AN: I am currently experimenting with chapter titles. Special thank you to Jordis Stigander, because their review is what inspired me to buckle down and finish this chapter. Thank you also to trodle, Alkeni, and MiscellaneousSoup.
CHAPTER 4 - Confrontation
Slayer reflexes took over and Faith lunged out of the way as Hood's finger tightened on the trigger. The sound of the gun was deafeningly loud in the small space. He turned to try and track her, but she rolled to her feet, grabbed the gun arm, and swung him back into the wall. Then she jammed her thumbs between the bones on his wrist. His hand spasmed and he dropped the gun, and Faith swung hard at the Red Hood's face.
He slithered out of her grip, adding to her momentum. Her face struck the wall, but Faith didn't let that daze her. An elbow to the solar plexus - he grunted more than the blow had warranted - and a hard kick to the stomach, and she was free. A second to the face, and he lay sprawled out on the floor.
"What the hell?" the Slayer snarled as she straddled him, pinning his gun hand across his body and drawing back her free hand for a blow. "I want to talk and you try your best to kill me?"
His forearm came up to block hers, a knife somehow in that hand. "Well, you were trespassing." Then he slid his hand sharply down, and a line of white fire blossomed across Faith's arm.
She recoiled. "Son of a..." He rolled clear. They both came up on their feet, facing each other warily across the small room, the Red Hood still holding the knife in his left hand.
"And it wasn't my best," he said, cradling his ribs with his spare arm. "If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."
Faith smirked at him. "Really, Big Boy? 'Cause I'm not the one who looks like he went ten rounds with a truck. Hey, if I shake you, will more goodies fall out?"
She got the distinct impression he was grinning at her behind the helmet. "You have no idea. What are you anyway? Not a vampire..."
"Vampire Slayer, actually," Faith said. "Born with the strength and speed, yada, yada. My turn. What brings you to Sunnydale? Other than getting your ass kicked?"
His eyes narrowed, but then he shrugged. "Nice climate, lots of beaches..."
And the fingers of his right hand, which Faith had stupidly forgot to watch, dove into his vest, pulled out something made of metal, and threw it at the ground. The apartment filled with thick, grey smoke. Through it, Faith heard the sound of running footsteps as the Red Hood turned and sprinted for the door.
"Damn," the Slayer coughed, a little impressed in spite of herself. "You just don't give up..." Eyes stinging but heart pounding with excitement at the chase, she started in pursuit.
Holy crap, that hurt. Jason tried to ignore his aching ribs as he raced for the door, automatically sliding another weapon into his hand. The stairwell curved down outside his apartment. As he reached them, footsteps came from somewhere behind him. Without pausing to think what a phenomenally stupid idea this probably was, Jason slid the knife back up his sleeve and vaulted over the railing.
Two stories flashed by too quickly to see, and then he was rolling desperately to minimize the impact and praying he wouldn't hit a wall. By sheer dumb luck, he didn't. Lurching to his feet again, Jason ran. He heard a curse and a grunt, then something hit the ground behind him.
"Dodge this," he panted.
He slipped the pin from the concussive grenade, turned to aim, and threw it at her as hard as he could. The Slayer leapt...
And Jason only had a startled moment to say "Oh crap," before she kicked it right back at him.
He tried to avoid it. If he'd been a Slayer, he might have. But he wasn't, and so Faith could savor the muffled curse as the explosion picked the Red Hood up and hurled him ten feet through the cheap wood door and out onto the street. Before he could recover, Faith ground her knee into his ribs, pinning both arms to the ground.
"You know," Faith panted, leaning in. "You didn't do too bad 'til that bit at the end. I think the boss might be interested to meet you."
He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options. Then he shrugged as best he could. "Sounds fun."
"Angel!" Willy greeted with an attempt at heartiness as the vampire approached the bar. "What can I get for ya? I think I've got some fresh pig's blood in the back."
"The Red Hood," Angel said quietly.
"I don't think we have that kind," Willy said, still loudly and with an anxious smile. "C'mon," he said much more quietly at Angel's look. "You're killing me here. Which is as much as he'll do if he finds out I told you anything."
"I understand," Angel said in a reasonable tone. "You have a business to run." He took a hundred-dollar bill from his jacket pocket, laid it on the bar, and kept his finger on it.
"It's not a question of money," Willy protested, though his eyes seemed glued to the bill. "Look, Angel, I've heard this guy's reputation, and it ain't pretty. Telling the Slayer was bad enough…"
"Buffy's been here?" Angel interrupted. Not good. This whole charade was about finding the Red Hood before Buffy could. The Slayer was strong and agile, but there was a big difference between dodging a crossbow bolt and a bullet.
Willy laughed nervously. "Did I say 'Slayer'? No, you see, what I meant to say was…uh…shaver. Yeah. I talk to myself in the mirror, you know, gets kinda lonely in the mornings…"
"Faith," Angel breathed, his heart settling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. "She was asking about the Red Hood."
Willy gave a tiny, weak nod. Then he raised his voice again. "But I didn't tell her anything. Just like I'm not telling you."
Calm. Wringing Willy's neck, while intensely satisfying in the short-term, would cause a whole lot of guilt later on. "Of course you didn't, Willy." He started to pull back the hundred-dollar bill.
Willy twitched. "I might have told her that the Red Hood's been seen a couple times down by the docks."
Angel took his finger off the money and Willy snapped it up.
"So that will be a glass of pig's blood?" he said, still trying to project false cheer.
"You know what, Willy?" Angel said. "Suddenly not hungry."
"Come back soon!" Willy called after him as he exited, though the greasy bartender's tone told Angel that he fervently wished for anything else. Angel didn't care.
Faith is tracking the Red Hood, he thought, turning his steps towards the docks. Why? Once again, he felt a shiver of foreboding.
"Ah, there's my girl," the Mayor said cheerfully as Faith and Red Hood entered the office. "And this young man must be the Red Hood I've heard so much about." He stood and enthusiastically held out a hand, which the Red Hood ignored.
"Now, now, young man," the Mayor scolded. "There's never an excuse for bad manners. Speaking of which, it's generally considered polite to show one's face in conversation."
"Sorry," the Red Hood said, dropping lightly into a seat. "Must have been raised in a cave." He didn't look like a guy who'd just been in a fight; his entire pose was one of casual ease. "I hear you run things around here."
"Well, the people have seen fit to elect me as the Mayor of this fine town," the Mayor said, sitting down as well. "I do the best I can. What about you? What brings you here?"
"Business." Red Hood shifted slightly in his chair.
"You should go to a hospital," the Mayor said and shook his head. "I swear: young people these days. They don't know how to take care of themselves. Truth be told, I wasn't expecting a visitor this evening, but I trust Faith's instincts. Hood...may I call you Hood?"
Red Hood shrugged. "Go ahead."
Mayor Wilkins beamed. "Splendid! Splendid! You may be just the man I need."
"I'm not a hired gun," Hood said brusquely. His shoulders had tensed and something had slid into his fingers. Probably a knife. That was what all these young hoodlums carried these days.
"Of course you're not," the Mayor said. Hood's eyes narrowed, probably suspecting mockery, but if he was looking for it in the Mayor's tone, he wasn't going to find it. "If I had to venture a guess, I'd say you're here to do what you doing in Gotham: trying to make it a safer place." He sat back in his chair and sighed. "There's a darkness in Sunnydale, there's no denying it." He drew out a manilla file, which he laid on his desk.
After a pause, Hood reached out to take the file and flipped it open. A picture of a dark-haired man was on the top. Even in a candid photo, Jason could see the casual but perfectly balanced slouch that indicated a fighter. The super-intense look in the man's eyes was just as familiar.
"His name's Angelus," the Mayor said. "Goes by Angel. He's a vampire, and he's killed a lot of people in this town."
"Why haven't you taken him out yourselves?" the Red Hood asked.
The Mayor grimaced. "Believe me, we've tried. But he has powerful friends."
"He's got a Slayer on his side," Faith said from behind Hood's shoulder. "Buffy."
The Red Hood snorted. "Buffy? You've got to be kidding me."
"Corrupted," the Mayor said. "But I haven't given up hope that there'll be a way to save her if his hold on her were gone." He sighed. "Such a bright future ahead of her. I'm not trying to force you into anything, Hood," he said when his companion said nothing. "You're an independent, enterprising young man and I respect that. But this town could really use someone of your talents to give it hope again." He gestured towards the manilla folder.
"If I were a vigilante looking to clean things up around here," he finished earnestly, "that is where I'd start."
"Won't he figure out soon that Angel's one of the good guys?" Faith asked after Hood was gone.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry," the Mayor said, going back to his paperwork. "From what I've heard of the Red Hood, I don't think that'll bother him."
The problem with the docks was that they made up nearly a fourth of Sunnydale's overall size. There was no way to search the whole thing in the time Angel had until sunrise, so he visited a few sources and told them to keep their eyes peeled. He reinforced things with just enough cash to keep them vigilant for a couple of days, then turned back for home.
Coming down one block, however, he smelled gunpowder.
He stopped immediately and closed his eyes, trying to pinpoint the source. It seemed to be coming from an apartment building nearby. Even more telling, the door had shattered outwards, and fragments of it littered the street. Had the gunpowder been from a grenade?
Focusing on his sense of smell, Angel could make out other faint traces. Smoke - to be expected - and...was that blood?
Cautiously, he went inside.
The interior of the complex was dark, but his eyes had no trouble adjusting. The walls were dented, as though with extreme concussive force, and the smell was stronger here. Definitely blood. Not much, but stretching in a trail of droplets towards the stairs at the far end of the hall. And it smelled familiar...
The trail led him to an apartment on the second floor. The room was empty, but the smell of smoke was much stronger here. The blood he'd smelled was also there, drops and patches heading towards the window. Angel knelt and inhaled deeply. Not Buffy's. He tried to think, cataloging various faces in his mind. Xander? Willow? Giles?
No...he realized suddenly. Faith. The rogue Slayer had been here recently.
He looked around again. There was a cot in the corner, and the dust had been violently disturbed. Nothing was burned, weirdly, despite the smoke. A smoke bomb then? Searching more carefully, Angel spotted a bullet casing near the wall.
Had Faith found the Red Hood? If so, where were they now? Conscious that there was less than an hour until dawn, Angel swiftly retraced his steps back onto the street and cast around for the trail of blood. It was there, though even fainter; the Slayer's healing abilities meant it had probably started to clot. But he followed it for a few steps as it led back towards the center of town.
Not good.
He could try to track it farther, but he doubted it would tell him anything else useful. The Red Hood, if he'd been there, hadn't bled. Instead, he began trotting towards his apartment. There was a pay phone near his building he'd be able to use to inform Giles of the new development.
"Just got in. This is not a good idea, Bruce."
"I'm confident in your ability to handle any problems that arise."
"Wow...was that a compliment?"
"Keep your mind focused on the mission."
A sigh. "Yeah, convince a crazy kid with anger issues to come back to a city that he hates without blowing up me or anyone else. You know, Bruce, I care about you, but sometimes I wish you would just man up to your own issues."
Silence.
"I'm going to pay for that comment later, aren't I?"
More silence.
"Gee, no sense of humor. Snowball-in-Hell out."
