115

Spike was half-way to the portal room when it occurred to him that the information he'd acquired was completely useless to him without someone who could open a portal. He started mentally running through the people he knew who could, and more to the point, would open a portal for him.

Wesley, he was pretty sure, had the know-how. But the Watcher was also so duty-struck that he probably wouldn't do it without Angel's say-so. Probably wouldn't blow his bloody nose without Angel's say-so. Add to that that Percy was a bit tougher than he looked. Spike doubted that he could intimidate him into it.

That left one of the witches on staff. Spike knew most of them by sight, but few of them by name. And of those few, that was about all he knew. And the day was getting on. Most people would be packing it in for home soon.

Desperation measures were called for, then.

Luck, the fates, or perhaps even The Powers themselves were on Spike's side, for as he turned a corner, there was one of the handful of witches he actually knew by name.

"Hello, Zelda." He flashed her a charming smile. "Sorry I haven't got time to do this nicely, but I need a portal opened now, and you're going to do it for me."

Zelda licked her lips nervously. The claymore seemed to have that effect on people. "We're supposed to have authorization from Angel before we open a portal," she murmured. Her eyes hadn't left the sword for a moment.

"My buddy Angel, who I'm currently rooming with?" Spike asked. Bloody hell, he was going to have to wash his own mouth out with soap to get the taste of that lie out of it.

"You are, aren't you?" The law firm was, to all intents and purposes, a small town. News got around and it got around fast. Her eyes were still riveted on the claymore.

"'S'right," Spike drawled. "Do you think I really need that authorization, Angel and me bein' such good pals and all?" God, it was hard to keep a straight face.

"I suppose not," Zelda replied, still eyeballing the weapon. "Which dimension do you need a portal to?"

&&&&&&&&

Knox was preparing to leave when his cell phone rang. Out of habit, he checked where the incoming call originated. Fred. His boss. That was good. And he was about to answer until he remembered that the last time he'd seen Fred, she'd been on her way to Angel's office. Knox was no slouch in the brains department, but Fred was so smart that even he was in awe. No doubt she'd managed to add two and two and now she and the chief executive vampire wanted to ask him where Spike had gone. A nanosecond's thought and he decided that he really didn't want to be caught in an argument between two vampires. He tossed the still ringing phone into his desk drawer and beat a hasty retreat for home.

&&&&&&&&

Kraj was feeling put out. So far, M'rek had not offered so much as a syllable of praise for his success in gaining him possession of the vessel. And practically ever since her arrival, all M'rek had done was fuss over and pamper his new acquisition. It irked him no end to think his loyalty and devotion were to receive no reward while the demon bitch became a fawned over favorite simply because she was going to whelp. It wasn't fair.

&&&&&&&

"He isn't answering," Fred muttered in frustration. "Do you want me to keep trying?"

Angel shook his head and called security. "Can you locate me Knox from R & D?" he asked. "Oh he did. When? No, that will be all, thank you." He turned to look at Fred. "According to security he left the building about five minutes ago."

"But I've been trying to get hold of him for at least ten," Fred protested. "So why isn't he..," Her voice trailed off as she realized why he wasn't.

"Spike." Angel spat the name out like it tasted bad. "Dammit, that bleached blonde moron is going to get himself, Rose and their kids killed."

"That's not going to help," Fred pointed out. "But if Spike does think he knows where Rose is, where would he go next?"

"The portal room," Angel answered, heading for the door. "Fred, round up the rest of the guys and meet me there. I'll go talk to the portal guards and find out if Spike's used it, and if he did, who was stupid enough to open a portal for him."

&&&&&&&

Zelda pressed a small object into Spike's hand. "This is for retrieval," she informed him. "When you are ready to return, press the button and the portal will re-open to bring you back."

"Thanks, Zelda, you're a pet." Spike shouldered his sword again and walked into the swirling vortex of the portal.

Zelda watched Spike go and shook her head. She knew what Spike was up to. As had been remarked before, news traveled fast at the law firm, and something as sensational as the disappearance of Rose and subsequently finding the portal guards unconscious had made the rounds within the hour. Nor was she as gullible as Spike supposed. Enough of the staff had heard him and Angel snapping and snarling at each other to know there was little love lost between them. He really hadn't had to lie to her. She'd have opened the portal for him anyway, she was a hopeless romantic herself. She sighed. She'd better leave now, she decided. Otherwise it was very likely that people, or more to the point, a vampire, in high places would be looking for her to ask some questions that Spike wouldn't want her answering just yet. She mumbled a spell, and disappeared from sight.

&&&&&&&

Rose was starting to feel hollow inside, even though on a purely psychological level, she didn't feel like eating. She thought of her uneaten lunch sitting on her desk, and wondered how long it would take someone to notice that she was gone. She also didn't like the idea of having to ask M'rek for anything. But she had the well-being of her children to think of, and that should outweigh any other considerations. She was sitting quietly on her cushion while M'rek was barking orders to this flunky and that. Evidently he had some sort of party in the works to celebrate her capture. She waited as patiently as she could until there was a gap in the procession of underlings and instructions.

"May I have permission to speak, my Lord?" she asked, head carefully bowed. She didn't want to do anything to offend him.

"Look at me, Rose," M'rek commanded. When she lifted her head, he answered. "Speak as you wish, for the moment."

"I was just about to eat my noon meal when Kraj brought me here," Rose said slowly. "I haven't had anything to eat since I got up this morning." An embarrassingly loud rumble from her stomach verified that she was indeed hungry.

"You should have said something sooner," M'rek chided gently. "You must think of your young, Rose." A loud bark brought a servant running. "Fetch a meal fit for a whelping bitch," he directed. "And make all due haste." He turned back to Rose, who had bowed her head again as if contemplating the stones of the floor. "Where do you come from, Rose?"

Rose's head jerked up in surprise. She'd forgotten that M'rek had his own copy of the prophecy. But since he wanted her children alive, he wouldn't kill her anytime soon. Not before Spike could rescue her. She thought she could put up with a certain amount of pain, if needs be to keep her secret. "From Los Angeles," she replied, sounding mystified.

M'rek clicked his tongue and shook his head. "I think you know well enough that is not what I mean, Rose," he warned. "The prophecy says that the vessel shall come from beyond worlds. I want to know where that is."

"Prophecy?" Rose decided to pretend to ignorance as much as she could. "What prophecy?"

"The prophecy that says you will have young when it should be impossible, mated as you are to a vampire," M'rek snapped. "You cannot be entirely ignorant of it. You would certainly not have been so well guarded if those around you were not aware of the prophecy."

Rose privately thought that she would have been that well guarded, but explaining that to M'rek would probably lead to the very area she was trying to decoy him away from. She was given a bit more grace time by the servant rushing back with her meal.

M'rek took the dish from the servant, and began hand-feeding her as he had done the night when she and the two vampires had been his guests. Rose was even less comfortable with it now than she had been then, but M'rek had been right about one thing. She had to think about her children, and if that meant accepting food from the demon's hand, then, so be it. She just hoped that the meal would be distraction enough to make him forget his line of inquiry.

M'rek had not forgotten. Before the dish was half-emptied, he returned to the conversation. "You still have not answered my question to my satisfaction, Rose," he remarked in tones that were quiet yet menacing. "If you cannot make good use of your tongue, I may decide that you no longer have need of it."

Rose decided to go ahead and tell him the truth. After all, it wasn't like he could go there, and telling him where she came from was not exactly the same thing as telling him what she had been. "It's.., it's very hard to explain," she mumbled, realizing that telling the truth wasn't going to be that easy either. "It isn't really a place at all. It just is."

M'rek's eyes narrowed as he regarded her. The answer told him absolutely nothing, but on the other hand, one could hardly expect intelligent answers from a lesser species. That she was able to speak as intelligently as she did was little short of a marvel to him. He would have to put some thought into it. Perhaps what was required was the right questions. He started thinking about what the right questions might be, as he continued to feed his new pet.

&&&&&&&

Angel was almost to the portal room when he felt something brush past him. He turned and looked behind him, but all he saw was the empty hallway. But was it? He stopped using his eyes, there obviously wasn't anything for him to see, and sniffed the air. Someone had been here, and within the last few moments. He followed the scent down the hall, around a corner and down another hall. He thought he was almost on whoever or whatever it was when he entered a new corridor, and a gaggle of giggling females from the secretarial pool passed by, and he lost the scent as it mingled with theirs. Damn.

Temporarily defeated, he retraced his steps back to the portal room. The guards snapped to attention when he entered.

"Has anyone used this portal recently?" he asked them. "Most specifically, has Spike been through here?"

"Just a few minutes ago," one of the guards confirmed. Seeing the look on Angel's face, he asked. "Wasn't he supposed to be here? I mean, he had a witch with him to open the portal. We didn't think anyone would do anything like that without your authorization, sir."

"And I don't suppose that you noticed the big, sharp piece of metal he had with him?" Angel said suggestively. "In the right circumstances, that sort of thing can buy an awful lot of cooperation."

"We just thought he was going to need it wherever he was going," the other guard filled in. "If we had known he didn't have the proper authorization we would have..," His voice suddenly trailed away as he tried to think of what he and his partner could have done to stop a determined vampire with a five-foot sword.

"Did you recognize the witch that opened the portal for him?" Angel inquired. He wasn't going to blame them for not trying to stop Spike. The mood that Spike was in, he'd have probably hacked them to ribbons before he remembered that he had a soul.

"Oh sure, it was Zelda," the first guard replied. "But she didn't act like she was being forced into it, sir. That's one of the reasons that we didn't question it."

Angel pulled out his cell phone as the rest of his team began to assemble in the portal room. "Security, I need one of the staff witches, name of Zelda. If she isn't still in the building, try her at home. I need to consult with her."

&&&&&&

Spike emerged from the portal trying to look in all directions at once. But his luck held, the area was deserted. And he recognized it from his previous visit. Dog-boy's place. He'd thought that uppity mutt had been getting too familiar with Rose, and now, he knew why. He gave the hilt of the sword a fond pat. Time for some payback. And, far more importantly, time to get Rose and take her back where she belonged. With him.

&&&&&&&&

Fred went over to a computer console that was set into the wall and began clicking away.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked. He still wasn't used to the way Wolfram and Hart casually mixed magic and technology. Somehow, it just didn't seem right.

"This system logs all portals, both incoming and outgoing," Fred explained. "It can't open the portal, we haven't worked out a program that will do that, yet. But we can track them." The images on the screen flickered and changed. "There it is," she said with satisfaction. "The last outgoing portal went to.., uh-oh."

Angel definitely didn't like the sound of that one. "Where, Fred?" he demanded.

"You know that new client we had lunch with the other week?" Fred asked. "You know, the one when Spike hit the client's servant. That's the dimension that the portal opened to. Lord M'rek's dimension."

"Shit." The single syllable was spoken with depth and feeling. "And that's where Spike has gone?"

"It looks that way," Fred replied. "But if we're going to follow him, we still need someone to open a portal."

All eyes turned to Wesley. "It looks like I'm on," he remarked mildly. "Luckily, I came prepared."