a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title: Cormallen Road
Author: Mer
Pairing: A/S
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Post-'Not Fade Away'
 

"The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!" The voice, hoarse with exaltation, seemed to echo and reverberate through the narrow alley long after it had ended.

The last wave of demons went down, and Spike finally had the leisure to look up. "Where?"

"It was a figure of speech," Andrew said, with as much gravity as could be expected of a man covered in demon slobber and his own snot.

"Doesn't sound like any speech I ever heard," muttered Angel.

"And you've given all of them," Spike snarked back out of habit. They were both too tired to stop.

"Figure of yell, then," said Andrew.

Spike didn't remember him having that strange, desperate dignity, or any kind of dignity for that matter. Maybe he really had grown up. Or maybe anyone looked better standing on a dead dragon.

"I meant us."

Spike looked around the alley. "Us" was a slightly singed Andrew and a handful of dead girls.

"Guess eagles really are an endangered species," said Gunn.

"Not exactly the cavalry, are you mate?" Spike asked.

"It was all that would come."

"To save the world? Buffy's priorities have really changed." Angel had stepped forward, wearing that face that said I could walk right through you and I'm just itching to try.

It was exactly like all his other faces.

Andrew shook his head. "You saved the world. We just drag you away before you can die of it. That's what the eagles do."

He looked around at a bunch of people who clearly thought eagles made nests and laid eggs and occasionally got covered in gold and sat on flagpoles. "Doesn't anybody read any more?"

Illyria cocked her head. "Wesley is dead. The time for books is ended." She paused. "So are the books."

"I'm sorry," said Andrew to Angel, one potentate to another. "He was a good man."

"Shut the fuck up," said Angel. "You don't know shit about what he was."

Andrew gave a little, sad smile. "You're right," he said, "I don't."

He jumped down off the dragon and walked over to the body of a blond girl in a spaghetti strap dress. Her guts sat beside her in a neat little pile on the ground. "This is Carey." He took a few more steps, to a dark haired girl with wide set eyes and an axe still clenched in her hands. "Maria." Andrew kicked her body aside. Gunn gasped in shock, and Spike found himself jealous of the ability to be shocked as much as the need to breathe.

There was another girl underneath her. "Millicent.' Andrew walked on past what remained of Angel's team to where what looked like a deflated soccer ball lay in a puddle under a street lamp. "Lucia", said Andrew. It was a decapitated head.

"They were my slayers. They died for you. You don't know shit about who they were, Angel. And you didn't ask."

Andrew took a few more steps, looked over his shoulder, "You coming, Spike?"

Spike shook his head, and wished his hands weren't shaking with it. It was cold, there, in the remains of the rain.

"Get out of here," he said to Andrew. "Don't come back."

Andrew nodded, took a few more steps, but then stopped and turned to face them.

"I did some research," he said. "It can be more than just a gesture. With their protectors temporarily depleted, if you can draw the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart into bodies on this plane, there's a distant possibility they can be killed, or at least greatly lessened in power."

Illyria shuddered. "Death is kinder."

"What's the catch?" said Angel bitterly. "Why hasn't the Council done this years ago? Cause they gave up the only Watcher with balls enough to make the sacrifice?"

"It can't be your sacrifice. They have to be innocents. No blood guilt, no consent. Not to mention what you have to do to consecrate the altar."

Gunn leaned over abruptly and threw up in the gutter. He stood up, saw everyone looking at him, and drew the back of his sleeved hand across his mouth. "What?" he said harshly, "let's get busy with the baby killing. Who's got the shopping list?"

There was blood in the vomit, Spike could smell it.

Andrew ignored him and held Angel's eyes. "I hear your wolf will be back soon. It is lucky you kept her from the battle. Innocent werewolves are rare. You have a week to find the others."

Angel sank to his knees amid the corpses. "Nina," he said, little, lost.

It started to rain again, right on cue. Spike figured he should have known from that alone which one of them was the hero.

Spike put his coat around Angel's shoulders. When he looked up, Andrew was gone.

"You don't have to do this," said Spike. "We've had our glorious, shining moment, killed the circle, gave two fingers to the Partners, and survived." Most of us. "You could retire. Take the girl and run off to Oregon. Plenty of trees for her to run about in, that time of the month."

"What about you?" asked Angel.

Spike shrugged. "I might stick around a while."

Angel reached for his hand. Spike pulled him to his feet. It should have been a moment, if there'd been any justice. Their eyes should meet, time slow, a tiny, wry smile pass between them like a handshake between equals.

It wasn't like that. Spike hoisted Angel like a sack of potatoes, and Angel was already looking past him. "Follow Andrew," he said. "I want to know who he's got watching us, and what they know."

Gunn nodded. "On it."

Illyria swung Gunn up into her arms like a handbag. "No. I will take this one to the healers. He must be repaired."

Gunn's splutter was drowned out by a glaring floodlight and the choking putter of a helicopter taking off from a nearby rooftop.

"Don't think Charlie's gonna catch up," Spike observed.

Angel nodded to Illyria, and the two of them disappeared.

"I can walk!"

"Inaccurate. Your staggering will only draw unwanted curiosity."

"Oh, but the Catwoman outfit is on the down low."

Sirens blared in the distance. Angel started walking. Spike's too-small coat fell from his shoulders. Spike didn't bother to pick it up. He had nine more at home. Least he'd gotten something out of Wolfram and Hart besides the learning experience.

"Pathetic as this is, you're now our research department, Spike. Figure out how they got the rabbit into the hat."

Illyria into Fred, Spike translated. "How the hell do you expect me to do that?"

"Get her drunk or something."

Spike nodded. "And then?"

"Experiment."

Right -- the deeper well was unguarded now. Spike had a stacked deck of elder gods to play with. Humans, unlike eagles, were no more endangered than usual; he could use up as many as he could stomach, and then take them out to Nevada and watch them blow up.

It was a good thing Buffy already thought he was dead.

"It's never over, is it?" Spike said to Angel. He turned away from Angel and tried to light a cigarette before they turned the corner.

Hands, bigger than hands had any right to be, cupped the flame, and hid the coal out of the wind until it caught.

"Nah," said Angel. "The dragon was cool, though."

-End

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