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This is chapter one of a complete fic (daily updates, guaranteed!) written by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wesleysgirl and myself, and kindly beta read by the lovely flaming_muse. We plan to enter it in the Wesley Wyndam-Pryce Slash competition, here
http://madpoetess.slashcity.org/wesslashcontest/
As ever, it's been a pleasure to write with WG and though this gave us more trouble than the last one, heh, getting to spend longer with Giles and Wes is never what you might call a hardship.
It's AU in that after his throat was cut Wesley went to England and didn't stay in L.A. It's going to have smut, some violence, swearing, so might as well label it NC17 from the start.
Sick of Shadows
Chapter One
Their office was small, but Wesley thought it suited them.
It wasn't as if they needed more square footage. In reality, he knew that part of the reason they'd wanted to rent the office in the first place was just so that their small but growing business seemed more professional, even though they actually could have run it from anywhere at all, met clients at any number of local coffee houses and cafes. The process of agreeing to the desire for a real office, finding one that they could afford and leasing it had been the work of many nights and weekends. The office was the punctuation at the end of a sentence that had taken them more than six months to write, all the while struggling to pay rent and buy food.
Not that that had been something Wesley was unaccustomed to, of course, not after his time in L.A.. But for the most part he tried not to think about that time.
He looked at Giles, who was in the process of winding up a phone call, then he let his gaze wander the room. The desk that they shared – with two sets of pens because Rupert liked fibretips and Wesley refused to use them, preferring the even less expensive Bics that came in packages of a dozen or more and could be lost or broken without the faintest hint of guilt – was the largest piece of furniture in the room.
There were four chairs – one behind the desk, a proper desk chair that looked more posh than it actually was, and the other three on the other side of the desk so that clients could explain their needs in relative comfort. A small filing cabinet, which was on the verge of needing to be replaced with a larger one or, at the very least, added to, was beneath the small window.
Wesley turned his attention back to the invoice in front of him, folding it into thirds and sliding it into an envelope that he'd already addressed.
Giles reached out a hand, grabbed one of his pens and began scribbling on a notepad, repeating back an address as he did so, before ending the call with a word of thanks.
"I think we've finally got a lead on part of the stolen shipment," he said, glancing over at Wesley and standing up. "It's all very 'heard it from a mate down the pub', but there's a man living about four miles away who's been flashing a lot of money and talking about statues that glow." Perched on the edge of the desk, Giles began to thumb through a battered A to Z with his foot brushing Wesley's leg as he swung it idly back and forth. "Of course, he could be talking about some tatty, luminous knock-offs, but the money involved seems excessive, and he hasn't been seen for a few days." Marking the page with a scrap of paper, Giles frowned. "If those statues aren't properly stored, they could be dangerous."
Wesley finished sealing the envelope and stood up. "We'll need to track him down as soon as possible," he agreed, feeling the familiar tension that came with this sort of case. "If he's sold more than a few of them we're going to have a hell of a job tracking them all down. I can't imagine he's kept any sort of records."
"Doubt it," Giles agreed, taking his coat down from the hook behind the door and putting it on. "Somehow I can't see it featuring on his tax return, can you? But it's only been three days, and, if he knows enough to be selling them at the high end of the market, let's hope he's found few people interested – and that he knows how to set up the shielding spell. Or we might find ourselves asking questions of a corpse, and that never goes well."
He patted his pockets and pulled out the car keys. "It's a maze of streets down there by the docks; do you want to drive, and I'll navigate?"
"All right." Wesley picked the A to Z up off the desk and grabbed his own jacket from the back of a chair, taking the keys from Giles as he followed him out the door, being careful to check that it was locked as he closed it behind him.
They started down the narrow stairs – the lift was out of order often as not, and after the first month or so they'd given up on attempting to use it almost entirely, saving it for the rare occasions when the stairs weren't an option for reasons of injury or... well, mostly injury, although luckily there hadn't been any instances of that lately.
"That came at just the right time," Wesley observed as they headed for the car. "Would have had to come down and put money in the meter in the next half hour anyway."
"And it was your turn," Giles said with a sidelong grin. Feeding the meter every two hours was irritating but necessary, as they couldn't afford a fine or the inconvenience of finding their car fitted with a 'boot' just when they needed it. Taking turns to be the one to root through petty cash for small change and leave the office – usually at an inconvenient moment – had seemed a simple solution, but they'd both swapped turns on the pretext of being in the middle of vital research so often that the system had broken down. The bickering, negotiations and bribery that had replaced it provided them both with some amusement, but the steady flow of coins into the meter was adding up. Wesley reminded himself to keep looking for garages to rent nearby, without much hope that they'd find one.
"You always think it's my turn," he said. They'd managed to find a spot fairly close to the building for once, and within a minute they were in the car, Wesley adjusting the rearview mirror before shifting into first gear and pulling away from the curb.
"Keep on down here for the next mile, and then take a left at the roundabout by the new Sainsbury's," Giles said. "And on the way back we should stop there. A client came in yesterday and all I could offer her in the way of refreshments was tap water and a stale digestive."
"Mm," Wesley said by way of agreement. "I was going to say we should go in anyway to look around, but then I realised that I'm sure it's exactly like every other Sainsbury's. I wish they'd put a Tesco in instead." It was yet another long but companionably argued point between them, the fact that Wesley preferred the one so much more strongly over the other.
"Lord, listen to us," Giles said, gazing out of the window at the crowded streets, stretching out his legs as he tried to get comfortable in a car that wasn't really big enough for that to be possible. "On our way to ask someone, who's probably got an inversely accurate nickname like 'Tiny', about mystical statues that can melt flesh and talking about shopping lists as we do it. I can't decide if our life is incredibly dull or remarkably bizarre."
"Probably a combination of the two," Wesley said. "Although we should be – " He broke off suddenly and twisted the wheel as another car attempted to cut in front of them without warning. "That was close."
"It was," Giles said, as Wesley watched the driver maneuver his vehicle in behind them. "What were you saying? We should be grateful for the boring bits?"
Wesley nodded. "Something like that." He relaxed. "We should look into having one of those water coolers installed. I wonder how expensive it would be."
He glanced over his shoulder before entering the roundabout, merging carefully behind a rather large lorry.
"Could do," Giles said. He had a tendency to agree with most of Wesley's suggestions, a quality that made Wesley feel not only secure but also self-confident. There were moments when he actually thought that perhaps his feelings for Giles were more complicated than he allowed himself to believe, but it was probably because he was so comfortable here that he always steered his thoughts in another direction when that happened.
Wesley glanced at the speedometer to be sure they were traveling within the speed limit and sped up a bit as they left the roundabout behind. "Where next?"
Giles flipped open the street map and nodded at an upcoming junction. "Take a right at the lights, and then it's the second road on the left. We're looking for Abercrombie Street. Dave said this man lived in a basement flat at number fifteen, but he didn't have a last name for him. All he could tell me was that he's called Bill, he's not someone you want to fuck around with – his words, not mine – and he's not all that friendly when he's drunk. As it's barely four o'clock, let's hope he's sober."
It didn't take long to locate Abercrombie Street. In fact, Wesley thought that they were extremely fortunate to have started out so close to begin with, even if he did recognize that good luck one time just meant that bad was probably lurking just over the horizon.
He parked the car near a likely looking building and they both got out.
"The basement?" he asked, somewhat doubtfully. "If he really does have them and he hasn't had the sense to shield them properly, I'd be surprised if he's still alive, let alone sober."
"He hasn't been seen for a few days," Giles reminded him, as they walked towards the house. It was in need of fresh paint, but hadn't – quite – reached the stage where it could be described as run-down. "But we'd better hope he is alive, or at least has most of the statues with him. If there were six of them, and some are missing, the body count could get higher than we can deal with, and that means we won't get paid. We're supposed to get them all back with no fuss." He frowned. "Did that sound callous and mercenary? I suppose the buyers might be innocent victims, who think the demon queen Azara will look good over the fireplace, but somehow I doubt that..."
"If it did – sound callous and mercenary – then you're not alone," Wesley said, gesturing to the right as it became clear that the entrance to the house must be behind some rather bedraggled bushes. In truth, he didn't think wanting to get paid for honest – and highly specialized – work was particularly callous, as long as one got the job done without hurting anyone.
Stepping around the bushes and walking down a short flight of steps to a door that looked new and considerably sturdier than the frame in which it stood, Giles took a moment to consider Wesley's words before replying, "Yes, but you're not exactly an impartial observer, are you? Never mind; we'd be doing this even if we weren't hoping for a cheque. I think." He rapped at the door, and they waited for a moment until it became clear that, if there was someone home, he wasn't feeling sociable.
"Would you do the honours?" Wesley asked, stepping back a bit to give Giles room to work.
Giles reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a set of picklocks. "I never thought I'd be grateful for my misspent youth once I left it behind me, but I have to say it's come in handy now and then." His movements were deft and assured as he inserted a slender piece of metal into the lock and got it into position, then added a second piece and jiggled carefully. "Remind me to tell you about the time I escaped a group of zombies by hot-wiring my car. Or did I just – ah, there we go – spoil the punch-line?"
"I suppose it will have lost some of its punch," Wesley agreed, watching as Giles slipped the small set of tools back into his pocket and then eased the door open slowly.
"Pity," Giles said, his attention on the dimly lit room before them. The stale air surged past them, as though eager to escape, and Giles choked, stifling the sound behind his hand, his nose wrinkling in disgust. It smelled of decay and old blood, and that made it all too familiar for both of them.
The silence was unpleasantly oppressive as well, and it was hard to make out anything more than a few feet away in the low light. Wesley reached out a hand to his left, hoping to be able to walk along the wall until they managed to find a lamp, and his hand encountered something smallish but sturdy, cool like metal. He nearly knocked whatever it was off its shelf, and he felt the sharp prick of his skin being broken by something that felt almost like a needle's point, followed by a rush of heat through his body.
Before he could say anything or process what had happened, they heard a faint scrabbling noise from the far corner of the room and a whispered, "Please..." in a voice pain had robbed of emotion.
Cautiously, Wesley moved further into the room. He was standing in just the right – or wrong, depending on how one looked at it – place when Giles managed to locate the light switch, flooding the room with a dingy yellowish light that, dim as it was, made the man curled up on the chair in the corner wince and attempt to cover his eyes.
"Bill?" Wesley asked, moving another half step closer.
"Don't know you – " Pale blue eyes, bleary and bloodshot, peered at them as the man lowered his hand slightly. His lips trembled, but he made what must have been an effort and tried to scowl at them. "What the fuck are you doing breaking in? Eh?" His voice broke in a whine, pitiful and annoying at the same time. "Not feeling so good. Come down with something. Flu maybe."
He moved restlessly in the chair and the light shone fully on his face for the first time. It was congested and swollen, the skin taut and shiny, dark, with blood so close to the surface that it seemed as though his face would be wet to the touch. As they watched, he raised a hand and clawed at his cheek, making the noise they'd heard as they came in as ragged nails scraped over skin.
Giles shuddered and moved to Wesley's side. "We have to do something," he said quietly. "Perform the shielding spell; get him to a hospital – "
"It's too late for that," Wesley said, shaking his head. He didn't feel any sympathy for the pitiful creature in front of them, just a vague sense of disgust at the stupidity of people who played with forces they knew nothing about. "What we need to do is find out what he can tell us."
Without waiting for Giles to respond, Wesley moved closer, standing over the man. "Where are they?" he asked. "And don't bother with useless protests of 'I don't know what you're talking about.' We know you have them."
The man blinked, eyes moving to fix on Wesley's face. "Hurts," he said. "Get me something – I've got money, I can pay you. Get me something."
"We can help you once we know where the statues are," Giles said, sounding far too gentle for Wesley's liking. "They're doing this to you. You had them, didn't you? Six of them? Are they here?"
"You can't have them! Need them to get out of this fucking hole – " Bill's hand came up again, but this time to his chest, tearing at a shirt already half-unbuttoned and stiff with patches of dried blood so that he could scratch skin that was beginning to shred like damp paper. "Can't have them..."
Frustration welled up in Wesley, hot and powerful, followed immediately by impatience. This man was endangering not just his own life, but others' as well, not to mention preventing Giles and Wesley from doing their jobs. Without another thought he grabbed the man by his shirt front, barely feeling the blood that had seeped into the fabric, and lifted him to his feet. "Where are they?" he growled.
Bill struggled weakly against Wesley's hands, but it was clear that he wouldn't have been able to support his own weight. "They're mine," he whimpered.
"Then you're never going to get out of this hole," Wesley said. "You're going to die here unless you tell us where they are." He knew that he was implying that they'd be able to help him, when in reality he didn't think there was any chance. The man had been in proximity to the statues for too long, the magical equivalent of radiation sickness eating away at him.
He felt Giles' hand on his arm, not pulling at him hard enough to break his hold on the man, but more than a casual touch. "Wesley... the place isn't that big. Why don't you have a look around for them, and I'll see what Bill can tell us." Giles hesitated and then said quietly, "You're hurting him."
"This is the only way we're going to get him to tell us," Wesley shot back, determined that he was going to get the information they needed no matter what it took. He tightened his grip on Bill, causing another whimper. "I'm not going to ask again."
The man didn't even struggle this time, as though he no longer had even that much energy. "One's in the duffle bag over there," he said. "And I sold one. The other four are in storage." He sounded defeated, utterly exhausted.
Giles moved to retrieve the bag, taking a quick look inside it. "It's here," he confirmed. "No sign of the packing though." He came back to Wesley's side, zipping the bag closed. "The others – they would have been wrapped in cloth, sealed – have you opened them too?" If he had, the protective spells, designed to render them safe as they were transported, would have been broken.
Anxiety had roughened Giles' voice, and Bill flinched. "I had to look at them," he said defensively, his hand moving restlessly on his body, nails digging in, seeming almost unaware of what he was doing. He looked at them imploringly, begging for their understanding. "Could've been anything. Look, you make me a fair offer and – "
Wesley didn't hesitate – just turned the man and walked him backward two steps until Bill was pushed up against the wall roughly. "A fair offer would be killing you right now instead of leaving you to suffer," he said, his voice harsh. "Who did you sell the statue to, and where are the others?"
Bill trembled, closing his eyes and gasping for air. "Guy named Nigel," he managed to get out. "I don't know anything else about him. No – King's Arms. That's where I met him."
Since violence seemed to be getting them somewhere, Wesley tightened his hands on Bill's shirt front. "And the other statues?"
"Down the docks, in a lock-up. End of – God, let me breathe! – end of Satters Road, behind the news agent's." Bill's eyes rolled up and he turned his head to the side, moaning softly. "God, can't you do something? Feel like I'm dying here. Told you what you want, didn't I? You've got to help me."
"There is no help for you," Wesley said coldly, releasing the man without warning and watching as he crumpled slowly to the floor. He stepped back and turned to Giles. "Let's go."
Giles' gaze travelled slowly to the dying man at his feet and then returned to Wesley. Without bothering to lower his voice, as Bill had retreated into himself, curled up and making sounds that would have been screams if he'd had enough strength left, he said sharply, "If you're sure you've done all you can to make him comfortable, by all means let's leave him to die in peace."
"We don't have time for this bleeding heart crap," Wesley said, checking to make sure that Giles was still holding the duffle bag before starting for the door. "He brought this on himself – it's not our responsibility to do anything for him."
"I doubt he knew what he was doing, although I agree that's not an excuse." Giles gave Bill one last look and then shook his head. "Fine. You're correct that we don't have much time. I've got what we need to make this safe in the boot of the car." He hesitated. "I don't like leaving him like this though."
"Then we won't." Wesley turned around and walked back over to Bill, intent on knocking him unconscious with a quick blow to the head, but just as he neared him the man gave a little bubbling moan and went still. Wesley paused, but there wasn't another intake of breath. "There," he said. "Happy now?"
wesleysgirl and myself, and kindly beta read by the lovely flaming_muse. We plan to enter it in the Wesley Wyndam-Pryce Slash competition, herehttp://madpoetess.slashcity.org/wesslashcontest/
As ever, it's been a pleasure to write with WG and though this gave us more trouble than the last one, heh, getting to spend longer with Giles and Wes is never what you might call a hardship.
It's AU in that after his throat was cut Wesley went to England and didn't stay in L.A. It's going to have smut, some violence, swearing, so might as well label it NC17 from the start.
Sick of Shadows
Chapter One
Their office was small, but Wesley thought it suited them.
It wasn't as if they needed more square footage. In reality, he knew that part of the reason they'd wanted to rent the office in the first place was just so that their small but growing business seemed more professional, even though they actually could have run it from anywhere at all, met clients at any number of local coffee houses and cafes. The process of agreeing to the desire for a real office, finding one that they could afford and leasing it had been the work of many nights and weekends. The office was the punctuation at the end of a sentence that had taken them more than six months to write, all the while struggling to pay rent and buy food.
Not that that had been something Wesley was unaccustomed to, of course, not after his time in L.A.. But for the most part he tried not to think about that time.
He looked at Giles, who was in the process of winding up a phone call, then he let his gaze wander the room. The desk that they shared – with two sets of pens because Rupert liked fibretips and Wesley refused to use them, preferring the even less expensive Bics that came in packages of a dozen or more and could be lost or broken without the faintest hint of guilt – was the largest piece of furniture in the room.
There were four chairs – one behind the desk, a proper desk chair that looked more posh than it actually was, and the other three on the other side of the desk so that clients could explain their needs in relative comfort. A small filing cabinet, which was on the verge of needing to be replaced with a larger one or, at the very least, added to, was beneath the small window.
Wesley turned his attention back to the invoice in front of him, folding it into thirds and sliding it into an envelope that he'd already addressed.
Giles reached out a hand, grabbed one of his pens and began scribbling on a notepad, repeating back an address as he did so, before ending the call with a word of thanks.
"I think we've finally got a lead on part of the stolen shipment," he said, glancing over at Wesley and standing up. "It's all very 'heard it from a mate down the pub', but there's a man living about four miles away who's been flashing a lot of money and talking about statues that glow." Perched on the edge of the desk, Giles began to thumb through a battered A to Z with his foot brushing Wesley's leg as he swung it idly back and forth. "Of course, he could be talking about some tatty, luminous knock-offs, but the money involved seems excessive, and he hasn't been seen for a few days." Marking the page with a scrap of paper, Giles frowned. "If those statues aren't properly stored, they could be dangerous."
Wesley finished sealing the envelope and stood up. "We'll need to track him down as soon as possible," he agreed, feeling the familiar tension that came with this sort of case. "If he's sold more than a few of them we're going to have a hell of a job tracking them all down. I can't imagine he's kept any sort of records."
"Doubt it," Giles agreed, taking his coat down from the hook behind the door and putting it on. "Somehow I can't see it featuring on his tax return, can you? But it's only been three days, and, if he knows enough to be selling them at the high end of the market, let's hope he's found few people interested – and that he knows how to set up the shielding spell. Or we might find ourselves asking questions of a corpse, and that never goes well."
He patted his pockets and pulled out the car keys. "It's a maze of streets down there by the docks; do you want to drive, and I'll navigate?"
"All right." Wesley picked the A to Z up off the desk and grabbed his own jacket from the back of a chair, taking the keys from Giles as he followed him out the door, being careful to check that it was locked as he closed it behind him.
They started down the narrow stairs – the lift was out of order often as not, and after the first month or so they'd given up on attempting to use it almost entirely, saving it for the rare occasions when the stairs weren't an option for reasons of injury or... well, mostly injury, although luckily there hadn't been any instances of that lately.
"That came at just the right time," Wesley observed as they headed for the car. "Would have had to come down and put money in the meter in the next half hour anyway."
"And it was your turn," Giles said with a sidelong grin. Feeding the meter every two hours was irritating but necessary, as they couldn't afford a fine or the inconvenience of finding their car fitted with a 'boot' just when they needed it. Taking turns to be the one to root through petty cash for small change and leave the office – usually at an inconvenient moment – had seemed a simple solution, but they'd both swapped turns on the pretext of being in the middle of vital research so often that the system had broken down. The bickering, negotiations and bribery that had replaced it provided them both with some amusement, but the steady flow of coins into the meter was adding up. Wesley reminded himself to keep looking for garages to rent nearby, without much hope that they'd find one.
"You always think it's my turn," he said. They'd managed to find a spot fairly close to the building for once, and within a minute they were in the car, Wesley adjusting the rearview mirror before shifting into first gear and pulling away from the curb.
"Keep on down here for the next mile, and then take a left at the roundabout by the new Sainsbury's," Giles said. "And on the way back we should stop there. A client came in yesterday and all I could offer her in the way of refreshments was tap water and a stale digestive."
"Mm," Wesley said by way of agreement. "I was going to say we should go in anyway to look around, but then I realised that I'm sure it's exactly like every other Sainsbury's. I wish they'd put a Tesco in instead." It was yet another long but companionably argued point between them, the fact that Wesley preferred the one so much more strongly over the other.
"Lord, listen to us," Giles said, gazing out of the window at the crowded streets, stretching out his legs as he tried to get comfortable in a car that wasn't really big enough for that to be possible. "On our way to ask someone, who's probably got an inversely accurate nickname like 'Tiny', about mystical statues that can melt flesh and talking about shopping lists as we do it. I can't decide if our life is incredibly dull or remarkably bizarre."
"Probably a combination of the two," Wesley said. "Although we should be – " He broke off suddenly and twisted the wheel as another car attempted to cut in front of them without warning. "That was close."
"It was," Giles said, as Wesley watched the driver maneuver his vehicle in behind them. "What were you saying? We should be grateful for the boring bits?"
Wesley nodded. "Something like that." He relaxed. "We should look into having one of those water coolers installed. I wonder how expensive it would be."
He glanced over his shoulder before entering the roundabout, merging carefully behind a rather large lorry.
"Could do," Giles said. He had a tendency to agree with most of Wesley's suggestions, a quality that made Wesley feel not only secure but also self-confident. There were moments when he actually thought that perhaps his feelings for Giles were more complicated than he allowed himself to believe, but it was probably because he was so comfortable here that he always steered his thoughts in another direction when that happened.
Wesley glanced at the speedometer to be sure they were traveling within the speed limit and sped up a bit as they left the roundabout behind. "Where next?"
Giles flipped open the street map and nodded at an upcoming junction. "Take a right at the lights, and then it's the second road on the left. We're looking for Abercrombie Street. Dave said this man lived in a basement flat at number fifteen, but he didn't have a last name for him. All he could tell me was that he's called Bill, he's not someone you want to fuck around with – his words, not mine – and he's not all that friendly when he's drunk. As it's barely four o'clock, let's hope he's sober."
It didn't take long to locate Abercrombie Street. In fact, Wesley thought that they were extremely fortunate to have started out so close to begin with, even if he did recognize that good luck one time just meant that bad was probably lurking just over the horizon.
He parked the car near a likely looking building and they both got out.
"The basement?" he asked, somewhat doubtfully. "If he really does have them and he hasn't had the sense to shield them properly, I'd be surprised if he's still alive, let alone sober."
"He hasn't been seen for a few days," Giles reminded him, as they walked towards the house. It was in need of fresh paint, but hadn't – quite – reached the stage where it could be described as run-down. "But we'd better hope he is alive, or at least has most of the statues with him. If there were six of them, and some are missing, the body count could get higher than we can deal with, and that means we won't get paid. We're supposed to get them all back with no fuss." He frowned. "Did that sound callous and mercenary? I suppose the buyers might be innocent victims, who think the demon queen Azara will look good over the fireplace, but somehow I doubt that..."
"If it did – sound callous and mercenary – then you're not alone," Wesley said, gesturing to the right as it became clear that the entrance to the house must be behind some rather bedraggled bushes. In truth, he didn't think wanting to get paid for honest – and highly specialized – work was particularly callous, as long as one got the job done without hurting anyone.
Stepping around the bushes and walking down a short flight of steps to a door that looked new and considerably sturdier than the frame in which it stood, Giles took a moment to consider Wesley's words before replying, "Yes, but you're not exactly an impartial observer, are you? Never mind; we'd be doing this even if we weren't hoping for a cheque. I think." He rapped at the door, and they waited for a moment until it became clear that, if there was someone home, he wasn't feeling sociable.
"Would you do the honours?" Wesley asked, stepping back a bit to give Giles room to work.
Giles reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a set of picklocks. "I never thought I'd be grateful for my misspent youth once I left it behind me, but I have to say it's come in handy now and then." His movements were deft and assured as he inserted a slender piece of metal into the lock and got it into position, then added a second piece and jiggled carefully. "Remind me to tell you about the time I escaped a group of zombies by hot-wiring my car. Or did I just – ah, there we go – spoil the punch-line?"
"I suppose it will have lost some of its punch," Wesley agreed, watching as Giles slipped the small set of tools back into his pocket and then eased the door open slowly.
"Pity," Giles said, his attention on the dimly lit room before them. The stale air surged past them, as though eager to escape, and Giles choked, stifling the sound behind his hand, his nose wrinkling in disgust. It smelled of decay and old blood, and that made it all too familiar for both of them.
The silence was unpleasantly oppressive as well, and it was hard to make out anything more than a few feet away in the low light. Wesley reached out a hand to his left, hoping to be able to walk along the wall until they managed to find a lamp, and his hand encountered something smallish but sturdy, cool like metal. He nearly knocked whatever it was off its shelf, and he felt the sharp prick of his skin being broken by something that felt almost like a needle's point, followed by a rush of heat through his body.
Before he could say anything or process what had happened, they heard a faint scrabbling noise from the far corner of the room and a whispered, "Please..." in a voice pain had robbed of emotion.
Cautiously, Wesley moved further into the room. He was standing in just the right – or wrong, depending on how one looked at it – place when Giles managed to locate the light switch, flooding the room with a dingy yellowish light that, dim as it was, made the man curled up on the chair in the corner wince and attempt to cover his eyes.
"Bill?" Wesley asked, moving another half step closer.
"Don't know you – " Pale blue eyes, bleary and bloodshot, peered at them as the man lowered his hand slightly. His lips trembled, but he made what must have been an effort and tried to scowl at them. "What the fuck are you doing breaking in? Eh?" His voice broke in a whine, pitiful and annoying at the same time. "Not feeling so good. Come down with something. Flu maybe."
He moved restlessly in the chair and the light shone fully on his face for the first time. It was congested and swollen, the skin taut and shiny, dark, with blood so close to the surface that it seemed as though his face would be wet to the touch. As they watched, he raised a hand and clawed at his cheek, making the noise they'd heard as they came in as ragged nails scraped over skin.
Giles shuddered and moved to Wesley's side. "We have to do something," he said quietly. "Perform the shielding spell; get him to a hospital – "
"It's too late for that," Wesley said, shaking his head. He didn't feel any sympathy for the pitiful creature in front of them, just a vague sense of disgust at the stupidity of people who played with forces they knew nothing about. "What we need to do is find out what he can tell us."
Without waiting for Giles to respond, Wesley moved closer, standing over the man. "Where are they?" he asked. "And don't bother with useless protests of 'I don't know what you're talking about.' We know you have them."
The man blinked, eyes moving to fix on Wesley's face. "Hurts," he said. "Get me something – I've got money, I can pay you. Get me something."
"We can help you once we know where the statues are," Giles said, sounding far too gentle for Wesley's liking. "They're doing this to you. You had them, didn't you? Six of them? Are they here?"
"You can't have them! Need them to get out of this fucking hole – " Bill's hand came up again, but this time to his chest, tearing at a shirt already half-unbuttoned and stiff with patches of dried blood so that he could scratch skin that was beginning to shred like damp paper. "Can't have them..."
Frustration welled up in Wesley, hot and powerful, followed immediately by impatience. This man was endangering not just his own life, but others' as well, not to mention preventing Giles and Wesley from doing their jobs. Without another thought he grabbed the man by his shirt front, barely feeling the blood that had seeped into the fabric, and lifted him to his feet. "Where are they?" he growled.
Bill struggled weakly against Wesley's hands, but it was clear that he wouldn't have been able to support his own weight. "They're mine," he whimpered.
"Then you're never going to get out of this hole," Wesley said. "You're going to die here unless you tell us where they are." He knew that he was implying that they'd be able to help him, when in reality he didn't think there was any chance. The man had been in proximity to the statues for too long, the magical equivalent of radiation sickness eating away at him.
He felt Giles' hand on his arm, not pulling at him hard enough to break his hold on the man, but more than a casual touch. "Wesley... the place isn't that big. Why don't you have a look around for them, and I'll see what Bill can tell us." Giles hesitated and then said quietly, "You're hurting him."
"This is the only way we're going to get him to tell us," Wesley shot back, determined that he was going to get the information they needed no matter what it took. He tightened his grip on Bill, causing another whimper. "I'm not going to ask again."
The man didn't even struggle this time, as though he no longer had even that much energy. "One's in the duffle bag over there," he said. "And I sold one. The other four are in storage." He sounded defeated, utterly exhausted.
Giles moved to retrieve the bag, taking a quick look inside it. "It's here," he confirmed. "No sign of the packing though." He came back to Wesley's side, zipping the bag closed. "The others – they would have been wrapped in cloth, sealed – have you opened them too?" If he had, the protective spells, designed to render them safe as they were transported, would have been broken.
Anxiety had roughened Giles' voice, and Bill flinched. "I had to look at them," he said defensively, his hand moving restlessly on his body, nails digging in, seeming almost unaware of what he was doing. He looked at them imploringly, begging for their understanding. "Could've been anything. Look, you make me a fair offer and – "
Wesley didn't hesitate – just turned the man and walked him backward two steps until Bill was pushed up against the wall roughly. "A fair offer would be killing you right now instead of leaving you to suffer," he said, his voice harsh. "Who did you sell the statue to, and where are the others?"
Bill trembled, closing his eyes and gasping for air. "Guy named Nigel," he managed to get out. "I don't know anything else about him. No – King's Arms. That's where I met him."
Since violence seemed to be getting them somewhere, Wesley tightened his hands on Bill's shirt front. "And the other statues?"
"Down the docks, in a lock-up. End of – God, let me breathe! – end of Satters Road, behind the news agent's." Bill's eyes rolled up and he turned his head to the side, moaning softly. "God, can't you do something? Feel like I'm dying here. Told you what you want, didn't I? You've got to help me."
"There is no help for you," Wesley said coldly, releasing the man without warning and watching as he crumpled slowly to the floor. He stepped back and turned to Giles. "Let's go."
Giles' gaze travelled slowly to the dying man at his feet and then returned to Wesley. Without bothering to lower his voice, as Bill had retreated into himself, curled up and making sounds that would have been screams if he'd had enough strength left, he said sharply, "If you're sure you've done all you can to make him comfortable, by all means let's leave him to die in peace."
"We don't have time for this bleeding heart crap," Wesley said, checking to make sure that Giles was still holding the duffle bag before starting for the door. "He brought this on himself – it's not our responsibility to do anything for him."
"I doubt he knew what he was doing, although I agree that's not an excuse." Giles gave Bill one last look and then shook his head. "Fine. You're correct that we don't have much time. I've got what we need to make this safe in the boot of the car." He hesitated. "I don't like leaving him like this though."
"Then we won't." Wesley turned around and walked back over to Bill, intent on knocking him unconscious with a quick blow to the head, but just as he neared him the man gave a little bubbling moan and went still. Wesley paused, but there wasn't another intake of breath. "There," he said. "Happy now?"