Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Mercedes and Audrey.
CHAPTER 32-NEW GIFT
The special meeting had been convened in the largest room of Gwen's apartments. Unlike what would usually be the norm not everyone attended. Willow and Dawn were kept out as Angel felt that it was best if they were kept out of any plan involving a theft of something from someone that had no connection to the Immortal. Kate and Groo were told enough so that they were comfortable being left out and left behind. Connor had argued long and hard to be included in the mission but in the end had begrudgingly agreed to stay behind. Though when he was around everyone Angel told Nina that he couldn't tell her what the mission was about once it was only the two of them he reluctantly told her everything.
"This won't end well," Spike grumbled out softly with an impatient frown on his face as he shook his head and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"We don't know that for sure Spike," Wesley replied with a slightly hesitant look of apprehension on his face before Faith leaned in close and whispered to him.
"But you're guessing that he's not to far off though right," Faith pointed out in a hushed whisper with a look of dread on her face as she had a feeling that was similar to Spike's about the mission. Wesley sighed before nodding his head ever so slightly.
"Hey now guys, come on, he won't even be home, you guys aren't turning chicken on me, not after," Gwen started to say with a look of angry disbelief on her face before Angel turned and silenced her with a look.
"Of course not…we've just had some bad experiences with necromancer's in the past," Angel stated with a very firm and clear tone to his voice as he angrily shook his head and glared lightly at Gwen.
"However in that case Angel you and Spike did have direct contact with," Wesley started to argue with a somewhat hesitant look on his face as he started to elaborate on one or their old cases before Spike interrupted.
"That wasn't the experience that Peaches was talking about there Wesley, we managed to happen across a few during our travels," Spike interjected with a grim look of proud nostalgia on his face as he allowed himself a half smirk.
"You mean that swath of destruction that the four of you carved through Europe," Kate shot back with an accusing scowl on her face as she pushed off of the wall and glared lightly across the room at both Spike and Angel.
"Lady sure knows her stuff…wonder how that happened," Spike joked with a grimly sarcastic smirk on his face as he lightly glared over at Angel, who paid him no mind.
"I read up on you guys back in LA, quite the glory hounds," Kate replied with a grim smirk of sarcasm on her face as she leaned back up against the wall.
"Glory is good for a hero," Groo started to say with a proud and slightly excited smile on his face before Faith leaned back in her seat and looked at him over her shoulder, a fair amount of hair falling in front of her face as she did so.
"They weren't hero's back then bub, just soulless vampires getting their kicks by killing," Faith casually replied with an impish smirk on her face before it turned into a full smile at the glare that Angel sent her way.
"Can we get back to business here people, this has to be done tomorrow night at the latest because after that the stone will be moved out of the country, and if that happens you guys can start looking for another place to stay," Gwen remarked with a very serious and firm tone to her voice as she let out an upset sigh and turned sharply to face Angel.
"So what's the rush, got a hot date or something," Faith joked with an amused smirk on her face as she turned back around just as Wesley leaned forward a bit with a slightly pained scowl on his face, an act that immediately consumed Faith's world.
"Why should I tell you, you shouldn't even be here, I only need Angel and Spike, the rest of you," Gwen started to snap back with a tense frown on her face before Angel spoke up and interrupted her.
"They're here to be our eyes and ears while we're inside, there's no one I trust more than them," Angel interjected with a very serious and impatient frown on his face as he walked over at sat down next to Spike.
"Besides, Faith will make one hell of a diversion if need be," Spike added with an impish grin on his face as he seemed to almost relish the idea.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"You don't think that…she knows not to trust him," Buffy stammered out with a nervous look on her face as she sat across Giles' desk in his office.
"Of course Buffy, Dawn's a smart girl, it'd take something pretty special for her to stay with Angel after what he's done," Giles replied with a hopefully reassuring tone of voice as he looked up briefly from the file about the Scourge that he was putting together.
"That's just it though, if he's not lying to her then…what, what would make her stay," Buffy wondered aloud with a worried look on her face as she absentmindedly flipped through a few pages of the file spread out across her lap.
"Perhaps he's told her that he has proof that we are all in some sort of danger and she is simply waiting to see if he's telling her the truth or not," Giles said back with a nervous shrug of his shoulders before Vi stepped timidly into the room, holding a rather large file in her hands.
"Or maybe he's telling the truth and we're the ones that have it wrong…oops, sorry, forget I said anything…here," Vi stated at first with a very calm and relaxed tone of voice before her nerves returned and got the better of her. Nearly blushing half to death Vi set the large file down on the edge of Giles' desk and then hurriedly turned to leave.
"Uh Vi," Buffy suddenly exclaimed with a confused look on her face as she lifted her head up so that she could see Vi's reaction to her question.
"Y…yes," Vi replied back quickly with a scared look on her face as her hands nervously went to a lock of braided hair before she began to wind it around her left index finger.
"What did you mean, that maybe we're the ones that have it wrong," Giles asked with a curious look on his face as even though he knew that Vi wasn't the brightest slayer in the world he knew that she also wasn't a slouch in the academic department and her statement gave him pause.
"Huh…oh nothing, just me rambling on about things that I don't know anything about, just forget that I said anything," Vi quickly said back with a now scared look on her face as she took a cautious step backwards away from Giles' desk and her gaze shot over to the door.
"It's okay Vi, we're not going to yell at you, we're just curious," Buffy said softly with a calm smile on her face as she set the files that she had been scanning down onto the small coffee table in front of her chair and stood up.
"Well I've been reading up on the history of the old council and seen enough late night movies to know," Vi began to say with a subtly calmer look on her face as on shaky legs she walked back over at sat down in the open chair.
"Late night movies," Giles pondered aloud with a confused frown on his face as he laid his pen down and cocked his head just a bit to the side.
"One of the benefits of not having a life…heh," Vi replied with an embarrassed giggle before she hunched her shoulders up and let her head droop down a bit.
"What do old movies have to do with," Buffy started to ask with now an even more confused look on her face before Andrew entered the room, doing his best to look as professional as possible. Though his act was broken quite severely when he bumped his cast on the corner of one of the bookcases and nearly shed tears in pain.
"I think she means that… appearances can be deceiving, Angel's never been the most forthright vampire, and I don't think that he's been corrupted, it's more like he feels that we abandoned him…or at least that's what I got from Nina," Andrew stated with a calm look on his face and tone to his words though his eyes shown of fear before Giles stopped him by half raising his hand.
"Nina…she would be," Giles asked with a deep in thought expression on his face as he remembered back to the night of the party and tried to remember the young brunette woman that had accompanied Angel and Wesley.
"Angel's girlfriend, the werewolf…she's actually pretty nice," Andrew quickly answered with a happy grin on his face as he remembered that for a brief moment he had enjoyed talking to Nina at the bar, all of course before Illyria had stormed in and broken his hand.
"He's dating a werewolf," Buffy stammered out with a stunned and surprised look on her face as she sat back down in her chair.
"She was there the night of the party, after Angel interrupted it, she didn't look like she liked it very much," Giles added with a very concerned look on his face as he leaned back in his chair and picked his pen back up, seconds before he told Andrew to tell him everything that he knew about Nina, Illyria, and Gwen and the others.
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"So then you're going to stay here and be our eyes and ears," Faith asked with an outwardly confidant and sarcastic smirk on her face, as she pulled a tight black shirt on over her head and then pulled her hair all out, while inwardly she was very nervous.
"That's the plan, but I think that Gwen might have other ideas," Wesley unhappily replied as he stared sadly out of one of the windows in their room as the sun began to set off in the distance.
"She's not dragging you into this any more, I can handle this fine…you can barely walk a few feet without doubling over and nearly coughing up blood," Faith said back with at first a defiant look of certainty on her face before she scowled heavily as she began to tuck her shirt in.
"Easy Faith, I don't think that she has any designs on my joining the team that retrieves the stone, it's more likely that she's going to have one of those horribly stereotypical spy vans that she'll have parked a few blocks away," Wesley said softly with a calming look on his face as he turned away from the window and towards Faith as she glanced back at him.
"You mean like in the movie that Dawn watched last night, the one with Ahnold in it," Faith questioned back with a slightly impish smirk on her face as she finished tucking her shirt in.
"I believe it was called True Lies," Wesley started to say with a tired yawn as he started to make his way across the room back towards the bed.
"Good movie, the actress that played his daughter wasn't to bad either," Faith joked with a darkly sarcastic grin on his face before Wesley stopped walking and closed his eyes, taking in as deep of a breath as he dared.
"Getting back to the task at hand though…don't take any unnecessary risks, Angel and Spike will take enough of them for all of us," Wesley replied back with a hesitant look of sarcasm on his face before he made up the distance to the bed and sat down.
"Why is that, if they were still alive you could probably call it a death wish, but they've both been dead for so long that," Faith started to wonder back with a bored look on her face before Wesley reached across the bed for her shoes, stretching a bit to far, and couldn't help but hiss in pain. Faith stopped speaking the instant that she heard him, her eyes full of concern.
"I'm fine…just a little stiff, don't say it Faith," Wesley started to reply with an angry at himself tone to his voice before it became more commanding as he glanced up at Faith, as the edges of her mouth were beginning to curl up just a shadow of a bit.
"Say what," Faith shot back with the most innocent look that Wesley had ever seen on her face as she shrugged her shoulders.
"You know what I mean, I could hear the gears inside your head spinning, coming up with some randy comeback," Wesley grumbled back with a none to pleased scowl on his face as he put a hand to his ribs and leaned back up against the stack of pillows on his side of the bed.
"Touché…actually what I was going to say is that before I get knee deep in zombies," Faith said back with a bemused smirk on her face as she walked back towards the bed, pulling her socks out of the pockets of her jeans.
"Zombies," Wesley asked softly with a perplexed expression on his face as Faith sat down on the bed on the opposite side and took the shoes from him.
"He's a necromancer Wes, doesn't it stand to reason that if he has guards they'd be zombies," Faith lazily answered with a bored frown on her face as she began to pull her socks on.
"So you're thinking that he doesn't have guards," Wesley questioned with an inquisitive expression on his face as he reached down and grabbed one of Faith's socks just as she was finishing up putting the other one on.
"He probably does, but maybe we'll get lucky and he'll have a swelled head and think that no one would dare try to steal from him so he wouldn't need guards," Faith sharply replied with a surprised look on her face as she lightly glared up at Wesley before she snatched her sock back.
"That's a bit to lucky for us luv," Wesley tiredly replied as he stiffly leaned back up against the pile of pillows and closed his eyes, letting out an anxious sigh at the end.
"Yeah…you're probably right, we'll probably run into a whole army of guards," Faith sadly replied with an apprehensive look on her face as she put on her other sock and finished tying her shoes.
"Then we'd better get ready," Wesley grumbled out with a tired and slightly pained sigh as he forced his eyes back open and then used the headboard to pull himself up to his feet, with Faith watching his every move closely.
"I'll go tell Gwen that we're ready, don't die on me before I get back okay," said softly with a serious look on her face as she silently slid off of the bed and started to head towards the door.
"I'll try not to disappoint," Wesley answered back softly with a weary half smirk on his face before Faith left the room, to soon to see Wesley drop quickly back down onto the bed and try to catch his breath.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Mercedes watched Illyria silently. She knew what she was but for some reason Mercedes still found it odd. After having been left out of the planning meeting for the big mission Illyria had begun to wander the halls of the hotel, staring oddly at everyone that left there rooms. To avoid too much unwanted attention she had shifted back from the fierce blue-eyed goddess and to the mousy girl from Texas. Mercedes wasn't sure which incarnation she liked better, after being cooped up in the few rooms of Gwen's lofts she had begun to go stir crazy. The bars and clubs of the city had been her playground, now she was forced to keep an eye on a half insane ex goddess for God knew how long.
"Can this get any lamer," Mercedes grumbled to herself with a bored and disappointed scowl on her face as she flopped back into one of the chairs in the lobby, careful to choose one that was clearly out of the last few rays of sunlight for the day. Illyria had taken a sudden interest in watching the bank of televisions in the hotel bar. The only thing that Mercedes wanted to do in the bar was drink, but as much as she hated it she had been given a job and she was going to do it.
"Who knows…define lame," Kennedy joked with a slight shrug of her shoulders as she walked up behind Mercedes and was clearly hiding something underneath her jacket.
"Kennedy, what are you doing here, how did you," Mercedes excitedly blurted out with a pleasantly surprised look on her face as she jumped up out of the chair and went to hug Kennedy, but the latter backed up a bit. "What's wrong, you usually love my hugs," Mercedes added with a curious pout on her face before she raised an eyebrow and winked at Kennedy.
"I have a surprise for you," Kennedy nervously replied with a quick glance around to make sure that both no one had followed her and that no one was watching her.
"You're not wearing any underwear," Mercedes offered up with a hopeful smirk on her face as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and let thoughts of watching Illyria slip from her mind.
"Close," Kennedy replied with a slightly embarrassed smirk on her face before she edged a bit closer to Mercedes and unzipped her jacket about halfway, showing Mercedes the vase like object that she had taken from the Immortal's office. Mercedes gasped in shock at the sight of it.
"Wait a bloody minute…that's…that's," Mercedes stammered out with a totally surprised and astonished look on her face as she laid a hand on Kennedy's shoulder and pulled her close, enough so that no one who walked by would see what the slayer had hidden underneath her coat.
"You think it's your soul," Kennedy pointed out with a curious look on her face as she unintentionally leaned into Mercedes a little bit. She had heard Mercedes talk about the Immortal having her soul but she had never actually seen it.
"Do I think…I don't have to, it is my soul, but how did you," Mercedes blurted out with a relieved, excited, and scared tone to her voice as she tried to clear out the jumble of thoughts in her head.
"So this is something good," Kennedy added to her question with a hopeful look on her face as she let out a small breath that she had been holding in.
"Forget good, it's great," Mercedes exclaimed with a victorious grin on her face before she pulled Kennedy into such a powerful kiss that the she almost dropped the soul.
"Whoa," Kennedy gasped out softly under her breath when Mercedes pulled back, pulling the vase like object out of Kennedy's coat as she did so and holding it up in front of her.
"Kennedy, why you little," Spike started to growl angrily as he stormed out of the elevator before Mercedes tore her attention away from her soul and stepped in between them, late enough that she and Spike bumped into each other, though neither gave an inch as her forearms were laying up against his chest and her bent left knee was touching his right knee.
"It's here, Spike, this is it," Mercedes sputtered out with an overwhelmed look on her face as she looked up into Spike's eyes, her own bursting with stars of excitement, with the smile spread across her face making her even more beautiful.
"Gonna have to be a bit more specific here pet," Spike pointed out softly with a confused and none to impressed look on his face, as he stayed in place, before Angel loudly coughed beside them and diverted their attention. Spike said nothing but Nina raised an eyebrow and gave them a knowing look, before a confused look crossed onto her face.
"It's my soul," Mercedes eagerly explained as she leaned back a bit and held the vase like object up for Spike to see.
"Your what," Nina demanded with a stunned look on her face as she quickly looked to Angel in the hope that he would have an answer.
"Her soul, I found it when I went through the Immortal's office, he almost caught me but I hid in the closet until he left," Kennedy answered for Mercedes as she stepped forward in Angel's direction, ignoring the snicker that she heard come from somewhere over in Connor's direction.
"Are you crazy, that was a very stupid thing to do," Angel declared with a very disapproving scowl on his face as his hands found his waist and he let out an impatient sigh.
"True Peaches, though if this really is her soul," Spike said back with a curious look on his face as he turned towards Kennedy as she nodded her head in agreement.
"It's her soul all right," Willow interjected with a very truthful and matter of fact tone to her voice and look on her face as she stepped in front of Dawn and slowly nodded her head, staring straight at Angel even though Kennedy was trying to catch her eye.
"Willow…what are you," Kennedy gasped out with a surprised and nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, as she was scared about what might happen.
"I could say the same thing," Willow sharply replied back as she sent a quick glare Kennedy's way before Gwen broke it all up.
"Come on people let's move, we haven't got all night," Gwen exclaimed with a very determined and authoritative tone to her voice as she pushed by Angel and Spike and headed towards the door.
END OF CHAPTER 32
Author's Note: The chapter starts out with the beginnings of the meeting between Gwen and the others about the job that she wants them to do. Most of the group are going to stay back at the apartments and be safe while Spike and Angel take point, Faith goes along for back up, Gwen goes along to make sure it gets done, and Wesley will stay back and be the teams eyes and ears. The Buffy and Giles part is about them actually beginning to question what they think of as truth and wondering if Willow knows something that they don't and it scares Buffy. Vi reinforces the thought with her words as since she's single and not a party animal she's watched an awful lot of late night movies over the years and so she's seen plots like this before and points it out. Vi likes Andrew and so she kind of wants to be near him. He doesn't jump away from her because he's to busy with what he's doing to notice her immediately. Faith and Wesley talk about the upcoming mission as Faith is getting dressed for it and Wesley teases her a little bit. Yeah the True Lies thing might be a bit weird or stupid but it was funny at the time to me so I put it in here, thinking that Dawn might watch the movie if it came on. Their part ends with the call to arms of sorts for the mission. Mercedes comes into play when she's made to watch Illyria, something that she finds very boring, seeing as how she's itching for some action, in more ways than one. Kennedy's sudden arrival is a pleasant surprise as is the fact that she has her soul somehow. When Spike and Angel show up in the lobby with the others to start the mission Angel is skeptical but Mercedes seems to want to show off her soul to Spike to get his approval, as she still wants to please him even though he's not her sire. Willow comes in at the end and isn't happy to see Kennedy but remains calm for the sake of the mission at hand. Gwen then interrupts and almost literally drags the team out of the lobby after her. So in closing thanks to everyone for reading, suggestions and questions are welcome, my forum is open and feel free to ask questions in your reviews, which are always appreciated.