The Tattoo chapter two. Same disclaimer as before.
Not sure where this one is taking me…but I promise it should be interesting.
Enjoy!
Then.
After reaching the hotel, Angel practically runs to his room. Hands still tremoring, he goes for the icebox and the liquid contained there. Gulps it out of the bottle before he knows what he's doing. Ice cold O positive slides down his throat- and his face changes at the taste.
Shocked, the bottle drops from his fingers as he touches his ridged forehead.
Shattered glass and blood coat his shoes- go for the real stuff baby- I'm always here, inside- a puny little soul can't keep me down-
Howling in frustration, he grabs his car keys and heads out the door he hadn't even bothered to lock.
Driving aimlessly down Sunset, he watches as people mill about, waiting for the lights to change. He doesn't really know where he's going or what he's doing, but he knows that he can't be alone with himself right now.
He passes a couple arguing animatedly, kids waiting for movies, and the Hollywood sign finally.
Mulholland beckons, and he follows his instinct.
High above Los Angeles proper, Angel sits on the hood of his car and smokes another cigarette, a stupid human habit, but the action makes him feel a little more normal.
I can do this, I can fight him. I don't need human blood. Screw the blood bank. Yeah, it's convienent, but…if it's doing what I think it's doing…
Human blood had always been a powerful thing to him. To all vampires of course, but Angelus revelled in it like Dru had revelled in her madness, or Spike had revelled in, well, Dru. And railroad yards.
It's taste was like a drug in his system. Thinking back now, Angel had begun to realize that it wasn't really the feeding, the necessity of feeding that had turned him on so much. It was the idea that he, simple little Liam from Galway, had the power of life and death in his hands. Anyone's life. Everyone's death. Priests, teachers, governers, dock workers, nuns, maids, anyone. Anyone. They could cut a swath through a village and no one could do a thing.
No one except some simple gypsies and there simple favored daughter he just happened to have killed.
Blowing out a puff of tobacco smoke, he considered what he was doing, and why it was so easy now to make excuses and treat the ease of the blood bank as a trouble-free way to prolong his existance.
He had lived on rats and vermin for so long, since the turn of the century really, that discovering the blood bank and well hell, if I pay them I can always find a willing employee to help me out. Or…I could just go in there and take what I need.
So that's how it had started. Paying for his weekly supply of blood, and then after a while not even paying any more. Just sneaking in and taking what he wanted.
Not stealing, right? Just another way of surviving, just like everyone else.
Except I'm not like everyone else. I'm a demon with a soul. And that demon seems to be knocking down the prison I made for him.
Is it the blood that's doing it? Oh my god, that's it, isn't it?
Angel starts abruptly, realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. Or a ton of blessed crosses, whichever.
Human blood, that thing that was so powerful and such a source of pride and importance to Angelus but really Liam, was responsible for bringing him back from his slumber.
The one thing Angel knew he absolutely did not want to happen.
He stubbs out his cigarette, pitching it into the darkness, about to get back into his car and move on, just like he always does when things get to the poing where he can't deal.
He likes L.A. But not enough to stay there when his vicious alter ego has an easy way of coming out.
The proof of that lies in stark black ink on his back, the bold 'A' testimony to his presence in Angel.
He opens the door of his car, and puts his foot in.
In the next second he is lying flat on his back, shockwaves of pain running up and down his spine, and through his smarting, watery eyes he can see people in masks gazing down at him, guns pointed at him. Smoke pours from the barrell of one of the guns, and one of the faceless people turns to the one with the smoking weapon.
"Damn it, Hennessy, I knew that thing wouldn't work."
"It took him down, didn't it? Now get the nets before his strength comes back."
The man points the barrel of the gun at him, and a blue light arcs between the weapon and Angel's chest.
He can only scream briefly before all is black.
TBC.