This is the last chapter of Invite Me In. Thanks to all the kind readers who left so many wonderful reviews and who prodded me into adding some pieces about their favorite characters.


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Chapter 29 – We Don't Need No Stinking Bitches


Angel woke up in one of the scummier alleys in Los Angeles. He was lying next to a ripe dumpster overflowing with rotten food, paper wrappers and, from the smell, a large pool of burnt grease.

A rat was sitting on his chest, sniffing to see if he was really dead, or just pretending. He flung the rat against the nearest wall. His days of drinking rats were over a long time ago. So were his days of sustaining himself with pigs, puppies, cats and sheep. He was a vampire – his kind thirsted, craved, hungered for human blood. To pretend that he could get by was no longer an option. His stay at the Initiative prison had taught him that. He’d been reminded who he was. What he was. There was no turning back.

He stumbled to his feet. As he raised his aching head, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his skull. God, his head hurt so bad. He touched the back of his head. Part of his hair had been shaved away and the skin was wet and sticky. He brought away his hand covered with blood. Who had hit him on the head. And, how had he gotten from the Initiative prison to this alley?

The last thing he remembered was that bitch, Buffy, rescuing Spike and leaving him behind at the mercy of those quacks with their poisoned blood. Worse, Buffy, the love of his life, was pregnant and having sex with Spike. The baby couldn’t really be Spike’s kid. That was some comfort. But, Spike was convinced it was his baby and he’d be just as obnoxious as if it was true.

True or not, she was having sex with Spike. Spike was touching her, loving her, biting her, banging her – everything that Angel had been prevented from doing. Except the biting part.

After she slammed the prison cell door in his face, he’d been in a rage. So, he drank some packaged blood they’d dropped in his cell. The drugs in his blood bag knocked him out. He knew the blood was doped up, but he was so royally pissed off at Buffy that he couldn’t stand the thought of depriving himself of rich, human blood.

What happened after that was a mystery. He’d been in prison, and now, he was in an alley. He might as well head back to the hotel. The hotel was some distance away, so he’d have time to cook up some story to explain away whatever Buffy had told them.

He staggered down the alley and spotted a bar a half block down the street. The bar was blasting loud disco oldies music into the street. He hated disco. He hated it the first time it was popular and he hated it even more now. They were playing Donna Summers. He hated her. He hated all women named Summers. They were all sisters under the skin - heartless bitches.

He walked towards the bar. He was starving. He needed a pick me up, preferably small and blond to take away his headache and serve as an outlet for the anger he was feeling.

A couple of tasty young females came out of the bar, giggling and shoving each other. And, yes. One of them had wavy, long hair as blond as the sun. Bleached sun, but good enough for his purposes.

He strode across the street and approached the girls. His face crumpled into a hideous mask of vampire greed and blood lust. He lunged at the blonde girl and grabbed her hai and smacked his hand across her mouth to muffle her screams.

He had just gripped his fangs into her neck when a bolt of lightening crackled through his skull and drove him to his knees screaming.

***

Six months later …

Lieutenant Riley Finn stood at attention in front of Professor Walsh’s desk. He held his face in rigid neutrality. Even the slightest relaxation in his body posture or expression would bring down a torrent of wrath from Maggie the Hag.

“I have a job for you, Riley,” she said pleasantly. “I think it’s one that even you can’t screw up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Riley and his entire team had been firmly ensconced in the doghouse for the past six months after letting Hostile 17 and Walsh’s other vampires escape. He hadn’t even been on duty when Buffy arrived and sprung them out, but Walsh didn’t care. She only needed a handy scapegoat and that goat was Riley Finn.

The scene after Buffy’s daring theft had not been pretty. Walsh had visited the compound personally to deliver a tongue lashing to everyone, from the Colonel to the lowest private. Riley had come in for some special torture.

The Fuego fortress was temporarily mothballed due to the notoriety received at the hands of Joyce Summers and her idiot friends and Riley and his team had been returned to Sunnydale, but it was no improvement on being trapped out at Fuego. He was constantly under Walsh’s thumb and under her scrutiny.

The ways in which his life currently sucked were numerous. Buffy had broken his jaw and he’d only recently got his mouth unwired. His team wasn’t speaking to him. Walsh had refuse to authorize leave for any of his team since the latest Buffy-created disaster. Carmelita had forgotten about him by now and moved on to some other moist and delicious human.

Since they’d returned to Sunnydale, Walsh amused herself by giving him and his team the crappiest assignments available. The smirk on her face told him this assignment was going to be bad, too.

She handed him the orders without looking up.

He read them and steeled himself from letting a look of disgust appear on his face. This was the worst yet.

“Are you still here, Finn? Move out,” Walsh said.

Riley saluted and left the office.

***

A full moon glowered murky orange over the Nevada desert, 346 miles from Sunnydale. A female ryzark dug her way out of the sand pit where she slept during the heat of the day and shuffled to her nest of eggs.

The female was sage green and cream striped. Her striping was muted and less noticeable than the brilliant emerald and white coloring of her mate. Her skin was dry and smooth with millions of transparent scales and she had retractable fangs and claws on her dainty padded feet. Being fully mature, she was the size of a water buffalo, could run as fast as an antelope and hurl her poisonous saliva fifteen or twenty feet. She’d never been in a fight with any other demon or animal besides her own mate during spring mating rituals, so she only sported one head.

Three days before, she dug a deep pit for her clutch of eggs in the direct sunlight so the sun’s heat would bake and incubate the hatchlings until they cracked free from their shells. As she approached the nest, she understood something was wrong. One of the eggs was broken. She paused to smell the sulphur reek of the ruined egg that had broiled all day in the sun. The rest of her eggs were gone.

She circled the empty pit, following the smell of the eggs. A few feet from the pit, she picked up the sulphur scent where a large truck ran through the rotting yolk as it drove away with her young.

The rzyark abandoned the corpse of her mate she’d been feeding on for the past few days and followed the scent of the rotting yolk. She had to find her hatchlings.

To be continued...


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Challenge: 182

BTL, AD & I came up with a Spuffy Challenge... so to you all we challenge you to do this: Go to the website www.vampirecondoms.com. Ok. Now that you’re done having a hell of a laugh, write a spuffy based comedy/smut ficlet.

Must Haves:
1. Must use slogan from www.vampirecondoms.com, “Because Vampires Always Get Invited In”
2. Bitey, Bitey, Bitey
3. Smut,Smut, Smut
4. May be either Season 2 or Season 5 Buffy/Spike setting or Season
5. Goth Buffy
6. Buffy wearing a spiked dog collar
7. The random appearance of cheesewiz
8. Spike gets tied up – with a phone cord