Disclaimer: No, I don't own Angel, Buffy or the Dresden Files.
Tales from Oracle Securities
By Alkeni
Chapter 10: The Lucien Files II
Penthouse Suite, Hotel
1:15 pm July 15th, 2003
"Okay, since when were you absolutely loaded?" Faith asked as she got a look at the inside of the penthouse suite. "I mean, back in Sunnydale you were poorer than I was. You had just the one suit." She walked inside, dropping her bag onto the ground with careless inattention. "I suppose working for the mob pays better than I thought." Then she looked at him. "If you can blow this much on a place when you're on vacation, why was your apartment so...well, not this?"
"In point of fact, I had two suits when I was in Sunnydale. Though yes, my finances left something to be desired." Wesley opened his suitcase and pulled out a small vial of green-black powder. He crouched by the door and sprinkled about half the contents in a line across the bottom of the entryway. "As for how I have a great deal of money now, well, I suppose I have my father's will to thank for that. The Wyndam-Pryce family has spent at least four centuries accumulating wealth with both hands. Its rather amazing what compound interest can accomplish." He went back over to the briefcase and tossed a jar of something at Faith, who caught it instinctively. She unscrewed the lid and recoiled.
"Jeez Wes, what the hell is this?" She hurriedly covered the offending substance back up.
"Nothing that offensive. Various ingredients. Smear a bit around each of the windows. Its part of the warding."
"Willow didn't need to use anything like this when she did the wards at HQ in Cleveland."
"Willow not only has the power to be a full member of the White Council – something I very much do not – but she's also quite simply an incredibly powerful spellcaster in general. She has no need for things like this to provide a thaumatological crutch." He started sprinkling another powder by the door. "I, on the other hand, am a dabbler at best." He turned his head to look at her pointedly. "Faith, start smearing some of that around each of the windows. Now."
"I don't work for you, Wes." Faith countered.
"True enough, But the sooner everything is in place, the sooner the spell is cast and the sooner we have wards up protecting the room."
Faith rolled her eyes and let out a suffering sigh as she headed to the nearest window and set to work.
After five more minutes of work, everything was in place. Wesley chanted a few words, and the powder and the paste glowed for a moment, before vanishing into the carpet or walls respectively.
Faith didn't know any of the languages Willow used when she was casting spells, but she recognized the sounds of Latin and Ancient Greek, especially since Giles used them both in conversation more often than she'd liked. Whatever Wesley had used wasn't either of those languages. Curious, and with not much else to do, she asked.
"Akkadian." Wesley supplied. "Normally, I'd use Sumerian or Ancient Egyptian for this sort of thing, but it wouldn't work with the ingredients I used, in this case."
"Just how many languages do you speak?" Faith wasn't just limited to English, despite dropping out of High School midway through her Freshman year. She could speak pretty good Spanish, picked up in the real world, rather than the classroom, and she had a vague memory of a handful of words learned in the too many French classes she'd had to sit through in Middle School and what of High School she'd actually attended. And for the life of her, she had no idea why she could remember how to say 'the monkey is on the table' in French. It had just stuck in her head ever since.
"I would hesitate to say that I speak Akkadian, Sumerian or Ancient Egyptian – I read them, but there's really no good way to know if the pronunciation is right. Apart from English, Latin, Hebrew and Greek, when it comes to purely human languages, there's Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Hungarian, Swahili, Zulu and Hindi. I can get by in others, given enough access to materials or some judicious finger-pointing and circumlocution. I can read Ancient -"
Faith realized that his pedantic tone was deliberate. "Okay, okay." She interrupted. "I get it. You know a hell of a lot of languages." She left the front room of the penthouse, wandering into one of the two bedrooms – finding it equipped with a fancy plasma wide-screen TV. "Sweet." And the selection of available movies for purchase was pretty good too.
Motel Room
2:30 pm July 15th, 2003
"We checked the place out. Its definitely a fortress. Armed guards at the main gate and in small towers at every corner of the fence – and yea, its electrified – and no other good way into the place." Gunn pointed to the sketch of Lucien Drake's compound that Fred had drawn. "They patrol. Too. Gotta be close to fifty men and woman just outside the building. Plus whatever he's got inside."
"The demon I talked to said Lucien's got about two-hundred and fifty cultists in there with him, most of them grown adults prepared to fight and die for him." Lorne added. "Getting in there won't be easy. He brings paranoid to a new level. There's no deliveries from outsiders – he sends his people out to make any purchases they need to make."
"What are they armed with?" Angel asked.
"Shotguns, mostly." Fred answered. "But I'm pretty sure I saw full machine guns in each of the towers, and if each of them don't have access to some heavier and very illegal personal weapons, I'll give up tacos for a month."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Cordelia said softly with a laugh. "You wouldn't be able to go a month without tacos."
"I could do it. After all, an enchilada or a burrito isn't a taco. But I really rather wouldn't, and I won't have to, because I'm right." She pulled up a window on her laptop. "The cult as a whole, or its members been investigated for weapons charges at least thirty times, from trafficking to possession of stolen military hardware. At no point have they been convicted of anything. And only one case made it to trial." She looked up. "And before you ask, yes, Wolfram and Hart L.A. represented them every time."
"Well, that's what brought us here in the first place. The intel we got from Wolfram and Hart." Gunn pointed out. "Not surprising the information would be a client."
"If all they have is guns, then I can handle them. How high is the fence?" Angel asked Fred.
"Sixteen feet." Easily jump-able for a vampire.
"That makes it pretty simple. I jump over the fence, take out the guards at the gate, and open it up. We can go tonight."
"No Angel, we can't do it tonight." Cordelia said pointedly. "You need to scope the place out tonight, see what their nighttime routine is like. How many lights they have set up, if they have more or less guards, the nighttime patrol schedules."
"And I need to meet with my contact again and find out more about this creep's buddies. If he has half as many unsavory friends as they say he does, we're in for a world of trouble once we take him out." Lorne held up his hands. "Not that I'm saying we don't take him out. But I'd like to know what we're getting into, Angel-cakes."
Angel bit his lips. Lorne only called him that when he wanted to annoy him, these days. Though both he and Cordelia were correct.
"Alright, fine."
Penthouse Suite, Hotel
9:15 pm July 15th, 2003
Faith heard Wesley heading for the door just as Theoden and his warriors rode out of the main hall on their horses, right into the enemy army. Yes. She was watching The Two Towers.
The options for entertainment at prison had been limited, of course, and she'd found herself with nothing to do but read, and watch the occasional movie. That was how she'd ended up watching Fellowship of the Ring. Not a bad movie. Pretty good, actually, especially with Vigo Mortonson in there. She'd even broken down and read the books – well, skimmed over parts, and read others.
Are all British people just really good at being boring?
So she'd decided to watch the second movie, since it was available on the TV here. But now, Wesley was headed out. She went to the door of the bedroom she'd taken over. "Where you going, and do you really need to take an armory with you?"
"I'm hardly taking an armory. I have my sword," He rolled his sleeve down over the wrist-device, "two handguns and a pair of stakes."
"And the knives in your boots and up your other sleeve. And the vials of holy water on your belt." Faith pointed out. She shrugged. "Okay, so its not a full armory. But its still more heat than you need to be carrying if you were just going out more normally. I was going to wait until the movie was done to go see if I could find some vamps, but if you're going now, hey, strength in numbers, right?"
"I'm not going hunting for vampires. I'm going to scout out Lucien Drake's compound."
Makes sense. Faith considered. They might be able to just walk in, but once they set the place on fire, they'd have to make an escape pretty quick. "I'll come with you." She ducked into her bedroom and grabbed her knives and stakes.
"Ready?"
"Five by five."
Outside Lucien Drake's Compound
10:02 pm July 15th, 2003
Angel smelled someone arriving just as he'd finished his first circuit of the compound. Even more guards, and while they had guns, a number of them definitely had crossbows. Wolfram and Hart must've warned them. Or maybe they've already had vampire troubles. The whole place was locked down like a bank vault, though. Apart from jumping over – and even then, with all the floodlights, that would be easier said than done. Which just made things more fun.
Angel went towards them. Two people. One male, one female...
"No. Can't be." He murmured to himself.
"Wes, given that you kill people and work for a mobster, I'd have thought obeying the speed limit would be pretty far down on your list." Faith's distinctive voice carried over to him. Angel made his way closer.
"Getting pulled over by the police for speeding wouldn't have made our lives easier. And its not like the speed-" Faith raised her hand, cutting Wesley off.
"There's a vampire here." The time between her declaration and when one of her knives went sailing through the air could have been measured in milliseconds, it seemed.
Angel moved his head to the side and let the weapon embed itself in a tree, inches from his throat. He pulled it out. Faith would want it back. "Watch it!" He hissed stepping out into their view. "Neck wounds don't heal quickly."
"Angel? What the hell are you doing here?" Faith's relaxed her grip on her stake. Wesley didn't stop pointing his gun at Angel.
"Can you put the gun down Wes?"
"Funny, I didn't think we were friends anymore, Angel."
"What the hell happened with you two? I got that there's some bad blood already, but neither of you ever told me." Faith cut in, then. "Better idea. Let's talk about all this somewhere else. You're here for the same reason we are." She pointed to the compound. "The crazy kid-killer in there. You're casing the joint, which is why we're here. So let's get that done now, and handle whatever personal bullshit you two have later. Kapish?" No response from either of the men. "I said, Kapish?"
"Yea, fine." The two said almost simultaneously after a moment.
"Put the damn gun down, Wes!" Faith added through gritted teeth.