The Assassin
As she emerged from the underground to the midday hustle and bustle of the city, she suddenly felt a familiar tingle down her spine. Somebody’s watching …. She was instantly on the alert, heightening her senses and attuning her skilled ears and eyes to her surrounding environment.
The sun was slightly higher and she let herself bask in its warm glow for a split second before refocusing her attention to the situation at hand. At first glance, everything appeared normal: cars parked unevenly along the sidewalk, barely within their meter slots, various artists furiously painting elaborate names and sketching the city skylines for the tourists grouping around them, businessmen with cardboard insulated coffee cups, post-modern arts students in oversized plaid and oversized portfolios under their arms, families all swarming around, talking and laughing. The traffic was slow; taxis tried to squeeze into impossible spaces, cars lined up bumper to bumper, a MTA Transit bus lumbered slowly through the intersection behind her, and everything seemed as it should be -- but something was off. Buffy furtively slipped behind a newspaper stand, keeping her eyes trained on the road and the buildings across from her.
Parked along the opposite end of the one way street was a blue Honda civic, two motorcycles squeezed in one spot, a battered Volvo, nothing too questionable, and a …
There it was.
She spotted a black Lincoln parked in front of a fire hydrant. To anyone else, it would've been just another illegally parked car, but to her, everything clicked. It wasn’t so much the fact that the parking job was illegal as it was the way the car was maneuvered. For one, the only people who parked illegally like that were people who only expected to be away from their cars for no more than a few minutes. But the Lincoln was carefully situated in such a way that it was perfectly aligned with the sidewalk, meaning that it wasn't just some regular civilian who didn't want to deal with meter parking. The parking job was deliberate and whoever was driving apparently had been waiting in it for a long time. She looked closer and noticed that it's windows were also tinted passed the legal seventy percent light transmission in the state of New York. Definitely not a coincidence.
Following me again, huh? She sighed inwardly, weighing her options. Finally, she decided to walk on and ignore the Lincoln. Angelus's men weren't doing a very good job if their object was to pursue her. The way they were positioned into the space made it difficult for them to follow her, especially if she was walking amidst a crowd of other people.
Which probably meant that somebody was following her on foot…
Buffy turned her head and sure enough, there were two tall men lingering a few yards behind her. When their eyes met, the men quickly turned their heads in a sad attempt to stay hidden. They each wore a sports jersey, dark aviators, and a New York Mets baseball cap - Angelus's team of choice - it was supposed to hide the sound wire embedded in their ear. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Amateurs.
Her cell phone rang in her pocket and she pulled it out. Caller Id: Angelface. Before picking it up, she checked back on the entourage of the so-called "spies" following her. Sure enough, the Lincoln was trying and failing to pull back into traffic and the men behind her were too close to each other and trying too hard to look discreet. Shaking her head in exasperation, she flipped up the phone and brought it to her ear.
"You know I hate being watched," she greeted, speaking sharply into her cell phone. She was already contemplating an easy way to take out the three people trailing her. A rough laugh seeped through the earpiece.
"I like watching you," the smooth, tenor voice chuckled. "It's so, I don’t know, … refreshing."
She spared another glance at the Lincoln that was steadily gaining on her. The imposing presence of the sleek black car and the hulking, awkward men behind her was irritating. "Well, I'm glad you feel refreshed," she snapped, noticing two more men on the sidewalk, one on a bench pretending to be reading a magazine that happened to be upside down and another leaning against a potted tree, smoking. Raising two eyebrows disdainfully, she added, "It wouldn't hurt to be more discreet."
"I'm not trying to be discreet," he answered, "Not entirely."
"Oh, yeah?" Buffy sighed. A Starbucks was beckoning her from a few stores down and she quickened her pace, eager to disappear into the coffee shop, knowing that they wouldn't follow her in.
"Think of it as your safety crew," Angelus said simply. The connection faltered for a split second as she stepped through the threshold separating the city and the coffeehouse, making his voice crackle. He laughed over the other line, "Hiding away, huh, Buffy? Your father trained you well."
She bristled a little bit at that. "My father didn't train me," her voice tightened and she could almost hear him shrug over the other line.
"It doesn't matter-"
"And what the hell do you mean by safety?" she cut him off and he laughed again. There were three people in the line before her and two of them turned around at the dangerous tone in her voice. She lowered her volume and turned a ninety degree angle so she wasn't facing them anymore, "You do understand that I can take all of them out right now without so much as breaking a nail, right?"
"I don't doubt it," he told her, hesitating for a few seconds before finally admitting, "They're in training. I'm teaching them the fine art of spying."
"Training! What do I look like, Angel? A teacher? A subj-"
"Angelus," he stopped her rant. His voice turned from a casual, light joking quality to a serious tone. "You had a job, Buffy. Did you do it?"
Buffy nodded, stepping up in line and digging through her pockets for her wallet. "Contact's been made. The target's as good as mine."
He chuckled softly, "You never cease to impress me. How do you know you really have him?"
"Oh, I know," she shrugged, "Either way, he's in for a pleasant surprise tonight." - it was her turn in line - "Tall Caramel Macchiato."
She handed a Starbucks card to the cashier, who took it and swiped it through. $2.98. Angelus sounded amused over the other line, "Sweet tooth, huh?"
"Of course," she stepped away from the counter and sat down at a circular table as she waited for her drink to be made.
After going through the details of exactly what she was supposed to do, Angelus paused and said, "Don't be too hard on my guys, okay? They're practicing their stalker technique. Think of it as additional training - they'll keep you on your toes."
Buffy narrowed her eyes at a random spot on the table, and replied flatly, "I'm not going to remind you that I've already had years of training from the best. I've been doing this since high school, okay? If you value your men's lives, you wouldn't try to keep me on my toes anymore. Spies don't suit me, try back next season when polka-dots replace plaid."
"Caramel Macchiato!" the voice behind the counter called out and her drink appeared on the round pick-up counter.
"Fine, I'll tell them to pull off," he relented as she got up to retrieve it.
"Good," she smiled. "The target will be cleared by sundown."
She snapped the cell phone shut with a satisfying click.
The Lawyer
The conference room was cold like everything else about Wolfram & Hart. It was one of the two fundamental things about the firm: everything was large and everything was cold, both of which referring to more than just a size and a temperature. Many times, the cold had absolutely nothing to do with the ridiculously cranked up air conditioning and the large wasn't an indication of the vast, long tables kept in the center of every conference room, enough to fit ten people on either side.
Currently, five people were in the room and none of them were making a sound. The second hand of the clock ticked on unceremoniously and those five people shifted uncomfortably in their seats. There was Spike and his partner, Penn, sitting on one end of the table and across from them sat Parker Abrams with his parents.
Parker Abrams, accused of the rape and murder of two fourteen year old girls. His father, proud Texan, oil tycoon, and a drug trafficker on the side. His mother, former Miss Teen Texas back in the day, submissive homemaker, and persistent Botox addict. Penn rubbed his goatee and the scratching sound of bristly hair scraping against skin joined the ticking of the clock. Soon, he picked up his pen and started busily taking down notes.
The room was on the fortieth floor of the tall building and from between Parker and his father, Spike could see the skyline of the business district through the glass that made up the outer walls of the entire building.
He found his mind wandering back to the five seconds in the subway where his skin had come in contact with that captivating girl's fingertips. Her eyes were green, emerald green in the shadows, specked with blue and violet rays, probably from the bright lights of the signs on the wall. Something down below stirred as he remembered the golden, lean thighs and imagined what they would feel like wrapped around his waist… Fuck.
At noon, the grandiose grandfather clock at the end of the room chimed exactly three times. He ripped his attention forcibly from the image his mind had concocted of what that girl would look like naked. It wasn’t an easy task. Finally, Spike sat up, folded his hands on the table in front of him, and leaned forward. The meeting had officially begun and there was no time to entertain fantasies about beautiful girls with toxic eyes and lethal boots.
"So, tell me exactly what happened," he instructed the teenaged boy who was passively slouching in his chair. In his head, the girl smiled shyly at him, her long lashes lowering and demurely fluttering back up to glance at his face. Stop it. Stop it. Concentrate… he repeated to himself.
Parker lifted two eyebrows and his lips curled into a sinister smirk. Next to him, his mother's brows twitched and his father opened his mouth to speak, sitting up straight and nodding to his son, "Go on, Parker, tell the man what happened."
"You want details? It's wicked hot," the cocky look on his face persisted and Spike's hands tingled with the urge to punch the boy's face. Next to him, Penn made an irritated sound with his throat and covered it up with a cough.
"You want to go to jail?" Spike shot back, narrowing his eyes. Parker's smile just grew wider and he shrugged. His expression was cold, indifferent - not something out of the ordinary. Most of the criminals Wolfram & Hart took under had the same blank sneer and the empty eyes.
His mother gasped and brought her hand to her mouth, "Wait! I thought you were going to - "
"Relax, Margaret. Parker's not goin' anywhere," her husband cast her a sidelong look before focusing his attention on Spike. "Look here, mister, I read through that contract I signed with Wolfram & Hart. I know everythin' that's supposed to go down, alright? Now, me and my boy didn't travel all the way up to New York to get him locked up in any ole' cell again, you hear? Parker here done nothin' wrong, he had nothin' to do with those little harlots that turned up off I-45, okay? Now, you tell the judge that and - "
"With all due respect, Mr. Abrams," Spike's voice smoothly shifted from his usual laid-back drawl to a tight, cordial British accent primarily used to keep his temper in check. The brisk tone was affective in preventing the annoyance from spilling out of his mouth. "If I'm not aware of exactly what happened, and I do mean exactly, then how should I get him an alibi? Who should I call to cover trails? Do you see where I am going with this?"
There was a short pause and it finally dawned on Mr. Abrams, "Oh. So what you're sayin' is if you know what went down, you can create another story, right? One that's much more better."
He shared a look with Penn, who let out a soft, nearly imperceptible chuckle, before nodding, "Precisely."
The older man looked over at his son, "Well what are you waiting for? Tell him what happened!"
The boy's mouth stretched to a sadistic grin and he began his tale. His voice lacked his father's southern drawl and he pronounced each syllable with a certain sick enjoyment, like he was reliving his most glorious moment. Neither of the lawyers flinched, stories like this were normal for them. Spike listened carefully as Penn scribbled down names and places.
"You see, it was the Friday night right after my birthday. Dad just bought me that brand new truck I've been after since forever," - his father smiled proudly at that - "so I was just cruising down I-45, you know? Minding my own business, maybe breaking one or two traffic laws, no big. I'm about to exit to the feeder when I see two girls walking along the shoulder of the highway, and I'm thinking 'Damn, that's dangerous, I better go help them.' So, like the good citizen of America that I am, I pull over and ask if they need a ride.
"They're like, 'yeah!' and they hop in - "
At this point, Spike held up a hand to pause him and asked, "How old were these two girls?"
"Well, at the time, I thought they looked about, oh, sixteen and eighteen? Turns out they're both fourteen, but hell, how was I supposed to know that? Can I go on?" Penn jotted the information down and Spike waved at him to continue. "So, anyways, we're driving for a little while and I realize that these girls are super drunk. That, and they're pretty fucking hot, if you know what I mean. Obviously, they were probably too out of it to be allowed out again so I decide to pull off. There's this small motel off the feeder… Duncan's Inn or something like that. So, I thought it'd be real cool to just stop and let them sleep it off.
"So I take them into the motel and I was about to leave them there when I realize 'oh, they can't stay here alone!' since Duncan's Inn is kinda towards the darker side of sleazy, if ya know what I mean. So, I decide to stay with them. And fuck, these girls are really, really sexy. I mean, like Paris Hilton sexy, right? So, like, what am I supposed to do? They had it coming to them, anyways, since they were, like, wearing practically nothing." - at this point, the excited smile on Parker's face was spreading along the lines of insane bliss - "I thought it wouldn't be right if I didn't teach them a lesson because girls really shouldn't be going around in those short skirts like that. So, I take one of them into the bathroom and she doesn't really complain - you know, drunk, stoned, shit like that. I ask if she needs to pee and she's like 'yeah,' so I ease her out of her skirt real nice-like, you know? She's just fumbling around and stuff, so I decide to kiss her because, wow, she was just so pretty.
"She doesn't seem to mind so much and she even starts kissing me back, so I'm lying her down across the sink and she's grabbing at me, so there's only one thing I can do. I take off my belt and it kinda gets me thinking - boy, this girl really needs a lesson! She was such a whore, just letting some stranger like me take advantage of her. So, I decided what she needed was a good whipping and a good fuck."
Parker's eyes glazed over and he paused to sigh at the memory, "I took off all her clothes first. I wanted her naked and lying across that counter with the sink's faucet digging into her waist. She's like, touching herself and spreading her legs for me. So, I knew this was what she wanted, it wasn't like a secret or anything, right? She's inviting me in! The first time I brought my belt down on her, it slapped right across those big tits. It left this beautiful, absolutely gorgeous red mark on her skin - it was so cool! Like, at first, it'd be all white and slowly, it'd get redder and redder and turn into some sort of welt. Oh yeah, and she screamed at that. Boy, that turned me on real good. She's just screaming and I want to make her scream louder, so I bring the belt down again, between her legs.
"I keep hitting her with the belt because it's making her voice go up and it sounds so awfully beautiful, you know? She keeps bucking and jerking, so I use my hand to pinch her clit. Oh god, the sound. She tried to hit my hand, so I just gave that clitoris of hers a good old twisting. I kept twisting and she'd screech. Music to my ears! Finally, she was so red, I decided it was time for her fuck, so I rolled her down to the floor. She looked so beautiful, all black, blue, and red, red, red. I take her ankles in my hand and shove myself into her - "
Spike, slightly sickened, raised his hand to stop him, "Okay, so you beat and raped the girls. How did you kill them? And what did you do, specifically, to their bodies?"
"Oh, I broke the cabinet off the wall and beat both of them on their heads with it until they didn't move anymore. Are you sure you want me to skip all the good stuff? I can tell you about how I made them touch each other - that was so cool."
"Skip it," Penn spoke up for the first time in the meeting. Spike looked over at his partner, appreciatively. Usually, Penn was the one who could take the description. He was ruthless, taking in death and torture without so much as a blink of an eye, but when he had enough of something, it meant that whatever it was that was being said was… bad.
Parker started talking again and Spike found his mind drifting back to the girl in the subway. As the boy talked about how he had dumped their bodies under the overpass of I-45, Spike thought about what was under that trench coat she had been wearing and shuddered.
Her golden hair had been wind-tousled and the way a few locks of long gold thread had dipped down her front into the crevice of her breasts led his imagination astray. He imagined what it would be like to feel the curve of her collarbone and follow them to the center where her clavicles met, trail his fingers down until it met the V of her coat… he would slowly pull it off, feeling the skin under his palms, round his hands past her arms and to her back… He thought about what it would feel like to press both hands against her shoulder blades and feel them clenching together as she shrugged the coat to the ground…
Penn's sharp voice brought him back to reality half an hour later, "So first, we need to contact the forensics team in charge of the Abram's case, see if there's anything we can do there. Then, we need to contact the manager of Duncan's Inn - "
Spike sighed, sitting up and adjusting his pants. He needed to get the girl out of his system and he needed her out fast.
As they headed back towards their office, Penn handed him Parker's case folder. "I'll make a few calls, this should be a piece of cake."
Spike took the folder, "I'll get in touch with the Duncan's Inn manager, look into our files, try to find the history of Abram's family. From what I saw back there, they're a bloody lot of fucking sadists…"
"Yeah," Penn agreed and disappeared into the copy room. Spike kept walking down the hall, passing the rows of cubicles until he reached his secretary's desk.
"William! What can I do for you?" she asked brightly, stopping mid-type. "Good meeting?"
"You can call it that," he shrugged, then drummed his fingers on her desk. "Look, I need a reservation for the Marriott Marquis tonight. It's a bit of a last minute thing, but - "
"Sure! For what time?"
"Uh… 8:30 should be good."
Lynn nodded and eagerly whipped out a notepad and a pen. "Okay, 8:30, certain type of room?"
"Any business suite will do."
"Okay, Marriot Marquis, Time Square, 8:30, business suite, any particular view? Orientation of room? Color of rug?" She streamed out a list of particulars that made Spike want to just forget the entire … ordeal.
"Bloody hell, woman, just get me a room, okay?"
"Okay, okay," she muttered and picked up the phone to call in his reservation.
When Spike was seated at his office again, he took a deep breath. The digital clock on the wall read 3:15. That meant that he had about five hours until he could relax and take care of his little problem. Or obsession. That singular touch from a complete stranger had forced him to do something he had never had to do before… call a brothel.
In a few moments, he would give Glory's Fun n' Pleasures a ring and pray that they had a short blonde with green eyes who could help take care of his more-than-mild fantasy.
The Hacker
The perpetual whirring of computers and other various machines was the norm for the dark apartment, otherwise known as The Office of Operation, otherwise known as The Doom Room, otherwise known as Buffy and Gun's Home Base. The office was heated by the vents of all the machinery and was the regular dugout for Buffy and her … associate.
Generally, people who specialized in killing others, among other things, always worked alone, but Buffy found that having somebody watching her back gave her multiple advantages. Firstly, it made her line of work less lonely knowing that there was always somebody to fall back on, secondly, she didn't know shit about computers and, of course nowadays, computers were key in obtaining information, decoding locks, and all that fun stuff, which Gunn happened to be an expert at. Thirdly, she trusted Gunn with her life, seeing as how they had been best friends since, well, forever.
And right now, Buffy was waiting on the other line while Charles Gunn was staring at his computer screen. His fingers were moving at Olympic-speed, typing in multiple strings of code at a time in an attempt to hack into Wolfram & Hart's database.
"Are you there yet?" the impatient voice that streamed through the radio on top of his main computer had taken on a whiny quality.
"Almost, Lil' Slayer. Relax." he rolled his eyes as Buffy made a huffy little sound over the intercom. "You know, seeing as how I'm tapping into the largest, scariest, slimiest law firm's system for you, I'd think you would show a little more love and gratitude. You do realize that if I get caught, my ass is theirs, right? Theirs' to play with, theirs' to mangle, theirs' to torture with sharp objects…"
"Okay, okay," Buffy mumbled, "I get it. You're the best! I'm ever so grateful that you're my partner in crime and I would be nothing without you, oh lord of the computer thingies."
Gunn smiled as he pressed enter, "Me gusto. Mucho mejor."
The screen in front of him flashed and soon, he was staring at a ever-growing list of green numbers and letters. A smile spread across his face and he shouted triumphantly, "Gotchya!"
"What? Got what?" Buffy sounded eager and in a hurry, "Are you in?"
"Yep," he scrolled down the list.
[Lilah Morgan: 10:39am - Assigned Valecruz, Miguel case. Move to 37th floor office.]
[Lindsey McDonald: 2:30pm - Arrived in LaGuardia airport from Cancun, Mexico. Vacation over. Assign new secretary.]
[Penn Smithson: 2:45pm - Phone call made to The City of Houston's Forensics Team - Abram, Parker's case.]
[William Pratt: 2:52pm - Reservation for Marriott Marquis, 8:30 pm, Rm #: 6911 - personal]
[Lilah Morgan: 2:58pm - Phone call made to Barcelona Airport - Valecruz, Miguel case.]
[William Pratt: 3:15pm - Phone call made to Houston, Texas information for Duncan's Inn - Abrams, Parker's case.]
[William Pratt: 3:38pm - Phone call made to Glory's Fun n' Pleasures - personal]
"Holy shit, girl," Gunn laughed, "You did it again. So, you're playin' call girl tonight, little miss Glory's Fun n' Pleasures?"
"Shut up, Gunn," she giggled a little, too, "It's for the job. I need to go in, get information, kill him, get out. Where's he going to be?"
"Marriott Marquis at 8:30 tonight," he said, scrolling up a little bit, "Room 6911. Want me to wire it? Place some bugs here and there, it shouldn't be too hard."
"Thanks, you're the best!"
"Don't I know it," he chuckled, saving the page, "Later, player… or, should I say, slayer."
"You're lame. Bye."
They hung up at the same time.