“Blood?” Xander repeated, sounding distressed. “Holy shit.”

Logan pushed the door open, and he felt Xander peering over his shoulder as he stepped inside. There was a puddle of blood dried to rusty brown in the foyer, which was extremely small, meaning it was only a foot and a few inches away from him. The puddle was no bigger than a beer spill, although there were small brown flecks on the right side wall that nearly blended in with the wallpaper.

Xander gasped behind him, and then shouted, “Berto? You here?”

Logan winced, since he was essentially shouting in his ear, and walked inside, avoiding the blood. “There’s no one here anymore,” he told him crossly. “No one’s been here for … two days, maybe. He live alone?”

Xander stared at the blood, and it took a moment for him to respond. “Uh, as far as I know, yeah. You can tell how long the house’s been empty by smell?”

“No, by the blood. It takes time to thicken and turn brown.” He leaned closer to the flecks on the wall and sniffed, while Xander said, horrified, “Tell me you’re not going to lick it.”

He straightened up and glared bloody death at him as he closed the door. “No. This blood’s different.”

He froze, looking between the wall and the floor. There was no visual difference, if that’s what he was searching for. “What? How can you tell?”

“More sugar. This guy’s verging on diabetes, if he doesn’t already have it.”

Xander looked at him like he wasn’t sure if he was yanking his chain or not. “You can smell that in blood?”

He nodded, walking into the small living room. The whole house was small; it was like a mobile home, only square as opposed to rectangular. “Blood is blood, but smell can vary. Everybody has different body chemistry, states of health … but I guess most people can’t smell the difference unless it’s really bad.”

He paused, seemed to consider that a moment, and then declared, “Man! I’ve come face to face with all kinds of demon and beasties, including potential in-laws, but this is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever witnessed. So you’re telling me Berto fought with some guy who was diabetic?”

“Two guys.” Xander’s jaw slackened, and before he could ask, he explained, “I smell three distinct people have been here recently, all men, only two of which bled. One of ‘em was wearing some really stinky aftershave I don’t recognize; it’s like salty cheese with a hint of musk. You don’t smell it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I smell old blood now, but that’s it. Do you think …” he gestured helplessly at the blood on the floor and the wall, careful not to step on any as he moved past it. Logan suddenly realized that while the guy was a little freaked by what he was telling him, he didn’t disbelieve him. That earned him a grudging point.

It took him a moment, but he got his unspoken message. “Nobody died here; I don’t smell death. There ain’t enough blood to suggest a major injury. Even the blood splatter is meager; arterial would have fanned. This was a skirmish, worst than most, but not too bad.”

Xander looked honestly relieved, exhaled a breath he probably didn’t realize he was holding. He knew death had a smell; he knew what it smelled like. That earned him another point. “Great, okay, not dead.” He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, then looked at him suspiciously. “How do you know arterial blood fans ..?”

“If I said I watched too much CSI, would you believe me?”

He didn’t even think about it. “No.”

Logan fixed him with a firm stare. “Then do you really want to know?”

He stared back at him, and rather than answer, he asked him another question. “You used to be a bad guy, didn’t you?”

“Not willingly, but yeah.”

He nodded, not even asking for details. “Okay, yeah, then I think that tells me everything I need to know.”

He was glad he let go of it that easily, most people didn’t. But he had dealt with a lot of weird shit; this was just more shit to add to the pile.

The living room was relatively austere, with a rather bland striped loveseat and matching chair arranged around a small television on a stand and a low slung coffee table that looked like it had seen better decades. There was a ‘70’s era glass ashtray on it, with a couple of butts in it (Marlboros), and a small pile of open mail, all bills. He took a guess and looked inside the envelopes, but the amount required was not unusual or unreasonable. The light coming through the closed, heavy off white curtains was a urine tinged yellow, making the carpet - which was a dun brown normally - look like a floor of rotted leaf mold.

“Why are you looking at his light bill?” Xander’s tone of voice suggested he thought he was a complete nutter.

“I was wonderin’ if he was in hock to loan sharks or somethin‘, but these ain’t too bad. So that theory’s probably toast.” There was something wrong with this living room, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was. It looked like a hotel room, like a place where someone was stopping by on their way to somewhere else. There was nothing here that gave you any idea about the man who dwelled here; no sense of personality or taste. This was just generic “Room”, which could have belonged to anyone. This was his brother’s house, wasn’t it? He took his work visa, his name, his house, and yet never quite settled into them; he lived like a renter in someone else’s life, and never got comfortable with it.

A small hall led to the rooms that were the bedroom and bathroom, while the kitchen was connected to the living room by a small archway. He went into the kitchen, which was surprisingly clean and uncluttered for that of a bachelor’s, with only a few dirty dishes starting to molder in the chipped sink. His fridge, an older model that was harvest gold and probably came with the house, had only a single magnet on it, a calendar from a plumbing company, and a check inside showed three frozen dinners and a chicken breast in the freezer; the refrigerator was meagerly stocked with a couple of bottles of Corona, half a lemon covered in plastic wrap, bottles of mustard and salsa and hot sauce, some carrots in a plastic bag that were starting to wrinkle with age, a half bag of oranges (those kind people sold on the turnpike), and something bloody and red in a tray covered with more plastic wrap. A closer look and a sniff revealed it to be steak marinating in some kind of sauce heav! y with tomatoes and peppers. This was another sign that he had intended to come back - who left a steak marinating while you nipped off to Mexico? Even if it was a tough cut of beef that required a couple of days of stewing, you just didn’t do that.

He took a bottle of beer out and twisted the cap off, taking a deep swig as Xander joined him in the kitchen. “You’re stealing his beer? That’s low.”

“Want one?”

He looked appalled. “At this time of day?” He paused briefly. “Yeah, okay.”

He’d figured as much - he had smelled the old beer in his car. He tossed him a bottle and kicked the fridge closed, wondering how much of his thoughts he should voice. Something had definitely happened to Berto, and it wasn’t something as nice and safe as running off to visit his family, but right now he had no concrete theory on what had happened. There was a fight - but over what? And why? What happened afterwards? The fight in the house went no deeper than the foyer, unless the men took the time to straightened up any bumped furniture. They didn’t clean up any blood, as he didn’t smell any recently used cleanser.

Xander opened his beer and took a swig, and after a moment, asked, “This looks bad, doesn’t it?”

Logan shrugged non-committally. “It’s not as bad as it could have been.”

“Funny how that’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.” He downed the rest of the beer in a couple of swallows, and tossed the empty bottle in the trash can under the sink (it had very little in it, but the coffee grounds, vegetable peels, and dog food cans were fermenting in a particularly noisome way) before heading off to the bedroom. Xander followed him, an obedient shadow radiating discomfort at breaking and entering into someone else’s life. That made Logan wonder when he’d gotten used to it.

The bedroom was as austere as the front room and nearly half its size, a tiny space with room for a twin bed, a dresser and nightstand, and the built in closet, but nothing more. The bed wasn’t made, but it wasn’t that messy either; mussed was a more accurate description. The nightstand had no drawer, so he ignored it and went straight for the dresser. He’d just opened the top drawer when Xander exclaimed, “Whoa! Hey, I didn’t think we were gonna paw through his stuff.”

“I’m not pawin’ through his stuff,” he snapped, doing just that. He didn’t care about his underwear and socks, which filled the drawer - he was looking for something else. “I’m looking for clues.”

“Clues?”

“Some guys came here, fought with him, and then took off , with or without him. It wasn’t a home invasion, it wasn’t a robbery; those men had probably come here from him. And I bet he knew why, since he didn’t want to get you involved in it. It caught up with him.”

There was nothing but underwear in the first drawer, nothing taped to the bottom or the sides, so he moved on to drawer two. It was filled with shirts and some jeans at the bottom. Xander came inside the room after keeping a respectful distance, but he was studying the side of his face. “You’re some kind of investigator. Or you were.”

Not a question. “Unofficially, yeah, I suppose. I’ve been lookin’ for myself for years.”

“Is that a New Age thing?”

He shrugged a single shoulder, and found a small framed photograph of what must have been his family in Mexico, several years ago. Berto/Rodrigo was standing between a taller but visually similar guy (must have been the real Berto) and a more matronly looking woman whose face was unnaturally thin, a hallmark of a serious illness. A small little girl, maybe about twelve, was standing in front of the group, which was all gathered under the shade of a spreading palm. Xander came over, and he handed him the picture. He looked at it, grimacing as if he felt bad for them. “So were you a cop or something?” he asked, staying on the subject.

“Or something,” he offered, moving on to the third drawer. Jackpot. This drawer didn’t have clothes in it, but stuff - receipts, papers, letters, assorted tchotchkes. He found a letter from his mother, sent only two and a half weeks ago; it seemed to be the most recent.

It was written on lined notebook paper, in a scrawl that was alternately tight and cramped and loopy and sprawling - heavy meds? It was in Spanish, so when he started to scan it, Xander said, “I get the Dear Rodrigo, but then I’m lost. You read Spanish?”

That was such a stupid question he didn‘t bother to answer it. “It’s just a standard letter from home; we’re fine, weather’s good, yadda yadda yadda. Her cancer’s spread, which means he wasn’t kidding about needing the money for hospital bills.” Logan scowled, frustrated at the lack of genuine, helpful information. But at the very end of the letter, a P.S.: ‘Any word from Esmerelda yet?’

“Who’s Esmerelda?” he asked Xander.

He thought about it a moment, then snapped his fingers. “That chick in the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And they said Disney never did anything to contribute to culture.”

He scowled at him, and pointed to the P.S. portion of the letter. “Dumb jokes aside.”

“Hell, I’ve got no idea. His sister’s name is Mimi, so -”

“Esme; Mimi. That’s a nickname.” He was pretty sure that was it. He could be wrong, but he thought not. So his mother in Mexico was asking if he’d heard from Mimi yet - meaning she wasn’t home to ask. So where was Mimi? In the States too? Or just in another city?

“Okay, Sherlock, assuming you’re right … so what?”

“So where is she? Did she come here? Did Berto ever mention his sister being in the States?”

Xander considered that as Logan pulled a bunch of personal letters out of the drawer and tossed them on the bed. He’d have to scan them all, see if there was anything more useful in them. “Uh, no. He didn’t talk about her that much, actually. He just said something about getting her something for her birthday once.”

“And sending it?” He ran his hand along the side of the drawers, felt nothing, and moved his hand to the bottom, sliding it across -

- hitting something. Now what was that?

“Shit, man, I don’t know. I didn’t pay that much attention; I couldn’t hear that well anyways, we were taking out a wall that day. Why does it matter? What does it have to do with this?”

“Maybe nothing; maybe everything. The devil’s always in the details, you just hafta know where to look for him.” Logan crouched down and looked up at the bottom of the drawer. There was a small envelope duct taped to it, with a mark on the upper right corner that could have been a word. He worked his fingernails carefully around the edges of the tape, peeling it off gently so he didn’t tear the envelope.

“Who the hell are you, Batman?” Xander snapped, then asked, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Found something.” Finally he pulled it off - this tape had been here a while - and stood up, looking at the envelope in the light. Xander came over to see what he had. It was just a standard envelope, the kind you’d send a letter in, only it had the word “Matador” written in small, cramped letters in the corner. Inside of it was six hundred dollars in five one hundred dollar bills and two fifties. “Shit,” Xander gasped, seeing the cash. “Maybe - maybe this was his savings. I’m not sure he had a bank account.”

“If it was, he’s an idiot - nearly every thief knows you check the bottom of the drawers.”

“So you’re a thief, is that it?”

He ignored him as he stared at the name: Matador. He was saving money for Matador? What was that … or who?

Xander scratched his head nervously and threw up his hands. “Why are we wasting time? There’s nothing here but some blood and some letters from home. We need to be out looking for him. Maybe he’s in a hospital; I didn’t check the hospitals.”

“Why don’t you do that?” he pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open.

“Who are you calling?”

“A friend. I need to find a bar where Mexican immigrants hang out. I have a name and I want to see what kind of response it gets.”

Xander’s brow furrowed in annoyance and confusion. “Whose name do you have?”

“Matador.” It meant something to someone, beyond being a man who fought bulls. Now all he had to find out exactly what.

4

He thought being a vampire meant that his days of getting stomach aches was over; apparently not.

Angel sat up, clutching his stomach, groaning at the continued gnawing pain in his gut. It was like he hard indigestion, except he couldn’t have indigestion, not from pig’s blood - or any kind of blood. What an awful, Human pain to have; as much as he would have liked to be Human again, this wasn’t the aspect he wanted back right away.

He caught his breath, and the pain began to ebb, sliding into a low but odd burning sensation. The bedroom window was blacked out, forever hiding the sun, as was the window wall in the front room, although he had been nervous enough about the proximity of the bedroom window to put up heavy burgundy velvet curtains. All he needed was someone to break the window, and it was goodbye him, gone in a puff of smoke. The curtains were at least a second line of defense in that unlikely circumstance.

Because he couldn’t tell the time of day by light, he’d hung a digital clock with a large read out beside the window, a way of instantly knowing how long he had until he could get moving again. It was only a quarter to one, according to the big red letters of the clock, meaning he’d only been asleep for about five hours - he got home late, after the sun had gone up technically, but he managed to get into the building through a currently unused sewer tunnel. He could use it to leave in the daytime, get to the office, but not easily; the tunnel had been partially filled in, so he had to squeeze through it. The opening was barely big enough for him to slip through, so it wasn’t his ideal mode of travel if he could at all avoid it.

He was only sleeping in boxers, so he was able to look at his stomach, scan for any inadvertent scrapes on his stomach that he wasn’t aware of, ones he got slipping in through the tunnel. There was nothing, though; his skin was unmarred, so if he’d ever been cut it had already healed. God, he was tired.

He laid back down, staring up at the ceiling. There was something wrong with him, and he knew it. He figured he should call Giles, let him know that something had happened to him, even if he wasn’t sure what, when, or why.

That’s when the pain started.

It was sudden and so sharp he felt like he’d been stabbed, and looking down, he saw blades poking up through his stomach, making shadows on his skin. The flesh ripped as he watched, and he saw they weren’t blades, but long, claw like fingernails attached to slender, pale fingers. There was no real pain, just an odd, hot sensation as an entire arm came out of him, in violation of all known laws of physics - metaphysical and otherwise - and then a second arm came out. His entire abdomen split down the middle, right up to his breastbone, a grotesque parody of a Caesarian section, although the lack of blood was as inexplicable as it was disconcerting.

A head and shoulders emerged, pushing up through his stomach and out, and the thing he had somehow birthed looked straight down at him, his red eyes burning with hate, his tooth filled, distorted mouth curved up in a sneer. “Well, I knew you’d be good for something someday,” the Master said, his tone dripping with mocking disdain.

Angel jolted awake, a strangled noise caught in his throat. It wasn’t a scream, but it wanted to be. What the hell was that?

He told himself it was just a dream - and it was; his chest wasn’t split crotch to throat, and the Master wasn’t waving at him from the hollow of his stomach - but it felt real. Too real. If he dismissed this as just a nightmare, he knew he’d regret it.

When was the last time he’d thought about the Master? He couldn’t even remember, it had been so long, but then again, he’d been dead for so long. He shouldn’t worry about it for that reason, except experience taught him that things that weren’t just dead but totally obliterated didn’t always stay that way - look at what happened with Darla. Dead didn’t always mean dead; hell, it rarely meant dead nowadays, or so it seemed.

As much as he didn’t like to think about it or admit, he wasn’t actually “just” Angel - what the hell was Angel anyways? An amalgamation of a (dead) Human with a soul and a soulless demon, neither Human or demon but an uncomfortable combination of the two, with the soul in the driver’s seat but the demon in charge of everything else. The demon in him kept him going, gave him the ability to fight and survive, whether he liked it or not. A demon tied by blood to that hideous malformation known as the Master. Technically a vampire more powerful than him, although his demon still wouldn’t admit that.

And the worst part? His stomach did kind of hurt.

He sat up, hand on his abdomen, and wondered if his past was coming back to bite him on the ass. Again.

****

Xander went off to call the hospitals on Berto’s phone (in the kitchen), leaving him alone in the bedroom. He sat on the end of the unmade bed and sifted through letters as he dialed the number of the Way Station. He got lucky, as just the person he wanted to speak to answered the phone (he’d girded his loins for Lia and her bitter venom). “Hey Hel, how’s it going?”

“Same old shit,” she replied off hand. “How’s the old man?”

Logan knew she didn’t mean him; she meant Bob. “Haven’t you heard from him?”

“Lately? No, I think you have that over me, you home wrecking bastard.”

He grimaced, unfolding another letter. “Sorry about that. You know it ain’t on purpose.”

She sighed heavily. “Yeah, I know. He’d just better get his ass back here soon, or send me a sign or something. Otherwise I’m gonna start selling his stuff. Speaking of which, I’ve noticed you haven’t darkened my towels lately.”

“I’ve gotta girlfriend.”

“So? You have my boyfriend’s energy in you - you owe me at least a nostalgia fuck.”

He did his best not to laugh, but she startled it out of him. He quickly stifled it, hoping Xander was too busy arguing with receptionists to hear. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. You’re just being a lazy bastard now. So what’re you calling for if not to jump my bones? We got some ass to kick?”

“Maybe; I’m not sure. I’m wondering if you knew where Mexican immigrants - Human ones - hung out, away from the gringos.”

“Like a bar? I can think of a couple. Why?”

This is why he knew he should talk to Helga. If she didn’t know something, she could find someone who did know; Bob not only sold weapons, he sold information. The Way Station was a front for arms and information brokering. Knowledge was power, but it was also a weapon in the right hands, which Bob and Helga alike knew better than almost anyone. “This guy’s missing, Mexican immigrant here under his brother’s visa, and the only clues I have to go on are some blood and an envelope with the name Matador on it. I was hoping someone would -”

“Matador?” Hel interrupted. She sounded surprised. “The coyote?”

“What?” Coyote was a slang term for guys who smuggled people over the border. A lot of them were the worst kind of scumbags. “You know him?”

“He’s kinda notorious in underground circles,” Hel continued. It sounded like Thrak was gargling a story to someone in the background, over the sound of the jukebox. “A complete fuck, even among that breed.”

Logan stared at the money in the envelope. Berto was saving money for Matador? Why? To smuggle his sister across the border? No, that made no sense; he was here under a legal visa (whether he was the guy technically named on the visa or not), and it was quite possible he could smuggle her through a border crossing if he wanted to. If Mimi was here, what was the money for? “Know where I can find him?”

She snorted a laugh. “I dunno. Check the border crossings, the piers, any of the secret sweatshops near Oakland. How the feds haven’t nailed this guy I have no idea. Pays to be wealthy, huh?”

He grunted in agreement, but was hardly listening anymore. Matador was a human trafficker, an exploiter of the worst kind, and he really hated traffickers. He was so angry he was having a hard time keeping thoughts straight in his head.

If the Matador had his men come after Berto for some reason, he was probably dead - not killed here, but elsewhere, probably never to be found. Erased from the face of the earth as if he’d never existed.

But he had existed, and Logan was going to know why he had been killed. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know Soto at all - he knew these kind of men. And he was going to make the Matador sorry he was ever born.