Maybe a Slayer showing up - especially a Slayer like Faith - was the final straw, but the battle was pretty much over after that. The remaining vampires skulked off into the night, and the Scourge retreated so fast Angel was half expecting to see their hats still spinning in the air, like something out of a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Naomi dropped to her knees as lights started coming back up on the street, and since she didn’t look that good, he went over to her, but she stopped him. “Don’t even think about coming near me,” she warned, not even turning around. “I’m lethal.”

She was undoubtedly being literal. The energy had gone back into its regular currents, but he had no idea how much of a charge she still maintained. If he remembered correctly, it took her a while to “work down” from a heavy charge, and this was clearly one hell of one. She might be lethal for the rest of the night. And as bad as he felt for leaving her here, she was more than okay - it was other people he was concerned about. Touch her, and they’d end up deep fried.

He told her they were doing a sweep, and then heading back to the office, just in hopes she would be powered down enough to join them later. The other streets were clear though, as everybody had gone into fall back mode. “Too many variables in play,” Giles opined. “They had to regroup and reconsider their strategy.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” Xander said, tossing his stake from hand to hand like a juggler who’d lost his other pin and was completely unaware of it. “They underestimate the womenfolk, who end up kicking their asses. Just for once, it might be entertaining to see the men do the butt whoopin’.”

Faith scoffed. “Well, it ain’t gonna be done by you, macho man. Unless you happen to still have access to a rocket launcher.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know if I didn’t show up with the booze, Angel would be freaky demon chum by now.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Oh please.”

“Got any more?” Faith wondered.

Xander shook his head. “No. Giles took it all.”

Faith made a show of clicking her tongue and wagging a finger at Giles. “Englishmen and their beer. It got to you too, huh?”

Giles looked deeply offended. “I did not -” But he stopped as Faith grinned at him, in a way that told him it was a joke, and he gave her a scolding glance. That just made her smile more broadly.

By the time they returned to the office, the streets were so quiet and free of people that it was eerie. It seemed almost post-apocalyptic, an Earth swept clean of both Humans and demons. It was both someone’s idea of heaven, and someone’s idea of hell.

Faith, as it turned out, had been in Los Angeles for a while. She said rather cryptically that she’d tried the “settling down thing” in Portland (Oregon), but just couldn’t hack it, and ended up back here, where she “lucked into” a job as a bouncer at the trendy celebrity nightclub Venom, a faux down market dark and dirty rock club for the nouveau riche that wouldn’t dare venture into the type of neighborhood that normally had them. She had a line on a possible celebrity security job, which involved major bucks and made her rather happy at the thought of money for absolutely nothing. She said she lived in a small loft on the seedier side of West Hollywood, and was just on her way to a bar - a “decent bar”, as it was her night off and she wouldn’t be caught dead in Venom otherwise - when she heard the screaming and found people running like their asses were on fire. She caught a vamp having a snack, and figured it was some “demon shit”, so she checked it out.

They had reached the office when Angel asked her, “Why didn’t you contact me when you came back? I could have helped you.”

She looked at him in disbelief and let out a slightly mocking scoff, her large eyes wide with humor. “How? I went by Wolfram and Hart, and it was just this big fucking hole in the ground. I dropped by the Hyperion, and it was little better. I figured that you went on an ass kicking holiday and just burned down every bridge you left behind. Speaking of which, where is the rest of the crew? Don’t tell me Wesley decided to sit this one out.”

Giles visibly flinched at his name, and Xander looked away, a flash of guilt in his eyes, while Bren, who was behind the desk checking the phone messages, looked up in open surprise. Angel felt pretty stunned too, but Wesley, standing beside him, didn’t seemed surprised at all. “Who would tell her? They may have reconciled to a degree, but I doubt she and Buffy have a good relationship, and who else would have called her? Faith burned her bridges a long time ago. Just not with you.”

“Let’s go into my office,” Angel suggested, leading the way.

After a moment’s hesitation, she followed, and shut the door by leaning against it. He turned on his desk lamp, which barely illuminated his small, quiet space. It wasn’t much of an office at this point - all he had was his old metal desk (a remnant from the time this was a dentist’s office), a small blue velvet loveseat (Naomi’s idea), an oaken bookshelf full of various tomes, including the spell books and demon dictionaries that Giles ran out of room for, and a footlocker full of weapons that doubled as a coffee table. The room was even darker than usual because, along with the drawn blinds, he stapled a sheet of black plastic over the window, simply because he was sick of people opening the blinds or drapes and burning him.

Faith sighed, continuing to lean against the door as if holding back a rampaging horde. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Angel collapsed in his leather desk chair, and weighed whether or not he should be totally blunt, or gentle somehow. Hell, this was Faith - she never wanted gentle. “Yeah, he is.”

Although her shoulders sagged, she didn’t look all that surprised. “How’d it happen?”

He told her the whole story, including what happened to Gunn, Fred, and Spike, and how he was gone for a couple of months in another dimension. He said that the Powers seemed to bring him back, but he didn’t mention Bob’s role in it. He wasn’t sure she knew Bob anyways.

She sat on the loveseat, looking slightly lost, hazel eyes briefly staring at nothing. When she looked back at him, she seemed to be her usual feistier self. “Wow. When you go all out, you do it up big time, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “Subtle never seems to work for me.”

She ran a hand through her wavy brown hair, pushing it back, and something like disgust twisted her features. “It would have killed any of them to just call me and let me know? Hell, what about dropping me an email or something?”

There wasn’t anything he could say to that, so he didn’t say a word. But Wesley, standing beside his desk, said, “It’s a terrible irony, isn’t it? Eventually Faith and I would have the most in common - we’d both be the odd man out.”

Faith kicked the back heel of her boot into the couch in frustration, just hard enough to make a good sized “thump”, and let her hair fall back into her face. “Man, I always knew I was unpopular with B and her Scoobies, but I didn’t realize it was quite that bad.”

“That might be better than simply being forgotten,” he offered weakly. It was an attempt at a joke, but he wasn’t sure that was clear.

It was her turn to shrug. It was what, over a year since he’d seen her last? Close to two, perhaps, and she hadn’t changed a single bit. Even her wardrobe - biker boots, worn jeans, a tight black t-shirt with the word “Psycho” emblazoned across the chest in red, and a black leather jacket - was virtually identical to the clothes she was wearing last time he saw her. Even her hair looked to be the same length. “Yeah, well, hard to forget a person when they have the “bitch from hell” rep.” She paused very briefly, just long enough to signal a subject change. “So what are we fighting here? What’s the game plan, boss?”

He was glad she was coming on board without him having to ask, but he actually expected that. Despite what others might have thought, he found Faith - at least nowadays - to be dependable, and genuinely sincere in her desire to help and make amends for past mistakes. He just wished he had something to tell her.

****

Even after everything was settled and looked good, Logan didn’t trust it. But that’s why he brought some camouflage.

He brought it in a cheap backpack he bought in a thrift shop. But he’d bought everything in the thrift shop, so it was eminently disposable, and it didn’t matter if he got blood on them. The pants were a size too big, but he didn’t care; the t-shirt was closer to a decent fit. The jacket was on the large side, but that’s what he wanted. He wanted to be swallowed up by it, to hide his body shape and general physique. He shaved off his facial hair in the bathroom of a Laundromat - it wouldn’t last long, but they wouldn’t expect him to ever be clean shaven - and pulled a baseball cap low over his face, leaving the backpack behind in the bathroom. He made sure it was open, so nobody thought some misguided and terribly lame terrorists decided to bomb a Laundromat in a crumbling section of Toronto.

He headed out into a crisp but sunny Ontario morning, and the streets were just starting to fill up with pedestrians, workers who were just starting their morning. The scent of strong coffee and fresh doughnuts mingled with the usual sent of exhaust and cigarettes. Across the street was the café where he was meeting Abrams. He inserted the earpiece radio, tapped it, and muttered quietly, “Reading me?”

“Loud and clear.” Marc replied, sounding like he was standing right behind him, and not perched on a rooftop several stories above him.

“Sit rep?”

“Clear. He’s still by himself, and I don’t see anyone vaguely Organization looking, which makes me kinda suspicious. Either they’re waiting to move ‘til you show up, or he’s really alone, and I didn’t need to bring a duffle bag full of rounds.”

“Don’t put ‘em away yet. You could still get a chance to use ‘em.”

“I’d say I hope so, but that’s kind of shitty for you.”

He crossed the street with a clot of other pedestrians, about half of them talking loudly on cells, and made sure the old man sitting alone at one of the outside tables never saw him. He didn’t even look his way as he walked towards the indoor half of the café. Even though Abrams claimed it wasn’t a set up, he still wanted to talk to him in person, and said he could recognize him because he’d be wearing a black jacket with silver tips on the collar. He was a man in his mid to late sixties, average height, bald as an apple with a slight paunch, although he had wasted arms and a slight pallor that might indicate illness. Logan wasn’t sure he trusted that, though; the pallor could be faked, or simply the result of him being a desk jockey too long.

Walking past him, several tables away, he paused and took a deep breath. There was only one more couple at the outside tables, a young pair of yuppies who were talking on their cell phones rather than to each other, and it was easy to separate their scents and weed them out. The old man did smell ill; it was the sickly sweet undertone of rot, the unmistakable reek of cancer. So he wasn’t lying about that.

He went inside, and waited in a queue for a drink. Since the guy on the cell in front of him was yelling into his phone (talking to his wife, from the sound of it), he felt free to mutter, “Sit rep?”

“Clean as my black ass. They must not have recognized you in your homeless drifter garb. Also, did you shave man?”

He grunted humorlessly. “You know already.” The sniper rifle Marc brought was not only huge, but had a scope on it as powerful as any telescope. He claimed he could hit a flea’s navel from five hundred yards out, and Logan didn’t think he was exaggerating too much. It was a monster gun, probably ones Marine snipers used in war zones, and he had little doubt that a single shot to the body would be invariably fatal, no matter where it hit. Just the shock from having a grapefruit sized hole in you would be enough to do it.

“Yeah, but … wow. Under that hair, man, you’re a total stud. I forget that. We need to get you a full body wax one of these days. Women would be linin’ up around the block to give you a free lap dance.”

“Shaddup.”

When he finally worked his way up to the head of the line, he ordered one of their tea and juice combos, only to have Marc say, “You order the frutiest drinks,” and chuckle as he always did.

Logan scowled at the window, aware Marc could see him through that scope of his, and once he got his drink, he took off his jacket and draped it over the back of an empty chair, and put his baseball cap on the table. Flipping the bird towards the window - he heard Marc chuckle again - he picked up his drink and stepped outside the café, waiting for a flurry of movement. He hoped the coat was found by someone who needed it, because it had done its job for him.

He waited a full minute, taking a drink of his tea (it was good - “fruity” drink or not), then asked, “Update.”

“Bupkis. I mean, there’s absolutely nada. This is weird. Could the guy actually be telling the truth? Or is it more likely the troops are just in awe of how purdy you are without the face fuzz? Maybe they’re stunned into immobility.”

He shook his head, took another gulp of his tea, and casually glanced around the block, taking a deep breath. He didn’t smell any hint of gun oil or powder, no telltale residue, no hint of oddity that would suggest a waiting soldier. “You so badly want to get in my pants.”

“Ha! You’re a slut. I slip you a tab of E, a glass of laudanum, and I could have you eighty ways ‘til Sunday.”

“Oh my god - you’ve actually planned it, haven’t you?” Marcus was laughing in his ear as he stepped out from beneath the somewhat protective shadow of the building, and continued to wait for an assault. Was he really disappointed it wasn’t happening? Maybe it was just disappointing that they weren’t making themselves obvious. If the Organization had finally embraced subtlety, they could be trouble.

The man’s back was to him. So as he walked up to his table, he muttered, “I’m goin’ radio silent. Shout only if there’s a problem.”

“Aye aye, skipper.”

Logan just walked around the small round table and plopped down in the metal frame chair opposite Abrams. The old man looked at him with weary blue-grey eyes, the bags beneath them suggesting he hadn’t been sleeping well. “I take it you’re satisfied that I’m here alone.”

He sat back and took his measure, but it was difficult. He looked like any other old man on the street, but slightly haggard, the illness starting to show itself by the thinning of his skin. There was nothing memorable about him, and he felt no sense of déjà vu, which he’d been hoping for. “You figured I’d do that?”

“I’d think you were crazy if you didn’t. But I must admit I didn’t think you’d be alone.”

“Who said I am?”

He smiled weakly, and nodded. “I see. You look even younger with your facial hair shaved, you know. It’s strange - you seem to be aging backwards almost. I’m jealous.”

“Cut the crap. What did you want to say?”

He let out a breathless chuckle, wrapping his hands around his steaming cup of espresso, his bony knuckles seemingly on the verge of bursting out of his skin. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t.” He didn’t so much stare at him as attempt to burn holes in him with his eyes. Abrams at least had the decency to wince and look down at his overpriced coffee.

“I’m so sorry, Logan. That never should have happened to you.”

“What? Wiping my memories, flaying me alive, shit like that? Why are you apologizing? How much of that did you do?”

He shook his head, still too ashamed to meet his gaze. “None of it. The Organization did start off good, I swear it did. It just … got militant at some point.”

“If you’re an apologist, I’m goin’.”

“No, I’m not. They were insane; I’d never apologize for them. I’m just here for myself.”

That was honest. So far, he’d gotten no strong sense he was lying, but that was somewhat troubling. “Then say what you wanna say. We’re burnin’ daylight here.”

He smirked briefly, like he found his impatience amusing. “Do you know anything about your past?”

“Not a lot.” If he wanted solid information about that, he wasn’t going to get it. “What do you know?”

He cleared his throat and looked at the mottled surface of the plastic table, deciding what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. “You were a war hero, decorated many times over. You had a couple of different identities - you had a friend among the upper echelon who was happy to keep your mutancy a secret. You probably saved all our lives at least once. Everything started to go wrong shortly after the Organization became an independent, multinational force, and the incident in Kiev, after which Stryker started to turn into a psychopath.”

The question that begged was obvious. “What happened in Kiev?”

He sat forward, shoulders hunching as if he was hunkering down for a long night. “It was a retrieval mission, split into two parts. Team Alpha - which Stryker was in charge of - was going to be hitting a factory where a group of rogue Soviet officers was hiding nerve gas, while Team Beta - you were in charge of that one - would be hitting a munitions depot where illegal surface to air missiles were being stockpiled for use with the nerve gas. It was assumed a dual assault would be the most effective, would keep their split response from being useful. On paper, it looked good, but on the ground, it turned out to be a trap. They expected that kind of response, and ambushed the teams. Team Alpha was completely wiped out in the initial assault, and Stryker was taken captive, but your team fared a bit better, perhaps because you got a sense it was a trap on the ground before they attacked. You lost a few men, but you completed the mission, blowing up the depot. Since you were already in the field, they asked you to take what was left of your team and extract Stryker. Because of who you were, you were given a lot of leeway in command decisions, and you knew it, which is probably why you decided to go it alone. I assume that you decided since your team was down a few men, and some were injured, that it would be best if you did it solo. You’d have the element of surprise, with part of the surprise being that only one person would come for him.

“It shouldn’t have worked, but using a combination of stealth and brutality, you did it. You infiltrated the base, found Stryker, and got him out. That should have been a good thing, but Stryker was furious. As far as he was concerned, you humiliated him, and the fact that he soon discovered you were a mutant made it that much worse. His father was an admiral, and there was some talk around him that Stryker was only as highly ranked as he was due to nepotism. He was stiff and some people saw him as arrogant, but after Kiev, people saw him as incompetent, and he blamed you.
He became brutal, harsh, and had a barely concealed vendetta against you.  I really don’t know if it even bothered you, but after the death of your wife and son, you wanted nothing to do with the Organiz -”

“Say that again?” He sat forward, not sure he’d heard him correctly, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. He didn’t say “wife and son”, did he? He couldn’t have.

Abrams gave him a scrutinizing look, although a sort of sadness had etched itself into his features, emphasizing the lines of his face. He seemed disappointed, but not surprised. “You don’t remember them, do you?”

If he was lying to him, he was going to rip his fucking guts out.

9

Naomi had come back eventually and was sleeping in the spare room, as all that power converting made her tired. Actually, they were all tired - they’d been up all night, and fighting for half - but Angel felt strangely restless. Maybe the sun was up, but he still had the feeling he should be out there doing something. If the Senior Partners wanted to act with impunity, now was the time.

Giles was reading up on Ananga and basically all Hindu gods in his office, and Bren was playing a computer game with Faith, which seemed to involve blowing each other up. Xander had nodded off on the couch in the front room, in spite of the noise. Angel found himself flipping through a demon dictionary, looking up whatever he could on Dolonnites. It would be back, in spite of Naomi’s display, and he wanted to be ready for it.

Suddenly the door flew open, and Bob burst in, looking quite different than he had before. Namely, he had fetishistic scars carved into his face, which looked blue due to his dried blood, and his eyes were bloodshot and wild. The noise of his entry made Xander wake up, but only when he saw him did he jump. “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”

Bob ignored the question and ignored the startled stares, his focus solely on him. “Does Giles have the amulet of Taliesin?”

He had to think, as the name sounded vaguely familiar. But it was Wesley, standing by the window, who said, “I had it. But I think Rupert has it now.”

“Yes, he does. Why?”

“He needs to activate it, and all of you need to come with me.”

Faith was on her feet, looking at him warily, like she wasn’t sure if she should shake his hand or break it off. “Know this guy?”

“He’s Bob.”

“Ah. Bit bloodier than I was expecting.”

The door opened behind Angel, and he really didn’t have to glance behind him to know it was Giles. “Are you all right?” He asked Bob, sounding slightly startled. Bob’s blood smelled odd, as Belial blood always did, and his shirt was now sticking to his chest because of it. How many symbols did he have carved on him? There were some on his arms too, ones that looked more like Aboriginal symbols as opposed to runes or more familiar arcane ideographs. He wondered if that was important to what he had done - assuming he had carved these things on himself - or simply a personal choice. Did he practice a form of magic specific to his original home on Earth? He’d hardly be the first.

Bob shook his head dismissively, making his blood spattered hair settle around his face like a sodden mop. “I’m fine, it doesn’t matter.” An odd answer that seemed to contradict itself. “Look, get the amulet of Taliesin, and we’ll activate it along the way. We really don’t have time to discuss this.”

“Why not?” Angel demanded. Bob was acting so weird he really didn’t want to trust him implicitly.

Bob glared at him with those wild horse eyes of his, more cobalt than any natural blue found in life. “The Partners have brought up Azi Dahaka on the back lot of Paradigm Studios, and its eating its way through a tour group. Gonna help me or not?”

They all exchanged curious glances. “That doesn’t sound good,” Bren said, mastering the understatement.

“Azi Dahaka?” Faith asked, looking to Giles for an explanation.

He had to consider it a moment, but ironically, he and the representation of Wesley said it at the same time, suggesting they had memorized the same passage in the same Watchers’ journal. “A three headed serpentine storm demon, known best to Iranian mythology. It’s a demi-god that can only be destroyed by a river of fire.”

“And where the hell are we gonna get a river of fire at this time of morning?” Xander demanded. It was a joke, but right now it just wasn’t funny.

Silence settled thickly in the room, awkward and ominous, which Bob broke by saying, “The amulet, Rupert. You need to get it now, or we’re totally screwed.”

“We might be screwed anyways,” Wesley noted. “But it’s nice that he’s trying to be optimistic.”