CONSEQUENCES
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Katy, Michelle, and Morgan.
CHAPTER 27-TWO SETS OF LOVE
He should have known that it would come down to a place like that. My father always loved to tell the story of how he had first met my mother. Watching her come alive while dancing to the music. Once he had even admitted to me that at the time he had thought it a bloody shame to have to kill something so beautiful. But he was a demon back then and that was his job. Every time that I would hear that story Aunt Faith would step in and remind me that she always was a better dancer than my mum, to which my mum would just smile and nod her head. The location for the spell seemed to hark in back to the early days of my mum's battles in Sunnydale, with Aunt Willow saying that it reminded her greatly of The Bronze. Growing up I always wished that I could have seen that place, even if only for one night, after hearing all of the stories told about it.
Memoirs of William "Spike" Summers Jr.
"I don't think that this thing is ever going to glow," Katy said with a defeated pout on her face as she sat down on a park bench beside Groo. The quintet had spent the entire day searching for the right location for the spell but so far had come up empty handed. The only positive experience of the day had been that Connor and Morgan no longer avoided each other and now couldn't be separated. After the kiss the two hadn't gotten more than two feet from each other. Connor had become very protective of Morgan and her injured arm and had opened seemingly every door for her and when someone had tried to ask her for some change Connor had nearly snapped the man in two.
"I know that this task is daunting and appears to have been unsuccessful, but we must press on and find the location that which the spell might best be cast in, our friends are in danger," Groo replied with a look of earnest concern on his face as he tried his best to help Katy stay positive.
"I know Groo, but I'm not exactly familiar with this city, for all I know we've been going around in circles all day," Katy said back with a frustrated and scared look on her face as she slumped forward and ran her hands nervously through her hair, sadly noticing how many split ends she was getting in what had once been perfect hair.
"Come on you two we still have time, we just have to keep looking," Morgan said with a tired but hopeful look on her face as she stepped down off of the curb and half turned back towards them.
"We will find the location for the spell, we do not have anything to fall back on, we either do this or die trying," Connor added with a very grim and serious look on his face as he leaned on a streetlight and crossed his arms in front of his chest, shivering slightly against the cold.
"I know the risks…damn why does it have to be so cold here," Katy started to snap back at Connor before she caught herself and grumbled the rest as she imitated Connor by crossing her arms in front of her chest, but for her she had a more pointed reason to do so.
"This is not cold, why during one drakken hunt I was forced to…," Groo started to say with a slightly overly eager grin on his face as he started to tell the story but was cut off when Gwen whirled around and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Please babe, spare us that one, I think that I've heard it so many times I can recite it from memory," Gwen interrupted with a very restrained voice as Connor could tell that she hated this particular story and was trying to stop Groo from telling it while at the same time keeping him from thinking that she hated it.
"But it is a great story of persevering through overwhelming adversity," Groo said back with a confused and somewhat hurt look on his face that caught Gwen off guard and she stammered something out underneath her breath before she was saved by a yelp of excitement from Katy.
"Finally," Katy shrieked with an extremely excited grin on her face as Gwen was sure that the young slayer was going to cry, but no tears came, as she jumped up out of her seat and darted across the street, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a passing car.
"Katy what…come back here," Morgan shouted out in the confusion as she quickly checked both ways and dashed across the street, Connor close on her heels.
"It's glowing, we're close," Katy shouted out back over her shoulder with a deliriously happy grin on her face before she ducked into an alley and forced the others to hurry to keep up.
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She slowly slid her fingernail across the soft skin of his stomach, pausing momentarily at his bellybutton before continuing in her circular pattern. Not wanting to wake him she had decided to use only a featherlike touch of one of her fingernails. As she went she wondered just how many times had the flesh that she was now most likely tickling been bruised, battered, and beaten. When she came across a few old scars she debated whether or not to even touch them. But her wanting to love this man got the better of her and Nina slowly leaned in and kissed one of the scars on Angel's side, at first not getting much of a reaction out of him. Seeing this she continued kissing each and every scar that she could, careful not to touch any of the recent ones of which there were still light bruises despite Willow's spell and his vampire healing. She had just kissed a small crescent shaped scar at the bottom of his ribcage when he woke up.
"Nina, what are you doing." Angel asked with a half asleep and half confused smile on his face as he lifted his head up and shifted just enough to slightly slide Nina off of him.
"When I was a kid and I got a scratch it didn't matter what my mother did to it the scratch didn't stop hurting until she kissed it," Nina softly replied back with a smile as she hovered over Angel long enough to lean up and kiss him softly on the mouth before lying down at his side and tickling his underarm with the ends of her hair.
"Thank you," Angel said with a content smirk on his face before he shifted his weight and rolled over onto his side, momentarily smothering Nina with his kisses while sliding his left hand up her side from her pelvis until his left thumb came to rest just under her right breast.
"We…we should go downstairs and see, if anyone has anything," Nina said softly with a very reluctant tone to her voice in between Angel's kisses as even though she didn't want to leave their room she knew that they had to.
"Do we have to," Angel sadly asked back with a string of kisses that led down the side of Nina's neck as his left hand slid around to her back.
"As much as…I hate to admit it, yes," Nina mumbled back as she fought to stay in control of herself and did all that she could to gently push Angel away, despite how much she wanted to do anything but.
"Okay, but…," Angel started to say back with a fake look of hurt on his face as he pulled back away from Nina and sat up.
"We're running out of time here Angel, remember," Nina said back with a reluctant scowl on her face as she sat up and looked around for her clothes.
"I know," Angel said darkly with a very nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach as he stood up and walked over to the chair to pick up his jeans.
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"There you are," Morgan shouted, nearly out of breath, as she came to a stop beside the other new slayer on a street corner. They had been chasing the Russian-American slayer for almost an hour, ducking in and out of alleys in what seemed like a winding course through the city of London.
"Are you crazy, why did you…," Gwen started to demand with a very angry scowl on her face as she finally emerged from the alleyway and leaned lightly on the light pole for support.
"We're here," Katy said with an excited smile on her face, completely ignoring the glare that she was getting from Gwen.
"Where," Connor asked with a slightly winded expression on his face as he leaned back against one of the nearby buildings and took a deep breath.
"We found the location for the spell, look," Katy replied with an overly excited smile on her face as she turned around and showed a bored looking Gwen and the others that the talisman that they had been given by Willow was now glowing brightly.
"Guess that thing works after all," Morgan said with a winded smirk on her face and shrug of her shoulders before she stood fully back up and turned to Gwen, "What now?"
"Now we make sure that we found the right place, then we head home," Gwen replied with a calmer but yet still upset expression on her face as she turned and looked up at the location that they had come upon.
"The Shahid Imzadi, never heard of it," Groo said with an unsure frown on his face as he looked across the street at the club.
"Me either, but there's always new clubs popping up and then going broke days later, let's go," Gwen said with a careless shrug of her shoulders before she hurried across the street.
"What if they have an age limit, Katy, Connor, and I aren't twenty one," Morgan said with a worried look on her face as the rest of them crossed the street under light traffic and joined Gwen in front of the club.
"It doesn't look like it's open," Connor said with an unimpressed look on his face as he studied the front of the club and its surroundings.
"Good for us then, come on," Gwen said with a very serious expression on her face as she slipped into the alley beside the club and headed towards a side door.
"What are you doing," Groo asked with a confused look on his face as he looked to see if anyone had noticed them ducking into the alley before he did so himself.
"Having a little look around," Gwen said with a slight smirk on her face before she pulled a set of lock picks out of one of her pockets and got to work, quickly finishing and as silently as possible pushing the door open. Katy and Morgan looked on in a stunned silence while Connor looked like he had seen it a million times. "You guys just going to stand there all night or," Gwen added with a slightly pressed for time look on her face before she ushered the small group inside. They walked through a little ways of winding hallways that were only wide enough for one person to walk through at a time before they got to a doorway that led out into a large rectangular dance floor with tables and chairs set up in each corner and at the far side a rather sizeable stage set up for a band. A two level bar sat at the end of the rectangle furthest away from the front door as there ran a very large and well constructed catwalk, with stairs leading up to and down from it, that ran around the entire room, looking large enough for many people to dance on.
"Wow," Katy breathed out softly with a very surprised look on her face as she slowly walked out into the middle of the room and wished that more of the lights were on. Soon though the talisman that Willow had given them began to glow so brightly that rather than have her corneas burned she resorted to sticking it in one of the pockets of jeans.
"I bet that this place is packed every night," Morgan added with a great look of awe on her face as she went to look for a light switch.
"It is enormous, you could probably fit the entire mud pits of Glimnor within these walls and still have room for the den of Doesnip," Groo said with a very impressed grin on his face as he began to walk around in the vast emptiness that was the club.
"The what," Connor asked with a totally confused look on his face before Gwen cut in just as Morgan found the lights and turned them on one stream at a time.
"Don't ask…please, it'll save us all the time and effort," Gwen interjected with a bored stiff and slightly nervous look on her face before she made her way up the nearest set of stairs to get a better look at the club.
"Willow should have plenty of room in here tomorrow, the only problem will be getting all of the people out before we do the spell and then hiding the fact that we're going to cast a spell that could destroy this entire building from the owners," Katy said with a deep in though look on her face as she walked over to the stage and gently ran her fingers down the strings of a bass guitar that was lying propped up on the stage.
"That's all easier said that done, we're probably not going to be able to simply ask them to use the building, we'll probably just have to get rid of the owners beforehand," Gwen said with a loud voice as she slowly began to walk around on the clubs second floor towards the two level bar.
"We can't kill them," Morgan shouted back with a stunned and surprised look of horror on her face as she snapped her gaze away from Connor long enough to concentrate it solely on Gwen.
"Of course we're not going to kill them, what I meant was that we'd knock them out and tie them up before we started the spell, they wouldn't know what was going on until it was all over and we were long gone," Gwen quickly replied with a slightly embarrassed look on her face as she leaned forward onto the railing.
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"So there's nothing left of her in there, nothing at all," Dawn asked with a timidly scared look on her face as she huddled behind Spike in the doorway of the library as they watched Illyria calmly flipping through one of the ancient tomes.
"Afraid so Bit, except for some left over memories and emotions," Spike whispered back under his breath with an unhappy scowl on his face as he glanced back at Dawn hiding behind him.
"That's just…creepy," Dawn said with a fearful look in her eyes as she slowly slipped out from behind Spike and stared across the room at Illyria, who still appeared to care less that she was being stared at.
"That's one way of putting it," Angel interjected with an uncomfortable frown on his face as he walked up to the pair, his hands jammed deep into his pockets and with Nina close at his side.
"Doesn't really matter though, however you put it Fred's gone and not coming back," Nina said sadly as she leaned up against Angel and looked over at Dawn.
"Did you know Fred well," Dawn asked softly with an innocent look on her face as she was genuinely interested about the history of a woman that most of Angel and his friends missed terribly and sounded like someone she could have been great friends with.
"Not really, but when I first found out that I was a werewolf she was nice to me, she didn't treat me like a monster," Nina started to say with a happy look of nostalgia on her face as she was remembering happy memories before Angel jumped in.
"And I treated you like a monster," Angel interjected with a surprised and hurt pout on his face as he pulled back slightly away from Nina and furrowed his brows heavily at her.
"Oh shut up ya big baby, no you didn't treat me like a monster, you tried to help me understand that it didn't mean that I was a monster but that there was a part of me that was dangerous and I didn't have to be scared of it and wasn't alone in fighting it," Nina replied with a sarcastic air kiss Angel's way at first before she grew more serious and wrapped her arms around Angel like he was a giant teddy bear.
"Eww…spare me," Dawn joked with an overly grossed out look on her face as she charmingly recoiled in revulsion at the sight of Angel and Nina cuddling together before she couldn't help but laugh.
"Is there something amusing," Illyria asked with a very calm look on her face and without looking up in the slightest while turning another page.
"Nope Blue, nothing amusing at all, you must have heard wrong," Spike said without the slightest hint of emotion in his voice as he slid his hands into his pockets and leaned back up against the doorway.
"I do not believe so, you are mistaken, there was laughter," Illyria said back with a very calm but yet also very serious look on her face as once more she didn't take her gaze from the book that she was looking through.
"You're right Illyria, there was laughter, but before we go any further there's something that we have to get crystal clear, Wesley is with Faith now…surprising as it may be but that's the way it is and I'll be damned…again, if I let you screw that bit of happiness up for either one of them, so for you and everyone else around here from now on you will not be known as Illyria but instead as Jamie, your new shell, is that clear," Angel interjected with a very grim and serious expression on his face as he pulled away from Nina and walked straight towards Illyria, making sure that she knew that he meant business.
"My grief for him has not yet fully subsided, but if he is happy then I will abide by this request, but only until the threat is eliminated, then I will not be bound by you any longer…vampire," Illyria replied softly with a humbled but yet equally serious scowl on her face as she momentarily glanced up at Angel before she set the book down, stood up, and then walked out of the library and into the cool English night just as Wesley and Faith walked in, looking like they had earlier when they had talked to Dawn in the kitchen.
"Everything okay," Faith asked with a concerned look on her face as Dawn noticed that her hair looked much softer and bouncier than it had earlier in the day as Wesley walked in and sat down in the seat that Illyria had just recently vacated.
"Can the answer to that wait until after Gwen and Groo and the others get back because right now they're our only hope," Angel asked back with a worried smile on his face before a proud and triumphant Katy waltzed into the library.
"Everybody can relax, we found the location for the spell, we're going to make it," Katy announced with a very proud grin on her face as she took the talisman out of her pocket and set it back down on the top of the nearest table.
END OF CHAPTER 27