"Is this gonna be our lives now? Fighting our own employees, our own clients?" Fred leaned onto a chair in the middle of Angel's new office. "Are we really gonna do any good?"

  "Yes, we are," stated Angel confidently, trying to convince himself as much as his friends. "We're gonna change things. We came to Wolfram and Hart because it's a powerful weapon, and we'll figure out how to wield it."

  "Or kill ourselves with it," pointed out Wesley.

  "Yay, team," Fred added sarcastically.

  "Sooner or later, they'll tip their hand, and we'll find out why they really brought us here." Angel was getting excited now, his own enthusiasm picking up, despite the reservations of his friends. He picked up an envelope out of the mountain of papers, files, and mail on his desk. "Meanwhile, we do the work our way, one thing at a time." He tore open the envelope. The amulet he'd given to Buffy a few weeks prior slid from the envelope, landing with a quiet thud on the floor. Angel's enthusiasm and confidence shifted to confusion midway. "And deal with whatever comes next."

  The amulet began to glow while Angel and his friends looked on in surprise and confusion as smoke began to curl out of the gem. It quickly swirled into sparks, then materializing into a skeleton while fire seemed to regenerate muscles and skin. Suddenly there was screaming as Spike finished rematerializing, his immolation from weeks ago completing its reversal. He started panting.

  "Spike," Wesley stated in his confusion, finding no other words for what had just happened.

  "Spike." Angel confirmed, mentally preparing himself for what might come next from the bane of his existence, his grandsire.

  "Blondie bear?" Harmony popped her head in around the door hopefully at hearing his name and the familiar sound of his yelling. Spike stood gasping, looking around confused at the faces he saw before him. Some he recognized, while others he did not.

  "What? What?" he searched for a question he didn't even know how to ask. The pain was slowly ebbing, but the memory of it was seared into his skin, his brain, his muscles. He had trouble focusing his eyes, his senses still completely overwhelmed by the smell of his own burning flesh that wasn't fading nearly fast enough from his nostrils.

  "What the hell are you doing here, Spike?" Harmony demanded.

  "Harmony, please," Wesley interjected, trying to be a calm voice as he took in Spike's confusion as he looked from face to face.

  "This is Spike? THE Spike?" Gunn said alarmed.

  "What a minute, who's…" Fred began.

  "Easy, slim, easy. No one's gonna hurt you." Lorne interrupted also trying to help calm the obviously scared Spike.

  "Speak for yourself, Green Jeans," Gunn clarified.

  "Would somebody please tell me," Fred tried to ask before being interrupted again.

  "William the Bloody. He's a vampire." Wesley jumped in to provide the much-needed explanation. "One of the worst recorded. Second only to …"

  "Me," Angel finished for him. Spike spun around, just noticing Angel behind him. "But you’re dead," Angel said as confused as everyone else in the room.

  "Well, yeah. Who isn't?" Harmony stated as though it was obvious.

  "Are you bloody kidding," an astonished and irritated voice cried out from the far end of the room. "Well, isn't this a right piece of bloody fucking garbage. Man can't even die properly around here! Shoulda known William wouldn't be done yet." Everyone in the room suddenly turned to assess the second surprise guest in the office who was throwing up his hands in frustration. "Bloody hell," the voice cut off as the figure vanished through a wall, but they could hear the irritated shouting down the hall as the man rematerialized on the other side of the wall. "can't make it stop, can't…" the man suddenly appeared in the office again as he appeared to be pacing through the wall, "…just be done. I just wanted to be done. I'm so tired." The man wasn't even looking at anyone but turned around and paced his way back out of the office waving his arms about as he ranted.

  "Who's that?" Fred asked.

  "I don't know," said Wesley, who turned to Angel, then Spike. Everyone stared in confusion at each other trying to make sense of what was happening.

  "You think you're done. You think you're bloody well good and done. Been a good boy, did all the right things." The man continued as he paced back and forth through the wall oblivious to everyone. Angel was beginning to think this was some new plot the Senior Partners had come up with. Maybe Spike was working with them, but who was the person now pacing back and forth through the wall of his office, who sounded for all intents and purposes like a crazy person.

  "I'm done now! David's done. Didn't you get the memo?!" the man shouted to the ceiling before collapsing to his knees with his head in his hands. "We're supposed to be done. Done, done, done, done," he kept repeating to himself while rocking back and forth.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Angel and his friends looked back and forth at the two men who had appeared. Spike spun around back to Angel. He didn't know who this crazy ranting lunatic was, but he was sure that Angel must be as responsible for that as he was for Spike himself suddenly rematerializing. That or maybe the First had somehow followed him and was trying to torment him with some fresh new hell. "What's going on?"

  "I don't know," said Angel. "I could ask you the same thing." Spike was having none of this. The crazy man started to get louder. Spike roared, his anger and frustration at the situation boiling over. His face shifted as his demon took over and he launched himself at Angel. Angel braced himself for the impending collision that didn't come as Spike passed right through him, coming to a stop in the middle of his desk. Spike looked down to find he could no longer see his lower half, as much a ghost as the man who had been pacing through the walls.

  The man had quieted when he heard Spike roar, his hands dropped to his lap, and his eyes got very wide.

  "Bugger?" Spike said confused and scared. Everyone was now staring at Spike.

  "Yup. Can't even die in peace," the man said to himself.

  "What … what's happened to me?" Spike demanded.

  "Well, I'm no doctor, but I think you're a ghost," Harmony volunteered.

  "I'm no," Spike sputtered, "I’m no bloody ghost."

  "Ha! Well neither am I yet here I am," the man continued bitterly, again seemingly to himself.

  "Hey, you're the one sticking out of the desk, pal," Harmony retorted to Spike annoyed, ignoring the ranting lunatic at the other end of the room. "And you can't talk to me like that. We're not going out anymore."

  The man giggled to himself. "Right bloody funny you are," he muttered. Harmony ignored him, too irritated at Spike to pay him any mind.

  "Where did they come from?" Gunn asked, as Wesley noticed the gem on the floor all but forgotten in the commotion.

  "From this," Wesley said as he bent to pick up the amulet.

  "What is it?"

  "A right bloody joke, that's what that is. A right bloody joke. But it's not funny anymore, innit? Not funny at all," the man continued to mutter to himself. Spike was starting to get even more irritated. Would that crazy person not just shut up already?

  "Something I gave to Buffy before …"

  "Buffy?" Spike interrupted Angel. "Is she?"

  "She's okay."

  "Thank god," said the man relieved, while at the same time Spike asked "Where is she?"

  "Europe, last I heard." Angel answered, glancing at the man across the room before looking back at Spike irritated. He really didn't have time for this. He didn't want to deal with Spike or whoever the crazy man was in his office either.

  "I want to see her, talk to her," Spike said as the man laughed, falling backwards onto the floor.

  "That's gonna be tough," said Angel.

  "You can't keep her from me."

  "She's not mine to keep or yours."

  "Says you? You got no idea what we had." Spike declared. The man snorted. Spike was about to rip his head off if he didn't rip Angel's off first.

  "You never had her!"

  "More than you, you poncey…"

  "Oh my god!" Harmony interrupted the two. The man began to laugh again as he stood up and wandered back through the wall shaking his head. Spike spun glancing first at the man as he disappeared, then back at Harmony. "You and the Slayer actually …" She paused as the realization began to sink in. "I mean, I know you had that twisted obsession with her, but ugh. That's just … ugh" she exclaimed disgustedly. Harmony turned and continued out the door, turning a couple times to exclaim at him in continued dismay. Everyone watched her go. Lorne had slowly made his way towards the wall where the man had walked through.

  "I must be in hell," Spike concluded. Lorne turned, right as the man appeared through the wall beside him startled that someone had arrived in the space he'd considered his own.

  "Uh, no, LA. But a lot of people make that mistake," Lorne clarified for Spike.

  "LA?! Bloody Los Angeles? What in the bloody hell is in bloody Los Angeles?" the man continued to curse. Lorne turned back to him with concern in his eyes. "Lost again. Lost to the angels we are. Couple of ghostly devils, more like," he said softly. "Don't deserve to be back. Deserve to be done we do. Did what we had to. Finished the job, we did. We did."

  "We?" Spike asked alarmed and a little angry.

  Fred furrowed her brow watching the man. His rantings felt familiar. A little like how she'd talked to herself when she'd been lost in Pylea, alone in her cave. "So Spike and Buffy…" Fred started, trying to piece together what everyone was talking about.

  "He was, um, an ally of hers for some time. At least, that's what Angel told me. That's all Angel told me," Wesley explained.

  The man looked up, confused as if suddenly aware that Spike might have been responding to what he’d said. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Spike, trying to process what was happening. "I think hell is right because now I'm hallucinating," he said as he shook his head vigorously and walked back through the wall. Spike was at the end of his rope.

  "Hey! I was talking to you," he shouted after the man knowing he could be heard through the open door into the hall just as he'd heard the man ranting while he'd paced minutes before.

  "No, you weren't," said the man as he popped just his head through the wall. "Isn't possible. Because no one can see or hear me. Not ever. Not for your entire bloody unlife. So no, it's not possible," he spat out, pulling his head back through the wall. Spike wasn't sure what to say to that. Suddenly the man popped his head through one more time, staring, then tilted his head and looked Spike up and down.

  "So Spike's a good guy vampire like Angel?" Gunn asked.

  "He's nothing like me." Angel shot back.

  "Got that right! What have you done to me? Or to that lunatic for that matter?" Spike demanded, waving his hand towards the crazy man who was still standing with just his head through the wall. "What is this place? Who are you people? What the bloody hell is happening?"

  "Hey there partner," Lorne said calmly to the man. "Why don't you just come on back in and we'll figure this out?" The man turned his head now to regard Lorne.

  "Figure what out? Figure out why I'm hallucinating in hell?"

  "What's your name?" Lorne continued. The man took a breath and stepped the rest of the way through the wall and back into the room.

  "Bloody hell. Alright. I'll play. David Pra…" he stopped himself, then continued "Pryce. David Pryce at your service." At that, he bowed out of habit. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, um …" he looked at Lorne questioningly.

  "Lorne. And this is Angel, Fred, Wesley, and Gunn. Harmony was the lovely lady who just left, and it sounds like you already know Spike."

  David snorted. "Yeah, I bloody well know William and Angelus." He stared daggers at both of them, then softened suddenly and sighed.

  "Well I don't know you," Spike said angrily. "Who in the hell are you?"

  "I'm David, and you shouldn't. No one should. I shouldn't even be seen." Then he suddenly dropped to his knees, and clasped his head between his hands. "My head. Oh god my head." Then he suddenly disappeared.

  "What the …" Spike started and then he too vanished. Angel and his friends were left staring at each other in confusion and horror at the situation they'd found themselves in.