Chapter 42

Will drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. His day had not gone well and although part of him thought that taking his frustrations out on former employees was wrong, another part of him rationalized it with the excuse that Angel had said any means necessary. Faith had been uneasy speaking with him at first, but she quickly realized he wasn't angry and didn't want to pick a fight. She seemed very averse to fighting with him.

Dawn was not so easy to talk to. She hadn't answered her phone any of the thirty-seven times he had called her. Eventually, sometime around the twentieth call, she had shut her phone off. He had been leaving messages for her all day. When he called the thirty-second time, he received a message that her voicemail box was full. That had been perhaps the most crushing blow. She hadn't even checked her voicemail to listen to what he had to say. She was ignoring him completely.

His compatriot beside him looked as though he was in no mood to talk. Deciding to stay silent, Will continued to berate himself in his head. Dawn was perfect in every way for him, he had decided. She was tenacious and headstrong, incredibly confident and competent in every area of life that mattered, and she liked his music and poetry. He had never shared with a woman that he played the guitar or wrote his own songs. He had considered that so personal that he couldn't share it with very many people. Angel had heard his music before and Wes, Gunn and Fred had an idea that he played, but he had never actually preformed for anyone but Angel.

He had been serenading Dawn for weeks. Unsure if she realized the depth of meaning his actions held, he wondered if she knew how much he cared for her. Will had known for a few weeks that he had been falling in love with Dawn. The woman she had become was intensely different from the girl she had been, but somehow very much the same person he had known in Sunnydale. All of her best qualities had been tempered and expanded throughout the years they had been apart.

The woman he loved was beautiful, intelligent, well spoken and articulate, sexy, a tigress in bed, and spoke her mind without care about who she offended. He loved everything about her. He also loved her vulnerability, her quiet sense of innocence that she tried to downplay, her nerdy sense of humor. She was still very much an optimist, no matter how hard the years had been or how much she had seen. If he was forced to choose a characteristic that he loved most about Dawn, it would be her undying faith in humanity as a whole. Despite all she had lived through and been intimately involved with, she still thought that people had the potential to make good decisions. It was a quality he sometimes wished he could own as well.

Sighing, he looked again at Angel. The other man still looked in no mood to talk. Looking out the window at the modest two story home in front of him, Will was struck suddenly with a vision of Sunnydale and the Summers' home. He remembered stalking around the bushes for a glimpse of the slayer, watching her mother take in groceries, her sister rushing to the family minivan to help. The absurdity of it all struck him full on in that moment.

The woman he had vowed to kill and subsequently fell in love with was now going to the mother of his best friend, and previous enemies', baby. The annoying, whiny and bratty little sister of the slayer was the woman he fantasized about spending the rest of his life with. Closing his eyes for a brief moment, he remembered awkwardly babysitting in his crypt and had to laugh aloud. Opening his eyes, he caught Angel's look of incredulity and quickly straightened his grin.

"Thinking about the past," he said as way of explanation.

"I don't think the past was very funny."

"It is in hindsight."

"I guess for some people."

Will grinned sadly and tried to get himself under control. He felt as though he was riding a tidal wave and was about to be swallowed. Never before had he had difficulty concentrating while working. Now, though, his chest ached and his eyes burned with unspent tears.

"Just the absurdity of it all. They way things turned out and the way they were. I mean, look at how much all of us have changed. Remember the old Wes? What a transformation. All of us made one, you know. I just…I guess it's kind of funny now that I think about it. I never would have thought…" He trailed off sadly as his mind started turning to more painful avenues.

"Yeah. I never would have thought we'd be here either. This isn't what I planned at all."

The two men stayed silent, each lost in a world of personal demons. Both jumped when Angel's cell phone rang. Taking a deep breath, he flipped it open angrily, mad at being caught so off guard.

"What?"

"He's headed your way. Just picked up his mail. I don't think he opened it."

"Thanks Xander." The fact that this man was picking up mail this late in the evening told Angel that there had to be someone working in the mail room that alerted Genero when packages arrived. It was probably the favored method of communication between him and the people he worked for.

Angel relayed the message to Will and both men sat pensively, waiting; both were excited to expend their energies on this man. Angel had to restrain himself when he saw his prey pull up to the curb. Leaning forward, with his hand on the door latch, he motionlessly stalked his prey, his pupils narrowing to focus solely on his target. He willed every instinct he had to come to the forefront of his being. It was time to hunt.

They watched as lights were turned on. It looked as though he was in the kitchen. It was only a few seconds before their super-tuned ears heard a short scream fill the house. Few others would hear such a sound, but Angel and Will were not average people. Smiling devilishly, the two men glanced at each other before exiting the car in complete silence.

They seemed to walk a centimeter above the earth as they silently went to the back of the house. The latch on the gate that led to the modest back yard nearly disintegrated in Angel's hands. The gate squeaked almost imperceptibly as it was opened and then carefully closed. Angel had popped the doorknob of the back door nearly out of its place and was in the house before the occupant could register what was happening.

With inhuman speed, Angel went for the man. Will was behind Genero before he had even turned around fully. Before Angel could lift him by the neck more than a few inches, Wes and Xander were behind him, arms crossed, watching the proceedings. Angel had originally planned to wait and see where Will's tagged ear would go, but making the man dangling from his fist talk seemed to be a much more interesting option.

Slamming the man into a nearby wall, Angel watched plaster pieces fly as the breath was sucked for his prey's body. "You will tell me who you work for."

The former Wolfram and Hart employee was nearly lifeless, hanging in Angels' grasp, but managed to shake his head in the negative.

"Wrong answer." Angel dropped him, helping his ascent to earth by pulling and pushing all at the same time, the combined effects of which made the hapless man hit the floor hard enough to crack a few ribs. "Want to try again?"

Secretly, Angel was hoping the man wouldn't talk. He was disappointed. "I don't know names. I don't know."

"What do you know?"

"Valde Ortus."

Angels' eyes narrowed; he wanted more information and knew that his victim was slowly starting to loose consciousness. "More."

Coughing hard, the man winced as tears of pain rolled down his cheeks. "San Bernardino. I don't know anything else."

"Where in San Bernardino? Give me a location or we'll take some of your body parts that you might need someday." Angel grabbed the man's earlobe and ripped upwards for emphasis.

After he was done screaming, the man took a deep breath. "There's an office building. An insurance office. They operate out of the basement."

Realizing that he had no more information to give, Angel let go of his prey. Grinding his heel into the man's hand, he made sure that he would never use his right hand fully again. No one made eye contact with Angel as he stormed from the house. The neighbors had probably called the police already, and Angel wanted to make a speedy exit. It would do no one any good to have his face plastered on the morning news in conjunction with charges of battery and assault.

Angel drove one car as Wesley drove the other. Will was on his cell phone with Xander as each pair drove in opposite directions of the other. Will assured Xander and Wesley that they should go home. It was only after Will threatened to call Fred that Wesley agreed to go home and drop Xander off on his way. Hanging up the phone, Will looked warily at Angel.

"We're going there tonight, aren't we?"

"Yep." Angel was white-knuckling the steering wheel as he drove. They were going to be there in less than an hour the way he was driving. His goal was to get there in less than forty-five minutes.

Having every confidence that the alarm would already be sounded by the time they got there, Angel was hoping there was a fight waiting for him. There was no way that their headquarters would be cleared out by the time Angel and Will arrived. There might be twenty-four hour surveillance or manning of the facility, but Angel was sure that at this time of night it would take time to rally their troops. He was counting on having caught them with their pants down.

Angel spoke little as he drove. He was more interested in going as fast as possible on interstate 210. Praying fervently that there would be no cops to stop them, Angel pushed the car past one hundred miles per hour. They might make it in half an hour, he thought to himself. Traffic tonight was scant, and most cars were easily passed. Angel had driven a Model T and most things that had come after it. No one could catch or pass him if he didn't want them to.

Will looked unconcerned at the driving habits of his compatriot. Will wasn't very much concerned with anything at that moment. His instincts were keyed; adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He could feel that a fight was coming and his body was already preparing for it. Any earlier thoughts that had clouded his actions or judgments were gone. Clenching and releasing his fists periodically, he started to tighten and release every major muscle group in his body. Ready for a great battle, he tapped his foot impatiently and wished that Angel could drive faster. They were going almost twice the speed limit, but it wasn't fast enough to get to the fight.

Angel had known immediately what insurance company Genero had meant. He had read the file a thousand times, and he knew that Xander had found the insurance company Genero's life insurance policy was from was in San Bernardino. Angel didn't believe that much in coincidences. His mind had photographed every page he had read from every file even slightly connected to his son; he knew the addresses of every contact Genero had made in the past year by heart.

Easing the car off the interstate, Angel slowed to more manageable speeds for the side roads. Angel turned the headlights off as he slowed the car into a parking lot of a small but obviously very successful insurance company. The building looked expensive and was expensively decorated from what Angel could see. He would delight in destroying it.

Turning the motor off, Angel kept the car in gear and coasted to a spot not far from the front door. Sliding the gearshift to park, he was aware there were probably security cameras aimed at the parking lot. He was hoping that they would see them coming and try to prepare some kind of initiative. It would be a little bit of a greater challenge.

They made their way around to the back of the building. The back door had a security sticker on it, which was no deterrent to either man whatsoever. Leaping high, Angel caught the gutter of the building and used inhuman technique to flip himself over and land on his feet. Running up the roof, he listened to Will follow closely behind him. There was a ventilation shaft on the roof. Angel doubted there would be sensors that would alert a security company of their presence.

Ripping the grate away from the shaft, Angel eased himself down the thin shaft head first. Thankful for his agility, and weight loss from his previous depression, he crept down the narrow shaft. Slamming his fist downwards into the first grate he saw, he dropped into a small but tasteful office. Without bothering to check if Will was behind him, Angel strode purposefully to where he would place a secret doorway in such a building.

It took one straight kick and a shooting pain up his leg to his back for Angel to find the door was made of steel. The walls surrounding the doors, however, were not. It only took one kick, in unison, from each man to create a crater large enough to step through.

Closing his fist, Angel heard his knuckles crack. It was time to get down to business.