CHAPTER 37: TAKE A BIGGER WHIFF

"Can you hear somethi…?"

"Shh."

Faith took two careful steps forward and listened hard. No sounds were coming from behind the door, the very same door Angel had swung open once upon a time, telling her that while she wasn't exactly free, the door was open. And now she was back here, wondering what would prove to be behind it when they opened it and stepped inside. She couldn't hear a thing, and her weird tingly-sense hadn't gone off. Odds were, no vamps were lurking behind that door. Then again, she hadn't done this stuff in a long time. A very long time. She wasn't sure that her senses could be trusted. And if that was true, she may very well be leading these people into a deathtrap.

Kind of like old times, then.

"Oh, come on, let's get on with it. Knowing Angelus, they're probably long gone by now. Town being a… bloody poultry farm."

Faith quirked a brow, turning to Spike. "Is that…bloodthirsty jealousy I hear in your voice?"

"Takes one to know one, eh?" Spike retorted, brushing past Faith and pushing the door aside, stepping inside the burnt out, cave-like place that used to be Angel's living room. He threw his arms in the air for emphasis and let his gaze sweep over the burned walls, scattered pieces of wood and the bloody furniture.

"See, Slayer? Foxes are gone. Out there, people are running around like tasty, cackling chicken. Best get out there right quick, eh?"

Faith inhaled a deep breath and considered what to say. If circumstances had been different, this would have been the time and place for a sassy comment about Spike's involvement… his concern even, for Buffy and what she might do. But this wasn't the time. Somewhere out there, in the dark, in a city of millions, were two vampires that she honestly didn't know if she could even find, let alone beat. If Buffy and Angelus didn't want to be found, they wouldn't be. They knew they had that advantage. The only thing they didn't know, probably, was that she was there. Not yet, anyway.

"We'll have to start right away if we wanna have any chance of finding them tonight," she said finally, biting back everything that she wanted to say and mentally kicking herself for how lame she sounded. She was starting to sound like… like Buffy. Only she wasn't, she was merely a really poor substitute for her.

Faith gave Giles a quick look, but he didn't look back at her. His head was turned in her direction but his gaze was unfocused, glazed over… the man was deep in thought. Probably despair, grief and weariness, too. And she had the uncomfortable feeling that she wasn't making things better at all. She had never been the commanding type, not really. It wasn't in her to flip her stake, pun and joke to make everybody feel better and then take point, leading her well-oiled group into a fight that possibly meant ugly, horrible death for each and everyone who joined in – and still make it seem easy and jolly in some twisted way.

"How does Her Majesty suggest we start?" Spike spat at her, as if his rudeness would cover the fact that he actually wanted to participate, somehow, but didn't know how.

"By tracking them," Faith replied tonelessly. Wasn't it obvious? Faith suddenly felt that maybe they would do this better without her. Everyone would be forced out of their strangely-awake-zombie-coma-states, forced to use their brains and brawns to beat the bad guys. With her here, instead they seemed to just give up, let her take the reins. She glanced at Gunn. At least he seemed to be on the alert. He was the one with the least personal connections especially to Buffy. Hopefully he would be able to see things clearly when it came to fighting her and Angelus.

"I don't see no trails here," Gunn said, looking around the dark room.

"Well, they gotta be here," Faith argued, sighing, giving in. She was here, no matter what she thought about it. She couldn't just give up now. "Everything leaves a trail. Even Angelus."

The couple stood in the darkest spot in the alley, oblivious to the world around them and practically invisible to a human eye. The short, blonde girl couldn't be older than 17 or 18 and her taller, masculine boyfriend held his arms around her protectively, although completely unaware that they were being watched from on high… so to speak.

"Can I have them?" The voice was juvenile, sort of curiously immature.

"Of course. You can take what you want, have what you want. There is no belonging or deserving anymore… just you. In this world, you decide."

"I think I like this world," Buffy giggled, motioning for Angelus to follow her. She jumped down off the rooftop and landed with a soft thud on a dumpster with Angelus close behind. The sounds made the couple flinch but not turn around. Clearly, doing what they were doing they weren't easily distracted – and after all, this was Los Angeles. It was never completely silent in the city.

Buffy tiptoed up to the couple, tapped the young man on the shoulder and grinned as her face switched in to her demonic visage. She grabbed the guy roughly before he had time to react, threw him into the brick wall and bit down hungrily, eagerly on the side of his neck. Angelus remained a few feet away, watching and rejoicing. The girl stared at Buffy in utter shock, for a second unable to move, scream or take any other action that might have seemed fitting in the situation.

Then, she snapped out of it. She let out a high-pitched scream, and she ran. Correction, she tried to run. Her escape was stopped short when Angelus took a quick step to the side, blocking her exit and causing her to bump right into him, the impact hard enough to daze her, but not enough to lose her breath, unfortunately. She screamed again, and Angelus grabbed her by the neck, grimacing at the sound, and smacked her into the wall, noting the telling crack from her scull before he bit and drained her. Unsatisfied, he let her dead body slump to the ground.

"What's the matter?" Buffy pouted. "Icky one?" Angelus snorted, glaring at her.

"This is too simple. Like shooting fish in a barrel."

"Well, yeah… But it's fun. Funny fishy-shooting, right?" Buffy smiled childishly, took a few steps forward and put her arms over Angelus' shoulders, looking him deeply in the eyes. He stared back without changing expression.

"It's a waste of time," he said coldly, pushing her off. "Any animal is capable of mere killing. It's the artistry of it that puts us on the top of the food-chain, above them." Buffy cocked her head.

"Oh, come on. Not every kill has to be a slow one. I just need some release, but don't worry. We'll have fun your way, too. The troops will come a running soon, they're bound to. And when they do… I'll show them that I've learned from the mast-..."

"Police, nobody move!" Angelus and Buffy froze, and a chilling smile spread across Angelus' face when he recognized the voice coming from behind him. It had been a while. He turned around slowly, letting the smile melt away. He looked at her and could barely contain a fit of laughter when he saw how she shifted in her stance, how she smelled of cold, fear induced sweat and how her hands, holding a gun pointed at his heart, started to shake when she met his gaze.

"Katie. This is a nice surprise," he said calmly, not taking his eyes off of her for even a second. She looked from him, to Buffy, to the two people lying on the ground, and back to him. Angelus could see the uncertainty in her eyes, how an inner battle in her head raged on. She knew what she saw, but she didn't understand it. No matter what she thought of him, how much hate there had been in her words when she spat at him outside his apartment building last year, she wasn't instantly coming to the conclusion that the good-guy vampire had been the one to kill these innocent people. That was good. It gave him the opportunity to twist her mind, spin her head real good – figuratively speaking, of course, before they moved on to the next phase. The hands-on-phase, that was.

Angelus started walking towards Kate, carefully making sure that the steps were shuffling, as if he had dead pigs tied to his ankles – which would be his ensouled counterpart's idea of a pocket flask – he shoved his hands in his pockets, lowered his head and pulled his shoulders up slightly, putting on a face he hoped was as full of… well, whatever Angel's face usually was full of. Some kind of dulled pain, endured mental anguish or whatnot, not to mention a deep seated lack of anything approaching humor… Nah, he couldn't replicate that even if he wanted to try. Instead he just imagined… pig's blood. Vast oceans of pig's blood. Now that was a depressing subject. One he knew way more about than he would ever want to.

"Not another step, Angel," Kate hissed. "Stop it right there. Backup's on the way, and there's no way you're gonna smooth talk your way out of this one." Kate took a deep breath for courage and moved her gun for emphasis. Actually, backup wasn't on the way. No one knew that she was here, and she hadn't really planned on telling anyone either. Really, what would she say? Angel wasn't in the system. Officially, as far as she knew, he didn't even exist. No social security number, no tax payer ID – not even a last name. She didn't have any evidence that this nonexistent man, or creature was actually involved in the murder of a truck driver last week, all she had was a hunch. She was off-duty and, professionally, she had no reason to go out on the streets and go after him.

"Kate, what? What are you talking about?" Angelus asked innocently, though suspecting that he wasn't able to fool the lady cop, at least not completely. "You think that I would… Hm. Does that mean that, if I tell you that I need to go stop the creature that did this, or he will kill more people, you won't… believe me?" He wrinkled his brow and let his lip tremble slightly. He crept closer to her, holding back the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Kate, that's… I mean, I'm… Well, you know, you sure seemed to buy it the first time around," he said, staring at her with such intensity that she felt uncomfortable and shifted her weight back and forward between her feet.

"Back off," she hissed and held the gun at his throat. "I will fire." Angel chuckled.

"Katie, Katie… That won't kill me. I'm willing to bet you that I'm able to break your arm, grab the gun and snap your neck, in half the time I'll take you to put some pressure on that trigger. What do you think?"

Kate simply shook her head snorting in disbelief. "What the hell are you doing? What is this, back to living large off of humans again?"

"Well." Angelus paced the alley in front of Kate. "You know how the evil parts of life… excuse me, death, always was up my alley." He stopped in front of her. "You read about my deeds back in the day, didn't you?"

Kate snorted. "What's wrong with you?"

"Wrong? Nothing. Uh-uh. In fact, I can guarantee you that I have never been more myself, than right now."

"Really."

"Mm-hmm." Angelus walked up as close to her as he could get. Her gun touched his chest, but he wasn't worried. He was pretty sure that he'd be able to catch her or move out of the way before she had time to push the trigger if she decided to.

"I have a question for you. Now, it's not a secret that you've always judged me because of what I am…" Angelus said in his best Angel-voice. "I wonder… when you found me next to your dead father… did you ever stop to think about who his killer really was?" He smiled cruelly. "Me, vampire, he, vampire victim – come on, you must have thought about it! Maybe you didn't kill his murderer at all. Maybe justice wasn't done. Did you ever think about that, Katie, hm?"

He heard how her breathing became more rapid, saw how her face got darker when blood rushed up to her head, heard how her heartbeat sped up. She was afraid, confused, shocked – not to mention royally pissed off. All of this he could accomplish with mere words. Humans. So feeble minded. In less than two minutes he had managed to break her down and blacken the soul's character. Two birds. One stone.

"What is this? What are you saying?" Kate asked in a low voice, shaking her head.

"I'm just telling you the truth, Kate," Angelus said, dead serious, nodding and letting out a small sigh, as if he was relieved to finally let her know the truth. "The last time we met you asked me who I thought I was. Well, this is who I am. I know you read everything about me in those books. I know you believed everything in them. And I can guarantee you that everything is true." He was smirking now. "Now, think about it, what do you think someone like me… would do to your precious daddy?"

Buffy strolled up to Angelus, tipping her head and studying Kate.

"Isn't this the brave little leper that tried to stick you in a deep-fryer jail cell one time?" she asked thoughtfully. "Yeah, I remember you." She stared at Kate. "Real useful member of society, aren't you? A true working gal." Kate furrowed her brow, staring at Buffy in disbelief.

"Yeah, I've always had my suspicions about her," Angelus chuckled.

"Hmm," Buffy went on. "I don't like you. I'm the only one that gets to kill him," she said, letting the corner of her mouth curl into a smirk as she stroke Angelus' neck. Kate looked more and more confused and stood frozen in her tracks. If she had taken some kind of action, she might have been able to save herself. A few well placed bullets might have slowed down Angelus and Buffy at least enough for her to make it back out in the streets, where she could take cover or run for her car. But she didn't do anything.

"What are you so afraid of, Katie?" Angelus asked with a chuckle. "Is it this?" He morphed into his vampiric visage. "Is it the part where I kill you? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I love that in a woman!"

Kate fired her gun twice, but both targets were out of her line of fire in an instant. She turned towards Angelus and raised her gun again, he reached forward to grab her arm and she fired. He didn't even wince when she hit him in the shoulder, instead he ripped the gun out of her hand, pushed her backwards, sending her into the brick wall and sinking to the ground, and pointed it towards her.

"Heheh, vampire with a gun," he quipped. "Can see why you like this thing." She saw his forefinger touch the trigger and she closed her eyes before she heard the shot… and then she opened them again.

"Children's toys," he muttered, throwing the weapon aside. "At the end of the day, I much prefer it the old fashioned way." He looked at Buffy and she looked back at him, her face switching. Grabbing the defenseless woman, they bit down on each side of her neck.

Spike froze dead in his tracks when he heard the sharp sound. One, two… three shots. There was silence… and then another shot. They were still far away, but he could hear the sound clearly.

"Hold on," he murmured when Faith, Gunn and Giles continued down the street, unsure what they were looking for. Faith was a Slayer, she had all the necessary tracking skills, but her senses still weren't near the ones of a vampire. She didn't hear as well as he did, and she certainly didn't have his sense of smell.

The three of them stopped and turned to him, and Faith looked at him with her brow furrowed. She wasn't sure if she could trust him. Okay, actually, she was pretty sure that she couldn't trust him, him being soulless and all, but she wasn't sure if she could trust that he knew what he was doing right now. They seemed to have wandered the streets for hours and hours now, and so far nothing even remotely encouraging had crossed their paths.

"This way," Spike said shortly, turning left.

"Are you certain?" Giles asked, giving the vampire a tired look. Spike glared at him for a second, watched how the former librarian's pasty face took on a funny shade of green in the dull street light. He silently wondered if, or rather when, the old man would simply topple over and how he could make the others look the other way while he… took advantage of the situation. He gave his stomach a quick pat when he heard it rumble.

"You wanna take over the sniffin', pinhead?" Spike menaced, or tried to menace, and Giles stared indifferently at the vampire.

"Spike, you'd better be on to something this time," Gunn stated with a sigh.

"Stop your yammering and follow me, then," he muttered and took off down the smaller street to the left. He inhaled deeply and felt the skin on his arms tingle… somewhere, far away, he could smell blood. Lots of it, fresh and warm. The metallic, full and rich fragrance soon filled his head, consumed his mind and made him see beautiful, vivid imagery of violence and bloodshed.

He stopped again, lifted his head and sniffed audibly a few times. He heard the others stop behind him. He could hear their heartbeats, steady and strong and so loud and rumbling that he was sure that the ground under him was quivering. He clenched his fists when he felt the demonic features forming on his face, bit them back. This was what he was reduced to. Some tethered lapdog. He knew that if he turned and looked at them now, his starving mind would make him see his imaginations on them. And that wouldn't result in anything other than a throbbing headache. Instead he took a deep breath, let his nostrils flare, and took of sprinting down the street.

"Hey, Spike!" he heard Gunn's voice behind him, followed by the sound of quickening footsteps when they followed him. Not even Faith was quite able to keep up with his pace. The smell was becoming stronger and stronger until he reached its peak and he was sure that he could in fact taste it in his mouth, feel the warm, salty and sweet stickiness in his throat and…

He stopped so suddenly that Faith almost ran right into him. He panted, unnecessarily, as a way to hide his exhilaration about the blood. Not that he cared if the monkeybrain's were disgusted or angry with him because of it, but because he knew that if Faith were to hit him, he would hit her back… sending him swirling down a path that would lead to nothing.

"What was that good for?" Faith asked. He pointed into the alley just left of him.

"Blood. In there."

Giles and Gunn kept their crossbows at the ready, Faith clutched the stake in her pocket, and the four of them went into the alley – the thick smell of blood now becoming apparent to all of them. They could all smell the blood, but Spike was the only one that could practically get the cliff notes version of everything that had happened there very recently, only by discerning the many different scents. Sweat, blood, gunpowder, bile… fear. But no Angelus. No Buffy.

"They're not here," Spike settled.

"No… but I think it's safe to say they have been," Gunn said, staring at something further down the alley. They walked closer slowly; knowing that the indistinct outline of... something couldn't be anything remotely pleasant.

And it really wasn't.

"Dear lord," Giles whispered weakly upon looking at was lay ahead. Blood had been splashed far up on the brick walls, and on the ground lay three people. A man and a woman had been undressed and placed in a humiliating position, and across their bodies something was written in thick, red letters… in lipstick, he realized.

"'Sucker for love'," Gunn read aloud, grimacing. "This is sick."

Next to the pair lay a woman – pale, blonde and bitten on both sides of the neck. The police badge and the gun on the ground rang a bell in Faith's head. She recognized this woman – she was a cop… and she knew Angel. Or had known, at least.

Faith felt sick to her stomach – not from the sight of blood of course, she had seen enough of that in her day to get used to it, but of the fact that this was the work of what she last year would have referred to, more or less mockingly depending on her own current mental status, as the two biggest goody-two-shoes in recent history. In possession of a conscience, they were heroes. Without it, they were ruthless monsters – and extremely good at what they did, too.

She side glanced at the others. Spike seemed… natural. No, actually, more like constricted, like he really enjoyed the view but forced himself not to show it, knowing what they might do to him if he did.

All the color had disappeared from Giles' face. His jaw was clenched as if he felt physically ill – which, come to think of it, he probably did – and he didn't say a word. Faith didn't know him well enough to be sure about what kind of emotions were passing through his head at the moment. Was he angry with Angelus for turning Buffy into something that would do this, was he shocked by the sight of what his Slayer-turned-vampire was capable of… had he even comprehended what all of this meant?

Gunn shook his head slowly, in disbelief and disgust. The mission had seemed hard enough to begin with – catching or stopping Angelus and Buffy somehow, without getting killed, tortured and maimed themselves – and probably not in that order – but now? The jolly fanged pair clearly didn't waste any time before going on a bloody killing spree. Of course he knew that Angel must have done way worse back in the day, but hearing about it was one thing. Seeing it was another. Was there really a way back from this?

Faith went over to a nearby dumpster, pulled out a dirty and demolished piece of burlap and put it over the two naked bodies, providing them at least a little cover. Not that it made them any difference, them being dead and all…But it felt like the thing to do anyway. Faith glanced at the bite marks and quickly looked away, kneeling next to the police woman. Kate Lockley, her badge said. For no reason at all really, she put two fingers on the side of her neck, carefully avoiding the bite wounds.

To her surprise, she could feel a faint thumping under her fingertips. This woman was alive, despite the fact that she had obviously been bitten by both of them. This was done deliberately. They wanted her to stay alive. The question was why.

"This one's alive," Faith called to Giles, Gunn and Spike who approached her.

"Angelus musta become a sloppy eater in his advancing age," Spike commented in a manner that made Faith unsure if he was just mocking Angel or really meant it. She shook her head.

"No, they did this on purpose," she muttered. "They must have." Gunn knelt next to the woman.

"Her pulse is pretty strong considering," he said. "If we can get her to a hospital she should have a good chance." Gunn had more experience dealing with vampire bites than he wanted to, but right now it came in hand.

During his many gang days, roaming the streets and living wherever they could find a place to stay at the moment, it hadn't been unusual for people to get bitten. Sometimes they were simply killed off, quickly and swiftly, but a few times they had managed to stop the attacks and save the victim.

And sometimes, they had failed beyond imagination, screwing up the only thing that really mattered by letting their family get abducted, killed and turned into a creature of eternal damnation. Gunn swallowed and tried to push away the dark memories welling over and threatening to consume his mind. This was definitely not the time to reminisce. He picked up his cell phone and dialed 911.

"I can't stay here," Faith said to no one in particular. "They outta send a cop to, no?"

"Yeah, and we wouldn't want the heroine behind bars, now, would we?" Spike said. "Then again…" Faith shot him a glare.

"They're on their way," Gunn said, hanging up. Guess we better clear out." Faith nodded. Giles stood frozen, still staring at the bodies, trying to comprehend that Buffy, his Buffy, had done this. She wasn't alone and she wasn't herself, but it didn't matter. The same girl he had come to love like a daughter, his Slayer… a brutal murderer.

Of course, as a Watcher with many years of experience, he should be the first one to know that his Buffy hadn't done this – his Buffy was dead. A vampire may have the appearance, the memories and some of the characteristics of its human host, but it's still a demon… a creature of eternal malevolence. On some level of reason, he understood that, but he didn't comprehend it.

"So this… I guess, vamp version of art, what does it mean?" Gunn asked. "That they know were hot on their heels, or that they are sure that they have enough of a head start to do things like this?"

"Who knows," Faith said. "At least I should come as a surprise, we might be able to use that. We better get gone." She looked at Spike. "How's the whiffing going?" He moved uncomfortably from one foot to the other and cleared his throat. He took a few steps closed to the wall and inhaled. There was just a smidge of Angelus' blood mixed in there with all the human goodies, so obviously someone had managed to wound him. Unless he had done it deliberately by plant a false lead and throw them off the trail. With him, one could never be sure.

"Would say they went right through the alley," Spike said finally. Faith nodded.

"Right. Giles?" She stared at the man that seemed completely lost in thought.

Giles remembered when he had found Jenny in his apartment; it was a little more than three years ago now. The naive joy and expectation when he had found the rose, heard the music, read the note…

The tension and excitement when he had walked up the steps. He recalled that he had thought how nice and relaxing it would be to get his mind off everything going on with Angelus, even if it was only for one single night. Every minute of peace and calm at that time would have been a blessing. He remembered the relief about the fact that his and Jenny's relationship was clearing up, how good it had felt that there was at least a small gleam of hope in the midst of all the other chaos in their lives at the time. He had been happy and totally unprepared for what was to come.

And he remembered what he had felt when he found her. Walking up the last few steps, only to be met by her cold, blank gaze. That time, the shock was finding his beloved dead in his home after thinking for a few minutes that she was the one that set up the romantic scene…

This time, the shock wasn't about the dead people – how they had ended their lives was awful and disgusting, but the real shock lay in imagining Buffy doing this. Imagining her fingers clutching at their necks while she bit into them and drank… imagining her laughing and enjoying herself while they undressed their victims and set them up for display – and God knew what else they had done with them. It had been one thing when it was only Angelus doing it. He was after all a creature that had been known for his pure, sadistic evil centuries before Giles was even born. It had been easier to come to terms with.

Did this mean that Buffy was damned forever? If they did manage to restore her soul – would she be the Buffy he remembered again, or would she feel as if redemption was impossible for her? Of course, this – and what probably was to come – would inevitably change her forever, to what degree he could only imagine.

Ironically enough, Giles thought, the only way he could imagine Buffy recovering during a conceivable time span might very well be if Angel was by her side and helped her. Which didn't only mean that killing Angelus wouldn't be an option – it also meant that all of them would have to, if not forgive then at least accept Angel, despite everything that he had done, for Buffy's sake.

Giles tried, and failed, to swallow his bitterness. The monster who was responsible for all this, for Buffy's death and therefore also indirectly for the people she killed, was the one they depended on to save her. The irony of it would probably amuse a sadist like Angelus.

"Giles!" Faith yelled, and he realized it probably wasn't the first time she called his name. He looked at her.

"Hmm? Y-yes?"

"Time to get gone. Giving the enemy a big head start isn't generally considered a great idea. 'Sides, cops gotta be on their way, which means if I'm not outta here in a few minutes, you'll be one Slayer short," she said, realizing her tactless phrasing too late. She bit her tongue and stayed silent.

"Right. Uh… G-good point. Let's, ah, let's go."

"Not just yet."

They heard a man's voice behind them. For a second all of them probably expected Angelus to step out – they all tensed and raised their weapons. But the creature that swaggered out of the shadows was a short, fat vampire in full game face with a cocky smile on his lips. Probably drawn to the alley by the smell of blood and thinking that he was about to have his biggest meal ever, with four people to chow down on. Of course he had no idea who they were, or that he had just made sure that his eternal life would get very cut short by stepping up to them.

"Great," Faith said. "Okay, look. If you wanna party, hurry it up Porky. I have more important things to do," she continued confidently.

"Yo, Faith?" she heard Gunn's voice. "I think he brought some friends."

Faith turned around and saw another seven vampires sneaking up on them from behind. How nice, she thought. Because this was just what they needed right now.