Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Mercedes and Audrey.
CHAPTER 31-I HATE THOSE GUYS
No one spoke on the ride back to their makeshift home. Audrey had been dropped off halfway back, saying that she could get home by herself. The moment that they walked out of the elevator Wesley grimaced in pain and Faith lead him back to their room, the door shutting behind them. Willow started to pull Spike and Dawn into their room before Angel stopped her, saying that he needed to talk to Spike about something important.
"Let me guess, you want to know how I know about the Scourge," Spike said softly with a hint of amusement in his voice as he and Angel stepped into the kitchen.
"For starters," Angel replied with a cold look of seriousness on his face as he shut the door behind them and turned back to Spike.
"Dru and I came across a few of their scouts back in the fifties, they were making their war throughout southern France, we stayed far enough away so that they wouldn't know we were there, but close enough to see the threat that they could pose," Spike replied with a bored shrug of his shoulders as he slowly walked to the refrigerator, opened the door, and pulled out a vial of blood.
"This is all going horribly wrong, what is he thinking, no one can control the scourge," Angel growled back sharply, more angry at the situation that at Spike, as he slammed his fist down onto the counter top.
"Who says that he wants to," Spike questioned back with a grim smirk on his face as he opened a cupboard and began to look for a mug.
"He wouldn't be that stupid," Angel shot back with a look of hopeful disbelief on his face as he straightened up, crossed his arms in front of his chest and then leaned back against the counter top.
"Perhaps, but can we afford to take that chance," Spike sagely said with a serious look on his face as he found a mug and then filled it up with the blood.
"We may have to, I got in touch with Giles and I was barely able to get a word in edgewise because Buffy and Xander were there and they wouldn't listen to anything that I had to say until I told them what was going on," Willow replied with an eerily calm tone to her voice as she pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen
"You didn't did you," Angel demanded with an almost breathless look of concern on his face as in his minds eye he could see everything that he had set up come crashing down.
"Of course not, I'm not going to betray my friends…again," Willow started to confidently explain as she slowly approached Angel before a half glare from Spike made her amend her statement.
"What did you tell them then," Spike wondered aloud with a curious look on his face as he put the mug of blood into the microwave and then shut the door.
"As much of the truth that I could say, that there was a very dangerous army of demons that just arrived in Rome, I named them several times and told Giles to write it down, it shouldn't take him to long to find them in one of his old books," Willow replied with a nervous look on her face as internally she was desperate for Spike and Angel to believe her.
"If they're even in any of his dusty old books," Spike pouted quickly with a look of grave concern on his face as he watched the mug spin around and around, wondering to himself if he should have covered it.
"The Scourge don't exactly like a lot of press, they're even more secretive than the Initiative," Angel added with a very sour and concerned frown on his face as he shook his head and then sat down at the small table.
"You sound like you know a lot about the Initiative, but they didn't come to Sunnydale until after you left for L.A.," Willow pointed out with a slightly confused look on her face as she sat down at the table in a chair opposite to Angel's.
"Well…let's just say that the Initiative has been around for longer than you might think," Angel grumbled back with an annoyed frown on his face as he remembered the mission that he had been forced to undertake decades before.
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"What'd Gwen give you," Faith asked softly with a concerned look on her face as she came out of the bathroom, toothbrush firmly in hand. While she was in the bathroom Faith had heard the door open and words being exchanged between Wesley and Gwen, but the radio had been loud enough that she hadn't been able to full make them out. But she had caught a quick glimpse of Gwen handing something that looked like a file to Wesley.
"A problem, a problem that needs to be solved before we get the other book that'll allow me to decipher the first one that we stole," Wesley replied with a very serious look on his face as Faith crawled up onto the bed and laid down on her back with her head close to the foot of the bed and her feet ending up near Wesley as he had taken all of the pillows and used them to prop himself up.
"So what's the damage," Faith groaned back with a sarcastic frown on her face as she stared up at the ceiling fan above the bed while she unbuckled her jeans and proceeded to carefully kick them off and let them slide off the edge of the bed.
"Several months ago Gwen was hired to steal a very rare emerald that is over four centuries old, it's said to possess special transmutation capabilities," Wesley started to answer with a tired yawn as he was forced to stop reading through the file and rub his eyes before Faith jumped in.
"It does what again," Faith asked with a confused frown on her face as she lifted only her head up off of the sheets and looked straight at Wesley.
"It changes one thing into another, with the medical background of the person that hired Gwen for the job I can only imagine that he plans to use the stone to try and cure his terminal cancer, changing his cancerous cells back into normal ones, a nice idea," Wesley said back with a serious frown on his face as he found his place on the page again.
"I'm guessing that you think that this idea falls into the to good to be true category," Faith joked with an amused smirk on her face as she bent her left leg over top of her right and gently ran her toes down the side of Wesley's bare right arm.
"Don't you, the last time that she asked us for our help ended up almost getting us all killed," Wesley remarked back with a serious and rather glum frown on his face as he shook his head in dismay.
"Maybe, but one good thing did come out of it," Faith quipped back with an amused and tired expression on her face as she propped herself up on her forearms, allowing a few strands of hair to fall down in front of her face, making it hard for Wesley to concentrate on keeping his eyes on the file in front of him.
"Really, and what was that," Wesley shot back with a tired sigh as he let out the breath that he had been holding in ever since laid down beside him.
"You getting me out of that urine soaked hell hole that I was in," Faith snapped back softly with a fair amount of venom in her voice though the look in her eyes told a completely different story.
"Really, the prison looked clean enough to me," Wesley stated with a surprised half frown on his face as he closed the file and let his glasses slide down to the tip of his nose.
"It was a joke Wes…God," Faith grumbled back with a slightly flabbergasted expression on her face as she flopped back down onto the bed and covered her face with her hands as she let out a sigh.
"Ah yes…a joke, I seem to remember them, I remember that I was quite good at them," Wesley softly replied with a completely honest look on his face though the edges of his mouth were beginning to curl up into the start of a smile as he spoke.
"The Immortal's demon thugs must have hit you harder than I thought if you actually believe that," Faith started to grumble back with a slightly annoyed scowl on her face as she picked her head up off of the bed before Wesley reached over with his right hand and grabbed the inner side of her right leg, just on the underside of her knee. Her breath caught in short gasps as he began to slowly caress the underside of her hip, his hand almost grazing the edge of her panties, before she set her jaw and sat up. "Jerk," Faith growled softly under her breath with a daring fire in her eyes as she stopped Wesley's hand from moving up and down the underside of her thigh with one hand while pulling Wesley close with the other.
"Bitch," Wesley breathed out back with a randy grin on his face before just as their lips met there was a knock at the door.
"Shit," Faith grumbled softly with a disappointed sigh as she dropped her head down to Wesley chest as he picked his head up.
"Who's there," Wesley asked with an anxious and slightly disappointed frown on his face before there was an answer.
"It's me, we need to talk," Angel replied with a hesitant tone to his voice as he anxiously stood outside the door, trying hard to keep his nerves under control.
"Okay, just give us a minute," Faith called out with a frustrated frown on her face as she flopped back down onto the bed and then scowled as Wesley pushed his glasses back up to a proper position on his nose.
"You guys okay," Angel asked softly with a somewhat concerned look on his face as he leaned in closer to the door, hoping to figure out what was the holdup, even though it was unnecessary given his vampiric hearing.
"Five by five," Faith shot back through the doorway as she hurriedly slid off of the bed, picked up her jeans, and wriggled back into them, zipping up her zipper only a couple of seconds before she turned the doorknob and opened the door.
"Gwen said that she had a job for us," Angel said with a serious and curious expression on his face as he slowly walked into the room and then shut the door behind him.
"That and then some," Wesley replied with a tense frown on his face before he handed Angel the file and began to explain.
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"The scourge, never heard of em," Xander shrugged out softly with a tired yawn as he sat back in his chair and watched Vi and Andrew playing a game of tic-tac-toe.
"Why does that not surprise me," A subdued Kennedy grumbled from the corner as she tried to hold back a yawn. After fleeing the Immortal's office with the soul she had searched a few more places before stumbling back to her and Willow's room. She tried to call Willow a couple of times but by the second time she was so sleepy that she ended up dialing a very wrong number. She was barely able to hang the phone up before sleep had overtaken her.
"No one's talking to you," Xander shot back with a clearly sarcastic and combative tone to his voice as he snapped his head around and glared straight at Kennedy, who still hadn't changed out of her bathrobe even though it was now almost noon.
"Now don't start this again," Giles grumbled out softly under his breath through a sigh as he began to slowly scan the different books that he had laid out in front of them on the large meeting room table.
"Start what Giles, I'm just pointing out the fact that," Xander started to continue on with an accusatory tone to his voice before Buffy stopped him.
"That's enough, if these scourge are as bad as Willow said that they were then the last thing that we need is for the two of you to be going at each other like cats and dogs at every turn," Buffy exclaimed with a very anxious frown on her face as even though she hadn't actually taken the call her slayer senses were going haywire, telling her that trouble was coming.
"Oh I'm afraid that they're worse than Miss Rosenberg told you, far worse," Roger stated softly with a grave frown on his face as he shook his head while standing in the doorway of the meeting room, his hand on the doorknob.
"You know of them," Giles asked with a somewhat surprised look on his face as he looked up from the files momentarily.
"Unfortunately yes, not by personal experience of course, but an old colleague of mine was present at an autopsy of one of their members, my friend said that he saw these…things in action later on, he said that they were terrifying…absolutely terrifying," Roger replied with a somber look on his face as he took his hand off of the doorknob and entered the room, without shutting the door behind him.
"How…terrifying," A visibly nervous Vi asked with a panicked look on her face as she stopped in the middle of winning a game to swallow hard and look down the table.
"I believe that you could best compare them to Adolf Hitler's secret police, the S.S.," Roger answered with a frustrated look on his face as he sat down beside Xander and let out a sigh.
"Are you okay sir," Andrew asked with a worried look on his face as he stood up and took a step towards Roger.
"Quite alright, I think that I'm catching a rather nasty cold, it's left me a bit drained, I'll be fine…now, we should put all of the slayers in the city on full alert, if they catch even a glimpse of these creatures they are to radio in and wait for reinforcements, it would be absolute suicide for any slayer…no matter how powerful she might believe herself to be…to take the Scourge on alone, even with several slayers they still might prove to much," Roger grumbled back with at first an impatient frown on his face before he turned away from Andrew and looked straight to Giles, avoiding having to look at Buffy as he spoke the last few portions of his answer.
"They're really that bad," A scared Xander asked as he slid his feet off of the chair next to him and sat up straight.
"I'm afraid so Mr. Harris, and true to their nature there are very few if any pictures of them, they're so secretive…though if you know what to look for…and what to listen for," Roger began to say with a very serious look on his face as he began to idly tap his fingers on the table.
"And what's that…exactly," Kennedy wondered aloud, after having stayed silent for the past few moments, as she pushed off of the wall and began to slowly walk towards Buffy.
"The scourge always appear at night, they march in formation…a military formation, they all wear boots that if one listens carefully can be heard knocking against the sidewalks and back alleys before they're actually seen, fear is one of their most lethal weapons," Roger answered back with a firm look on his face of one that didn't doubt the stories about the Scourge and took them very seriously.
"Wish we knew someone that had actually fought these things," Vi mumbled out softly with a scared look on her face as she walked up behind Andrew and leaned up against him, resting her chin on his shoulder, hugging her body close to his. Were Andrew not so wrapped up in the discussion about the scourge and his own fears about them he might have noticed how close Vi now was to him.
"In perhaps the cruelest bit of irony that I've heard of in ages we actually do, though I don't think that he's going to give us any assistance," Roger said back with a dark smirk on his face that soon turned into a devilish grin of sarcasm.
"Why…who is it," Buffy asked softly with a surprised and perplexed look on her face as she couldn't think of anyone that she knew that would have tangled with the scourge and wouldn't help them if at all possible.
"Your friend Angelus…or Angel as he calls himself, several years ago he and his associates were foolish enough to take the Scourge on in an effort to protect a shipment of half demons out of this country, they won…no…they survived the night, except their survival came at a terrible cost, one of his number was lost in the battle, I do not believe that Angel would wish to confront the Scourge again unless he had no other choice," Roger replied softly with a refrained look of somberness on his face as he recalled the knowledge that he had gleaned from a top secret security briefing several years earlier.
"But he did have Willow call us and tell us about the Scourge, surely that has to mean something," Buffy stammered out with a hopeful and almost pleading tone to her voice as she looked first to Roger and then back to Giles.
"I guess it's possible, but highly unlikely, he would be more apt to simply not tell us anything than he would to ever fully explain," Roger said back with a scornful glint in his eyes as he slowly shook his head.
"Wait…doesn't Willow have her pager," Kennedy suddenly announced with an optimistic look on her face as she turned back around to face towards Buffy.
"Yeah…but she's not going to call us back," Xander stated with a confused frown on his face before he ran a hand nervously through his hair.
"She doesn't have to, I could call and leave her a message to meet me somewhere out of the way, someplace quiet, maybe then she might tell us more, or at least we could find out if this is a ruse or not, but right now…to me, my girl's telling the truth," Kennedy shot back with a hopeful smile on her face as she began to slowly shift her weight back and forth from one leg to another before Xander started to speak.
"Don't you dare," Xander started to grumble with an angry scowl on his face before Buffy slouched down in her chair just far enough so that she could slam her heel down on top of his foot, hard enough to get him to shut up but not hard enough to break anything.
"That might work," Giles softly said with a very deep in thought look on his face as he stared straight ahead at the files in front of him before a plan began to form.
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"I knew this was to good to be true, she sets us up here and gives us everything that we need," Angel grumbled out softly with a slightly disappointed frown on his face as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I guess that this is how she wants us to pay her back," Wesley replied with a brief shrug of his shoulders as he took in as deep of a breath as his injured ribs would allow.
"But what's so special about this job," Angel asked with a dreadfully curious tone to his voice as he half turned and looked back over his shoulder at Wesley as Faith walked around to stand at his side.
"I'd say probably the heat sensors, looks like if the temperature rises to high they go off," Faith said back with a calm and serious look on her face as she leaned over next to Wesley and looked closer at the open file that he had propped up against his knees.
"And given that both you and Spike put off far less heat than a normal human being the two of you should be able to slip in without triggering the sensors," Wesley added with a calm but yet serious tone to his voice as he looked down at the file and frowned.
"Both of us," Angel wondered with a surprised and slightly confused look on his face as he stood up and turned back to Wesley and Faith.
"Looks that way I'm afraid, apparently there are other obstacles near those same sensors that do not appear to be what you'd normally expect to find, from what Gwen has here the security system sounds an awful lot like Wolfram and Hart's when you and Cordelia were trying to stop Lindsey," Wesley answered with a rather glum expression on his face as he shook his head and closed the file, handing it up to Faith.
"Just who's security system is it…Wes," Faith asked with an anxious frown on her face as she didn't like the vibe that Wesley was putting off.
"Wesley," Angel asked, a bit more pointedly than Faith, as he knew that whenever Wesley went silent it never meant anything good.
"Here…sorry Angel, I know how much you hate," Wesley softly replied with an almost guilty expression on his face as he took the file back from Faith and did his best to toss it to Angel with it landing on the other side of the bed.
"Wes," Faith whispered softly with a confused look on her face as she gently laid a hand on his shoulder and tried to get him to look at her.
"Ah crap…he's a necromancer," Angel grumbled out with almost a schoolboy pout tone of voice and look on his face as he rolled his eyes and his shoulders sagged.
END OF CHAPTER 31
Author's Note: To me the talk at the beginning between Angel and Spike was mostly about Angel finding out how Spike knew of the Scourge. Basically Spike and Dru had come across a few of them years earlier and learned all that they needed to in a very short time. Like he wanted her to Willow called Giles and told him about the Scourge but refused to tell them where she and Dawn were. The crack about the Initiative stems from the episode where the precursor of the Initiative forced Angel to do a job for them in World War 2. The stone that Gwen wants them to steal basically changes one thing into another, like lead into gold, or at least it can do that. Gwen's reason for wanting it is so that she hopes to be able to change her own cells so that she's rid of the electricity forever, without having to resort to the chip all of the time. The urine soaked hell hole part stems for an old episode of The Simpsons where Sideshow Bob is at his parole hearing and he calls the prison that and the pardon board wants him to change it to pee-pee soaked heck hole. Wesley and Faith come close to having sex but then Angel interrupts them. The part with Buffy and the others has Xander and Kennedy still at odds over the affair. Giles and Buffy are trying to learn about the Scourge; Roger helps them out with some knowledge that he's gleaned over the years from reports and the like. Vi and Andrew seem to be getting a bit closer and spending more time together. Roger's a bit under the weather at the moment, which could become worse. The last section has Wesley and Faith talking with Angel about the job that Gwen wants them to do as payment for her setting them up in her apartments. Angel doesn't like necromancers as shown in a very early episode of season five. The sensors wouldn't pick up Spike and Angel, as their body temperatures are much lower than normal peoples. So in closing thanks to everyone for reading and as always reviews are appreciated. Let's see how high we can go…