Part 22
Connor stood at the window to his apartment just as the first fingers of light began to stretch across the eastern horizon. The sky began to turn purple, then pink as the sun crept over the ragged mountains beyond the bay like a sliver of molten gold. He watched the bay, its waters rough, and knew the ocean behind him would be even choppier. It was a typical day in the windy jewel of California.
He yawned, a jaw-popping movement he felt all the way to his toes. A full-bodied stretch brought his hands high above his head, every joint popping as it moved into alignment. The stretch gave him a boost of energy, but within seconds it was gone, his exhaustion once again seeping into every pore.
He’d been up all night.
After royally handing Jace his ass, Connor had stalked out of their warehouse gym and headed home, his mind filled with everything that had happened that night. Fighting Jace had been hard, but he’d finally beaten the older man down within an inch of his life. He hadn’t held anything back and Jace hadn’t complained at all.
Eve had stood by, leaning against some old boxes in a shadowy corner, her mouth curved up in a satisfied grin that gave Connor the shivers. She watched his moves like a millionaire admiring her latest roadster, and he hadn’t appreciated it. Every calculated gaze told him she was planning to use him, but he didn’t have to like it. And he didn’t. Not one bit.
Before they’d sparred that night, Eve and Jace had taken him out to dinner. It had grated on Connor’s nerves that Eve attempted to treat him like she was his benevolent big sister, chucking his arm playfully and smiling up at him as she clung to Jace’s arm like fur on a rat’s ass. Even Connor’s exquisitely cooked steak had seemed dry and tasteless when accompanied by a side of Eve’s conversation. Her words were smooth, but there were threats and innuendo threaded throughout, like expensive ice cream blended with shards of glass.
Connor had come to one important conclusion by the end of that dinner, though: Eve was shrewd. She knew exactly what the score was and knew that she had Connor over a barrel. An innocent inquiry had been slipped in her conversation effortlessly, seemingly naive when paired with fluttery eyelashes and a plastered-on smile, but Connor’s face had hardened at the telling glint in her eyes.
His blood ran cold as he remembered the exchange. They had just finished their meal and Eve was nursing a glass of red wine. Her blood red lips left a mark on the edge of the crystal glass, and she’d smiled at him over the rim before taking another dainty sip.
“So how are your grandma and sister doing?” Eve had asked, her eyes wide and innocent.
“They’re fine,” Connor answered simply, carefully schooling his features. “You know,” he shrugged.
Eve sighed, shaking her head in pity. “It must be so hard for your sister. First she lost her parents, then you. . .”
Connor’s eyes flew to hers, narrowing. That bait he couldn’t avoid. “She hasn’t lost me.” A layer of steel ran under the words. “I talk to her all the time.”
Eve regarded him for a moment, her head cocked to the side, then nodded. “I’m sure you do.” Her tone made it sound like he’d been covering his ass, not telling the truth. “I hope they’re safe there,” she ended with a sigh, every inflection implying that they would be anything but.
The words hung in the air like a rotten carcass. Connor clenched his napkin into a hard fist under the table in an attempt to control his anger.
“Why wouldn’t they be? They live in my parents’ house. It’s a good neighborhood. They’re fine.” It was hard to get the words out when his teeth were gritted so hard.
“Oh, I’m sure they will be,” Eve said airily, sipping her wine again. “It’s just that there are so many unfortunate accidents these days. I would hate for your family to suffer another needless tragedy.” She blinked at him from across the table as she set her wineglass on the table and it was all Connor could do to keep from growling.
That little bitch was threatening him, threatening his family. Her words had been innocent, but that unspoken threat was still real and he knew he couldn’t back out now even if he’d wanted to. It had taken Connor several minutes to clear the haze of anger from his mind, although his face remained stoic. For the rest of the meal, he managed to hold his cool and keep his answers short and to the point.
Jace’s expressions had varied little throughout their meal, his conversation sparse. He’d added not more than two comments to Eve’s one-sided conversation, and for all the world it looked as though he were enthralled with her, content just to stare at her and bask in her beauty. Connor wasn’t fooled; Jace did love Eve but he didn’t always trust her.
Jace agreed with her plan though, and he’d die to help her avenge the one who’d wronged her. Connor did feel a flash of admiration for Jace as Eve had reminisced about her deceased fiancée; it had to be tough knowing you lived in the shadow of a dead man.
When they’d left for the warehouse, Connor had followed silently. He’d said enough to keep Eve and Jace from questioning his behavior, but he knew there were problems. Taking out his aggression on Jace had helped, and his mentor had absorbed it all without question.
Coming home, he’d tried to sleep, but Connor knew it was a futile effort after an hour of tossing and turning. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the images from his dreams and they wouldn’t leave him. Dragging himself out of bed, his eyes grainy and watery, he paced his apartment for an hour or more, running the scenes through his mind. He’d mentally driven in circles so many times that he was dizzy and he still hadn’t figured out what to do yet.
As he stared at the morning sky, Connor’s mind drifted back to the startling realization he’d made while sparring with Jace. In that moment when Jace had looked at him, his chin tilted downward, his eyes up, he’d been so eerily familiar. There wasn’t an exact match in Connor’s dreams, but someone looked just like Jace.
Or Jace looked just like someone else.
When Connor’s insomnia had caused him to start wearing a hole in his carpet, he’d finally come to the conclusion that he needed to write it all down. In school, outlining had always helped him get a handle on what he wanted to say in his papers, and he hadn’t changed much since then. Whenever faced with one of life’s problems, Connor found it easiest to just write everything down. Seeing it on paper made everything so much clearer.
He’d found a stack of index cards in his drawer left over from his first and last semester at Stanford, the fall before his parents died. Each scene from his dreams went on a card, and when he was done, he had nineteen cards, all filled with distinct dreams. No, he’d thought. Distinct memories.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to be true.
He’d begun to think about each scene, placing them in what he thought was the correct order. The scene with the mall and the explosives was obviously last and it made the most sense to put the strange beast-world with the old man at the beginning. The others seemed to be jumbled, until he realized that in some, his dream-self was more unbalanced than in others. Applying his logical mind to the task, he thought he’d managed to put them in an order that seemed plausible.
Sitting back in the chair, he crossed his arms and stared at them, his eyes going unfocused as he tied his dreams to what he’d discovered about Jace. The only person in his dreams that came anywhere close to Jace’s description was his vampire father.
Connor had shivered suddenly, bolting up from the desk and pacing the room again. Jace looked like the father in his dreams. The thought flitted through his mind for the briefest of moments that it might actually be Jace in his dreams, but the thought was gone just as quickly. There were differences between the faces. Subtle, but definitely there.
Besides, the dreams had started after he’d met Jace. Using that line of thought, maybe the dreams were just manifestations of his physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. He’d been through a lot this past year and it wasn’t unthinkable that his brain would need an outlet for the problems he faced every day. Maybe his mind was just conjuring up a Jace clone to star in his bizarro nocturnal imaginations.
That theory, too, was thrown out almost the moment he’d come up with it. In truth, Jace reminded him of his dream father, not the other way around. It was as if somehow his mind knew that the dream version was the real one and Jace was just a look-alike.
That left the only other option: Eve and Jace were playing him and they knew more about his past than he did.
The idea of their deception made his skin crawl and his blood boil. He felt betrayed, used, and torn, knowing that he had few people he could trust. Thinking of his grandmother and his sister, Connor felt a stab of real fear. In the end, what was true didn’t matter as much as keeping them safe.
As the morning turned a beautiful golden color, the sky brightening to blue without a cloud in the sky, Connor reevaluated everything he’d discovered during the night. No matter how he rearranged the information, it all came out the same. What was left of his family was in danger, and no matter what his dreams told him, he would follow Eve and Jace, doing as they asked. He couldn’t see any other way to protect his sister and grandmother.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Turning back into his apartment, he headed for the shower. Even though he’d tried to escape it, the reality of his situation followed him there like a ball and chain attached to his ankle.
He was in deep shit and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Part 23
“There he is!” Cordelia whispered, sitting up abruptly and peering into the darkened foyer of Connor’s apartment building. Sure enough, Connor stood there, holding the door open for a woman and her baby stroller, then ruffling the hair of a little boy that tagged along behind.
“Must be neighbors,” Angel said, his eyes drinking in the healthy figure of his son. “He looks good,” Angel said, his voice hoarse.
“Yeah,” Cordy sighed, her eyes tearing up. “He does. Looks kinda tired, though.”
Angel peered at him, noting bleariness in his sons eyes and the messy state of his hair. Connor took off down the street, and Angel and Cordelia watched him for awhile before rousing themselves from their stare-fest.
“Let’s go, broody butt,” Cordy said, poking Angel in the ribs before sliding back over to her side of the car and fastening her seatbelt. “Good thing you have these fancy windows so we can play Turner & Hooch during the crispy daylight hours.”
“Yeah,” he said distractedly, pulling the car out into the rapidly busying city street. Half a block later, her reference sank in. Contrary to popular belief, he did watch TV once in awhile. “Who exactly is supposed to be Hooch in this situation?” he asked warily.
She gave him a pitying look. “Don’t even think about putting my name anywhere closely associated with a big ugly slobbery dog. ‘Sides, you’re the strong silent type anyway, and you do like to pant.”
“Pant?” he asked, his eyes wide. “I don’t breathe. When do I pant?”
She looked at him askance, her eyebrows raised.
“Oh,” he said, and cleared his throat, turning back to the road. “I just get carried away when I’m with you. Sometimes you make me forget I’m a vampire.”
“And so you pant?” she teased him.
“Yeah,” he said, squirming in his seat and obviously wanting to end this crazy conversation. “Look! He’s turning in there.” Angel pointed to a warehouse three blocks from Connors apartment. They drove past as Connor disappeared inside.
“Doesn’t look like much going on there,” Cordy observed. “Pull in here.” She gestured toward a shadowed alleyway that would provide Angel enough cover from direct sunlight so they could continue their observation of Connor.
Angel killed the engine and coasted to a stop outside the building. Pallets were stacked against the building’s edge, arranged rather fortuitously like stairs up to a dingy set of windows.
“Well, time to play spy,” Cordy said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tightly. Looking into his eyes, she smiled. “It’ll be okay, Angel,” she said, trying in her own small way to reassure him.
He squeezed her hand back, unable to say anything. She had to be right, because there was no way he could survive losing his son for the third time in two years. There was no choice but to succeed.
Part 24
Connor resisted the urge to glance back over his shoulder at the road behind him when he pushed open the creaky door of the weather-beaten warehouse. He’d had this weird crawly feeling up his back ever since he’d open his apartment door, like someone or something was following him. One of his high school friends had termed his strange form of radar as his “spidey sense,” and somehow it had stuck. Today, his spidey sense was spiking off the charts.
He shook off the feeling and walked confidently into the depths of the darkened, cavernous room, coming to a stop just inside the ring of light cast by the overhead fluorescents. Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, he just stood there nonchalantly, his hair hanging in his eyes.
“So are we gonna get started already, or what?” he asked neutrally, trying to keep the exhaustion and wariness out of his voice.
Jace walked over to him, standing a few feet away and mimicking Connor’s stance. “No sparring today, son. We have some other, more important things to discuss.”
Connor looked wary. “Like what?”
Eve walked up beside Jace, standing with her arms crossed as she faced Connor, all business. “We need to solidify our plans, now that you’re ready.”
“Now that I’m ready?” he repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve proven that you’re nearly invincible, Connor. You’re ready to face him.”
Connor nodded tersely. He didn’t like it, but he had no choice. After all, this guy was evil. Killing someone evil shouldn’t be too bad, right?
“So we gonna talk about this here?” he asked, slinging his backpack to the floor at his feet.
Eve shook her head. “Let’s go out to breakfast.” She smiled up at Jace, pulling on his hand as she led them back toward the entrance. “I know a great place where we won’t be bothered at all, and no one will think twice about what we might have to say.”
Connor knew a lot of places like that around this city; people seemed to accept the strange and abnormal as if were an everyday occurrence. In this city, it was.
At least now he’d know exactly what he was getting himself into.
Part 25
Cordelia stared through the half-opened window, her mouth dropped open so wide a Fyarl demon could’ve nested there.
“D-did you see that?” she said, finally closing her mouth and swallowing audibly. She turned to Angel and tugged on his jacket sleeve, noting the stormy expression on his face. “Angel?”
He turned to her, his eyes dark with anger. “I saw it,” he said with clenched teeth. “Eve, that little bitch!”
“Oh, yeah, her. Never liked the skank either, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” She gripped his sleeve tighter as her eyes grew wide. “That guy! He looked just like you!”
Angel frowned at her words. “No, he didn’t,” he denied, affronted. “I don’t look anything like him.”
Cordy rolled her eyes at him. “Well, duh, of course you wouldn’t know. You don’t exactly look at yourself every morning, now do you? Believe me, I know what you look like. And he looks like you.”
Angel stared back into the empty warehouse as his mind conjured up the image of the man who’d just left with Eve and Connor. Okay, so he had dark hair and black clothing, but what else was the same? He said as much to Cordelia.
She rolled her eyes again. “Hello? Overhanging brow, bushy eyebrows, broad shoulders, cute ass. Salty goodness and everything, you know?”
“You thought he had a cute ass?” Angel said, grabbing onto the one worrisome thing that jumped out at him and hanging on like a neurotic hypochondriac.
“Well, yeah, he’s hot. He looks like you,” she said as if the conclusion were foregone.
“Is he hotter than me?” Angel asked.
She scowled at him. “Is this conversation really necessary?” she asked. “Don’t we need to follow them?”
He frowned right back, staring at her, then finally jerked himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah,” he said, and jumped down off the pallets in one leap, down about fifteen feet.
“Showoff,” she muttered as she picked her way down the wobbly stack by herself. Angel waited at the bottom, ready to catch her if she fell. She felt his big hands grip her waist as she neared the bottom and let him lift her onto the blacktop.
She looked up into his face and still saw the insecurity in his eyes. What was it about him that made him so vulnerable? This guy with Connor was theirenemy for crying out loud. Sexy and enemy weren’t good mixy things, so it was merely an observation, not an declaration of intentions. So what if she thought the guy was a hottie? Angel was way better, and he was hers.
“Angel,” she said, smiling up at him, using her small hand to cup his cheek. “I love you. You’re the saltiest of salty goodness, okay?”
His eyes lit up at her words. “Okay,” he said, squeezing her back. “Let’s go find out where they went.”
She rolled her eyes to the heavens and sighed as he turned away from her to head back to the car. You’d think 250 years of kicking butt would work out some of those insecurities, but sometimes she thought he was the most vulnerable person she’d ever met.
It looked like she had an eternity of hard work ahead of her.
Part 26
“We need to strike soon,” Eve said, her fork poised in the air as she planted her elbow on the table. A goopy clump of eggs clung to the end of her fork, threatening to slide off at any second. Eve didn’t seem to notice. “He doesn’t know we’re coming, but the longer we wait, the more likely it is he’ll get wind of this. He has amazing connections.”
She caught the bite in her mouth just before it slipped back onto her plate.
“What kind of connections?” Connor asked, his pancakes barely touched in front of him. “The Mob or something? Gangs?”
Eve shook her head around a mouthful of food, then elbowed Jace to explain.
“This is mystical, remember?” Jace answered. “His contacts are demonic. He has a legion of vampires and demons working for him, along with some mystically gifted and enhanced humans.”
Finally having swallowed, Eve smirked evilly. “He did have one really strong connection to his evil backers, but she died a few months ago. She was in a coma from that whole fight against world peace.”
Connor only nodded. “So now he’s not as connected?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The law firm he took over, Wolfram & Hart, used to be a force for good in the mystical realms, but since he’s been there, his evilness has infiltrated the entire organization and its effectiveness is barely half of what it used to be. He’s systematically destroying the balance between good and evil in the universe, and every day he gets stronger.”
“So we’re going to kill him.”
“Yup. One beheading from you and everything will be all good again.” She smiled, for once the expression reaching her eyes. The evil glint was still there, though, and it gave him the willies. “But not before a little good old-fashioned torture.”
Connor squirmed slightly, not liking the thought of torture at all.
“Shouldn’t you tell me a little bit more about him?” he asked, wanting to know as much of the score as he could before he got himself involved in this.
Eve and Jace exchanged a glance, as if to warn each other to keep their stories straight. Connor pretended not to notice the surreptitious look.
“He’s a vampire,” Eve said, “As we told you before. He’s evil, as all vampires are. Can be killed with a wooden stake, decapitation, or sunlight, although I prefer you decapitate him. It’s the most satisfying to watch and the easiest to execute.”
“So he’s been around awhile?” Connor asked.
“Yes,” Jace said, nodding. “He was turned into a vampire back in the late 1700’s by a vicious female vampire named Darla. They terrorized the whole of Western Europe for a hundred years, give or take, and moved here to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. In the last twenty years or so, he’s set himself up as a powerful figure in Los Angeles and his strength continues to grow.”
“You gonna give me a name?”
“Why do you want to know that?” Eve asked, her eyebrows raised. The less Connor knew, the better. Erased memories had a funny way of leaking back, and she didn’t want to trigger anything. Especially not now that he had such close, comfy ties to Jace. She struggled to keep the fury off her face. He was such a fucking screw-up.
Thankfully, Connor didn’t seem to notice her anger. “Seems kinda unfair to be killing a guy whose name I don’t even know. I mean, what if I get the wrong guy or something?”
“You won’t,” Eve insisted.
“I want to know,” Connor said forcefully when she seemed disinclined to continue. Somehow, he had to know. Thought it might mean something. Might make something in his dreams make sense. Not that his dreams had ever given him anything to work with that could help here.
Eve pursed her lips in thought, then finally sighed. “His name is Angel.”
Connor was silent for a moment as he digested this. He fidgeted when the name didn’t affect him at all. The name Angel didn’t mean anything. At least not to him.
“Kind of a dorky name for a vampire,” he commented. “Sounds kinda girly.”
Jace laughed. “He’s anything but girly. Lore about him says that his sire named him that because he has an ‘Angelic face.’” Jace grimaced at the words as if they tasted bad rolling off his tongue. “He’s a formidable fighter, kinda rough around the edges.”
“You’ve fought him?” Connor asked, intrigued.
Jace nodded. “Once.” He didn’t elaborate because he would’ve had to explain way too much. He’d been muscle at Wolfram & Hart a year or two previous, when Angel Investigations had moved into the hotel. There had been a skirmish once when they’d tried to infiltrate the hotel, and he’d come face to face with the vampire. Jace hadn’t fared well. His wrist still ached when it rained and his nose had healed slightly crooked.
“So if he’s all wicked protected, how do we get in?”
“I still have some contacts on the inside,” Eve said, her smile gone again. “They’ll see that we can enter the offices of Wolfram & Hart undetected.”
“We’re all going? I thought I was the one who was going to kill him.”
“You are,” Jace answered. “But you’ll need back up. He has henchmen. Evil groupies who will stop at nothing to protect him. Even a superkid like you needs help once in awhile.”
Connor smiled at him, amused despite himself. He kinda liked the superkid moniker. “Okay, fine,” he said, acting bored with the plans. “When do we go?”
Eve sat back in her seat with a sigh, her plate empty in front of her. “We have to wait two weeks until our opportunity comes up. My contact has to sever some important mystical ties protecting the building, and the spells can’t be cast until the full moon. We’ll strike the next morning.”