Giles must have moved, because behind him the door opened, and Angel instinctively cringed away from the glow of sunlight in the front office. “There’s nowhere for you to go,” Giles said sternly. “Tell us who -”

Angel didn’t wait for him to finish, he lunged at him in spite of the sunlight beyond him, and Brendan put himself in the path, spinning into a roundhouse kick that caught Angel full in the side of the face. He stumbled, falling back towards his desk, and Bren was on him before he could recover, smashing his doubled fist into the base of his neck.

No, he honestly had no idea what he was doing, and he knew if he thought about it, he’d panic and lose it. He couldn’t fight Angel for long under normal circumstances; now was suicide. But he was sticking to the cold, clinical facts of Logan’s and Saddiq’s self-defense courses. When you were overpowered, you had to work other angles: speed, agility, ability, experience, and if you had none of those on your side, you had two things left - surprise and fighting very, very dirty (except Logan was a big proponent of option three, which was getting the fuck out of there - you could always come back with back up, which you couldn‘t do if you were dead). Bren knew he had surprise in the fact that he attacked Angel at all, but that wouldn’t last, so he was back to fighting dirty. He grabbed the back of Angel’s head and rammed it repeatedly into the desk, not giving him a chance to recover, but it quickly became irrelevant.

Angel slammed a fist blindly into his stomach, hard enough to make all the breath leave his body in a single rush. And Angel moved so fast he didn’t even have time to catch some air - he grabbed him and flipped him over, so he slammed down back first on the desk, hard enough that he saw black and yellow spots explode in front of his eyes. When they started to clear, he found himself looking up at a bloody and angry Angel. “Nice try, little bitch,” he growled, seizing him by the throat, his fingernails slicing into his skin.

Before he could do anything - and he was bound to do something bad - water splashed on the side of Angel’s face and he reeled away hissing, his skin sizzling like burning bacon. Giles must have pulled out the holy water (lucky for him), and he said something that sounded like a spell. As Bren forced himself to slide off the desk - he would have preferred to have passed out - he looked over the top of the desk just in time to see Angel had thrown a lamp at Giles and hit him square in the face, deflected only slightly by the arm he‘d managed to raise in time. “Shut the fuck up, old man!” he spat, as Giles staggered back and grabbed the doorframe, and Angel bolted for the interior door, the one leading to the internal hallway.

Bren opened one of the drawers of the desk and groped for a weapon (there were a lot of stakes, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to kill him yet), while Angel slammed up against a previously invisible barricade, the energy flaring a bright orange-red as he hit it and bounced off, snarling in pain. “What did you do?” he roared, spinning and lunging for Giles. No, he didn’t actually lunge; that implied that there was a transition between movement and result - he just seemed to fly across the room, a black blur, something moving too fast to be properly seen, and he probably would have ripped his throat out that very second if Giles wasn’t just beyond the doorway. That invisible barrier flared to life once more, keeping him just out of his reach. Giles looked at him coldly, blood trickling from cuts on his forehead. “If you had listened to me, you would have known I cast a binding spell. You’re not leaving this room until I want you to.”

Angel made a noise like an aggrieved tiger, a deep growl that was bone chilling in its pure demonic rage. “Then let me the fuck out.”

“Your mesmerism won’t work through the barrier, so don’t waste your energy.”

Bren felt something cold and round, a sphere of thin glass. Oh cool, had Angel saved the holy water “bombs” he’d given him? Perfect. He just grabbed one and stood up when Angel said, “Fine. But you left your little boy in here -”

Again Angel moved so fast he was a blur, and before Bren had even blinked Angel had seized him by the throat once more. But he was hyper-alert (a nice way of saying scared shitless), and just as Angel squeezed his windpipe like he was trying to rip it out of his neck, he smashed the globe full of holy water right into his left eye.

“Son of a bitch,” he roared, tossing him across the room like he was as light as a rag doll. Bren tried to catch himself, but hit the wall before he could. His consciousness waved as he slid down to the floor, but Giles finished the spell he had started earlier, and Angel was thrown back by an unseen force, and collapsed to the floor, unconscious … for the moment. His eyeball was still sizzling from the holy water, and looked somewhat grotesquely like it was boiling in its socket.

“Are you all right?” Giles asked.

Bren sat up, darkness trying to swamp his vision, and he tasted blood in his mouth as a sharp pain stabbed through his side. Well considering he’d just fought the super-charged Angel, he’d probably gotten off very lucky. “You didn’t see my spleen pop out, did you?”

Giles’s brow furrowed in concern. “No.”

“Then I guess I’ll recover.” He took as deep a breath as he could, and used the wall to help him stand up. He nearly fell over twice.

“If you revert to Human, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“I don’t need it; as long as I stay Brachen, I should recover pretty quickly.” He was forced to take a couple of shallow breaths through his nose as he attempted not to pass out, and he was careful to inch along the wall, not ready to move without support yet. Yeah, those were probably internal injuries. What he wouldn’t give to have Logan’s healing factor right now.

Giles was staring at Angel’s still form, and for having been beaten both physically and mystically, Angel looked surprisingly good. He had a extra rapid vampire healing factor too - lovely. “So, new powers, huh?” Bren asked, feeling like an idiot.

Giles nodded almost absentmindedly, still staring at Angel. “Logan mentioned something about him having some kind of weak mental power, but that wasn’t weak. How did he resist it?”

He really wanted an answer from him, didn’t he? “Well, umm, maybe Angel’s gotten stronger since then. Or, you know, Logan’s a tougher nut to crack. He was used as a fuck towel by just about every telepath down the pike for a long time - maybe the ones with a less than overwhelming ability just don’t effect him that much.”

Giles scowled at him, possibly for the language, but his pale eyes were bright with intrigue. “What, he adapted to low level telepathic ability?”

Was that what he said? His head was still spinning, and he wasn’t honestly sure. “Uh, okay, yeah.”

He nodded, looking back at Angel on the floor. He twitched, and Bren felt his stomach lurch, although Giles expression gave nothing away. “That sleep spell should have put him under until sundown. He’s growing resistant to magic.”

Bren had never heard such a thing. “Is that possible?”

Although it pained him, Giles was forced to shrug a single shoulder. “Not with a vampire. But it isn’t clear what’s happening to him.” All doubt dissolved, and his jaw set grimly. “Call Logan. We need him here now.”

He managed to scoff, although it hurt to breathe. “I’ve tried to call him. He isn’t answering.”

“Keep calling until he does. I don’t care if he’s locked in the trunk of a car, he’s supposed to be a bloody superhero, isn’t he? He can stop playing vigilante for a day. Also, get Faith in here; get everyone in here. I’m not sure we can contain him much longer, not unless I start calling on some darker magic.”

“Everyone? But Faith -”

“Is a Slayer, and we may need that.”

He was clearly not in a mood to have a discussion - he was issuing orders. And there was something in Giles’s tone of voice that made you want to obey. It was almost a relief that someone was taking charge and sounding like they actually knew what they were doing. “Do you mean Xander too?”

The look Giles gave him said it all. “No. That might still pan out, and besides, he can’t really help here. Just don’t tell him that.”

“Gotcha.” He wanted to ask what they were going to do with Angel, but he didn’t, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, and he wasn’t sure Giles had an answer yet anyways, and he didn’t want to shatter the comfort of someone being a fearless leader.

But what if he was gone for good? What if they never got Angel back?

What were they going to do?

*****

Logan didn’t realize he was just sitting staring out the windshield at nothing until Hel punched him on the arm. “Hey, what was that for?” he muttered, rubbing his arm. She knew just where to hit, where she’d hit more muscle than bone, and it hurt.

“’Cause I want to know why this is personal for you when you don’t even know these people. What’s going on here?”

He shrugged, and looked out the passenger window to avoid her eyes. “Nothin’. I just don’t like these kinda people.”

“Uh huh. You’re not the only one who knows when people are lying, you know.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and wished Hel would start her car, as the heat was starting to build up to intolerable level, and he could feel sweat starting to crawl down his face. “I really don’t wanna talk about this right now.”

“Knowing you hon, you never want to talk about anything. But this is hurting you. You think I can’t tell? I know you, and -” she paused as her cell phone rang - the ring tone was Static X’s “I’m With Stupid”, and he wondered if that was her way of tweaking Bob - and answered it with a slightly annoyed scowl. “Yeah kid, this ain’t a good time …” she paused, then said, “Yeah sure.” She handed her phone to him. “Bren wants to talk to you.”

Oh shit, he was so not in the mood for this. But maybe talking to him would spare him from spilling his guts to Helga. “What is it?”

Bren’s story knocked all the self-loathing straight out of him. Things had gone straight down the toilet with Angel, and although Bren claimed to be “fine”, he sounded pained. And he’d called the bar in hopes that Hel would know where he was since he wasn’t picking up his cell, and that’s how he found out Helga was with him. (The kid really was a budding detective, which was kind of scary.)

Giles wanted to bring everyone in, as Angel kept acquiring new powers along with his new, unpleasant personality, and two (well, two and a half) names occurred to him that Giles hadn’t mentioned. He told the kid, but the kid didn’t know how to contact them. Helga tapped him on the shoulder, and mouthed ‘Bob knows’. Well, of course he did - and if he did, Logan knew that he should know. He wasn’t looking forward to talking to them, but he knew they might need them if things went further to shit with Angel. He told Bren to tell Giles he’d be coming in with company, and hung up.

Of course he had to get Hel up to speed on what was going on with Angel, and she listened without comment, only grimacing slightly at key points. Once he was done, she said, “Who benefits from Angel becoming a super vampire killing machine? I don’t think Wolfram and Hart would want that, simply because he might come for them.”

“Yeah, that occurred to me. But I dunno know - Angel’s gotta have lots of enemies, going way back. I really don’t know how we’re gonna figure out who’s targeting him.”

“Then we don’t. We just have to figure out what’s happening to him, and backtrack from there,” Helga said reasonably. But that was easier said than done.

He had to think about it a moment, but the number floated into his mind, and he punched it up with great reluctance. He braced himself, and listened to the ring, wondering if he would get an answering machine. What could possibly be on it? Horrible, hellish screams? Fingernails down a blackboard? Their taunting voices? “It’s A Small World After All”? Certainly something that would make your flesh crawl.

As it was, he never found out. “Hello -”

“- Logan -”

“- or are -”

“- you Bob -

“- right now?”

He sighed, wishing he was shocked. “How are you both on the same fucking phone?”

“Separate -”

“- telephones -”

“- same line.”

“Is this -”

“- about Daddy?”

He looked at the phone in disbelief, aware that it would do him no good at all. “You know there’s something wrong with Angel?”

“Of -”

“- course -”

“- we do -”

“- he’s our -”

“- Daddy.”

They just went out of their way to be creepy; he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of shuddering. “So why didn’t you show up at the office to help?”

They paused briefly. “Say -”

“- please.”

He snarled into the phone, and they laughed in stereo, an annoying titter that made him want to shove the phone down their throats. They must have known that, though, because before he hung up on them, they said, “Just -”

“- kidding -”

“- stud.”

Okay, that “stud” did make him shudder, but he held the phone away so they didn’t hear it or sense it or whatever it was they did. “Just meet us there at the office, okay?”

“Okay -”

“ - sweetie -”

“- and don’t -”

“- worry, no -”

“- matter how he’s -”

“- changed we can -”

“- handle him. We’re not -”

“- your average vampires either.”

“No shit,” he snapped, and hung up before they could call him another pet name. If they did that to his face, he’d hit them - he didn’t care if they were sixteen year old girls. Okay, they technically weren’t sixteen year old girls; they were probably more like a hundred and sixteen. But that gave him more incentive to smack ‘em, since they were undead.

He used Hel’s phone once more, to call a guy that he knew Giles would resent, but they might need him and his unique abilities. After all, Bren said that Giles was afraid Angel was somehow growing inured to magic. How could he be inured to someone who was actually a literal child of magic?

He dialed the number that came to mind (thanks to Bob’s memory), and after getting those strange rings unique to Europe, he was sent to a machine that had the cryptic message: “Call upon me at your own peril.” Then there was a beep. Gosh, how had he gotten such a bad mythical reputation? Mordred was so damn warm and fuzzy.

“Hey, jackass, Bob is calling in his chit,” Logan said, and only knew from the strange look that Helga was giving him that he was saying it in French. But Mordred’s message was in French, and he must have automatically adjusted. “We need your help. Get here now, or I’m teleporting over there to get you in per -”

There was a strange noise and sensation in the back of the car as Mordred teleported in, but the minute he solidified, Helga had grabbed him by the nose and twisted it, skewing his designer sunglasses. “Ow ow ow!” he honked, sounding both stuffed up and aggrieved. “I come in peace, you bint!”

“This Mordred?” She asked him.

Logan nodded, and hung up the phone, tossing the cell in Hel‘s lap. “That’s him.”

She let him go, but almost reluctantly. “You do not teleport into my car without warning,” she scolded. “Got me?”

He straightened his bottle green lenses, glaring at her and sniffing, sitting back in case she decided to take another pop at him. He may have been made of magic, but he was wisely afraid of Helga. It really was for the best until he could work his way onto her good side. He smoothed back his shoulder length brown hair - even though it was unmussed - and straightened his shirt, even though it didn’t need it either. All of it reminded Logan of a cat grooming itself after it did something embarrassing; it was an attempt to save face, to imply ‘I meant to do that’. “Merde. Here I am, playing good Samaritan, and a Stansin nearly rips my nose off. I forgot how … aggressive you women are.”

“Hand me my sledgehammer,” she asked.

“I meant no disrespect at all,” Mordred said hastily. He even pasted on a smile that was probably meant to be charming, but had the slightest hint of desperation about it. “You just startled me, that’s all. I assume you’re Helga, Bob’s … er …”

“Fuck buddy?” she offered dryly.

He held up his hands like he was attempting to fend off the words. “I’d have never have been so indelicate.” He paused, then asked, with some hesitation, “You, uh, you’re not Helga the Headhunter, are you?”

She stared at him in the rearview mirror. “What, you got connections in the New York demon mob?”

“No, no. It’s just a … an unusual name to hear away from the Teutonic and Norse countries.”

Helga the Headhunter? Wow - now there was a story he had to hear sometime. But he could see how she got that nickname after seeing her fight. She clearly believed that giving quarter was for suckers.

“Also, I could have sworn I paid Bob back already.”

“He died so you didn’t have to - you don’t think that’s worth a favor or two?” Logan pointed out.

Mordred sighed and rolled his eyes, clearly feeling put upon. “Oh fine. But I’m not a member of your little “group”, I hope you know.”

“Don’t worry, we wouldn’t want you,” Helga replied, starting her car.

“Hey.” It was amazing how wounded you could sound with a single syllable. But he brought it on himself, the snobby bastard. Maybe if he survived, he’d learn you never gave Helga an opening like that.

13

By the time he reached Vancouver, Truman was already gone.

He could blame it on a lot of things, including a delayed flight (what a great time for the airport to get socked in by fog), but the truth of it was that it just took him too long to get from Alaska to here, especially if Truman knew something was wrong almost immediately. Even his home was already for sale - he and Hannah must have fled almost instantly. Truman had in all likelihood done this before; he was probably a pro at jettisoning everything and starting over with a new identity, new game, new life.

The funny thing was what he left behind - everything. The real estate agent handling the sale of the house had no idea who the “client” was, nor where to find them, but Truman had left all his lackeys and lieutenants behind; they didn’t even know he was gone. Which Logan found out when he encountered Nelson at a favorite hang out of his, a dive bar a few blocks west of Chinatown.

Finally he got to live out the dream of beating the ever living shit out of the bastard, but then he realized he had no idea what else to do with him. Was he going to kill him? Was it worth it?

News reports initially treated what happened in Alaska as an “illegal immigrant smuggling ring”, making him wonder if the cops got the wrong end of the stick or were simply feeding the media a false report in hopes of not scaring away the ringleader (too late), but eventually the lurid details of a “sex slave ring” got out. Also released was a story about the women rescued from one of the containers, who were apparently unable to adequately describe the man who released them, even though the police wanted him for questioning. Since he knew damn well that the girls could have described him down to his scuffed hiking boots, he figured Natalya was actually trying to protect him, which made him feel a renewed sense of guilt. The cops were attempting to shut down the “ring”, both American and Canadian, and as much as he didn’t like cops, he figured he could at least help them along.

So ultimately what he did with Nelson was bind his unconscious body with duct tape, and dump him in front of the nearest branch of the RCMP, with a note that identified him as one of Truman’s men. He felt a little better about himself after doing that, so that first night, he managed to round up five more of them, keeping the beatings to an efficient minimum and tossing them to the cops like offerings of regret. Yes, all of these men would happily identify him, but all they had was one name - he was now glad that he went outside Truman’s circle to get a realistic fake driver’s license. They didn’t know the name he had on that card. And he had ultimate faith in his ability to keep one step ahead of the cops. After all, he had nothing - he was still homeless, still living in his truck, and all because the idea of officially settling in one place scared the shit out of him. It turned out now that that was the smartest move he could have made, a survival tactic that had paid ! off in spades. Even with a name and a description, the homeless had a tendency not to exist in anyone’s mind; they were easily and instantly ignorable, even by the cops. Besides, he could tell them nothing about Truman’s operation; he didn’t even know it was a slave ring until he opened that container.

Although the cops didn’t come out and say how they were rounding up so many of Truman’s men, they did put out a press release about the illegality of vigilantism (ha!), and released a vague sketch of him as a “person of interest”. But it was so vague it hardly looked like him, and he found if he aggressively slathered stinky depilatory on his face (it seemed to keep the hair off longer than shaving did, although ultimately that wasn’t saying much), he looked even less like his identikit sketch.

The rest of Truman’s troops tried to go underground or escape, but if they remained in B.C., he had no doubt at all he could find them. And if they did flee but remained in Canada, he had little doubt he’d find them eventually; he had nothing but time. The funny thing was, it wasn’t capture by cops that they were afraid of.

Finally the night came that he hadn’t been looking forward to. He found Fitz drinking in a reproduction of a British pub in Surrey. He had liked Fitz too, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Being a relatively decent bloke didn’t give you the right to otherwise sell kids in your off hours.

He just sat on the stool next to him, ordering a beer and nursing it as he tried to decide what to say. Fitz knew he was there, but said nothing either, although he got points for not trying to run away. Eventually, though, he was the one to break the ice. “It’s you, isn’t it? The guy hunting us down,” Fitz said, and he sounded strangely defeated.

“Why do you say that?” He didn’t deny it; he was curious how he knew.

Fitz shrugged, swirling the dregs of his beer around the bottom of his mug. “Maybe because you never really fit in too well; Nelson used to think that maybe you were an undercover cop or something. You just seemed to always be hiding something, and it was hard to get a bead on you. Or maybe ‘cause Nelson was beaten so bad they could only identify him through his fingerprints.”

“He was a total fuck.”

“You don’t need to convince me. It was easy to see why the army kicked him out.” He sighed, and after a moment added, “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then don’t. If you go in of your own accord and offer names, they’ll probably cut a deal with you and let you go. You’re small fry.”

“Yeah, I guess. You know I’ll probably have to give ‘em your name.”

“Yeah, I know. Go ahead.” At least he admitted it. After a moment of silence, where they each enjoyed a mouthful of beer, Logan asked him, “Who were those assholes who attacked us in the garage that one time?”

“Oh, they were the Russian mob.”

He sounded serious, and it didn’t smell like he was lying, but it was still hard to believe. “The Russian mob operates in Vancouver?”

“I know, sounds like bullshit doesn’t it? But if what I heard is correct, they’re trying to establish a beachhead here, and they were pretty pissed off that Truman had a whole trafficking thing, because that’s their thing.”

“Is it?” This felt significant; this felt like further redemption. “You don’t know where I can find these guys, do you?”

He gave him an odd look, a sort of ‘you must be joking’ stare, but did say, “Yeah, I hear their home base is a club downtown, but dude, these are some major league bad asses. You can’t just waltz in there and start beating people up.”

He shrugged and grunted noncommittally, figuring that’s exactly what he should do. He had no idea why, but he had a strange feeling he really hated mobsters and crime families, even though he couldn’t say why.

Fitz did turn himself in, much to his relief. And the next night, he found the club where the Russian mafia gathered, and walked in with nothing but the handguns he liberated from Nelson hidden beneath his jacket. He sat at the bar and ordered a vodka, aware that everyone was staring at him. Strangers just didn’t come in here; they should have known better. A big goon built like a bear and stinking of cheap cigars came up to him and started acting chummy, figuring he was a turned around tourist who needed a hasty but not too suspicious escort out of here. But as soon as he knocked back his vodka, he looked at the goon, with his heavily pomaded hair and gold tooth smile, and told him, point blank, “I’m not lost. I’m here to shut you fuckers down.” He then punched him in the stomach and popped his claws.

He didn’t remember a lot about that night, as he discovered that he could forget things if he really wanted to, and there was really nothing he wanted to remember there. It was a bloody fight all the way, and a bit of a scary one, as something came out in him that he didn’t realize was there. It almost felt like another personality, someone else, a being made of a rage so absolute that it felt like it swamped him, overwhelmed him, drowned him. And the thing about this “other” self? It could fight - really fight. It was a madman, not so much impervious to pain as totally oblivious to it; it just didn’t care how much you hurt it, it just served to feed its already overwhelming rage. It almost enjoyed the pain, because it served its purpose. It frightened him, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to meet that side of himself ever again. He wasn’t completely convinced it was him, as stupid and impossible as that sounded.

He’d had the foresight to rent a room at a local no-tell motel, but he was too injured to make his way back there; he woke up in the back of his truck, covered in blood and hot from healing, a small collection of damaged bullets scattered around him, expelled by his body during the process. He made his way to the motel and took a long, hot shower, washing all the blood off, and burned what was left of the clothes he was wearing in a trash can. He washed most of the ashes down the drain.

According to the paper, it was one of the largest slaver rings ever uncovered - but they still didn’t have Truman, and they probably never would. He had surely skipped the country, and he might never be found. He should have killed him when he had the chance.

He had money left, lots of money, and he didn’t want it anymore. He saved out just enough for a serious drinking session, and shoved the rest of the money through the mail slot of a charity that worked with street kids and immigrants, the easily exploited; maybe they could do some good with the money. He didn’t want to continue profiting from other people’s misery.

That night he found a bar he’d never been in before, and ordered an insane amount of booze. Even the bartender, a grizzled Inuit with the ghost of a white scar bisecting his upper lip, gave him a funny look, and asked, “What’re you tryin’ to do, drink yourself to death?”

“Yep,” Logan agreed, starting to shotgun everything - beer after beer, vodka shot after vodka shot, whiskey after whiskey. If he shotgunned everything within a brief amount of time, he could almost feel the alcohol; he felt a warm kind of numb peace, a lightheaded feeling that was so enjoyable he hated to see it go. Why couldn’t his healing factor just let him have it a little longer?

As soon as he drank away all his money, he went back to his truck and sat on his bedroll, wondering if he ever had a family who missed him, who wondered where he was, who wondered whatever happened to him. He didn’t know if it would make him feel better or not.

He wrote a confession letter, explaining how he’d gotten involved with Truman, and how honestly horrified he was when he discovered what Truman was involved in. Without going into specifics, he mentioned that he knew what it felt like to be enslaved, to be at the total mercy of others, and he never wished that on any other person. If he could do anything about it, he’d make sure that no one ever had to feel that way again, and he did the best he could to rectify it, even though he knew there was nothing he could do. There was no atoning for this particular sin, although he wanted it noted for the record that he tried.

He folded up the letter and put it on his jacket, which he had taken off and laid beside him. Then he put his fist to his chest, just over his heart, and popped his claws.