Angel hadn’t even completed his turn before something slammed into his back, so hard he thought he was hit by a car. He flew across the street and straight into a mailbox, tasting and hearing the metal before he blacked out for several seconds, and woke up on the pavement, tasting blood, his ears ringing - or maybe that was just the mailbox, which had been ripped free of two of its four bolts in the asphalt and now tilting at a bizarre angle.

Looking back across the street, at the steaming wreckage of the truck, he saw what had hit him. Them. (Where was Logan?) It was exactly what he feared in the first place - a Berserker, only … not. Berserkers were as black as oil, and reeked of burning rubber; you could smell one long before you saw it. But this one was an odd, mottled brown, its carapace strangely dull and thin looking. It towered a good eight and a half feet, though, and its hands seemed actually to scale, which was exceptionally odd for a Berserker - and its teeth were smaller, although there remained the requisite thousand and a half in its wide, distended mouth. Its eyes were an odd pink, though, making him wonder if this was some kind of albino Berserker. A hybrid? He didn’t think Berserkers could - or would - breed with any other sub-species, but just about anything was possible, especially in Los Angeles. But that lack of smell was curious.

It sounded like it was roaring, but he knew it was talking; the thing was, it was hard to understand. It was saying something like, “-not right; this isn’t right -” and standing in the middle of the street, looking around like it wanted something to eat. Since it ate all lesser beings, and every being was supposedly lesser to it, this wasn’t something he could allow to continue.

Angel climbed to his feet, garnering its attention, but it just stared at him. “What isn’t right?” he asked, wondering what that was supposed to mean. Feeling his own teeth cut his lower lip, he realized the impact had made him morph into vamp face involuntarily. Why did it feel so weird? He was hardly a vampire virgin.

It growled, a deep sound like gravel in an industrial blender, and started stalking towards him, head low and clawed hands held far apart. It said something like “Your fault, parasite,” but it was perfectly unclear if his translation was incorrect. This Berserker obviously wasn’t from around here - its dialect was barely translatable.

Angel didn’t even see Logan before he was in mid air.

He had apparently been thrown in an alley between two long condemned buildings (not unlike the Hyperion, only more intact), and came running out, jumping up on the frame of the ruined SUV to launch himself at the back of the Berserker, claws flashing in mid air as he landed on the Berserker, caught in mid turn, grabbing it around for what passed for its neck with one arm. He drove his free claws deep into the back of its head, where spine and skull met, the only weak spot on a Berserker, and the only way to actually kill one. It screeched and shook Logan off like he was a flea, sending him flying into the street, but Logan was prepared for it this time and managed to roll with it. The Berserker just stood still for a moment, wavering on its feet, then collapsed to the ground, hard enough to crack the pavement. Logan picked himself up like this no big deal. He had fresh blood on his face, but the cuts they must have come from were already healed.

“Should I be worried that you have Berserker slaying down to a science?”

Logan just shrugged, working his head to the side like he was getting the kinks out of his neck. “They’re overrated. Buncha bitches, the lot of ‘em.”

Only Logan would say that about Berserkers. “They’re killing machines!”

“Yeah, well, so am I. That’s no excuse.”

Angel just glared at him, not sure what that was supposed to mean. Self-pity or resignation? “You’re not a machine.”

“Yeah, well, close enough,” he replied curtly, clearly not wanting to discuss it. He nodded at the Berserker corpse. “Why is this one brown? I thought they were all black and smelled like a tire fire.”

“They are, as far as I know.” He wished Logan hadn’t killed it before he could question it further, but truth be told, it was unlikely to answer him. He had no idea if it even understood him anymore than he understood it, and Berserkers just weren’t known as great communicators anyways.

“Do you know what it was sayin’?”

It was Angel’s turn to shrug and shake his head. “It was saying something about this being all wrong, but I could barely understand it. It was speaking some kind of Berserker dialect I’ve never heard before.”

“Huh. So it comes out of nowhere, with no smell and a new color, and doesn’t seem to know where it is. That’s weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

They stood over the body, trying to puzzle it out in their heads, but it didn’t make sense. Yes, L.A. had a tendency to collect misfits, but it would be impossible to hide a strange Berserker - it would have been the talk of the demon community. Of course, he’d been gone for a few months, so maybe it had been. His first impulse was to ask Wesley about odd Berserkers, but with a sick twinge in his stomach, he knew he could never ask him a damn thing ever again.

“So what do we do with the body?” Logan asked after a while.

Oh, great. Back in L.A. for ten minutes, and already he was trying to figure out how you hid an eight foot demon corpse. Could the night get any better?

3

When the note appeared on his kitchen table, with the cryptic sentence ‘He’s back’, he knew instantly whom this was about.

There was more on the other side, but reading it was superfluous. Yes, it was exactly whom he thought it was, back where he suspected. How was he supposed to feel about it? He honestly wasn’t sure.

He sat at the table, sipping his tea, looking out at the profuse riot of greenery that was his back garden. As of late, he’d considered rearranging it with dynamite. When he first retired, it was such bliss to have nothing but time to himself, without having to worry about something popping up and killing him and his loved ones. But eventually the question ‘What loved ones?’ popped up, and he began thinking more and more about all the lost opportunities, the lost lives, the sacrifices made for what seemed to be a good cause, but now didn’t keep him very warm at night.

In a strange way, it was a kind of grieving process. First there was the anger, then the guilt, then the acceptance, but it was a bitter kind of acceptance. No, he never expected glory or thanks for what was in point of fact a secret war, one most people were better off not knowing about, but all his victories now tasted like ashes in his mouth, and he felt washed up and useless. He thought his retirement would be a well deserved rest, but he apparently wasn’t ready to rest, and really not cut out for it anyways, even though he had always dreamed about it. After six months, he was slowly, quietly going mad.

He did the British tourist thing, taking trips to Ibiza and Madagascar, Egypt and India, and enjoying them all for what they were, but no more than that. He would return home, feeling hollow and just a little bit worthless. Drinking didn’t fill the void, but it did numb it for a while. Only when the whole London thing came up did he realize what he was missing.

When Ruby first called him, he didn’t want to get involved, but grudgingly he did, because she was one of the few acquaintances he had who didn’t look down their nose at him. Then, when he was in the thick of things, he felt a strange kind of calm and peace he hadn’t felt in what seemed like years. Yes, he was in the middle of the thing, amidst violence and madness, and yet he felt strangely like he was home. He supposed that was a sign he needed some sort of psychiatric help.

But now that he tried to settle back into his life of quiet desperation, he found he couldn’t. Yes, he had retired, but the war still raged; Ned made that clear. And now he felt like he was wasting both himself and the future, letting down his side. Yes, the battle was honestly for the young, but he had experience and expertise that the young just couldn’t have. He wasn’t claiming he was some awesome weapon, an overwhelming force for good, but he could be of some use. And now that he knew the war continued to rage (and hadn’t it always? He just pretended it didn’t, like some craven coward …), he could no longer feign ignorance. His conscience didn’t allow him to sit on his hands and do nothing, not while he was alive and able to do something about it.

There was absolutely no getting around it. He couldn’t pretend to be a normal person, because he wasn’t. He was trained all his life - or indoctrinated, depending on the mood he was in - to fight in this war, and even though he tried to give it, and even wanted to give it up, he had now discovered he couldn’t. He must have passed the point of no return a long time ago, and never noticed it. Not until he had time to reflect on his past and realize that while he could try and leave it, it wouldn’t leave him. And never give him a moment’s peace, even if he did try.

Damn them. He wanted to curse his family, the entire council, every survivor, all of the enemy … but it wasn’t that simple. None of it was; life wasn’t. You wanted things simple, you wanted them black and white, but that was a child’s wish, and it was embarrassing for an adult to even think about. Not all demons were bad, and not all Humans were good. He knew demons he would trust over Humans any day of the week. Look at Ruby - she was technically a Human, but that bite relegated her to werewolf status, and made her something of an embarrassment to the council, because werewolves couldn’t control their bestial nature. She was still a damn good Watcher, and the fact that she had a werewolf’s sense of smell helped her more than it hurt. It also put the vampires off, as werewolf tainted blood apparently left a “bitter aftertaste”, if Spike’s word could be trusted at all. And then there was Ned, all Human, but apparently as mad as a hatter.

Now this note was a breaking point. He could go one way or another, use it as an opportunity, or as a reason to stop even entertaining the idea. But London had already made up his mind for him.

Giles got up from the kitchen table, and wondered what he should pack.

4

Considering the time of night, Logan didn’t call Rags at the church, but where he figured he’d actually be, if not on the town with Thrak, subjecting people to lethal karaoke. He got it right; Rags was drinking at the Way Station.

When Lau handed the phone to him, he heard, in spite of the System of a Down playing in the background, Rags groan wearily - he didn’t want to deal with him. He tried to make that clear, but Logan shut him up by saying a few choice words.

There was a long pause, and then Rags exclaimed, as much annoyed as scared, “What d’ya mean there’s a bloody Berserker demon?!”

Maybe he was wrong, but it sounded like the bar shared a collective gasp, quieting the music in the background. Boy, was there no one who liked them? No wondered they were so pissed off all the time. He almost felt sorry for them.

He assured Rags he was dead, and they needed him to come down and help them teleport it off the street. He seemed a bit more eager to help them, but maybe because the heavy lifting was done, and the Berserker was already dead.

Angel was still looking around, seemingly a bit dazed. Bob had said he'd be out of sorts for a while, having returned to this dimension after being away for so long, but it wasn't only babysitting that he wanted him for. Of course, Bob wouldn't say what he wanted him to help him with beyond that, but Logan just assumed it wasn't good.

He really didn't want to do this right now. But he owed Angel at least one, and it was the very least he could do.

Rags whoomped into existence beside him once he hung up the pay phone receiver, and the noise made Angel jump - he hadn't been expecting him to join them so soon. "Where th' fuck -" Rags began, then stopped when his yellow crystal eyes settled on Angel. "Oi, aren't you dead?"

Angel stared back impassively. "I'm still dead. I'm a vampire."

"Yeah, I know that, but ..." he sighed and shook his head, turning his seemingly sightless gaze back on the dead Berserker. "Wha' the fuck you do to it? Why's it turd colored?"

"This was the way we found it."

"Technically it found us," Angel corrected.

Logan just shrugged. "Whatever."

Rags studied it, but at a safe distance, as if he didn't believe it was actually dead. After a moment, he shook his head, making his shaggy dirty blonde hair shake. "This isn't right."

Logan rolled his eyes and sighed. This was going to be a long night. "Thank you, Sherlock, we had no idea. Look, can you just teleport it into the sewers or something? Get it off the street before the cops arrive?"

Rags nodded, but never looked away from the body. "Yeah, I guess. So you are the Berserker Slayer people talk about, huh?"

"Guess so."

He scoffed humorously. "Wouldn't wanna be in yer shoes, mate, not when the queen 'ears about you."

He assumed he meant the Berserker queen, which he had heard about, the big cheese grand poobah of the race. He wasn't exactly shaking in his boots - if he could kill the drones, he could kill the queen. There couldn't be that big of a physiological difference.

Rags threw some glitter around, did his inexplicable vocalizing, and made the thing disappear. He and Angel stood on the sidewalk, watching.

"He could probably turn this into a nightclub act," Angel deadpanned.

"Probably. But he'd have to stay sober to sign a contract, and that might be too much for him."

"Sobriety's overrated."

Once he was done, he walked back to them, sirens starting to dopple in the distance. "What was it doing 'ere anyways? a 'it? Is that why they're spam in a can?"

He was referring rather tactlessly to the dead people in the SUV. There were two of them, but you could only tell that pretty much by scent; it was just a bloody mess inside the vehicle. The best guess was the SUV rammed the thing, either by accident or trying foolishly to kill it with a sideswipe (Berserkers were too strong to be run down by a car, and their carapace could absorb a great deal of impact), or the Berserker ran into them, kicking the SUV like a football and pulping the people inside by sheer force before the thing even toppled on its side. He could reach into the soupy mess of them and try to recover some i.d. but it seemed insensitive.

"We don't know," Logan admitted. "It didn't really talk."

Rags nodded. "It wouldn't." He paused briefly. "Should we 'ave a drink?"

"Fuck yeah."

He got out some more glitter and mumbled something before grabbing them each by an arm, and them with a reverse whoomp and a sudden jolt, they were in the Way Station.

The jukebox was still on, but now playing the mellower sounds of The Shins, and Lau looked at them impassively from behind the bar, the Samoan still refusing to be impressed by anything. The bar was curiously empty, though, and even Rags seemed to notice. "Where is everybody?" he asked Lau.

“I think saying Berserker in a demon bar is the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater,” Angel noted.

Rags shrugged, not looking the least bit guilty. “I just said it on th’ phone.”

There was the sound of a door closing, and someone came out of one of the bathrooms located in the hall. “Rags, you -” The man paused, and it was easy to see why. It was Brendan. “Logan, you’re awake!” He exclaimed, and suddenly lunged at him and gave him a bear hug. Logan’s first impulse was to turn and use his own momentum to toss him across the room, but he squelched it, and patted the kid on the back. He was a good kid, and if he was a bit more huggy than he was, he couldn’t hold it against him.

“And you’re back in L.A. - I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, I came back with Rags, ‘cause I felt kinda useless at the mansion after we rescued Saddiq.” He finally stopped hugging him, and did a double take as he looked at Angel. “Aren’t you dead?”

Angel sighed wearily, and Brendan added, “Well, you know, beyond the usual way.”

“I was just … gone for a while. I didn’t die. Again.” He then got a funny look on his face, and turned back towards him. “You were asleep?”

“No, comatose. It’s a long story.”

Brendan chimed in, “He let Rogue just about drain all the life force out of him to save her from the Organization. And then she was able to use his knowledge to rescue Saddiq.”

He stared at him, acutely aware of why he preferred to work alone. “Okay, apparently it’s not that long.”

They all took a seat at the bar and had drinks - he had a beer, Rags had another Long Island iced tea, Lau just gave Angel a cup of blood (goat, if he was judging the smell right) without being asked, and he set Brendan up with a rum and diet coke (he figured the kid could have one drink, but then he’d put a stop to it so he didn’t get sloppy drunk) - and discussed why there might be a weird Berserker. Angel brought up the “hybrid” theory, but Rags dismissed that summarily. “Only Ressiks are fuck ‘em or eat ‘em types; Berserkers just eat ‘em. ‘m not sure they ‘ave the proper equipment to do much else.”

This led to a conversation on a trusted demon expert who might know something about that, but those pickings were slim. Rags insisted he knew a good Turbet demon who “passed” and taught economics at UCLA, but Angel just scoffed and explained Turbets were unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and were naturally predisposed to vivid hallucinations, especially since plain old table sugar gave them a high akin to acid. Not only did that not sound promising, but it explained modern economic theory in its entirety.

It then occurred to Logan that he had no idea where Angel was going to stay now - his old apartment was part of Wolfram and Hart’s network, right? They probably changed the locks on him. And the Hyperion was toast. He asked Angel if he had a place to go, and he shrugged and tried to change the subject, but he didn’t let him. Rags offered to let him “crash” at his place, but Angel seemed less than enthused, especially after he pointed out he lived above a taco stand. Brendan lived in a two room apartment above the Church of the Stone Temple, but offered Angel his couch. He was polite about it, but again, didn’t seem to eager to accept.

Logan asked Lau, “Bob has a lot of pull in this city. Surely he’s gotta have pull at a hotel around here.” That was one good thing about L.A. - Bob’s name got things done. He was like royalty or something; just mentioning his name could open doors previously sealed shut.

The big man said nothing, just pulled out what looked like a little black book and thumbed through it. After a moment, he laid it down flat in front of him, pointed to an entry, and then put the phone on the bar. Bob’s little book of connections?

He punched in the phone number for what was called the “Sea Crest Hotel” - he’d never heard of it, but he really didn’t know Los Angeles all that well.

The phone was answered on the third ring, by a snooty sounding guy. Once he inquired about rooms, he was informed haughtily that all the rooms were booked, so then he dropped the bombshell that he was calling on behalf of Bob. There was a dramatic pause, then he asked if he meant “that” Bob. As soon as he confirmed that, a room miraculously was available. Amazing how that worked.

He then hung up and told Angel he was good until he could find a more permanent place to stay, but he looked a little queasy. Was it staying in a hotel or possibly being beholden to Bob that made him hesitant?

“Where the ‘ell’s the Sea Crest?” Rags wondered. “Never ‘eard of it.” He was now on his second drink since they got here.

“Oh, it’s out towards Venice,” Brendan said. “I think I saw it once when I was cleaning out a nest of - a nest, a nest of spiders.”

Did he actually think that was going to work? Angel looked at him sharply. “You’ve been hunting vampires? By yourself?”

Brendan shook his head and looked away, probably trying to formulate a plausible lie, when Rags, who was too drunk to catch the tense vibe, interjected, “I tell ‘im all the time not to, it’s too dangerous, but kids never bloody listen, do they?”

Angel looked livid. “Are you insane? Do you want to die?”

Now Brendan was getting defensive. “Hey, I can take care of myself, okay? It’s not like I‘m Human.” As if to remind him of that fact, he let his demon side emerge, becoming blue-green and spiky in the blink of an eye.

That was the wrong thing to do. Logan watched Angel tense, hand curling into a fist on the surface of the bar. Did he hate Brachen demons or something? “You could be dead very fast. I don’t care how good a fighter you are, all you need to do is run into a very large group, or an experienced vampire, and you’re toast, half Brachen or not.” He suddenly whirled to face him. “How the hell could you allow this, Logan? I thought you knew better.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and at the level of Angel’s anger. This really pushed a button, didn’t it? Why? Because all of his other friends were dead? “I’m not his father. It’s his life, and if he wants to toss it away, it’s his decision.”

“Hey,” Brendan snapped. “I’m not ‘tossing it away’. I can fight. Do you know how many I’ve dusted?”

“I know you can fight,” Logan replied. “And I know most vamps are dumber than a ham sandwich, but it still ain’t the smartest thing in the world to do.”

“And you would know about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oi!” Rags suddenly shouted, gaining all their attention. “Angel, yer right it’s stupid, but Logan, yer right it’s ‘is choice. Yes, Brendan, you can fight - you wouldn’t be alive if you couldn’t - but maybe now’s th’ time to leave it to professionals, okay? Okay then. Let us finish drinkin’ in peace.”

The three of them exchanged leery glances. Apparently the only thing that made Rags angry was arguing while he was trying to drink. He supposed that he could understand that.

*****

It should have been an uneventful trip. But like most things, it didn’t come out that way. Why did he think something like this would be any different?

Rags was apparently too drunk to teleport them to the Sea Crest, and they ended up on a boardwalk somewhere south of the hotel. Brendan knew where they were , though, and they started walking. According to him, it was only a couple of blocks away.

They’d gone maybe a block when the oppressive, all encompassing silence unnerved Logan mightily. The street seemed totally deserted, even the noise of cars on neighboring streets seemed oddly muted, like there was an invisible bubble covering this part of the city. He really didn’t like this, not one bit.

Rags wasn’t so drunk that it didn’t get to him. “Where is ever’body?” he wondered, looking around and almost losing his balance as a consequence.

“Yeah, this is weird,” Brendan concurred. “There’s a punk club around here. This place is usually buzzing ‘til five in the morning.”

Suddenly Logan got hit with a smell so sudden and so powerful he had to stop. It was a scent reeking of rotted meat and fetid sewage, a stench unholy and bloody, decomposed flesh roasting in a pressure cooker. He shook his head to try and clear it from his nostrils, swallowing back bile.

“What is it?” Angel asked, sounding tense, looking around warily.

“I dunno,” he admitted, resting his hands on his knees, attempting to breathe through his mouth. (A bad move - now he could taste it. Vomit would be an improvement.) “I think we’d better get out of here. There’s something -”

He didn’t even have time to finish the sentence. The manhole covers in the street suddenly exploded, and out through the sewer access came tentacles, thick as tree trunks and reaching twenty feet up into the sky. They were a mottled blue-black and bloated, like a decomposing corpse.

“What the fuck is that?!” Brendan exclaimed, just before one of the tentacles grabbed him and dragged him into the sewer.