How To Kill Your Boyfriend In One Hard Lesson Chapter 9, an angel fanfic

Disclaimer: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…

Summary: Occurs after Brother, Unfortunately Mine. Rating 18 for sexual references. The sibling theme is not entirely played out …

HOW TO KILL YOUR (PSYCHO) BOYFRIEND IN ONE HARD LESSON

Chapter 9 – Des Res., Angel Style

"Whoa." Dawn tilted her head right back. "Can we say Roaring Twenties? Surely the floor and the walls and these columns can't be real marble?" She pressed her hand against one of the lobby's supporting columns.

"Yes they are. Welcome to my humble abode. Mr Grumpy here's casa su casa." Spike jerked a thumb at Angel.

"A whole hotel?" Dawn looked at Angel. "Did you win the lottery?"

"It wasn't that expensive to buy." Angel mumbled as she went over and peered into the office and then behind the reception desk before going over to the elevator. He could almost see the translucent shade of Cordelia at what used to be her desk. "It was closed down in 1979 and scheduled for demolition in 1998 when the holding company couldn't find a buyer."

"Condemned? But it's beautiful. What's the skinny?" Dawn folded her arms and glared at her Champion and his two sheepishly faced friends. Sheepish was not a good look on anything with green skin.

Spike smiled, "Okay, you got me. You'll be as safe as houses here, pet, but you'll have to be prepared for things that go bump in the night…and clatter, bang, groan, moan, scream, rattle –"

"The hotel was built at the height of the Art Deco period," Lorne cut off the blond vampire with a glare, "financed by a very wealthy hotelier who spared no expense. He'd done the same in half-a-dozen U.S. cities and hit gold every time. The Rockefellers, Astors, Hiltons, U.S. Presidents, all those types practically lived in his hotels."

"So what went wrong here?" Dawn looked down at the lobby floor in alarm. "Don't tell me this thing's built on a Hellmouth too?"

"Close but not quite." Angel admitted, casting a nostalgic glance around the hotel's lobby. If these walls could talk…it would be a very bad thing. "There was a paranoia demon nesting on the site. The construction disturbed it but instead of leaving for a new home, the demon just moved into the hotel when the building was finished in 1928 and spent the next half a century driving the staff, long-term residents and guests to suicide, murder or both. I lived here for a while in the Fifties. In 1952, at the height of that idiot McCarthy's Communist Witch-hunt, I was lynched from that balcony by the hotel guests because they thought I was a government spy who'd murdered the guy in the next room to mine."

"Right there? I'll put up a plaque." Spike taunted, avoiding Lorne's attempt to kick him.

The green demon admitted to Dawn, "Basically, my apple Danish, this hotel is haunted with a capital 'H'. In 1979 the hotel closed down for good after the morning that the manager did the wake-up calls personally…with a double-barrelled shotgun. The company who owned it by then couldn't sell a place with a murder rate higher than New York City, so…"

"So when you say a lot of ghosts," Dawn put her hands on her hips and glared at them, "you mean –"

"This is Spook Grand Central Station." Spike confessed.

"Okay."

"That's it?" Angel questioned.

"Guys! I was a mega-powerful energy being for billions of years. I was only human for a week before an awesomely powerful Hell God tried to turn me into calamari. I've lived on a Hellmouth for four years and survived three Apocalypses…or Apocalypsii - whatever. The restless dead I can deal with."

There being no effective counter-argument to this, Angel nodded to Spike to let Dawn pick a room, while Lorne got ready with the Sanctuary whammy while he headed back to the office. Uncomfortable as it would be, he intended to swing by Cord – the Groosalug's apartment and ask Gru to stay at the hotel overnight with Spike and Dawn. Assuming the worst, that Stefan was already here, they didn't really expect him to make a move until tomorrow or the next day if he was, hopefully, really stupid enough to let them dig in their defences.

Continued in Chapter 10…