AN: Special thanks to Dawn, who allowed me to gripe about the fact that this scene was causing me to have writer's block and offered up a few suggestions for Kate's ultimate excuse.
With the others involved in their own relationships, or in the case of Greg and Kate, their non-relationship, the ex-vengeance demon and former monarch of Pylea often found themselves lacking in other companionship. So, it came as no surprise that Anya and Kal gravitated towards one another.
They started with a weekly ritual of discussing Kal's latest reading work over a beverage once his skills improved enough so that he had almost complete understanding of the books. While he wasn't up to the level of Shakespeare as of yet, he was progressing along nicely with "Charlotte's Web" and other books of a similar level. It had taken Anya the longest time to explain to him that the characters were make-believe and that spiders and pigs didn't really talk. After that long and frustrating conversation she had decided to direct his reading list away from science fiction and fantasy. The last thing she wanted to do was to chase after him as he went searching for orcs or dragons.
It was during one of their talks over warm mugs of Mock-na that Kal revealed to his friend the secret he had been holding close to his chest. He, Champion of Pylea, fearless warrior, and grown man was, much to his shame, homesick.
Anya was shocked to learn that he had not visited his mother in over two years. Many of their talks, which had soon became a nightly occurrence, centered around the mother that he simply adored. Despite his constant travels, before coming to Earth, he had visited her every few months. During his short reign as king he had visited her weekly.
Anya wasted no time in dragging the reluctant warrior in front of Greg to demand that he have time off to return home. Kal, for his part, protested the action strenuously.
"Anya, attacks have risen even more in the past month, you know this," he pointed out as she pulled him towards where Greg and Kate were very obviously not looking at each other. "I can not possibly leave now."
"Hush," she had simply scolded before coming to a stop in front of Greg's chair.
"Kal needs to go home," she stated, keeping a firm grip on her friend's arm as she looked their leader in the eye.
"Is there something wrong?" Greg calmly asked.
"No," Kal said at the same time that Anya answered in the affirmative.
"He hasn't been home in over two years," she explained. "He's homesick."
Greg wisely chose to ignore the embarrassed flush that came to Kal's face at the pronouncement. It was amazing that he didn't blush over Anya's bald sexual references but could be embarrassed by things that would have no effect on most humans.
"Demon activity is up," he reminded them, indicating the book he had been pretending to read. It was a lexicon of demonic behavior. He had been pretending to research the reason behind the activity explosion when his friends had decided to interrupt.
"One month," Anya demanded.
"No, it's been bad longer than that," he said, deliberately misunderstanding her.
She growled softly before rephrasing her demand. "Let him go home for one month."
"Anya," Kal ventured, trying to interrupt. He really didn't want to leave his compatriots in the lurch.
"Couldn't spare him for more than a couple of days," Greg said, trying not to smile. He knew how Anya loved to negotiate. He hoped he helped make her day by fighting over how much time off their friend should receive.
"A couple of days?" she screeched, drawing the attention of Spike, who was passing through on his way to make his daily call to the slayer and her sister. Curious, he came over to see what the hubbub was about.
"He couldn't get to her farm in a couple of days," she argued, stretching the truth. She knew that Kal had learned the secret of opening a portal between the two worlds to within one hundred yards of his intended destination. Greg didn't need to know that, not if it meant more time off for her "client."
"Four days, then. That'll give him time to get there, give her a kiss, and leave."
"Three weeks. Anything less is an insult."
"Two, and only if you two agree not to drink Mock-na in the common room anymore. The smell makes Spike and Connor nauseas."
Anya considered this compromise for a moment before conceding. Drinking the Pylean stress reducer in one of their suites could lead to other stress relieving activities, after all.
"Done," she agreed before turning triumphantly to Kal. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Com'on, we need to get you packed. And, we need to figure out a way for you to transport some Plockweed back so that we can have real Mock-na. Perhaps a small plant if we can figure out how you can carry it without your arms getting scratched to ribbons."
She practically bounced up the stairs, towing Kal along in her wake. Spike and Greg watched them go with slight smiles on their faces while Kate frowned severely.
"You have no right to limit his trip," she scolded, glaring at the startled Greg. "You're not actually his employer and this isn't the military."
Spike, sensing the flair up of arguing, decided that it was the perfect time to call his girls. Dawn would just be getting home from school and Buffy wouldn't be busy cooking dinner before heading to the self-defense academy. He quietly slipped up the stairs behind Kal and Anya, forgotten by the combatants below.
"I'm well aware of that, thank you. If he had come to me and asked for time off, I would have told him to take as long as he wanted. But you know Anya. She has to argue over everything. I think she does it to keep her business skills sharp."
"If he had asked you? Who died and made you god?"
"No one," he said, refusing to respond to the tone she was using. "But, you did agree that I'd be the leader of this little group. We talked about it right before we moved, remember? You chose me to be the one who makes all the hard decisions. So far, I haven't needed to. But, if Kal leaving risked the life of anyone who lived here, I'd ask that he stay in a heartbeat."
Kate glared at him. "Ask? Don't you mean demand?"
"You're cranky today," he observed, changing the conversation with apparent randomness.
"I'm not cranky," she snapped in reply.
"It's just a date," he said, unfazed by the attitude she was copping.
"There is no date. There will never be a date."
"Why not?"
She sighed in exasperation at his calm tone. "Beyond the fact that we're both going to 'live fast, die young, and leave a mutilated corpse?' How about the fact that I'm seven years older than you?"
"So, people will thing you got yourself a hot stud," he joked. "Besides, if anything, I look older than you."
She studied him for a moment, taking in his graying dark hair, the scar that marred his face, and the little lines that radiated out from the corners of his eyes. He did look older than his twenty-seven years.
"I'm a suspended cop with issues," she stated a little triumphantly.
"I barely graduated from high school and have plenty of issues of my own," he countered.
"I'm an alcoholic."
"I killed my best friend." She looked at him in surprise. "He was a vampire at the time, but, you know, in a way it doesn't matter. He was still my friend and I'm responsible for killing him. So, why won't there be a date?"
She rose from her chair and stalked to the door, feeling his eyes following her the whole way. She opened the door and stepped into the opening, restraining herself from dashing out into the safety of the world at large. She gave an indelicate snort at that thought. The world, with demons, ghouls, and human scum was safer than facing the possibility of a relationship with a handsome man who understood her. How was that for life's little ironies?
"Because I say," she said before walking into the sunlight, letting the heavy door slam behind her.
Exactly fifteen days later, Spike strode through the office of Angel's zombie guard dog, sweeping her aside casually as she tried to hold him back. He idly wondered, as he swung open the double doors to the inner office, what force in the universe kept dragging him back into the questionable presence of his grandsire.
"Out," he growled to the occupants of Angel's office, earning a glare from the big man himself. A nod from Angel released the three humans and five gharrwie demons from their positions around the room and they all hurried past him. One gharrwie, a female, by the length of the tentacles, gave him either a sensuous or a challenging look. Either one, he decided, would prove less than wise to respond to. Even if he wasn't devoted to Buffy, gharrwiens had a nasty habit of eating lovers from other species – and not in the pleasant way. They were also fierce fighters, so much so that even if he was looking for a spot of violence he wouldn't tangle with one.
Lilah was climbing unsteadily to her feet behind him, leaning against the wall that now had a zombie-shaped dent in it. If she had still been alive he would have been forced to feel guilt over the force he had used to get past her. Luckily for him, she was quite dead.
"To what do I owe this pleasure, Spike?" Angel asked, leaning back in his massive leather chair. He seemed unperturbed by the younger man's presence.
"I need to know how to get to Pylea."
Angel remained silent, patiently waiting for him to give a reason.
"Rex went to visit his mum. He was supposed to be back yesterday."
Angel frowned, his gigantic forehead wrinkling up until it approached something like normal. "You interrupted a very important meeting, a meeting that was set up to try to settle a very bloody territorial dispute that has lasted for four centuries, no less, because Groo is late?"
"No," he snapped as he stalked to the wide desk and leaned over it menacingly. "I interrupted you because Kal, whom you should know would never be late unless 'e's seriously in trouble, didn' come back when 'e was scheduled to. Now, are you goin' to 'elp me or am I goin' to have to rip this bloody buildin' apart until I find someone who will?"
A cracking sound momentarily drew Angel's attention away from Spike's tirade. He was only mildly surprised to find that the wood beneath Spike's fingers had splintered into tiny shards. The younger demon seemed unaware of the fact that he was mutilating the desk that had once stood in the Marquis de Sade's study.
"All right," Angel said calmly, looking back up from the desk. "What do you need from me?"
"I need from you, you tigh'-assed sod, a way to get to Pylea and find out wha' the bloody 'ell is happenin.'" He sneered over the word need but never-the-less plowed on.
"Then you need to talk to our Pylean expert," he said, rising from the chair and rounding the desk. Luckily, for the sake of his desk, Spike followed him away from the abused piece of furniture.
"Fine. Where is the poofy demon?"
"Not Lorne," Angel explained, leading him past the still wobbly Lilah and out of the executive office. "His arrival on Earth was an accident. Even if he knew how to open a portal he wouldn't. To him, Pylea is the worst hell dimension ever. No, you need Fred."
"The li'le mouse?"
"Not so much of a mouse, actually. She's a wiz at opening portals. It has something to do with the portal's mathematical properties, trionic what-evers. I don't understand it myself. Actually getting a guide, on the other hand, is an all together different situation. Both Fred and Lorne refuse to set one foot in the dimension again. Fred was a slave there for five years, so you can hardly blame her."
Spike grunted as they entered an elevator and Angel pushed the button he could only assume led to the tiny Texan.
"Have a guide," he stated, his accent returning to something approaching educated as his temper cooled. When dealing with Angelus, his temper was directly proportional to how much of an arse his elder was being.
Angel shot him a curious look at the pronouncement, but refrained from asking about the alleged guide as the elevator dinged and opened into a sterile hallway. He led the bleached blonde through a nearby door.
Once inside, Spike took a moment to look around his new surroundings. The smell of chemicals, gas, and disinfectant hung heavily in the air, reminding him of the Initiative and the weeks he had spent locked in one of their cages. It was enough to make his hackles rise.
The room itself was fairly spacious with lab benches placed an even distance apart. Each bench had at least one scientist at it, each so absorbed in his or her own work that no one looked up as they passed by.
Angel led him to the middle of the lab, where Fred was bent over a microscope. Another scientist hovered over her shoulder, projecting an air of both awe and possessiveness. Spike wasn't sure if he was possessive of the chit or the thing she was looking at.
"And it grew that much after only an hour?" the woman asked her companion, moving from the microscope to make a notation in a nearby notebook. "You didn't add anything to the mix, did you, Knox?"
"Of course not, Fred," the young man said. Something about his voice sent a chill up Spike's spine.
"Good," she said, shooting him a pleased smile. The man's smell gained the slight alteration that indicated he was firmly in lust with the female scientist.
"Fred," Angel interrupted, somehow managing to keep the smirk out of his voice. "You remember Spike."
Both eggheads turned to look at their boss. Spike got his first real look at the man and his grave-walking goose started to dance a jig up and down his spine.
"Do I know you?" he asked the curly-haired scientist, only to receive an open and friendly smile in return.
"Not that I know of. I'm Braeden Knox." Knox held out his hand in expectation of a handshake. Spike, a bit spooked by the feeling of unease he had, refused to accept the hand.
While he was distracted with Knox, Fred had emitted a squeak and dived behind the questionable safety of Angel. When he turned his attention back to her, she peered fearfully out from behind her boss's broad back.
"Is he going to threaten again?' she asked warily.
"I'm sure Spike will behave," Angel reassured her. "He's here for our help. You might even get a chance to run a few tests on him, if you negotiate right."
The wispy woman perked up considerably at this bit of information. Spike's fiercest glare couldn't even dissuade her from bubbling about drawing blood and running CAT scans.
"What do you need?' she finally asked after he allowed her to draw a bit of blood and to swab the inside of his mouth for skin samples.
"Need to get to Pylea," he told her, not bothering to go into detail.
Angel, on the other hand, frowned at his terseness and explained to the scientist the reason behind the request.
"Um, I hate to be the one to bring this up," Knox said from where he was hovering over Fred's shoulder. "But isn't it possible that he decided to stay?"
Spike frowned at the man, but kept a firm reign on his temper. He needed these people's help after all.
"Rex isn't the type to do that. So, what do you say, Mouse, will you help?"
Fred frowned at the nickname, but nodded her head and began bustling around the lab, gathering notebooks and pens. "It'll take me a couple of days to get all the calculations down. Do you have any idea where in Pylea you want to end up?"
"The Royal Palace should be fine. Rex said his mum's place is within walking distance."
The young woman pulled a pen, one of a multitude, from her hair and scribbled the information down. "And I assume that you want an incantation for coming back?"
"Would be nice," he deadpanned.
"Mmm hmm. How many people are you taking? For that matter, do you have a method of getting everyone to the same place?"
"Four there, at least five back. Rex may decide that his mum should move to LA. And I assumed we'd just walk through the portal."
"Oh, no," she explained, doing some quick calculations in the notebook. Spike took a peak at them and his eyes crossed trying to understand the complex math. "Knox, get me the Trionic Hypothesis book, please. Separate entities that go through a portal, even one that is designed to open at a certain place, will not arrive at the same place. You could be at the palace and your friends could be scattered all over the dimension. Or, one of your friends could be at the palace and you could end up at the Scum Pits of Ur or some place else that you really don't want to be."
She took a moment to take a deep breath before launching into her explanation once again. "Angel used his car to get everyone to and fro in one go. No separations. It was a good thing, but I never could figure out why a vampire drove a convertible.
"Anyway, if any of your friends are vampires… They're not, are they? They don't have to worry about the sun. The Pylean sun's light waves don't react with vampire physiology the same way Earth's sun does. But, you might want to warn them not to go all Grrr. When the vampire comes out, it's the pure demon, not the watered down version you see on Earth. Called a van-tal. Very hard to control. Angel lost control; it was scary."
Angel cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. Spike, for his part, just smirked at his elder.
"So, a car works pretty well," the slim scientist continued. "I think chaining everyone together might work as well, but then you have no way of carrying weapons and clothes and stuff. There's also the whole 'what happens if you're attacked as you come out of the portal' question. Plus, chains: not actually as much fun as you would think."
Knox, who was just returning with a very large book, heard her last comment and stumbled, sending the book to the floor with a loud "whap!" The sound of the massive book hitting the tiled floor was enough that all the scientists in the room looked up from their work and stared.
"Oh, dear. Knox, are you OK?" Fred helped the red-faced scientist to his feet before rambling off again. "Pyleans don't keep humans as slaves anymore, not since Cordy emancipated them, but there's still lots of other things you have to look out for, so weapons are definitely a must. Come back the day after tomorrow and I'll have the incantations ready. Do you have a power source?"
"Power source?"
"Yeah, portals need quite a bit of power to open. There's hotspots all over the city that you can use, but a power source really would be better. Quicker, at least. Especially when you want to come back. While we can pinpoint several hotspots for you to use here in LA, in Pylea you would be on your own."
"I'll loan them a Didio Sphere," Angel told her. "That will be enough for two portals, right?"
"Three or four, actually. Which will be helpful in case of emergencies. Now, where do you want to end up when you come back?"
"There's a park off Elm Street. That should be enough to keep civilians out of the way."
Fred nodded absently, once again scribbling in the notebook. He waited for a few more moments to be sure that she needed no other information from him before following Angel out of the lab. Once in the clear air of the hallway, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Stop by my office when you come for the incantation," his elder told him, leading him once again into the elevator. "I'll have the Didio Sphere ready for you." He paused for a beat, shooting Spike a side-long glance. "I'm actually surprised that you're accepting it, actually."
"Doin' it for Rex, no other reason, Peaches."
Angel nodded in understanding. "Then you won't get huffy if I offer to have your territory covered while you're gone?"
Spike was silent for a moment, considering the offer. "Let me talk it over with my mates. I'll let you know our decision when I come back."
Angel nodded in understanding and exited the elevator once again, this time at the main lobby. Spike nodded almost companionably to him before striding past him and out into the sun shine.
"I hate this," Connor sulked two days later as he stood beside the big SUV the group had bought for the trip. The roof of the Suburban had several holes rusted through, but it was big enough to sit the entire Warehouse group, sans Connor, and enough gear for a week with a little room to spare.
"I know," Greg said sympathetically as he stood by the driver's door. Spike was busy rummaging around in the back of the vehicle, making sure that he had brought his favorite ax, which left him the job of smoothing ruffled teenaged feathers. "But we don't know how long we'll be gone for. You can't risk failing all your classes and wasting this semester. Besides, we need someone to look after things."
Connor snorted. "Yeah, right. Which is why you've demanded that I let Wolfram and Hart patrol." Spike was now wrestling with Anya over the placement of weapons verses clothes. Anya seemed to think that it was outrageous that Spike was more worried about having easy access to the weapons than about how wrinkled their clothing would get.
"No, we asked that you accept their help," Kate said as she walked around the hood of the vehicle. She pointedly ignored Greg, which earned her a wry grin from the older man.
He watched her climb into the back seat of the vehicle before turning back to his friend. "Don't worry about it, Connor. I'm sure you and the guy from Wolfram and Hart will get along just fine." Spike, overhearing the comment during a break in Anya's tirade, snorted loud enough for their leader to hear. "Spike himself told me that Gunn was an OK guy."
"I did no such thing!" the former vampire yelped, abandoning his argument with Anya. He snatched up his ax and strode over to the pair. "I said he was a bloody wanker of a werecat who thinks way too much of himself."
"Like I said, an OK guy," Greg quipped, receiving a glare and muttered comments about him being a "bloody idiot" as Spike crossed to the passenger side, having called shotgun earlier, much to the dismay of Anya.
"I still say I should have shotgun," she complained as she joined Kate in the back seat. "I get motion sickness when I ride in the rear."
"And I told you," Spike replied. "That since I'm the one that has to read this bloody incantation, I need to be in front."
"Oh, right. Like reading a piece of paper is that hard," she snarked.
"So says the woman who apparently produced mass amounts of rabbits the last time she got a hold of a spell book."
"I'm going to kill Giles," she muttered, casting a glare at the Brit.
Greg smirked, silently laughing at his friends' antics before turning back to Connor. He wanted to ask the young man if he was sure he'd be fine on his own and to make sure to tell the team from Wolfram and Hart where he was planning on patrolling. He resisted the urge, remembering how prideful he had been at that age and how he would have resented anyone treating him like a kid.
"Fish, we should get this band of buggered moving, 'ey? We have a bit of a walk."
"I know, Spike," he answered, having went over the slight change of plans earlier. In order to insure that no unsuspecting demons got caught in the portal, Fred had designed it so that they would be spit out in a nearby field.
"Charver, you have the letter to my girls, right?"
"I'll send it off first thing in the morning," he said with a nod.
"Good, good. An' you have the slayer's number, just in case?"
"Yes, Spike."
"An' the –"
"Com'on, Spike," Greg interrupted, much to the relief of their youngest member. For someone who was the Big Bad, the former vampire was a notorious worrywart when it came to people he cared about.
Greg climbed into the cab of the big vehicle and shut the door behind him before waving goodbye to their remaining friend. He carefully buckled his seatbelt before starting the engine, an action which produced a chuckle from Spike.
"We're barely goin' to be movin,' Fish," he pointed out.
"We're traveling to another dimension," Greg shot back. "If that isn't dangerous travel, I don't know what it. You should buckle up, too."
His friend rolled his eyes but did as he suggested, much to Greg's relief.
"Let's do this," he said, taking a deep breath and starting the engine. Spike nodded and pulled out a scrap of paper and a small ball on a chain. It would have looked like a normal piece of jewelry, perhaps one of those mustard seed good luck charms but for the odd brown light it emitted.
Spike carefully looked around to make sure that Connor was out of range and that no one else was around. He double checked all of his friends and then read the incantation from the slip of paper.
"Krv drpglr pwlz chkwrt strplmt dwghzn prqlrzn wrtltz."
Immediately, a swirling silver vortex opened in the middle of the street. Spike carefully settled the Didio Sphere's chain around his neck and tucked the glowing ball into his shirt before nodding to Greg. The tension level in the SUV rose to an almost unbearable level as they approached the portal and Spike could have sworn that everyone held their breaths as the hood of the vehicle disappeared.
In the blink of an eye the park and Connor had disappeared. They were now surrounded by green unlike any seen outside of a golf course in years. The sheer beauty of the surroundings and the height of the trees was enough to make them all, except Anya, gasp in amazement.
"This is Pylea?" Greg asked the former vengeance demon once he had managed to shake off his amazement. "This is a demon dimension?"
"Not all demon dimensions are big nasties and lava pits, you know. Pylea is actually one of the nicer ones. It's not like, say Quor'toth, which only the die-hard visit."
"Huh," Kate said, looking around with interest. "And Kal gave this up to come live in LA? He's either insane or stupid. Or both."
"Love's bitch, Pet," Spike commented, opening his door and climbing out. He stopped just clear of the door and closed his eyes, trying to adjust to the sounds and smells of nature. He had lived the last several decades of his unlife in urban areas and had gotten used to the pulse of city life. Nature, especially alien nature, was quite different.
He opened his eyes once again and looked around, taking in the sights and connecting them with smells and sounds. As he catalogued each and every one, something caught his eye.
"Uh, Anya, pet," he said, just as his friends were descending from the SUV. "That little phobia of yours. Is there anything you want to tell me about it? Like, maybe, that there's a perfectly good reason for it?"
"Don't even joke about it," she snapped with a shudder.
"Then you don't want to know about the hopper in the bush?"
Anya squealed and scrambled back into the vehicle. "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" she chanted in a shrill voice.
"It's only a rabbit," Kate soothed, grateful that Anya couldn't see her roll her eyes at the display of hysterics.
"It's a rabbit the size of a large dog," Spike pointed out, eyeing the creature warily. A rodent that big could do major damage with its incisors. Not to mention its powerful back legs.
"Oh, penis," Anya whimpered, cowering in the floorboard of the SUV. "It's a scout. If you don't kill it, it'll go back and gather its pack."
"Rabbits run in packs?" Greg questioned as he slowly but steadily moved to the back of the vehicle. A few more minutes and he would have a crossbow and the rabbit would be a memory.
"Would you just trust me and kill the damn thing?" she snapped, somehow managing to make her voice commanding and frightened at the same time.
Greg reached the back of the SUV and quickly extracted a crossbow, absently thanking the Powers that Anya's clothes had not been put over the weapon. A quick load followed by a practiced release dealt with the furry creature, the bolt going through one red eye.
Spike retrieved his ax from the front seat and carefully approached the twitching creature, checking to make sure that it was indeed dead. Greg had the crossbow reloaded and aimed at the base of the rabbit's skull by the time his friend had gone two steps. Kate also had her gun out and was sighted on the creature's mottled fur.
"Anyone up for some hasenpfeffer?" he called after a few kicks determined that the rabbit was indeed dead.
Anya gave a low moan at the idea.
"It's OK, pet. The 'wrascally wrabbit' is dead."
"Leave the girl alone, Spike," Greg chided as the blonde came back to the vehicle. "Which direction is the castle?"
"The Mouse said that there was a rock shaped like the Cookie Monster on one end of the field. That's the direction we have to go in."
"The Cookie Monster?" Kate questioned.
"Don't ask me. I'm just tellin' you what I was told."
"Maybe the Cookie Monster is based on a real demon from this dimension," Greg jested.
"No," Anya denied as she crawled from the SUV. She cast a wary look at the underbrush before continuing. "Cookie's not real. Oscar the Grouch, on the other hand, is. He's actually a really sweet guy. I told him way back when Sesame Street first came on that he should sue Henson for defamation of character, but he was just too nice to do it."
She walked ahead of the others, having spotted the Cookie Monster-shaped rock, unaware of the amazed stares of her two human friends.
"Is she serious?" Greg asked Spike after a moment.
"Dunno, Fish. Never met the bloke. Snuffelupagus is nice enough though." He smirked as he left his two companions exchanging disbelieving looks.
It only took them a couple of hours to reach the village that surrounded the castle. Kate studied the squat rock and sod houses and wondered how the people could live in such conditions. Several doors stood open, allowing her a glimpse inside the dark dwellings. All had dirt floors and only a few had small windows to let in light and air. Though, she would suppose the thatch roofs allowed for a great deal of air flow.
She easily sidestepped an older, female demon of what Anya had described as the lowest caste. The woman looked up enough to see whom she had nearly bumped into, then with a look of fear scurried away.
Kate shrugged off the strange reaction and hurried after her companions. The group was following Anya's lead when it came to dealing with the Pyleans, and was allowing her to talk to the locals. At the moment, the former vengeance demon was questioning a demon that looked very much like Lorne, but without the tacky suit. From the looks of it, she was not getting very far. The Pylean had his eyes firmly planted on the ground and only shook his head in response to Anya's questions.
"This is getting us nowhere," the younger woman finally said as she turned to Greg. "I can barely get anyone to look at me, much less talk to me. I don't understand it. Pyleans are the most prideful race I know of. And they're all acting like a bunch of scared mice."
Kate looked around the village again, this time focusing her attention on the people, not the place. Anya was right; everyone walked with their heads down, gazes trained on the ground. None of them came close to the group from Earth, and in fact avoided them as if they had the plague.
"I thought Pylea was supposed to have an integrated society now," Greg questioned, motioning with one hand at the various demons wandering the village. Not a single human could be seen, other than their group.
"It does," Anya said, confusion coloring her voice. "The last time I was here, humans were living right alongside the demons. And before that, when they still practiced slavery, humans were everywhere, doing their daily chores. I just don't understand."
"These people are runnin' scared," Spike said, frowning at the scurrying mass. "I've cowed enough people to know what it looks like."
"We're not going to get any help here," Greg agreed with a decisive nod of his head. "Do we even have an inkling of where Kal would be?"
Anya shrugged. "I know his dame's farm is within walking distance, but that's about all. He never had a reason to give me directions."
"What about the castle," Kate asked, nodding her head at the imposing landmark.
Anya shook her head decisively. "The castle has always been a nonentity, since for most of Pylean history there was no crowned ruler. The Covenant of Trombli ruled Pylea from their stronghold."
"But that was before Kal took over, right?" Greg questioned, still a little vague on Pylean politics.
"It was. But most societies, once they overthrow a ruling monarch, create a center of government in a place other than the seat of royal power. A whole symbolic thing that I never got. I mean, they totally waste precious cash on building a new capital when they have a perfectly serviceable castle just sitting there."
"So that castle's out, then," Spike interrupted, keeping an amazing amount of snark out of his voice.
"The castle's out," she agreed.
"So we follow the road," Greg said, pointing to the dirt track under their feet. "There's only three roads that come into the village."
"Sounds a little simplistic," Kate pointed out.
"Got a better idea?" he challenged, both eyebrows raised. "We know the farm is within walking distance. Maybe the Pyleans outside of town will be a bit more forthcoming with their answers."
"Yeah, but what would Rex consider to be walkin' distance? Remember when we caught the tail end of that 5K race and he wanted to know why the runners were so tired?"
"If he could make it before dark, leaving at dawn, that would be walking distance," Anya supplied, knowing Kal's frame of reference better than the others.
"Alright," Greg said. "How about this: we'll camp outside of town tonight, then in the morning follow the south road until dark. If we don't find anything, we'll camp for the night and then come back in the morning. We'll follow the same pattern for the other two roads. If we don't find anything at the end of the last road, we'll decide on a new plan."
"Why don't we just take the truck?" Kate asked, her leg giving a twinge at the idea of pushing the recently healed bones that far. Anya was shaking her head before the question was even finished, though.
"Pyleans haven't invented combustible engines yet. Strictly horse or ox power."
"And I assume that they'd run screaming if they saw something like the SUV," Greg mused. A look at Anya confirmed his theory. "So, any other objections or ideas?"
A quick glance around was enough to show Kate that the others were open to the plan. With a sigh, she gestured for their illustrious leader to lead the way back to the truck to get their camping gear.
Damn, Connor thought as he dodged an oncoming car. Walking on campus was always a bit of a hazard, and at the moment he was running late, which only made the experience worse. He had spent the whole night working on last minute improvements of his latest engineering project, which was due by noon. He had finally fallen asleep on the couch in his apartment, and subsequently didn't hear the alarm ringing out the time.
A quick brush of his teeth and a change of clothes was all he could afford to do before snatching up his project and dashing out the door. As a result, he felt vaguely grimy and very annoyed, an emotion that just compounded his irritation about being left behind while the others went off in search of Kal.
Not that he didn't understand their reasoning. He knew as well as they did that it would be stupid to skip any time that he didn't have to. And with their "business," the possibility of him having to miss class due to death or injury was high. That didn't mean he was any less frustrated at missing out on the action.
Having a vampire's evil law firm covering the territory they usually covered didn't help the situation. He had met Gunn last night, along with his group of "Special Project" trained soldiers. They had not impressed him in the least. Gunn had taken one look at his slight frame and dismissed him as a liability and subsequently ordered him to keep his nose out of their way.
He sidestepped a student who was loitering in the middle of the walk, growling under his breath about the insensitivity of some people. He had to dodge several more pedestrians as he made his way to towards his professor's office. He was moving as fast as he could without drawing attention to either his unnatural strength or speed. He only hoped he could make it to the office in the ten minutes he had left.
Worry over missing the deadline caused him to almost miss the mailbox that was also on his list of places to be. He barely paused long enough to slip Spike's letter into the black maw before he was once again weaving in and out of the students who were heading to lunch.
He was just outside the engineering building, with five whole minutes left before the deadline, when he smelled her. The combination of Truth perfume, Pantene hair care products, and that unique scent that was especially Val's was always enough to make him smile. And today was no different. Conscious of his deadline, he hurried on, silently promising himself that he would track down his beautiful girlfriend later.
He turned his project in, much to the amusement of his professor, who had looked pointedly at the digital clock displayed on his desk, the one that counted down the time until the next deadline. He once again exited the building, only to be assaulted by Val's scent once again. This time the smell was accompanied by the brunette launching himself into his arms.
"Hey," he said with a grin, after receiving a hello kiss.
"Hey, back," she replied, smiling up at him. "What are you doing here?"
"Had to turn in a project," he explained as he wrapped one arm around her and escorted her down the sidewalk. "You?"
She gave him a happy smile. "I was on my way to lunch when I saw you. Want to join me? I'm planning on going to the dorm and scrounging up some spaghetti." At his agreement, she continued. "Where did you say the convention was?" she asked, referring to his cover story for why his friends had left LA.
"Chicago," he told her, his voice reflecting the bitterness he still felt at being left behind.
"Still sulking," she observed, giving him a cheeky grin. It was designed to tease him out of his foul mood, and it did the job.
They entered her dorm through the fire escape and crossed the hall into her room. She often joked that it was the best room in the dorm to have, since she only had to take a few steps whenever the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. He had to admit, living on the eighth floor would suck when the fire alarm went off at two am.
"What kinds of things happen at a private security convention, anyway?" she asked as she puttered around the room, getting the tools necessary to heat up a jar of Prego and boil water for pasta.
Connor shrugged and relaxed on her bed, back supported by the wall. "Canine techniques, marketing, media coverage."
"Sounds… Ah… Interesting," she observed, her voice revealing that she thought it was anything but.
"Yeah, I know," he said with a grin. "I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it either."
"So why are you still sulking?"
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, unable to come up with a reason why he would want to go to the fictitious convention. He briefly considered telling her the truth, but discarded it as soon as he thought of it. He liked Val not knowing about everything. She was his safe port in the storm that was his screwed up life.
She grinned at his obvious discomfort and continued preparing their meal, humming a soothing tune as she worked. Connor smiled at the hominess of it and closed his eyes, entertaining the thought of staying like that forever.
"Connor," Val said quietly. He could hear her padding closer to him and smiled in response. "I wish you would have told me the truth."
He opened his eyes in confusion only to shut them again as pain tore through his body. The sizzle and pop of electricity was unnaturally loud even with his enhanced hearing and the taste of bile and bologna flooded his mouth.
As abruptly as the pain had started, it stopped, leaving him weak and gasping. He struggled to open his eyes, to move his arms, to stand up and run, but his body refused to obey his commands. He fought against the panic that bubbled up inside of him and finally opened his eyes to look up at his girlfriend.
"V-val?"
"It would have been easier if you had just told the truth," she sighed as she stood staring down at him. "But he's getting impatient, so I had to resort to this." She jiggled the tazer, drawing his attention to it.
"Believe it or not, I really am sorry," she said as she once again held the device to his chest and fired.