Part Two
The two vampires stared at each other in disbelief. 'Of all the bloody faces I expected to see down here…' Spike said, grinning widely. Angel gazed back at him, his own face unfriendly, he hadn't had much time for Spike back when they were both evil but now … 'You're a Nazi?' he said, nodding at the swastika armband on Spike's coat.
Spike glanced down at it, 'what? Oh - no. I just ate one.' He grinned again, 'so they got you too, eh? Nabbed me in Madrid. Sneaky bastards, the S.S. Don't ever go to a free virgin blood party, turns out it's probably a trap.' He nodded to himself at the wisdom of his own words.
Angel rolled his eyes. 'You were captured at a free virgin blood party?'
'I know!' he chuckled ruefully. 'One minute I'm asking a fella why all the virgins look like Goebbels, the next I'm stuck on a box on this cursed ship.' He began to walk back down the gangway, Angel followed him. He was still yammering away. 'I feel better knowing they got you too. I'm not surprised. From my company it looks like they're rounding up the baddest of the bad.'
'Ah, you're gonna have to introduce me.'
Spike nodded. Of course. Though he had to warn Angel - these other guys were a bit stiff. He pushed open the hatch and went inside, Angel still following on. They walked over the bodies of the dead crew, all strewn on the floor - their eyes wide and glassy, their mouths still open in the shape of their final scream … and their throats ripped out. Two other vampires were standing there. One was a tall, powerful, middle aged vampire with a short hair and a clipped goatee. The other was an ancient, hideous Nosferatu looking thing, with a bald head and bat ears. His face was wrinkled, his skin was almost blue it was so pale and his nails were long, jagged and deadly.
Spike nodded his head towards them, 'this is Nostroyev and the Prince of Lies. Nostroyev, Prince of Lies, this is Angelus.' He grinned again. 'The Angelus.'
Nostroyev looked the newcomer up and down. 'Angelus…' he had a thick Russian accent when he spoke. 'Used to be quite a terror back in the day, haven't heard much of you lately though.'
Angel looked unimpressed. 'Haven't heard much of you … ever.'
That worked to wind the Russian vampire up. He smashed his fist against his chest and yelled out his credentials. He was the scourge of Siberia and the butcher of Alexander Palace. Angel still looked unimpressed. 'I was Rasputin's lover!' Nostroyev cried petulantly.
Angel gave Spike a look, as if asking if this guy were for real. Spike only rolled his eyes and changed the subject. He had broken these two out once he had got free … he hadn't realised Angelus was also trapped back there, otherwise he would have come and got him. But then - he grinned - they had had their hands full with the sailors. The Prince of Lies began to cackle.
'Is anybody still alive back here?' Angel asked, ignoring the ancient vampire. But the answer was a negative, they had finished off the last of them. Spike peered back through the hatch, looking back the way Angel had come from. 'What about back there? Save anything for us?'
'Couple of men left in the torpedo room,' Angel confirmed.
'Alright then - what are we waiting for.'
'No.' Angel held his hand up and stopped Spike from walking out. Spike looked confused. 'What?'
'We're not killing any more humans.' He realised that didn't sound like Angelus, he didn't want Spike to get suspicious. If he wasn't such a terminal idiot he should already be wondering as to why Angelus had disappeared so soon after Spike had killed the slayer. He wanted to avoid a three against one fight if at all possible. 'Well - not right now.'
'Why the hell not?' Spike demanded.
'Because, if you hadn't noticed, Spike, we're trapped at the bottom of the ocean. So unless you know how to operate one of these things, we're gonna need their help.'
Spike scoffed. 'Oh come on! How hard can it be.' he strode across to the controls and began to pull at the levers. 'Forward, back, up, down…' as he pulled the last lever a shrieking alarm began to sound throughout the compartment - and the lights began to flash red with warning.
Doyle closed his eyes as he felt the memory rush over him, unable to stop it welling up and crashing down on him like the walls of a dam breaking. That first vision. That first massacre. That first dead little girl. The beginning of his punishment - and his atonement. And tonight … tonight had happened because he had never put that first massacre right, because he had never stopped those that had done it, that had slaughtered all those innocent demons.
And if he gave up, like he wanted to - if he didn't keep coming out to scenes like these, if he stopped fighting - attempted to stop caring - then massacres like these would never stop. More families would die, more little girls … and evil would win.
He stared at the tiny shoe clasped in his hand, the cogs of his mind whirring away. Somewhere inside this warehouse was the slaughtered body of at least one child: a dead little girl. And if he didn't find her first - Cordelia would. He couldn't let Cordy be the one to find the little girl's body, couldn't let that pain and guilt land on her. This wasn't her atonement; wasn't her pain to bear. He needed to get up - needed to tell Cordy to get out, he would do the rest … but he couldn't make himself move, couldn't make himself get back to his feet and start working the case. Instead, he just knelt there - on the cold, hard floor - staring at the shoe.
He didn't know how long he'd been there, when the sound of heels tapping on the hard concrete told him Cordy was back. 'There's a little girl somewhere here,' he told her, his voice was heavy - almost blank; numb, because it was easier to be numb than to feel. 'She's probably dead.'
'I know.' She sat down beside him. 'I already found her - all of them.' She sighed and shook her head, 'I'm sorry. None of them made it.'
He looked up at her in alarm, his numbness suddenly giving way to guilt. 'You shouldn't have … you shouldn't have had to…'
'No one should have to,' she said gently, 'yet here we are.'
'We gotta do somethin',' he told her. 'What we're doin' now … it's not enough. We need to … up our game, step up the fight.'
She shook her head again. 'We're not ready to fight The Scourge yet, Doyle. If we try - we'll be killed.'
'Well, we gotta do somethin',' he insisted. 'we can't just keep lettin' this happen to innocent people, innocent families. If it's not time to fight, then we gotta find a different way to protect people.'
As irritated with him as if they'd never spent any time apart, Angel grabbed hold of the levers and tried to undo whatever the hell it was Spike had just done. Behind them, The Prince of Lies put his gnarled hands over his ears and hissed at the shrill sound and flashing lights until Angel had managed to silence the alarm.
'Tell you what,' Nostroyev said, once all was quiet again. He grabbed a fire axe from the wall, 'we'll leave one alive to work the boat,' he headed towards the door, 'and eat the rest.'
Angel hauled him back. 'Nope.' Nostroyev looked incensed.
'Uh yeah,' Spike said apologetically to the Russian vampire, 'probably should warn you - he likes to pretend he's the boss,' he pointed at Angel with his thumb.
Nostroyev was still looking angry. 'You may have made a name for yourself muscling around weaker vampires,' he snarled.
'Hang on!' it was Spike's turn to sound angry.
'But I am Nostroyev. I will tear you open and play "coachmen spare your horses" on the lute of your entrails. Get out of my way.'
Angel took a step back, as if backing down - and allowing the Russian vampire past. But as soon as Nostroyev took his first step, he punched him hard in the gut, grabbed the fire axe from him and then used the wooden handle as a stake, plunging it into his heart. Nostroyev exploded in a cloud of dust - and Angel looked at the two remaining vampires. 'We don't kill the humans until we reach land, is that clear?' he asked in a voice that brooked no argument.
'Heil Hitler,' Spike agreed, sticking two fingers up at his grandsire … he couldn't believe he'd forgotten what a git Angelus could be.
Angel sat on his couch, looking through files. He knew at some point he was going to have to use Wesley's books to help find the Circle of the Black Thorn, but he didn't yet want to alert Wesley or The Senior Partners on what he was up to. So, for now, he was contenting himself on reviewing client files - looking for the baddest of the bad, the movers and the shakers of the underworld that the law firm always did their utmost to represent. He was currently reading about one guy - prince of the Underworld kinda guy - Lord D'hakmarth. He seemed to fit the bio, he was going to have to research this one more carefully.
He glanced up as a shadow fell across the room. Someone was stood in the doorway. He expected it to be Wes or Gunn … but when he saw who it was he froze up.
The man who had taken Fred and Wesley hostage smiled at him. 'Hiya, chief. Don't tell me you don't recognise me.'
Angel recognised him, he never forgot a face… especially not of those he had sired. But this one, the young ensign from the submarine … 'Lawson,' he said.
Lawson smiled and put his hand over his heart. 'I'm touched. Aren't you gonna ask how I got in?'
But Angel shook his head. People seemed to break into the place on an almost weekly basis, didn't seem worth the trouble of asking for the specifics. This place might as well be a bus station.
'Seems like you're doing pretty well for yourself,' Lawson said, still smiling dangerously. 'It's a far cry from all those years you spent in the gutters eating rats.'
'You've been following my life. Now I'm touched.'
Lawson shrugged. 'I just check in every decade or so.' He laughed. 'Imagine my surprise when I found out that Mr. Vermin eater himself was now fighting evil and running Wolfram and Hart … mind explaining that one to me? Those 2 don't exactly go hand in hand.'
Angel glanced down at the file in front of him, and thought of the vision the Powers had sent him. 'It's complicated.'
The other vampire nodded. He found that true about most things these days. He sighed - not that he wanted to sound like an old man but, they used to live in simpler times didn't they? 'Never thought I'd miss being on that sub. Things made a kinda sense, down there. Keep your head down…'
'Watch each other's backs. Stay alert,' Angel told the crew, as he marched them from their bunk room out into the control room. It was time to bring the boat in - and he needed them at their stations. 'Follow my lead - we'll get out of this, alright?' The crew nodded … but their eyes lingered on all the corpses of their dead friends which still littered the walkways.
They arrived in the control room - where Spike and the Prince of Lies were lurking - and Lawson began to give the orders. 'Spinelli, take Heinrich up to the galley. Then do a full systems check. You got 5 minutes. Start with the batteries - I want juice as soon as possible.' Spinelli grabbed hold of the German's arm and dragged him away. Lawson turned to the next man. 'O'Shea you're at the helm. Tyler? You're gonna have to handle bow and stern.'
'If we have to surface, we can't out manoeuvre the Jerrys on batteries alone,' O'Shea warned. Lawson shook his head, he would get to work on the engines once they were underway but for now he just wanted them to get moving.
'And where does the captain sit?' Spike asked. Lawson pointed at the chair in the middle of the control room. Spike sat in it, 'and now who brings the captain his drink?'
Lawson ignored him, 'Hodge - you're on communications.' The youngest crewman didn't respond, he was just staring at Spike in a frozen, disbelieving horror. Lawson called him again and he flinched and made his way to the radios.
'And what should I do?' the Prince of Lies asked, clacking his overlong fingernails together. Angel grabbed hold of him and sat him down out of the way of the others. And then he noticed Lawson staring at the bodies lying at their feet. 'Let's get these out of here,' he said.
...
'May I speak freely, sir?' Lawson asked. He and Angel had moved the dead crew out to the bunks and were now covering them up - but something was eating away at the young ensign and he couldn't leave it unsaid any longer. 'I recognise that's there a lot going on here that I don't understand … but those monsters butchered my crew … and apparently they're in the S.S.'
Angel sighed wearily. 'Spike's not in the S.S - he just likes wearing the jacket.'
'Yeah, that doesn't help me understand why we're working with him or keeping him alive for that matter.'
Angel sighed again - no, he should just stake Spike. He knew that. But it wasn't that easy. Spike was … well he was Angel's fault, he existed because of Angel's evil - and so Angel owed a debt to him, had a responsibility towards him. He couldn't just stake Spike and pretend like that made up for everything. 'I've got him under control,' he said.
'That's not the point, he killed my captain, sir. They're monsters I don't know why...'
'You don't need to know why,' Angel snapped. Then he forced his voice to be calmer, forced down the irritation at being questioned over his way of dealing with Spike. No one else was in his situation - had to watch a monster of their own creation kill and maim and destroy - and care about it, want to stop it … but not be able to. How he chose to deal with Spike - that was his business, no one else could know what this was like, so their feelings about it didn't matter. 'We gotta bring this sub in,' he said, 'those are our orders - isn't that the point? Following orders?'
Lawson looked at him. 'There's a difference between orders … and purpose, sir.'
'We got a job to do,' Angel answered him. 'That job is gonna help us win the war. I don't need you to understand every detail, but just know we're fighting on the same side. I need you to trust that I'm gonna get us all through this … safe and sound.'
'Safe and sound,' Lawson smiled his dark smile at Angel. 'I guess now's not the time to argue semantics. Did you care about any of it? The ship? The mission? The men?'
Angel leaned back on the sofa and looked weary. He had cared as much as he could back then, once he was down there - and could see how frightened those young boys all were. But he had been a different person back then - and he didn't try to deny it. His soul was still quite new, he was out on his own - keeping himself away from humans so as not to be tempted. This had all happened about a decade before he had made his first disastrous attempt at saving a lost soul - back at the Hyperion. The Angel of the 40s was not the Angel of today - who had just been given a brand new mission, and a purpose - one he cared about more than anything except Connor. That he cared now couldn't make up for who he had been back then, but he couldn't change it either. There was nothing he could say to Lawson to make it right. 'What do you want?' he asked instead.
'Same thing I've always wanted: to understand.'
'Understand what … exactly?'
Lawson shrugged and began to walk towards Angel. 'Why we do what we do. How you manage to always -'
Angel kicked the coffee table. It smashed into Lawson's legs, knocking him over. He fell and smashed the table before hitting the ground. Then Angel seized the splintered leg and pounced on the downed vampire, hauling back his arm ready to strike home with his makeshift stake. Lawson reached up and grabbed hold of his arm, arresting it's descent. There was a brief struggle, and then Lawson laughed. 'You sure you wanna do that, chief?'
'Fairly certain I said I'd kill you if I ever saw you again.'
'Oh I never doubted you, but you gotta ask yourself: would I walk in here, unarmed - knowing that … without an ace in the hole? Wouldn't make much sense would it?'
Angel pulled back and dropped his stake. 'What did you do?' Lawson only smiled wider.
Back at the office, Cordelia sank down on the sofa - weary and depressed after having to deal with the bodies of the demon family. Doyle on the other hand seemed to be filled with a manic energy; ever since he had decided they needed to do more, find another way to defeat The Scourge until it was time to fight them, he had been restless - determined to make a start as soon as possible. He had fidgeted the whole way home and now he had flung his axe onto the floor and was sat behind the computer, rooting through the desk drawers.
Cordelia watched him. 'What are you doing?' she asked, eventually, 'what are you looking for?'
'I got an idea.'
'You think the way to defeat The Scourge is hidden in one of our desk drawers? … I don't think it is.'
He stopped rooting and looked up, surprised. 'No,' he said - as if she were being an idiot. 'I'm lookin for …' he shook his head. 'Look - we can't fight The Scourge head on. We can't turn up at a demon slaughter and beat 'em. Yet. So we gotta do somethin' else - think outside the box when it comes to protectin' innocent lives.'
'So what do you suggest?' she frowned.
He shrugged. 'Seems to me…' he took a deep breath, 'seems to me that the Lister demons are doin' OK. They found a way out. They survived. So I was thinkin' - what if other groups and families of demons followed their lead?'
'You're going to pack every demon in L.A off to Briole?'
'Well obviously not off to Briole - there's not enough room. But we need to start organising an evacuation - get anyone in danger out of L.A and find somewhere safe to put 'em. I already told Vito to get word out that demons needed to start leavin' - but I didn't tell him what was behind all this. Didn't wanna start a panic. But now - I think it's time to formalise a proper retreat strategy. Make sure everyone understands the need to run away - and help 'em do it.' He began to root through the desk again.
'So the plan is to start a demon underground railway?'
'Basically, yeah.'
Lawson took Angel down in his private elevator, leading him through into the conference room. 'Now I don't need you to understand every detail,' he said. The door opened, revealing Fred, Wes and Gunn all stood on office chairs, bound and gagged. Lawson smirked and turned to look at his sire, 'but I do need you to trust that I'm gonna get us all through this, safe and sound.'
