New Horizons: Chapter Thirteen
By Annie
05-03-2002
Dawn could easily judge by the rather shocked expression on Willow's face that she had hit jackpot with her question.
"What do you know, Willow? Has she talked to you about it?"
Willow stared at the fifteen year old, not sure how she could best tackle this one. Then she shrugged and smiled a little.
"No, she hasn't. But."
The front door opening interrupted her and she and Dawn looked at each other, knowing it was Xander they made a silent agreement to continue their discussion later.
"Hello, everybody," Xander said, walking into the kitchen. "What's for breakfast?"
"Pancakes, if you want them, or cereal. Take your pick," Willow said and smiled at him.
He had been so low the past few weeks, even if he had tried to cover it up. Now, though, he smiled a bright smile back and she couldn't help but ask:
"You seem cheery, something good happen?"
He sat down on the stool next to Dawn and reached for the pancakes before nodding.
"Yep," he said, taking the plate Willow handed him and serving himself he continued: "I've spent most of these weeks thinking about how to live without Anya if she doesn't come back. Well, last night I came to a decision."
Willow and Dawn looked at one another before both turning to Xander who was pouring an extensive amount of syrup on his mountain of pancakes.
"I'm not going to wait anymore," he then said as he grabbed a fork, hacking away at the food before him and then taking his first bite.
"But, Xander." Willow said, rather surprised after all. "You still love her, you said so yourself. You can't just give up on her like that.can you?"
Xander swallowed, smiling widely.
"What I mean is that I'm gonna find her myself. If she refuses to see me then I'll wait in what ever hell-dimension she is in until she WILL," he stated and both Dawn and Willow's eyes became round with surprise before starting to fill with a mutual worry.
"B-but Xander." Willow said again. "Isn't that kinda. dangerous? I mean, maybe you should wait 'til Buffy and Spike gets back. they can help."
He got to his feet, shaking his head before exclaiming:
"I can't wait for Buffy to always fight my battles for me, Will. I HAVE to do this now, or I'll go crazy. I miss Anya so much, I can't just sit around anymore."
"But, Buffy and Spike might be home today! We don't know how they'll set the mirror, or how it works. Maybe they'll walk through it in an hour!" Dawn said.
"Dawn, thank you for the concern. I know I haven't always been the most forward of the Scoobs but I know I can do this. And I really have to," Xander answered, then he walked up to the door leading to the hallway, breakfast forgotten. "I'll be back, too, I promise, I just need Anya to know that what I did. that it didn't have anything to do with my feelings for her."
Willow looked at him for a moment, then walked up to him and gave him a big hug, Dawn soon joined them and he sighed a little with relief, glad to have their support.
"Be careful," Willow mumbled, feeling her throat knot with tears. "You'd better not break that promise. We need you here, you know."
They let go and he smiled at them both, reassuringly.
Then he turned and walked to the front door.
As it closed Willow stared at it, feeling a terrible emptiness inside at the thought of loosing him.
"Damn it, if I hadn't gotten all crazy addicted to the magic I could have helped him," she said angrily and Dawn put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't think like that. Besides, did you see the look in his eyes, all determined and stuff? He'll be back," she said and Willow nodded, still looking at the closed door.
"He'd BETTER be," she mumbled.
***
Buffy lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and feeling nothing but an empty hole inside. No anger, no irritation, no resentment; just a big, black nothing. But the pain of it was excruciating and tears were slowly filling her eyes, she didn't care to hold them back, she was tired of crying but too strained to be able to keep from it.
Besides, the pain made her either have to cry or scream, and she thought the former was just a little smarter than the latter.
When she heard approaching steps outside she rolled over on her side, burying her head in one of the soft pillows and praying with everything in her that it wouldn't be Spike.
She didn't want him to think that she was crying because of what he had said, because she wasn't!
She didn't exactly know WHY she was crying but tried to blame it on the fact that she had had it bottled up inside for way too long and with him being his usual despicable self he had pushed more buttons than he had bargained for.
There was a knock on the door, and she could tell it wasn't him. First of all he probably wouldn't have knocked after the way they just left it, and secondly, his knock, had there been one, wouldn't have been as soft as this one.
Relieved she collected herself and dragged herself up into a seated position before saying:
"Come in."
The door opened and Sarah appeared, looking rather pale as she approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Buffy could see that Sarah was studying her still tear sprinkled eyes and she tried to blink them away, with not much success.
Then Sarah turned away and Buffy suddenly felt a gnawing worry start to fill up the hole inside.
"Sarah?" she asked and tried to keep the feeling out of her voice. "What's the matter? .If you're thinking about what Spike just talked about," she laughed to try to underline how used to it she was, when she really wasn't. The laugh sounded flat and she closed her mouth, feeling how tense she was. "Well," she said, desperately looking for a way to swipe his statement away. "He IS like that. He DOES that. And I do know about it, I've always known about it. only forgotten it from time to time," the last part she added mostly to herself but Sarah now turned her two cobalt blues towards her, they expressing so much concern that Buffy quickly continued: "I mean, remember what I told you yesterday? I told you that Spike and me, we don't mesh. We don't fit together at all."
The feeling of his hands running over every curve of her body, his lips against her skin. She snapped herself out of it.
"We fight ALL the time and this argument will. it will blow over," she assured with as big a smile that she could muster.
"He left," Sarah said slowly.
The gnawing worry inside of Buffy turned into astonishment, then disbelief and then a subtle fear, gently tugging at every nerve string in her entire body.
She swallowed hard, staring at Sarah.
"He what?" she asked when she finally got her speech back.
"He left.He said he'll be back tonight."
With that relief was spreading fast among the fear and almost completely chased it away. Buffy hardly noticed because now she started to feel the anger. She was getting angrier with him by the second.
"But. But it's DAY! He can't just LEAVE! And what does that mean, 'be back tonight'? What the hell is he doing? So, he thinks we don't need his help, then? Well.! And-and it's DAY!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet.
Sarah got off the bed too, trying to stay calm as Buffy thoughtlessly exploded.
"Buffy, listen. I think that he needs to do some thinking. A lot of things are happening right now and I think he's not sure how to deal with them."
"He can DEAL with them during the night, when the rest of us are sleeping! How CAN he just LEAVE! It's DAY, it's SUN-."
She stopped herself, the un-going patter on her windowsill making her realize that, no, there was no sun today. No deadly rays, no risk of burning.
"Well," she grumbled, the anger still bubbling inside and she didn't want to let it die, she wanted to keep it there until he came back, so she could take it out on him.
Scream at him for leaving, scream at him for being so damn selfish, scream at him for saying what he had before, making her feel stupid and weak and.
Her eyes widened at the realization, the expression in them first making her look incredibly vulnerable, and then hard as stone. She shook her head, turned away from Sarah and said:
"He's supposed to be sleeping now. He's not supposed to be out roaming the streets."
"Say's who?" Sarah's voice asked, calm and controlled as always.
***
He swiped the glass up from the tattered, wooden bar counter and brought it to his lips, tilting his head back and taking the contents of the small glass in his mouth with one movement. Swallowing it, feeling the slightly burning sensation as it traveled down the inside of his throat, soon it settled in his stomach and then he knew it would soon journey up to his head.
He put the glass down with a hard bam and turned to the bartender, his mind was already slightly fuzzy, after all he had had almost three bottles of whiskey already, but not fuzzy enough and he said:
"Another."
The bartender eyed him carefully, and then shrugged a little, picking up a bottle and filling the glass to the edges.
Spike looked at the amber colored liquid, then repeated the ritual again, swallowing it down.
"Mister, you should probably call it a day," the bartender said when he once more slammed the glass down on the bar, waiting for another fill up.
Spike stared at him for a moment.
Did this man not know what he was? Of course he didn't, he reminded himself, no one knew. Except for Buffy. That bitch seemed to know everything about him, didn't she?
What a pitiful vampire she had turned him into. How he hated her! How he despised himself for ever getting caught in her sticky little web. And ruthless as a spider attacks her catch she had moved in on him and killed him, over and over and over and over.
"Well, not again," he murmured, the bartender still keeping an eye on him he noticed.
He almost wanted to laugh at him, wanted to rip the damned bar counter off its nails and throw it across the room just to see what kind of expression THAT would put on the whelp's face. He shrugged; stepping down from the stool he had been seated on for. he had no idea for how long.
"Here I go," he said to the bartender, the room spinning around him and he smiled widely.
Then a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder and he turned around, his blue eyes meeting a pair of green ones, watery with drunkenness they stared at him before a breath smelling of a nauseating mix of alcohols carried slurred words at him:
"You haven't paid, have you, boy?"
He stared at the man, then at the hand on his shoulder. Without even making an attempt at replying he shrugged the man's hand off and turned to walk away.
But the hand took an even harder grip on his coat and the man said:
"Then maybe you should pay for ME."
Spike felt the almost blinding rage he had been trying to drown easily struggle to the surface of his drenched mind and he grabbed the man's hand, turning around towards him with eyes that were icy cold. The chip was forgotten and the thirst for a fight now stronger than anything else.
"You don't know what the bloody hell you're messing with, old man," he said, pushing the man's hand off his shoulder before turning around again.
As he had expected the man gave him a hard push and he almost lost his balance, even though his brain was already sobering up. Damn the vampire nature of healing the body ten times as fast as the human nature ever could.
"Take it outside," the bartender said, a warning tone in his voice and Spike looked from him to the man before replying:
"My pleasure."
With a look at green-eyes he turned and walked to the back door of the pub, leading into a dirty little alley.
Perfect, he thought to himself as he heard the door behind him open and close, green-eyes following in his footsteps.
Spike turned around as the man charged him. He easily avoided the blow green-eyes tried to deliver and his hand shot out, hitting the man in the stomach. He huffed and took a step backwards, his eyes now enlarging as Spike went into game face. He was on the man the next second, giving him a blow on the cheekbone. Spike could feel the bone crackle underneath his fist and the demon inside of him roared with pleasure as he raised his left hand and delivered a perfect hit to green-eyes' nose. The cracking sound it made and the following gush of blood made him more than certain that he had broken it.
The man looked rather sobered up by now and his eyes were blinking with surprise and pain as he held his hands to his nose, the blood filling his mouth making him cough.
Spike stared at the red liquid, his whole being filled with the scent of it. He could feel it in his mouth, taste it on his tongue, the sensation of it filling him up and making him feel alive!
He took a step forward and then kicked out his leg, once more hitting green- eyes in the stomach and this time sending him flying. He landed with a thud on the ground, a moan rising in his throat.
His eyes turning from terrified to begging as the vampire towered over him.
Spike bent down, and then it hit him, harder than anything had ever hit him before, harder than the time he had merely suspected it because this time he KNEW.
"The chip.! It's not working," he growled to himself, the man on the ground now whimpering with fear.
"Please, don't hurt me." a small voice now rose out of the man's throat as he tried to speak through the blood. "I-I'm sorry 'bout what I said. I-I was drunk and stupid."
Spike stared down at the man, at the prey, at the blood, and for the first time in all the time that he had been what he was; a hunter, a killer, a creature of the night that fed on life to stay alive, he backed away from his victim.
He backed so far away from it that he was with his back against the opposite wall, the harsh brick scraping against him through the cloth of his shirt.
He came out of game face with a low and rather startled groan that sounded like "Buffy" before sinking to his knees and burying his face in his hands.
"It's over," he mumbled. "It's all over."
Then he raised his head, staring at the man before him.
The demon in him was clawing with rage and resentment at what he was doing, but he knew now that he could kill this man as much as he could kill Buffy.
He walked over to him and the man stared at him, tears still in his eyes and now the horror was coming back into them as well.
Spike bent down, the man recoiling pitifully but when Spike took a hold of his shoulders, helping him to stand up the expression in his eyes turned into questioning amazement.
Spike could hardly look at him, much because of the fact that he couldn't believe what he was doing. He had spent the whole blooming day cursing Buffy in his head, swearing over what she had turned him into, blaming all his weakness on her, and here he was, not a blonde Slayer in sight, and he was HELPING his sodding PREY!
No longer toothless, no longer handicapped and he was turning away from his bloody nature.
And for WHAT, to escape having to feel GUILTY, since when did he get a conscience?
"T-thank you," the man said as Spike handed him a handker-chief he had kept in one of his pockets.
"Get yourself out of here and to a hospital," Spike grumbled, turning away and walking towards the alley exit. "And keep out of my sight!" he yelled back over his shoulder before turning around the corner of the building.
Dusk was sinking over London, he noticed.
A shiver ran up his spine as he thought about what he had just done. And then he couldn't hold back a smile.
There's a first time for everything, he thought to himself.
By Annie
05-03-2002
Dawn could easily judge by the rather shocked expression on Willow's face that she had hit jackpot with her question.
"What do you know, Willow? Has she talked to you about it?"
Willow stared at the fifteen year old, not sure how she could best tackle this one. Then she shrugged and smiled a little.
"No, she hasn't. But."
The front door opening interrupted her and she and Dawn looked at each other, knowing it was Xander they made a silent agreement to continue their discussion later.
"Hello, everybody," Xander said, walking into the kitchen. "What's for breakfast?"
"Pancakes, if you want them, or cereal. Take your pick," Willow said and smiled at him.
He had been so low the past few weeks, even if he had tried to cover it up. Now, though, he smiled a bright smile back and she couldn't help but ask:
"You seem cheery, something good happen?"
He sat down on the stool next to Dawn and reached for the pancakes before nodding.
"Yep," he said, taking the plate Willow handed him and serving himself he continued: "I've spent most of these weeks thinking about how to live without Anya if she doesn't come back. Well, last night I came to a decision."
Willow and Dawn looked at one another before both turning to Xander who was pouring an extensive amount of syrup on his mountain of pancakes.
"I'm not going to wait anymore," he then said as he grabbed a fork, hacking away at the food before him and then taking his first bite.
"But, Xander." Willow said, rather surprised after all. "You still love her, you said so yourself. You can't just give up on her like that.can you?"
Xander swallowed, smiling widely.
"What I mean is that I'm gonna find her myself. If she refuses to see me then I'll wait in what ever hell-dimension she is in until she WILL," he stated and both Dawn and Willow's eyes became round with surprise before starting to fill with a mutual worry.
"B-but Xander." Willow said again. "Isn't that kinda. dangerous? I mean, maybe you should wait 'til Buffy and Spike gets back. they can help."
He got to his feet, shaking his head before exclaiming:
"I can't wait for Buffy to always fight my battles for me, Will. I HAVE to do this now, or I'll go crazy. I miss Anya so much, I can't just sit around anymore."
"But, Buffy and Spike might be home today! We don't know how they'll set the mirror, or how it works. Maybe they'll walk through it in an hour!" Dawn said.
"Dawn, thank you for the concern. I know I haven't always been the most forward of the Scoobs but I know I can do this. And I really have to," Xander answered, then he walked up to the door leading to the hallway, breakfast forgotten. "I'll be back, too, I promise, I just need Anya to know that what I did. that it didn't have anything to do with my feelings for her."
Willow looked at him for a moment, then walked up to him and gave him a big hug, Dawn soon joined them and he sighed a little with relief, glad to have their support.
"Be careful," Willow mumbled, feeling her throat knot with tears. "You'd better not break that promise. We need you here, you know."
They let go and he smiled at them both, reassuringly.
Then he turned and walked to the front door.
As it closed Willow stared at it, feeling a terrible emptiness inside at the thought of loosing him.
"Damn it, if I hadn't gotten all crazy addicted to the magic I could have helped him," she said angrily and Dawn put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't think like that. Besides, did you see the look in his eyes, all determined and stuff? He'll be back," she said and Willow nodded, still looking at the closed door.
"He'd BETTER be," she mumbled.
***
Buffy lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and feeling nothing but an empty hole inside. No anger, no irritation, no resentment; just a big, black nothing. But the pain of it was excruciating and tears were slowly filling her eyes, she didn't care to hold them back, she was tired of crying but too strained to be able to keep from it.
Besides, the pain made her either have to cry or scream, and she thought the former was just a little smarter than the latter.
When she heard approaching steps outside she rolled over on her side, burying her head in one of the soft pillows and praying with everything in her that it wouldn't be Spike.
She didn't want him to think that she was crying because of what he had said, because she wasn't!
She didn't exactly know WHY she was crying but tried to blame it on the fact that she had had it bottled up inside for way too long and with him being his usual despicable self he had pushed more buttons than he had bargained for.
There was a knock on the door, and she could tell it wasn't him. First of all he probably wouldn't have knocked after the way they just left it, and secondly, his knock, had there been one, wouldn't have been as soft as this one.
Relieved she collected herself and dragged herself up into a seated position before saying:
"Come in."
The door opened and Sarah appeared, looking rather pale as she approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Buffy could see that Sarah was studying her still tear sprinkled eyes and she tried to blink them away, with not much success.
Then Sarah turned away and Buffy suddenly felt a gnawing worry start to fill up the hole inside.
"Sarah?" she asked and tried to keep the feeling out of her voice. "What's the matter? .If you're thinking about what Spike just talked about," she laughed to try to underline how used to it she was, when she really wasn't. The laugh sounded flat and she closed her mouth, feeling how tense she was. "Well," she said, desperately looking for a way to swipe his statement away. "He IS like that. He DOES that. And I do know about it, I've always known about it. only forgotten it from time to time," the last part she added mostly to herself but Sarah now turned her two cobalt blues towards her, they expressing so much concern that Buffy quickly continued: "I mean, remember what I told you yesterday? I told you that Spike and me, we don't mesh. We don't fit together at all."
The feeling of his hands running over every curve of her body, his lips against her skin. She snapped herself out of it.
"We fight ALL the time and this argument will. it will blow over," she assured with as big a smile that she could muster.
"He left," Sarah said slowly.
The gnawing worry inside of Buffy turned into astonishment, then disbelief and then a subtle fear, gently tugging at every nerve string in her entire body.
She swallowed hard, staring at Sarah.
"He what?" she asked when she finally got her speech back.
"He left.He said he'll be back tonight."
With that relief was spreading fast among the fear and almost completely chased it away. Buffy hardly noticed because now she started to feel the anger. She was getting angrier with him by the second.
"But. But it's DAY! He can't just LEAVE! And what does that mean, 'be back tonight'? What the hell is he doing? So, he thinks we don't need his help, then? Well.! And-and it's DAY!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet.
Sarah got off the bed too, trying to stay calm as Buffy thoughtlessly exploded.
"Buffy, listen. I think that he needs to do some thinking. A lot of things are happening right now and I think he's not sure how to deal with them."
"He can DEAL with them during the night, when the rest of us are sleeping! How CAN he just LEAVE! It's DAY, it's SUN-."
She stopped herself, the un-going patter on her windowsill making her realize that, no, there was no sun today. No deadly rays, no risk of burning.
"Well," she grumbled, the anger still bubbling inside and she didn't want to let it die, she wanted to keep it there until he came back, so she could take it out on him.
Scream at him for leaving, scream at him for being so damn selfish, scream at him for saying what he had before, making her feel stupid and weak and.
Her eyes widened at the realization, the expression in them first making her look incredibly vulnerable, and then hard as stone. She shook her head, turned away from Sarah and said:
"He's supposed to be sleeping now. He's not supposed to be out roaming the streets."
"Say's who?" Sarah's voice asked, calm and controlled as always.
***
He swiped the glass up from the tattered, wooden bar counter and brought it to his lips, tilting his head back and taking the contents of the small glass in his mouth with one movement. Swallowing it, feeling the slightly burning sensation as it traveled down the inside of his throat, soon it settled in his stomach and then he knew it would soon journey up to his head.
He put the glass down with a hard bam and turned to the bartender, his mind was already slightly fuzzy, after all he had had almost three bottles of whiskey already, but not fuzzy enough and he said:
"Another."
The bartender eyed him carefully, and then shrugged a little, picking up a bottle and filling the glass to the edges.
Spike looked at the amber colored liquid, then repeated the ritual again, swallowing it down.
"Mister, you should probably call it a day," the bartender said when he once more slammed the glass down on the bar, waiting for another fill up.
Spike stared at him for a moment.
Did this man not know what he was? Of course he didn't, he reminded himself, no one knew. Except for Buffy. That bitch seemed to know everything about him, didn't she?
What a pitiful vampire she had turned him into. How he hated her! How he despised himself for ever getting caught in her sticky little web. And ruthless as a spider attacks her catch she had moved in on him and killed him, over and over and over and over.
"Well, not again," he murmured, the bartender still keeping an eye on him he noticed.
He almost wanted to laugh at him, wanted to rip the damned bar counter off its nails and throw it across the room just to see what kind of expression THAT would put on the whelp's face. He shrugged; stepping down from the stool he had been seated on for. he had no idea for how long.
"Here I go," he said to the bartender, the room spinning around him and he smiled widely.
Then a heavy hand was placed on his shoulder and he turned around, his blue eyes meeting a pair of green ones, watery with drunkenness they stared at him before a breath smelling of a nauseating mix of alcohols carried slurred words at him:
"You haven't paid, have you, boy?"
He stared at the man, then at the hand on his shoulder. Without even making an attempt at replying he shrugged the man's hand off and turned to walk away.
But the hand took an even harder grip on his coat and the man said:
"Then maybe you should pay for ME."
Spike felt the almost blinding rage he had been trying to drown easily struggle to the surface of his drenched mind and he grabbed the man's hand, turning around towards him with eyes that were icy cold. The chip was forgotten and the thirst for a fight now stronger than anything else.
"You don't know what the bloody hell you're messing with, old man," he said, pushing the man's hand off his shoulder before turning around again.
As he had expected the man gave him a hard push and he almost lost his balance, even though his brain was already sobering up. Damn the vampire nature of healing the body ten times as fast as the human nature ever could.
"Take it outside," the bartender said, a warning tone in his voice and Spike looked from him to the man before replying:
"My pleasure."
With a look at green-eyes he turned and walked to the back door of the pub, leading into a dirty little alley.
Perfect, he thought to himself as he heard the door behind him open and close, green-eyes following in his footsteps.
Spike turned around as the man charged him. He easily avoided the blow green-eyes tried to deliver and his hand shot out, hitting the man in the stomach. He huffed and took a step backwards, his eyes now enlarging as Spike went into game face. He was on the man the next second, giving him a blow on the cheekbone. Spike could feel the bone crackle underneath his fist and the demon inside of him roared with pleasure as he raised his left hand and delivered a perfect hit to green-eyes' nose. The cracking sound it made and the following gush of blood made him more than certain that he had broken it.
The man looked rather sobered up by now and his eyes were blinking with surprise and pain as he held his hands to his nose, the blood filling his mouth making him cough.
Spike stared at the red liquid, his whole being filled with the scent of it. He could feel it in his mouth, taste it on his tongue, the sensation of it filling him up and making him feel alive!
He took a step forward and then kicked out his leg, once more hitting green- eyes in the stomach and this time sending him flying. He landed with a thud on the ground, a moan rising in his throat.
His eyes turning from terrified to begging as the vampire towered over him.
Spike bent down, and then it hit him, harder than anything had ever hit him before, harder than the time he had merely suspected it because this time he KNEW.
"The chip.! It's not working," he growled to himself, the man on the ground now whimpering with fear.
"Please, don't hurt me." a small voice now rose out of the man's throat as he tried to speak through the blood. "I-I'm sorry 'bout what I said. I-I was drunk and stupid."
Spike stared down at the man, at the prey, at the blood, and for the first time in all the time that he had been what he was; a hunter, a killer, a creature of the night that fed on life to stay alive, he backed away from his victim.
He backed so far away from it that he was with his back against the opposite wall, the harsh brick scraping against him through the cloth of his shirt.
He came out of game face with a low and rather startled groan that sounded like "Buffy" before sinking to his knees and burying his face in his hands.
"It's over," he mumbled. "It's all over."
Then he raised his head, staring at the man before him.
The demon in him was clawing with rage and resentment at what he was doing, but he knew now that he could kill this man as much as he could kill Buffy.
He walked over to him and the man stared at him, tears still in his eyes and now the horror was coming back into them as well.
Spike bent down, the man recoiling pitifully but when Spike took a hold of his shoulders, helping him to stand up the expression in his eyes turned into questioning amazement.
Spike could hardly look at him, much because of the fact that he couldn't believe what he was doing. He had spent the whole blooming day cursing Buffy in his head, swearing over what she had turned him into, blaming all his weakness on her, and here he was, not a blonde Slayer in sight, and he was HELPING his sodding PREY!
No longer toothless, no longer handicapped and he was turning away from his bloody nature.
And for WHAT, to escape having to feel GUILTY, since when did he get a conscience?
"T-thank you," the man said as Spike handed him a handker-chief he had kept in one of his pockets.
"Get yourself out of here and to a hospital," Spike grumbled, turning away and walking towards the alley exit. "And keep out of my sight!" he yelled back over his shoulder before turning around the corner of the building.
Dusk was sinking over London, he noticed.
A shiver ran up his spine as he thought about what he had just done. And then he couldn't hold back a smile.
There's a first time for everything, he thought to himself.