Chapter Three

"I wouldn't mind a little taste of that reward now." Wesley moved his lower body suggestively against Angel's.

Amused, Angel took Wesley's head between his hands, his fingers slipping through hair still damp from the shower they'd taken together, and he kissed him. It should have felt strange, but instead it felt right; Wes was his now. He'd offered Wes a potential reward of sex if he kept up the good behavior, but even though it was tempting, now wasn't the right time for a number of reasons.

Reaching down, Angel slapped Wesley's ass smartly. "That's all you get. Now get up; we've got work to do."

Wesley got to his feet sullenly. "If that's all I've got to look forward to, you're going to find it rather hard to motivate me."

Angel let a little growl slip free, just a small warning, but he could tell from the way Wesley straightened up that he'd gotten the message. "For now, you need to worry about doing what I tell you. *I'll* decide when you've earned a reward."

"So you'll want me researching then," Wes said as they headed out into the hallway and down the stairs.

"Yeah. You got a problem with that?"

"No, not at all."

"Good. Because one of the things it's important to learn to do is play to your strengths. You're good at researching, Wesley. That won't have changed."

Wes turned to give him a small grin. "I take it your strength was brute force then? Before you were turned, I mean?"

"One of them. I was pretty good at getting drunk too." Angel offered him half a smile in return, feeling them slipping back into the camaraderie they'd had a year ago and had recently started to regain.

They entered the office, and Wesley headed immediately for the bookshelf on the far wall, pulling down two books. He tucked one under his arm and flipped the other open, leafing through as he walked over toward the desk. "I have a few ideas," he said absently, as if he were talking to himself and not Angel.

"Yeah, me too." Angel went to the filing cabinet and pulled Billy Blim's file. They hadn't been able to identify the source of Billy's power, but Angel thought that refreshing his memory of everything that'd happened couldn't hurt. He opened the file and looked through it, glancing at the notes written in Wes' exact handwriting. He turned to the next page, a loose-leaf piece of notebook paper on which Cordelia had scribbled her own memories of the visions she'd had. He remembered how her hand had trembled, her knuckles white as she'd held the pen Wesley had gotten her.

His eyes closed against the memory.

"Angel?" Wesley sounded tentative.

He opened his eyes again. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Next in the file was a manilla envelope. It was closed, but not sealed, and when Angel opened and tilted it, a sheaf of photos slid out into his hand. These were the ones that Wesley had bought from a source -- the police photos of one of the crime scenes. The elderly woman had been beaten to within an inch of her life and then taken the rest of the way with some kind of knife or box-cutter -- really damned sharp, whatever it'd been. Angel knew what a dull blade versus a sharp one looked like on human skin. The sight of her lower torso covered with slashes was graphic enough, but seeing the blood on her hands and face reminded him of Fred and how she'd...

Angel slapped the file closed and dropped it onto the desk. "Whoever's responsible for this - " He shook his head.

Wesley looked up at him from his chair behind the desk. "We'll find them," he said, his eyes hard and glittering in a way that told Angel just how much he wanted revenge. "We'll take care of it."

"*Why?*" Angel asked him. "Why would someone want to do this?"

"That's what we're going to discover," Wesley said. "There could be any variety of reasons. Revenge, evil trying to take out some of the opposing side's members... for all we know, it could be something as simple as bad luck, that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Bad luck?" Angel felt like he was just repeating Wesley. "This is more than bad luck, this is..."

"I know," Wesley said, and his voice was gentle, but as he continued, it grew fiercer, echoing Angel's own inner desire to exact revenge. "But as you said before, we'll go after whoever did this. We'll find them, Angel."

"Yeah." He felt restless.

"Can I ask...?" Wesley hesitated.

"What?"

"Well... do you remember anything about what happened? Any detail, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, might provide an important clue." Wesley gestured at the book in front of him. "It could point me in the right direction as far as the research goes."

Angel nodded. "Makes sense." He tried to sort the little bits and pieces of memory into something that could help. "I remember Fred. She seemed... angry. Crazy. I... I remember strangling her, and I... I think I broke her neck. It's all foggy, you know?" It was like flashes from a nightmare: sketchy, quick, skewed.

Wesley was scribbling some notes onto a piece of paper. "Yes," he said. "My own memories are rather disjointed to say the least. Is there more?"

He could remember something else about Fred, but it wasn't anything he could stand to think about. "I killed Cordelia," he said quickly. "I drained her, but otherwise... well, she was okay."

"If one could call being completely devoid of blood 'okay,'" Wesley said, kind of absently, like he wasn't aware of what he was saying. He blinked and then looked up at Angel. "I mean - "

"Yeah," Angel said, cutting him off. The last thing he wanted was an explanation from Wes about his lack of appropriate human reaction. He *knew* where that reaction had gone. "Other than that, it's just... I can remember feeling this uncontrollable rage. Like it wanted to swallow me whole."

Wesley finished writing his notes. "I know," he said.

Angel was feeling pretty much at the end of his rope. He needed to get the hell out of there, and now, before... well, before something happened. He couldn't have said what that would be. He just knew he needed to move.

He eyed Wesley thoughtfully. Wes had gone back to reading the open page of the book he was holding. It seemed like he was holding it together pretty well -- calm, researching like he'd been asked to. He seemed just as bent on puzzling out what had happened and then taking care of whoever was responsible as Angel himself was.

"I'm gonna go out and get some more blood," Angel told Wesley. "We're running low, and you're gonna need it. You okay here for a while?"

Wesley raised his eyes from the page as if he could barely tear his attention away, and met Angel's gaze. "Yes. Should I just continue on then?"

Angel liked the deferential tone and rewarded Wesley with a small grin. "Yeah. I won't be gone long." He thought about telling Wes not to go anywhere in the meantime, but told himself that Wesley was deep in research mode. Probably wouldn't be able to pry him away from that book with a crowbar.

"All right," Wesley said, his eyes already back on the book again, not even looking up.

Angel glanced around the room one last time -- not sure what he was looking for, maybe just trying to make things feel more normal -- and said, "Okay. I'll be back soon."

Out on the street, he felt better. Fresh air, moving, something... This felt normal, or close enough that it didn't make any difference.

As he walked, Angel listened to the sound of his own footsteps. The moon was just past new and the occasional streetlamp played havoc with his vision, but he knew the area well enough that he could have walked it blindfolded. He'd travelled this route hundreds of times, at the very least -- sometimes just walking without purpose, other times, like tonight, going to pick up blood -- and it was as familiar to him as stuff got.

Now that he had some time alone to think, and could set aside the memory of his dead friends in his mind just as neatly as he'd set aside their bodies in the basement, he thought about what he'd done today. Not the killing, because he'd be regretting that for the rest of his existence, but Wesley. Even as Angel had been doing it, he'd known in the back of his mind that it was almost definitely a mistake. He'd ignored that little voice and instead concentrated on the good things that could come out of the siring; Wesley as a vampire, sure, but Wesley as a vampire with a soul. A Wesley who hadn't been allowed to kill, who wouldn't be hampered in his attempts to do good by the shackling guilt that resulted from more than a hundred years of torture and murder.

Angel didn't like to think about it, but there were times when he missed his vampire family, dysfunctional as it had been. The humans he'd come to care about couldn't take its place, if only because it never escaped his mind for more than a moment that their lives were going to be so damned short. Could be cut short at any moment, just like Doyle's had been. No warning, just... gone.

Wesley as a vampire could be his forever. The solitude of being not only a lone vampire, but also the only vampire with a soul, could be over.

The mistake that had been made in turning Wesley, if it had been a mistake, was Angel's. It was his job to make sure Wesley didn't make any. His job to make sure Wesley didn't have anything to regret. Anything *else* to regret.

It was strange how Wesley-like Wes was while soulless; he reminded Angel of the Wes of yesteryear, before... before Holtz and Justine. It made Angel warm to his charge, thinking of him fondly. It made him look forward to the promised closer contact with eagerness.

He turned down an alleyway and kept walking, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.

The real question, the one that Wes had already asked, was how Wesley would feel about him once the soul was back in place. It wasn't a question Angel was sure he wanted to know the answer to. Would Wesley be furious? Probably, and not without good reason. Would he reject Angel? Seemed pretty likely. Would Angel be able to convince him to forgive him?

Maybe *that* was the real question.

There was enough of a past between them, a past that already included fury and rejection. But forgiveness was there too, and Angel couldn't help but hope that they'd be able to find their way there again.

When Wesley got the soul back, he'd resent the training; there probably wasn't much question about that. Angel told himself, not for the first time, that it was necessary. If he wanted to keep Wesley from doing something he'd regret, he needed to keep him on a short leash. A very short leash. Spike had been the same way, and Wesley was leaps and bounds smarter. Which meant that Wes needed to be controlled all the more because Angel knew he wouldn't be able to out-think the new vampire if he gave Wes enough time to strategize.

Angel went down a flight of cement steps, to a doorway just below the surface of the street, and pressed the button next to the door twice.

He waited.

After about a minute, he heard the sound of six deadbolts turning, and then the handle turning. Angel had never seen the inside of Larry's... whatever it was -- Apartment? Office? -- but by now he knew the exact number of locks Larry had. The heavy metal door creaked open. There were four chains crossing the space on the other side, and half a face eyed him suspiciously.

"It's me. Angel."

"You're early," Larry said, the suspicion as easy to hear in his voice as it was to see on his face. "You're not due for another day at least."

"Yeah, I know. I... ran into some trouble."

Larry just stood there, like he was waiting for Angel to say something else.

"I've got a houseguest," Angel explained finally. "I'm going to need to double up on my regular order."

Another long look, and then Larry nodded. "Hang on," he said, and then closed the door in Angel's face and relocked the deadbolts. At least some things didn't change.

Angel waited, mostly patiently, while Larry went to wherever he stored the blood. He'd gotten Larry's name and address from someone in the back room at one of the local supermarkets. He didn't know Larry's last name, and he didn't know his phone number, and he knew not to come until after dark. This was all there was to it -- ring the bell twice and hand over the money.

Larry charged top dollar, but it was easier this way, and Angel had learned that there were times when convenience was more important than saving a few bucks. He preferred the darkness -- the brightly lit supermarket had always made him uncomfortable, although he still went there in a pinch, and Larry knew what he was. It was... nice, not to have to try to avoid suspicion.

A panel in the center of the door slid back, and a hand stuck through the hole, palm up. Angel put the wad of cash he'd brought into the hand and it disappeared again, and then a paper bag was unceremoniously shoved through the hole.

"Thanks," Angel said as he took the bag, but as always the panel was slid shut without another word.

With the crumpled paper bag full of containers of blood tucked under his arm, Angel walked back the same route he'd come. It was one he used deliberately because it was unlikely he'd come across anyone. It was a walk of silence, or as close to silence as you could get in L.A., especially if you were a vampire and it wasn't late enough for people with no common sense to be safe in their beds.

He tried not to let himself sink down into the pain that was beckoning to him like a diseased lover; not because he didn't deserve to suffer, but because he needed to stay focused for now. Focused on getting Wesley through this until they could get his soul back, and focused on finding whoever -- or whatever -- had caused the madness and making them pay.

Angel crossed the street and went through the doorway into the lobby of the Hyperion, pausing briefly at the lingering scent of spilt human blood in the air. Focus.

Wes would probably be hungry again; a new vampire's metabolism was a powerful thing, and Angel could remember months when it seemed he'd never been sated. He went down the stairs and through the lobby, opening the paper bag as he went and taking out one of the containers.

"Hey, Wes," he said, as he entered the office. "I'm back with the - "

The office was empty.

"Wes?" Angel called, loudly enough that he knew Wesley would be able to hear him. There was no answer.

Angel set the blood down on top of the nearest bookcase and, moving quickly, searched the parts of the hotel that Wes might have had reason to visit, knowing that he was probably wasting time, but not wanting to admit to himself what he already knew.

Wesley was gone.

***

Wesley was big-eyed and feeling like a child at Christmas, wandering through the crowded evening streets of Korea-town and smelling the rich pungency of human life. There were so many heartbeats and so many potential screams. So much squalid, frantic, beautiful life for him to play with the idea of consuming. It was like trying to choose a single truffle from a Chocolatier's luxury display.

Should he take that pretty young lad arguing with an older man on the pavement? Or perhaps that old woman with the broken teeth and wise eyes? Every one of these souls seemed exquisite to Wesley, beautiful consumables to be selected carefully and then savoured.

His new senses presented him with a bewildering and tantalising smorgasbord of impressions. Everything seemed that much more real today, as if the world he had walked in before tonight were just a faded carbon copy of his new environment. There was a previously unknown depth and vividness, and the weavings of light, sound and scent were orchestrated in a natural chaos that stimulated him wildly and drove him onward.

Yet despite the giddiness of being out, Wes was sensible enough to realise that he couldn't just pick a victim at random and take the person where they stood. Mass panic would occur and any one of these people could prove to be adept with a stake and ready to use it. And anyway, causing public hysteria by killing openly might well be something Angel would consider 'unforgivable'. As it was, Angel would undoubtedly become very expressive if he got back to the hotel before Wesley.

He had to be quick about this.

Wes wasn't at all sure why he hadn't taken the time to find his keys after Angel left, and then driven the SUV away from his brutal sire forever. As it was, Angel had gone out, and Wesley was halfway down the road, striding determinedly, before he'd even made the conscious decision to defy his instructions and step out for a bite to eat.

Angel was wrong to keep all this wonderful life from him. This -- the thriving human herd, the hunt, the separation and kill -- was his birthright as a young vampire and what compelled him forward. It wasn't that he wanted to confound and disappoint Angel, but Wesley thought he could no more defy his nature than, as a human, he could have stopped breathing and lived.

So he would locate his prey, lure it somewhere quiet, and then feed upon its life. The thought excited Wes no end. He'd spent so many pointless years struggling to fight the good fight with no reward beyond increasing scarification -- physical and emotional. Not one of these people gave a damn about anything Wesley had done for them, what he'd suffered on their behalf, and it felt good to no longer care about their well-being in turn. It was a relief.

Always alone, always on the outside looking into the feast, Wes had never really felt like part of the human race. Yet he had striven almost ceaselessly to guard the society that excluded him. But no longer. Now he was a sheepdog-turned-wolf, and he'd rip out the throats of the flock he'd once protected. He would get hard on their screams.

Moving out of the bustle of Korea-town, Wes found himself in a familiar locale -- a place he'd once frequented as a human, in the days before Virginia. He wondered if the club was still there and headed straight to the address he remembered. His hunger was now overwhelming the feelings of excitement and arousal, which came from simply being out, and it gave him a sense of urgency. The fear of Angel was also growing. Wes needed to get a move on.

Muted modern music spilled out into the street from the basement bar, inviting Wesley to come inside and choose from a refined selection. He slipped down the stairs, smiled at the bouncer, and having been let in, walked over to the crowded bar where he realised he had no money.

Wes smiled shyly at a heavyset man in leather and denim sitting on a barstool. He was immediately rewarded with a leering grin and a gestured invitation to sit on the empty stool beside the man, who asked, "Drink?"

"Thank you," Wesley said warmly. "A whisky would be good."

"What's your name?" the leather-clad man asked as Wesley's shot was served by the sallow barman.

"Does it matter?" Wes smiled, lowering his eyes provocatively.

"I like to have a name," his new friend insisted. "Doesn't have to be yours."

"Wes then. What's yours?"

"Charles." Something inside Wesley winced at the name he'd been given, but he swallowed down the pain and smiled again at 'Charles'.

"I'm afraid I don't have too much time."

The larger man grimaced. "That's a goddamn shame. Just a quickie then?"

"I'm afraid so. I agree it's a shame. With someone like you, I'd rather..." he let his voice trail off into suggestion.

Charles' hand found its way to Wesley's knee, and Wes moaned, almost inaudibly, as the enticing blood inside the man seemed to be suddenly much closer. The human said, "I'll meet you in there," and stepped from his stool, heading for the men's room.

After a short delay, during which Wesley finished his drink, he followed Charles and found him in an open cubicle. Other couples were already engaged behind closed doors; Wes could hear and smell them. Indeed, the scent of sex in this room was far more virulent than that of human effluent, a fact he was extremely grateful for.

Charles wasted no time, pinning Wesley to the cubicle wall and shoving the door shut. He kissed Wes with rough lips surrounded by stubble. Wes let himself be kissed and manhandled, unconcerned about where the human's hands were wandering. He was listening to the increasing heartbeat and feeling the blood pound heavily through the veins of his prey.

"Oh Charles, you're delicious," he whispered, as the kiss broke, and he moved his head down to nuzzle at the man's thick neck. Wesley's cock was hardening more from the proximity of major arteries than from the hand roughly rubbing over the front of his trousers. He bit with human teeth over the man's carotid, perceiving, with what seemed to be a new sense, the mad torrent of blood deep within the flesh.

Charles moaned quietly and murmured, "Sweet mouth you have there, Wes. Gonna let me come in it?"

Wesley laughed softly. "I have to warn you; I'm in the mood to swallow."

The human groaned with more abandon and began to fumble with his own belt. Wes was tempted to let this game continue and maybe acquire an orgasm as well as blood, but his hunger was immense, and he could deny it no longer.

He willed his fangs to grow and felt his face change. Opening his mouth wide over the throbbing pulse in Charles' neck, Wes teased himself with the inevitability of the bite, letting his teeth rest on the surface of the skin. Charles had his own cock out and was trying to persuade Wes to hold it, but instead, Wesley had one hand on the back of the human's head and the other loosely encircling the man's neck, the heel of his palm resting on Charles' collar bone.

Wes tightened his grip.

As Charles made a protesting noise and raised a hand to attempt to loosen Wesley's, Wes moved his mouth a little and then bit down hard, almost coming with the sensual rush of parting flesh followed by a surge of hot blood into his mouth. Charles stiffened and tried to cry out, but Wesley's grip around his throat was now cutting off the man's air supply. The human began to thrash about, hitting out wildly with his arms and legs, but Wesley held him firmly and continued to drink.

So far Wes was feasting from lesser blood vessels, having consciously decided that the explosive flow from the carotid, and to a lesser extent, the jugular, would potentially cause far too much incriminating mess. This was enough, however. He'd had no idea how amazing human blood, fresh from the vein, could taste, and he wondered vaguely how Angel could have denied himself this experience for so long.

As the blood entered Wesley's body, it was as if someone had lit a pyre within him. He felt heated, even down to his fingers and toes. His cock was granite hard, and he turned himself and Charles, so that Wes was pushing the increasingly subdued victim into the wall. Wes loosened his grip just a little, not wanting Charles to pass out prematurely as the scent of fear was deeply arousing, and he ground himself against the human.

Even the noise of his own sucking was turning him on.

Suddenly, there was a splintering noise, and Wes was yanked sideways by the collar and thrown heavily against the sinks outside the cubicles. He fell to the floor and looked up into the furious face of Angel, who was holding a stake in his hand and clearly ready to use it. Oh dear Lord.

"Stay down," he spat at Wesley, and then turned to examine Charles who was collapsed in a whimpering heap in the cubicle.

Wes could hardly believe it, but it seemed certain he was dust if he stayed. Angel's expression, and hard grip upon the stake, had frozen the blood-heat from Wesley's body. He was back to being the terrified child locked in the darkness; he had to try to escape. As Angel helped the dazed and deeply shocked Charles back to his feet, Wes shot up like a runner from starting blocks and bolted for the bar.

He ran for the door, shoving the bouncer carelessly aside, and sprinted for Korea-town in the hope that Angel would lose Wesley's scent in the throng of people there. In retrospect, Wes wasn't completely convinced that Angel's intentions had been murderous, as why had he not just done it? But the stake had been in his sire's hand, and so if Wes had said or done the wrong thing, Angel was clearly prepared to use it.

Wes was pretty sure that running away would count as 'the wrong thing' to Angel.

It was hopeless, Wesley realised, as he charged through the busy streets. Angel had tracked him to the bar with apparent ease, and so there was no way he could escape his furious sire on foot. The SUV -- he had to get back to it. He increased his speed still further as he changed direction.

But Wesley hadn't even made it out of Korea-town when Angel caught him.