By The Light Of The Blood Moon

All That Can Go Wrong...

When Alastor had first entered the room, only to see the last remnants of Angel Dust disappearing, his first instinct was to follow. That is, until he quickly realized that he had no idea of where to look for his soulmate. He couldn't have said where Angel might have gone, not even if his own mortal soul depended upon it. He sat on the bed with a plop, feeling sorry for himself. He might have sat there longer, but hearing a scuffle outside the door, he got up to see what it was only to find Charlie attempting to slip away without notice. He fixed his smile and cleared his throat to get her attention and watched as her shoulders tensed, knowing she had been caught.

Charlie turned with a tenative grin, asking how things were, that she was just checking on them. Alastor shook his head. "He isn't here. As I came in the door he was leaving, and I have no idea of where he might have gone." Alastor hoped that his smile could hide the panic that he was feeling in his chest.

"Well," she answered, "we should go and look for him. Now...I wonder where would I go if I was Angel Dust..." she tapped her chin thoughtfully. "We should check at Cherri's place. They are good friends and he might have gone there to find a listening ear."

Alastor had to admit that was a good idea, but he had no idea of where Cherri lived. He hadn't ever had occasion to visit her, as she was too wild and boisterous for his taste. "Do you, by chance know where she lives?" he asked hopefully.

Charlie shook her head. "No, I have no idea." she frowned for just a moment, then as if a thought just occurred to her. "But I know who does!" she took off sprinting down the hallway. Alastor quickly closed the door behind him and ran after her. They ended up downstairs, finding Vaggie. "Vaggie!" called Charlie "Hey, Vaggie!" Finally she appeared from the kitchen, holding a towel.

"What's wrong?" she cried, not used to seeing Charlie quite this excited.

"Do you know where Cherri Bomb lives?" asked Charlie breathlessly. "We need to find Angel Dust and we don't know where to look, but that seems like a good start."

Vaggie nodded her head. "Yeah, I used to hang out with her a lot. I know where she lives."

"I need to you go with Alastor so that he can try to find Angel. If he isn't at Cherri's, then..."she thought for a moment. "...split up and check anywhere else in the city that you can think of until you find him."

Vaggie nodded, although she wasn't too excited to be traveling with Sir-Smiles-A-Lot, she didn't want anything bad to happen to Angel Dust. He was finally beginning to grow on her and she was beginning to think of him as more than an annoyance. Alastor called Vaggie over to him, motioning for her to hurry.

"What?" she demanded, "we need to get going!"

"Exactly!" he agreed, opening a portal with his eldritch powers. "Ladies first!" he said, giving her a gentle shove to the shoulder as he followed her into the void and they both disappeared.

"Wanna make a bet on which one kills the other?" Husker said to Valentino, who was still waiting at the bar, not having been spoken to since arrival.

"Sure." said Val. "Why the hell not?"

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Angel arrived at the block, and promptly fell on his non-existent ass as the portal disappeared. "Son of a...OW!" he yelled as he landed. "I gotta work on those landings. How the hell does he do this so smoothly?" he stomped away from the corner as quickly as possible to put as much distance between him and the hotel as he could before anyone came looking for him. He was sure that Alastor would be looking for him, so he knew to avoid his regular hangouts until he had a plan. The walk back to the pillory was farther than he had remembered, but eventually he arrived only to find that it was empty. "That's fuckin' weird." he thought to himself. Alastor hadn't mentioned letting Val go, but then again, they hadn't talked at all today, so Angel guessed that it was possible that they had managed to strike a deal. No matter. Angel was sure that after being away from the studio this long, there was no way that Val wouldn't be there now. Shit, his schedule had to have been so fucked! Oh well, at least Angel knew that there would be plenty of work available. Deciding that he was tired of walking, he opened another portal and stepped through it to arrive directly at the studio. This sure beat walking his legs off to get everywhere.

The studio looked deserted when Angel arrived, which was, in itself, strange. He walked up to the doors, and they were not locked, so he went on inside to see if he could find Val. He knew better than to waste time on the ground floors. Val's office was on the top, so he strolled to the elevator and rode it to the penthouse. Once the doors opened, it was apparent that someone was there, because the office light was on and he could see movement.

"Val?" he called out, stepping from the elevator and walking through the foyer and to the hallway leading to the back office where he had spent what seemed like an eternity. He could see a long leg in the doorway, as if someone was standing there and decided to lean over to the left and reach for something. "Hey, Daddy," he gave a nervous laugh, "It's me, Angel. I'm back and we need to talk." The leg moved as the person was shifting back into an upright position.

Angel's heart dropped into his shoes. The person in the doorway sure as shit wasn't Val. It was much, much worse than that. He tried to take a step backwards, but tripped as a cable shot towards his ankles, effectively wrapping around them and completely immobilizing his legs.

"Hello there, Angel" he said. "You saved me a lot of trouble coming here. I really wanted to see you."