Part 5:
Spike abruptly pushed his chair back and jumped up, lit a cigarette and began to pace about the room.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, before turning towards Illyria and answering her question. "Means that blood ain't the only thing taken for a Claim, Blue."
Illyria's head tilted further as she considered his words, but Gunn's response was more predictable. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in surprise.
"Tell me you don't mean. You and Angel?"
"Did I say Angel?" Spike threw over his shoulder as he continued to pace. Cigarette in hand, he waved it between himself and the still seated, silent vampire. "We never. well, just that once."
Angel's glare cut him short.
"Fine, fine," he said, as though words had been spoken between them. "The point is Angel and Spike don't, but Angelus and William, well that was a whole different story."
Gunn's shocked expression became even more exaggerated, and that seemed to irritate the blond vampire even more. He stalked over to him and leaned over the back of his chair, lips almost brushing the darker man's ear.
"We're vampires mate and you've been studying, fighting and killing vampires for a long time. Don't tell me you don't know. We're animated by blood, driven by blood. We'll fuck anything, living or dead, moving or still."
Wesley and Angel both noticed the slight flinch in the younger vampire's expression as he spoke his last sentence, but it disappeared quickly as he nodded his head in Angel's direction and continued, this time the anger in his voice replaced by something else, the words spoken in a low, sibilant whisper.
"But you know what's best, Charlie-boy?"
Gunn looked in the direction indicated, and fixed his eyes on Angel, as though he couldn't stop himself.
"Family, mate. Feeling the same blood, the same demon, coursing through our veins, circulating between us, gathering strength." His whisper dropped lower yet, until it was barely audible to Wesley, who sat just three feet away. "There's nothing like it in the world, Charlie, nothing."
He straightened up and walked away, lighting another cigarette. Only Angel noticed that his hands shook as he did.
"But that's gone now," he said, his voice flat and emotionless. "Penn's gone, Darla's gone, and Dru is fuckall who knows where," he added, throwing another glare in Angel's direction. "Angelus and William don't exist any more. There's no family left. If we do this, we'd better get Cordy back from the beyond, because we're gonna need some acting lessons."
Angel stood up, and Spike fell silent, turning to stare blindly at a picture on the wall, his back to the others in the room.
"Spike's right about the acting. If we do this, there's a lot more you'll need to know," Angel said to the other three in the room. We'll need to behave as a vampire clan, and that means there will be certain expectations to be met, especially for the non-vampire members of the clan."
He specifically didn't use the word Pet, but that's what the others heard nonetheless.
"Those expectations will be foreign to you, and you'll need to learn to play the role if we have any chance of pulling this off. I need all of you to think very carefully about what we're considering here. This isn't a game. Once we're in Jardin's lair, we'll be overwhelmingly out-numbered. A certain degree of protection is assured for visitors of the Order, but if we screw up, all bets are off."
Angel stared at each of the three in turn, emphasizing his point.
"Right now Spike and I need to talk." He nodded toward the door, his intention clear. "We'll meet again in the morning, once you've all had a chance to think things through."
Illyria nodded and left the room, and after a moment's hesitation, Wesley and Gunn followed, leaving Spike and Angel standing silent in opposite corners. Angel stared at the younger vampires back, his frown etched deep, then finally roused himself, as though coming to a decision.
"Come with me. I need to show you something."
Angel walked through the door, across the lobby, and opened the door to the basement. He proceeded down, without looking back. Spike moved silently behind him, and the three others in the lobby watched curiously as the silent vampires passed.
At the bottom of the stairs, Angel continued down the hall, by-passing the door that led to the large work-out area commonly used by all of them. He opened a door further down and entered a storage room full of boxes. Spike glanced around at the unfamiliar room, but found little of interest until Angel pulled aside a large stack of boxes to reveal a door in the far wall. He pulled it open and walked into the darkness. Spike followed warily. Pavayne, to his shame, had given him, a vampire, an inexplicable fear of dark, unfamiliar places. Once in the room, he stopped abruptly and stepped back against the wall, beside the still open door.
Angel reached up and pulled the cord attached to the bare bulb overhead and the space was lit, revealing what both had already seen; a large, empty cage, with manacles attached at various spots on the bars.
"This yours, mate? Thought the soul would be a little more restrictive on your usual entertainment activities."
Spike tried for sarcasm, his favorite defense mechanism, but was afraid Angel might have noticed a hint of something else in his voice.
Angel glanced back at him speculatively before answering, confirming that he had indeed heard the underlying worried note.
"It's for me, yes. This is where they put me when Angelus gets. a bit out of hand."
Spike frowned but remained silent. Angel looked back toward the cage, then began to walk around it, trailing his hand along the bars. Only when he was on the other side, the cage safely between them, did he speak again.
"I do things. for them. Things that make them more comfortable in my presence. They want to believe."
Angel stopped as though considering those words, then started again.
"They need to believe that I'm not him, Angelus. They believed me because there was no one else to say differently, no other vampire with a soul on hand to confirm or deny what I said. Until now."
Angel's gaze was still directed at Spike, but he could clearly see that it was centered on the interior of the cage now, as though Angel watched himself restrained there. The dark-haired vampire continued to stare into the empty space, but began to move about the cage once more, his hand trailing the bars as it had before. Finally he stood where he'd started, just ten feet separating himself and the blond vampire by the outer door.
"They don't know what a soul is. Hell, I don't know what it is either, but I'm pretty sure my version of it and theirs aren't the same. I've seen terrible things done, and not just by vampires and demons, but by humans, souled humans. The soul isn't a cage. The soul is a reminder, a constant reminder of how things can be, how they should be. As a human, Liam was a drinking, whoring carouser. I loved the chase, I loved the dance. I was driven by my appetites; fighting, fucking, food and drink. I did little to restrain myself because I didn't have to. The demon fit so well with that part of my human self. As a human I was never a murderer, but that restraint fell away easily enough when the demon took me, and all my pleasures became one."
Angel shook his head, as though sloughing off familiar and nostalgic memories. He looked up, holding Spike's gaze, fully with him again.
"And then the soul returned. They don't want to know that Angel is nothing more than the souled Liam and the demon Angelus combined. They'd find very little comfort in the knowledge that it's Liam, so weak in so many ways, that restrains the beast that would destroy them all."
Angel stared deep into the younger vampire's eyes, willing him to understand the layers of meaning beyond his words.
"Angelus isn't gone. He's never been gone. I am Angelus, and I am Liam, just as you are the human, souled Will, and the demon William the Bloody. Angel and Spike are what we call ourselves now, but this is who we are beneath it all. I know it, and you know it. The soul stops me from doing many things, but not from fooling myself, much as it may look otherwise to you."
Angel stopped and took a deep breath before continuing on resolutely.
"Your family isn't gone. Whether we submit to the Order's demands or not, I am your Sire. I will always be your Sire. But I have a soul now and so do you, and that means that I have not and will not impose my will upon you in so serious a matter as this. You can accept or reject my claim as you see fit. Or you can ignore the issue entirely, pretty much like we've both been doing since our paths crossed in Sunnydale. It's up to you."
Angel paused for a moment, letting the words sink in, then walked past the stunned, younger vampire and left the room.