PART 11
Coming too was a bitch. Her jaw felt like it had been broken. Grinding it and checking for missing teeth with her tongue, Cordelia did her best to ignore the knowledge that she was naked from the waist up. Well, actually she was totally naked except for something smooth and silky that was tucked around her waist and legs. Well, gee, thanks for preserving some of my modesty, guys.
And the humiliations just keep on a comin’ she sighed thinking, I should have just stayed in Sunnydale. At least then I’d have been eaten by now and saved myself this.
Finally the constant and low rumble of somebody chanting caught her attention. Chanting was never good, she knew. Hazel eyes snapped opened wide.
…and saw the most terrifying and butt-ugly face she’d ever laid eyes on. “Gross!”
Veins like blue worms mapped the face of the old man standing over her. It was so bad the rest of his skin looked purplish; which was really not a good colour-match for the yellow eyes. Now real panic took hold. Squirming on the mattress, Cordelia let loose an ear-splitting scream, and then began wrenching violently at the straps in a frenzied attempt to break free.
Stricken, Cordelia whipped her head from side-to-side, searching as far as she could see for someone to appeal to, and found nothing except avidly grinning vampires and worse.
Panting as she squirmed, Cordelia sensed the chanting reached a crescendo. Looking back up at Anton, she saw a knife was now poised over that monstrous head with its gleaming point aimed straight for her chest. Oh God- ogodgodgod
Purely on instinct, she sucked in a deep breath and lifting her chin, screamed as loud as she could, “ANGEL!!
The desperate scream was so loud it almost drowned out the sharp, splintering sound of breaking glass and wood. Almost but not quite. Instantly everyone looked up and to the side, toward where the sounds had come from; catching the crunch of something heavy landing just outside of the encircling candle-light.
Engrossed in his rituals, Anton was the single exception and Cordelia gave a shrill open-mouthed scream as the knife began its decent. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a deep voice, yell, “Anton, NO!” just before there was a meaty thud and something black and solid appeared in the middle of a blood-red robe.
It was only when he staggered back, chin to his chest and staring disbelievingly down at the same object that Cordy recognised what it was. It was a knife handle made of very solid and very modern black plastic. The metallic clatter that followed was Anton’s own knife falling from his open hand.
That signalled all hell breaking loose. Shouts, yells, bangs and running footsteps heralded the sounds of pitch battle. Cordelia couldn’t take it all in. Outside of herself, strapped to the triple damned table, and the gruesome figure of Anton, everything was a mishmash of blurred, writhing shapes and snarling faces.
Beside her, Anton managed to pull the blade out of his body, sagging and gasping with pain as it finally slid free of his flesh. If there was blood it was impossible to see against the robes deep red. He stayed on his feet though and Cordelia wanted to scream at the injustice of it. Is it so much to ask that when a bad guy got stabbed he’d die, or at the very least be crippled with pain?
After flinging the knife at Anton in a desperate bid to save Cordelia, Angel had been forced to defend himself from the mage’s pet hell-beasts. Forewarned by growling breaths that reeked of unimaginable things, he spotted something big moving in fast and turned to meet it.
It was like standing in between the tracks and letting the next freight train run you over. It was all he could do to stand his ground. Grappling with its arms and pinching the elbows between his thumb and fingers to try and prevent its spears from ejecting, Angel saw a second one loping towards them out of the corner of his eye. Rather deal with two of them at once; a super fast way of ending up properly dead in his opinion, he hung on those necessary few second and then swung himself and the first demon around.
It wasn’t easy. The demon weighed a ton and add in the resistance factor and it was an inhuman feat. Vamping out gave him the extra strength he needed at the very last second. Not before time too, he thought when gnashing teeth nearly took off the front of his face. The second demon was unable to change the angle of its attack when suddenly finding its intended victim replaced by one of its own kind.
The twin spears that would have buried themselves in Angel’s back, instead impaled the demon he’d been wresting with. Staggering clear, he heard Anton roar a demand, “Defend me,” and zeroed back in on the mage just in time to see him clumsily swiping the ceremonial knife back off the floor.
“Damn it!” There was about forty feet between Angel and Anton with the third demon standing guard in-between.
All around him, vampires and street kids were battling it out in the derelict building’s ground floor. Somewhere nearby a flamethrower whooshed and the air sizzled followed by an angry roar of demonic pain. Madness ruled and the noise coming from all quarters was deafening.
Angel’s big mistake was getting distracted because it gave the second demon enough time to throw off its dead kindred and gather itself to pounce. In fact he was so distracted, it wasn’t until an axe flew past him and landed with a meaty thwump that he even became aware of the danger. A quick glance in the direction the axe had come from showed Gunn already swinging back into the fray and fighting the vampires.
Gratitude was brief out of necessity. Over by the gurney, Anton was clutching his abdomen with one hugging forearm and re-raising the knife with the other hand. Lunging to close the distance, Angel met the last demon with a leaping kick to the throat and didn’t stop to see where it landed, or for how long.
In that moment nothing else impinged on his mind except getting to Cordelia. Not the sudden arrival of Wesley, Rupert Giles and a third man. Not the vampire that tried to halt his progress only to be thrust aside like so much flotsam. Nothing except perhaps the ethereal sight of a blonde woman floating out of nowhere and …
Skidding to slow his impetus and make sense of it, Angel’s already pale face bleached white as the apparition seemed to sink into and merge with the desperately thrashing Cordelia. As it did the thrashing calmed.
***
Anton’s breath was whistling between teeth gritted against the fiery agony in his abdomen. Letting the sting of sweat drip into his eyes, he forced the arm holding the knife to rise in readiness to be plunge down. Chaos reigned behind him, but he refused to acknowledge the vampire. Other than to feel a distant satisfaction that he would be able to witness first-hand Angel’s horror at feeling the soul wrenched loose.
First things first, he needed the heart to commence the de-souling spell. With Ushkil at the fore, the girl meant nothing to him. He hardly saw her beyond the physical outline of her body and what it contained. Until the unbelievable happened.
Between one blink and the next; hazel eyes became blue and mussed brunette became soft gold. Staggered by the transformation, Anton felt as if he’d somehow driven the knife into his own heart. The hand holding the knife aloft trembled and then lowered slowly.
“Serena?” he whispered achingly.
“Hello, Daddy,” replied the girl on the table.
“It can’t be you?” he shook his head and trembled with a wave of grief that had never lessened, “This is some kind of trick, it has to be.”
“It is me,” replied Serena and those blue eyes turned moist, “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.” She took in a wobbling breath, “Why did you keep pushing me away. I kept trying to reach you, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“No, I would never-“ he faltered realising the presence he’d been refusing to acknowledge had in fact been his daughter’s spirit. The horror of what she was saying was crippling. Anton didn’t want to believe it. The question was dragged from him, “You’ve seen it all?”
“Yes,” true anguish filled Serena’s expression, “Oh, Daddy how could you do those things? How could you let that thing inside you?”
Anton couldn’t look into that beloved face and see her despair of him. His hand shook as he lifted the silken sheet from his daughter’s waist and raised it until she was decently covered. “I missed you so much, child,” he whispered brokenly, “I went mad and Ushkil offered me revenge. It was the only thing that lessened the pain, knowing I could avenge you-”
“Angel isn’t responsible for my death, Daddy,” Serena interrupted, “Ushkil is. Angel saved my soul from the same fate that awaits yours. Except when he came to me I didn’t have the knowledge to make a deal like you have. I begged Angel to take my life before the few hours I had left were up.”
“No,” Anton was shaking his head before she’d finished, “I don’t believe that. My daughter would never have dabbled with such things. You’re lying. You are not my daughter.” The ravages of his face had receded with her appearance. Now rage re-infused him and the evidence of the demon he was hosting swept any softness and humanity away. Fingers clenched white over the knife’s handle and Anton’s voice turned hard, “This is nothing but a cheap trick to stop me.”
“Ushkil came to me and convinced me with lies to listen to him,” insisted Serena lifting her head to stare him down, “He mixed truth and falsehood to dangle what he knew I wanted most- Angel.”
“Lies,” shouted Anton, although he wasn’t sure if the words came from him.
“Why would Angel have killed me, Father,” she asked losing patience, “Give me a motive that you know to be true and I will leave you in peace.”
Anton repeated what sounded like a mantra, “The demon overrode the paltry soul and reasserted itself. He let it because the soul is as weak and corrupt as any vampire.”
“Who told you that…Ushkil?” she asked. Full lips twisted with irony, “You mean the demon you let infest your body lied? Go figure, its not like demons do that a lot now is it?”
***
Angel started hearing that. He’d said the same thing to Serena all those years ago. After sixty years they’d come full circle. The last demon protecting Anton hadn’t stayed down, and he’d had to split his attention between it and what was going on around the gurney and Cordelia.
Managing not to get slashed or skewered, but still battered and exhausted with arms like lead weights, Angel got back to his feet. Wrapping both hands around the sword’s leather pommel, he yanked the blade free of the dead demon and made a mental note to thank Wesley for his timely intervention. If it hadn’t been for him sliding the sword toward Angel before leaping onto the demon’s back, he’d likely be dust by now. Instead he’d given him time to garner as much strength as he could muster before taking it on in a final deadly round.
“She’s telling you the truth, Anton,” Angel said now, raising his voice to be heard over the din of ongoing battle. Rupert Giles pulled a winded Wesley back to his feet and it was four men that approached the mage with wary caution. “You trusted me then. Trust me now. I would never have hurt Serena, not for any reason-“
Anton whirled, “You did-“
“- except to save her,” finished Angel firmly.
The sword felt solid and reassuring. The weight of it was distributed evenly by the symmetry of a balanced hold. Angel held it casually but ready to swing into action if Cordelia was put under threat. As much as he hated the idea, the knowledge that this nightmare would end only with Anton’s death was rooted firmly in his mind. The only reason he didn’t lunge and finish him now was Serena. The dead girl had a purpose in revealing herself. Maybe she wanted to save her father from one more death, but Angel also felt certain that she was doing this for him, too.
Serena knew he was in love with Cordelia and was trying to help save her. That knowledge gave him peace…and hope.
Anton was visibly struggling with the demon and the revelations. Bent almost double with darker stains spreading over the robes, the knife was clutched by a bloodless hand in a desperate hold. He swung back to Serena, turning his back on the approaching watchers and vampire.
“I’m sorry. I have to finish this. I have to,” he said, a hoarse plea for forgiveness ringing out. “I wish it where otherwise but you’re already dead.” He continued, pleading as if asking for her blessing, “I can’t stop now, he won’t let me.”
“If you kill this girl, you’ll destroy the last vestiges of me still left in this world,” Serena said sadly adding a little desperately, “After sixty years I’ve finally found someone to leave my gift with. It will be like being killed all over again. Don’t do that to me, daddy, please!”
Hearing that, Anton seemed to collapse in on himself. He looked grey and old with the veins still engorged, but his eyes were human. The hand holding the knife trembled as if he were trying to open the fingers and drop it; only something wouldn’t let him. Rivulets of sweat dripped down from grey hair. Head hanging and breathing heavily as if he’d run a marathon, Anton glanced at Angel over his shoulder.
The vampire was standing close enough to intervene if something went wrong. Meeting his sombre gaze, Anton lost his grip on hatred and wanted to weep. As in days of old their communication was silent and accurate. Angel nodded once in acknowledgement of a silent message.
“I wish you’d killed me, too,” Anton admitted roughly and was wracked by spasms of shudders as something took a grip of him. Braced with one hand on the gurney to keep him upright and using every last ounce of willpower, he began to undo the straps binding one ankle.
Behind a column and safely out of the way of any violence, Holland Manners murmured with an anticipatory smile, “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, my friend.”
***
To Cordelia it was like waking up from a dream. The veil lifted and the memories of the last few minutes rushed into her consciousness. Being possessed by the spirit of a dead girl was something that would under normal circumstances have squicked her out. However, these were anything but normal circumstances.
Lifting her head to see who was unbuckling her wrists the first person she saw was Angel; bruised and grazed with his expression harsh and moody, he was still a sight for sore eyes and her heart leapt. Then she looked down to see Wesley unstrapping her ankles. “Angel, Wes?” She asked confusedly. Their urgency was infectious. “What the hell is going on?”
“No time for questions, Cordelia,” Angel said tensely, sparing only a brief glance over his shoulder at something behind him. Then midnight eyes bored into hers, “When we’ve got you free, you run like hell, okay?”
She didn’t even have to think about it. “Uh no, I’ve done enough running. I’m sticking to you like glue, buddy boy.” Then something caught her eye behind him. Hazel eyes went comically wide. “Oh…crap!” No wonder they were in such a rush. “Hurry up, guys!”
Everywhere else had fallen into a complete hush. All fighting had ceased with both humans and vampires stilling and staring up, transfixed by the horror being enacted over their heads. Charles Gunn looked up, too, drawn back from the hell in his mind at having to dust his baby sister. On his knees, where he’d fallen as she disintegrated, he was pulled back to reality by the sheer absence of noise.
The silence didn’t last long. Swept up by an unseen force a writhing Anton Silverous dangled below the ceiling. Even night seemed to shrink back and the thick candles stuttered and flared. As his audience watched red boils appearing on every visible patch of skin. His mouth was gaping wide and his throat worked as if he was screaming and yet only strangled chokes came out.
When the boils spread and burst the humans started to back away. Adams apple’s bobbing as they tried to resist the urge to retch in reaction to the sight. Then the screams started. Instantly the retreat picked up pace and the two Wolfram & Hart lawyers joined them.
Free, wrapped in red silk and staying safely behind Angel’s reassuringly large frame, Cordelia sucked in a breath to calm her rioting belly and said, “Oh-my-God. That is so gross.” Then added with typical bluntness, “Look, guys, I’m thankful for the rescue, god knows I needed it…but can we just get out of here- like now would be good?”
“We can’t” advised Wesley gruffly, forced to shout over the agonised screams. “Unfortunately, as bad as this, it’s going to get worse for everyone before it gets better.” Having delivered the bad news, he bent to retrieve a book off the floor and made his way over to a pair of humans standing beneath the tormented mage.
“Why does it always have to get worse first? I hate that.” Peering around Angel, Cordelia averted her eyes from the horror and focussed on the men, “Is that Giles over there?”
“Yeah, and another watcher, too” said Angel heavily. He couldn’t take his eyes off Anton. As much as he’d been willing to kill him tonight, witnessing his death like this was sickening. There was no way to stop it though. Anton had made his deal and welched on it. All they could do was deal with the after affects.
“Armed with books?! Guh, why am I not surprised?” she asked with only mild disbelief. “Y’know this whole supernatural power of the pen thing gets old- fast. Wouldn’t a bazooka or something be *so* much quicker?”
It hit Angel then and vigilance fell by the wayside. He turned his head to look down at her. Feeling his gaze she looked up and blinked a query with her head cocked as if to ask, ‘what did I say?’
Cordelia continuously amazed him. She out of all of them had been through the worst and yet there she stood, not in the least bit fazed and still—Cordelia. In that wholly inappropriate setting and in the face of danger, his mood lifted.
Stood close enough to feel her warmth even through the leather duster, Angel knew they were still facing the possibility of a bloody battle; and yet he just wished it was all over and done. After the frantic worry of the last few days- weeks even- he wanted nothing more than to relax and revel in the fact that she was alive, safe and apparently not so disgusted by him she couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore.
When this was finally all over would she leave straight away, he wondered and his mood plummeted again. Shaking off despair, Angel gave his attention back to the nightmare in front of them.
So did Cordelia before deciding it was something she could do without reliving every time she closed her eyes. “Jeezus! Tell me when it’s all over will you,” she said and ducked behind him. It wasn’t a pretty sight and a part of Angel wished he had someone to hide his head behind.
Anton was being consumed. There was simply no other way of putting it. After the boils and blisters his skin seemed to recede, followed by the flesh until the white gleam of bone showed through. One loafer had fallen off and lay on the floor; leaving a skeletal foot to jerk spasmodically. To the assembled humans, he resembled a Halloween puppet on a string.
The crowd thinned even more. Unlike the street kids, it wasn’t the pain or obvious torment that pulled the vampires from their stunned stupor, but the chanting of the three watchers. Stood with their heads bent attentively to the texts they were reading from, three voices rose and fell in a matching rhythm. Sensing forces gathering of which they didn’t want to be a part; the remaining vampires melted away into the comfort of night.
Whatever it was that had Anton in its grip reacted angrily to the chanting. Pockets of red mist emerged from the mage’s body, merging and roiling to form larger and denser bubbles. Then the bubbles morphed, spreading like bacteria. Growing at a terrifying rate the formation of mist hardened into something much more physical. It also began to form into something resembling a face.
Within seconds a gaping maw had opened and with that came a distant inhuman howl. That howl grew louder and closer as the shape wrapped and rewrapped around itself, forming layer upon layer of what appeared to be a huge body. Meanwhile, in the face a pair of eyes snapped open.
The banishing spells weren’t going to work thought Angel, hefting the sword and bracing himself to dive onto the thing. Then a presence sidling up next to them drew his attention.
With his expression a mixture of sorrow, disgust and revulsion, Charles Gunn pointed at the watchers, asking, “Are they good guys or bad guys?”
“Good guys, they’re doing a banishing spell.”
“Could’a fooled me,” he retorted, sliding him a glance and jerking his chin up at Ushkil, “That looks more like a coming than a going to me.”
Uneasy himself, Angel got his point. He much preferred doing rather than watching, but Wesley had convinced him he had to leave this up to them. “They’re not easy spells to do,” he said, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see and be ready to kill it if it goes bad.”
Cordelia really didn’t like the way this was going either. The idea of making her escape while she could flitted briefly through her mind before she dismissed it. She felt safer where she was. Instead, she tried to inject some optimism, “Maybe you have to bring the thing here to get rid of it. I mean, how do you banish something that’s only got one foot in this world? It’d be like swatting at something that’s not really there.”
It was feasible thought Angel and then without warning, Wesley began a different chant, so that the two were being intoned at the same time. Hearing it gave Angel a strong case of the heebie-jeebies, a sensation not helped by a swirling hole appearing behind the emerging demon. It took a few seconds for him to realise what it was.
“Okay, that’s it,” announced Gunn noticing it, too, “somebody tell me what that is, or I go swinging in there. Ready or not.”
“It’s a portal,” answered, Angel relaxing now. “My guess is that when he’s fully emerged Ushkil is gonna find himself sucked right back out of our world and into another dimension.”
If that was the plan it went awry. By now the demon was recognisable as human-shaped. He also looked familiar. “Hey, that’s looks like-“
“Hellboy, and I don’t think he’s on the side of the Angel’s,” finished Cordelia, recognising it from the hours she’d indulged Xander’s obsession with comics, “Geeze, whoever said comic books follow real life needs to visit LA.”
Twin horns rose from a rock-hewn magenta face and yellow eyes blazed down at the human’s. Perhaps Ushkil was simply quicker at forming than they’d planned? Whatever the reason the portal wasn’t fully open when the demon was able to make a move. Instead of being sucked inside it, he dropped to the floor hard enough to crack the concrete floor and lunged.
Angel got there just ahead of him and tackled the watcher to get him out of harms way. “Stay back,” he instructed the man he assumed was ‘Teddy’ and rolled to his feet. Giles had managed to pull a still chanting Wesley to a safer distance while Gunn leapt at the demon with his axe raised high over his head. The axe just glanced off the demon’s head; striking sparks off one horn. A swipe of one thickly muscled arm send the hardy young street fighter flying to crash back to the ground some distance away. He lay still.
“Foolish humans,” boomed the demon, “did you imagine I was as easily defeated as a paltry vampire.” That yellow gaze fixed on Angel and a cold smile curved a lipless mouth.
Ushkil gave a mocking bow. “Excluding present company of course. No offence.”
“None taken,” said Angel as he closed the distance, “Excuse me for not giving a crap if you take offence when I say, you’re not welcome here.”
In response, Ushkil’s smirk only grew bigger, “I might if I thought there was a damn thing you could do about it.” He gestured towards Wesley and Giles. “To think I wasted so much time on Anton when all I had to do was get the Watchers Council to being me forth. Thanks for that by the way.”
“You’re welcome never had less meaning,” sniped Cordelia when the demon’s gaze lit on her and swept up and down. The red sheet wrapped sarong style under her arms felt gossamer thin under that searing gaze. “Don’t get too comfortable, cos your ass is out of here as soon as that thing is ready,” she sneered and flicked a glance at the portal.
Ushkil chuckled and said, “It is ready. It just has no effect at this distance and will soon close again.” He pretended to look sorrowful, “I’m afraid your gamble failed.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” snarled Angel, angered more by the assessing glance over Cordelia than anything else. “God, loves a tryer.”
Ushkil didn’t even try and duck Angel’s powerful roundhouse punch. He simply caught the fist and yanked the vampire closer. Face-to-face he jeered, “God doesn’t love this one though does he? Do-gooder or not.”
Vamping out, Angel head-butted him and retorted, “With a pretty face like mine, who wouldn’t love me?”
The ridges protected him enough that the blow did knock the demon back a few feet. The fight that followed was brutal in the extreme. Cordelia, Wesley and the rest of them could only stand by and watch as 6ft plus of muscled vampire met and clashed with a being that was older, bigger and a hundred times as vicious.
A few minutes later Angel was tiring and there wasn’t a part of him not aching like a sonovabitch. Slammed onto his front for about the fifth time, he spat out a mouthful of blood and bile and groaning rolled onto his back. Just in time for Ushkil to pick him up by the sides of his duster and toss him into a wall. Cinderblocks disintegrated under Angel’s weight and consciousness faded in and out.
Calls of encouragement sounded as if they came from underwater; all except for Cordelia’s. Her angry yells came from close by and somehow Angel managed to jack his eyes open. What he saw had his dead heart squeezing with terror. Ushkil was only a few ft away and a red-faced and furious Cordelia was coming up behind it with something held in her hands. That cleared away the cob-webs and Angel catapulted away from the wall just as Ushkil turned to meet Cordelia’s reckless charge.
Terrified but determined, Cordelia threw the candle directly into the demons face and he roared as the hot wax splattered all over his face and eyes. A look of triumph flooded her gorgeous face and Angel despaired when he saw that look change to, ‘oh shit’, when Ushkil charged her. He was only a step behind when the demon caught up with the fleeing girl.
Cordelia screamed when her hair was caught and cruelly twisted in a fist. A red mist dropped over Angel’s vision and his throaty growl had Ushkil swinging around to face his charge, too. Protective fury gave Angel the incentive he needed and every ache and pain simply disappeared as if they’d never been.
Grabbing the demons wrist nearest to him, Angel used his impetus to twist and pull him off balance and then chopped a hand down on the arm imprisoning Cordelia. It worked and Ushkil turned his attention back where it belonged. Seeing the others come up and usher a resisting Cordy back behind them, Angel concentrated on round two of the fight.
“When you’re dead I’m going to kill your little pets one by one.” Ushkil warned, eyes gleaming and the sockets blackened by the fiery wax, “The girl I’ll save until last. I have plans for her that aren’t quick and definitely not clean.”
Rammed into the same place he’d crashed into before, Angel felt the wall crumble further behind him and bringing up his hands, squeezed between the demons arms to stab his thumbs into his wounded sockets. “You won’t get near them or her,” he returned every bit as savagely; “I’ll see you in hell first.”
Howling, Ushkil released him and backed away from the pain. Following up with a snap kick; and then spinning on his heel to deliver a second arcing one, Angel drove the demon back and nearer to the still spinning portal. Realising he didn’t have much time before the portal closed itself, Angel dug deep and kept up the momentum with a series of hammer punches that left his knuckles raw and bloodied. It didn’t matter because pain couldn’t impinge on him thanks to a consuming rage that demanded this thing be made to pay.
Dropping to a squat, he swept out a foot and sent Uskil crashing to the floor. Ushkil returned the gesture and Angel went down too. Rolling over, Angel lifted his arm and slammed an elbow into the demon’s throat hard enough his head bounced off the unforgiving ground.
Then a shouted warning from Wesley dragged him back from his heedless rage and looking up he saw the portal grow smaller. They were almost out of time and his need for violence had cost them most of it. With that realisation, reason returned and cursing foully, Angel leapt to his feet and grabbed the demons hoofed foot. Gathering his strength, he began to spin, getting faster and faster until the demon was high enough off the ground that he could give one last monumental heave and let go.
With their hearts in their mouths they all watched the demon fly towards the closing portal; hoping and praying that it was still wide enough to suck the demon through. In the blink of any eye it was over. Ushkils last inhuman roar of frustrated rage echoed in the empty building as the portal closed behind him.
***
Fresh from the shower with his hair damp and black shirt warm from the iron, Angel exited the elevator and stepped into his office. The first place his gaze lit on was Cordelia’s empty desk. That was too painful. Jerking away, he sought and found Wesley sitting on the couch with an open book on his khaki covered lap.
“Haven’t you had enough of books?” he asked as a greeting and headed for the coffee percolator.
“Since you ask, no,” replied Wesley dryly, “I happen to find reading relaxing.”
Nodding and smiling wryly, Angel leant against the table and raised the mug to take a sip of coffee, saying “I should have known better than to ask?”
Wesley wasn’t fooled. Tossing the open book aside, he sat forward with his elbows on his knees and levelled a look at the too casual vampire. “Did you go and see her?”
Angel didn’t need to ask who ‘her’ was. “I did,” he said and continued knowing it was the next question, “And yes, I told her what I found out from Joyce.”
“What did she say? It must have been quite a shock finding out this whole thing had been a waste of time and Buffy’s heart was never removed for transplant.”
That was putting it mildly. Angel sighed and grimaced, “I don’t think she took it all in,” he admitted, “I don’t blame her either. A lot went down for what turned out to be nothing more than an administrative error.”
That led onto something else Wesley had been musing over. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said as an opener. “Doyle never met Buffy. Has it occurred to you that it wasn’t Buffy in his last vision at all, but Serena and Cordelia?”
“No, I hadn’t thought about it,” Angel shrugged, “Now you mention it though, it makes sense.”
If Wesley was surprised by his lack of reaction it was too bad. Angel was simply unable to offer more. Two days had passed since that night, and he’d spent every waking moment either thinking about Cordelia, or seeking out any distraction he could find. He kept telling himself that if she wanted to go, then he didn’t have the right to try and stop her. So far only half of him was listening though and the conflict was tearing him apart.
As useless as it was, Angel tried a change of topic as yet another distraction. “Did Rupert and whatshisname get off okay?”
“Rupert and I saw Teddy back on a flight to the UK and Rupert is taking the bus back to Sunnydale.”
Angel nodded his expression distant. “Oh Good.”
“But you’re not really interested in that are you?”
Blinking, Angel saw Wesley was now standing and looking uncomfortably shrewd. “What do you mean?”
“Have you been back to see Cordelia?” Wesley asked, crossing his arms, uncaring about a crisp shirt and cutting to the chase.
There was a pregnant pause before Angel sighed and pushed away from his perch. “Look, Wesley, I know you mean well,” he said over his shoulder, aiming for the safety and sanctity of his office, “And that this all my fault. You warned me and I didn’t listen. Believe me nobody regrets that more than me. But I don’t want to-“
“Hey, guys” breezed Cordelia and slammed the door behind her.
Angel swung around so fast he made himself dizzy, “Cordelia, wha-“
She ignored him until she could plonk her purse and a paper bag on her desk. Then turning around she pointed an accusing finger at him. “I have a bone to pick with you, mister.”
“A bone…?” Confused and befuddled, Angel looked blank, “You do?”
“This gal…um…Serena,” clicking her fingers in triumph, she asked a little too pointedly, “there was more to her than meets the eye, am I right?”
Frowning, Angel tried to think past the mere fact that Cordelia was in the office. Not just in the office either, but looking stunning in a strappy yellow sundress with her hair caught up in an intricate knot that showcased the graceful cuves of her neck and shoulders. It took an embarrassingly long time to answer, “She was a-“
“Seer,” finished Cordelia, “Tell me something I don’t know.” Looking decidedly unhappy about something, she flung herself down on the coach and enlightened the two men. “There I was coming into work on the bus when this thing hits me. And when I say hits me- I mean with a wallop.” A blush stained her cheeks, “I’m not sure but I think there was drooling involved and–”
“You had a vision?” asked Angel numbly.
“Howdy!” Cordelia exclaimed, “That’s what I’ve just been saying. Here I wrote it all down once I’d got done telling everyone I suffer from epilepsy.”
Angel took the note she handed him and couldn’t get his thoughts into order. He kept get stuck on one thing she’d said, “You were coming into work?” he asked and couldn’t disguise the hopeful note in his voice.
“Yeah, I just needed a few days off and don’t even think about docking my pay, Mister Miserly Pants, I needed the R and R.”
She wasn’t leaving! Angel just stood there and let the relief sink into his bones. That meant that plans to give her time and then go after her weren’t needed anymore. He could work on earning her forgiveness with her right next to him…night after night.
“Of course you won’t lose any pay,” Wesley said with a smile and stood up to give her a brief hug, “It’s wonderful to see you back by the way. I don’t mind telling you this place has been like morgue without you to brighten it up.”
“Well, duh” grinned Cordy delighted; and tried not to keep flashing Angel surreptitious glances, “For that you get a doughnut,” she said and returning to her desk, ripped open the paper bag to reveal a familiar box. Handing one over, she turned and this time she let Angel catch her gaze, “You don’t have time for one,” she prodded, “You have some poor defenceless sap to go save- so scoot.
Still he hesitated and she lost patience, “We’re okay here. We’ll talk later, just go, already!”
