EAE: Yes it is
Shut up. I'm being nice to them.
EAE: Then why are you updating? They hate you. Go bury yourself in a ditch.
They do NOT hate me. They reviewed! Look!ka-mia2286: Hm… good point. Mind you that was the general idea. You really don't want me to throw myself out of a window? You might have changed your mind by the end of this chapter.
Insane Troll Logic: Wow, I made someone laugh! I kinda felt it was getting all doomy and gloomy so I decided to completely destroy the atmosphere. Glad you liked it. Oz is in for worse to come, as is our poor Doyle. NOT MY FAULT! Blame it on her! (EAE: snigger) Please keep reviewing!
jewel21: Hey! I have now officially decided I HATE writing action scenes. Don't worry I will write them but if they're a little crappy then I'm sorry. I would kill Doyle… so soon. Heheh.
I love reviews! Musssssst have reviewssss precioussss! Ehem, yeah anyway er… you can do the disclaimer. runs away
EAE: Oh great, cheers. We do not own anything that will make us rich, never have, never will. Anyone who is reading but not reviewing (evil people) then please review. Or I will come and cover your eyebrows with superglue in your sleep. Here is the next lame chapter. Don't blame me, not my fault.
Chapter 4 – Luck. Or Not
Doyle wondered if it was possible for fingernails to hurt. Seemed pretty viable from his point of view. But then if you have just been trussed up like a turkey for about thirty six hours, hit over the head a repeated and unhealthy number of times and then stabbed in the heart without actually dying, it's amazing how difficult life's little challenges become.
Such as deciding which bit of you is your head and which bits of you are your legs and consequently, which way up the damn things are supposed to go in the first place.
He had attempted to open his eyes several times but it appeared that, in his weakened state, the small amount of brain matter reserved for filing complaints from his body was queue jumping. He swallowed dryly, coughing as the back of his throat closed up and stuck there, the lack of water gnawing constantly at the edge of his awareness.
Trying to ignore his desperate thirst and the excruciating pain in his manacled wrists, Doyle focused on what little he knew about this place. He set his brain to the not-so-simple task of figuring out where he was, how long he had been here and just what the hell he was supposed to be doing here anyway.
Concentrating, he managed to cobble together a rough mental timeline of his various recent misfortunes. He'd had his car nicked, he'd been attacked by vampires not long after, been saved by a laconic and mildly scary werewolf, been attacked again (not counting by Cordy and her ice pack) and then kidnapped. As far as he could tell, he hadn't been moved since the whole thing with Zariel and the knife, which was starting to make him feel just a tiny little bit nervous.
Not that he particularly enjoyed the creepy old guy's company (hint: sticking knives into people's various vital organs doesn't tend to make a good first impression) but being left on his own in a dark room in chains was not high on his list of favourite things to do. His wrists really were hurting. He had got used to it after a while but the continuous ache was starting to drive him crazy.
Later on, he would have wished he was still in that room.
The Brachen demon's head snapped up at the sound of the door slamming open. The Irishman's neck however, seemed to have gone on holiday without leaving a note, thus making such a movement both impractical and painful.
In other words it hurt like hell.
Doyle sucked in a hissing breath through his teeth, waiting for the sharp sting in his neck to recede. He was reminded of a certain young red headed girl and wished fervently that it was her entering the chamber.
Luck, it seemed, was pretty much as well disposed to him as she always was. Meaning that she was sitting on her cloud of irony laughing her head off and sticking pins into tiny little replicas of him.
Doyle closed his eyes painfully, recognising the eel-man from earlier. Hm… eel-man… he'd have to remember that one. He had a funny feeling it could come in handy later.
"Open your eyes seer."
Sod you.
"I know you can hear me demon."
More's the pity.
"I only wish for peace to exist between us."
Yeah and I'm Queen of the fairy glade.
"Peace. I have always loved the sound of the word – "
It would sound a lot better if you shut up and gave it a chance.
"But your continuing well being requires that you cooperate with us. I may have to take certain… measures to ensure our friendship."
And that makes sense… how?
"Allow me to put this in blunt terms, Mr. Doyle, open your eyes or I will forcibly remove your stomach and intestines by way of your left nostril."
Doyle opened his eyes. The greasy haired warlock was standing about ten feet away from him, regarding him with an expression that made the hairs on Doyle's neck prickle.
Never a good thing.
"Do you know who I am seer?"
Sure, you are a complete and utter –
"I am a reincarnate."
Not quite what I had in mind but –
"Do you speak seer?"
"Doyle."
The single word rang coldly through the clammy, stale air.
The man frowned, "What did you say?"
Doyle knew he was being completely irrational but the thing annoying him most at the moment was these people constantly talking to him as though he was some sort of ornament that would reply if they yapped at it for long enough. Like a goldfish bowl. A talking goldfish bowl…
"My name is Doyle. D-O-Y-L-E. That too difficult for you?"
It seemed that the last vestiges of Doyle's sanity had made a run for it. This might not have been too bad except that his common sense seemed to have been replaced with all the survival instincts of a chronically depressed lemming.
The warlock tilted his head slowly to one side, eyes narrowing speculatively. Then, quite randomly, he smiled.
"You do not like the name that the… Powers," he spat the word like a curse, "have bestowed upon you?" Doyle looked blankly at him.
"If you mean do I appreciate being addressed as your metaphorical carpet bag after being hung up like a bloody coat hanger for twelve hours then, no not really."
"That's not what I meant… Doyle." For some reason, the seer wished he hadn't told the man his name. It was disturbing. "I meant, don't you resent the role that they forced upon you? Do you not crave revenge for them ruining your life?"
Alarm bells were starting to go off inside Doyle's head.
"I don't know if they ruined me life as such… I mean, it was never really much of a picnic even before the hell induced migraines," he replied warily. A change seemed to have come over Prarl's face, an almost fanatical gleam dancing in his muddy, soulless eyes.
"Isn't there a day, just sometimes, when you wish you could just strike out at them for all they've done to you? That you could tear them limb from limb and trample their innards into the dust?"
Oh that can't be good.
"Well… " Doyle was finding that he really didn't want to upset this guy at the moment, "they're the Powers. I mean, sure everyone hates them at some point… well, except nuns and priests who are actually devout, and believe in heaven and all that but it's not like we can do anything about it is there?"
"Hah!" The warlock's face split into a hideous grin, his expression full of smugness and self-satisfaction, "Think again Doyle. Now that Zariel is our leader, the sacred texts have been unearthed and the great ritual can be performed at last! We will destroy them! We will have revenge for all their treacheries and deceit. Why do you think you were brought here? You are the key to their destruction, the missing link in the chain of justice!"
Doyle's eyes widened to the size of small dinner plates. "Oh bloody… THAT'S why I'm here! You're wanna kill the creators 'cos you messed your life up and need someone to blame! God, I've known some sad people but you are just pathetic."
The "let's not annoy the nasty people who can strangle me without touching me" policy seemed to have slipped Doyle's mind. It came crashing back when Prarl's eyes darkened to jet black orbs of crackling darkness.
Doyle suddenly felt all of the air leave his lungs. It was as though someone had just punched him very hard and he was waiting for the excruciating pain to follow. As he hung there, helpless, suffocating, an aura of blue energy bolts sprang up around the warlock's upraised hand, illuminating his frigidly cheerful features.
"Wrong answer."
Silence reigned in the darkness of Angel's black convertible. Not that that was particularly strange when considering the occupants of said car. One of them was an ages old vampire with a curse on his head which went he could never feel a moment of happiness, another a mildly concussed and generally laconic werewolf, one terrified out of her wits and the last being the main reason for silence in the first place. Not the most cheery of journeys to say the least.
Kaeden sat in the front passenger seat, arms folded and face impassive as he stared calmly of the window. Cordelia was sitting behind the warlock, clutching the still loaded crossbow in trembling fingers. On the opposite side of the car, Oz had his temple pressed to the cold glass window, eyes closed.
As for Angel, Cordy suspected that there would be grooves left in the steering wheel when – or if – the vampire actually let go. His knuckles were even whiter than usual and he was staring fixedly at the road ahead. Cordy didn't even need to see his face to know that his dark eyes were practically oozing malice, though strange as it may seem, this didn't actually bother the actress too much. What worried her more was that he was driving without headlights.
"Er… Angel?" She winced at how loud her quavering voice sounded after the long period of dead silence. Angel's eyes did not leave the road. "What is it Cordy?" The tone of his voice would have caused any other person shrink back into the seat and make inaudible little gibbering noises for the remainder of the journey.
Cordelia Chase was most certainly not any other person.
She had faced certain death at least twenty three and a half times, had convinced a group of vampires that she was a slayer and even more dangerous than Buffy (whilst wearing her May Queen outfit). She had been sent to an alternate reality and then killed (funnily enough she didn't remember that little episode) and to cap it all she had lived through Sunnydale High school.
A murderous Angel wasn't even in the top twenty worst things she had come across.
"You're driving without the lights on."
"Don't need them," came the brusque reply. Cordelia rolled her eyes, "I know that Mr. Broody. It's a different story for any people coming the other way who can't see us. What if they crash into us?"
"That's their problem."
Cordy was about to point out that it was their problem if the car crashed and they couldn't get anywhere when Kaeden spoke up, a mildly interested look hovering over his features as though curious to know at what point Angel would actually crush the wheel in his grasp.
"I would listen to the girl you know. It's a very nice car you have here. Wouldn't want to scratch the paint work now would we?"
The leather under Angel's fingers gave a faint, tortured squeak. Just the sound of one more infuriatingly cocky British voice made him want to snap the dark man's spinal cord into itty bitty little pieces and burn his eyeballs out. He found himself wondering just how you could torture a Mortacan demon with a box of toothpicks and a cigarette lighter. And whether the method was adaptable.
Oz winced at the hollow creaking noise that only he could hear. Hopefully Angel wouldn't have ground his teeth to splinters by the time they got there. Wherever 'there' was. Speaking – well – thinking of which –
"Where are we going anyway?" Cordy inquired, as if the question had only just occurred to her. Angel and Kaeden seemed to be kindred spirits in that they automatically assumed that everyone would follow them whither they wandered so to speak. To be fair, that was what generally happened if you had the ability to kick the shit out of demonic forces that gave even other demons the heebie jeebies.
"Supplies."
Angel spoke tersely, pressing his foot further down on the gas pedal. The dark machine sped silently through the night, kicking up a dust cloud in its wake, flying forward like bat out of hell.
A roughly rectangular bat with wing mirrors and a registration plate.
No doubt about it: this day was definitely second worst on his list of worst days.
A part of Doyle that was not submerged in a maelstrom of all encompassing agony thought that the fact he was having these kinds of thoughts in this kind of situation spoke volumes about his sanity. Or rather lack of it. It was most certainly of the 'not good' as Cordy would say. Cordy… her beautiful, beaming face swam fuzzily across his closed eyelids, somehow causing him almost as much pain as the irregularly shaped metal object sticking out of the back of his knee.
A heavy blow to the side of his face jolted the Brachen demon both mentally and physically. A sour metallic taste filled his mouth and Doyle idly mused that vampires had really weird food preferences. What was so great about blood anyway? All it was was a means of transporting oxygen and nutrients around the body, and it didn't really taste all that great either. Like biting a coin.
Another blow came, this time to the back of his head. Doyle jerked forwards in his bonds, blood trickling down his chin from his mouth and nose.
He cracked open one swollen, bloodshot eyelid to grin insolently at the warlock facing him. Prarl had another ball of dark matter clenched in his fist and he looked a little less collected than at the start of their little 'chat'. Forget collected, the warlock wore an expression similar to one Cordy had at certain times in the month.
"S'ry mate, maybe you should quit hitting me in the head. Ain't an awful lot up there t' damage."
Prarl clenched his teeth briefly at the seer's jaunty attitude and snapped his fingers irately. The sharp blade embedded in the battered half demon's leg tore itself free with a horrible dull ripping sound. Doyle let out a piercing scream as he felt tendons snap and an entire chunk of flesh tearing out, hooked on the vicious curves of the torture implement. His entire frame shook violently, feeling hot blood dripping down his mangled leg.
Prarl regarded the chained Brachen demon with contempt and not a little confusion. He had been sure that the seer would be burning with resentment for the hated "Powers" at the burden they had placed on him. He had thought it would just be a case of breaking down the halfbreed's defences and then he would be at their mercy. Now, with the seer showing no signs of begging for his life, he was starting to grow impatient.
He prowled closer to the shivering figure, dark eyes fixed intently on his agonised features. The Brachen demon's eyes were closed tightly and dark blue bruises stood out on his bare chest, evidence of the savage beatings he had been exposed to. His chest rose and fell in time with his hoarse, erratic breathing, each breath a painful gasp forced through chattering teeth.
Moving behind the Irishman, he surveyed the damage that his little 'toy' had done. The back of Doyle's left leg looked as though it had been ripped off. Blood had pooled around the Irishman's feet, streaming steadily from the enormous gash, filling the dark space with an eerie dripping sound that echoed chillingly off the damp stone walls.
"Hurts doesn't it?" he murmured softly, out of Doyle's sight, watching the flickering torchlight cast scintillating shadows over the surface of the crimson pool at the seer's feet.
"So… this is your reward for all you've done. It doesn't matter what you do, how many people you help. There will always be more and they will always take from you."
Doyle was shivering violently, the warlock's tantalising words cutting through his thoughts, no matter how he tried to block them out. "Where's the hero to save you Doyle? How is it that after everything you have done, all the people you've helped, not one has come to your rescue? What do you owe them?"
He leaned closer to the half demon, his slithering voice seeming to be inside Doyle's very mind, "Why not help us? Have your revenge on them. You will be free." Doyle let out a long leaden sigh, his eyelids lifting slowly to expose glazed and unfocused.
"Look mate, if I wanted to hear this sort of crap I'd take up interviewing politicians okay?" Prarl hissed and grabbed a handful of the Brachen demon's dark hair, malevolently jerking his head back and smirking at the pained gasp elicited from the Irishman.
"Fool! Do you truly believe that you have any choice in the matter?" he snarled contemptuously, "You can choose not to obey us but it is both you and your friends who will pay the price!" To the warlock's consternation, Doyle grinned lopsidedly, squinting up at him.
"Well… I'll let you… take that up with… with Angel mate. See what… he has to say. Doubt you'll be… be doing much talking though. Can't talk without… your voicebox." The Brachen demon couldn't possibly have known about Prarl's humiliating defeat at the hands of his friends and yet hot anger bubbled to the surface of the warlock's consciousness. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on the seer's head. A slow, twisted smile contorted his snakelike features.
"Ah, but not all of your friends are under the vampire's protection now are they?" A chill ran down Doyle's spine at the warlock's tone and he strove to keep his voice steady. "What the hell are you on about? Look, I don't really have all that many friends and Angel wouldn't have left them – "
"Then where was he when you were attacked?"
Doyle glared defiantly, the slimy man's smug tone really starting to get on his nerves.
"He knows you're here now, he'll be watching for you."
Prarl's smirk did not falter.
"And what about Mishakara?"
Doyle's eyes went wide in shock and Prarl laughed mockingly, eyes gleaming.
"Perhaps you were under the impression that your little 'encounter' was a secret?"
Doyle closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, willing himself to remain calm. He had only met the young redhead for a short while and yet he felt a strange protectiveness come over him as he remembered her wide-eyed innocence and her beautiful voice. Prarl, sensing weakness, smirked and pulled another blade from his belt. Placing the cold metal against the halfbreed's back he watched the muscles tense.
"What do you suppose I could do to her?" he asked offhandedly, pressing the sharp edge just enough to break the skin, a ruby rivulet wending its way down Doyle's back. Doyle forced himself to stay still, not wanting to give this slimy git the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.
"She is young… and beautiful." Doyle's eyes widened fractionally and he didn't even notice his hands curling into fists. He so angry he was unprepared for the sharp pain that lanced through him as Prarl drew the blade swiftly downwards, cutting a thin red line cleanly over the seer's back.
"Her brother is so very protective, I've always wondered what could have become of her without him. Maybe she would have found someone else. She is so very trusting after all…" Doyle concentrated on the pain in his back, shutting his mind off to the warlock's words, or at least trying to.
"I did see your young friend though, the girl with the dark hair." A thrill of cold fury shot through Doyle at the mention of Cordelia. Prarl saw his reaction and smirked. "She had quite a figure I must say, pretty face too. It shouldn't be so hard to have Sacarven kill the wolf as a distraction for Angel and then I could just nip in and grab her. I wouldn't want to share her."
Doyle lashed out backward with a foot and managed to hit the warlock squarely in the knee with a satisfying cracking noise. Prarl shouted hoarsely, clutching his leg and glaring at the half demon's back. Doyle grinned to himself.
Prarl straightened up slowly, the blade clasped tightly in his hand ice cold orbs boring into the halfbreed.
"I don't think talking is getting us anywhere."
RR! PLEASE! I'm really trying to write a good story here –
EAE: Yeah whatever
– But I need FEEDBACK! It's not difficult. Just press the little blue button and tell me if you are reading the story. That's all I ask! You only have to write one word! Maybe two. A sentence would be nice.