Chapter Two
----====Wesley====----
"A soul?"
"Yeah mate, a soul."
"How did you manage that?" Despite everything, I found I was at least vaguely intrigued. If what this blond vampire had just told me was true, well, it changed so much.
He looked pointedly inside the apartment. "Long story, Watcher. Go down a lot better with a beer and a comfy chair."
Years of Council training and extensive field experience with vampires screamed: 'caution'. At the very least, I should have fetched my cross and crossbow before granting an invitation. But to do so would have implied I cared whether I lived or died. I did not care, so I thought. And indeed I felt there would be a certain aptness in a death at the fangs of Angel's grandson, if the chipped state should prove a lie.
"Come in, William."
I turned my back upon the demon, and headed towards my cabinet from which I removed a bottle of fifteen-year Glenfiddich -- a recent gift from Lilah, and two shot glasses. "I have no beer. I assume a single malt will suffice."
I turned back to find my door shut and William the Bloody sprawled on my couch. Aside from the over-bleached hair, the most noticeable thing about his appearance was his almost skeletal thinness. In a human it would have been cause for hospitalisation.
He smiled amiably enough. "Do fine, thanks."
I sat in the chair opposite him and poured myself a large measure, which I drank in one gulp. I poured myself another and then passed the bottle and the second glass across the table to my guest. "Help yourself."
"Ta, mate. Mind if I smoke?"
"Very much, yes."
"Oh. Rightio." He seemed nonplussed. He tipped himself a small amount of whisky, but did not drink it.
I poured myself a third. "So, you have a soul?"
"Yeah."
"How? Were you cursed like... your grandsire?" It remained surprisingly hard to say Angel's name.
"Nah, went and got it. Thought for some insane reason I actually wanted one."
"*Were* you insane? I cannot think of another reason a demon would volunteer to share its abode with a human soul."
He laughed briefly and without humour. "Maybe I was. Hey, Watcher, don't mind telling you the 'hows', but the 'whys', well, they're a bit private."
I nodded, accepting that for the time being. I was, as I said, intrigued, and very little had interested me in months. I knew a fair amount of the history of William the Bloody, and this frail and strangely amenable man on my sofa was not at all what I would have expected. "So, the 'hows' then..."
"Oh, big uber-demon shaman type in Uganda, various trials and tests. I passed them, so got what I'd asked for -- bloody right I did."
He went to Africa? That can't have been an easy journey for a vampire. "And how did the reinsertion feel?"
"Bleedin' awful. By the way, Wesley... er, can I call you that?" I nodded. "I was just at your offices and in case you didn't know, they were trashed. And there was this, er, not-a-human, a big bugger, stinking up the place. Got rid of him for you."
"If you are referring to the Hyperion, that is no longer my office."
"Angel Investigations moved home again?"
"I really wouldn't know." I stared above Spike's head at a spot on my apartment wall. There was a grease stain there. I tried to remember whether it was present when I moved in.
"Oh. I see. Soddin' hell, this day's going well." He looked abjectly depressed as he sat forward, and ran his hands over his face. "So you're not going to be able to tell me where the poof is, are you?"
"When did you get your soul, William?"
"Couple of months ago."
"Roughly the time I lost mine then."
"Huh?" He looked alarmed.
"That was a joke," I said, without smiling.
"Need to work on the delivery there, mate."
"I am sure you are right."
The Watcher in me wanted to ask more questions. It wanted to put this Spike to the inquisition, discover the full facts and ponder the ramifications. But giving a sufficient amount of damn to go further with the questioning was suddenly altogether too much effort. I tried to tease myself alert with thoughts of the Shanshu prophecies; could the scrolls of Aberjian refer to William the Bloody and not Angel? I sighed, and poured myself another drink. I just couldn't seem to care.
To hell with prophecy.
And indeed the prophecies of hell... Wolfram and Hart had spent a great deal of time and money trying to force the vampire with a soul into darkness. This to ensure their victory in the coming End of Days. The existence of a second souled vampire, one of the same bloodline as Angel, well I didn't believe that was foreseen at all.
Suddenly, I found myself picturing Lilah's face when she learnt about Spike. I wanted to see that. I wanted to watch the expressions play across her features as the inevitable chain reaction of thoughts and realisations cascaded through her brittle mind. I craved her confusion, her pained response to the chaos this inevitably would bring to her world. I needed to be there to witness her control crumbling, and to gloat as she struggled to calculate the new tactic that would be most pleasing to the Senior Partners.
And so I had to be the one that told her.
The vampire was brooding silently into his untouched whisky. I said to him, "Would you care to come on a little trip across town with me, William?"
He looked up, surprised. "Er, call me Spike -- I guess I still prefer that. A trip to where? I need to find Angel."
"Angel will stake you the second he sees you."
"Not if the bugger knows I have a soul, surely?" He didn't sound convinced of that fact.
"A soul won't stop his murderous impulses, I can assure you."
Spike looked at my neck. "Oh bloody hell, did he do that?"
"No, that was someone else. A short drive then, Spike? A visit to see my... acquaintance?"
"What acquaintance? You're not exactly inspiring confidence in me, Watcher. You look, if you don't mind me saying, like bloody Eli Wallach in the Good the Bad and the Ugly, and we all know how soddin' trustworthy he was."
"Thank you, Spike, that is most gratifying," I said with cool sarcasm. "Her name is Lilah Morgan. She's a lawyer and an evil bitch. I will take some pleasure in introducing her to the *second* vampire with a soul from the line of Aurelius."
"Lawyer? We talking Wolfram and Hart here?"
I raised an eyebrow. "You've heard of them?"
"No demon worth his carnage hasn't."
"Yes, Lilah is the head of the local Special Projects department. She has a particular interest in your grandsire."
He gave me a cynical look. "And you want her to develop a particular interest in me as well?"
"Oh, I think your existence will throw the whole firm into barely controlled chaos for some time." I smiled nastily.
"Tempting," he answered sarcastically, "but won't they stake me on sight?"
I shook my head. "Many of their best clients are vampires. While they mystically detect your kind and employ specially trained, stake-wielding guards, you will not be slain for entering the premises. More importantly perhaps, Wolfram and Hart have a vested interested in keeping souled vampires around until the next apocalypse. I will sign you in as a guest.
"You can do that?"
"Yes."
"You work for Wolfram and Hart?" He seemed incredulous.
"No, but I am an increasingly regular associate and have earned relative freedom and privileges within the building."
"Christ, Wesley! What the bloody hell is a Council of Wankers, dyed in the wool stalwart like you're meant to be, doing working for a bunch of evil tossers like Wolfram and Hart?"
"I needed the money." I said truthfully, if not in the spirit of full disclosure. "Shall we go?"