Life Eternal

Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

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Summary: 7 years after the end of Angel, The First Evil has joined forces with Wolfram and Hart to take over our realm. The Scoobies and what's left of the AI team need any and all help they can get to defeat this new threat, especially since Buffy has been missing for the past three years. This story will be Spuffy eventually, but there is another woman in Spike's life up until then.

This story is probably going to be pretty dark and depressive so be warned.
Thank you, Kyra

Chapter 1 Reunions

The dark club was packed tight with humans and demons alike, over the loud speakers a DJ was mixing The Misfits with a heavy dance beat while scantily clad dancers moved sensuously in cages scattered throughout the main room.

Three figures made their way carefully around the edge of the dance floor each scanning the room, searching for someone.

"They choose to live in this place?" The female shouted the large man next to her, so she could be heard over the pounding music. With the flashing colored lights it was hard to tell whether the blue on her skin and in her hair was natural or a result of the lighting.

"They own this place, from what I understand they live above it." He answered her, his eyes never stopped their movement around the room. Occasionally they would flash a glowing amber color as he peered into the dark corners he couldn’t see with his regular senses.

A large scaled demon with three eyes and long fangs swayed drunkenly into the group. He growled at them menacingly, but even though it wasn’t their fault they quickly backed away not wanting to draw attention to themselves until they found who they had come here to see.

"This place is right up his alley, loud obnoxious music and drunken, violent demons." The last member of their group, muttered. He was the only full human of the three, but it was obvious to anyone who noticed them that he knew his way around a dangerous situation.

Actually anyone sober enough to pay attention knew to stay away from the three as the made their way deeper into the night club. Vibes were pretty important in a place like this and these three gave off the a very dangerous vibe to anyone who came near them.

“From everything we’ve heard this is the hottest demon night spot in three realms. They have some of the biggest names come in from different realities to hang out here.” The large man started to explain, but just then he spotted one of the ones they were looking for headed to the bar in the back. "There’s one of them." He told the others, pointing at the tall, thin, green skinned demon wearing a day glow orange suit and ordering drinks at the bar.

They made their way through the crowd quickly and over to the bar. They stood behind the demon and waited for him to turn around and notice them.

"The people at table 12 need two bottles of champagne, a strawberry margarita and two pints of human, B negative. And don't be stingy, these guys are major VIP’s." After he finished his order he turned around and blinked when he saw who was standing before him. All the good cheer left his face only to be replaced with anger and suspicion.

"Angel." He whispered.

Angel gave him a small smile. "Hello Lorne, you're looking well. Nice place you have here." Thankfully they had a few moments in between songs so Angel didn’t have to scream to be heard.

Lorne licked his lips looking around nervously, before recovering himself, ever the Host, he regained his equilibrium. "Thanks, Angel-cakes. I'd say you look well too, but that would be a waste since we know you never change." He lost his smile again for a split second as he glanced at the woman standing next to Angel. "Illyria, still blue I see. Ever think about updating your color?"

Illyria tilted her head to the side regarding Lorne seriously. "Why should I care what color this shell is?"

Lorne just shook his head and turned to the third member of the party. "And who is this? I don't believe I've met this tall, dark and mysterious pirate."

The man reached out his hand. "Xander Harris, but don't let the patch fool you, I haven't plundered any ships lately." Lorne shook his hand.

"Ohh, a nice firm grip and quick witted. I like that." He went to laugh before stopping abruptly. "Wait a minute. Xander Harris? As in Xander Harris, friend of Buffy Summers? World renowned demon hunter, Xander Harris?"

"That would be me, but I don’t know how world renowned I am."

The bartender by now had finished Lorne's order and tapped him on the shoulder to let him know it was ready.

"Oh thank the Powers." Lorne exclaimed before he could stop himself as he turned to grab the tray. He turned back with his drink order in hand. "Well it was great seeing you Angel-pie. I would love to sit and catch up, but a Host's duties are never finished. Feel free to have a drink on the house. If you'll excuse me I have a table of VIP's waiting."

Lorne moved around them while he was talking. He nodded once at Xander. "It was nice to meet you Mr. Harris. Please refrain from killing any of my clients, tonight we have a strict no violence policy in effect here. Illyria, always a pleasure." He didn't even look back at her, in his rush to get away from them.

Lorne was hoping against hope they would just let him walk away and then leave he didn’t know why there were here, but he was certain it wasn’t just a stop in for a drink.

"Uh, Lorne." Angel's voice called after him. Internally he cursed, but outwardly he showed no signs of hearing only quickened his pace slightly.

When he reached the VIP area he breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn't come after him so he could only assume they must have decided to leave him alone. He quickly dropped off the drinks and schmoozed the clients for a few minutes, after making sure they were happy and occupied he left them and ducked out a small door that led outside to the back alley. Looking around to make sure he was alone, he walked over to a window sill and pulled a cigarette from the pack his partner hid there.

After lighting the cigarette and taking a deep drag he began to calm down. He debated about going upstairs and filling his partner in on their "guests" before deciding against it. Tonight was supposed to be a very important night for him and his lady and something like this would definitely kill the mood.

"Are those as bad for your kind as they are for humans?" Illyria's voice asked him. Lorne let out a yell and jumped.

"I did not mean to startle you, but we were not finished speaking with you when you ran away."

"I did not run away." Lorne said. "I have no reason to run from anyone in my own club."

"Fine, you did not actually run away from us. You walked briskly away from us hoping we would not follow you." Illyria amended her previous observation. She turned her head and addressed the two men standing behind her. "I thought you said it was not necessary to not be literal all the time."

"We'll work on the timing of that later." Xander told her as he and Angel approached them.

"Look, whatever you guys are selling, we're not interested." Lorne was visibly upset at this point. "And if he finds out you're hear, you'll be thrown out on your ears. So why don't you just save yourselves the trouble and leave now?"

When the three of they didn't move, just continued to stare at him, Lorne's agitation went up another notch. "Why can't you just leave us alone? We're out of the save the world business."

Angel sighed. "Its not that simple, Lorne." He told him.

"Yes it is!!" Lorne yelled. "You turn around and you walk away and you forget you ever found us. We don't want any part of any of it!!"

Angel went to speak again, but Xander spoke before he could.

"Look, I understand how you feel, believe me, I do. However, we're in a lot of trouble here and if we don't pull together none of us are going to be here soon, because there won't be a free world anymore. We need the all the allies we can get and we need the best fighters we can find."

"We need you, Lorne." Angel added. "And we need Spike."

"Why? Why do you need us?"

"Wolfram and Hart has joined up with the First Evil. Together they want to enslave this plane of existence and use the energy they harness from here to destroy the rest of the realms in the universe." Illyria informed him succinctly.

Lorne just laughed in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? And what chance do you think we have against them combined?"

"We stand a better chance facing them together than spread out around the world worrying about our own petty differences." Xander told him.

Lorne was silent as he thought over what they had told him.

"Sing for me." Lorne told Xander. Having already been briefed on Lorne's gifts Xander immediately sang a very off key version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. He didn't even get to the 'merrily, merrily' part before Lorne told him to stop.

Lorne looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. "Ok then, I guess you're telling the truth. We better go talk to Spike. I have to warn you, we're going to be interrupting something very special for him. I hope you guys know he won’t be very happy to see you and he’s not going to be happy about this."

"None of us are." Angel told him dryly.

Lorne opened the door to go back into the club, but before he stepped inside he looked back at Angel. "I lied before. It really isn't great to see you, Angel."

No one said anything as they followed him back into the club.





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