It had only been a few weeks since they’d moved into the hotel. After the initial clean-up of the lobby, they’d organized their offices and filed away anything that was remotely salvageable from their original one.
At the time, Cordelia had been grateful to get Angel out of her apartment. He was so damn clumsy at times.
Though hating to admit it, she actually missed the big guy. It was one thing to have Dennis around to talk to, share stories with and handle the housework. But it was a lot different to have a guy taking up your space even if he was a vampire. Eye candy was certainly less available now, something her resident ghost couldn’t provide. And since eye candy was all she seemed to get lately, it was a little hard adjusting to life without it.
Cordelia was happier about having a real office. Despite its demony background, the Hyperion was actually kind of classy. Once she added a few touches here and there it would be perfect. The guys were clueless about that sort of thing and the fact that Angel was such a penny pincher didn’t make her plans any easier. Not that they had a whole lot of pennies to pinch at the moment, but having a cool office would bring in clients with money.
Right now they were the client. Cordelia could think of one or two convenient ways to get rid of a haunted mirror, but was sure she didn’t need seven more years of bad luck. Assuming that luck had anything to do with anything, she wasn’t going to take chances.
So it seemed they were stuck with finding out how a woman from 1952 was trapped in a mirror. Cordelia watched from the other side of the lobby as Angel and Wesley carefully hung the mirror on the opposite wall. “That’s not a very good spot,” she warned noticing that she could not only see most of the lobby, but picked up her own reflection from across the room.
“You’re the one who said to put it here,” the tension in Wesley’s voice ramped up. It was the third time they’d moved it at Cordelia’s behest and he wasn’t going to do it again. “We shall never get any research done if we spend all of our time rearranging furniture and hanging this mirror.”
The swirling mist appeared in the mirror again as did the woman, tears rolling down her pale face, a plea on her lips that Wesley heard like a whisper, “Help me.”
“Fine,” Cordelia told him resolving to stay out of its path as much as possible. “Leave it there.” The faster they got on with the research, the sooner that freaky mirror and its ghostly resident would be outta there. If she really was a ghost, that woman was nothing like Dennis. More like Dennis’ mom minus the trying to kill her part.
Cordelia didn’t know if the mirror or the ghost was responsible for those unnerving images, but she really wanted that to stop. Yes, it was true that Angel was a hottie. And maybe—just maybe she’d thought about him that way once or twice since they’d met in L.A., but they weren’t seriousthoughts.
It was a completely normal female response, that’s all. Normally easy to ignore. All she had to do was to think ‘Buffy’ or ‘curse’ to put things into perspective. Not to mention his social ineptitude.
Sitting down at her desk while waiting for the guys to finish hanging the mirror, she grabbed a random magazine from her desk drawer hoping to distract herself from the replay of Angel’s lips plying kisses across her neck. That might’ve worked if the magazine wasn’t last month’s edition of Cosmo. Or if she hadn’t flipped to the article about ‘Mapping Your Man’s Erogenous Zones’.
A high-pitched shriek sounded from the lobby followed by the thud of a hammer and the sound of scattering hooks & nails. “I-Is that Cordelia?” Wesley sputtered.
At the sound of her name, Cordelia slowly turned her head toward the lobby. Wesley was slack-jawed as he stared at the mirror’s image. She could see herself standing skin to skin with Angel, her back facing them so that was shown was her loose hair, her waist, and most of her tattoo.
For a moment, she was mesmerized by the sight of Angel’s strong hands wrapped possessively around her hips. There wasn’t any space between them. Her fingers were roving in a teasing circle around his nipple. Angel growled out to Wes to hurry it up.
If she closed her eyes, Cordelia could almost feel the imprint of his cool body against hers: strong, hard and totally male. It was almost like being there in that moment. Just like upstairs when she’d felt the whisper of his lips on her neck, her senses were singing, body responding.
“Cordy,” a moan of pleasure rumbled from Angel’s chest. Even though he was across the room, it came to her like a soft whisper against her ear.
Panicking, Cordelia slammed the magazine closed and jammed it into the back of her desk. “Oh crap, crap, crap.” The mirror was possessed by a fiend, that’s what it was. One who looked like some woman Angel had seen way back when. Someone evil enough to put lusty thoughts in her head about a friend who also happened to be her very non-boneable boss.
Without looking toward Angel at all, Cordelia jumped up from her chair and ran into his office. She started pulling random books down from the shelves. Wesley had slowly been building up their collection, but had yet to move his books out of his apartment. Most of Angel’s books had survived the bomb blast at the old office. So there had to be something she could find to fix this.
And if she couldn’t, Wesley would find it. Or else.
****
“Are you quite finished ripping Angel’s office apart?” Wesley poked his head in.
Cordelia was on the floor, a huge tome open on her lap. “Not yet. Just getting a head start on the research.” She glanced up, “Where’s Angel?”
Rubbing a hand across his jaw, Wesley muttered his answer. “Ah—he’ll be here in a minute or two.”
Instantly irritated that Angel wasn’t in as much of a rush to handle this problem as she was, Cordelia complained peevishly, “Just because the vamp gets to see his reflection for the first time in forever doesn’t mean I want mine,” she poked a finger at her chest, “to be naked with it.”
“That was quite—um….” Even Wes couldn’t find the appropriate words to describe what he’d seen. “The nature of these aberrations might provide us with clues as to the mirror’s true purpose. It might enable us to find out how this woman continues to appear in the mirror and whether she has any control over what we’ve seen.”
“Evil fiend,” Cordelia muttered as she continued to browse through the pages of the book.
Wesley moved into the office positioning himself to look over Cordelia’s shoulder to see what subject she had chosen to research. It was a compendium of demons and other noteworthy creatures. “There is no evidence of demonic activity,” he pointed out. “This is either supernatural or mystical. Most of our references on the occult are at my flat.”
“So what are you waiting for?” Cordelia blew her bangs out of her eyes and kept on looking, convinced that she’d find that woman’s face depicted within its pages.
With a sigh, Wesley headed to the outer office area, passing Angel as he walked in. He paused to ask, “Do you remember the woman’s name?”
Angel drew a blank. “No. Mostly, she kept to herself. So did I.”
“Pfft.” Cordelia shoved the book back on the bottom shelf and grumbled wiping the dust off of her jeans.
When Angel held out a hand to help her to her feet, she stared at it for a moment as she remembered feeling it curl around her hip. Her eyes flicked up to his searching for a clue that he was also unsettled by this whole thing. Nothing. Whatever Angel thought about this, it was hidden from her. Normally, she could figure it out, but if that blank expression suggested anything it was that nothing more than a simple annoyance.
Standing next to him changed her perspective. He licked his lips. The gentle hold on her hand tightened subtly, thumb sweeping across the surface in an almost caress. Cordelia’s breath caught in her throat as anticipation fluttered deep in her belly. It reminded her of their closeness in the mirror, the false image that felt so real in her mind.
God, she ached to be touched. It was as if a craving had been awakened within her. Somehow it had to be Angel. Only his touch would sate her needs. His hands on her breasts, curved around them. Coolness sliding across her skin. Cupping her bottom to pull her up against the hardness she had imagined she’d felt, fingers sliding down stroking her between her legs to pleasure her.
Cordelia’s eyes widened in horror realizing her panties were actually damp. She tried to pull away, but was held there, Angel staring down at her intently, eyes darkening, nostrils flared. He knew exactly how worked up she was getting. Typically he said nothing. For an instant it looked like he wanted to devour her.
Then the familiar mask of control slammed in place and Angel let her go. He released her hand so quickly that Cordelia stumbled back against the bookcase nearly falling in the process. “Hey!” Stunned that he didn’t bother to catch her, she straightened up and stalked up to him. “I could’ve broken my neck.”
“You didn’t.”
“But I could’ve.”
With deliberate control, Angel said in graveled tones, “Your neck is fine, Cordy,” sounding to her as if he had other plans for it. “Just drop it.”
Petulantly, Cordelia shoved him on her way out of the office. When he moved to follow, she held up a hand. “Uh-uh. Stay there where the mirror can’t see you.”
Wesley paused in his search of the filing cabinet. “We’re far enough away over here that the mirror should have no effect.”
“Huh.” Cordelia knew differently. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take chances.”
“Might I point out that you’re standing here with me and nothing is happening. It’s perfectly safe,” Wes shook his head and went back to looking for the Hyperion file.
She answered with a snort.
Angel stayed put at the threshold of his office. Not because Cordelia said so, but because he was afraid that she was right. And there was no way he needed Wesley around as a witness assuming that thing could pick up on his thoughts. Scenting the sweet arousal clinging to Cordelia’s skin, watching her body react in ways both subtle and obvious, he knew that she’d felt the mirror’s effects, too.
Though he couldn’t own up to the source of the images this time, he assumed they were thoughts pulled from his subconscious. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to expose anybody to the idea that scenting Cordelia’s arousal made him want to swipe the contents of her desk onto the floor and take her right there. The more he tried to suppress those images, the more he thought about it.
This was ridiculous. “Wes, whatever it is you’re looking for…find it.” They needed to deal with this as fast as possible. Having a few fantasies starring Cordelia was bad enough. On the rare occasion when she wasn’t being a pain in the ass it was easy to say that he found her attractive. Okay, very attractive, but that did not give him the right to act like a walking erection every time she was in the same room.
Until now, he’d managed to draw a discreet line between fantasy and reality. That mirror was responsible for taking thoughts so far back in his head that he’d never considered them a remote possibility. Being attracted to Cordelia just proved he was male. It was all of the other feelings of friendship, concern, protectiveness that made it something more.
Maybe Doyle had been right about Cordelia’s humanizing influence over him because she stirred up emotions inside him that should’ve made his demon nature rebel. No, he wasn’t disgusted by her tender concern, the care she took in patching him up, the way she sometimes had him under her thumb. Deep down he wanted more of it, and not all of those fantasies involved a bed of roses. Sometimes she’d push him to the point where he had to leave the room or risk giving her a taste of the demon that lived under his skin.
Letting her nearly fall like that was a rotten thing to do. He felt like a bastard for it, but he couldn’t touch her right then. Not without pulling her closer. Those images in the mirror were just teases. He could feel the silk of her skin beneath his hands, the warmth of her body in contrast to his own. He’d gotten hard as her nails rasped over him.
All in the mirror. Little more than a fantasy come to life. But it felt so close to being real that it was hard to accept that Cordy hadn’t been pressed against him, touching him. Maybe he should be embarrassed over the fact that his deepest fantasies about her were out in the open. He wasn’t. Cordelia obviously hadn’t figured that part out yet. But she would once Wes determined how the mirror worked.
Angel’s only hope was that they could figure out what was going on with the woman from 1952. If they could discover the truth he might be able to get out of this thing without ruining his relationship with Cordy. Impatiently, he growled, “What’s taking so long?”
Wesley let out a frustrated groan. “I can’t find our research. Cordelia, where is the Hyperion file?”
“Where it always is—under Tentacle Demon.”
Staring wordlessly for a moment, Wes realized that she wasn’t kidding. “Would that be D for Demon or T for Tentacle?”
“Duh—tentacle, of course.”
He’d looked under Hyperion, Hotel, Property, and Angel before browsing randomly through the files. He opened the S, T, U, V drawer, flicked his fingers over the file names and found it just where Cordelia claimed he would.
Angel nearly stepped out to join them, but held back at the last second. “Bring that in here.” He turned to walk back to his desk leaving Wes and Cordelia no choice but to follow.
****
The amount of research Wesley and Cordelia had compiled on the Hyperion amazed Angel. When he originally approached them about the hotel, he had given them no idea what he was looking for.
He wanted everything they could find on it and gave them instructions to look into police files: cold cases, homicides, unsolved missing persons, and start from the earliest records through the current day.
He had no idea how much digging they had done. The file on the Hyperion was nearly eight inches thick. Fortunately, they had organized the material on a timeline. “We should focus on the early 1950s,” he opened up the file to that era. “The woman was here when I left. Something happened to her after that.”
Since Wesley thought she looked familiar there was a good chance that the answer to her identity could be found somewhere in the file. There was nothing for the years 1950 or 1951. The first thing they saw when opening up the section on 1952 was the black and white photograph of Angel.
He picked it up recognizing himself and trying to compare the slightly blurry image to what he’d seen in the mirror. As was the style then, he’d worn his hair slicked back, and discovered a taste for muscle shirts and cigarettes. The smokes were an easy habit to break when he gave it up.
Those cravings were nothing in comparison to the bloodlust he conquered every day, or the need to feel pleasure and pain. Something other than emptiness and isolation.
Compassion had gotten him nowhere back in 1952. He’d been strung up by that mob for his efforts. Then he’d left them to suffer for it at the hands of the Thesulac who’d wanted to feed off their emotional angst and his own. The person he was now found that abhorrent and it was largely due to Doyle, Cordelia, and Wesley that he could see how much he’d changed.
Glancing across the space of the desk where Cordelia was sitting head bent as she sifted through a pile of newspaper clippings, Angel remembered the promise she’d made to stay with him until he found his way out of the tangled mess that was his existence and earned his redemption. The Shanshu prophesy sometimes seemed like a dangling carrot, impossible to reach. His sins were far too numerous to do enough to tip the scales.
Angel knew he couldn’t do it alone. He owed Cordy so much that could never be repaid. Every vision that wracked her body with pain seemed to cut into him, too. The way she dealt with it made him seem weak in comparison. Her inner strength amazed him and yet she was far from invulnerable. He’d seen her smile through the pain giving him a reason to fight, to survive, and to win.
It wasn’t the first time he had considered how important Cordy was to him. Before now it was simply to marvel at the friendship they’d forged. The thought that he’d someday have to survive without it left a sick feeling in his stomach. And panic set in after that. This mirror was showing things that were reserved for unbidden fantasy, and might damage the trust that had developed between them.
Fear set in. Anger swept in right behind it. There was no way Angel was going to let Cordy walk out on him because some damned mirror knew more about his desires than he did.
“What’s with the growl?” Cordelia stared at him suspiciously making Angel realized that he was vocalizing his feelings. “I’m looking as fast as I can. It might actually help if you did a little research instead of sitting there like a fat lump on a log.”
Trust Cordy to put things quickly back into perspective. “Right.” He noticed that Wes was staring at both of them, not bothering to hide the concern on his face.
Angel stared back silently daring Wesley to say something, but after a few seconds of silence, guilt flared and he dropped his gaze back to the pile of photographs on the desk. Picking through the pile, memories stirred as he saw familiar faces. The bellhop carting two suitcases toward the elevator. A guest who’d later shot himself in one of the third floor rooms. The hotel manager who tried to sweep things under the rug as long as he could.
He was lost in thought when Wesley’s triumphant, “Eureka!” snapped him back to the present.
Sitting next to him, Cordelia jerked at the noise scattering her part of the file all over the floor. “Geez, you didn’t strike gold.”
While Wes skimmed the article he’d found, Angel went to help her scoop it up. He crouched down on his haunches gathering papers and watching Cordelia fumbling in her haste. Their fingers brushed, both of them freezing in place, staring at each other. Cordy let out a little gasp and looked like she was seconds from bolting.
Angel could feel the tension building up between them. She licked her lips making his gaze drop down to note the shiny trail of moisture left behind. He wanted nothing more than to cage her jaw in his hands and plunder that mouth until he’d tasted every nook. Instinctively, his tongue swept across his own lips.
The space between them started to shrink.
“Alice Waterhouse went missing in April of 1953,” Wesley’s enthusiastic findings caused them to leap apart, both on their feet clutching jumbled papers and staring wide-eyed at each other from across the room.
They settled back in their chairs grateful that Wes was too caught up in telling them the news to notice what had almost happened. Cordelia head dipped down while she made an effort to put her papers back in order, her hair falling forward to shadow her face. Her hands visibly trembled to the point that she had to stop.
Cordelia decided she was being a wuss about something that hadn’t even happened. Raising her head she noticed Angel’s fathomless gaze still focused on her. Jaw tightly clenched, he looked like he was ready for a fight. Sheesh! So what if she’d almost kissed him. It was the freaky mirror’s fault and it wasn’t like she had cooties or anything.
Turning her attention to Wesley, she listened in as he summarized the article. “It appears that Miss Waterhouse was something of a socialite. Wealthy, she lived at the Hyperion for a number of years before she went missing. No known close contacts at the hotel itself.”
“What does it say about her disappearance?” Angel tried to stay focused, but the lingering arousal in the air made it hard.
The article wasn’t very forthcoming with information. However, during their initial research, they’d attached a copy of an old police report. It went into more details and included interviews with the hotel employees. Alice Waterhouse often came and went with no mention of her plans to the concierge. She left her keys at the desk whenever she went out and picked them up upon her return.
This convinced the detective in charge of the case that Alice Waterhouse had been in residence at the time of her disappearance. The keys were not at the front desk. The room showed signs of a disturbance: a toppled lamp, scattered contents from the vanity, a broken mirror. As was protocol, the room was cordoned off during the remainder of the investigation.
The victim’s rich relatives were unavailable to the press, and rather closed-mouthed with the police. When brought to the scene of the crime, her brother was stricken by a strange malady and went into a coma. Upon his recovery, he refused to set foot in the hotel ever again and claimed that his sister was lost to them forever.
Throughout its history, the Hyperion had been subject to strange and unexplained cases as this. Few contained such an obvious motive. Alice Waterhouse possessed a necklace of great value. Ancient emeralds handed down the female line from mother to daughter. It was said that she never removed them, even during sleep.
A housekeeper had provided that little tidbit for the case file. She’d gone into the Helios Suite to turn down the bedcovers as she always did only to find the woman already asleep. Her jewels were still around her neck.
When she was in residence, the hotel staff had been instructed to deliver breakfast at a specific time to her suite. The meal had gone untouched and it was only on the second day that someone brought it to the manager’s attention. The last person to see her had been the clerk on duty three nights before.
The emerald necklace never turned up and the police never had any suspects except for Alice’s brother Richard, whose suspicious reaction was apparently suspect enough for them to question him again.
Despite the newspaper article and the police report, there was little to go on except the Waterhouse name. “I’ll track down the brother,” Angel decided, “see what he has to say about his sister’s disappearance.”
“Angel, that was almost 50 years ago,” Wesley warned him that Richard Waterhouse could be dead by now. “He was thirty-eight at the time of his interrogation.”
It was worth a shot considering they had nothing else. Now that Kate had discovered Angel was a vampire, their ability to use her police department access to information was probably a dead-end task. Approaching her might get him staked, but Angel was willing to take the chance that she wouldn’t. Not again, at any rate. If she did, Angel knew that next time she wouldn’t miss.
“While you are searching for Richard Waterhouse,” Wesley set his section of the file down on the desk. “I will head back to my flat to pick up those books. Perhaps I can find a spell that will identify the nature of these aberrations.”
Wesley’s plan alarmed Cordelia. “You’re leaving me alone with—,” she glanced over at Angel, “with that mirror?”
Angel glowered at her, so tempted to give her a real reason for concern. “Stay here. Look through the rest of the articles. See if anything else crops up about the Helios Suite.”