Part 20
“Angel, hey, I got her. Gunn jumped towards the vampire, reaching to help him carry Cordelia as the vampire stumbled.
Angel growled pushing past Gunn moving into the doctor’s office, readjusting his hold on Cordelia.
Gunn puzzled at the vampire’s misstep. Angel was damn strong and Gunn, in all of the times he’d witnessed Angel holding Cordy’s unconscious body, Gunn had never seen Angel falter. In fact, it always seemed that Angel grew stronger as if his strength and will could flow over the young woman and make her well again.
Gunn studied the vampire intently. “Man, you don’t look so hot.” He finally concluded.
“Angel, are you not feeling well? Are you? …What’s that?” Fred’s concern was interrupted momentarily by the sight of a metal chair up against the wall in the office.
The chair had way too many long twisted steel appendages to be a normal chair. Clamps and vice grips seemed to grow out of each attached rod. Fred tentatively moved closer studying the chair that looked a lot like a large metal spider, a very scary large metal spider.
“Some of Dr. Lota’s patients have more than the standard number of legs and arms and an aversion to be poked and prodded.” Lorne answered. “Angel, put the princess over here.”
“Oh,” Fred winced, grateful that Lorne had directed Angel to a harmless looking hospital gurney. She shook her head retrieving the point she had been trying to make before,” It’s a doctor’s office, Angel, maybe it has blood, if you’re hungry. Is that why you’re not feeling well? Are you hungry?” The worried look back on her face.
“Can ya wait to we get back to the hotel,” Gunn said looking around at all of the other strange and alarming equipment in the room.
Fred’s eyes widen in more worry. “Charles, do we have any? I didn’t pick up any fresh with Angel being gone and anything else we have is over a month old.” Fred squinted at Angel. “Is that too old? Have you eaten anything since you’ve come back, you must be starving.” Fred looked quickly around the room searching for anything red.
“I’m fine.” Angel growled.
“We’ll get some on the way home.”
“But, Charles,” Fred continued to look at Angel with concern.
“He said he was fine and this isn’t any kind of doctor’s office I’d be wanting to be hanging out in or snackin,” Gunn raised his brows at the long metal rod he had picked up, eyeing the grisly sharp pinchers at the tip. “It looks Dr. Frankenstein’s Shop of Horrors. This guy can help Cordy?”
“Dr. Frankenstein was a quack.” A tall very pale male with translucent skin showing prominent blue veins on his hands and face walked into the room plucking the rod out of Gunn’s hand, his red eyes glowed through the spectacles he was wearing, his white coat fell loosely over his thin body covering what had to be more bright blue trails under transparent skin. “As for blood, I’ve an excellent selection of various specious and types, you can never have enough. If the vampire is hungry- in the back room, rather there than us, I’d say.” The thin tall doctor chuckled, pleased with his joke.
“I said – I was fine.”
The demon peered at Angel from over his glasses. “I’ve seen healthier specimens, but nothing that a couple humans won’t cure. Joke.” The doctor held out his hands at Angel’s expression and Gunn’s grunt. “No sense of humor. Fatal flaw in some demons AND humans. Now,” he said rubbing his hands together towards Cordelia’s body. “What do we have here?”
“She has a device in her neck that needs to be removed as soon as possible.” Lorne said quickly.
“Is that it?” the doctor looked disappointed. “When you told me it was the part demon seer I was hoping for something more exotic, maybe a chance to cut open her brain. You’re sure the device is in her neck?” The doctor perked up. “May I should cut the brain open just to make sure.”
“And Frankenstein was a quack?” Gunn moved simultaneously with Angel towards the doctor.
The doctor waved them a way. “Fine, I’ll take an X-ray. Possibly, as payment for my services, when the seer does die, I could have her brain? It would be a coup.”
Lorne stepped quickly between a growling Angel and the doctor. “Just remove the device, Angel isn’t interested in your enthusiasm over his seer’s lovely brain, which will be staying in her especially lovely head.”
“Very well,” the doctor sighed. “Vampire, I would have to agree with your companions, you do need to eat. You’re pale and your extreme rudeness visibly indicates hunger and that’s a medical opinion. The other room,” he pointed. “I will not let your neglect of your body’s needs disturb this operation.”
“Pale? Doc Wierdo has room to talk, I can practically see through him,” Gunn leaned into Fred’s ear.
“No talking either, better yet, leave. It is a easy operation, rest assured but I will not tolerate growling and chattering.” The demon chastised leaning up from his patient.
“I’m not leaving.” Angel growled louder.
“Angel,” Lorne pulled at the vampire. “He’s right. Let’s all just go wait outside, she’ll be fine. He’s temperamental but good. You should probably eat something. Dr. Lota said he had a variety. I’m sure he said he had animal.”
“I didn’t but I do. But, vampire, animal doesn’t carry all the nutrients that the demon needs, human is the proper source of sustenance for your kind.”
“Hey, stop with the pushing of the human stuff, Angel’s on a pig diet.” Gunn interrupted.
“And that’s why the vampire is unwell. Human.” The doctor lectured pulling down his spectacles.
“Why is everyone worried about my diet? And I’m not sick. Cordelia,” He growled emphasizing his priority.
“Yeah, like a vampire’s eating habits shouldn’t be something worrisome. Maybe we should check out the supply, make sure it isn’t spiked with anyone we know.”
“Shh, Charles.”
“What bad things can only happen in three’s, hate to mention it, girl, but we’ve passed that cliché a long time ago.”
“Charles,” Fred chided.
“Crumbcake, grumpy vampire’s are not fun to be around.” Lorne rolled his eyes.
“Dangerous, too.”
“Charles,” Fred repeated sternly.
“I wasn’t talking about Angel….not exactly.”
“Just make her better.” Angel growled and left the room, heading for the room of blood.
***
Angel’s hand automatically reached out for the bag of human blood. He wasn’t sick not in any normal definition of the word but the hunger that had ate away at him in his imprisonment hadn’t yet gone away. The smell of the room just made it more urgent.
His demon was craving constant nourishment in an instinctual need to make its body whole and to calm its fear of another bout of forced starvation. Angel paused, turning searching until he smelled selections of animal. He moved towards it. Again, he paused; this time growling and going straight back to the human.
He grabbed the bag and bit into it, drinking it in one gulp. He savored it for only a moment, half grateful and half cursing it’s cold congealed state.
He wanted warm and flowing, but the bag of human blood was all that was available. The warm alive humans in next room he couldn’t touch, he knew that. But it didn’t make wanting them in his embrace less enticing. Angel grabbed another bag. He leaned against the counter, this time drinking more slowly, feeling the blood working it’s relief.
The dead faces of Robbie and Laurie flashed in his mind. Angel ignored them, they had served a purpose, just has the human blood did now. He was still weak from his imprisonment and he needed to be ready when it was time to tear apart the ones that made Cordelia feel pain once done and he was whole again then he’d deal with his increased craving for human blood.
Part 21
Dr. Lota looked around the empty office. He should’ve known better. He kept swearing over and over again that he would never ever do business with a vampire-they were untrustworthy. Not only didn’t he get a promise of the woman’s brain, he didn’t get paid and the bloodsucker drank four of his best human blood specimen’s, leaving a mess. Vampires, even with a soul, you couldn’t trust them.
***
Angel remained seated at Cordelia’s bedside waiting for the anesthetic to wear off.
Gunn cleared his throat. “Ah, Angel, don’t you think that it’s time that you let all of us in the loop. I don’t know, for example, what’s Wes’ deal and how and where’s Cordy been? What the hell’s happening? Just for example.”
Angel shook his head. “It can wait until she wakes up.”
“Angel, it can’t really- I mean I want to know- and she’s sleeping- prognosis fine- so now would be kind of perfect, no interruptions.”
“Please, Angel.” Fred chimed in softly. “Cordy will be fine.”
“Angelcakes, come on, I’m confused and I’m rarely confused, bewildered and befuddled okay maybe but not confused.” Lorne added.
Angel glanced up from Cordelia then to his friends and proceeded to tell them everything that he knew.
***
Fred finally interrupted the silence that had descended the room once Angel stopped talking.
“Well Charles, you were right, Cordy wasn’t on the moon, she was being held captivate for a month by Wolfram & Hart,” Fred’s voice was brittle, quiet but giving every indication that it would crack and explode in a moment.
“She’s was there being tortured for a month by Wolfram & Hart and Angel was at the bottom of the ocean put there by his son, who we couldn’t find because he’s being held by Wolfram & Hart, we didn’t know, didn’t find them, didn’t save them,” she swung around to her boyfriend her voice finally snapping.
“What kind of detectives are we? We’re beyond BAD. And Wesley, what kind of double agent is he- I watch movies- spies are supposed to tell the good guys what the bad guys are planning before they do it, not after. Probably too busy sleeping with that skanky bitch.”
Her relief that Wesley wasn’t really working for Wolfram & Hart had turned by leaps and bounds to criticism at Wesley’s perceived methods. She twirled and landed back in the chair her arms firmly across her chest glaring at everyone.
“Girl. He was doing a job. Sure, the bitch is kind of hot, but….”
“HOT? I believe I said she was a SKANKY BITCH.” Fred’s glower focused entirely on her boyfriend.
Gunn jumped back his dark face, blanching more than a few degrees. “I said she was a bitch,” looking for support from the other men and wondering at the same time why Fred was getting so upset.
Sure, Wes and Lilah doing the bedroom tango wasn’t a pretty picture, but sometimes a spy’s got to what a spy’s got to do. Gunn was just glad it wasn’t him.
“Kiddies. Wesley’s undercover ‘undercover’ mission isn’t the issue as torrid as it is. Angel cakes, are you sure about Wesley’s loyalty?”
Angel briefly looked up from Cordelia. “Yes.”
“Okaydokie, since you’re the one that tried to smother him, we’ll follow your say so.”
Silence again settled over the room. Angel went back to studying Cordelia’s sleeping form. He jerked as he felt her hand move.
“Hi,” Cordelia said softly.
“Cordy.” Angel pulled her up in a tight hug.
“Uhuh.” She said pushing back again. “That wasn’t a Power’s trip- what was it?”
“Wolfram & Hart’s device-it blew up.”
“Oh, Creepy Polly didn’t tell me it could do that,” Cordelia moved trying to get up.
“Cordy, stay.”
“Angel, I feel fine, a little whoosy and groggy, but fine. No permanent damage.”
“Dr. Lota removed it.”
“Who?” Cordy reached for the bandage on her neck. “Am I going to have a scar? I mean that’s what my stomach’s for.” Cordy shook her head. “Nevermind, hi guys.” She waved to Gunn, Fred and Lorne.
“Hi, Cordy, we’ve been looking for you. Honest. Really. We just didn’t find you. We’re so sorry.”
“I’m found now,” Cordelia smiled at the forlorn expression on Fred’s pretty face. “It’s okay.” Cordy to the vampire hovering next to her. “Angel, I’ve a plan.” She yawned.
“Sleep.” Angel pushed Cordelia back on the bed. “Tomorrow you can tell us your plan.”
Cordy sighed,” You too,” she yawned again, pulling the vampire down next to her.
Gunn and Fred looked at Lorne, both a little surprised that the vampire hadn’t at least pretended to protest at the proposed sleeping arrangements.
“Come on kiddies, the lovebirds need their rest.”
“Lovebirds?” Fred said once in question then a great smile over came her face. “Thank goodness, something went right.”
