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dragonyphoenix) wrote2009-05-10 12:53 am
Demons With Death On Their Minds, Part 2/4
Author: LAsh
Title: Demons, With Death On Their Minds
Series Index: Leaping In The Dark
Characters: Spike, Angel, Cordelia, Wesley
Rating: Rating: R for violence
Concrit: Please, In Comments
Disclaimer: They have never been mine. They are not now mine. But they will be mine, once I've taken over the world. Bwah-ha-ha.
Warnings/Squicks: Description of Spike torturing some humans, somewhat graphic but short. Overly strong coffee.
Summary: Angelus and his kills were infamous throughout the demon world. Still, and why couldn't he keep his thoughts off this track, of the three most likely to be imitating his kills, one was dead, by his own hand, and that left... He didn't want to have to kill his Childer.
Cordelia strode into the lobby, of what used to be the Hyperion Hotel and was now the headquarters of Angel Investigations, where Wesley, engrossed in a newspaper, didn't even raise his head as she started in on her tirade. “Oh, I do not believe this day. First my alarm clock doesn't go off. Then I miss my bus. I had to explain why I'd blown off my casting call, which wasn't my fault, but didn't that conversation not go well.”
“Cordelia,” he said, finally looking up from the paper, “have you seen this about the couple killed in the ice skating rink?”
“Have you heard a word I've just said?” she asked as she carefully placed her Gucci look-a-like bag in a desk drawer.
“No, not really.”
Cordelia sighed. “Is it demonic?”
“I'm not sure. Doesn't seem to be but there is something vaguely familiar about it,” he replied with a slightly puzzled expression, as if there were something he should be able to but couldn't quite recall.
Holding up her hand, palm facing Wesley, Cordelia said, “If it's not demonic, I don't need to hear about it. If it is, take it up with Angel.”
“Is what demonic?” Angel asked as he walked into the office and handed a cup of coffee to Cordelia.
“Thanks.”
“A couple were killed at an ice skating rink. Their intestines were pulled out, from small cuts to their stomachs, and were laid out between them in the shape of a heart.” Angel tensed at Wesley's words but not enough for either Wesley or Cordelia to notice.
Cordelia took a sip of her drink. “Ugg. Who taught you to make coffee? Just how many scoops did you use anyway?” Without waiting for an answer she turned to Wesley and asked, “Like a Valentine's Day heart?”
“Exactly.” Wesley replied.
“So we're thinking that somebody killed them and then pulled out their intestines?” Cordelia asked.
“No,” Angel replied in a dead tone of voice. “Their intestines were pulled out before they died.”
Wesley looked at Angel sharply. “How did you know that?”
As Angel strode towards the door, Cordelia called out, “And just where do you think you're going?”
“I need to see it,” he replied commandingly.
“You need to see it so badly you're just going to walk into the sunshine?” Cordelia asked. Angel stopped and carefully did not look back at them, not wanting to see the conjecture on their faces.
“I could go, check it out, and report back,” Wesley suggested, circling the name of the ice rink in the paper.
“No, I need to see it myself.”
“OK, Mr. Obsessively interested in a gruesome murder,” Cordelia replied. “You're just going to take your convertible on this nice, sunny day?”
“Wes can drive.”
“Even if we put the roof up, you can't avoid the sun completely,” Wesley said.
“I'll ride in the trunk. Bring the car around,” Angel added as he headed towards the shadows by the back door.
Wesley and Cordelia gave each other an exasperated look before Wesley shrugged his shoulders and went for the car.
“And how do you think you're going to get in? It is a crime scene.” Cordelia shouted across the room to Angel.
“Cordy,” Angel spun around, not quite in vamp face. At her expression, he added, more calmly, “just, please, back off.”
“OK. Here's me, backing off.”
* * *
Spike walked into the jewelery store just after dusk. An older man was working the counter and, how appropriate, he thought, another couple.
“May I help you?” the man asked, obviously thinking Spike couldn't afford anything in the store.
“Yeah, you can help me all right,” he said, slipping into vamp face. The boyfriend screamed as he caught a glimpse of Spike's face. “You can close this place up, nice and tight. Don't move,” he added to the couple who were inching away. “And no funny stuff. Cops show up and you're all dead.”
“You two, over there,” he gestured the couple to a back corner of the store.
When the older man had finished locking up the store, Spike slipped back into human face and very sincerely said, “I'm looking for a necklace: gold, with rubies, not too gaudy. I want it to resemble one I picked up for my girl some years back, on Valentine's Day.”
After the clerk had boxed the necklace, Spike gestured for him to join the others and then started pointing, to one after the other, as he said, “Eeny meeny miny moe...” His choice landed on the clerk. “Bugger. Not the one I want” he shouted as he kicked a chair through a display case. Then he shrugged, sat the boyfriend on a chair, pulled duct tape out of a pocket, and bound him good and tight. He tore the boyfriend's shirt to rags before catching the woman's eyes as he pulled out a knife. He smiled at her gasp. “Please,” the clerk begged, “take anything you want. Please just let us go.”
“Shut up,” Spike snarled, “or I will do you first.”
He sliced a strip of skin off of the boyfriend. As the man started to scream, Spike looked over at his audience while he slowly licked up the welling blood. Then he pinched the man's nostrils closed to shut him up. “Now, now,” he said over the man's gasps, “no need to be rude. I just want a quick conversation with your lady fair.”
Addressing the woman, he added, “You tell me the truth, and I'll let you go. I just want to hear the truth. Is that too much to ask? That girl last night, she told me the truth, eventually, but she just said it to save their lives. Didn't count, did it?” When the woman didn't respond, he sighed and added, “You tell me you don't love him and you live. Continue to lie, you die.”
He let go of the man's nose and licked his lips at the sight of blood dripping down the chest. He leaned over and started licking again. The clerk pulled a gun out of his pocket and aimed it towards Spike. Before he knew what had happened, the gun was gone and Spike was dangling him from one hand. “Ah ah ah. Naughty naughty. Wait your turn,” Spike said before slamming him to the ground.
Time for a few more cuts, he thought as he looked back towards the boyfriend. The man's screams were loud, very loud, but Spike was still able to hear the woman when she started to shout, “I don't love him, OK? Please. I don't love him. Stop. Just stop.”
Spike pinched the man's nose shut again, to give them some quiet. He continued to lick blood off the man's chest, waiting for it. “You're going to let us go now, right? I said it and you said you'd let us go if I did.”
Spike, wearing his most angelic expression, turned to the woman and said, “I lied.”
* * *
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Speechless? Really? Thanks. ;-)
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