10

Bob couldn’t remember what the mystical isle of Avalon was supposed to look like. It was some misty fantasy isle, right? A place of wispy fairies and magical gnomes or some shit like that.

Technically Gwyn’s land was the mystical land of Avalon (really Annwyn, but you had to allow for misspelling and mispronunciations), but it wasn’t an isle (it was a dimension), and it really wasn’t a mystical land of happy elves and fairies and peaceful retreat. It actually looked quite a bit like Wales, all green and hilly, only down in the valleys the small hillocks were made of piled bones and the rivers looked clear but smelled like blood when you approached them. The green, rolling hills were broken up by large forests, pines as big as redwoods, and the trees themselves had a tendency to relocate by whim. One minute they occluded the horizon, and the next they were off to the near right, branches rustling like they were restless and hungry. They might actually have been - Bob was never sure about those damn things.

He allowed the chain mail to return over his clothes, and this time he included a helmet and a heavy (but not too heavy) sword. He felt like he was in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but that was pretty cool. “I hate this place,” Mordred grumbled behind him. “And why do you look like that?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of getting into the spirit of things?”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

He made a rude gesture with his chainmailed fist. “You can’t be gloomy all the time, mate. It’s bad for the digestion … or something. Actually I don’t know what it does, but nobody likes a whiner.”

“Whiner? Mon dieu, do you know this fucker -”

Mordred stopped as Gwyn suddenly popped into their path, a towering bear of a man clad in living green vines that hid most of his bulky musculature under broad, three lobed leaves, his eyes just two big glowing coals beneath the shadow of tangled vines. He roared - or attempted; it actually sounded comically bad - and held in his hand an old fashioned metal pike that ended in a wickedly curved hook that was just begging to be used as a weapon in a slasher film. “What the hell are you doing here, Bob?” he grumbled, his voice sounding like dried leaves rustling across rocky ground. “Did you bring him as a peace offering?”

“Now wait a fucking second,” Mordred exclaimed angrily, whipping off his sunglasses dramatically.

Bob held up his hand, signally for silence. “That’s exactly why I brought him here. You two need to work this shit out without killing others, and by the way, I want the soul back. So give it to me, and I’ll leave you two to have at it.”

The hulk of moving greens that was Gwyn wavered in the breeze, as if on the verge of blowing away. (Oh, if only.) “You come here and demand something of me?” He blustered - well, as much as a pile of leaves could.

“Well, not demand so much as extort. Give it to me, or suffer.”

Gwyn laughed, an unsettling rumbling that sounded like a distant earthquake. “You’re threatening me? I can crush you.” As if to bring this point home, the restless forest started springing up around him and Mordred, a living prison with grasping branches and trunks as thick as Roman columns. But just as soon as they sprung up they stopped, the branches almost flinching as if in response to a burning hot wind.

Gwyn turned, feeling the disturbance in his dimension, and standing twenty feet away was Bastet, looking at all of them like they were completely mental. She was in her standard Humanoid form, with feline, amber eyes dominating her small, delicate face, wearing a sari of copper colored silk that nearly matched her cinnamon skin tone perfectly. The fur on her head was still shorn into a short haircut shape, a dark walnut color with honeyed undertones. “I know he can be a dick, but only I have the right to kick him around. Marry him, then you get the right to kick him around.”

“Thank you sweetie,” Bob replied, but meant it. Bas was doing him a real favor here, and while he knew that he’d pay for it, she really wasn’t that unreasonable in working out a deal with him. He was just extremely lucky that she still liked him, for whatever unfathomable reason.

Gwyn glared at her, seemingly at a loss for words. Bas was much stronger than him or any of them; if she wanted to take out the trash, she could undo this entire dimension and be back home in time for lunch. Gwyn’s leaves seemed to shudder, “I thought you two had broken up,” he finally said, sounding defeated.

Bas shrugged a single narrow shoulder. “We did in an official sense, but things are never that easy are they? Not that you’d know, being a miserable old prune.”

“Hey!”

Bas glanced past him, over his ferny shoulder. “What is it you wanted again, hon?”

Bob lifted up the visor on his battle helmet. “I want Gwyn and Mordred to settle their shit without violence. Also, I want the soul the Senior Partners paid him off with.”

She nodded and glanced back at the living leaf pile. “What he said. Cough it up or I start burning your forests down.”

The leaves rustled, and Mordred grunted indignantly. “He’s the one with the problem, not me,” Mordred protested glumly.

“You wouldn’t dare violate my sanctity for that piece of garbage,” Gwyn challenged, a branch gesturing back at Bob like he was swatting an invisible fly.

Bas kept her gaze level, and without even a blink the trees around them burst into flames. Mordred neared Bob just to be closer to his protective aura as Gwyn screamed, a sound like rock scraping metal, and shouted frantically, “Stop! Stop!”

Bas’s expression was so flat she might as well have been filing her nails. “Do you really wish to challenge me? I have very little patience, and it’s almost gone. Give him what he wants - now.”

Bas was just the bitch goddess from hell - how could you not love that?

The dimension twisted, reality had a brief hiccup, and Gwyn turned and threw something at him, which Bob caught before it smacked him in the helmet. “There. Now leave and never come back.”

It was a soul gem, a type of prison for life essences that could only exist in the upper dimensions. Basically it looked like a big opal, roughly the size of a grapefruit, with something colorful deep within the snowy whiteness, cinders of red and gold. Bob sensed the presence of energy in there, although it was impossible to say who or what, since soul gems were perfect prisons. Still, there was no way he was going to fuck him over with Bas here; she’d made it clear that, divorced or not, she was completely on his side. “Thanks Gwynny,” he replied with sarcastic cheerfulness. “Now you and Mordy work things out nice and permanent like, or I’ll see if Degei has some hungry snakes who might like a little run in the forest.” He gave Gwyn a big, insincere smile, and Gwyn’s ember eyes just burned at him, like they really wanted to disembowel him but would have to wait until his ex-wife wasn’t around to pulp his ass.

Speaking of which, he caught Bas’s eyes. “Think you can handle these clowns?”

She rolled those gorgeous, strange cat’s eyes of her. “Please, that’s why you asked me here, isn’t it? They will play nice, or I’ll change their testicles into cobras.”

“Good on ya. Thanks love.”

“You owe me,” she warned.

“I know.”

As Bob turned and walked off, leaving Bas with the quivering, cowering Gwyn and the stunned Mordred, the trees frozen in their half burned state, he knew Bas would probably kill him if he kept waiting for her to bail his ass out of these fights … but goddamn, didn’t it make things easier? (Until he had to pay for it, of course - that was part of the deal.)

“You’ll turn our testicles into what?” Mordred asked meekly.

If this wasn’t a happy ending, Bob didn’t know what was.

11

Angel was sure a vampire couldn’t have a hangover - he’d never had a hangover ever (okay, there was that one time he drained that extremely drunk guy and felt really weird) - and yet he felt like he had one the day they did the “soul swap”.

Bob gave them the head’s up about recovering Xander’s soul, and rather than rush things he thought they might want to take Doyle out on the town for one final time. Everyone thought this was a fabulous idea - especially Doyle - so that night they all took Doyle out drinking: him, Naomi, Marcus, Logan, Bren, Giles (! The surprising one), Kier, and Saddiq, who as dragged along by Bren. But Saddiq didn’t stay with them long. He didn’t drink, and he was incredibly bored, Attempts to get him involved him in the celebrations failed miserably. Saddiq had decided to hang around Los Angeles for now (much to the absent Scott’s disappointment - he’d already taken off for New York - and the present Bren’s happiness), but he was definitely calling it an early night. Logan went after Sid, and Angel noticed them talking briefly in the parking lot. He couldn’t hear or see what they were saying to each other, but Logan gave him a book (he couldn’t quite make out the cover, but it looked t! o have Arabic writing on it), and after looking at it a moment, Sid did something Angel had never seen him do before: he hugged Logan. It was clumsy and a bit stiff, but all the more touching for it. Logan took it well, although he had to be even more uncomfortable than Sid. So that was why they called Sid Logan’s protégé, huh? Because surrogate son sounded a bit strange, and Logan and/or Sid would probably have objected to it.

Bren and Kier were acting distant towards each other - no, scratch that. Bren was acting distant, and Kier was clearly trying to worm his way back into his good graces. The first two bars they hit (Doyle wanted to hit a lot of places; he wanted to see some of the new bars that had sprung up in his absence), they kept their distance, although Kier kept trying to buy him drinks and be friendly to Bren. By the third bar - really a fairly trendy nightclub with a disturbing Goth theme - Doyle finally snapped. “Jesus, would you two kiss and make up already?! You’re really harshin’ my buzz over here.”

They didn’t, but at least they started talking by the time they hit the forth bar. Giles decided to call it a night by then, although his ability to hold alcohol was impressive (to which his response was an acerbic, “I’m British. This is nothing; this is sugar water compared to our beer.”) Naomi also seemed to be on the verge of drinking everyone under the table, which led her and Logan to riff on the superiority of Canadians. Bren reminded Logan he didn’t count because his healing factor negated the alcohol, but then he pointed out they had a better health care system. Yes, it was a non-sequitur, but at that time of night and after so many drinks, it almost made sense. Marcus picked up a very pretty Latina at the bar and left with her, abandoning them with a gleefully sarcastic, “Adios, losers.”

They called it a night when Doyle almost fell off his barstool, and Naomi wasn’t much better. At that time, Bren and Kier had retreated to a corner and were making out, so he figured that relationship was repaired - at least until the alcohol wore off at any rate. Logan agreed to get Naomi and Bren and Kier home safe, and Angel took Doyle back to Xander’s place - since they were the technically sober people, they got the jobs of looking out for the others. Angel did feel weird, though. To get in the spirit of things he’d had a couple of drinks, and now he felt a bit lightheaded - he’d forgotten that alcohol could affect vampires, just less than with a normal Human.

He knew why Logan had suggested he take Doyle home, as it gave them time to talk. Doyle said the afterlife - or at least his afterlife - wasn’t bad at all; he kind of missed it, although he liked being back on Earth with girls and beer. He was glad he was still hanging in there, “fighting the good fight” and all that.

He didn’t want Angel’s apology for what happened to him. He pointed out, sounding strangely sober, that it was his choice and he was good with it. Angel didn’t “fail” him and he didn’t blame him in the least. Even if Doyle was telling him what he wanted to hear, it was still a relief. He did miss him too, he just hadn’t realized how much until now. It was going to be hard to say goodbye to him again, especially since he hadn’t even been back that long.

Angel knew he hadn’t gotten drunk the night before, and yet he still felt like he had a hangover. He felt a bit lousy, but he wondered if it was emotional as much as physical.

They did the soul swap at the Way Station if only for a sense of consistency. Kier showed up solo, saying Bren was way too hung over to show up (that was easy to believe), Giles was fine, as was Logan (of course) and the teetotaling Sid, but Naomi seemed a bit green around the gills (he wanted to ask her about Canadian superiority, but that seemed too cruel right now). Of course Bob showed up and made everyone better, but it was the principal of the thing. Marc called Logan to say he wasn’t going to show, mainly because he was in Vegas and he wasn’t completely sure how he got there, but he’d won two hundred dollars at the blackjack table, so it was all good.

Sid was kind of curious. Was he a member of them now or not? It wasn’t official in any capacity, but Logan had already taken him aside and asked him to “keep an eye on him” when he wasn’t around, which seemed to indicate that Logan thought Sid was part of their group, even if only in a freelance capacity. Angel knew he wouldn’t mind having Sid around - what he lacked in social skills he made up for in fighting skills, which he proved by managing to hurt the succubus all by himself even though he had no idea what it was - but he wasn’t sure Sid was all that certain what he wanted to do with himself. Still, it was nice to know that if things got really bad, he could always call Sid in for back up. He just had to keep in mind that for all his intense maturity, he was really a kid who’d never gotten a chance to be a kid. Maybe they could do something to rectify that.

Transferring Xander’s soul from the gem into him - and sending Doyle back - was actually easier than the first ritual, which somehow figured. Angel felt a pang of sadness as Giles got to the heart of the ritual and the soul gem cracked open like an egg, freeing Xander’s soul and putting it back in his body on the floor of the empty bar. Well, at least this time Doyle didn’t have to die.

Xander gasped and sat up slowly, groaning and rubbing his head. He looked around warily, and asked, “What the hell are we doing here? And why do I feel hung over?”

After so much drama, it was odd to feel like things were right back to normal.

*****

It seemed rather strange that the senior members of the firm were angrier about the incident than the Senior Partners, but Kaya figured that was because the Partners had expected something like that.

They were gods after all - omniscience was usually part of the package. Also, Angel and company hadn’t hurt any of the Partners, just their mortal lackeys, and since when did they matter? They were expendable and easily replaceable.

Gavin wasn’t taking it well either. He paced restlessly in front of her desk, and if he hadn’t been a ghost, he’d have worn a path in her new carpet. “They can’t be allowed to get away with this,” he was saying, his own frustration at feeling “violated” giving his voice a harsh, strained tone. She thought he was being a crybaby because he wasn’t hurt at all - so what if he was trapped in a sacred circle until the arcane arts department could remove it? It wasn’t painful, it just meant he couldn’t move where he wanted to go. He should probably be trapped un a sacred circle all the time, just to keep from getting into everything like a feral cat. “We have to respond.”

“No, “we” don’t,” she replied, glancing at the photos lined up neatly on her desk. This was the line up, Angel’s new little group: Xander Harris, a normal Human with no strategic value whatsoever (threat level zero); Brendan Chambers (X-Men code name “Demon”), a half-Brachen who briefly functioned as a “vampire hunter” while Angel was gone. He probably thought he was more dangerous than he actually was (threat level three); Kier, their lovelorn little vampire whore who flew the coup. He wasn’t a big loss at all, and if he still stuck to the bite club, he was extremely vulnerable (threat level five); Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher, who clearly knew more about spell slinging than he let on, raising his danger profile in spite of his age (threat level seven); Naomi Deschanel (code name “Electra”), a woman whose mutant power over electricity did make her exceedingly hard to approach and very dangerous (threat level eight); and Angel himself, of course, their pining lost soul of a ! vampire, the constant thorn in their side (threat level from seven to nine, depending).

Logan and Helga - both due to killer instincts and personal entanglements with Bob had threat levels off the charts; they were essentially thermonuclear - were the true worries. They couldn’t make a move until they were certain they were clear. Saddiq, last name uncertain (code named “Saracen”) , was a concern - his position with Angel’s team was unclear, but his status as both an Eden child, one of the mutants engineered for military purposes, and a trained little suicide foot soldier for the regent of Rahjan put him at a threat level nine. Hurting him would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one; his true danger laid in the fact that he was a highly adept and adaptable fighter who had no reservations in sacrificing himself for the greater tactical advantage. If he was now a member of Angel’s group, he was the one they had to neutralize first, before he got any bright ideas.

Kaya noted that even though he was young, he was very cute. What a wonderful bodyguard he’d make for her. She made a note of that, and hoped they’d figure out a way to do that, because killing him outright was such a waste of potential.

Gavin had stopped pacing and fixed her with an evil glare. “What the hell do you mean no we don’t? You’re not telling me the Partners are standing for this?”

She sat back in her chair and graced him with a cold smile. “It means they’d expect us to respond blindly, which we’re not going to do. We have no intention of making this easy for Angel. He was right; this is over. The old battle.” Her smile transformed into a wolfish leer. “But the new one is about to begin.”

And for the first time in a very long while, Gavin smiled.

*****

The End ...