Part 13
Cordelia gritted her teeth. Emily was breaking every bone in her hand, she was sure of it but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away or ask the teen to let go. The girl was scared beyond the telling of it, Cordelia knew the look she’d woken up after nightmares recounting her own experiences and seen that look in her own eyes. Mirrors weren’t just for putting on make-up, she thought her eyes landing on Angel – and just how did he do his hair?
Angel stepped through a metal detector and handed someone on the other side money for the cover charge of the club. A club run by a demon and was the safe place for Emily, Cordelia didn’t get it but she trusted Angel. But she still didn’t get it and her eyes widened as she took in the eclectic mix of demons, vampires and even possibly other humans in the club. Then the worst voice she’d ever heard started to sing “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles, her eyes went to the stage and she shuddered at the sight of two-headed furry-beast demon of some sort.
“It’s okay,” she whispered into Emily’s ear, trying to reassure the girl and herself. She inched closer to Angel, who was purposely striding through the crowd and created a break in the crowd.
“Angel?”
“What?” Angel asked.
“Are you sure about this place?”
Angel turned toward her and Emily, grabbed Cordelia’s arm and moved them in front of him. Guiding Cordelia by pressing his hand onto her lower back, he talked directly into her ear.
“Cordelia, this place is a violent free zone and I trust the owner. He’ll watch out for her for the night. Then Gunn will take her to some friends of his, until she can be safely returned to her family.”
Cordelia thought her knees might buckle, he was so close and his low voice felt like it was vibrating through her. She cursed herself for still having an attraction to him, then decided to damn him for being so hot and probably having no clue. She’d already established for the night he couldn’t look in a mirror.
“How do you do your hair?”
“What?”
Cordelia laughed at herself. “Nothing, lame thought said it out loud.”
Angel’s hand slipped around her waist, pulling her to a stop against him. She gasped at the sudden movement, and because of the solid body behind her but instantly started to deny her reaction. Angel is not a sex symbol. A no bone. Angel getting some equals your murder. The old mantra she used to chant when she caught herself looking at his ass in high school after his return from hell came back to her in a second. Like riding a bicycle, Cordelia thought, you never forget how to talk yourself out of an attraction to Scourge of Europe.
“Angel,” she whispered out as she pulled Emily closer to her in the crowd.
“I found him,” Angel said, once again into her ear. Angel getting some equals your murder.
“Him?”
“The Host. Sit, order something for you and Emily,” Angel said, guiding her and Emily into a booth she hadn’t even seen. He looked at them and then around at where they were. His eyes moved in the direction of the side of the stage, Cordelia instinctively followed them. Her eyes landing on a tall green demon with red horns and wearing a orange suit with a turquoise tie. She laughed, Angel hadn’t been kidding when he said green demon who dresses loudly. “You weren’t kidding about how he dresses.”
Angel made that odd noise in the back of his throat; Cordelia decided was definitely a chuckle and nodded before he took off toward the demon. Cordelia watched him make his way through the crowd, stopping to take in the sight of the more odd and ugly demons before she turned to look at Emily.
Emily had pushed herself against the wall and was staring at the patrons of the club and then she met Cordelia’s eyes. “This is where I’ll be safe?”
Cordelia nodded. “Angel says so.”
“Why do you trust him?”
Cordelia shrugged and glanced back at Angel, noticed the demon was looking in their direction and smiled when his red eyes met hers. She smiled back before turning to Emily. “I don’t know why, I just know that I do. I trust Angel.”
Emily nodded but her eyes fell to her hands. “I’ll be able to call my mom?”
“Of course.” Cordelia grabbed her hands and squeezed until Emily met her eyes. “I promise to make sure of that.”
“You’re leaving aren’t you? You and Angel. Leaving me here?”
Cordelia nodded. “We have to. They’d look for you at Angel’s and well I was just loaning him my car. The dork left his lights on.”
Emily actually laughed and Cordelia smiled. “He really is a dork, you know I never really noticed that when I knew him before…” she shared with Emily.
“Before?”
“We ran into each other again recently. We kind of knew each other when I was in high school.”
“So you aren’t together?”
“Me and Angel,” Cordelia blew out air and shook her head. “I like my guys to know what color is.”
“I know what color is,” Angel said from behind her. “I have color in my wardrobe.”
“What? Dark red. Yeah, the color of blood. Bold fashion statement for a man like you, Angel.” Cordelia raised an eyebrow at him and then looked the green demon standing next to him. “Is this The Host…and by the way, Mr. Host, lame, lame, lame name.”
“Lorne.”
“God bless you?” Cordelia said, staring at the demon. What had he just said to her? “Shouldn’t he speak English he is in Los Angeles,” she said to Angel.
“My name, Brown-eyes, it is Lorne. Well for short, we won’t get into the whole thing…and Angelfish this is one special woman here, would love to get her up on my stage…thinking her path has some interesting and very important turns…”
“Lorne? Huh,” Angel said and the he shook his head. “We don’t have time for Cordelia to sing.”
“Me. He meant me? My eyes are hazel.”
“Brown. Hazel. Same thing to these Pylean peepers.”
“What?” Cordelia stared at the demon. “Pie what?”
“Never mind that Brown-eyes, and that’s what you are to me…” Lorne smiled. “Angelcakes, don’t you worry, let’s go upstairs and get Emily acquainted with my telephone and guest room.”
“I can call my Mom?”
Angel nodded. “Yes, let her know you are safe, but don’t tell her where you are.”
Emily laughed weakly. “I don’t think she’d believe me if I tried. “
Lorne winked at her as she made her way out of the booth and he put his arm around her. “Don’t you worry Catnip, I’ve got all the music you young ones like to groove to and pay per view upstairs. You call your Mom, we make the hunk in the leather behind us feel better about your Dad’s testimony then you and I will have ourselves quite a little slumber party. I’ll do your hair, you can do my horns…”
Cordelia followed the demon, apparently named Lorne upstairs finding it amazing that he had Emily completely at ease so fast. But she had to admit there was something likeable about him. Maybe it was some sort of demon mojo he had and she turned to Angel who was walking next to her. “He has a mojo that just makes people like him.”
Angel gave her a small smile. “I’ve wondered. Good to know his name, too. Thanks.”
“Way too many words for your monosyllabic nature, huh?”
Angel shot her a look.
“Will you stop with the wounded looks? If you can’t take the teasing get out of earshot of me.”
Angel shook his head and headed into the apartment Lorne had disappeared into with Emily. Following them Cordelia found that the demon had really good taste. His apartment was flawless, with tasteful colors, furniture and artwork; she felt like she could have done the decorating herself…in fact if she had it would look even better. The kitchen counters wouldn’t be a dark green; they’d marble or black that she knew for sure. A green person should have no green fixtures, there were enough stupid white people living in the land of beige as there was.
Suddenly she was being hugged tightly by Emily, who was giggling in her ear. “Thank you so much, Cordy. I feel so much better now and Lorne says we can have S’mores after I take a relaxing bubble bath.”
“Ooh, that sounds good.” Cordelia grinned at the young girl.
“Thanks again, Cordy. You too, Angel. Thank you for saving me.” Emily stood up, smiled at Angel, gave Cordelia one more swift hug before bouncing into a bedroom.
Cordelia turned to Angel, to see him nodding at Emily with a small smile, as he carried on a conversation with someone on the phone. Probably Emily’s mother or the father’s lawyer. His voice was full of authority as he told whoever it was that the testimony should happen as planned and Emily would be safe for the next few days. And that yes it was best she stay hidden until then. Finally he hung up and his eyes locked with Cordelia’s. “Ready to hit the sewers again?”
Cordelia raised her eyebrows at him and put her hands on her hips. “I hope you don’t really expect me to answer that stupid question with a yes.”
“Well, that’s where we are going, it’s the fastest way to your car.”
“Which you are welcome about by the way.”
‘What?”
“Why, Cordelia, thank you for the loan of your car,” Cordelia said lowering her voice and doing her best Angel impression.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“Especially, when you never utter the words.” Cordelia agreed, following him out of the apartment.
Angel sighed and his entire upper body seemed to go up and down with the motion. “Look, thank you for the car, the ride, whatever… but you shouldn’t have gotten out of the car.”
“Emily would have been grabbed by that lawyer.”
Angel made a sound that Cordelia realized a moment later was a small growl.
“You don’t like the lawyer?” She asked.
Angel stopped in the hallway they were in and opened a door that led into an alleyway. “This way. He’s not to be trusted. No one from Wolfram & Hart is to be trusted, Cordelia. Ever.”
Cordelia felt her mouth go dry, Angel was looking right at her with nearly black eyes and his jaw set in a determined way that made her blood go cold. “You’re trying to warn me, why?”
Angel bent down and lifted the entrance to the sewer and motioned for her to start climbing down. Cordelia realized he had no intention of answering her question until they were down in the rat infested wet and icky sewer. Sure he was scaring her and now he wanted her in horror movie setting. Damn it, wasn’t a dark alley horror enough for him? “Isn’t this setting ishy enough for you? Why are you trying to scare me when it comes to a law firm?”
“Because you should be. Because you mentioned your boyfriend knows of them.”
“Alec?”
“Is he involved with them in anyway Cordelia?” Angel asked.
“No. He just knows of them,” Cordelia said, realizing she really wasn’t sure if that was the truth. “As far as I know.”
“I hope that’s it now can we get moving?”
Cordelia nodded and started down the ladder. “Why do you hate them?”
“They are evil.”
“Aren’t all lawyers?”
“Not like these, lawyers, Cordelia.” Angel jumped to the bottom of the sewer just as Cordelia stepped away from ladder. “They help evil. They keep evil on the streets. In a lot of different forms. Look what they were doing tonight. I know you aren’t naïve enough to think they would have let Emily go.”
Cordelia winced but nodded. “I was trying to pretend it, though.”
“No room for denial like that when it comes to Wolfram & Hart.”
“You make it sound personal.”
“It is.”
Cordelia shivered at the tone in Angel’s voice, the tightness in his body as he moved ahead of her. He had every muscle coiled tight out of anger and frustration at something she knew nothing about.
“Just never put yourself in danger unless I ask you to, Cordelia,” Angel said quickening his pace so he was ahead of her.
Cordelia bit her tongue to stop herself from arguing with him. It wasn’t exactly a smart argument, she had no intention of being in danger without knowing she had a safety net. She didn’t have a death wish. Angel was getting further ahead of her in the dark tunnel; she quickened her pace but decided to not try to catch up with him.
The way he was walking was screaming that he wanted space and she knew he wouldn’t let her fall behind.
Part 14
Angel cracked his back, rolled his shoulders, clenched his fists and then started the same pattern over again. Wolfram & Hart, Lindsey McDonald especially, got under his skin and grated against his nerves like no other being or person ever had in all his years of un-life.
Hell, even his father when he’d been alive hadn’t enraged him to homicidal levels, every time he found himself near Lindsey, or Lilah Morgan for that matter it took all his power not to kill them – he wished to anything holy or unholy they weren’t human. Technically anyway, they had no souls, they’d sold their souls purposely, with evil glee he surmised. They hadn’t be forced, or cajoled into becoming evil they’d walked into it with eyes wide open.
And that made them even worse than him without a soul. He’d been seduced by Darla, had his rebellious nature and anger at his father used against him by her. She’d known just how to entice him, just how to lure him in and just what to promise the drunken layabout with an artistic soul. He’d expected sex and lies for a night and nothing more.
He’d gotten more than he’d expected. It was almost 250 years later and he was still finding the path that he’d blindly chosen that night in the alley took him to unexpected places. He’d never known his place in the world as a human and now as a vampire with a soul, an anomaly Cordelia had called him, he still had no clue.
Angel had moments where he thought it was clear. He was supposed to help Buffy, the beautiful, young, innocent suddenly finding herself Chosen to save the world. To fight things she had thought of as figments of imagination and only seen in horror movies. He’d made his life about her, he’d admired her courage and her heart, and he’d blindly fallen in love everything she represented to him.
A purpose, a way to live with the soul that caused him sleepless nights as his past as a ruthless and heartless killer haunted him. Buffy had been a reason to like pig’s blood, pretend the temptation of human blood wasn’t a daily struggle and a reason to fight for what mattered.
What mattered? Had he even known what mattered in Sunnydale? When he’d been fighting along side Buffy, fighting with Buffy as their very natures and being clashed, before and after she’d sent him to hell. Had he ever known what really mattered until he met Doyle?
Doyle. His first real friend. His first confident. Drunk, funny and with the largest heart Angel had ever seen. Doyle had taught him what mattered. The girls in the alleys, the boys running away from home that found demons worst then their father’s disapproval in the dark of the night. Doyle had taught him it was the innocent souls that came to him in visions that mattered and that it was Angel’s duty to save them. That humanity had been why he was sent back to earth from hell. Lost souls were what mattered.
Lost souls. Angel sighed and looked over his shoulder, suddenly remembering Cordelia. She was still there, behind him keeping up but not trying to catch up with him. He wondered at that, her instinct of when to keep her distance from him. She’d had in back in Sunnydale while they’d both been there on a separate journey to mourn Buffy’s death. She’d kept her mouth shut about it, they both had, both had needed to stay in their own heads about it. And somehow again, the Queen of Sunnydale High knew Angel needed his space. Had she always been so insightful?
He’d heard Lindsey warn her about him and watched her discount his words, as he finished fighting the vampires around him. He’d been afraid for her, more so than the lost soul, Emily, he was trying to save.
The lost souls seemed further and further away from him, day by day. Doyle had had visions, without those visions he with Wesley and Gunn’s help had to seek out who to help and where to go.
It wasn’t as satisfying.
And after everything he’d gone through with Darla’s return it felt both more important and increasingly pointless. He felt like he was chasing his tail; that no matter what their snitches told them that more and more souls were going to find darkness and end up dead than they could save. He didn’t even know if he was still a Champion. If the Powers, Doyle had spoken of still wanted him on this mission.
But he couldn’t stop. Doyle had taught him the importance. He’d faltered when he became obsessed with Darla, faltered and nearly lost his soul. Somehow luck had been with him and he pulled his ass out that fire. Barely. He could still feel the burning of the flames, he still felt like he could be sucked under by that fire at any moment.
Angel cracked his back, rolled his shoulders and gripped the metal of a ladder tightly then turned to watch Cordelia catch up with him. She took her time, not hurrying; maybe still knowing he wasn’t done thinking and wondering about what the hell his un-life was about at the moment. Or how much he wished he could just pop Lindsey’s head off his shoulders.
“Please tell me this ladder is our exit from this disgusting place, “ Cordelia said, giving him a hopeful look.
“It is.”
She smiled. “Thank God!”
Angel shook his head and started to climb up, pushing the cover up and climbing onto the concrete above them. Reaching down her hand slipped into his and he helped up and to find her balance on her feet.
“Car’s around the corner,” he said.
She nodded and tilted her head. “After you, Grr Boy.”
He turned but he barely took a step before two large puce colored demons descending on him, claws at the ready and feral smiles on their faces. One of them grunted that he’d been sent by Lindsey before he and Angel hit the pavement already in heated battle.
***
One second she’d been about to start walking, the next second she was on her ass on the ground watching in horror as a huge demon raked sharp talons across Angel’s chest. Pale skin, followed by blood poked out from the shredded shirt as he struggled to get the advantage over the demon, something Cordelia wasn’t sure Angel was going to gain.
The demon was huge; Angel was on the ground, on his back and bleeding, his shirt getting more and more shredded as the seconds ticked by. And it was only seconds, Cordelia gasped sharply realizing she hadn’t been breathing and only a moment had passed. She started to try to stand, to try to find something – she needed something heavy she supposed to hit the demon with. Shaky she made it onto her feet only to have something pinch into her upper arm, be lifted off her feet and find herself nose to nose to another demon.
“The girl,” the demon snarled at her. “Tell us where you took the girl.”
Cordelia gulped, her mind whirring with both denial that this was actually happening and with what the hell to do now. Her feet weren’t even touching the ground and she wanted back on the asphalt of the alley.
“Put me down!”
“Where’s the girl?”
“What the hell do you think I am!”
“You aren’t the girl we were hired to find.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes and continued to struggle. “Put me down.”
“Tell me or die.”
Cordelia lost her breath, the demon snarled at her again, it’s milky eyes boring into her and the claws pinching her arm started to dig in deeper. Blood, it was drawing blood. She couldn’t seem to kick her way free, her kicks were nothing to the demon’s body, and she was nothing but a pesky fly to it that it had by the wings. Well, her arm anyway.
“The girl, or I rip your pretty head off human!”
Cordelia screamed.
The demon snarled and then it’s mouth twisted into a saber-toothed smirk, at least that was what Cordelia thought it looked like. “Your death it is,” it whispered to her.
Cordelia let out a strangled sound her scream scared right out of her as claws started to wrap around her throat. And there was a sickening crunch and she waited to for the inevitable black out of death to come. Instead she hit the pavement hard, once again on her butt and the demon toppled over almost landing on top of her. Blinking Cordelia realized that Angel had broken its neck; that he’d made sure it hadn’t fallen on her. He was standing in front of her, his shirt and jacket a shredded mess, blood dripping and paler than she had ever seen him.
“Angel?” She whispered, her voice hoarse from the screaming coupled with the fear.
He opened his mouth but whatever he’d planned to say never happened because instead his eyes rolled up inside his head and he fell to a heap on top of the dead demon.
“Angel!”
***
Angel was complete dead weight, which Cordelia realized wryly made sense since he was dead. Luckily he kept going in and out of consciousness, at least enough for her to get him to move his legs a bit to help her move him. Now she stood, his weight nearly crushing her trying to find the keys to her apartment in her purse and wondering if the vampire had to be awake for the invitation inside. Did they have to hear you say, ‘come in’ or did the actual intent of the human living in the dwelling count?
Murmuring for the fifth time since she’d parked her car in her parking spot that he was invited in she shifted her own weight to try to lesson his and he nearly toppled to the floor. “Shit!” She exclaimed, grabbing onto his ruined clothes and pushing him against the wall with her hip. “Wake up, Angel?”
He stayed dead to the world.
She let out a large huff of air and started digging in her purse again, realizing that blood was all over her hands, her purse and her clothes. “Oh, God, my dry cleaning bill is going to be so huge and this purse is totally ruined. I can not believe this,” she said to the unconscious vampire. “Will you please wake up?”
He gave a grunt. “Angel?” Cordelia whispered, surprised by the sound. “Angel?”
He murmured and then started to fall down the wall, leaving blood smeared on the pale paint of the hallway.
Cordelia rolled her eyes but soon smiled triumphantly as her key chain appeared back in her hands. How it had gotten so deeply buried in her purse between the parking lot and her door she didn’t know. Served her right for bringing Angel here, but where the hell else was she supposed to go? His hotel? She wasn’t sure she knew the way from where they’d been and her place was closer.
“Once again you, Angel, are invited into my apartment and I really hope you at least heard me once or it’s just the intent that counts…” she muttered, unlocking her door and grabbing onto both his arms and dragging him over the threshold. No barrier stopped him, nothing stopped her except possibly his complete dead weight. Thank god none of her neighbors were up, they’d think she murdered him and was going to keep him in her bathtub, or something with all the blood.
Taking a huge breath she somehow managed to get Angel somewhat on her couch, dropped to her knees and started to peel off what was left of his jacket and shirt. She’d seen the demon claw him a few times before she’d been snatched by its partner, what she’d missed was a few million more swats, Angel’s entire torso was red, with long scratches that didn’t look all that deep – anymore. She touched one and noticed it was a little warmer than the rest of the surrounding skin, probably from the broken skin. Everything seemed to be healing up fine, the earlier bullet holes the scratches, but he was a mess. Pulling the ruined clothes free she tossed them on her coffee table and then stared at his face.
“I really wish vampires breathed,” she whispered. “Because this is downright freaky, you look like a corpse. Which I suppose you are but…” she shivered and crossed her arms around her chest, hugging herself. She had to clean him up, cover up the deeper wounds and wait, she guessed. Wait for Angel to wake up.
She walked into her bathroom, telling her heart to slow down, reminding herself that he’d killed both the demons, that their were no more vampires or anything and no one knew where she lived. She smiled, realizing that it may have been smart to bring him here because more fiends from hell, working for that lawyer could have gone to the hotel. Soaking a towel with hot water, she took a deep breath and steeled her spine. Everything was going to be okay, it was over, and hell after tonight her upcoming job as bait for him would probably be a piece of cake.
Back in her living room she took one look at him and sighed. “And you still look like a corpse. Could you wake up,” she asked him, kneeling back down and starting to dab at his wounds with the towel. “And eeeeew, I really, really hate blood, Angel. Have I ever mentioned this to you?” She babbled nonsensically at him, knowing he wasn’t going to wake up. She’d seen enough of his fight with the demon to know he’d taken one hell of a beating and that was after already being shot earlier, and the fight he had with the vampires. God, was this a normal nightly thing for him?
Fear shot through her as she pictured him passing out in alleys, possibly to not wake up before sunrise. He could turn to dust somewhere and no one would ever really know, no one could find him. Dust was dust, it’d blow away and no one would really have a clue. She gasped for breathe at the thought, at the emptiness of such a death and how sad it would be. Maybe he’d just naturally wake up before sunrise, he had a survival instinct…
“Pfft. You are making me have serious thoughts, Angel,” she chastised the passed out vampire.
She pushed the morbid idea of him dying passed out in some alleyway because of the sun after a bad fight. Cordelia focused on what was in front of her, a half naked, bruised, bloodied and scratched man. He was so pale. She scrunched up her nose as she finished wiping off all the blood and watching the progress of his rapidly healing wounds with interest.
Only he stayed so pale. He probably needed blood she realized and she frowned. Standing up she looked down at herself, realizing for the first time that her arm was bleeding from where the demon had pinched its claws into her, that her dress was torn and covered not only with blood but dust, dirt and lord knew what else from the alley ways and sewers. “Ugh.”
Glancing at Angel on her couch, she decided he was as good as he was going to get for the moment and she turned on her heel. She’d take a shower, put on some clean clothes and see how he was once she was clean. Maybe he’d have woken up, or would be his usual shade of pale instead of three times paler than that. Cordelia hoped.
Thirty minutes later, Cordelia hurried out of her bedroom back to the couch. She couldn’t stop worrying about Angel. It was their shared history and it was seeing him in action. Seeing what he faced, day in and day out here in Los Angeles. It was nothing like what happened in Sunnydale, that was just basic demons, and usually they were about rituals or just your basic hit and run victims. What Angel was facing was people, was demons and people, lawyers and things using little girls to keep evil afloat in the world. It felt darker and more sinister than anything she’d seen Buffy face in Sunnydale.
And that made knowing about the reality of monsters and magic feel more threatening than ever. This wasn’t about her finally leaving the bubble of denial about the vampires that roamed her childhood hometown. This was about pure evil alive and well in the city she lived in. In a well known law firm that hired vampires and demons to help them kidnapped, terrorize and probably kill a teenaged girl to simply stop her father from testifying… against someone who was a criminal whether he was a demon or not.
Sitting down on her coffee table, Cordelia stared at Angel. She touched his chest and shivered at how cold it felt against her fingertips and how odd it felt to touch someone who wasn’t breathing yet you knew was alive – in an undead sort of way. He was still too pale, she was sure he wasn’t normally so white and she bit her lip. His wounds were nearly healed but he was so white. He needed blood, she was sure of it.
Looking at the time, she realized it was going on 3 in the morning. How had time flown by so fast, so quickly? She thanked the heavens it was Friday and she didn’t have work the next day. Adrenaline was rushing through her, there was no way she was going to be able to sleep. And her guest needed blood. Making a decision, Cordelia scribbled a note for Angel in case he woke up while she was gone and left her apartment to head to the nearest butcher.