Ch.6

Angel walked down the stairs towards the elevators. He was getting ready to go buy some pig's blood, he was really hungry and although he usually did get it delivered to him, he wanted to get out of the firm. He barely reached the elevators when the door opened with the automatic 'ding' announcing its' arrival. He was shocked at what he saw.

It was Spike, he was leaning against the left side of the elevator, holding his chest with one hand, and using the other to support himself. His face had four slashes that looked like they had been given by a sword and were bleeding freely.

"Angel…" he choked out through heaving breaths as he tried to walk forward, but stumbled.

Luckily enough, Angel caught him before he fell all the way. He hoisted Spike's left arm around his shoulders and aided Spike in walking to Fred's lab. She usually stayed their late and he was sure she'd be able to do something.

"Angel…" Spike tried to speak again, but the pain was too great and made his voice catch in his throat. His legs failed him and he stumbled. Angel supported him

"It's alright, we're gonna get you fixed up," Angel told him.

Spike just nodded as he limped down the stairs to Fred's lab. Meanwhile, Fred was busy mixing chemicals and running statistics as well as searches in her computer. She was about to mix more chemicals before she heard a groan behind her. She turned and faced Angel holding Spike up to his feet, who looked like he had seen better days.

"Oh my God, what happened?"

"I don't know, but he needs help," Angel answered.

"Uh sure, lie him on the cot over there, I'm gonna go get something to heal him up," Fred told him as she left to a cabinet.

Angel took Spike to the cot and laid him down. Spike was near passing out, but somehow stayed conscious. Fred came back with her healing things and set down on the side of the cot next to Spike. She saw the gaping hole in his shirt and saw the wound.

"He's been stabbed," she assessed as she looked to his face, "That seems to be the worst of his injuries."

She pushed his coat further off his shoulders and raised his shirt up.

"Jesus!" she heard Spike cough out.

She looked up, he was awake more so now.

"Your hands are bloody cold love," he said as he pushed away her hands.

"Sorry," Fred apologized as she removed her hands from his stomach.

"All I'll need is a band-aid and I'll be fine," Spike told her as he tried to get up.

"No can do," she told him as Angel pushed him gently back down on the cot.

"You've been hurt badly, let her fix you up a bit first, alright?" Angel asked.

Spike sighed and lied back, "Fine."

Fred took out a large white bandage, put it carefully on his chest wound, and then pulled back down his shirt. She then focused on nursing the cuts on his face. She began to dab at them with gauze.

"So," Angel began as he walked over and leaned against Fred' lab table, "What happened?"

"Well," Spike began as he winced from the sting of the gauze against his open wounds.

"Sorry," Fred repeated.

"Well," Spike started again, "I was going downtown to get kill-"

"A kill?" Angel asked.

"Spike looked to him, "Well what do you want me to do? Eat bloody pig's blood like you? Bugger that!"

Angel sighed and nodded to Spike to continue his story.

"Well," Spike started but winced again from the liquid bandages that Fred was applying to his face, "Will you sod off?!"

He angrily got up to a sitting position and fixed his coat to where it usually settled on his shoulders.

Fred picked up her things, "I was finished anyway."

Spike glared at her for moment and then went back to finishing his story.

"Well, you see I was in a back alley waitin' for some idiot to come and that'd be my meal. Just when I was thinking of leaving, this girl walks into the alley, well, stumbled actually."

"What happened after that?" Angel asked.

"Well I was in the shadows, she didn't see me. But she was actin' all weird, she was holdin' her head and yellin' like she was going insane. So I figured that I would just put the girl out of her misery. I went up to grab her from behind but then was met in the throat with a sword."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Spike said as he felt his neck, "But it's healed up now, it was just a scratch anyways. But then I looked to my left, and this guy's there. I asked him who he was, he asked me who I was, we didn't tell each other, got into a tussle, he wounded me, and then he took the girl and left."

"What'd this guy look like?"

"He had black hair, and clothes. But he wore some gray too."

"Anything else?"

"Angel, what the hell do you want from me?" Spike yelled a bit, "I just received a beating from some supernatural, immortal guy and now you want to know every exact detail about what he looked like?"

"Immortal?" Angel asked.

Spike scoffed, "Yeah, when I got the advantage, I threatened him with his own sword. He stabbed it through his own chest and through mine. It healed up within, like, ten seconds."

"Too fast for a normal vampire or any other kind of supernatural creature."

"Yeah," Spike agreed.

"Spike, you said the guy had black hair," Angel said, "Could you define that a little better?"

Spike glared at him, "Well seeing that you're onto something Peaches, I guess I could. He had long bangs and his hair was thick. It was smoothed to the back of his head."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, he had a mustache and a goatee that didn't meet each other. Like a fingers' width apart. I think."

Angel thought for a moment and then said, "I know who attacked you Spike."

"Oh really? Who?"

"Dorian Gray."

"What?" both Spike and Fred asked.

"I saw him before and your description fits. Dorian attacked you, and now, when you saw this girl that he took, it makes me think there's a lot more than what he's telling us."

Spike sighed and Fred was still in shock.

"I guess that's what we get for taking such a vague job," Spike said.

Angel and Fred nodded.

Ch.7

Dorian sat upon his couch languidly in his hotel room. He sighed and put a hand over his eyes. The nights' events were quite tiring upon him. Not physically, but rather mentally. He knew who the guy was that he met in the alley. He was one of Angel's lackeys, or his rival. He'd seen and heard that they both fought against each other, as well as worked together. What was his name? Ah, Spike, that was it.

He had once met him a long time ago, when he used to know Druscilla, before she had gone more insane than she already was. She had often discussed Spike to him, or back then, William and how she was going to turn him. That was how he had come to know Mina again.

Mina……

He heard the window latch click and the pane slide away. The familiar thumps of feet on the floor hit his ears with precision and he heard the window being slid back to it's original place.

"How many did you take?" he asked the person that had just come in.

"Not many Mr. Dorian," came the timid reply.

"How many?" he asked again.

"….three, Mr. Dorian."

Dorian removed his hand from his eyes and sat up.

"Three is not many to you?" he said as he looked at his pupil.

She wrung her hands nervously and kept her eyes downcast. She nearly broke down into tears, and looked as if she would melt from Dorian's piercing gaze.

"I-I'm sorry. B-but I was just so hungry…"

"I've told you time and again, to sustain yourself, eat only what you need to survive."

"But I haven't fed in eight months!" the girl protested, but was soon silenced when she met Dorian's gaze.

"It doesn't matter," he told her, "You're lucky I even allow you to eat one a year. Now, since you are ungrateful for my generosity, you will pay the consequences."

Her head shot up, "No! Mr. Dorian, please! Don't, I can't take it again!"

"Well you didn't learn the first time, so hopefully you'll learn this time," Dorian said as he pulled a knife out of his pocket and flipped it open.

Fresh tears dripped down the young girl's face as he came towards her. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the small kitchen area, holding her hand over the sink.

"Please don't…." she pleaded.

Dorian just shook his head at her as he drew the knife across her palm and wrist vein. Fresh blood poured from the cuts, dribbling into the sink, draining the very life out of the girl.

"Please…" she pleaded.

"No," he said as he shook his head, "You cannot do this any longer…Sair."

The girl cried and collapsed onto the ground, her wounds healing slowly, but surely. Dorian smiled, this was what was destined for Mina, when he found her.

He picked Sair up and lied her on the bed in the adjacent room, she'd be alright the next night. He went to the couch again, deep in thought. When he found Mina, he would have her at his side. Commanding a utopian world, full of strong vampires that didn't take more than they needed of human life, demons, and immortals like him.

That was his dream.

He reclined back onto the couch, now all that was left was to find Mina.