Apocalypse Nowish

Chapter 5-Tomorrow, We Drove

Hello everyone and thanks again to everyone who took the time and effort to read and review my story so far. Thanks for all the suggestions and I'll try and fit some of them in with the story line I have got already. It already involves the scoobies, to anyone who worries. Anyhow here is my fifth chapter, hope it doesn't disappoint.

Previously: Conner and Justine dumped Angel into the ocean in a sealed container.

Conner and Justine are living together in a house Holtz bought.

Lorne is returning.

Wesley has earned the cooperation of Justine in finding Angel.

The girl in the white room spoke of a prophecy to Lilah.

Lilah has found how to unearth prophecy and is going there.

Conner has been spotted by Wolfram and Hart and is on the run.

The year 1755, Ireland.

A small, pale-faced body rested pervertedly against the wall in the corner of an eerily silent, candle lit room. She was a young girl, about twelve, and had an innocent face of great purity. The candlelight did little to warm her broken soul; though not yet dead, her life was rapidly draining away before the two pairs of wicked eyes across the room. She bore a small, red, cross on her left cheek, carved into her skin with a sacred precision. The wall opposite her was stained with dark, cold, blood, in great quantity. On the ground below the dripping, red, wall, lay two dead bodies, in a puddle of blood, the girl's mother and father.

"I've never understood it. "Angelus said, sitting on a seat beside the family's dining table and watching the young daughter fade away. Darla, who was standing beside him, looked down at him curiously. "Family." Angel stated, keeping his eyes on the girl in the corner of the room. Darla looked back at the dying girl in thought. "Mortals. They spend their entire lives worrying about family, friends. They struggle to gain approval, it's all that they seek." She replied.

"The love between father and son, mother and daughter I don't understand these mortal's love for each other and I am thankful to you, Darla, for rescuing me from the clutches of their unavailing love."

"Did you not feel the love yourself, Angelus? After all you were human, albeit an unorthodox one."

"Their ceaseless requirements and expectations, from my father, from everybody, drove me away from them. Looking back at my life now, it's as though I'm watching a play, seeing what the performer's can never see." Angelus paused for a second. "I believe it was my farther who taught me how to hate, soul, or no soul."

Darla smiled at Angelus and managed a final glimpse of the girl's body before it became lifeless, a corpse.

Angel felt not the water he was submerged in, felt not the steel ropes that bound him tightly and relentlessly; he had sunk into another reality, his thoughts, emotions, were nothing but random recollections and strange dreams, day by day, hour by hour. He had not opened his eyes to the sea for a long time and as every second edged by it seemed he was falling into himself, his memories and dreams.

He did not hear the clanging, banging and other various noises of the following hour. By the strike of that hour he was partially pulled back into reality with his first sensation in a long time, the taste of blood, fresh, human, blood.

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Wesley felt the pain of the knife across his skin and the loss of blood overcoming him quickly. He had opened up the sealed container to find Angel starved and deprived, and, knowing that vampires can fall into eternal brain damage if they went without blood for too long, had pulled one of his trusted daggers out and, whilst biting his lip, slit his wrist. It would take a lot of blood to save Angel's mind. He swallowed a fierce yell for the sake of reputation and bit his lip as he felt every millilitre of blood gush out of the cut and into Angel's open mouth. Justine hovered around behind him and watched intently; she was amazed at the lengths Wesley was willing to go to save a vampire. She leaned against the wall of the small ship cabin, arms folded, eyes on the blood dripping out of Wesley's hand and into the vampire's mouth. The ship was on a steady course towards the shore and they would be there within 5 minutes. Justine still wondered why she told Wesley where Angel was, would he really have killed her?

Wesley's expression was one of concentration, trying to fend of the pain no doubt. As Angel drank she saw some colour return to his pale cheeks. Before long Wesley took his wrist away from its position above Angels head and wrapped a ready prepared bandage around it as tightly as he could; the bandage quickly began to shade with red. Justine had slowly began to respect Wesley as a character since they had sped away from her home, although she still hated him for beating a tooth out of her, at least it was a back tooth, not too important. Thoughts of revenge ran through her mind least once a minute but she had somehow forced herself to pass up every opportunity she had had, maybe, she didn't know why, but maybe she didn't want revenge. With all that had happened to her recently she was an emotional wreck, incapable of rationalisation or consideration but she felt that Wesley had nudged her out of a deep hole she had been digging, towards darkness. As Wesley helped Angel sit up Justine saw the drops of blood that had been left on the bench in the middle of the room. Angel was still completely in a daze, although he could smell, touch, see, and hear again, his brain didn't translate it all and he was stuck in a world of dreams.

"Take us in" Wesley commanded Justine sternly. She looked at him for a second, a thousand different actions to take flashing by her, and finally nodded, setting off up the stairs to the uppermost deck. Wesley wasn't stupid enough to leave someone as unstable as her alone with Angel in his current state. Angel was slowly recovering, he could tell, as his eye began to flicker every now and then and his complexion had more livelyness to it. He looked at his wrist and finally the pain began to catch up on him, not just his wrist but the bruises and cuts on his face as well. He fell back against the wooden wall and clenched his fists so that his fingernails dug fiercely into his palm. He stayed in the same locked position for a couple of minutes, calming himself and trying to focus through his sharp pain. He realised though, that despite the pain he was proud of what he did and that he had done something noble. Maybe he had taken that first step after all, although he would have to admit to hijacking a ship to do it.

He looked at his watch, about 8.00; he had made good time. He looked over at Angel, who was tossing and turning on the bench, looking as though he was about to roll off. Who knows what kind of thoughts he had buried himself in during his stay in the ocean. As Angel dreamt Wesley thought. He had no remorse for what he had done to Justine, although he might have if he had been wrong, if she had been innocent. His path to redemption had begun and he had no intent on haltering it.

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The Year 1812, Glasgow, Scotland.

A middle aged man sat at a small wooden table in a dimly lit, silent room. He had a small, open jar of black ink on the table beside him and was writing vigorously on a piece of worn parchment. His wrist was at full work as he jotted down the remainder of his thesis. There were two candles on each end of the table either side of him and they alone gave light to the room. There was a large window behind him, inbuilt to the thick stone wall of the university. No light came though it as it was as it was the dead of the night. He had been writing and researching the whole day and although he wished to return to his family for the night, he dared not leave this place, not now. He began to feel a strange, jarring cold, all of a sudden, and without warning. He began to feel the fear; he should have been safely at home, he knew it, but his work had to be finished, it was imperative and it can only be completed with the resources at the university. What he had placed on his scared parchment was a revolutionary thesis, by an old scholar with a denounced penchant for the supernatural. This paper was different though, years of work and he was sure they would believe that vampires were real and maybe he could change the world for the better. He knew though that the creatures of the night knew; he had been attacked several times before. He, or more specifically, his report was becoming a threat to them. It had been a great friend of his whom had yearned him to convince the world of the beasts. After he had heard of the pain that the vampires had caused Holtz he knew they must be stopped.

Two knocks on the wooden door, at the front of the room, broke the silence abruptly. The man almost fell backwards, off his chair. The cold of his solitude shook him more than ever. As cautiously as possible he opened a draw of his desk and pulled out a large, wooden crucifix; he was a man of faith and he wouldn't allow himself and his paper to fall into the hands of the devil. He began walking slowly towards the door, only three steps away before he came to sense and stepped backwards. He had best not approach the door, let the man, or thing, show itself. After about a minute of silence the door handle twisted, slowly, and hauntingly. His heart began to beat rapidly, becoming surer and surer that what stood behind that door was a vampire. After 3 eternally fearful seconds the door began to slowly drift open, as though it were acting on its own accord. The door banged against the wall and there stood Angelus.

Just the wicked, cruel smile Angelus wore was sign enough. He forced the cross out in front of him with one hand and put his other to his chest. Angelus was still about 6 meters away, but slowly approaching with methodic steps.

"So you're the great Alfred." Said Angelus, licking his lips.

"Though I don't represent the rest of my kind in general, I will agree with them on this one." Alfred began to slowly retreat to the window as Angelus slowly advanced.

"You think you're doing a good, noble thing don't you?" Angelus laughed wickedly. "You truly think that all the effort you've put into this was worth anything. I'll tell you now that it was all a waste of time, sorry I'm a bit late on that one but, well, you're a very, very, hard man to find. You did the right thing of course, trying to save all your family, friends. But you mortals, well I don't know, you just don't get it."

"Leave this place, my faith in thy father is greater than the deeds of those who serve the devil; with the cross of god as my ally no harm shall come to me." As he finished he bumped into the window at the end of the room, looking scared and weak. Angelus ignored the man and continued advancing. A predator who knows he has his pray, just plays with it. "I know that what you did really was at the best of heart, and I'm touched, truly. But you've got to understand it's not how we do things that matters, it's what we do. You could spend your entire life rolling a marble backwards and forwards with the best intentions for the world and you wouldn't achieve a thing." Angelus picked up Alfred's parchment and held it over the flame of a candle. The parchment lit and quickly began to burn. Tears rolled down Alfred's cheek and he sobbed with total despair, he felt his muscles give way and all he wanted to do was collapse to the ground and cry.

"All that life's work gone," Angelus stated mockingly, as he dropped a handful of ashes to the floor, "now it doesn't matter how much faith you had, how good your intentions were, you did nothing." Angelus kept a cool glare on the man, his wicked smile and pleasured eyes, breaking him further.

Although Alfred had his eyes to the wet ground below him and was leaning limply against the window, he still held his cross out in front of him. Angelus did not dare come within a meter of him whilst he held the cross so tightly so he wandered over to the dead fireplace and picked up a fire poker. Swinging the fire poker around in his fingers, he walked back the centre of the room and without the slightest warning threw the poker at Alfred's face. The poker flew towards him like a precise bullet and the point pierced right into his head, knocking it back into the window. Blood ran from the wound and all over his face; he died a broken man. He was kneeling on the ground, with his head bent backward through the broken patch of window, on the window seal. His crucifix was still weakly gripped on the floor as Angelus kicked it out of his hand. Alfred's face was far too soaked with blood for Angelus to bother carving a cross into his cheek. Angelus looked down at the tortured man below him, his sad, decrepit face, was devoid of honour or strength. The picture before him was like a clear, framed, image of sacrilege at its worst. Angel smiled, a pleasured look covered his face and he turned his back to the man and walked swiftly out of the door, a smug look on his face.

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"Where the hell is he?" Gunn thought out loud as he desperately scanned the arrival crowd again.

"Maybe, he's just really slow and will be the last one out of the plane. Oh my God, Gunn, what if something happened to him?"

Fred and Gunn were waiting impatiently in a practically empty airport. They had come to pick up Lorne but so far had not been very successful. There were few people in their little spot of the airport as most of the arrival passengers and those who had met them were long gone. Fred dropped her shoulders and sighed, looking at the blue carpet with a disappointed face. Gunn, on the other hand, was straining his neck to get a good look, he wasn't good at giving up, and, after all, there was still a bunch of people collecting their luggage. Suddenly an average built man stepped out from the crowd with a big, brown suitcase dragging down his left shoulder with its weight. Gunn raised his eyebrows when he got a good look at the man. He was alone and wore a scarf completely wrapped around his face, accompanied by a pair of sunglasses. He even had gloves on his hands. Gunn smiled with deep relief and called out to him. Lorne looked around and then spotted them.

He was so relieved to find them, not just because he missed them but because they no doubt had a car, and that meant he could relief himself of all the crap he'd had to pile on himself. He waved to them and picked up his pace, heading towards them as fast as he could, keeping in mind the extreme weight of his suitcase. Although Lorne had enjoyed himself in Vegas he had realised that he'd never had any intention of living there. He had tried to rekindle his love for singing, well, not so much for singing but for singing with people, that always appealed to him as the best way to get to know people, aside from just the destiny reading point of view. He had been very busy in L.A and was ashamed when he couldn't find the time to talk to Fred, that wasn't the reason though; he just wanted to be back in LA The city had something, even though he had sensed a bad vibe coming from Fred.

Just before Lorne got a chance to shake Gunn's outstretched hand and take in account his warming smile, Fred practically dived into him, almost knocking him to the floor. She gave him a tight, welcoming, hug, then bounced back with a huge grin across her face. Lorne noted how ecstatic Fred was to see him, although heart warming, it seemed a little off. He shook Gunn's hand and found his own being shaken vigorously; they were both way too happy to see him. Lorne stepped back and admired both of their beaming faces for a couple of seconds.

"Car" He said, and although it sounded more like a 'mph' to the others they seemed to understand. All three of them turned and walked to the exit of the airport without a word.

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6 hours ago

Gavin heard the familiar beep of the lobby hall's elevator and saw the doors close out of the corner of his eyes. He noticed someone in there but had no need to bother with wondering whom. He was walking briskly out past the front reception and into the brightly lit, marble-floored front lobby. He was in a very determined, motivated mood and even had a good reason to be; one of his contacts had just called and said they'd located Conner, and captured him. If this was true, and it was bound to be, then he would be the proud worker up for employee of the month, at the very least. The thing he was looking forward to the most was when Lynwood returns and asks he and Lilah what they had accomplished during his absence. Gavin will be able to hand over to him a complex report on Conner's physiology and psyche and Lilah will be able to admit to doing jack shit, effectively ensuring blame for the loss of Angel. What's more, if Angel's disappearance was linked to Conner's then he had a ticket to finding Angel, effectively giving him a ticket to glory in the ranks of Wolfram and Hart.

The sleek, glass, front doors slid open and he walked outside and down the long set of stairs, towards his car, parked on the street at the bottom of the stairs. They told him Conner was being held at 25 Manor Road and he didn't intend on letting them transport him to Wolfram and Hart without supervision. The shiny, tinted windows of Wolfram and Hart retreated as Gavin sped away in his dark, green Merc.

3 hours ago

A white van with heavily tinted windows pulled into the Wolfram and Hart underground parking facility. Inside Conner lay, limp, on the hard ground, hands and feet tightly cuffed. In the back, with him, sat two, bulky men with long, black sedation rifles propped up against their shoulders. In the front, Gavin sat in the passenger seat with a mobile to his ear and a jaded, silent, man had the wheel beside him. It was only a two seater so the rest of it was a rusty, metal floor. But for Gavin, on the phone there was no speech.

"Yes, yes, it's me, Gavin. Yes I understand that but, but, I have news your might be interested in. Yes it is. I have just recently acquired Conner at Wolfram and Hart's disposal. No, no, she had nothing to do with this as he was captured at none but my own accord. Yes, yes sir. I have only recently been apprised on that one myself but I'm sure that Conner will be the key to finding him." Gavin went to continue but realised the phone was dead; Lynwood had hung up. Gavin tucked his mobile into his pocket with a smug grin. He felt a warm rush of relief and comfort sweep over him; winning Lynwood over was no simple task to say the least.

The white van did not park; instead it drove up to a guarded garage door near the back of the parking lot and paused. A security guard stepped out of his post and walked up to Gavin's side of the van. Before he got the chance to ask, Gavin held out his authentication pass through the window. The guard took it out of his hand and looked closely at it for a while before passing it back up to Gavin, and walking back to his post to press the hidden button under his desk. Gavin smiled; he finally felt like he was getting somewhere, to be motivated and to be doing something, the drive, it's what we need to be truly content and right now he was overjoyed at the importance. It excited him, drove him.

The van drove under the still opening door and up a concrete ramp inside it. It parked on a large, concrete surface parallel to the ramp. As soon as they stopped the back doors swung open and Gavin jumped out of his side of the van. Behind him the garage door was humming as it closed. Gavin walked swiftly to the rear of the van to see the two men emerge, carrying the still sedated Conner between them. Gavin gestured towards a small, steel door on the wall to their right. As they carried Conner to the door and through it, Gavin walked around to the driver's side of the van and peered in through the open window. The driver turned and looked down at him with his typical flat, 2D, glare. His eyes were cold and thoughtless and his face made no change in complexion no matter what. He was like a moving statue, if you could have such a thing. Yet, Gavin sensed something as he spoke to the man, and it wasn't good. The driver almost made him feel threatened with his sinister glare.

"Take that door," Gavin said, pointing to a second steel door, embedded into the concrete walls, this time, directly in front of the van; "It'll lead you to the back doors of the building. There will be a car waiting. " Gavin waited for a reply, but after the man stared at him for a couple of seconds before twisting the handle of his door to get out, he added, " be sure to thank your boss for me and remind him of my hopes for a strong partnership in the future. " Gavin smiled at the man, almost with a cunning hint. The man simply nodded, stepped out of the truck and left through the steel door Gavin had specified. He looked strangely inhuman, as his dark suit was so neatly worn, it was like it was a part of him. Like, you didn't recognise them as clothes alone, you saw them as the things he wore. It appeared to Gavin that he had worn the suit his entire life. The man had a white shirt under his buttoned up jacket and Gavin could see a light blue tie as well.

Gavin watched the door for a second then thought out loud, "such high employee standards." Shaking his head mockingly, he walked through the open steel door to his right. The white van lay dormant in the cold concrete room, never to be used again.

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"Damn," Lilah thought to herself as she slammed another thick, worn book close, "when Gwen said one, she really means one." She sighed as she rested her elbow on the antique, wooden table and dug her forehead into her palm, trying not to look at the mountain of books she had been skipping through since six hours ago, not to mention the one's she had not yet touched. Her mind was bulging with useless, unwanted information from the many books she had scanned through in the search for an answer. She was sitting in a cosy room, with a vigorously burning fire going in the fireplace behind her. The fire had warmed the whole room long ago and the room was becoming such a comforting atmosphere she was beginning to hate it. She never liked being too comfortable; it eased your mind, caused you to think less. Apart from the light from the fire there was a dim, ceiling light and a small, antique lamp beside her, on the table. It was quite a small room and contained only one window, to her right, and apart from her table and chair the only furniture was a comfortable looking armchair beside the window. She faced a blank wall, bear of any features. Come on, a poster wouldn't have hurt' she thought to herself, and began to focus her eyes on the wall, being consumed by it's pale, yellow blankness. She could have been there for hours more, just staring at the wall, like she did her office roof sometimes. She enjoyed the times when you could just look at something and not think, at all.

As she stared in her relentless manor, the rare flicker of the ceiling light and the vigilant crackling of the fire were the only things to reach her mind. Apart from these occurrences she had not been disturbed by a single noise the entire night. The fierce light of the moon was visible through the window and no sound was heard from the outside. Lilah became more and more induced into the blinding comfort of thoughtless of relaxation and her vision became slightly blurry as she drifted towards sleep. That's what concentration does to you, tires you. The drive, it is your ally and once you have been driven you may rest with the knowledge that you drove, that you accomplished.

Just as Lilah felt her eyes give way to sleep. A thick black streak across the void of yellow her vision had fallen into broke her rest. It shocked her beyond words and she fell backwards in her chair, tumbling to the side to avoid the fire. Her heart was beating faster and faster and her breaths became heavy and chilling. The light flickered and she let out a small scream, as she crawled backwards across the floorboards, towards the window. She was still looking at the wall facing the window, trying desperately to calm herself down. Her evident reluctance to shift her sight to the blank wall scared her further, like when you can sometimes sense that something is there. She sat on the floor, leaning against the wall behind the window. After about a minute she blocked the now eerie noises of the fire and the light from her mind and her breath began to steady. After another minute she was 100% certain that she was just being paranoid and that it was probably a dream anyway. Still, the silence freaked her and she found herself scared to face the wall. She used all the will she had to stand up and even more than she thought she had to turn her head slowly towards the wall. She smiled as the blank yellow wall came into the corner of her sight and just as she was about to take a huge sigh of relief a line of black came into view. Before jumping back in shock she turned her head to the wall completely. She saw a neatly written message across it and then jumped back in pure shock and terror. "SHIT!" She screamed at the top of her lungs covering her face with her hands, and stepping away from the wall. Now her heart was pounding more than ever. To her mind she heard the crackling of the fire speed up and the light began to flicker rapidly. She breathed in deeply, trying to be strong in ignoring the light and the fire, and stepping towards the message. She moved close enough and read with wide eyes.

The Earth's survival rests on the one book, the answer. You must take the marked book, apprise, and be apprised. They are coming; the wolf must fly with the knowledge.

Lilah stared at the wall with a completely shocked expression, unable to move or think she simply stared at the message. It looked as though it had been written carefully in charcoal and the words seemed to be formed into a strange beauty that had Lilah puzzled. She shook her head and the terror started to leave her, as shocking as the words were they told her the writer's alliance; they were trying to help her. Now thousands of questions filled her mind and she could not decide on any clear action. Suddenly she noticed the words were gone. She didn't see them go, just realised they weren't there, it was one of the strangest sensations she's ever felt. She sighed with relief, the words, however well intended were menacing and she would have panicked had they remained. Her brief period of relief was shattered when a deep, soul-piercing yell came from downstairs. This frightened her even more than the words. Something deadly was happening; she could feel now that something was coming for her, or for the book. More yells came from downstairs, yells of pure agony and despair. He was the man who guarded these books. She gulped and began to shudder with fear. She turned back to the wall to see one huge word, this time scrawled messily, across it.

NOW

She felt like crying with fear but she bit her finger nail hard and jumped into action. She had to find a marked book, then she would break the window and escape. Pushing all the books onto the floor she scrambled through them desperately. She had so little time and she felt despair creeping up on her, the things downstairs would be up there in no time. She jumped up and locked the door before returning to her books. She threw them around hastily, searching for a mark of some sought. She suddenly paused when she heard a short, menacing sound of a heavy footstep. She was breathing very quickly and was becoming more and more sure that she was going to die. Another footstep on the stairs behind the wall in front of her threw her into frenzy. Another footstep, the sound becoming ever more vivid to Lilah's ears. She saw something on one of the books that looked ever so slightly different to the others. Another footstep came. The book had black chalky powder all over it. You wouldn't believe the relief she found just then. She picked up her chair from the ground in front of the fireplace and without hesitation threw it through the window. Knocking out the big pieces of remaining glass with her hard covered book she climbed outside, holding onto the windowsill. She reached desperately for the thick branch of a tree next to her and after a couple of goes she grabbed it and swung her weight onto it. Holding on with one hand she pulled herself across the branch, reach by reach. She heard a loud crashing noise and the haunting sound of splintered wood from the room above her. Screw climbing' She thought before hastily dropping to the grass below. She landed in a crouching position and sustained her balance. Lilah did not hesitate; she ran onto the footpath and kept running. She dared not look back. Whether the thing was following her or whether it was standing in the room, watching her run, the best plan was to run.

Well that's it at 5310 words, sorry if it's a bit long; they won't all be like that I assure you. Thanks for reading!