Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Audrey.
Wicked R-Angel/Nina are fun to write for me in this story and they'll be sticking together.
Tamara-There won't be a joyous reunion between the groups, it'll more closely resemble the WWE's Royal Rumble.
Miss American Pie-Glad that you're liking the story, Wes and Faith aren't done yet…
Jess-Don't worry I won't abandon this story, I'm having too much fun writing it and people are reviewing it so I'll keep writing it.
CHAPTER 5-SAME OLD, SAME OLD
"The hospitality in this place sucks," Nina grumbled with a sarcastic smirk on her face as Angel ushered her up the stairs.
"I'll remember to tell that to the clerk at the front desk," Angel replied with a sarcastic tone to his voice as he directed Nina over to a darkened corner of the upstairs.
"Just do me a favor and don't do anything stupid, I stitched you back together once and I'm not to eager to have to do it again," Nina replied with a sincere look of concern on her face as she pushed aside an old board and squatted down behind an old brick chimney.
"Remember whom you're talking to pet, ole Peaches here loves to play the hero and save the day," Spike interjected with a sly grin on his face as he drew the short sword, that he had been carrying since they left New York, out of the folds of his duster and then positioned himself near the top of the stairs.
"And you don't," Faith chimed in with a slightly mocking smirk on her face as she followed Wesley up the stairs, sliding the knife out of its sheath that was looped onto her belt in the small of her back.
"This can only end badly," Wesley mumbled out softly with a frustrated and anxious expression on his face as he drew his guns and backed into the darkest part of the upstairs level that he could find, making sure to not get anywhere near Nina so that she wouldn't have a chance of getting hit by their enemies that were aiming at him.
"You can say that again, we're not here for more than a few minutes and they're already sending out the bloody welcoming committee," Spike said with a very grave look of concern on his face as he backed up a bit further into the shadows.
"Who are they," Faith whispered across the darkened upstairs as she squatted down behind an old overturned chair that had the stuffing all ripped out.
"Vampires, doesn't sound like to many of them," Angel answered with a slight tone of relief in his voice as he picked up his favorite sword and ducked down into the darkness on the other side of the stairwell so that he was directly opposite Spike's position.
"Maybe we got lucky and they're only scouts," Nina whispered with a nervous smile on her face as she tightly gripped the stake that Angel had handed to her just before hurriedly ushering her up the stairs.
"We can only hope," Wesley started to say with an anxious tone to his voice before the sound of the vampires crashing through the door downstairs silenced them all for the time being.
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They all listened as well as they could while trying to stay as silent as possible given the circumstances. Angel and Spike stayed on opposite sides of the stairs, making sure that they'd be the first line of defense. Nina nearly dropped the stake in her hand when the first vampire came into view. She could see the ridges on his forehead, oddly enough with what looked like a tribal tattoo spread all over it. A hint of curiosity began to creep in before she saw what he was carrying. It looked straight out of a cartoon, but the vampire held a large bundle of sticks of dynamite with a large clock attached to it and several curly wires in between.
Faith's eyes grew wide at the sight of the bomb, sure she could handle drunks, vampires, and demons but a bomb was something different entirely. Across the way in the darkness Wesley's mind was already processing the presence of the bomb, trying to figure out why the vampire would even have the bomb. He didn't have a long time to think as Spike's sword flashed through the air, cleanly severing the vampire's head from its body and turning it into a pile of dust. Angel nearly shouted out in alarm as he rushed forward to catch the bomb, but the arrival of the next vampire up the stairs interrupted him and the bomb fell down beside the open stairwell and landed on a pile of old sheets.
"Bloody hell," Spike grumbled softly with an unhappy and nervous scowl on his face as the rest of the vampires figured out what had happened and hurried to attack.
"Nina stay here," Angel said with a very serious look on his face as he jumped back up to his feet and tossed his sword to Spike before he threw himself down the stairs and onto the three vampires that were charging up them.
"Watch her," Spike added with a none to pleased look on his face before he jabbed the two swords into the floor in front of him and then took off down the stairs towards the fight, just as Angel and the other vampires were getting back to their feet.
"This is getting out of hand," Wesley stated with an unhappy scowl on his face as he emerged from the shadows and hurried to the top of the stairs, guns drawn.
"What did you expect, since when have you known either of them to do anything the easy way," Faith replied with a fair amount of sarcasm in her voice as she stepped up beside Wesley, drew her knife, and waited for an opening in the fight down on the ground level.
"One could say the same about you," Wesley quipped back with a sly grin on his face, which in turn made Faith work hard not to smile back before the opening presented itself and she dove into the fray.
"What's happening," Nina asked with a worried tone to her voice after several moments of waiting and watching Wesley from her spot in the shadows.
"Well the good news is that Angel and the others are holding their own…the bad news is that reinforcements just arrived," Wesley replied with a nervous tone to his voice as he half turned back to Nina before a vampire noticed him at the top of the stairs and started to charge him. A hail of gunfire met the vampire, bringing enough force to knock him back down the steps and taking out a vampire that was about to attack Faith. Wesley was about to reload one of his guns when he saw Angel grab Spike by the shoulder and shove him back towards the stairs. Spike started to argue but then looked down at the bomb and everything clicked.
"Time to go," Spike shouted with a nervous and slightly scared look on his face as he punched out one vampire and then raced up the stairs past Wesley and pulled Nina out of her hiding place.
"What's going on," Nina asked with a fearful expression on her face as she did her best to keep from dropping her stake as Spike pulled her towards the second story window.
"Everybody out," Angel shouted at the top of his lungs as he followed Faith up the stairs at an almost frantic rate of speed before Spike leapt through the window and falling down towards the cold water below. Wesley barely had time to holster his guns before Faith barreled into him very hard, knocking both of them over the windowsill and out of the window, tumbling towards the blackness below.
"Angel," Nina started to say with a very scared look on her face before in one motion Angel picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and dove out of the window. The two had just cleared the window when the bomb went off, leveling the building, the one next to it, and littering the water with debris.
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Consciousness returned to Wesley slowly, helped though by the sensation of something soft and silky tickling his upper lip. From the way that every thought of movement made his entire body hurt he knew that he hadn't come out of the explosion unscathed. He hazarded to open one eye and found himself on a dimly lit shore, under a pier. When he looked to the side he could see Angel sitting protectively near a still unconscious Nina while Spike stood watch at the edge of the pier. When he glanced down he saw Faith lying on top of him looking like she was still out as well. Surprising himself the first thought that chanced itself into his mind was that she looked quite beautiful with her hair slicked down and messed up while sound asleep.
"Faith," Wesley softly asked with a nervous tone to his voice as he fully opened both eyes and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Nnh…Wes, that had better be a roll of quarters in your pocket," Faith grumbled back with a half asleep and almost adorable pout on her face before her eye slid open to small slits and she looked him straight back in the eye.
"What if it isn't," Wesley asked with a bit of a randy tone to his voice and a joking grin on his face as at first Faith just stayed where she was and studied his face.
"Then we'd both be in trouble," Faith softly replied before she scrunched her face up like she had a headache and pushed herself up and off of him so that she was sitting beside him.
"Good you're awake, we should get going it's almost sunrise," Angel said with a very serious but relieved look on his face as he picked Nina up into his arms and shook a bit of water out of his hair.
"No rest for the wicked eh, fair enough, didn't feel like forty winks anyway," Spike said with a relaxed sigh and shrug of his shoulders before he walked over and then gave first Faith and then Wesley a hand back up to their feet.
"Looks like our covers blown, the whole world must know that we're not in LA anymore," Faith said with an unhappy and slightly nervous look on her face as she tried to brush some of the sand and dirt off of her jeans.
"I don't believe so Faith, those vampires looked almost like they were surprised to see us, it's as if they were in the building on a separate mission and we just happened to be there," Wesley said back with a tired but deep in thought look on his face as he started to do his best to make himself look presentable.
"Well this area of the docks is pretty run down, maybe they were trying to clear out the old to bring in the new, without worrying about something like the law," Spike added with a thoughtful expression on his face as he ran a hand through his glistening hair and then stepped out into the early morning.
"Let's hope he's right, otherwise this could all blow up in our faces," Angel said with a very serious and grim look on his face as he gave both Wesley and Faith one last look before following after Spike.
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Twenty-four hours later found them all hunkered down in the back of an old railroad car as the train sped across Europe. Whenever the train would stop Angel and Spike would quickly go to the nearest farm and replenish their supply of pig's blood and then jump back on just as the train was leaving the station. Nina had slept most of the way after having left England while Faith kept one eye on the countryside whizzing by them and the other half concentrated on Wesley, still expecting something to go wrong with him at any moment. As they continued on their way across Europe every so often Angel and Spike would take turns playing tour guide, both seemingly trying to outdo the other with the tales of their earlier exploits.
"Would you two put a sock in it, some of us are trying to get some sleep," Nina grumbled, still half asleep, before she rolled over in her bed of hay and was soon back to sleep.
"I don't think that it's humanly possible for either of them to stay silent for to long, except when they're brooding, oddly enough that's one of the few things that they have in common," Wesley said softly with an almost amused expression on his face as he leaned back up against the stack of bales of hay and looked over at Faith.
"I don't know, Angel can be pretty tight lipped when he wants to be," Faith joked back with a sarcastic smirk on her face as she casually turned the blade of her knife back and forth and watching the patterns of reflected light on the wall of the train car.
"True, but if we're going to survive the three more days that it's going to take us to get to Rome then we need to find something else to talk about other than Angel and Spike's glorious past as bloodthirsty vampires," Wesley added with a quick roll of his eyes and deep breath as he tried to make himself comfortable before falling asleep.
"Wonder if we should pay Andrew a visit, make sure that he didn't spill the beans about my not being dead," Spike wondered with a curious look on his face as he scowled heavily while leaning to one side on his bale of hay to avoid the few rays of sunlight that managed to filter into the car.
"I don't think that'd be a good idea, he may have not told Buffy or Giles about you being back but we can't expect our luck to hold out forever, we have to strike before anyone knows that we're alive, as long as we have the element of surprise than we have a chance of stopping the apocalypse that Cordelia saw in her vision," Angel answered with a grim and unhappy scowl on his face as he stayed in the corner of the car, watching every inhale and exhale of breath that Nina made as she slept.
"Strike with what, everything that we had was lost in the explosion," Spike stated with an impatient and unhappy scowl on his face as he brushed some loose straw off of his duster.
"Well…the old mill should still be there, or at least the crypt that was under it," Angel replied with a hopeful look in his eyes though the expression on his face was one of concern and uncertainty.
"You stayed in a crypt, what about when they buried someone down there," Faith asked with a confused and surprised look on her face as she sat up a bit and wrapped her arms around her legs that were drawn up under her chin.
"We let them have their funeral, then after they were gone we dumped the body in the river and filled the vaults with weapons and other valuables, since they'd never open up one of them that was already supposedly in use it was the perfect hiding spot, but all of those weapons must be rusted through by now," Spike answered with an almost proud smirk on his face as he crossed his arms and retold a bit of the story.
"Some of them sure are beyond repair, but the others we can hopefully salvage and use, besides some of the weapons are enchanted to never rust or dull, they should still be as sharp as the day that we packed them away," Angel said with an optimistic look on his face before he stood up and made his way across the back of the car and sat down on a bale of hay opposite Spike.
"Alright, let's say that we are able to use those weapons there, what then, going to Giles and the others isn't an option, we have to start our search," Wesley started to say with a content sigh as his shoulders slumped a bit and he swallowed hard before Angel cut in.
"We'll get to the search after we take care of a little personal business," Angel declared with a very grim and deadly serious look on his face as he clasped his hands together and tapped his thumbs together in what was almost a thoughtful pose.
"Meaning what exactly," Faith asked with a curious look on her face and sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she slid her legs back out straight and looked up at Angel.
"We find The Immortal and say hi," Angel said with a sickly sarcastic half grin on his face as he so tightly clenched his hands together that the knuckles turned even whiter than usual.
"Right before we kill him," Spike added with a very determined and hopeful smile on his face before he pulled a cigarette out of one of his pockets, stuck it in between his lips, and began to search the rest of the pockets for a lighter.
"And kill anyone and everything that gets in our way, including the rookie slayers, I'm not backing down to a bunch of slayers again, they've all been trained by Giles and Buffy so their moves will be predictable, they won't stand a chance," Angel said softly with a very cold look in his eyes before his countenance softened considerably as Nina mumbled softly in her sleep and his gaze instantly went to her sleeping form.
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Angel's guess had been right on the money, the old mill or at least what was left of it was still there. It was an old mill that had used a paddlewheel driven by the river to power the grinding stone. But the river had long ago dried up and now the decrepit paddlewheel spun ever so slightly in the evening breeze. The mill was in the middle of a valley just inside Italy. Wesley and Faith had their doubts but Angel and Spike had led them straight to the building with enough time left to spare for them to gather enough firewood to begin. Faith helped Angel and Spike lift the old stone slab that had been placed over the opening to the crypt when the mill had ceased functioning.
"Now don't take this the wrong way but this is really creepy," Nina said with a nervous and slightly scared look on her face as she ducked out of the way of a large cobweb as Angel led the way with an old lantern that he had scrounged up.
"Said the werewolf to the vampire," Spike said softly under his breath with a daring half grin on his face as he walked calmly by Wesley and Faith as they intently surveyed the surroundings. The crypt wasn't very big when compared to some of the others that Wesley had seen but sure enough there were plenty of tombs carved into the walls, admittedly an ideal place to store weapons.
"So what now," Faith asked with a serious look on her face as she dusted off the plaque's on a few of the vaults, half checking the names just for something to do.
"We stay here and get ready while you go back to Rome and report back to Giles and Buffy, I have a feeling that you'll be able to make something up that they'll believe, Giles always was a bit to sure of himself, we'll get in touch when we're ready, you'll have fair warning before anything happens," Angel replied with a very serious look on his face as he set about tidying up the crypt and readying it for work, breaking out a small window at one end for the smoke to billow out of at the end.
"But," Faith sputtered with a shocked and slightly angry scowl on her face as she stepped forward and looked like she was ready to say more but she stopped talking when Wesley laid a hand on her shoulder.
"We need you to do this Faith, if you don't show up sooner of later Giles and Buffy will get curious and put their guard up, we can't have that happen, not now," Wesley said with a calm and certain tone to his voice and truth in his eyes as Faith looked back over her shoulder at her former watcher, but made no move to wrench his hand from her shoulder. Faith was about to protest when Wesley was suddenly overcome by a fit of coughing, only caught from dropping to a knee by a fast acting Faith as she held him up.
"Wesley," Angel exclaimed with a concerned look on his face as he instantly stopped what he was doing and stared straight at his friend.
"I'm okay…really, it must be the stale air down here, I think I'm going to go get a little fresh air," Wesley gasped out at first with a labored expression on his face as he slowly came out of the coughing fit and started to take a step back towards the exit.
"And I'll make sure that you get there," Faith said with a very nervous tone to her voice as she solemnly nodded back at Angel before helping Wesley walk back out of the crypt and into the cool night air.
END OF CHAPTER 5