Chapter Thirty-Eight
Buffy had a bit of a bounce in her step as she made her way up the front steps of Wolfram and Hart the next morning. Patrol had gone well; she hadn't run into any massive mobs of running, frightened people—or small ones, for that matter—and she'd gotten a few hours of good sleep back at Spike's afterward. Feeling ready to take on the world—or at least the evil, seedy non-human parts of it—Buffy ascended the steps quickly.
Her mood, buoyant with the confidence that knowing she was still in top Slayer form, faltered a bit at the sight of people standing gathered around the terrace leading to the doors. They looked, for the most part, like Wolfram and Hart employees, but at least a handful—those standing nearest to the doors and peering inside of the building—looked like clients. What was going on?
A bit of a feeling of dread starting to build in her stomach, Buffy made her way to the doors. She noted a couple of people pulling half-heartedly at the handles as she approached. The doors didn't budge. Locked? That would explain the gathering, at least. But why would the doors be locked?
A woman approached her as Buffy, set on trying each of the doors herself, strode to the farthest one and tugged on it.
"Do you work here?" she asked. Shaking her head, Buffy glanced at her. Well-dressed—certainly more business-y and office-appropriate than Buffy herself currently was—the woman could have been absolutely anyone, and here for any reason. She was probably a client. Did she know her lawyers were more than run-of-the-mill evil? Did she care?
"Nope," Buffy replied, moving on to the next door. It groaned when she threw extra strength into pulling on it, but didn't give way.
The woman looked disappointed. "So you can't let us in then," she said, unnecessarily, and started turning away. "We've tried all the doors," she added, like it was a considerate afterthought that Buffy might not deserve because she hadn't come bearing a key.
Buffy tried the rest of the doors, the dread in her gut building at both the resistance and the apparent lack of anyone in the lobby on the other side who could let them in. Something was going on, something big—she could feel it. She absolutely had to get inside.
A cursory scan of the group of people behind her didn't reveal anyone she knew. They were probably already at work, upstairs and locked in as surely as she and all these other people were locked out. A couple of people were on cell phones, wearing frustrated expressions that suggested they couldn't get through to anyone in the building. A few others were leaving, even as fresh, perplexed faces took their place.
At least no one was panicking—yet. If anything, even those still lingering looked hopeful about their chances of getting a long weekend, and were probably only still here because they were used to the pre-Angel policies of Wolfram and Hart and feared being disembowelled if they left.
She made her way over to a man in a suit who'd hung up his phone only moments before. "Has anyone heard from someone inside? Boss? Co-worker? Reception?" The man shook his head after each question.
"No calls out, either. Not to any of us, anyway," he said. "It could be a drill. Or something in one of the containment levels could have escaped, who knows? I say give it 'til noon, and if they haven't cleared it up, we might as well all go home."
Rolling her shoulders and contemplating her chances of success if she tried to punch through a door, or rip one from its hinges, Buffy nodded.
"No one here's connected to any of the big bosses, huh?" she asked. Pointless question. She'd never seen this guy before, and he clearly didn't know who she was, so he probably wouldn't know if anyone had any contact with Angel's crew or not.
"Anyone who is has been here for a couple of hours already, I bet. They'll all be trapped inside, too."
Wonderful.
Buffy pulled her cell phone from her pocket and punched in Angel's number, beginning to pace in a circle around the terrace as it rang. And rang. And rang, until it cut to voice mail. She'd expected it. If no one else was answering their cell phones, why should Angel be able to get to his?
Well, because he was Angel. And the CEO, of course. But mostly, Angel. That was what the little voice in her head was insisting, anyway.
She tried the call again. This time, Angel picked up on the third ring.
"Buffy," Angel greeted. He sounded okay, if a little stiff. She could hear something weird in the background. Muffled, like he was far from it or covering the mouthpiece, but it sounded vaguely like pained moaning.
"Why's the building locked down?" she asked. "Is everything okay?" She waved off a couple of people who had caught on that she'd had her call answered.
A 'thunk', and the tinkling sound of breaking glass, came through the phone.
"Everything's fine," Angel said a moment later.
"Doesn't sound like it. What's going on, Angel?" she asked. Targeting a shady area, Buffy slipped away from the crowd. More weird noises came through the phone. "Are you fighting?" Why had he answered the phone if he was in the middle of a fight?
"Defending," Angel said. Buffy's brow furrowed. She couldn't blame him for the brief answers; his attention was clearly divided. But who—or what—was he fighting? And why had it locked down the building?
"Okay. I need you to let me in," she said, hearing another 'thunk.' It sounded like someone was firing a crossbow, the bolts sinking into the wall close enough to Angel for the microphone to pick up the noise.
"Can't open the building to the public, that would be chaos." Did he sound amused? "You'll be able to get in through the motor pool entrance."
The phone went dead, dial tone ringing in her ear. Buffy took off at a run toward Angel's private entrance, the feeling of dread in her stomach building with each pounding of her foot on the pavement.
-8-
The motor pool entrance hadn't been unlocked, either, and it took Buffy nearly fifteen minutes to finally break through the reinforced steel pedestrian door. The elevator, she'd quickly discovered, was offline, too.
She took the stairs. All who-knew-how-many flights of them, two steps at a time, her pulse racing. Adrenaline shot through her system, fuelled by her need to get to the top. To find out what was going on.
One flight, two, ten… she stopped counting. Get to the top. Get to Angel's office—hope that was where he'd been when he'd answered. If the apocalypse had already come calling, she needed to be there. Just get there, and everything else could come after.
Bursting through the door, Buffy had a split second to take in the scene, déjà vu throwing her for a moment before she recovered. Her vision was playing out a lot sooner than she had hoped. There was debris everywhere. The fight had been going on for a while, and she caught sight of Angel running a finger along his bottom lip, wiping up a trickle of blood from his chin. He sucked the blood from the tip of his finger. She threw herself to the floor, dodging a projectile as it whistled past.
She should've known, from the weirdness on the phone, and the evenness in Angel's voice, that something like this had happened. Angel wouldn't have answered his phone in the middle of a fight.
Angelus would.
Buffy scooped up the object she'd ducked. An arrow; more useless here than the stake she had jammed in her waistband, but at least it was a second weapon. She was going to need as many as she could get.
"Buff!" Angelus was grinning, and sounded way too happy to see her. The black amulet from the Sunnydale cave glinted around his neck. Just like in her vision. Had it changed him? Was it temporary?
Buffy got back to her feet. From this angle, off to one side from the open part of the room, she couldn't see anyone else in the lobby except for the body at Angelus' feet. It didn't look like anyone she knew, which was good, but she felt a pang for the loss of life, regardless. She should've come back here last night after her patrol. It might not have made any difference at all, but now she wouldn't know.
"Took you ages to get up here. I was starting to think you'd caught on and decided not to come," Angelus said.
Buffy moved forward, just enough to see the rest of the room. She couldn't figure out who had shot the arrow at her. Harmony was behind her desk, unarmed, looking caught between terrified and impressed. She thought that was Gunn and Wesley ducked behind the staircase platform leading to the labs.
No Lorne. No Illyria.
Spike was still back at his place—she should've called him on her way up, why was she only thinking of that now?
A small brunette she didn't recognise stood off to one side. The woman's eyes were on Angel, studying him and either ignorant or uncaring of the danger he posed.
"Would've been here quicker, but, reinforced steel doors can really slow a girl down," she replied, sliding her gaze back to Angel and dismissing the woman for the moment. She wasn't doing anything except for standing there and Angel didn't seem to have any interest in her either.
Angelus made a broad gesture with his arms. "Now that you're finally here, we can start."
With a body already on the floor, that didn't sound too promising.
"Surprised you didn't skip town as soon as you got free," Buffy commented. "Or at least leave the building." She took a few steps forward as she spoke, trying to catch either Wesley or Gunn's eye. She didn't doubt their fighting skills—much—but getting the civilians out of here topped her priority list. If she could keep herself between Angelus and the stairwell, she'd be able to give them enough time to get the hell out of here.
Angelus made a chiding noise. "Think about that for a minute, Buff. Why would I leave?"
"To stop me from kicking your ass?" she suggested. Wesley glanced at her and she managed to meet his eyes. She tilted her head behind her, not too worried that Angel knew exactly what she was doing.
He was laughing, anyway. Hard. "So that we can get this part over with," he said, "This is your chance to give up quietly, blah, blah, blah."
Buffy didn't bother responding. Instead, she crossed her arms and waited for him to get to the point, watching out of the corner of her eye for movement from Wesley and Gunn. They hadn't budged. They were going to get themselves killed.
"Can't say I didn't expect that reaction," Angel said.
"You must be Eve," Buffy said, rethinking her dismissal of the brunette and cutting across Angel before he could start monologing their ears off.
Eve gave a slow smile and a shallow nod. She looked pleased, no doubt because her evil organization finally had an evil CEO to go along with it. And, of course, therein lay why Angelus hadn't already skipped town—he'd stepped into a load of power that he wouldn't be afraid to put to use. What had Angel said about his play to get Wolfram and Hart's trust so he could take them down? She should've made him tell her that plan in more detail; it could've helped her now.
Instead, she had one shot, right now, at taking him down.
All well and good if she had been prepared for this.