Numb and Number: Chapter Fourteen

[jesterladyfic]

Chapter Fourteen

The first thing they smelt was the blood. It took Wesley a little longer than the other two, but the scent was so fixated in his memory that he would recognize it anywhere.

They pushed open the door and crept into their area of the museum. The smell of blood grew stronger but there
was no one there. A complete absence of heartbeats and very clear signs of a fight, but no bodies, nothing.

“They must have made it out,” Oz said.

“Guess so, or taken,” Spike replied. “Besides demon, this is Giles’ blood.”

“Where would they take him?” Wesley asked. “And what about Angel?”

“No trace of the wanker,” Spike answered, rifling through the mess on the floor. Doing so, he picked up a piece
of paper that was lying on top.

“Why would we have a brochure for the bloody university?” he questioned.

“We wouldn’t,” Oz said, taking it. “Not us.”

“But Angel, who has a son there, might,” Wesley concluded. “Hopefully, he put this here to tell us where he
was going. If not, we’ll find another way to track them.”

“Angel’s good at hiding blood trails,” Spike said. “Outside there’s nothing but a smell of a truckload of fish guts,
which would do it.”

“Let’s go,” Oz said and they quickly followed his advice.



***


Angel kept the pressure on Giles’ shoulder. He kept going, knowing he would be followed. He left no scent, despite his wanting to make sure the others could find them. He could think of nothing but leaving an innocuous paper trail.

He wouldn’t go to where Connor lived. He hadn’t saved his son all this time to simply lead Illyria to his
doorstep. Since it was summer and the weekend, a lot of the buildings were shut down. He broke into the medical
hall and went to work to keep Giles from dying. His wound was a sword thrust into his left shoulder, but it went
dangerously close to his heart and a lot of blood had been lost. A hospital wasn’t an option at this point so Angel put
his years and vast knowledge of human anatomy to good use.

It was some hours later when he heard a noise. He stealthily got to his feet and made sure Giles was hidden
before gripping a stake and walking quietly to behind the door.

“Relax, you caveman, it’s just us,” came a faintly disappointed voice at the same moment when Angel’s nose
reminded him exactly why he didn’t like that smell.

“Is Giles all right?” Wesley asked.

“I’m doing all I can. As soon as it’s safe, he has to go to the hospital.”

“What the bloody hell happened?” Spike demanded. “I mean as soon as Illyria showed up the whole moving to
the museum thing became unnecessary, but this?”

“She just appeared. I think she wanted to gloat over…” He glanced at Wesley. “...over her little memory
upgrade. When she saw you guys were gone, she got mad and attacked us.”

“She doesn’t know what we were doing, correct?” Wesley asked nervously.

“We didn’t say anything,” Angel assured him. “But we were busy fighting for our lives so I don’t know what she
knows.”

“Bollocks,” Wesley said quietly.

“You said it, mate,” Spike said, looking over from where he’d just seen Giles. “Bloke looks real bad. We better
get this over with.”

“Did you get it?” Angel asked. Oz nodded and showed him the lump of coal.

“Looks like your stocking every Christmas, eh, Angel?” Spike grinned at him. Angel just rolled his eyes and
handed it back to Oz.

“Well, what do we do with it?”

“Ask Giles,” Wesley admitted. “He only handed me his notes about retrieving it, not using it.”

“Let’s get on that,” Oz said.

“We can’t until he wakes up,” Angel said. “If he doesn’t rest right now, he’ll die. You guys would rather-”

“Okay, we’ll wait, Florence,” Spike said. “Just cause your new found nursing compassion is jumping the gun
doesn’t mean we don’t almost care.”

So they waited. It was a long wait. Oz sat with his back against the wall, head on his knees.

“Looking really glum there, mate,” Spike observed from his perch on an examining table.

“Well, situations are much gloomier on the floor,” Oz reminded him. Spike smiled and looked around for
something to play with. He settled for an odd looking medical instrument of torture.

“Let us in on the gloomy thoughts then. Or tell some stories.”

“Ever hear about my first werewolf days?” Oz asked randomly.

“Believe I was in town at the time,” Spike answered. “Before your stint, of course,” he addressed Wesley, “but
old Angel was around; actually it was more like Angelus.”

“Yup, Buffy was worried that I was you,” Oz told Angel who was looming guard at the door.

“I remember meeting you on the street,” Angel said softly.

“I don’t,” Oz answered. “I can’t remember being a werewolf. Sometimes I think I can in my dreams, but the
thing I remember is waking up in the woods, completely naked, with no memory of how I got there.”

“What did you do?” Wesley asked.

“Freaked out, knew the gang needed to find the wolves, knew the only thing that had bit me recently, bought
some chains.”

“Who bit you?”

Angel smiled a little sadly, Wesley would be very interested in the origin story of werewolf Oz.

“My cousin, Jordy. He was younger at the time.”

“How young?”

“Young enough to think biting your older cousin was cool and would help with the teething process.”

“How terrible!” Wesley sounded shocked. “Whatever happened to him?”

“He’s fine, last I heard. I sent him the address of some great Tibetan monks. It helped. His parents bought him a really nice cage for his birthday.”

“Hardly funny,” Wesley remarked.

“No,” Oz agreed, “not funny. But Jordy’s coping well and that’s what matters. He had more time to adjust, I
guess.”

“And you certainly didn’t,” Spike chimed in. “Can’t think of a worse time to become a wolf there. Us bad
vamps were in town and the gang all bent on killing all things evil.”

“It was hard, but it didn’t really hit until a few years later when I left town.”

“When that whole other wolf thing happened,” Spike guessed. Oz’s face clenched up a little.

“Yup. I ran. I ran around the world looking for people like me.”

“People like you?” Wesley inquired. “Who knew they were werewolves?”

“Yeah, I wanted to see if they knew and what they did about it. Could they handle it? Did they care? Was I the only werewolf locking himself up or was everyone like Veruca?”

“Consensus?” Spike asked.

“Mixture,” came the reply. “Some knew, some cared, some didn’t.”

“Was it worth it?” Angel asked suddenly, wanting to know if it was worth losing her.

Oz looked up.

“I don’t know,” was his honest response.


***


The conversation moved on to other topics. It wasn’t so much a conversation as Spike’s lame attempts at making jokes, Angel skulking and Wesley trying to remain a buffer for them all while constantly checking Giles to see if he was awake.

Oz let his thoughts wonder. The entire conversation had been really based on him and his past and that wasn’t
something he tried to think about. It led to thoughts of his failures and to people he’d lost. Like Tanya.

Mostly he remembered her laugh. She was the first person he’d met after leaving Sunnydale the second time
who could laugh and he could bear it. After the first time he’d met her in a coffee shop he bumped into her again.
She’d laughed that time. The laugh made him want to see her again.

She wasn’t his Willow. She wasn’t someone he’d spend the rest of his life with. But she made him love
laughter and laughter was life.

But no matter how much he'd loved her laugh he’d put her in harm’s way because he was on a mission. A
mission to destroy the people who’d given up their humanity. People like Darryn. Darryn who laughed when he
came back to himself and saw the bloodbath he’d enjoyed the night before.

Oz could still remember the red blood on the snow and the claw that he’d shorn off before Darryn had come
back into human form. He could see Darryn with the claw and Tanya running to help and the claw in her neck. He
remembered rage that wasn’t supposed to happen in the daylight. He remembered more blood. He remembered
leaving the body and gathering hers in his arms. He remembered doing a ritual he’d been scared to do before. He
remembered leaving the next day. He didn’t remember much laughter after that.

“That was highly unnecessary,” Giles’ voice hovered over Oz’s thoughts.

“He’s awake,” Spike announced. Giles stirred and grumbled some more.

“Stupid sword, I saw it coming. What happened?”

“You nearly died,” Spike said solemnly, “Angel saved you.”

“Oh,” Giles said in a not very enthusiastic tone of voice, “thank you then.”

“It’s okay.” Angel sounded equally as enthused.

“Giles, please tell us what this means?” Wesley got right to the meat of the matter. “We need to get this over
with.”

“You did it?” Giles asked and tried to sit up.

“Don’t move, you’ve hardly any blood in you,” Wesley warned.

“Spike got to me,” Giles postulated.

“Give me some credit for taste,” Spike muttered.

“This is what we found.” Oz put the coal in Giles’ hands.

“Remarkable,” Giles breathed. “A diamond in the rough. All you need to do is use this as the focal point in the
spell I taught you, Wesley. That should do the trick.”

“And get close enough to do this without being killed?” came Oz’s query.

“You’ll have to work that one out,” was Giles’ reply. “It shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle.”

“No, just what killed-“ Spike’s reply was cut short by his own choked voice, but he continued after a moment.
“Let’s go then. Let’s bloody kill it.”

“A word of caution,” Giles spoke. “The same things apply here as when you retrieved it. The thing is bound to
the three of you and only you can use it.”

“You never told us that!” Spike spouted.

Giles went on unabated.

“This means Angel and I shall have to remain out of it.”

“You have to remain out of it anyway,” Wesley said. “You need a hospital.”

“The spell is volatile,” Giles continued. “You’ll need to leave there immediately.”

“Taking the van,” Oz answered.

“Angel,” Wesley said, “we’ll take care of Illyria. Take Giles to the hospital, or somewhere safe. But he’ll need a
doctor as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do that. I can do some talking to city authorities about clearing the area, but I can only try,” Angel
promised, hesitated and said, “Be careful, Wes.”

“I will,” Wesley answered shortly.

“I will too, of course,” Spike said sweetly. He turned to look at Wesley and Oz.

“Let’s go, mates.”