14

By the time they reached the office, Naomi was back, and the Sisters were waiting for them, much to Giles’s disapproval. (Logan wondered why there was a ten pound bag of kosher salt on Brendan’s desk, but he figured if it was important, someone would tell him.) Bren was sitting behind his desk, looking a paler greenish-blue than usual, and he knew he’d been hurt a lot more than he’d been letting on. He’d have made a comment about the macho bullshit, but he was too guilty of it himself to mention it.

There had been an even cooler re-acquaintance between Giles and Mordred when Faith showed up, meaning the gang was all here. She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek, whispering in his ear, “I got the job,” before giving him a playful little love bite on his earlobe. But that was the last of her ebullience; she went immediately stone cold sober. If she noticed Helga’s tail wrapped around his right arm, she didn’t mention it, but maybe she didn’t see it. Logan was sitting perched on the arm of the sofa, and Helga was sitting on the end of the couch beside him - Faith remained standing beside him, arms crossed over her chest like she was mildly embarrassed by her dressier than usual shirt. Was she really self-conscious about that?

He wondered if life would be easier if he wasn’t constantly hooking up with aggressive women. Then he remembered how needlessly meek people pissed him off, and he guessed no. Truth be told, the pushy women were just that much more fun.

Giles laid out the problem as it currently stood, and Logan heard nothing new, but a few more details emerged from the story Bren had hastily told him. He’d barely finished his story when Mordred, dressed not unlike a very fashionable and upscale gigolo, interrupted to ask, “Where was he trying to go?”

Giles frowned at him, and replied, with unusual sarcasm, "To Bob's Big Boy. He was trying to leave, Mordred, that's all."

"Yes, but why? If he wanted a bite to eat, he could have just had you."

"Not with me there," Bren said.

Mordred scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. "You're a two second kill. Neither of you were any threat to him at all."

"Logan is," the kid pointed out, now joining Giles in the scowling sweepstakes.

Mordred must have noticed the evil looks he was getting, but he didn't care. "Yes, but vamp hearing and smelling. He knew he wasn't here, and he's fast enough that even if Logan showed up just as he was out the door, he'd have never caught up to him."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Faith interjected. "Logan's fast. A hell of a lot faster than you'd expect a guy loaded down with metal to be."

"He's all muscle," Hel agreed. “It’s why he looks so good naked.”

“Damn right,” Faith concurred. Logan looked down at the floor and slapped a hand over his mouth so he didn’t laugh. He’d be embarrassed if it wasn’t funny that Hel and Faith had found something to heartily agree on, and it was him nude.

Mordred continued his hand wave thing, probably feeling brave since he was across the room from Helga. "All beside the point. Angel had to know that you two were the only ones currently here. Now if Mr. Claws or the Slayer were here - or her green terribleness -" he nodded towards Helga, and in spite of the way he worded it, it sounded almost respectful (of course - he still didn't want to end up on Helga the Headhunter's shit list), "- I could understand him wanting to flee. But he essentially had the whole place to himself. Why would he want to go?"

If looks could kill, Giles would have been charged with first degree murder - but since it was Mordred he was glaring at, no jury in the world would have convicted him. "If you have a point, make it."

"What if he's being drawn somewhere?"

An odd point, and an interesting one. "Do I start with why or how?" Bren wondered, glancing at him. Logan just shrugged.

Mordred sighed, as if they were all the most silliest and stupid people in the world. "If you just want to turn Angel evil and unleash him on the world, there are easier ways that don't involve dangerous heaps of black magic. Whoever did this to him has been planning it for a while. They even screwed over Wolfram and Hart, if that woman was telling the truth -"

"She was," Logan interrupted crossly.

Mordred conceded the point with a nod, probably because Hel still had her tail wrapped around his arm. It seemed to send the message 'Fuck with him, you fuck with me' and it had already been established that Mordred didn't want to do that. "So whoever this person is, they're going to an awful lot of trouble. And for what? They haven't just turned him evil, they've upgraded him. Why would they do that? As a favor to Angel? I don't think so."

Bren nodded in agreement, although he seemed surprised by it. "He's faster, stronger, caught in mid-transition, and seems to have the power of mesmerism now."

"Mesmerism?" Faith exclaimed. She apparently hadn't heard about that bit. "Cool."

Giles shot her a harsh look, but turned back to Mordred. "I agree, it doesn't make sense - but what does? What benefit could anyone get out of this?"

"Is that really for us to figure out?" Logan finally said, thinking aloud. "Whoever is doing this must have some plans for Angel, and maybe until we know the person we won't be able to figure out their ultimate goal."

"So what are you suggesting?" Giles seemed to be asking Mordred that.

"Let him go. Let him escape successfully, and follow him to wherever he goes."

Nearly everyone looked shocked at that suggestion, but there were some people who didn't, notably Helga and the Sisters. But then again, the Sisters never seemed to react to anything.

"Are you nuts?" Bren asked, genuinely curious.

Giles, for his part, seemed indignant. "We can't follow him. He's too fast, and I have no guarantee a tracing spell will work on him anymore."

"We -"

"- can -"

"- follow him -"

"- he's our -"

"- Daddy. We always -"

"- know where he -"

"- is."

Mordred smiled triumphantly and gestured back at the girls, although he was careful not to look at them directly. He wasn't about to admit they creeped him out too, but clearly they did. "See? We have trackers. Angel can't escape."

Giles was shaking his head, though. "He moves too fast for you to keep up now."

"Speed -"

"- is -"

"- irrelevant. We -"

"- once followed -"

"- him from Moscow -"

"- to Pyongyang, he -"

"- can't escape from us.”

Knowledge that probably cheered Angel up no end - well, when he was in his right mind. And then there was the fact that they seemed to know when Angel was gone from this plane, and also knew when he was back. That was beyond the usual sire/sired connection, wasn't it? The girls were odd, and their connection to him was equally odd.

Giles shook his head. "This won't work. He could kill people and you wouldn't get there in time to stop him." He then favored them with a hard glare. "Not that you'd be inclined to stop him."

The Sisters just gave Giles a matching set of brilliant, empty smiles that were far scarier than any scowl ever could be. He thought he noticed Giles repressing a shudder.

"I think Angel is a means to an end," Mordred continued. "He's just a piece in the puzzle. We have to risk it; we have to let him escape and see where he leads us. It might be our only way of solving this thing."

"How convenient of you to risk other people's lives," Giles snapped.

"I think he has a point," Naomi said, with great reluctance. It wasn't so much the risking of people's lives that bothered her as much as agreeing with Mordred about anything. "We've just been chasing our tails here; we've made no progress at all. We've got to do something before Angel's stuck like this for good. If it's not already too late."

Giles clearly didn't like it. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he glanced around the room, taking a measure of everyone. If anyone disagreed, it wasn't obvious; in fact, it was more then probable that the agreement was unanimous. No one had a better plan.

Giles huffed a sigh through his nose, still deeply unhappy with this whole thing. "If he kills anyone, it's on your head," he said to Mordred.

Mordred just shrugged. "I'll just add them to the pile. Now, let's figure out a way for Angel to escape, shall we?"

The problem there was making it seem realistic. If he sensed a trap, he wouldn’t play along.

So maybe it was a good thing Mordred was almost as gifted in bullshit as Bob was.

*****

Even though he knew that most of the mythology surrounding Mordred was a lie, it was hard to shake it completely from his mind. Giles tried, of course, but the fact that he was a smug little pillock didn’t help at all.

Naomi, Logan, Brendan, and Helga had left, taking the salt with them, presumably to take it to Broom’s house. But in truth only Brendan and Naomi had headed there - Logan and Helga were actually waiting in the empty office directly below them, along with the Weird Sisters. It was far enough away that Angel wouldn’t smell them, but close enough that they could come to the rescue if things didn’t go as planned.

The plan, as it was, was this: Mordred was going to “fake” a cleansing spell with Giles assisting - so Angel would think they were trying to rid him of this “scourge” currently afflicting him. Faith was standing by, presumably as guard.

Angel was still out, but just barely. They’d handcuffed his hands behind his back (they were all sure he could break them), and after that Mordred had ripped open Angel’s shirt and started drawing sacred runes on his chest with a pulpy, dark mixture of wolfsbane, silver nitrate, and mulberry - all necessary to the actual spell. They were going to make the spell as real as possible, so Angel didn’t guess it was a bluff. Mordred wanted to do everything real, but he was going to speak the words of the spell in the wrong order, and in Latin instead of Egyptian Arabic, all of which should guarantee it wouldn’t work.

Actually the idea that a cleansing spell would work was naïve at best, but with the power of someone like Mordred behind it, there was a slim possibility that it could work. They were counting on Angel knowing that too. (What effect it would actually have on Angel - if any - was unclear, which is why they weren’t really doing the spell.)

A circle of ground chalk was sprinkled around Angel, making him the center, and that’s precisely when he regained consciousness. Mordred started sprinkling rosemary into a candle flame as he began intoning the spell, and Angel sat up, looking mildly alarmed. He glanced down at his chest and noted the symbols drawn upon it, then looked up at the pair of them. His eyes were lambent with rage. “What the fuck is this?”

Giles, who was standing beyond the circle and holding the mortar full of the smelly wolfsbane/silver nitrate/mulberry mixture, fixed him with a weary stare. “It’s for your own good. Just be still and it shouldn’t hurt.”

Panic flashed through his eyes, quickly turning to fury. “You think this arrogant bastard even knows what he’s doing? He fucked up so bad he put himself in a coma.”

Mordred scoffed, and replied dryly, “I didn’t fuck up; some demi-gods fucked me up. I guess they thought I was going to destroy the world or something and got touchy about it. You know what drama queens they can be.” He then cleared his throat and went back to the slightly off-kilter spell.

He growled and rolled up to his knees, which made Faith step closer to the circle. “Hey. I don’t wanna kick your ass, but I will. So don’t make me.”

He sneered at her, but it turned into a half-smile. “Of course, Faith - slayer number two. How does that feel, huh? Always being the also ran; number two. The one who isn’t Buffy. Must stick in your craw.”

Faith’s expression remained unchanged, but her eyes became a bit stonier. “This isn’t high school any more, Angel. Get over it. I did.”

He snickered. “No you didn’t. Oh, you didn’t graduate high school either, did you? And you’ve done jail time. You’re just the white trash poster girl, aren’t you?”

“And ain’t you just the poster boy for my Human boyfriend kicking your undead ass all over this building?” She shot back.

Angel snarled, and he seemed to be testing the cuffs behind his back. It was hard not to tense, because he knew when Angel made his move, it would be faster than any of them could be ready for. “Human? He’s barely Human. And he’s nearly as unstable as you are - oh hell, he’s worse. You know how many times people better and stronger than he could ever hope to be have taken out his brain and played with it? He thinks all the triggers are gone, but he’s wrong. Your boyfriend, sweetheart, is a ticking time bomb, and when he goes off, he won’t know who the hell you are; he’ll just kill you, sure as shit, as that‘s all he‘s ever been good for. That is, if I don’t do it first.”

And with that, Angel made his move. One second he was kneeling inside the circle; the next, he had already jumped to his feet and punched Faith so hard she went flying across the room, hitting the back of the sofa and taking it over with her as she hit the floor. Giles didn’t actually see the transition; he took a step forward, intending to go to Faith, but then Mordred was thrown into him and they both went slamming back against Angel’s desk, the edge biting hard enough into his back to slice his skin.

By the time he pushed Mordred aside and caught his breath, Angel was long gone. The front office door gaped open, and he didn’t remember hearing it happen.

He knew Mordred was okay since he was cursing, so he staggered towards the tipped over couch. “Faith?”

There was no immediate reply, but the couch shifted slightly, and she finished shoving it aside with her feet. “Fuck, what the hell was that?” She started to use the couch to get back to her feet, but he held out his hand and she reluctantly took it. “When you said he was fast, you weren’t kidding. I didn’t even see him break the cuffs. How did Logan catch him when he ran?”

“I jumped down the stairwell,” Logan said, coming inside and making a beeline for her. “You okay?”

She nodded, although she seemed to be having a little trouble catching her breath. Giles hadn’t seen where she was punched, but since her face wasn’t bruised, he suspected a body shot. She leaned over and kissed Logan on the cheek, which seemed to puzzle him. “What was that for?”

“For kicking his ass,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. He still looked confused.

“Okay, he’s in the sewers, heading west towards downtown,” Helga reported, standing in the doorway. She had a cell phone glued to her ear. “The Sisters say he’s far enough ahead of them that he doesn’t realize they’re behind him.”

“What’s downtown?” Logan asked, looking around. “He’s headed in the wrong direction for Wolfram and Hart.”

Giles shook his head - he hadn’t lived in Los Angeles long enough to know where everything was. “I have no clue.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Mordred said, rubbing the side of his head.

Somehow that didn’t sound promising.

****

The sky had began to turn a weird, intense reddish-orange with a hint of brown, an odd color that could only happen in L.A., with its often frightening layer of smog. The traffic wasn’t too bad for this time of day, but Bren suspected part of their mobility was dictated by the fact that they were riding on Naomi’s customized motorcycle (he was in the so called “bitch seat”, holding on to her waist and hoping against hope he didn’t get an accidental shock), and she could go “off road” - which she did, cutting through suspicious alleys whenever possible, as well as vacant lots and parking lots. It made him want to hold on tighter, in spite of the potential for a nasty shock. The salt was in a backpack he had the misfortune to wear, so it felt like a very strong midget wrestler was trying to slowly break his back.

He wondered how the others were doing, and if Angel had escaped yet. It wasn’t fair that they sent him away, he could have helped, but Giles was probably thinking of his previous outburst, and Logan knew he was still a bit bruised. Poor Naomi just got roped into babysitting him, but she took it well - she didn’t want to have to bake Angel if she absolutely didn’t have to. The funny thing was she probably felt a greater loyalty to Angel than almost anyone, except perhaps Faith; Angel was the first friend she ever had after her mutant induced amnesia. As far as she knew, Angel had saved her life. Logan had as well, but she had to be told that, as she had no memory of that part, and Logan - of course - didn’t like to talk about it.

The part of Topanga Canyon that Broom lived in looked more like an upscale suburb than anything else, and Bren was faintly disappointed. He was hoping they were headed for a rich guy’s McMansion, with an obnoxious Hummer parked in the semi-circular driveway, proclaiming for all the world “I have a small penis complex, and I don’t give a fuck who knows it”.

As Naomi swung around the corner of Broom’s street, she slowed down to a reasonable speed for the first time in ten miles, and shouted, “What’s the address again?”

He repeated it in annoyance, looking over her shoulder at the left side of the street, which was where his house should have been, and was suddenly baffled by what he saw.

It was a condo. Not just a condo, but a condo under construction. The sign on the site said they’d be available for purchase in the fall.

“And you never make mistakes, right?” Naomi asked as she idled the motorcycle. It was so well tuned the engine seemed to purr.

He frowned at the back of her head. “Eidetic memory - I can’t make mistakes. That’s exactly what he told us. I could repeat our entire conversation with him verbatim. Should I?”

“Jeeze, there’s no need to get defensive, Bren. I was just askin’.” She scowled at the site as if it would give up any answers, but it didn’t. The foundation was poured, but that was all; there wasn’t even a framework for the building in place. “He lied to us. Why?”

He shook his head as he looked around the neighborhood, seeing if anyone was around. No one seemed to be watching, so he briefly let his Brachen side out and sniffed the air. If anyone was lying in wait for them, he couldn’t smell it or see it. “I don’t think it’s a trap.”

“I’d guess he was already possessed by the Qutrub, but why would he alert us to his presence if we didn’t know? That doesn’t make sense, unless he’s completely suicidal.”

Bren nodded in agreement. It didn’t make sense. So someone showed up, gave them a realistic but phony story, and gave them a phony address; he was willing to bet he didn’t work for the bank either, and that Miles Broom wasn’t his real name. So if the point wasn’t to ambush them or set them up, what was the point?

“Distraction,” he gasped, thinking aloud. “Oh holy shit, what if it was just to keep us busy?”

“For what purpose -” she began, but then petered off as she realized, “Oh shit: Angel.”

“I think we met the bad guy,” he said, digging in his pocket for his cell phone. But even as he hit speed dial, he wasn’t certain there was anyone there to answer. So the bad guy or one of his lackeys came in with a bullshit story about a vicious demon to keep them scattered while they worked their evil mojo on Angel. Why? What did it get him?

He wondered if they’d figure it out before it killed them all.

15

Xander wondered how cops did it.

Stakeouts were dead boring - no, worse; some of the dead people he knew were quite lively. This was like watching drywall set, and he knew for a fact that was a solid indication you had no life at all. He was glad he brought his iPod, but still he wished he had downloaded some t.v. episodes or videos or something, something he could look at beyond all these sharply (yet similarly dressed) lawyers coming and going from this massive building, which was as heartlessly sleek as most modern skyscrapers. But this one seemed to radiate its own special brand of cool menace, although he couldn’t say how or why. Maybe it was simply a vibe.

He suspected this was “make busy” work, given to him to get him out of the way. He was the Human, and with all the shit going down, they didn’t want him in the way. But wasn’t he grateful? He honestly didn’t like Angel, or Logan, and while he thought Naomi was pretty attractive, he barely knew her. He liked Giles, he liked Faith … and that was about it. But he did owe Logan, he had to admit that, and maybe he wasn’t too bad for a completely freaky, “used to be a bad guy and a cop or something” guy with knives in his hands and a nose that could apparently tell you what you’ve had for breakfast all week. Still, did Faith have to sleep with him? It gave him a bit of a wiggins just to think about it. Sure, Logan was technically Human, and that was good, but he was a deeply scary Human, the kind you didn’t want to meet in a dark alley at four in the morning; hell, he’d rather encounter a vampire - them he was used to.

He was hungry, and searched his glove box for something to eat. He passed over the snack sized bags of stale potato chips and opted instead for the single Twinkie. He had no idea when he last ate a Twinkie, but he figured these things were so chock full of preservatives that they could be left in a mausoleum for several years and still taste as fresh as the day they were extruded. He bit into it and was gratified to discover he was right.

He was wolfing down the last of the sticky cake and wondering if he should try the potato chips - Twinkies just weren’t that filling - when he saw a huge black painted van emerge from the side of the building’s drive. It almost looked more like an urban assault vehicle than an SUV …

This was it, wasn’t it? They were moving out.

He had his car idling for the air conditioner, so all he had to do was signal and wait for it to drive by before pulling into traffic after them. Someone honked at him, but he ignored it (everybody honked in L.A.). He pulled out his cell phone and called Giles, who had finally given in to the twenty first century and gotten one.

Still, he must have not turned his ringer on, as he went straight to his voice mail. “Hey, Giles, it’s me. It looks like your evil lawyers are on the move. Right now we seem to be headed for Sepulveda. When I have a more firm location, I’ll call you back.” He cut the connection but kept the phone on, tossing it into the passenger seat.

Technically they had told him not to follow, just to let them know when something happened. But who needed a mystical tracer when you could ride their ass all the way there?

See, he was good for something.

****

He couldn’t believe he woke up.

He did so tasting blood in his mouth, feeling his chest burning as his heart seemed to pound triple time, and he gasped like he had been drowning, back arching unconsciously as he rolled over on his side and began to cough, deeply and painfully. His pulse pounded in his temples, and as soon as the pain faded enough for him to move, he looked down at his bedroll and his chest. There was blood, dark and arterial, almost dried, on his torso, soaked into the top of his jeans, and pooling on the sleeping bag, but it was barely a mud puddle’s worth of blood. Certainly not lethal; not even close. Maybe enough to make him woozy.

That didn’t make sense. He should be dead. Why wasn’t he dead? How could his healing abilities work if he was dead?

They couldn’t. So he never actually died. What the fuck happened? He cut an artery, and within the space of thirty seconds his ability had healed up the wound, preventing his actual death. It had to have happened in under a minute, simply because the death should have been almost instantaneous. How could he heal that fast from a mortal injury? He didn’t understand it. He wanted to give up, but his body wouldn’t let him. His body was a traitor to him. Somehow that figured.

For the next two days, he contemplated what he was going to do. He considered other ways of killing himself, but he honestly didn’t know if they would work. Drowning might, but he had memories of drowning, of water being painfully drawn into his lungs, and he knew it might actually kill him, but he couldn’t bear the thought of it. Could he starve to death?

He was so depressed he thought that might be worth a shot, and he slept most of the time, deciding he wanted nothing to do with reality, and maybe if he rejected it, it would reject him. But then the dreams came, the memories, and sleep no longer offered any refuge. He realized he was going to have to make a decision - he was going to have to figure out a way to die, or figure out what he was going to do with himself otherwise.

He wondered how he was going to do that.

*****

They didn’t run after Angel and the Sisters - they were counting on the Sisters to tell them when he came to a stop. Mordred would teleport them all there to the site.

This was a two fold plan, as it also allowed Mordred, Giles, and Faith time to recover, and they needed it. Everyone pretended they weren’t hurt that bad, but Logan knew they were. He could smell the blood on Giles, and Mordred kept rubbing his arm like it was bothering him.

He and Faith had righted the couch, and they were both sitting on it, Faith leaning against him with her eyes closed. She said she was “recharging”, and he supposed she was, but Giles had said something to her about “ignoring Angel”, which made Logan wonder what he’d said to her. If he insulted his girlfriend, he felt honor bound to go kick Angel’s ass again. Actually kick it twice, as he had already scheduled a beat down for hitting his girlfriend. Helga just sat at Angel’s desk, wondering if she should trade in her sledgehammer for one of Angel’s battle axes. Logan thought it might be a good idea, as it was painlessly lethal used properly, and he knew Hel could use it properly.

The Sisters finally called Hel with a location, and she reported it, although no one could quite believe it. As they got in a circle - it was easier for Mordred to teleport them all that way - Giles’s phone rang, and he answered it, even as Mordred scowled at him. He was close enough to Giles that he could hear it was Bren on the phone. “It’s him,” he said, sounding almost like he was shouting. “Broom is the bad guy -”

There was a momentary interruption in his message as Mordred teleported them all to where the Sisters and Angel were, and then the momentary interruption became permanent, as the cell phone signal dropped off completely.

But Logan only noted that peripherally. Because right now he was only concerned with the fact that they were in a place reeking of Human blood. Fresh Human blood.

They were too late. The place was now a slaughterhouse.