Angel swung the axe around and splintered the side door to the hotel.
“In! Illyria, help Gunn; Spike, behind them, you don’t know the way.”
The silence of the Hyperion lasted a split second and then the
ululating howls seeped inside, swelling and billowing. Angel ran down
the corridor, not looking back. Speed. Three of them could move very
fast indeed, but would it be enough? The door to the basement was open,
as he’d left it, and he was through it and on the stairs without time
for a single, regretful glance around. Too many memories of Cordelia
and Wes, too many...and he’d said goodbye to the place earlier on
anyway. The sewer entrance gaped, warded against any but those he
called friend. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it might be enough...
He spared a glance and saw Spike twist around, Gunn’s axe in his hand,
beset by a demon whose face was he stuff of a classic nightmare - but
Spike was growling, game face on, and he flung the broken body of the
demon back in the faces of those who crowded behind it, and slammed the
door closed, wedging it shut in a swiftly flowing movement before
jumping over the side of the stairs.
“Don’t hang around, mate. Move it!”
Angel was running before he’d finished speaking, feet slamming against
concrete, the rank, damp scent thick in his nostrils. The city was his
workplace, but the sewers - they were part of his home. He threaded his
way through them, a silent Illyria at his heels, Gunn cradled in her
arms like a baby....he thought of Connor, fighting beside him, rescuing
him, and felt fierce, hot pride surge through him. More than the dark
power Hamilton’s blood, more than the anger and sorrow over Wesley’s
death, that gave him heart.
He brought them through to the place he’d prepared, hearing pursuit
scrabble and slither and slide, distant now, but getting closer every
moment.
“Here,” he said. “This will do.”
No need for magic now, and it felt cleaner to do it without, to fight
demons with human weapons, explosives and charges, timers and
detonators, mundane and hidden, oh so carefully. His thumb caressed the
button that, inevitably, was red, and he counted silently.
“One.” For Doyle, who had only died when he had no choice and who
wouldn’t have ever made the mistake of getting boxed in.
“Two.” For Cordelia, who would have been at his side, muttering curses,
steady as a rock.
“Three.” For Fred, who would have devised something with a different
coloured button because if she’d ever done anything the same way as
other people, he’d never seen it.
“Four.” For Wesley, who should have fucking been here and he couldn’t
think about that now because he was pressing down and the world was a
wall of heat, slamming into him and he was falling back on top of
Spike, who hit him reflexively and without malice, and Illyria was bent
over Gunn, shielding him and -
The screaming of the demons stopped, and the dust settled, and later,
much later, somewhere high above them, the sun rose on a new world.
Time then for tears.
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