Angel the series belongs to Joss Whendon. I just sweep up the place. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep. Hey, if you like or don't like what you see then drop a line and tell me. exit_12_@hotmail.com
LICK THE DUST
(part one)
By Lamech
Gunn looked on from the black Plymouth. "You're really going to do this?"
Angel stood at the side of the monster of a car and stared at the club down the block. His face twisted in disgust. "He's in this mess because of my actions. I can not just abandon him."
The situation was all too familiar for Gunn like the replaying of some old song in the still of night. With narrowed eyes he shot the vampire a dirty look. "I didn't abandon my sister when my time came. I did what I had to do."
"Yes," whispered the vampire with the feeling of a tired child in him. "But you didn't have a choice. I do."
The tone in Angel's voice told Gunn that there was no way he was going to change his mind. He had known the vampire for only a few months and in that time he had learned that once Angel was set on something come hell or high-water it was going to be done. Gunn wanted to say a million things; a million swears, curses and insults. He wanted to tell Angel how stupid he was to his undead, moping face. That he should at least think of Cordelia now. But Gunn knew he'd be wasting his breath. Instead the hunter grabbed hold of the huge steering wheel and grinned, "Well, I'll tell you this. If anything happens to you, I'm keeping the car."
Angel couldn't help but smile. "Over my dead body."
"Good luck, Angel," whispered Gunn as he watched the vampire walk across the street towards the club. "Because God knows you're going to need it."
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The club was one of those hole in the wall places that would change its face every weekend. One day the old warehouse would be a raver station. A place where teens and twenty somethings would try to hold onto their youth for dear life through maddening beats of electric music and day-glo pacifiers. Another day it would be a goth palace. People would come to this hole dressed in the colors of a sorrowful sky and a vacant night. They would look like death warmed over, only they didn't know the first thing about real death. Otherwise they would bless each day of their limited lives. But today it was an industrial club. A loud, grimy, seedy industrial club.
Angel could feel the music pounding at his chest harder and harder with every new brave step he took. He wondered why he always ended up in places like these. Why couldn't evil happen in cozy, beatnik jazz houses? Where he could fight evil and listen to some Charlie Parker. Angel shook his head. He needed to be clear minded.
He felt within the folds of his jacket one more time. Yes, the tranquilizer gun was still there, like it had been there for the past four times he checked. Still a feeling of uneasiness swam within him. No, it wasn't uneasiness. The emotion was helplessness, as if the events of the previous three days were out of his control. He could have relived them several times over and the end result would have been the same. Death, pain and sorrow. The last time he had felt this way, this completely at the mercy of the winds, was when Buffy had died at the hands of the Master. He couldn't have done anything to change her path. Her death at the Master's hands had been mapped out before she had even been born. Thank God or who ever ran those things Xander was there to revive her.
Now there was no one to help him now. Sure, Giles had driven in from Sunnydale but he could only help so much. The one thing that the former Watcher needed to complete spell that would put an end to some of Angel's troubles was no where to be found. And while in L.A. there are hundreds of types of ethnic groups, gypsies as it seems, don't seem to be one of them. And they were the only ones that had the missing object of Angel's desire. Otherwise Giles was pretty much useless. It wasn't his fault. Gypsies were a group of people that were hard to sniff out. Though Angel was sure there had to be a band somewhere. And if there weren't any in L.A. he'd go to the next city and the next after that. He had all the time in the world mapped out in front of him. No one was going to make him give up. After all this was his mistake.
And that last thought played in his mind like a broken record over and over again. No chance in heaven or hell was he going to abandon the young man. Angel knew that the man in return would never give up on him.
The chaotic music was screaming in Angel's ears as he moved through the club. The bass felt like a human heartbeat in his chest. The smell of sugar, vodka and pot hung in the air like a bizarre velvet curtain. Half-naked bodies both male and female rubbed against him and cooed into his ears. Promises of good times under the sheets with every sort of drug running in his beautiful veins were whispered. Cheap come-ons for a place like this. He pushed the bodies away. He did not have the time for any of this. Nor did he want it ever.
In the back room.
Angel thought as he broke through the dance floor. He shoved some more bodies to the side. That's what that oni said. 'If they took him anywhere then it would be the back room of that hell hole of a wannabe club!'Angel found his way to the door to the backroom. The in place of the club where all the well to do drug dealers, club groupies, clean whores, local rock darlings and other things hung out. Word on the street was that the crowd was into the occult. Vampires, dark magic, demons and such. Any normal bright eyed bushy tailed work a day person would have laughed it all while sipping his coffee and reading his morning paper. But Angel was far from normal and he had learned that it was better to believe first then doubt second. You were less likely to die that way.
The oni was right. The young man was there, standing just outside the door of the back room. Angel almost failed to recognize him. The transformation in the man was almost a complete opposite to what the vampire had been used to, to what the vampire was happy to see every day in the office. Gone was the wheat colored linen and tweed, replaced by the very same pair of raven black leather pants that Angel had found the young man wearing when the vampire ran into him in the city for the first time. Only now they didn't look ridiculous. The young man was poured into them and he wore them like second skin. He was decked out in a form fitting high blue shirt that hugged close to his chest. Every muscle of his lean form shone under the black lights of the club. His skin seemed to glow under that same light, giving him an angelic look that was far from the truth. A hint of a sneering smile danced across his boyish face.
He looked like sex. Not masculine. Not feminine. But raw sex. Powerful, rabid and chaotic. The type of hysterical screaming emotion that would drive the weak insane and make the strong paralyzed.
He was completely and utterly beautiful.
A purple haired candy tasting type of girl covered in shimmering rubber came up to the young man. She took out what looked like a sheet of small stamps from her purse and ripped off a corner. The young man looked on with a faint hint of interest as the girl placed the paper on her tongue and stuck it out. The young man grinned as he leaned down and took his mouth to her own. The two of them sucked hungrily at each other blissfully unaware of the world around them. Their tongues slid across each other's as the LSD began to take hold of their minds.
So, this is what he's like without any doubt in him.
Angel thought as he took out the gun. Without any self pity or fear. Without a conscience. Without a soul.Angel didn't like it. Those ill fitted human traits, those imperfect flaws were what made the very person Angel cared about and was willing to lay his own life down for. But that person was gone. That human being vanished the moment the soul left the body. But if Angel had his way the animated body before him wasn't going to stay that way for long.
"WESLEY!" yelled Angel as he pointed the tranquilizer gun at the man before him.
The young man broke free from the girl's embrace and looked up. His eyes narrowed and his face exploded into a glare of disgust as he spied the vampire before him. And then to the horror of Angel Wesley's appearance changed. His baby face twisted and took on the vampire form that was all too common place for Angel.
Angel had seen the act done a thousand times over and over again in a countless number of faces. But this was different. This was someone he really cared about. This was his family. He could feel himself wanting to breakdown then and there as reality came crashing down but he knew he couldn't. Instead his grip on the gun became tighter.
"C'mon, Wes," Angel commanded, "We're going home."
END OF PART ONE