The machines beeped and the slow steady sound slowly got faster and faster.

His eyes flickered.



Muscles twitched.



Then the patient’s dark brown eyes snapped open.



“What the hell?” a rough voice rasped, alerting the nurse who was monitoring his vitals.



“Oh good. Senor Angel, you are awake. Your friends will be so pleased to see that you are back weeth us—” Her voice trailed off when his hand snapped around her throat, cutting off her air supply.



“No need to call anyone babe, let’s surprise them.” Her dark haired patient grinned. He tried to vamp out but nothing happened. “What the?”



“Please…no—” The nurse clutched weakly at his wrist and tried to pry his fingers off her throat. Black spots danced at the edge of her vision as her oxygen supply was cut off.



“Who did this to me?” he shouted as he shook his captive like a cat playing with a mouse. “And what the hell happened to my other arm?”



“Fight…you lost it…” she managed to rasp out.



“Not the only thing I lost—” Angelus’s lips curled back with a rictus-like grin as he snapped her neck with one hand and threw the body to the floor. He ripped off the oxygen mask with his remaining hand and using his teeth, pulled the IV out. As he did a flash of a memory crossed his mind and he roared with laughter.



The idiot had lost his soul-- not between the juicy thighs of the Slayer, but because he defeated the Circle of the Black Thorn and the Senior Partners. The irony wasn’t lost on him. The idiot had gotten what he had fought for despite signing it away. He’d gotten his chance to live again but had lost his soul before he could enjoy it. “Too fucking funny.”



He staggered to his feet and swayed as he adjusted to being upright. “This will not do.” Angelus pressed his hand to his chest and grimaced at the sensation of his heart beating. “I’m not going to be a sweating mewling mortal! This is some kinda cosmic joke.” Angelus kicked the dead body of the woman who had watched over him from the moment he had been admitted and then stepped over her. Heading for the closet, he pulled it open and stared in shock at the slacks that were hanging there.



“Where the hell are my leather trousers?” He pulled out the clothes and yanked them on angrily. He fumbled with his zipper, eventually managing to pull it up one handed. “Geez, he is such a fashion victim.” Angelus reached up with his one hand and ran it over his head, checking his hair.



The howl of anger that burst from his mouth when his questing fingers found the bald spots alerted the attention of another nurse. “Not my hair!”



Angelus turned with a sly smile. “Looks like I get two for the price of one.” He punched the young woman in the face. As she fell backwards the dark haired man grabbed hold of a chair and brought it down on her back over and over until he heard her spine crack.



“Much better.” He squatted and rifled through both dead women’s pockets, searching for the keys to their lockers. Blood dripped from his face, unnoticed by the soulless man. Angelus chuckled at the sight of the broken body of the nurse. “Usually like to finesse my victims. Sorry, you must feel left out. Don’t worry, next one I’ll make sure she screams enough for the both of you.”



He opened the valve on the oxygen hose and, using a lighter he’d liberated from the second nurse’s pocket, he set fire to the foot of the bed he had been lying in. Angelus tucked his hand in his pocket and left the room without a backward glance, his cheerful whistle as he strode down the corridor muffled by the explosion. Stopping briefly to clear out their lockers and the other ones nearby.



There was chaos in the private hospital, just as he had planned. Something to cover his escape and the two murders he’d just committed. The first of many. Angelus ducked out of the ward door and deftly sidestepped an orderly. He threw back his head and laughed, revelling in the drama that he had created, and of the human suffering that he had instigated. Angelus headed for the large glass entrance doors, unaware of the one eyed man who stood in the shadows, watching him.



“Time to have some fun.” Angelus chuckled as he sprinted from the private hospital into the Roman sunlight.





Finis