Angel had spent the past two months searching the sewers; he never really made it past the hotel. Every time he had gotten there something inside told him to stop and look around. It didn't take him long to realize that someone or something was watching him. He grew increasingly frustrated as he continued to look for the victim. Some nights he forgot about his mission all together and just went to the spot under the hotel to see if he could sense anything. Occasionally he would. He would always manage to loose the smell a few feet away. There was something very familiar about the smell, but Angel refused to believe that he knew whom the smell belonged to. However, he did notice that as the weeks went on, there were fewer and fewer rats. Until one day he went down there and there was nothing. There weren't any more rats and the smell had seemed to vanish.
Angel was disappointed that he hadn't found the victim. But judging by how cold it was getting with three days to Christmas and Los Angeles's first snowstorm in ten years, he had hoped that the victim had found some form of shelter to live in if Angel couldn't find him. Or better yet, he hoped the victim had somehow found his family and was now safe and on his way to healing. It was hard not worrying about him. He had spent six months of his life with the victim and had seen all of the terrible things that had happened to him. The feeling of total helplessness had made him sick, Angel couldn't be helpless; he needed to help people. That's what he swore to do once he met Doyle, and so far he wasn't doing a good job. He couldn't even help this poor man who was supposedly living in the sewers now. His lack of visions weren't helping wither. How was he supposed to find this man if he couldn't see where he was? Then again, maybe the man didn't want to be found. Maybe he was hiding from people for fear that he couldn't trust anyone and every human out there was going to hurt him. If Angel had been thru what the victim had been thru, then he wouldn't trust people either.
He shivered underneath his duster. It had suddenly gotten very cold down there. He looked at his watch and realized he didn't have enough time to make it back to the apartment before sunrise, so he decided he would spend some time back at the hotel. Besides, it had become a Christmas tradition for him to spend a few days in the hotel. It reminded him of happier times and he could reflect on the time he missed out with Connor. It also gave him time to brood about the friends he'd lost.
With a heavy sigh, he jumped up and pulled himself thru a manhole. When he saw the side of the building, he was a little disoriented at first. He had thought that he had climbed thru the manhole that leads to the hotel basement. The wind had picked up again and he thought he smelled something vaguely familiar. He soon shook off the feeling and chalked it up to being back around the hotel. He had spent so much of the past five years here that it always felt like he was coming home whenever he was here. He turned the corner and walked up to the stairs of the building. In the back of his mind he sensed that something was different. He took a look at the building. The front door had been tagged and a few of the windows were broken.
Walking into the hotel he quickly found what had broken the windows. There were many large rocks lying around on random places on the floor. They had obviously been thrown into the building, most likely by teenagers. Sighing heavily, he went back outside and found five wooden boards he could use to cover the windows. It wouldn't do for him to be walking around the hotel in the morning and then suddenly burst into flames. He carried the boards into the hotel and placed them on the floor of the lobby. Then he walked to the kitchen and looked under the sink for the toolbox. Once he found it, he pulled out a red hammer and a bag of nails, and then he went to work on boarding up the windows. He finished fifteen minutes later.
'Okay, well since I'm gonna be here a while I should probably get settled in my room…' He thought as he put the tools back in the kitchen. He turned to leave but the feeling of being watched stopped him in his tracks. 'What the hell?' he wondered as he turned back around and saw the basement door had been opened. "Must have been the wind." He mumbled as he walked over to close it. His vampire hearing picked up on noises in the basement. At first he thought it was just rats, but he thought he smelled something strange so he decided to check it out.
Spike was napping when he heard strange noises coming from upstairs. He slowly left the comfort of his warm bed and crouched up the stairs. He had been here for a few days and had seen no other signs of life aside from the furry creatures. 'Quiet. Keep quiet.' He thought as he slowly nudged open the door and peeked into the room. There was the creature from the sewers, it was holding something red. Spike recognized it as a thing that caused pain. The creature that liked to hurt him had used one of those on him a few times. 'If I stay quiet the creature will go away. Too weak to attack, attack only if it comes close…' he thought as he observed the creature. It looked like it was retreating, but it quickly turned around, and began to walk over to where he was hiding. 'HIDE' he thought as the creature began to come closer to the door.
Spike nearly tripped down the stairs as he hurried to get to the manhole on the far side of the basement. The creature had made its way into the basement and was now cautiously walking down the stairs. Spike had reached the manhole and removed the top with his good hand. The creature hurried down the remainder of the steps and it looked at him. 'RUN' he thought as he escaped down the manhole and into the sewers.
Angel didn't know what to think. What was that thing? He wondered. He had made eye contact with it and there was something too familiar about those piercing blue eyes. 'But, it couldn't be. There must be some kind of explanation… I must be loosing my mind. Yeah that's it, all this time alone and I'm starting to see ghosts.' He tried to reason with himself. But in the back of his mind he knew what he had seen was not a ghost. But what he had seen had looked like… but it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. He followed the creature down the manhole. He was going to get some answers.
The creature seemed to know that Angel was on to it because every time he would get close it would run again just bareley out of his grasp. 'It knows these sewers abut as well as I do.' He thought as he continued to follow the creature in what felt like a circle for ten minutes. The creature seemed to be hurt because it was limping badly and running with an awkward gait. He soon realized that it would be doubling back to the hotel as soon as it lost Angel, so he decided to fall behind, let it think it had won, and then capture it back at the hotel.
Angel waited impatiently crouched on the stairs for twenty minutes until the creature made another appearance. He watched as it tentatively poked its head out of the manhole and scanned the area to be sure it was safe. As soon as it climbed out the hole and pushed the top back on, Angel pounced. The creature tried to fight but was too weak and was quickly overpowered by Angel's size. They continued to struggle for a while, and then Angel grabbed it by the ankles (at which point the creature gave off a scream of pain) and threw it into the open cage. He quickly ran out of the cage and locked the door.
The creature began to throw itself against the bars, desperately trying to escape. But it was no use, and on its final attempt, it hit its head against the bars and fell over unconscious. After a few minutes in which Angel made sure the creature was really knocked out and not just faking, he entered the cage. He walked over to the creature and slowly turned it over. "No." he whispered as he slowly backed away from it. 'It can't be… it's just… not possible…' but Angel knew it was true. There was no denying the smell that was hidden underneath all the sewer filth. This creature in front of him was Spike, and Angel didn't know what to do about it.
Spike began to come to, so he quickly left the cage and locked it again. From outside he began to get a better look at Spike. His hair had grown past his shoulders and now only the tips of it were peroxide blond. The rest was it's natural brown color that 'William' had worn all those years ago. But it was all matted now and the majority of it was sitting on top of his head like a beehive. One of his arms appeared to have been broken at some point and then to have healed wrong, as a result it was twisted in an odd angle. The same appeared to have happened to one of his legs. Angel looked at the younger vampires hip and saw that it was sticking out at an odd angle as well. That would explain the awkward gait. 'Why didn't he come to me for help?' Angel thought bitterly. 'I mean I know he hates me but why would he let himself get this bad…' he trailed off as Spike woke up and immediately began to cower in a corner. Angel had a sudden feeling of dejavu. "Spike?" he asked cautiously. "Are you okay?" when he didn't receive an answer he sighed heavily and began to walk up the stairs and get some blood. As soon as he turned around Spike began making this awful keening noise.
The noise sent chills down his spine and left him with an empty feeling, like someone had thrown ice water onto his soul and it chilled him to the core. Angel paused, and then began to shake. He knew that sound.