teddy bear, but it’s of the grizzly variety and he’s quick to lose his temper. You haven’t a choice, Cop Lady. Get those troops away from this building now. You’ve entered his lair, attempted to mess with his property, and now you are sitting here looking like dinner. You’ve made an enemy out of the Scourge of Europe and no modern technology or high minded ethical stance is going to protect you. You are dead meat if you don’t act in the next 10 seconds.”

She gets up. She looks at him. She’s smart and she can see those gold flecks multiplying like tiny galaxies, so she moves. Up to the entrance with Cordelia right behind her and out. Cordelia locks the door. We wait. We hear car engines start up, no sirens. Then quiet. It’s dark now. Thank God it’s dark. I open the door. The night air is industrially pleasant smelling of exhaust, dead flares and aromatic chemicals. I take in a rare breath, lean against the frame and light another of many unfinished smokes of the day. Coffee fragrance wafts out from behind me. The parking lot is clear.

For three days and nights, we pass one another without saying a word. I move the money from the soup pots to the trunk of the DeSoto one night when he’s out. Cordelia doesn’t even try to smooth it over, but she watches both of us intently. Wesley and Gunn are friendly, polite, but distant. They act like they are watching a couple of circling biker gangs getting ready to duke it out with their teeth. They know when to stay back.

Late on the fourth night I finally fall asleep. An hour later I am awake suddenly. I listen. Nothing. Not a sound. I sit up in bed and listen and smell. I get a faint whiff of something like soap and sweet saltiness and toothpaste. I get out of bed and go to the door. The scent is stronger, but it lacks the other smells of the past days, leather, entrails, whiskey, and blood lust. I pull back the chain and open the door. He is sitting on the carpet just outside my door. His head is tucked down between his knees and his arms are wrapped around them. He is slowly rocking.

Finally I stand. I go back into the room, take the duster out of the closet, pick up the Jack Daniels and the cigs and go back into the hall. I stand in front of him. I say, “It’s not simple, Mate.” I put the duster on. “ See you around some time.” I walk down the hall and out into the garage. I get in the De Soto and drive till dawn, east toward Vegas.

Getting boring sitting here. Four days of nothing to do but sit in this sodding room. Not that it isn’t a decent joint. The suite costs $500.00 a night. Got this jacuzzi that you could hold an orgy in. Got a closet the size of Cordelia’s apartment just for my one duster. Got a bleeding balcony with plants that looks out over the central mall and arboretum. One of the few places in the world where there’s always artificial light, making it possible to stay up 24 hours a day indoors with no bursting into flames issues.

Been down to the casinos. Done that. Won as usual. More wads of cash, so I haven’t had to go to the trunk of the DeSoto yet. Which is why I’m bored.Got a couple of vampire dealers down there, so I stay clear of the blackjack tables. Wouldn’t do to have the word out on my whereabouts, not sure what the management thinks of vampires doing the betting. We have this disturbing tendency to win due to heightened awareness of the tricky stuff. So that’s why there isn’t much to do, but watch the telly.

I put the phone down. He’s standing in the doorway. I stand up and face him. We look at each other for a beat. Then we launch ourselves at one another, rising slightly off the floor. We meet in mid air, skin to skin, bone to bone, mouth to mouth, and, as we go up, we wrap our arms around each other and nearly hit the ceiling before we come back down. This time we crash to the floor, but neither of us lets go. We are hanging on like itŒs Armageddon, already. I get my hands into his hair and pull him harder into my face. He winds his arms around my back and locks his hands around his wrists and squeezes me like an auto crusher gone amok. We roll around this way for about a minute. Neither of us needs to take a breath so why end the kiss of the century? But finally my head bashes up against the night table and I am jarred loose.

He growls at me, but I get one hand in his hair and with the other I grab one of his nipples and pinch hard. He flinches and I ease up, but I don’t let go. Instead I drag my fingers from his head hard down his stomach to the buckle on his pants and I tear the belt out of it. Before he knows what happened his cock is my hand and he’s lost control. I let go of the nipple and grab him by the hair again and bend down and take his mouth. He hasn’t got many of his simple wits about him anymore and he is growling and moaning and purring all at once. I yank his head back and bite down on his neck. He comes in my hand and I reach the jugular and drink him. He cries out and whimpers my name. I take as much as I want, leaving him limp, putty in my hands. I drag him onto the bed. I look at him lying there. Couldn’t stay away from me, could he? I knew he’d get here sooner or later. I have some idea of how they trace cars, and mine isn’t exactly your everyday model.

He opens his mouth and I stop him again with mine. I realize I am shaking him by his coat lapels. Tore his shirt apart and his pants open, but he’s still wearing his stupid poof coat. I work it off him. Then I get his pants off and his socks and shoes. He’s naked, I’m still dressed and I’m kneeling next to him. His eyes are closed. “Open your eyes and look at me, you asshole.” He opens one eye part of the way. I lean over him one fist on either side of his head and glare down at him. He just lies there. I get it. Being accused like this, is just what he thinks he deserves for his crass and unfeeling behavior. I can’t win with this mopey doofus.

Finally he says, “You can’t leave me. I’ll find you wherever you are and I won’t let you go. I’ll hound you until you stay with me out of exhaustion or hatred, but I’ll have you. You’re mine and we’re never going to be apart no matter what mistakes we make with one another. So get used to us. Not you, not me. It’s just us. Forever. Us.” He stops. In the last half hour he’s made two pretty long speeches, for him.

I pull my t-shirt over my head and toss it on the floor. Then I unbuckle my belt and take off the rest of my clothes and shoes. I get off the bed and go over to the tub and start the water. When I turn around I see he is sitting against the pillows with the sheet and blankets over his legs and lap. I walk back over and stand next to the bed. We look at each other .

We spend part of the afternoon in the underground garage sorting out the cars. He wants to take the Bonneville back to LA and I want to take the DeSoto, but neither of us wants to drive alone. We decide on the Bonneville. I move all my stuff from the trunk of the DeSoto into the other trunk. He helps, picking up the shopping bag full of stacks of bills from the boiler room of the hotel.

I use the cell phone and call La Chase about an hour out of town. She tells me it’s about time. There’s been trouble at The Lair. One of the owners is missing and there is speculation that he’s been kidnapped. The news casters are describing the place as a hang out for wannabe Vampires, but her vision tells her that the real ones are there too. Plus a motley assortment of demons. Gunn and Wesley have been nosing around down there already. Cop Lady has been there too and ordered them off the premises.

There isn’t much conversation after I report the news from the front. Once I reach out with my thumb and touch his cheek. I rub the thumb across his cheekbone where the bruise was. He leans into the touch, but keeps his eyes on the road. I move the thumb down to the corner of his mouth, he turns his head slightly and takes it between his lips softly, but briefly. Then he goes back to driving.

We drop off my bottle and the bag of money in the suite. Then we go back out to the car and head down to The Lair. When we get there we see mucho cop cars and crowds of people and the press vans. There are all kinds of flashing lights in red and blue and yellow and white and sirens. Nice and sparkley and noisy. We spot Wesley and Gunn and go over to him.

“He is trying to find a way in on the other side of the building, but the police have it pretty well covered. So far, all we know is that there was an explosion. We overheard two patrolmen mention poison gas, but I don’t see any true indicators of that. I saw Officer Lockley go in with a gas mask, but she came out without it on a few minutes later, so I am assuming that it wasn’t much of a threat if it really was there.”

Angel looks around. He scans the tops of the nearest buildings and finds one that looks just right for roof jumping. He tells Gunn and Wesley to keep circling, that sooner or later, they’ll pull surveillance from some spots. They split up and go off in different directions. We head across the street to the hotel with the missing letters in its neon sign. It says, “Lag o a H tel.” It doesn’t have a lagoon. We go in the front door. The desk clerk is in the office watching the whole protect and serve event on the telly. Probably getting closer through CNN than we are. We sneak by and over to the stairwell. The door is locked, but Angel puts some pressure on the handle and it snaps. We go up the stairs to the roof. He opens the door carefully. No one is there and we see a chopper, but it’s over on an office building. We walk over to the wall that runs around the roof and peer over at the top of the club. There is no one on the roof, but we figure they are watching from the chopper. We walk around looking for a place to jump and find a spot. We can launch from behind the air conditioner here to the one on the club. If we go fast, they’ll just notice a blur. Then we can figure out how to get inside. We pull back about 30 feet. Still out of sight of the chopper.

There is a door leading into the shed like thing that goes to the stairs. We drop down and crawl across the space where we’re most likely to be seen. It’s dark on the roof and we stay flat and wriggle over to the shed. Angel breaks the pad lock and the door is ready to open. We lie there a minute and wonder whether the chopper will see the door moving. The upper half of it should be visible. I suggest we open it an inch at a time so they don’t notice a big change. After all, humans are predators like us, and they key on movement, not so good as us, but they do. Then we hear footsteps and we scrabble away from the door and around the shed. The door opens and someone comes out and we hear footsteps go toward the edge close to where the chopper is on the other building. I peek around the shed corner. I see Lockley yelling over to the pilot, but the wind takes the words away.

Then we run down the stairs trying to be quiet, but going as fast as we can before she comes back. We get to the door to the second floor, the one above the club, and stop to listen. The hall sounds quiet so we slip through the door and start down the corridor. About 30 feet in front of us on the old ratty carpet runner, is one of those chalk drawings of a body. We see a second and third down further. There is blood on the walls and floor, splashed everywhere. Somebody’s been having a party with one of those unregistered automatic weapons. Tsk, tsk. We both stop and smell the air. You name it, it’s sifting its way through the vapor of this building. Whiskey, gunpowder, all sorts of perfumes, sex, blood and more blood, cheese, wine, gin, beer, sawdust, old rugs, sour mattresses, opium, grass, cabbage, roast beef, and much more. It smells like an old hotel that’s seen its day and caters to sweat soaked whores and their lower class johns, But it doesn’t smell like vampires. That’s interesting. Guess no real vampire would show his face in a wannabe bar.

Then I catch a whiff of something else. Angel gets it too. We look at one another. The room to my right. He takes the door handle and opens it carefully. We look into another blood bath. All kinds of chalk marks, overlapping. There must have been a bunch of bodies. But that’s not what’s is getting our attention. What’s getting out attention is two sets of familiar smells. , Angel steps carefully over the chalk markings and moves around behind a large desk to a door. I stay back so I can get a long look. He pulls it open and I see into a large closet. There is stuff all over the floor, like it’s been tossed. At the rear of the closet Angel knocks on the wood.

Hollow. He presses around the edges of the wall corners gently. He looks at me and nods. I step over the clothes and come up behind him. We both push carefully. The left side of the wall gives way and we see through into a dark hallway that leads to a corner, turns and disappears. The smell, of water, reeds, muck, and algae combined with sweat leads us forward. I close the door behind us. Cop Lady won’t find us now. We head into the secret passage. As we round the corner we hear faint voices in the distance.

We wait for a minute, then I reach past Angel and knock on the door. There’s a crash and then quiet. I knock again, a polite is-anybody-home tap. Angel watches the door. Suddenly it jerks open and we are looking down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun. Behind it is a face only a mamma tree frog could love. The face is mottled green and brown and the eyes are large and yellow. Another face comes up and above the green one. It has a noble looking head in spite of the ring of small horns that trace along the perimeter of the skull and meet above the eyebrows.

Trepkos shakes his head and folds his arms. “We heard a lot of police activity behind this door, so we stayed put. Decided to try and wait it out. Don’t think we should wait much longer. It will be daylight soon and I don’t feel like hanging here all day till dark.” Of course if Angel and I go out in the sun, we go up in ashes almost instantly. If the T and C show go out, there will be more police and possibly angry mobs. So we’re in this boat together for now.

“Ok, wouldn’t mind doing something different. Pepperoni and extra cheese okay?” We hear a door open and close. We look at each other. The cop with the imagination is still there. Angel reaches forward and hooks his fingers around the lip of the door and pulls. It comes open without a sound. Somebody keeps this well oiled. We look out into a closet full of file boxes and stacks of paper and office supplies. Angel leads the way through to the closet door. All quiet behind it. He turns the handle gently and pushes it slowly into the room. He sticks his head around the partially open door, then opens it further. I see into the room over his shoulder. The cop is sitting in a chair, looking out the window at the activity in the parking lot. His back is to us. Still as mice the four of us slip into the room. He senses something. Maybe it’s Crib’s lily pad odor. Maybe our Sandalwood. He turns around, jumps to his feet and stares, mouth open.

We head out into the hall. Crib and Trepkos are at the stairwell door. We join them and all of us go out into the landing. Trepkos starts for the roof, but Angel pulls him back and points down the stairs. Trepkos shakes his head vehemently. I am curious about the first floor and what a Vampire wannabe club looks like. Probably swarming with cops, though. I look at Angel questioningly. He looks torn between investigating and leaving.

He really wants to go down there. I nod agreement and start down. On the next landing we stop to listen again. Quiet. We enter the bar. What a mess. Glass everywhere. Place is totally trashed. Across the dance floor we see two cops standing at the open door looking out. We duck down behind the bar and move in a crouch along it’s length to the end. There are some of those metal spiral stairs that go up into a gallery. We go up quickly and walk as quietly as possible to a point just over the front door. We can hear the conversation below. We sit down backs against the wall and squirm under a narrow table that holds sound equipment. Angel pulls a couple of big speakers in front of the table so no one can see us. We’ll be okay as long as no one comes up to look. What will happen if someone turns the sound system on is something I don’t even want to consider.

So here we are. Angel is on his back. I am lying on my left side on his right arm with my back against the wall. Always wondered what sardines do in the can when they get horny. My left arm and his right are out of the game. So is any screaming, snarling, moaning, whimpering above a certain decibel level, gasping, or howling. We eye one another. This is going to be either a very interesting day or a very long one.

He shudders. It doesn’t matter what I do to the Poof. He responds immediately to every movement I make. I lick across his right eyelid and stop at that soft spot between his eye and the bridge of his nose. I press gently and then more firmly and I feel his whole body tense and stiffen in direct proportion as I increase the pressure. No one has ever been mine to pleasure as has this big broody, glorious hunk of alpha male erotic undead flesh. Every touch of mine is like a command to his body and it obeys at once.

Angel and Angelus have this much in common: they are both so complete in their knowledge of their own power, that they can bend to my will without the merest loss of souled or demon self. And I like to make them bend every chance I bleeding get. Mine. My vampires, both of them. Mine to use like cookie dough. Angelus will learn that someday. Right now, Angel tastes like cookie dough right here in the middle of his forehead. I make circles with my tongue just above his eyebrows and he hisses and rolls his head. I put my free right hand into his fluffy brown hair and hold him still. I lick his eyebrows and run glide down the ridge of his nose and over his lips. They open and make a try to capture my tongue, but it escapes and washes over his chin and down his neck to his collar. I feel his tongue on my cheek and I give in and meet it with my own and we are kissing so fully and deeply that I think he is going to swallow the soul I no longer have to give him. He can have me, all of me as I am though. If I could fit down that throat I would.

I tighten my grip on his hair. He strains against it and I feel the table move slightly. Then his left hand touches my belt and pulls the buckle loose. He maneuvers the button open then tugs the zipper down and thrusts his hand inside. I can feel myself near release just from the tension, and so can he because he stops me with a firm grip at the base of my cock. I sink against him and take my hand from his hair and slip it between his belt and his belly and cup his balls. He is as hard as I am, and we come together and it feels like the earth is rising up and roaring around us. I lie there on top of him for a minute, cock softening, in the sticky warmth of our semen, wondering how it’s possible to feel so complete, so sated, so ready for more, so uh oh, hard again so fast. I push up a little and look down at him. His eyes are closed, his lips swollen and slightly parted. I open my mouth wide and take them in and my fangs slice into their softness and I suck the blood, raping his mouth and pillaging the red, dripping essence of him. I need to drink, to satisfy my yearning for him, and to give myself the gift of this precious hulk of a creature. He lets me suck, he presses into me urging me to take more, to take him into me, to make us one. I comply and the orgasm this time is like a million bees humming around us. I gasp and collapse on top of him. We doze for awhile.

The sound of heavy footsteps startles me awake. I hear Kate say, “We’re waiting for the coroner’s report. I want this place gone over once more by two techs. No more. Start with the murder scenes and then comb this room. I want it done inch by inch and I want photos of every step. The heavy footsteps move off. I can smell Lockley. She must be standing down there looking around. I look down at Angel. His eyes are wide open and he’s frowning in concentration. I move slightly and leather creaks against leather. I stop. We listen and sniff the air. She walks across the dance floor and her steps recede. We hear a door open and close.

I look at Angel. How are two vampires all sticky from two sets of orgasms, going to face the sarcasm of LA’s finest member of the detective force?. He nods. I reach out and give the speaker on the left a push. It moves and I manage to wriggle off him and out onto the floor. I roll over to find her standing over me with a stake in one hand and her gun in the other.

I pull myself slowly out the rest of the way. Angel manages to get his pants done up and then he crawls out too. We stand looking at her with our hands up like two bandits caught by Hopalong Cassidy in the old telly flicks. Except these two bandits have fangs and big wet sticky spots on their jeans. She looks us over. She especially looks Angel over, suspicious that Angelus is still with us. Must be she figures its okay because her eyes move down to examine the damp patches.

Indignation and a need to change the subject obligates her to start the lecture. “Do you know what we found in here? Over 40 bodies. All killed with automatic weapons sometime last night and I’ve been able to show for it are two shiftless, nosy, charlatan P.I.s who have no respect for this investigation and obviously no respect for the victims.”

He walks away from her and I trail after him. She hesitates and then falls in behind. We take her to the room where all the bodies were and into the closet. Angel shows her the door to the passage. She takes out her gun and works her way down to the end. As she disappears around the corner, Angel taps my arm and we go back the way we came, down the hall to the stairwell and from there to the basement.