He found some clothes in another upstairs room that he could live with, although he felt rather silly. They were just jeans, yeah, nothing special about them, but they were apparently designer, and probably cost more than his entire last wardrobe combined. Combined with all the clothes he actually owned, and others he borrowed, across his entire life span. Who were these greedy ass people charging more than twenty dollars for a pair of jeans, and how could he get a cut of that action?

The shirts he didn't like; the shirts he hated. Didn't this guy own any t-shirts? Eventually he found, still in a plastic bag, a promotional t-shirt for a movie he never heard of. He put it on, and because it was a large, it fit.

The smell of eggs brought him back downstairs, and it led him to the kitchen, where a matronly middle aged Hispanic woman (Carlotta) was cooking breakfast. She asked him what he wanted, and he was going to tell her nothing, but his stomach rumbled hungrily - the eggs smelled good.

So he sat at the butcher block island in the middle of the stainless steel kitchen, and ate some of the best huevos rancheros he had ever had while talking to her in her native Spanish. She seemed surprised - and then nervous - when he started speaking to her in her language, especially since he was asking about her employer, but then she loosened up a bit when she realized he wasn't going to report on her to him.

She really liked working for "Mr. Gold" (cute, what with his vaguely gold skin). Apparently he was the nicest, most fair boss she'd ever worked for. She said she'd worked for some famous people who were a bit "nutty" and threw parties where things happened that she wasn't comfortable with, but that had never happened the whole five years she had been working here. He liked her to be here from ten to five every day, and that was it. She made meals, froze a lot of them so he could have them later on his own time, and that was it. He never called her from home or asked her to do things she didn't want to, and he was never mean to her. He was also one of the naturally neatest men she'd ever worked for, and paid her well. As far as she had seen, he didn't have a mean bone in his body.

All rather funny, in an ironic way. Treated badly by Humans, she'd found a kind of respite with a demon. He wasn't sure he could ask her right out if she knew he was a demon - he suspected she didn't - so he danced around it by asking if she thought he looked a little funny. She just shrugged, said his ears were "unusual", but then mentioned a cousin down in San Luis Obispo who had a funny shaped head due to forceps used by a doctor when he was an infant. So she figured stuff like that just happened.

She was nice; he liked her. Even though, when he went to the stainless steel fridge to find a beer, she smacked him with a dish towel and informed him that no one was drinking before noon in her kitchen. He had to settle for bottled water, which was not the same at all. But the tortillas with the huevos rancheros were made from scratch, and really, really good. She made enough for three people, but he ended up eating it all. She didn't seem to mind - she said this stuff didn't freeze up too well anyways.

By the time Gold came to fetch him, he was full and in a much better mood. Also, he was less homicidally inclined towards him, if only for Carlotta's sake.

Gold was wearing pants too, which again made him a bit more forgiving. He was wearing slim, beige colored tailored slacks, and a loose, slightly gauzy pale blue shirt that was probably designer and really expensive, but made him look a little bit like a back up dancer for someone's Las Vegas review. He was decked out in platinum too, the trappings of wealth; his watch, several rings, and an earring all glittered flat silver. "Are you ready to meet the boss, Logan? He's ready to meet you."

He sighed, and finished up his second bottle of water, missing beer desperately - but he knew very well you didn't piss off a woman in her own kitchen, not if you wanted to walk upright for the rest of your life. He thanked Carlotta for the meal, meaning it (why did rich people always eat the best? It didn't seem fair ...), and Gold gave her a polite nod before they left the kitchen.

"Isn't she a sweetie?" Gold said, as soon as they were in the dining room.

He nodded in agreement, because it was true. "She's a great cook, too."

"Oh, I know. A lot of my friends don't get why I eat Human food, but they just haven't had the right Human food. It's not all McDonald's and Twinkies."

Was that the demon view of Human food?! No wonder most of them hated Humans. He would too.

Gold seemed to be leading him into the back of his expansive house. As they passed more movie memorabilia - a life sized Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, next to what purported to be a framed script from Casablanca - he asked, "So what's your boss like? Who is he?"

It was subtle, but Gold seemed to stiffen just slightly, his posture grow more rigid. Was he afraid of his boss? (That wasn't a good sign, was it?) "He's a very ... important man. He has big plans, which is why he needs fighters like you."

"I'm still not sure I get it." Also, he hadn't heard anyone arrive, and he was sure he would have, no matter how big this place was. So either this was some kind of conference call (unlikely) or magic or teleportation was involved (more likely).

"Oh, you will. I'm sure he'll answer all your questions." He came to a stop in front of a door that looked like a vault. There was no knob, nothing that indicated a way to open the door, until Gold put his hand flat on its surface. After a moment, there was a hum, and his hand seemed to sink into the door, like the metal was becoming mercury beneath his fingers.

The liquid metal of the door swallowed his hand up to the wrist, but there was no reaction from Gold at all. Finally, after a long moment, the door seemed to dissolve, evaporating like a mirage. “You can never be too careful,” Gold told him, with a sheepish grimace.

There was nothing beyond the former door. Just a living, pulsing darkness that seemed to breathe. It gave off a whiff of stale, moist air, redolent of mold and … something else, something Logan couldn’t place. All he knew was it was hot and vaguely metallic, like there was a garbage fire in a smelter. It wasn’t wildly comforting.

Gold stood aside and gestured towards the darkness. “He just wants to see you this time.”

Logan eyed him warily. “Uh huh. And I’m supposed to believe this isn’t a trap?”

Gold shrugged with his hands. “Why would we go to all this trouble if we were just going to kill you?”

That was a point, but demons could be really perverse; they could have kept him alive so far just to yank the rug out from under him now. Still, he’d come this far - he couldn’t possibly pussy out now. Besides, if the guy wanted to kill him, it wasn’t like he was defenseless.

He took a deep breath, hands clenched into fists at his side so he could pop his claws quickly if he had to, and stepped into the black room.

He had expected an attack.

He hadn’t expected to fall straight down into nothing.

10

Since he’d been gone, t.v. had gotten really bad.

Or so it seemed, anyways. Angel hadn’t slept well, and it was too damn sunny when he got up, so he was forced to stay in his room. Oh, he’d done a little searching, and actually found what looked like a sewer access in a part of the hotel that was technically off limit to guests, but for some reason, he didn’t want to venture out yet. He needed to be here mainly because the Brezakaran investigation was still ongoing, and if he had guys out there, he didn’t need them to identify him as being back, which might cause problems that they didn’t need right now.

It had nothing to do with what some smart ass would probably diagnose as depression. Nor was it the conflicted feelings brought out by Logan’s blood on his hands. (Damn, his blood smelled good. It wasn’t like normal blood; it was like the Red Bull of Human blood …)

And it turned out he had been gone so long that he couldn’t follow his soap opera anymore. How shitty was that? Not that he was a big soap opera watcher or anything, he really didn’t have much time to watch t.v., and he generally preferred books anyways, but sometimes he’d watch this one … if he was up, and couldn’t sleep, and didn’t have anything better to do.

So he tried to watch it, but he didn’t recognize half the cast, or a good third of the character names, and one character had been replaced by an actress about twenty years younger than the previous one! So he just flipped around, and was just astonished by the amount of crap - there really was nothing to watch. Eventually he came to the Sci-Fi Channel and an X-Files repeat, and left it on, because it was one of their better episodes.

He needed to hit a bookstore tonight. He missed his books. He used to have an incredible collection of books; he even had a copy of Candide signed by the author. But now he had nothing - no home, no possessions, and worst of all, no friends. He tried very hard not to dwell on the fact that all his friends had been killed for almost nothing, and yet he hadn’t died. It was hardly new, was it? People died around him all the time, and sometimes he was even the one to kill them. He was undead, and that was just part of the deal. He thought he’d gotten inured to it, or at least used to it, but it was a lie. No he wasn’t - he just wished he was. That was the problem of being in the world. You cared about people, and you let them down, and they broke your hearts, and they died, and sometimes you ended up standing in the ruins, wondering where everything went so wrong. Again.

He couldn’t brood about it, he knew that, but it too was hard not to do. But he had no right to feel sorry for himself. He took a shower, just to give himself something to do since he wasn’t sleeping. He still remembered coming back with blood on his hands, and being so tempted by the smell. He hesitated far too long before he made himself wash his hands, as aggressively as an obsessive-compulsive.

He considered ordering room service - yeah, they didn’t have blood, but he could eat Human food from time to time, if not exactly enjoy it as much as he did when he had genuine Human taste buds - but that seemed like a waste of time. He couldn’t eat; his stomach was a knot. He needed to sleep, but couldn’t; he needed to feed, but couldn’t. He needed not to be alone with his thoughts, but he couldn’t escape them. If this wasn’t purgatory, it was a damn good imitation.

Finally there was a knock at the door, totally unexpected, and yet he was ashamed at how quickly he bounded off the bed, eager for the company. God, what was he, a puppy? He really needed to get some books, or a hobby, badly. Better yet, he needed to find a more stable place to stay, one with less windows, or at least heavier curtains. This place was just too in love with its sea view.

He opened the door to find Brendan standing there, in his painfully young Human guise. “Hey. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, no … just got up,” he lied, standing aside to let him in. “What’s up?”

Brendan was a good looking kid, one who could have passed for Human entirely if his eyes weren’t always Brachen red, and he reminded him of Doyle in more ways than one, except he was much more confident in his fighting abilities. Doyle was a reluctant fighter, at best; Brendan seemed a little too eager to throw himself into things. The cockiness of youth, perhaps. He could hardly remember; for him, that was centuries behind him. Either way, the kid reminded him enough of Doyle that he felt almost unbearable guilt just looking at him.

Brendan waited until he closed the door before he spoke. The kid was too young to be this experienced. “I just thought you should know that Logan disappeared this morning.”

He wasn’t surprised - they were expecting something like that. “When?”

He shrugged, faking nonchalance very well. He had a big time crush on Logan, that was obvious, but Angel wasn’t completely sure if he wanted to date him, or just be like him. Could have gone either way. “Dunno. I was sleeping; I just woke up and found him missing. I called Giles, and he said he was working on tracing him now. He’ll call me when he gets a hit.”

Since Logan had been mystically tagged, it was decided last night that they would “tag” Logan as well, so Giles could cast a locator spell and find him wherever he was taken, as it was assumed they’d use a teleportation spell to retrieve him. It was much safer than sending someone around to pick him up.

Brendan looked around his hotel room, as if expecting something to be different from the last time he was here. “So what’s the plan if we find him? I mean, do we go rushing to his rescue, or what?”

That was something he and Giles hadn’t quite come to a resolution about last night. “No. It’s going to depend on where he is. If he appears to be in immediate danger, we’ll move, but otherwise, we’ll just wait until Logan contacts us - and he will - and go from there. We can’t assume that Brezakaran has the object with him at all times, so if we rush in too early, we may lose our chance at it.”

He sighed heavily. “So we wait?”

“Afraid s-” he stopped as Brendan’s cell phone went off, and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it breezily. “Yeah?”

He suddenly got a strange look on his face, and replied, “Uh, hi Helga, what’s goin’ on?”

Helga? Oh, right, the Stansin demon that was Bob’s current girlfriend. What was she doing calling him? Was Bob finally joining the party?

Brendan listened, the confused look never quite leaving his face, and he nodded absently. “Okay, yeah, I’ll tell him. See you soon.” He flipped his phone closed, and asked, “Do you know a woman named Naomi?”

He was surprised mainly by the non-sequitur nature of the question. “Naomi? N - wait a second. Naomi Deschanel? Yeah, I do. What about her?” There was a blast from the past - Logan’s former girlfriend. There was some suspicious timing there, wasn’t there? Was Bob up to his tricks again?

“She’s at the Way Station. Apparently Bob gave her the address and a “pass” so she could find the place if she ever needed to. She’s looking for you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “That’s all Helga told me. Who is she? Somebody we should be worried about?”

Good lord, how well had Logan trained him? “No. She’s an old girlfriend of Logan’s, a mutant.”

That seemed to pique his interest. “Really? What’s her power?”

“She controls electricity. She can absorb it, shoot it, make it obey her will, things like that.”

His eyes widened appreciably. “Really? Wicked! Now why didn’t I get a cool power like that? I can just remember every fucking thing. Why did I get the lame ass power?”

He shrugged. “It’s not lame. It could be useful …”

“Like when? When I need to testify in court?” he rolled his eyes and made a negative noise. “Yeah, that’s something. In the team where one guy has laser eyeballs, another can heal from any physical blow, another controls the weather, and the leader is the most powerful telepath known to Humankind, I’m the guy who can remember every single digit on a license plate. Ooh, I’m really going to get the chicks then, huh?” He sighed impatiently, and then asked, “Does she have a code name?”

“Yes.” Only after he answered did he realize he should have lied. Crap.

“What?”

Oh damn it. “Electra.”

Brendan reacted just as he expected, staring at him in disbelief. “What?! Oh man, she even has a cooler code name than me! This just sucks …”

“If it’s anything, Logan would probably love to have your power.”

That made Brendan pause, and go strangely quiet, as he thought it might. Sometimes you just needed to put things in perspective.

He’d have to remember that for himself.

***

He used the basement sewer access to reach the Way Station, and even though he told Brendan to go ahead and use the surface to get there ahead of him, he insisted on coming with him. At least he got to keep an eye on him that way.

In spite of the fact that it was afternoon, or possibly because of it, the bar was pretty busy. Some demons must have recognized him on sight, as they glared daggers at him, or moved towards the door. Naomi was easy to spot. Not because she was the only Human, but because Helga was keeping her company on the next bar stool, probably making sure that none of the demon clientele would bother her or think she was a snack. Demons would do a lot of things, but piss off Helga was generally not one of them. “Well, look who’s back from oblivion,” Helga said to him as he reached the bar. She slid off the stool and stepped aside, so Naomi could see him.

Naomi hadn’t changed much from the last time he’d see her. Her hair was now slightly longer and chestnut brown, but it looked good on her. She was wearing sneakers, blue jeans, a purple silk camisole tank top, a light jacket of some synthetic fiber that gleamed as black as oil, and black suede gloves. While the gloves looked a bit funny in this weather, she could accidentally shock people, so he supposed she was trying to minimize that possibility. She gave him a smile that seemed tired. “Angel. I’m so sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s no bother.” She gave him a brief, friendly hug, and he excepted it, mainly because he didn’t know what else to do. He then took a seat, and gestured to Brendan, who took the stool next to his. “Uh, Naomi, this is Brendan. Brendan, Naomi.”

“Hey,” he said, with a friendly nod.

“Hi,” she said, a little uncertainly. She was probably wondering why he had a teenager tagging along with him, especially now. “I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”

“No, not at all. Brendan and I are just working on something together … with Logan, and a friend of mine.”

“Logan’s here too?” She replied, more curious than anything else. He searched for recognition in her eyes, and didn’t find it. No, she still barely knew who Logan was, and probably still thought of him as nothing but one of his friends. Presumably Logan had never told her of their love affair, even though she had every right to know. But he knew that Naomi taking the hit from Lethe instead of him - and losing so many years of her life - was a guilt that he found almost unbearable. He supposed he could sympathize, since he had the younger ersatz Doyle sitting on his immediate right.

“In town, yes. So why are you here? I thought you were living on the East Coast.”

She shrugged, looking down at her drink, which smelled like coke and vodka. “I was. But … you know, I got really bored. I mean, so incredibly bored I thought I was going to die. And I knew you lived out here, so I figured fuck it, I’d come see how you were doing. Besides, everyone wants to go to L.A., don’t they?”

Angel could only shrug. Maybe. He never really thought about it. And now that he’d been here long enough, he wondered why anyone ever came here at all.

After a moment, once Interpol faded to a background drone, she asked, “So what are you guys involved in? Maybe I can help. I’ve been itching to do something. Hell, anything. As long as stripping isn’t involved.”

“Well, um, thanks, but -”

“What, is it a demon thing?”

He stared at her in shock. She never knew he was a demon; she knew nothing about demons. Even if Logan had told her before Lethe robbed her of her memories, she wouldn’t remember it … unless she got her memories back? “How did you know that?”

“Bob told me. It’s okay. I thought it would be really weird and hard to accept, but for some reason, it was really easy. In fact, it made a lot of sense.”

Oh, Bob. That should have been his first guess. “When - when did you last see Bob?”

“I don’t know … a couple months ago. Why? Where is he, by the way?”

“We have no idea,” Angel admitted, trying not to let his glee at the thought shine through. What the hell was Bob up to? Why couldn’t he ever just come out and say something, or do something directly? Why did he have to play these stupid little chess games with people? And if he knew what was going to happen so far in advance that he could line his players up, then why not just do something to prevent it in the first place?

What was he thinking - this was Bob, wasn’t it? Mr. Perversity.

What was it with the Powers That Be and their oblique natures? They couldn’t do or say anything directly. It was all cryptic phrases and fragments of “prophecies”, manipulations of chaos and rumors of destiny. In the end, it was just them mucking about with people. They were like a little kid with one of those old ant farms, who just shook it up now and again to see what the things would do. And when they did what the Powers wanted, sometimes they’d give you a cookie. Or bring you back to life, as the case may be.

He was bitter, wasn’t he? He knew he couldn’t get bitter, as bad things usually came from that, but sometimes it was really hard to avoid it. Especially when he’d had nothing to do all day but think about it.

Brendan’s cell phone went off once more, and he answered it quickly, mostly because he was probably picking up on the general tenseness in the conversation. “Yes?” After a moment, he handed the phone to him. “He wants to talk to you.”

Angel took it, and he assumed the small crackle of static was due to his proximity to Naomi. Sometimes she was too electric to help it. “Yeah Giles?”

He didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. “We have a problem.”

How long ago had he learned to hate it when Giles said that?