| Have a little Faith, Part 7 |
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Wesley was waiting up when Faith showed up at 6am. He had to be at work in 3 hours and had not slept at all.
Even worse Faith had walked in with a strange man.
"Faith-" Wesley said, getting as angry as he could.
"Don't sweat it Wes," Faith said realizing
that she needed to immediately calm her watcher down. "I
didn't pick this guy up. He wants
to help."
"Help?"
"Yeah," Doyle said. "I was sent by
the Powers That Be to not only help Faith fight the forces of
darkness, but to restore Angelus' soul."
"Again with this nonsense," Wesley said,
frustrated. "We are here to kill Angelus. He's a
vampire, she's a slayer."
"Lindsey said there was a prophecy about
a vampire with a soul. He thought it was Angelus," Faith
explained. "Now even Doyle says its
him."
Doyle did not say anything. He just nodded. Wesley immediately did not like his smugness.
"So we cannot kill Angelus on the basis of
some stranger from the street and some lawyer who was evil
only until a few months ago," Wesley said
as anger as he could get.
"Lindsey's not evil," she said, trying not
to be angry. When this ended, she was through with Watchers
just like Buffy.
"He's not," Doyle added. "I get visions about good people in trouble."
"Doyle got a vision about Lindsey being attacked by a vampire. I saved him."
"You saw him?" Wesley asked, calming down a little.
Faith nodded. "But we couldn't talk-"
she paused, but no one said anything. "Angelus was watching."
"We don't have any records of her," Holland
said. "We barely even knew about the other one. She was
only around for less than a year."
"This one's better," Angelus said. "She doesn't seem as smart as Buffy, but she's just as tough."
"You can take care of her," Holland said.
"It's Buffy that I want to take care of, I don't care about this one," Angelus replied. "She's the one who sent me to hell."
"This one may be an immediate problem," Lindsey
brought up, trying to remind himself not to call her
Faith. "She's here in LA. She
may cause our clients some difficulties."
"Angelus," Holland said. "Haven't we been good to you?"
Angelus laughed.
"Haven't we given almost everything you've asked. Access to our vast materials-"
"All right," Angelus said and smiled.
Lindsey did not like the smile. "I think I can play around with
this Slayer before I move on the Buffy.
I'll consider
it a warm up."
"She was obviously patrolling in the park,"
Lindsey said. "Perhaps we should consider moving to a
different one?"
"Good idea," Holland replied.
Angel shook his head. "No, I think
I'll stay. I wouldn't mind watching her for a few weeks, before
going in for the kill."
The phone woke Faith from a peaceful sleep. It was her cell phone. She opened her eyes.
"Oh fuck," she said, looking at all her clothes
on the floor and had no clue where the ring was coming
from.
She pushed all her clothes away and of course it was beneath all of her stuff.
"Hello," she said, catching it right before
the voice mail that did not work came
on.
"Hey," said Lindsey's voice.
"Hey, Shortcake, you sound tired?"
"I haven't slept, shortie."
"So he knows, huh?"
"Yes. And I convinced him to go after
you. He wanted to go after Buffy. I don't know how long I can
stop him."
"I'll be a challenge. I know how Angelus
works. He won't go after Buffy until he's gotten rid of me,
especially if I really annoy him."
"Angelus will go after your family and friends-"
"I got neither-"
"You got one."
Faith smiled. "Thanks a lot Shortcake. But right now you are safer than me."
Lindsey laughed. This time he could.
"Well, I'd keep an eye on your watcher though. You know what Angelus did to Giles."
"Yep. Listen, I met this guy named
Doyle. He gets visions from the Powers That Be. He says you
were
right, Angel is the vampire in the scroll."
Lindsey sighed. "That means we can't kill him."
"He also said that Angel should have had
his soul restored and that he has work to do-They want me to do it instead.
I figured slayer meant killing vamps, didn't think it was be all these
prophecy mystic
shit."
Lindsey laughed again. He liked talking
to Faith. He could laugh, be himself, be his new self. The one
trying to redeem his soul.
"Angelus, he hunts in the park every night?"
"Pretty much," Lindsey replied. "He's going to keep hunting there and stalking you."
"I think I should introduce myself soon. Make him want to come after me."
"Sounds like a good idea. He really
wants to go after Buffy. He's also trying to find a vampire named
Drusilla? Know anything about her?"
"She's bad news, Angelus sired her.
She tried to help him have earth sucked into Hell. She's a
psychic. You better be careful.
She might be able to see right through you, mind spells or not."
"That's probably one of the many reasons why Angelus hasn't really pushed to go after Buffy. He probably wants to share his vengeance with Drusilla. I haven't been putting too much effort into finding her. Eventually Holland's going to notice. He's also looking for another vampire named Penn that he sired. He has Lee working on that. I may have to set it up to look like she's dead."
"Don't know anything about this Penn. The vampire who sired Angelus was Darla. Angelus staked her when he was Angel."
"Anyway," he said. "I really should
go." He didn't want to go. He wanted to be human for just a little
bit, but he could not jeopardize them.
"I'll see what gypsy research I can do. Someone's got to know
something about the curse."
"Wes can look into it too. If he's
willing, but I can also ask Giles and Willow."
"That's good."
"Well, it's been good talking to you, shortcake."
"You too, shortie."
Faith laughed, then hung up quickly before she regretted it.
She sat down and sighed.
"That was Lindsey?" said a voice from the doorway.
Faith was startled but did not show it. Doyle was standing in the doorway. He had slept on the couch.
"One of these days, you're going to sneak up on me and I'm going to stake you."
"You won't, darling, you're a good girl."
Faith smiled in response.
"So what's up?"
"Surprise meeting with Angelus one night this week."
"And they'll be plenty of other people to help," he said.
"So, do you like have a place to live or are you going to be sleeping on the couch?"
"No, I got a place to crash," he said. "Don't worry about me. Just felt like sleeping before going-"
Doyle stopped. He grabbed his head, starting shaking, turned into demon form just for a moment.
"What?" Faith said, when Doyle was finished.
"Demon attacking a woman in an alleyway on 54th and Lane."
"You're non-stop with this vision thing, aren't you?"
"I have good and bad days," Doyle replied
and smiled.
For the next few weeks, Faith tried but to
no avail to "accidentally" run into Angel. Lindsey had told
her that Angelus knew about her and was
trying to avoid her, since he was supposed to be keeping a low
profile.
Faith was tired of searching the park. She staked a few vamps, but it was summer and hot.
Lindsey and she had agreed to speak once
a month in general if there was nothing new on Angelus. Faith
felt bad for him. It was obvious that
he did not want to stay at Wolfram and Hart, but did want to help stop
Angelus. She felt even worse, because
it seemed that he had not been able to help so far. He even rang
when they would leave to take Angelus hunting,
but the park was big and so far Faith had not managed to run into him.
"Hey darling," Faith turned away and lifted
her stake. She knew it was Doyle. He would sometimes
come patrolling with her. Doyle and
Wesley had an instant hatred of each other. It was jealous of a
watcher kind. Doyle had taken it upon
himself to help Faith and Wesley wanted to be the only one to look out
for her.
"Hey yourself, you're lucky this time, chickie. Next time I will stake you."
"You're always telling me that."
"You're easier to find than Angelus," Faith commented.
"I'm here to be found, darling. I think Angelus doesn't want that."
"He's not watching me now," she said. "At least I hope not."
"I'm came to tell you to call it a night."
"Wes tell you that."
"Wes is not your keeper."
Faith smiled. This was the reason for the hatred.
"You've been out here for four hours.
Angelus is probably already asleep in his coffin."
"Actually,
most vamps don't sleep in coffins. It's that whole Dracula thing.
They are sick of being
stereotyped."
Doyle laughed.
Doyle was correct. Angelus had finished his hunting. The lawyers had decided that one of them needs to be with Angelus during his hunt. This night Lee was his keeper. Angelus wasn't sure what he thought of Lee. Lilah was ruthless and beautiful, Lindsey was cocky, but Lee sometimes seemed like a sniveling weasel yet other times was a cut throat bastard that Angelus admired. If only he had no fear. In the beginning, Angelus did not care much for the three lawyers assigned to look out after him. He liked Holland. Holland might as well be a vampire. He acted like one. Only he could go out during the day. He missed having one of his sires around. He missed Darla. He couldn't believe he staked her.
He missed Dru and Penn. Together they could be unstoppable, but so far Wolfram and Hart seemed to not be able to find either. Dru apparently had been so mad at William, she had hidden herself so that no one could find him. He was supposed to meet Penn in Italy but then that stupid gypsy curse happened. Now he had no clue where Penn was.
He missed having a childe and a sire and
wanted someone else to learn what he knew. He was thinking
about turning one of the lawyers.
Lee would be awesome if he no longer had that fear, but he liked
Lilah too. Lindsey intrigued him,
because he was fearful in the beginning, but then he became cocky. He just
didn't know if he could deal with an immortal Lindsey.
"So how's it going with finding Penn and Dru?" Angelus asked.
Lee looked spooked at Angelus speaking to him.
"I think I might have a lead on Penn," Lee said. "But I didn't want to tell you because it might be a false lead. He left Italy in 1905 and was in France for 20 years. We think he might have moved to New York next. So far the New York lead is the best I have."
"And Dru?" Angelus asked, making Lee a little nervous because he said it calmly.
"You need to speak to Lindsey about it. He's in charge of finding her."
