Chapter Sixteen – I Don't Want to Be Anything Other Than Me
(Courtesy of Gavin DeGraw)
Vail was just as non-corporeal as he was. Magical fireballs must be able to be generated in the ghost world, just as much as they could be in the real world.
"I should have known," Wesley retorted.
"The demon took me out of the one dimension. It didn't mean that I couldn't work in another. How's hell?"
"Wouldn't know. Why don't you go back to it."
"My experiment? You stopped it for now," Vail told him as he floated towards him.
Wesley had to get out of there. Had to find out what Vail was planning. And he had to stop the plan before anyone was hurt.
"You can't run," Vail said as the body started to twitch again on the ground.
Wesley had to stop the body from ever getting out of the room. He willed his hand to take the body's throat and strangle it. Finally, he was able to get a grip and squeezed. He broke another rule. Cordelia would be angry with him. He'd probably even get in trouble, whatever that meant. Might help his case though if he didn't let the reanimated corpse loose on the population of Los Angeles.
"You are a tricky boy, aren't you?" Vail commented right above Wesley's head.
The body reached up, taking Wesley's throat in hand also. Not only was he not supposed to be able to touch anything, which he was, no one was supposed to be able to touch him unless they were dreaming. This was not a dream.
A blinding flash of light encompassed his non-corporeal body, making him shudder. The body below him finally disappeared into the ether. He had succeeded. Somehow he had won. Vail had also disappeared with the body. Did he use magicks to perform the feat? All he had wanted to do was stop what was happening.
Now he could go to Cordelia and Doyle and figure out the next step. A big player was back in the game. From another dimension, mind you, but a major threat nonetheless. As he stood up in the shadowy room, he prepared himself to go back to his little cottage. But he didn't find himself back in that realm as he had wished. His whole body slammed into the wall and he fell to the floor.
The floor was under him, the wall was solid. What the hell was going on? Gingerly, he arose and walked through the now-opened door. Silently he strode through the corridors until he found the entrance that Faith and Spike had used earlier. Every time he tried to walk through a wall, it never worked.
It wasn't until he was back in the large hall, and looking at the dried bloodstain on the floor, that he looked down at his appearance. The sweater he wore that night was stained, ripped. This was not what he had on when he had gone to rescue Faith. As he lifted the sweater, he could see the wound from the knife. Touching it, he saw a little blood on his fingers.
Collapsing on one knee, he drew in deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He was corporeal, that he was sure. But for how long? His heart beat, his pulse raced, his stomach rolled. What had Vail done to him?
He staggered out of the hall and out of the building. Fog had started to roll in over the city, making the streets silent and eerie. Walking in a random direction, he found himself in an area of town he was unfamiliar with. Every noise made him jump. Everything seemed harsh, too sharp to his senses. Vail had pulled him back from being dead. It hurt too much to be alive again.
Leaning up against a brick wall, he took more deep breaths, trying to regain his sense of balance. He had to find Faith. He also had to find Angel, to warn him that Vail was planning something major, probably against the vampire himself right then. And his body was a part of that plan, that he was sure.
Seeing something moving off in the distance, Wesley pulled himself off of the building and started to move again.
"Oh, look. A yummy snack out for a stroll," a vampire said directly in front of him.
He stopped short. Wesley couldn't believe his luck. Brought back to life only to be confronted by another deadly demon. His night could not get worse. Until he looked back and saw three more vampires stride directly towards him. He had no weapons and was shaky from whatever spell Vail had performed.
"Not likely," he told the vampire in front of him.
His fist shot out and took out the lead vampire in one punch. The other three had now come up behind him. He didn't turn to look at them. His options were that he could either run or fight them. His brain told him that flight was the best possible option. His body told him to take the three on, dust them. His body won out.
Swinging out, he punched the first to make its way to him, pushing it back into the other two. He needed to find a stake, or some kind of weapon that would help him dust the four quickly. Running off, he fled down on alleyway. Off to the side, there was a beat-up chair in a dumpster. Grabbing it, Wesley broke off a few chunks of wood, depositing a couple of pieces in his back pocket to retrieve if need be.
The four vampires had recovered and chased his scent into the alley.
"They always run. Makes it more fun when you catch them," one quipped as he came closer.
Wesley held the first stake in his hand, turned away and up his arm so that the vampire could not see it in the dim light. It approached cautiously, but still didn't stop its forward progress until it was standing right in front of him.
"This is too easy," it said to the others as Wesley flipped the stake in his hand and plunged it into the thing's heart.
Dust flew everywhere in the fog, floating slowly to the ground. The other three attacked quickly, not giving him much time to recover from the first staking. He kicked out to take one down as he dodged the smallest one. The last one he slammed hard, making it fall to the ground with a thud. The stake found another undead heart. Two more to go.
The other two weren't going to make that mistake again. They circled him as he stood silently. His watcher's mind assessed what he had just accomplished. Being an everyday normal human being, he probably could have dusted one, maybe two without too much bloodshed. But that meant he would still get hurt. None of the vampires had even connected. Maybe he had just come upon some newly made vampires, or they were just really stupid. The really stupid ones never lasted for very long though. Survival of the fittest applied to the vampire population just as much as it did the human population.
He was fast, that he had figured out. His senses were sharpened considerably. He could hear every scrape of a foot, each twitch of a hand. He could smell their undead bodies. He just knew they were vampires, even if they hadn't been in vamp face. These just weren't slayer powers; these were powers that Vail must have given the body as he reanimated it. And Vail was going to use it for whatever evil he had planned. That body hadn't just vanished. He possessed it, but probably not like Vail had planned.
The two charged him from opposite sides. All three crashed to the ground. One vampire had gained the upper hand and tried to bite him on the neck. The stake Wesley had at the ready flew from his hand as they had landed hard on the ground. He tried to reach another in his back pocket, but his hands were busy trying to keep the one off of his neck. Untangling his feet from the other one, he flipped the offending vampire off of his body. Kicking out, he managed to hurt the other as he scrambled to get up off of the alleyway floor.
Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out another stake, ramming it home into the one that was still on the ground, who had been nursing a bloody nose. The last one started to take off, but before he could make it ten feet, Wesley threw his stake forward, catching it squarely. It exploded in a rain of dust.
He had just slain four vampires. He had never been able to do that before without help from someone else. Especially without weapons at his disposal. None of the four had injured him. Even the slam to the ground should have hurt immensely. But his body felt nothing. Striding out of the alley, he headed off in a general direction that felt safer. He really didn't want to get into another fight with any more vampires.
He needed to find Faith and Angel. To get their help and figure out what in hell to do about his sudden reappearance in the land of the living.
"Son of a bitch," Spike finally said as they slowed down some after running away from Vail's mansion.
"What just happened?" Faith managed to get out between pants from the running and from being scared shitless.
"Beats the hell out of me."
That totally wasn't what Faith expected them to find. The body had moved directly towards her, had said her name, had told her not to leave. It wasn't Wesley. That she knew. But it somehow knew her. Maybe the place had been playing tricks on each of their minds. Pretty fucked up trick if you asked her.
"So you saw it all? Thought it was just me having hallucinations."
"Shared hallucinations, pet. Not a fun concept."
Both jogged for quite a while, noticing that the fog had started to roll in as they made their way through the streets. As they made it back to the hotel, Angel sat with Illyria on the round couch, actually holding her hand.
"So?" Angel said as he turned towards the two.
Faith didn't like it that Illyria had totally lost all of her demon coloring. It made her look too much like the Texan. But by the look in the demon's eyes, something was definitely wrong. What else could go wrong that night that hadn't already?
"Nightmare, Peaches. Fucking nightmare," Spike answered.
Angel closed his eyes, shutting the rest of them out. Faith didn't want him shutting down again. They needed each other to be able to figure out what was happening.
"Did you find the body?" Illyria spoke up.
Tears formed in her eyes now. Her brown eyes. Funny, Faith had only seen them be the icy blue.
"Yeah," she said hesitantly, watching the demon's reaction to the news.
Illyria bowed her head, bringing up a hand to wipe away the tears. Was the little demon going to fall apart before everyone's eyes, Faith thought?
"Where is it?" Angel finally asked, letting go of Illyria to stand.
"Not here, thank God. Let's just hope it didn't follow us," Spike added.
"Follow?" Angel swallowed.
"I told you, Spike. It was a hallucination." Or at least that's what Faith wanted to believe.
"Hallucinations don't walk towards you. Zombie? Could it have been a zombie?"
"Don't fucking tell me they made him a zombie," Angel cried, racing to the weapons cabinet.
As he opened it, he discovered that nothing was there. He hadn't remembered that it was empty.
"We have a few weapons Angel. If we have to fight it," Faith implored to him as she walked up to touch his arm.
"I want all of you out of here. Go somewhere safe. I'm not taking anyone else down. Do you understand?"
Spike, Illyria, and Faith stared at Angel.
"You think that I fought all of those demons to just walk out of here at the first sign of trouble?" Spike wanted his grandsire to know.
"I will not have another death on my conscious."
"He was my watcher. I am not letting some thing take him over," Faith added.
"Angel, Wesley's body has been reanimated?" Illyria asked, puzzled at the conversation.
Angel turned to look at the group. "Tell us what happened."
"Me and the slayer looked around like you asked. We found a hidden passage that took us down underneath Vail's mansion. Someone's been living down there. Some kind of demon." Spike reached into his pocket to pull out the ring he had taken.
"Found this. Took it off a demon. Ugly creature if you ask me. It glows."
Angel took it from Spike, turning it around in his hands, studying it. "Nice trinket."
"Might be a clue."
"The story?"
"Well, Spike went off to investigate some noises, so I stayed back. Someone was coming, so I ducked into a room. There was a body on a table. And man, it wasn't decayed or nothin'. Damn thing just rose up off that table like it was alive."
"What? Who?"
"Wesley," Illyria whispered.
"No," Angel said with finality.
"Yeah, unfortunately. Scared the shit out of me. If Spike hadn't broken the door down, I don't know what the thing would have done. And something else. It said my name, like it knew me."
"It wasn't him," Angel informed the group like he wanted to believe his statement.
Faith knew that Angel was having a hard time with her story. Encountering zombies wasn't unprecedented. It was just when it was your friend and colleague that made it that extra special creepy.
"So if it gets here, then I kill it," Angel decided. "The three of you get out of here."
"You cannot save him?" Illyria asked.
"It's not him, Illyria. His soul. It's gone. No zombies in your time?"
"No."
"I'm not leavin', Angel," Faith told the vampire.
"And I'm not giving you a choice. Go back to Wes's apartment. Lock the doors. Don't answer unless it's me. Spike, take Illyria back to that guy who did the blood test on Illyria."
Spike now looked at Illyria strangely. His eyes widened in surprise. "Your heart's beating."
"Check to see if she's fully human. If she is, get her to somewhere safe. After I stop the zombie, I'll come and get you Faith. All three of you are leaving this city."
Could anything get worse, Faith thought? Someone was taking them out one by one. Taking their special powers or leaving them weak, leaving them human. How did Gunn and Wesley ever stand a chance against all the demons they fought each week?
"Gunn?" Faith added.
"I'll get his old crew to watch over him. Maybe move him to a safer location once I take care of the first problem. Spike, get them both out of here."
Spike led the two powerless women out of the hotel. Faith didn't want to leave Angel, but she knew she couldn't argue with his logic.
Wesley stood at the top of the stairs in the hotel, listening to the conversation between the four. So they thought he was a zombie? Since Faith hadn't seen his soul entering the reanimated body that would be the first conclusion that everyone would come up with. Hell, he would have come up with that conclusion too. So he would have to convince them otherwise. Before Angel tried to chop his head off. Since they were his only hope at the moment, there had to be some way to do it.
Heading off to exit the building before Angel sensed him, he made it to the street unharmed. Taking off in the opposite direction, he doubled back to make it to his apartment before the three could. If he could convince anyone, it would be Faith. She hadn't encountered those zombies at Wolfram and Hart when the Beast had gone on his killing spree. Maybe she might be a little more likely to believe his state than Angel was.
As he headed up the back staircase, he avoided any other humans quickly and quietly. But there was no way in the door without the key. So he headed to the windows. Pushing hard, he was able to open one on the third try. The spell he had created right before he died might still be in effect. It was ironic that he was still able to enter his own apartment though. Either the spell had lapsed finally, or it somehow recognized him.
Slowly he made his way inside, trying to not moving anything out of place. As he heard a key enter the lock, he quickly made his way to the bedroom to hide in the closet. That should mask any kind of scent that Spike might be able to detect, he hoped. Faith hadn't moved any of his clothes, he noticed. So he buried himself into the closet deep because the boxes he had placed there so long ago were not in evidence. Then he remembered that she had been looking at the diaries anyway.
He settled quietly when he heard voices in the other room. Then he heard the outer door close. Either he was alone again, or it was just Faith. He hoped that she remained. He heard her enter the room. Then he heard the bathroom door close quietly. Slowly, he opened the closet doors, peeking out to see if anyone was present in the room.
Just as he made his way to the bedroom door, a noise behind him startled him. As he turned he found Faith clad only in a towel, ready to scream her head off at the sight of him. He ran towards her as fast as he could before she could get out so much as a squeak. Slamming a hand over her mouth, he looked down into her eyes.
"Faith? It's me."
Faith screamed under his hand.
TBC
Next: I wonder if Faith will believe that this is really Wesley. Lindsey will try to convince Cordelia and Doyle that he is on the up-and-up. Or is he?
Author notes: OK, so I decided from the reviewer input to make Wes corporeal for now. The bad Wes hasn't popped up yet, but he will. And this body is much stronger than Wes ever was. I wonder if a challenge is on the horizon for Angel? Hmm. This chapter was so hard to write, because I didn't know if it was the right thing to do making him corporeal. But I wanted to see him kick some butt. Also, I know this is getting long, but I write long fics, so I hope you guys stick with it. As some of you know, I can write many, many, many chapters. So I hope it's moving along nicely for you. Review, review!!
Thanks to: tp96, Imzadi, Uberwicca, MadHatter (yay, new reviewer), pari106, qkith, etc., etc. God, what have I done to myself. Lots are reading this!! Of course, I do things like reviewing other people's fics (which I get addicted to also, some awesome stuff out there), which is why I don't update constantly, and I don't ever sleep. Grumpy mom my kids call me. And yes, they still can't read any of my stuff.
Answers to questions:
Imzadi – you hit the nail on the head on your comments
MadHatter – my opinion about Wes too, although I do think that he was sane at the end, he just didn't have anything to live for. I hope that I've given him something else to live for. I really think that it was a cop-out on his part too, which makes me angry at him (i.e., at the writers, but hey, they knew they had to off him because the boss said so).
Pari106 – I don't do horror, which just made me freak out more when I was typing this in. I was the one who almost had nightmares after I watched Hush on Buffy.
Qkith – I hadn't thought about Spike as much. Hmm. Idea in my head. We'll see if it will happen. I want to make sure to keep his concentration on Illyria at the moment.