AUTHOR: Pythia
RATING: R (For language mostly)
PAIRING: Wesley/Other
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated
E-MAIL: pythia@tiscali.co.uk
SUMMARY: Wesley’s leaving Sunnydale …
DISCLAIMER: The Slayer and her Watchers are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please do not reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.
SPOILERS: Up to Graduation Pt II
TIMELINE: Just prior to the start of Angel Season One
NOTES: This was written in answer to Gail’s challenge, in which she wondered why Wesley had picked leathers and a motorbike. It got me wondering too …
Oh – and the song’s by Iron Maiden. Just in case you wanted to know.
There are low moments and low moments. This, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce decided with a sigh, was definitely one of his lowest. He hoiked his bag off his shoulder and let its weight drop to the tarmac as he reached to tug a handkerchief out of his pocket. He used it to mop some of the sweat from his face and neck, and squinted into the distance, seeing the road stretch out ahead of him without sign of change – or occupation either. He heaved another sigh and looked back the way he’d come. The road stretched out there, too, a seemingly endless heat shimmered ribbon gift wrapping the desert landscape.
He wondered how far he’d actually walked. It felt like miles, although it was hard to tell if that was actual distance or the result of staggering onward through the dry desert heat in the middle of the day.
Mad dogs and Englishmen …
He half chuckled at the thought, an emotional swerve towards hysteria – or possibly the onset of heatstroke. Either one was likely. He’d been out in the sun for hours.
"This was not how this was supposed to work," he muttered, sitting down in the dust next to his bag and reaching for the bottle of water tucked into one of its outer pockets. A mouthful or two of its tepid contents made him feel a little better – and it was good to stop walking, even if only for a while.
Truth be told, he was very tempted to just stop. Full stop. There really didn’t seem to be much point in going on.
Because, really, he had nowhere to go.
It had all seemed so simple that morning. He’d woken up, looked at the emptiness in his life, assessed the waste of space he seemed to have turned into and decided to finally take Rupert’s advice.
To – go. Somewhere. Anywhere.
To make a fresh start.
To find out who he really was and whether he truly had a destiny – or had just thought he had, like all the other would be Watchers who dreamed of guiding a Slayer and never, ever suspected how hard that was going to be.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. He’d done everything he could; had applied everything he’d ever learned in training and called on every trick in the book. But the book had never been written to take account of wilful Slayers and independent minded teenagers – not to mention weary, war wounded ex-Watchers who really did know better and hadn’t just been saying and doing things to show him up in front of his Slayer.
Well, not all the time, anyway.
Truth was, he’d screwed up right royally. He’d been so intent on following the rules and trying to keep Buffy and Faith in line that he’d missed every opportunity he might have had. He’d practically driven Faith over to the dark side …
Dark side. Huh.
He’d obviously been spending too much time in Xander’s company.
Or too little.
Anyway, this morning he’d finally come face to face with all of that -and all the rest of it too, with being fired and his father telling him not to bother coming home – and he’d packed his bags, piled everything into the back of his car and hit the road. It wasn’t healthy to stay living next to a hellmouth when you had no reason to do so – and he had time and opportunity to explore the whole of America if he wanted to. At least until his green card ran out.
He should have known better, really.
Some sixty miles out of Sunnydale, the road had hit him back.
No big deal. Just a little matter of a mischievous dust devil – the natural, rather than the supernatural variety - some scattered debris and a few fairly vital concerns the damned car salesman hadn’t bothered telling him about – and there he’d been, sitting half tipped into a ditch, with two flat tires, a leaking radiator, and a sense that the fates were laughing at him.
Again.
He’d sworn – rather colourfully, as he recalled – climbed out of the ruins of his vehicle, and dithered about what to do next. His options had been to stay with the car in the hope of someone passing by, or to head out in search of help, despite the fact that he was miles from anywhere, on a back road to nowhere. His final decision had been driven by the toss of a coin rather than any sensible assessment, and he’d hastily packed a few essentials into the backpack he’d bought (with some vague idea of maybe hiking in the Rockies, or something equally unlikely) before locking the rest of his meager luggage in the boot and setting off along the dust strewn road.
He’d been walking ever since.
At least he’d been wearing a fairly lightweight suit. He’d shed the tie almost at once. The jacket had followed a few miles later. Now he was down to an unbuttoned shirt and wishing he’d taken the rest of Rupert’s advice and worn a decent pair of walking shoes. Italian loafers might be smart and impress those who knew about that sort of thing, but they weren’t designed for hitchhiking. He wasn’t designed for hitchhiking, and the only redeeming thing about that had been the complete absence of passing traffic from which to hitch a lift.
The worst thing about the whole ordeal was the time it had given him. Time to think and brood and consider what he might be doing – or not doing – and how much of a failure he’d turned out to be, and how galling it was that his father had been right about that all along.
Lowest of the low.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, the eternal scholar, who’d never learned how to do one damn thing right.
He sighed, taking another gulp of the rapidly diminishing water. His skin was beginning to prickle from where the sun had been busy etching its presence into it. Not a lot he could do about that. Slavering factor 20 all over the bits of himself he could reach had given him a little protection – but not enough for several hours, and certainly not where his sweat had cut runnels through the oily sunscreen.
What was he doing here? What had he been thinking? Come to that, what had Rupert Giles been thinking, to encourage him to pursue this kind of rebellion? Surely the man knew how much of a prat he was? He’d called him one often enough …
Wesley sighed a second time, realising that he’d probably deserved each and every one of those irritated insults. He hadn’t made a good show of it in Sunnydale. He should be grateful that Buffy’s Watcher – her real Watcher, no matter what the daft old gits back at the Council said – had even bothered to speak to him after the Ascension, let alone visit him in hospital, given him well intentioned advice and even a parting gift or two. He knew he’d not done anything to deserve that kind of support or encouragement. Not anything he could think of, anyway.
If he’d been sensible, he’d have ignored the advice and recognised that he’d never manage to be the kind of man that Rupert seemed to think he had the potential to be. He should have accepted his lot, got onto a plane, crawled back to the safety of the Council’s archives and buried himself there for the rest of his life.
Except he didn’t, and he hadn’t, and here he was, paying the price of hubris yet again.
He could hardly stay where he was, though, so he thrust the bottle back into the relevant pocket, hauled himself back to his feet, and returned to his trudging. Manfully putting one foot in front of the other.
The sun was starting to head towards the horizon by the time any sign of habitation loomed into view. He couldn’t exactly dignify it with the label of civilisation, since his first clue that he might be getting somewhere was an oversized billboard vulgarly proclaiming ’10 miles to the Three Gees - gas, grits and great beer’, none of which he needed – or particularly wanted, either. But a gas station would also have water, and, with luck, a phone.
Which, he immediately realised, would be utterly useless to him, because the council had cancelled his credit card, he had less than a handful of dollars to his name – and who would he call, in any case? Rupert perhaps – although he doubted the man would bestir himself in order to come to his rescue – and even if he did, Wesley really didn’t want to face the inevitable pitying look his predicament would probably earn him. Sent out into the world only to fail at the first hurdle. Before he even got to the first hurdle.
Some hero he was turning out to be.
It was just after dusk by the time he reached The Three Gees. It turned out to be one of those strange American establishments set up to serve the needs of every passing traveler. It had petrol pumps out front, a murkily windowed shop on one side, a few desultory cabins out the back, and the rest of it was a rambling diner come bar, complete with neon sign on the roof and tinny strains of country honky-tonk drifting out from behind its heavily screened door. There were three battered pick-up trucks, two equally battered saloon cars and half a dozen grimy motor bikes parked outside – and for a stranded Englishman, yearning for signs of civilisation, it was the most unappealing place he could possibly imagine.
Wesley’s heart sank at the sight. He’d not had any illusions about what he might find at the end of the trail, but the prospect of facing a bar full of red-necks and low-life bikers was not an appealing one. His clothes, his accent, and his scholarly look might go down well at a Californian country club, but all they were likely to get him here was ridicule and scorn. He wondered – briefly – if he could muster the kind of steel eyed and intimidating look that Rupert had mastered for when need arose, but he let the thought go with a sigh. He was beginning to think that he didn’t have that kind of inner strength and he certainly didn’t have Giles’ past experiences to draw on.
There were no alternatives though. He needed food and a cold drink, and – hopefully – somewhere to stay for the night. There might even be some kind of local breakdown service prepared to salvage his car – although, since he had very little money, and no idea of what the cursed thing would cost to put right, he might well find himself trying to hitchhike to the next town, rather than driving there.
He screwed up his courage, mustered what little self-esteem remained to him, and was about to step out across the road and face the music when the sound of an approaching engine caught his attention. It was another bike, not a car, and it roared out of the night with a deep, musical growl that spoke of wildness and freedom.
Wesley – for some reason that he was never really able to identify – stepped hastily back into the shadows. It wasn’t the hint of menace in the approaching sound, although that would have been enough to make anyone hesitate. There was something else, some instinct, some level of awareness that had set his inner alarm bells ringing, and he’d responded to them almost without volition. On the other side of the road a man strolled out of the bar. One of the bikers by the look of him, although the high buckled leather boots and the black leather jacket looked a little new for someone who spent most of his life on the road. He might have been on his way to the restroom. He might even have been leaving. Where ever he was heading, he was destined not to get there. The sweep of a powerful headlight transfixed him in its beam as the motorcycle responsible for that guttural growl pulled into the carpark. A slim figure, which had been riding pillion on the bike, slid from the back of the seat and stalked round into the light. Dark hair spilled out as she tugged the helmet from her head, and the biker from the bar gave her a decidedly appreciative look as she slinked towards him. Her body leathers clung to her like a second skin, delineating feminine curves with sculptural intensity.
"Hello, handsome," she purred, pausing in front of the man to look him up and down with confident consideration. "Is this a good place to get a bite?"
Behind her the bike’s rider was busy kicking down the parking stand and easing himself off his mount. Alarm bells were ringing even louder; there was something – strange - about the woman’s companion. Something about the set of his shoulders and the shape of his helmet … Which wasn’t a helmet, but a square cut head with bone ridges curling down on either side of it.
Shit!
Wesley shrank back against the rock he’d picked to hide himself behind, his heart pounding into panicked overdrive. He might not be the best Watcher on the block, but even he knew a Varkalik demon when he saw one.
There was no time to shout a warning, even if it had been safe – or sensible – to voice one. One moment the unsuspecting man from the bar was smiling and nodding at the dark haired young woman, answering her question with a warm: "Nothing but the best eats at the Three Gees, m’am" – and the next he was gurgling his death throes as teeth sank eagerly into his throat. The vampire drank deep, draining her victim in moments; she let him fall away from her like a broken doll, pushing back her hair and licking her lips with pleasure.
"Well, he got that right," she considered, turning to her companion with a smile. The Varkalik laughed throatily, adjusting the set of the metal plated waistcoat that hung from his shoulders
"Fun?" he questioned, in a voice as deep as the grave.
"Oh, yes," she answered, taking his arm and gesturing towards the lights of the bar. "Plenty more where that came from."
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!
Wesley slumped against the rock in a state of shock, his legs feeling like jelly and his heart dancing inside his chest. He’d walked miles under a blazing sun looking for help – only to find his promised place of rescue about to be invaded by a couple of highly dangerous demons in search of a little ‘fun’. Which might mean any number of things, none of which boded well for the current inhabitants of the bar. A man had been murdered, right in front of him. It was likely that several more would die before the night was out. The Slayer was miles away, protecting Sunnydale and guarding the hellmouth.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
The average man, faced with this situation would probably be staring at two choices; to walk away into the night without looking back, or to risk sneaking into the shuttered shop in the hope that there might be a phone so that he could call for help. But Wesley was hardly the average man when it came to vampires and demons. He knew perfectly well that calling the police would only result in innocent policemen being put at risk. Bullets were useless against the undead, and the only effective way to kill a Varkalik was to pierce its heart with blessed steel.
Cries of alarm, the sound of breaking glass and then a panicked scream echoed out into the night. This was a bad sign. Vampires with any sense tended to keep a low profile. They lurked in the shadows, they hunted and they killed relatively discretely – leaving, perhaps, a few dead bodies in their wake, but never enough to do more than fuel rumour, fear, and suspicion. This vampire was clearly playing a completely different sort of game. ‘Low’ and ‘profile’ weren’t words that would ever fit a Varkalik demon; they liked to make noise and they liked to play with their food. The people inside the bar were in trouble. Real trouble.
The was another crash of breaking glass. It was followed by a guttural laugh and an odd, gurgling sound. Someone was dying - and he wasn’t going quietly into the night. A cold chill shivered down the Englishman’s spine. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce might have failed in his duties, been fired for incompetence and lost every ounce of his self respect and self esteem – but he’d been born a Watcher, raised as a Watcher and trained as a Watcher. The calling had manifested in his family line for generations. It ran in his blood. And blood – as vampires often say – will always out in the end. There was no way he could walk away from this. He’d sworn an oath once. An oath he might have had difficulty living up to, but which he hadn’t broken. Not yet.
An odd sense of detachment settled over him, one that pushed some of the panic and the fear aside and let him assess the situation with almost academic consideration. He knew how to do this. He’d been trained for it – well, trained to train a Slayer how to do it, which wasn’t quite the same thing, but close enough. True, he had very little field experience, and he was shaking right down to the core, but he was the only chance those people had. With a bit of luck, he could keep the demon busy long enough for some of them to escape.
Busy laughing, he heard Faith say somewhere inside his head.
Somewhere inside the bar someone, or something perhaps, silenced the sound of nondescript country melodies. A frightened hush fell across the place, only to be dispelled again by a sudden roar of something much more raucous. Wesley didn’t recognise the music – which was more discord than music and decidedly not to his taste - but he did welcome it. With all that noise going on, it was going to be much easier for him to sneak up and get the advantage of surprise. For all that, he had to work fast, and he had to have a plan.
Preferably something a little better than ‘walk in, challenge the demon, and get his head torn off.’ That one – as Buffy might say - really didn’t seem to have much going for it.
He tugged his bag of his shoulders and began to hastily pull things out of it, determinedly ignoring the tremble in his hands and the way his stomach was busy tying itself into complicated knots. Being a Watcher – ex-Watcher, he corrected himself grimly - his ‘essentials’ included a half dozen wooden stakes, a sharpened long sword, and the portable crossbow that Rupert Giles had handed him as a parting gift. ‘Just in case,’ his fellow Englishman had said, with one of those wry smiles that spoke volumes. Latin or Summerian volumes in Rupert’s case, but Wesley spoke those languages very well – and he had finally begun to interpret those looks, discovering that they contained an unexpected camaraderie behind all that wryly pained forbearance.
He found himself thanking the man’s prudence and forethought. Not to mention his choice of gifts.
It took him a fumbling moment or two to assemble and load the bow. His determination to surrender to his fate clearly hadn’t registered with his hands, which were shaking quite badly. He succeeded in stilling the tremble long enough to twist off the top of his little bottle of holy water, and it even helped a little as he painted the bottle’s contents down the length of his sword. He wasn’t sure if that would count as ‘blessed’ steel, but since he hardly had time to conduct a full and formal blessing he’d just have to hope it did. Armed, and feeling a little more dangerous, he abandoned the rest of his gear, took a couple of quivering breaths to steady his returning nerves – and set out across the road.
He started with a firm and determined stride. By the time he’d reached the edge of the car park he was soundly cursing Italian shoe designers whose products fell apart just when you needed them the most. The heel on his right loafer had finally given up after long miles of abuse, and the sole on the left was rapidly following its companion on its way to the great shoe rack in the sky. Wesley’s bold ‘let’s charge to the rescue’ had turned into a pained limp and he hadn’t even reached the field of battle yet.
Damn!
Damn, damn, damn, damn, *damn!*
It was just too much. Here he was, finally given a chance to do something heroically stupid and prove something – only to have the moment sabotaged by a ridiculous pair of cost the earth shoes. He had the distinct feeling that someone, somewhere – one of the powers that be, one of the greater forces in the universe – was laughing at him.
He was tempted to give in. Give up. To accept the cruelties of fate and abandoned all hope of ever being a man. He did stumble to his knees in a moment of angry despair – and doing so brought him knee to toe with the dead biker, whose eyes were staring sightlessly into the night sky.
That’s when it struck him.
Biker.
Boots.
Black leather jacket, which might offer some defense against demon claws.
And Wesley Wyndam Price found his lips curling into a somewhat hysterical smile …
Terror was on the menu at the Three Gees that night. It had come stalking in from the desert dressed in scarlet leathers and steel plate; beauty and the beast coming to dine on pain and fear. Strong men - ranch hands, veterans of war, and warriors of the road – quailed before them, overwhelmed by horror and despair. Hank Maloney, six foot three, hard as nails and tattooed to prove it, died with panic on his face, his throat seized and crushed by the demon’s hand. When Jimmy Travis tried to protest, the woman broke his arm and then threw him over the bar, sending glassware and spirits shattering everywhere. The demon had snatched up a bottle of whiskey and chugged it down like water, growling menacingly at anyone who tried to leave their seats or make a move to get away.
The woman radiated menace. Her eyes gleamed in the electric light, golden and feral as she stalked among the customers, picking and choosing like a butcher in a slaughter house. She pulled Lucy Mainwright out of the shadows and spun her into the demon’s grip, a gift he received with hungry pleasure. Then she ripped the record out of the jukebox and choose another to replace it, a pounding, snarling piece of heavy metal that screamed love and death and desperate glory. When she held out her hand to the younger Harper boy he had no choice but to take it; she pulled him into a sensual embrace, dancing with him, caressing him – and he moved with her, shaking and whimpering as the tears streamed down his face.
Lucy was too scared to cry. She stood rigid in the demon’s grip as he groped under her blouse and fondled her breasts. Nobody else dared to move. The moment was unbearable. Helpless despair gripped the entire room.
So rescue - when it came - was both dramatic and unexpected. The door flew open with a crash, admitting a menacing figure dressed in white silk and black leather. Everything about him screamed danger. His hair was disheveled and caked with dust, there was a wild light in his eyes, and a dusting of dark stubble painted his chin. The heavy boots and the drape of his jacket added intimidation to his stance – as did the weight of the crossbow in his right hand and the gleam of steel clutched in his left. He entered on a crashing chord from the jukebox and a scream of lyrics that cried out into the night.
‘The killer's breed or the demon's seed …’
The dark haired woman pushed away her victim and turned towards the intrude with a snarl.
‘The glamour, the fortune, the pain …’
The crossbow lifted – aimed and fired in one smooth motion.
‘Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain …’
The quarrel whispered across the room, its path straight and true. It struck the woman clean in the chest, sinking through leather, piecing skin.
‘But don't you pray for my soul anymore … ‘
And the vampire disintegrated into dust, a look of startled anger on her face.
The demon gave a howl of anger, and tossed Lucy away from him. The man barely had time to drop his crossbow onto the nearest table and shift the sword into both hands before the creature was charging at him with murder in his eyes. Most people would have tried to get out of the way; the stranger held his ground, his body braced for impact and the sword raised firmly in his defense. The impetus of the attack was so fierce that the demon actually impaled himself on the stranger’s weapon before he realised it was there. Metal slid though muscle, and emerged, bloody and gleaming from the monster’s back. The man let go of the sword and the demon, slowly and balletically, toppled over, crashed to the floor – and dissolved into a puddle of deep green goo.
The song on the jukebox stuttered into silence. Everything stuttered into silence. The stranger blinked down at the oozing remains with an odd look on his face. "Good heavens," he declared in a soft English accent. "So that’s what they do when they die. How extraordinary." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of glasses and settled them thoughtfully on his face - then looked up, finding twenty four pairs of eyes staring at him in stunned disbelief. "Ah," he reacted. "Yes. Umm – I- I don’t suppose there’s a chance I might get a – drink, around here?"
The Three Gees erupted into a cacophony of cheers and catcalls, whistles and applause.
Wesley woke with a soft groan, his head pounding and his throat as dry as sandpaper. There was a heavy weight lying on his arm, and another pressed into his chest. Cracking open his eyes sent a spear of light lancing into his brain, so he closed them again and tried to remember where he was and what exactly he’d been doing.
There’d been the accident. The long walk in the desert. The vampire and the demon invading the bar – and then … Oh yes. Armoring himself in a dead man’s leathers and striding to the attack determined to do his best, certain he was going to die. The feel of the weapons in his hands – the perfect balance of the bow and the heartstopping moment between pulling the trigger and seeing the quarrel hit its mark. Dust on the barroom floor and the demon coming at him like an express train …
He’d been frozen to the spot with terror.
He drew in a shaky breath, reliving the experience with a vividness worthy of nightmares. No training in the world could prepare you for something like that. Not even those long hours spent fencing in the library, where he’d discovered that awards for a sport meant nothing when you faced a man who’d learnt to wield a sword as if his life depended on it. Because his life depended on it.
Rupert had tried to tell him. But he hadn’t known – not until the Varkalik was impaling itself on his blade and he’d felt the thing’s breath on his face and the weight of its death sliding along the steel. He wasn’t going to forget that in a hurry.
So – he’d challenged fate and won through. With good tools, the psychological edge of a little armor, a whole lot of adrenaline, and even more dumb luck. And it had felt – it had felt bloody good.
So bloody good that he’d let the grateful populace ply him with drink all night. Most of the night. That part of the night he could remember.
The bit that didn’t have – ah, what was her name? Oh yes. Lucy. The bit that didn’t have Lucy …
"Oh, lord," he gasped, opening his eyes and staring down at the warmth that rested on his arm and chest. Amber eyes opened sleepily, their owner offering him a lazy smile.
"Morning, hero," Lucy purred, her hand stroking down his hip, and then curving in to caress a more sensitive part of his anatomy. He practically jumped at the contact, and she giggled. "Now don’t be shy," she told him. "I told ya last night. I got the perfect place for you to sheathe your sword …"
"Uh – yes," he reacted, then: " Ah, no, umm – oh. Oh, yes. Yes. Umm. Right. Just – t-there. Uh. Oh." Her hand was doing things his body definitely wanted – which was completely contrary to his sensibilities, which were busy telling him he barely knew the woman, and what was he thinking, and had he really … Oh, yes. He had. Twice.
Twice? He didn’t know whether to be utterly mortified, morally outraged, or inordinately proud of himself. Well, not proud, exactly. Dragon slayers weren’t supposed to get drunk and seduce the maidens they rescued.
No. Wait. She’d seduced him. And was doing a pretty good job of doing it again …
"Must be an excitin’ life," she was saying, her fingers exploring intimate contours with teasing confidence. "Huntin’ demons, I mean. Dangerous work. But rewarding, right?"
"R-right," he gulped, distracted by her attentions – and the curve of her naked breast, which seemed to have slipped into his hand. "Very – rewarding."
"Thought so." She grinned and dived beneath the covers, allowing Wesley to discover an extremely interesting way to cure a hangover. One which was almost as much fun as getting it in the first place …
An hour later, he was standing in the car park of the Three Gees, watching as Frank Harper’s tow truck drove in with a very dead car dangling behind it. Lucy had, eventually, wriggled out of his bed, fetched him breakfast and then sat and watched him while he got dressed. He’d been a little puzzled by the pile of clothes that had been waiting for him; a pair of sturdy jeans, a clean white undershirt, a brushed gray cotton overshirt - and a pair of high buckled, black leather boots, which he vaguely remembered kicking off the night before. The jacket was there too, hanging on the back of the cabin door. Lucy had murmured something about someone called Murray. About how he wouldn’t be needing his stuff anymore, and how much more their saviour needed the gear, and how they all wanted him to have it.
All of which implied he was probably stepping into a lot more than the dead man’s boots – but since he had nothing else sensible to wear he’d accepted the gift with good grace. He’d felt a little uncomfortable in the get up, but Lucy had insisted he looked good, and he looked right. Especially with all that stubble adding a hint of roughness to the mix.
He’d taken that to mean he looked a mess, but when he’d paused in the men’s room a little later, he realised that he did look a little more – rugged – than usual. So he’d resisted the temptation to slick down his hair and tried not to feel too self conscious about walking around without a shave. No-one seemed to notice. Those few people about at that time of the morning had merely nodded and smiled – and while the other two women who helped around the place whispered and giggled when he made an appearance, it didn’t appear to be at his expense. Far from it in fact. They kept shooting him admiring looks while he nursed a cup of tea and read the morning paper.
Harper and his son had dismissed any idea that he would pay for them to fetch his car. Nor, when it became clear that the vehicle was well past any hope of repair, did they want anything for storing it until it could be junked. "Glad to take it off your hands," Frank said warmly. "I’ll give ya a hundred for the scrap value – on one condition."
"Which is?" Wesley questioned, somewhat taken aback by the man’s generosity. The car hadn’t cost a hundred dollars to begin with. The mechanic nodded across the car park at the gleaming black and silver machine which still sat where the demon had left it the night before.
"You take that off my hands. You need transport. The way I figure it, you earned that little beauty – and I don’t want it. Don’t want my boy near it, either. The business you’re in … well, it was good to see ya last night, don’t get me wrong, but – "
Wesley sighed. "You don’t want me around any longer than I need to be. I – uh – understand, Mr Harper. The world I belong to doesn’t belong - here."
It was a simple statement, but he collided with revelation while he was making it. The world I belong to … He’d been wondering what to do with himself, now that the council had fired him – and he’d forgotten the fundamental truth of his calling, the reason that there was a Watcher’s Council in the first place. It was one of the reasons that had kept Rupert Giles stalwartly at his Slayers side, despite being dismissed from his post – and the reason that had driven him to rescue these people, only the night before.
Once you’d seen the truth that lurked in the shadows - once you knew you could make a difference – there was no way that you could walk away.
He smiled a little wryly and walked over to take a look at the bike. It wasn’t such a bad idea. It certainly looked to be better condition than his car. He could probably fit a few essentials in the lockbox – like his sword and the bow, and a clean pair of jeans. There’d even be room for a couple of books; the Nadrin grimoire and a good demonic reference probably. He could ask Frank and Lucy to hang on to the rest of his stuff, until he’d found a place to stay.
Maybe he’d head for LA.
He’d heard it was a hotspot for demonic activity. Just the place for an ex-Watcher to start a new career. He’d have to think about what to put on his business cards though. Supernatural exterminator? Occult Investigator?
Lucy’s words that morning flitted through his mind and his smiled widened a little. It was obvious really. There was only one thing the cards could say.
‘Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Demon Hunter.’
His hand drifted down to stroke the handle bars of the bike, and he caught sight of himself in one of the wing mirrors. Lucy was right. The stubble did add a certain something …
His smile turned into a broad grin. He’d taken on a vamp and a Varkalik. Single handed. With nothing but a loaded crossbow and a blessed sword to back it up.
Maybe he’d better make that Rogue Demon Hunter.
And maybe he’d better learn how to ride his new bike …