"Now this guilt of yours. That is new," Dev says to Spike. "What's it like? How does it it feel? Is it like Dead Souls'? Do they keep calling you?" Dev laughs.
"I'm guessing Spike hasn't read Gogol," Angel notes. Dev sneers at him.
"The song, you ignorant Philistine. The book's a comedy. I'm guessing that your existence isn't. All those regrets. The infinite remorse." He starts singing. "Someone take this pain away, that points me to another day.' Am I on the ball?"
"Don't have to be a bloody rocket scientist to guess that much."
"Ironic. Because the Spike I knew never felt any regrets. Not even when he screwed up."
Angel's starting to come to a horrible conclusion. To distract from this horror, he tries small talk for the time being. "So is Deb short for Deborah?"
"Debbie. Like the singer who was onstage when Spike and I met. Do you remember what they were playing?"
"It's been a while."
"Take a guess," Dev demands with a tinge of outrage in his voice.
"Die Young, Stay Pretty?"
"It was Rip Her To Shreds.' But you're right. It has been a long while. Back then, you were cool. People admired you. Wanted to be like you."
Angel looks horrified. "I don't believe this. Spike's your sire." Once he says it, Angel starts laughing, and finds it hard to stop. "You. You're Spike's. He made you! He-heh-he-heh-heh," Angel keeps on laughing.
"He's laughing at you," Dev says to Spike. "Are you going to let him get away with that?"
"He's laughing at you," Spike responds.
"He's only laughing at me because you're my sire. Which means he's really laughing at you."
"No. I'm laughing at both of you."
"Which one of us isn't going to bed alone tonight?," Dev asks to get back at Angel. "That's what I thought. Who's laughing now?"
"Actually, I still am. Is it Devon?," Angel asks changing the subject away from the Slayer girlfriend who seems to be Dev's one point of pride.
"Devlin."
"No," Spike objects. "It's Hermann."
"As if the two of you still go by the names your mothers gave you."
"You've really done a number on this girl," Spike says to Devlin. "Got her singing your tune. New Model Army? That has to be your line."
"It's apt."
"No it's not," Angel disagrees. Comparing Buffy to Oliver Cromwell seemed wrong on so many levels. Devlin defends his analogy.
"A concentrated, unbeatable force that pushes around former allies the Supreme Leader doesn't need anymore. Tyranny in the name of self-righteousness. Does any of this ring a bell?"
"You don't have a clue what you're talking about," Angel declares. "Guess that's one way you take after Spike."
"Perhaps I'm not entirely on-the-mark. A general usually leads the army. But they showed up around her, she wasn't with them. And the first time I saw her, they weren't around. Next time you talk to the little lady, tell her that a week's training might not be enough for a new girl. That's right, pop. I snuffed a Slayer. Though nowadays that's kind of like hitting sixty home runs in a season. Means a lot less than it used to."
"Does your girlfriend know this?," Angel asks.
"Certainly does. Do you hide things from the people you love?"
"Please. I don't know what you two have. I don't want to know. But it's not love."
"Because I don't have a soul?"
"Because you're a killer."
"Was a killer."
"Nice try."
"Not all of us are as simple as you, Angel. Animals are slaves to instinct. Now you may be an animal, but I'm something more. The biting and the drinking gets so repetitive after a while. And least for those of us who have brains bigger than a reptile's. I'll trade great sex for mediocre killing any day of the week."
"You didn't used to find it so mediocre," Spike recalls.
"Everything loses its novelty over time."
"The Dev I knew would have his cake and eat it, too. The Dev I knew would sneak out after she went to sleep and feed in LA."
"I'm off the human stuff, dad. Except for a couple days every month when Deb's, well, I'm you sure you both know what I'm talking about. Especially you, Angel. Just because you can't get off doesn't mean she couldn't. Unless you're the selfish type." Dev can tell from his face that this never occurred to Angel, and he starts laughing. "Poor girl. Might as well have made her wear a chastity belt. Maybe you did." Dev laughs some more. Spike and Angel are both slightly sickened. "I get it, Angel. You didn't want to tempt yourself. There's always a danger in making the carnal too . . . carnal. Especially when your will is weak. But it goes without saying that you kept her happy the rest of the time," he adds with a devilish smirk.
Angel wanted to rip the insolent lad's head off. He also preferred to forget Dev's last monologue. "Why should we believe a word you say? Come to think of it, why should we listen to you at all?"
"Because I don't want to kill you. Or anyone you care about. There's no reason for us to clash. You have your turf. I have mine. They don't overlap. Fighting would be senseless. I love Debbie. I'm sure there are people you love, so you understand the lengths I will go to in order to protect her. To keep her from getting hurt. That's another reason I don't bite. I know that if I killed to feed, she would feel hurt and betrayed." His voice gets choked up. "And I would never do anything to hurt her." Then his voice quickly returns to its usual calm, icy tone. "However, if someone else were to hurt her, I would gladly kill for reasons other than sustenance."
"You're not bad at posturing," Angel concedes. "But I just can't take seriously any threat coming from a mini-Spike." Angel laughs again.
"The skinny woman with the long legs, short skirts, glasses and southwestern accent usually drives back to her hilltop house next to Highland Park very late at night. I wonder if she'd put up much of a fight." Angel can see the coldness in Devlin's eyes. He isn't even smiling, which strikes Angel as very unusual. Angelus surely would have smiled after uttering a line like that. Spike wants to get back to that dead Slayer.
"A Slayer. Always knew you had it in you. When was this?"
"Late last August. In Johannesburg."
"What were you doing in Africa?"
"I was slacking off in the Seychelles when a few refugees trickled ashore. Talked of two Slayers coming from out of nowhere. Once the vampires in Capetown heard, some of them fled before the stake-fest ever came their way. There's been a lot of that going around. Vampires see two Slayers, they think there could be twenty. But I decided to see for myself. First two nights, your Slayer Queen was still there, so I held off. This gave me time to scout locations, learn the lay of the land. Speaking of lays, Buffy was with a man. He looked rather young for a Watcher. Also, he lacked the customary English accent. I think his was Spanish. Maybe Italian. I wasn't listening too closely. Handsome devil, though. Long story short, the Queen leaves, and the next night I pounced on her drone. I believe her name was Hilda. Pretty little blonde thing. You two might have liked her. Me, I don't go for blondes." He looks at Spike. "You used to be the same way."
"So what? You killed a green Slayer. Is that supposed to impress me?," Angel asks.
"Why would I want to impress you? Your opinion doesn't matter to me."
"So it's only Spike's approval you're after?"
"Actually, I think he should be after my approval. Look at yourself. Look at what you've become. You used to be a star. People admired you. You wanted something, you took it, and crushed anyone who got in your way. Including this big lug, if he had stepped to you back in the day. Now you're his sidekick. His sidekick!"
Angel laughs. "Your kid might have a point." Spike glares at Angel.
"Don't go blaming your old man," Dev continues with a chuckle. "It's your own damn fault you ended up like this. Remember Olympia? Summer of '97? I offered to help you. You knew there was no one in Sunnydale you could count on. But nooooo. You had to go it alone. Always the gladiator. And look where it got you! There's more to being a warrior than a series of single combats. There's strategy and there's tactics. But you had always been too good a fighter to ever need to bother with those. And maybe you still were. Maybe mom was right. You could have killed her, but you took a dive cause you loved her from the start."
"Mom? No. You don't mean . . . you can't mean," Angel starts laughing again. "Drusilla?" He laughs some more. "You call her mom?" More laughing. "On the plus side, for having parents like that, you seem surprisingly well-adjusted." Devlin looks at Spike and points at Angel.
"And you choose to put up with this? He doesn't even respect you. I don't mind, because I have someone who loves me. A girl who's glad when I'm around, and misses me when I'm not. Which reminds me: Why haven't you gone to Rome and looked her up? I have. And I don't even care about her. What are you afraid of? No, don't tell me. I know this one. You're afraid she doesn't love you! The fear of rejection: that's the only reason any guy stays away from a girl he desperately wants to get with. Now, you could be a man about it and kill the guy she really loves. Whoever that may be. But that would involve being a man. Which apparently is no longer within your capability."
"You went to Rome?," Angel asks. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your little rant. It reminded me that vampires often have unusual insight when it comes to their sires."
"Your girlfriend know you're this obsessed with Buffy?," Spike asks.
"First, this was long before I ever met Deb. Second, I am not obsessed with Buffy. I could care less about her. She's the eye of the hurricane. Nothing going on there. But there are lot of interesting things circling around her. Like her sister. The two of them share a charming if derivative town house. Though they don't share much else. Dawn's Italian is better than mine. Then again, mine was never that good. After school, she likes to get a cappuccino at a cafe near her school. Or a double espresso when she's feeling tired. That's where I met her. The outdoor tables are under a veranda, and it's only a block from the nearest subway stop. To Dawn, I'm a sophomore at Columbia who's doing a semester abroad and likes his espresso with a shot of grappa. I convinced her to do a shot after her mid-term exams. She didn't like it. But she disliked the second shot somewhat less. And she liked the third shot. At that point she was a little tipsy. More than a little. She worried Buffy would notice if she went straight home. So I took her to the third Matrix. She didn't think it made sense, but assumed that was because of her inebriation. I told her it wasn't. Buffy didn't notice she'd been drinking. Or so Dawn told me the next time I saw her. At a discotheque she frequents.
"Dawn likes to dance. She's ticklish on her stomach. When she was little, her mother and sister called her pumpkin belly.' She likes to read, and isn't quite the film buff that I am. But when I recommended that she see The Bicycle Thief,' she took my advice, and told me that she really liked it. Thought the kid was adorable. On a cloudy, drizzly Saturday I saw her on the Spanish Steps and then gave her a quick tour of the Forum. Showed her the spot where Tiberius Gracchus was clubbed to death. Pointed out the remains of the house where the Vestal Virgins lived. She seemed interested in the idea of teenage girls chosen to perform a sacred duty. I wonder why? Dawn struck me as smart and lovely, but lonely. Otherwise, I couldn't have spent so much time with her. It goes without saying that I never gave her a chance to learn I was a vampire. Besides, that isn't an assumption she would make, at least not in that city. Vampires are quite rare in Rome now that it's become the Queen Slayer's hive. I might have been the only one. I'm sure I was the only one in the city who was still killing. You want to know a great way to steer clear of Buffy? Hang out with her sister. Though that strategy did cause me to meet the King Watcher. But that was at a museum, and I suppose that's their habitat. Rupert was impressed with my knowledge of the Chigi Olpe vase. Which led to a discussion of Etruscan hoplites. I tried to convince him that while they used the panoply, the Etruscans never fully employed close-order phalanx tactics. Which caused him to cite the Servian reforms, and Roman borrowings from Etruria, and, well, I'm probably boring you by now." He hopes this sent a chill up their spines. And, if not, he hoped that at least this made Angel take him seriously.
"Sounds to me like you're all talk," Angel dismissively replies. Dev raises his hands above his head, cracks his knuckles and pretends to stretch. Crossbow bolts slam into Spike's and Angel's chests. Each one is between one and two inches above their hearts. Angel thinks he can spot the source of the shots. The snipers appear to be hiding behind a car in the rear parking lot of the adjacent restaurant. That puts the shooters sixty feet in front of them. "Always hiding behind someone. Is that the way you work?"
"Those were warning shots," Dev informs them. "Come back here, and they won't be. You'll just be walking down an alley, spot a tree with your epitaph on it, and the next thing you know you'll be dust."
"Sounds like someone's been reading his Sun Bin," Angel says to Dev. Spike doesn't get it.
"Besiege Zhou to save Wei," Dev replies, once again leaving Spike in the cold. "It's been fun. But, unlike you boys, I have someone waiting up for me."
"Maybe tonight you do," Angel responds. "How long do you think it will be before she comes to her senses?"
"Make all the assumptions you want about us," Devlin says as he slowly backs away. "They're wrong." He backtracks around the side of the store until he's out of their line of sight. Only then does he turn around and walk forwards. Angel can hear the snipers running away. The two of them stand there for a few seconds.
"Apparently, I taught the boy all too well," Spike comments self-servingly.
"Like Hell you did. He's nothing like you. There's barely a resemblance. For starters, he reads. And possibly thinks." They both walk back to the street. Angel has any number of questions. He'll start with the ones Spike can answer.
Okay, I know Dev and Deb acted pretty arrogant, and Angel let them get away with talking some smack. But don't worry. I'm just setting them up for a fall. Angel beats the bad guys and saves the wayward. The story's just not as interesting when Angel's in control of the situation from the very beginning.