2

“Who’s Doyle?” Naomi asked.

Xander - Doyle - stepped forward and gave her a small salute. “I am. Pleased to meet ya, darlin’.” He looked around at everyone, at all the new faces, and asked, “Gonna introduce me?”

Angel knew he was talking to him, but he couldn’t quite work up the ability to speak yet. Bob kindly stepped in. “That is Giles, ex-Watcher and spellcaster extraordinaire; this is Logan, my avatar, and a mutant with an accelerated healing factor and big ass metal claws in his hands; that’s Marcus, a mutant with infrared vision and poison glands under his fingernails; over at the table is Bren, a Human/Brachen demon hybrid - doesn’t that sound familiar? - who also has an eidetic memory; next to him is Kier, his vampire boyfriend; beside him is Saddiq, a mutant with impenetrable skin and a knowledge of nearly every fighting style known to mankind; and that lovely lady is Naomi, a mutant with the power to control and channel all electricity. You know me and Hel already.”

“Nice to have you back, Francis,” Helga said, giving him a faint smile.

“Nice to be back,” Doyle admitted, looking around the bar. “Haven’t redecorated, huh?”

“Why mess with the classics?” Bob replied.

Logan scowled, disliking feeling lost. He nudged his arm, and said, “So you used to work with this guy?”

Angel found it easier to talk to him, why he wasn’t sure; perhaps because his death wasn’t on his conscience. “Yeah, he was my first … business partner.”

“You could call it that,” Doyle admitted. “I got the visions that nearly split my head open, and he went off and beat the shit out of the bad guys. Hey, can I have a beer?”

“You got the visions?” Logan asked him curiously. “I thought Cordy got those.”

Oh no. Angel groaned internally as Doyle gave him a startled look. “Huh?”

Angel steeled himself, gripping the edge of the bar like his life depended on it. “Before you, uh, died, when you kissed Cordy, you apparently passed on the visions to her.”

“Oh shit. Really? I didn’t know it worked that way,” Doyle admitted, sidling up on a bar stool. “I hope she forgives me. Hey, where is she anyways?”

There it was, the question he’d been fearing. Angel just stared at him, the apology visible on his face, and Doyle - Xander - paled. “Oh hell no,” he groaned, clearly distraught. “Not her.”

Angel didn’t know what to tell him, so he said nothing. Helga put a can of Guinness in front of Doyle and he took it with a grateful nod, hunching over it like it was a warming fire. Grief came down heavily on both of them, and the silence was thick and awkward.

To break it, Marcus said, “By the way, I ain’t with ‘em. I’m freelance.”

Doyle glanced down the bar at him and seemed relieved that he had given him something else to think about. “Yeah, actually I was wondering how you all fit in the office.”

If Doyle was good to run with this, Angel was too. “Technically only Naomi, Bren, Giles, and Xander -” Bren cleared his throat, and Angel fought not to roll his eyes. “ - and Kier work with me. Saddiq and Logan are with a mutant group called the X-Men, and Marcus is a mercenary.”

“I don’t need no steekin’ badges,” Marc said, lifting his beer in a mock toast.

“The X-Men?” Doyle repeated, looking towards Logan. “What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”

“It’s a reference to our mutant X genes I believe,” Saddiq offered. “But it does sound a little … strange.”

“Fucked up,” Logan countered.

Saddiq dipped his head in acknowledgment of that. Angel didn’t know if Logan’s and Saddiq’s relationship would allow Saddiq to contradict him. Of course Logan wouldn’t care if he did, but Saddiq still had that deference to authority trait going on, as much as Logan tried to encourage him to stop it. It didn’t help that Saddiq saw Logan as a kind of mentor, and was generally accepted as his protégé. Angel wasn’t sure why that was since Saddiq apparently learned all his fighting skills before he was rescued by Bob from Rhajan, but he figured it simply came down to the fact that few could fight at Saddiq’s level (and after seeing him in action, that was easy to believe; he fought like an android designed for that purpose alone), and Logan could at least spar with him for longer than twenty seconds. He was probably one of a mere handful. “So you’re like what, superheroes?” Doyle asked, trying to figure it out.

Logan grunted in ill humor. “I ain’t no fucking superhero.”

Both Bren and Saddiq stared in disbelief at Logan’s back, and Marcus elbowed him lightly. “Fuck you, man. Of course you’re a superhero - who else keeps fighting after they lose an eye?”

“A crazy person,” Logan shot back, with not a hint of facetiousness.

Doyle looked genuinely confused. “You lost an eye?”

“I gave it back to him,” Bob happily volunteered. “But he’d have probably grown it back eventually on his own anyways. Healing factor, you know.”

Doyle stared at Logan. “You can grow back eyes?”

Logan shrugged, clearly ashamed, and stared down into his beer. Doyle caught Angel’s eyes, and lifted his eyebrows in a manner that Angel recognized; it was essentially Doyle’s tacit way of saying “Holy shit”. Angel grimaced, and still wasn’t sure what to say. He was glad to have Doyle back, but he felt no less weird about any of this.

Doyle had a good swig of his beer, and they all sat in silence for a moment with their beverages of choice. Giles’s cell phone went off - Willow checking in to let him know she got okay, and to check that everything was okay here - and that was about it. He heard a soft patter outside, and figured it was finally raining after so much thick cloud cover.

Finally, Doyle asked, “So what’s the next move?”

“I check out a couple of suspects,” Bob said. He then looked at all of them, frowning. “Why don’t you guys call it a day and go home? You all look exhausted. I doubt we’ll be able to get anything immediately anyways.”

Although it was met with hesitant noises, it was sound advice - they had been up for far too many hours, and they’d spent a good segment of it fighting. “I’m okay,” Doyle said. “I just got here.”

“I ain’t tired,” Logan grumbled.

Marcus clicked his tongue. “No, I bet not. Bob supercharged you; you’ll probably be awake for days.”

“Does this Xander guy live somewhere?” Doyle wondered, going through Xander’s pockets. He pulled out his wallet, cell phone, a couple of scraps of paper, and paused at finding Xander’s flask. He unscrewed the cap and took a sniff of what was in it.

That was a good question. Angel suddenly realized he had no idea where Xander lived, save for somewhere downtown. It was Naomi who said, “Yeah, he lives on the West side, in a place called the El Greco.” They all looked at her, which made her a bit defensive. “I gave him a lift once.”

“You know where that is?” The funny thing is, Bob asked that of Logan.

Logan scowled at him, but he thought about a moment and shrugged. “It’s a few blocks down from Rags’s, I think. Why?”

Bob gave him that grin again, that one that made you want to punch him. “You can take Doyle there while the others take a break.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re awake.”

“So are you.”

“Ah, but I have to go talk to some gods. So you’re it, mate.”

Logan grumbled under his breath, but seemed to accept it. Doyle simply asked Bob, “You talk to gods a lot?”

Bob held out his hand flat and waggled it slightly side to side, a “sort of” hand gesture. “When I hafta. Most don’t like me very much.”

“So does that mean they have no sense of fashion,” Marc wondered. “Or too much sense of fashion?”

Bob snickered. “You’re just lucky I’m not a wrathful god.”

Logan could have argued it, but seemed oddly resigned to it, and Doyle was just happy to have a beer again. Although he couldn’t say why, Angel almost had a sense that Bob was up to something, that he was putting Logan and Doyle together for a reason. But why?

He was almost afraid to find out.

****

The funny thing was a soul change could cause a change in smell. Logan didn’t know how or why - logically it made no sense at all - but Xander now smelled a bit different. It was a slight change, but just noticeable. Logan wondered what it meant for a moment, then gave up, figuring it didn’t matter.

On the walk towards Xander’s end of town, Doyle gave him the short version of his history with Angel, and it was slightly less bloody than he expected. He told him a very abbreviated version of how he came to meet Angel, and skipped the X-Men altogether.

It was drizzling more than genuinely raining, but the water was warm and smelled very faintly of the pollution that made up the smog around the L.A. basin, so Logan didn’t find it very pleasant. Doyle seemed like a nice enough guy, but he also seemed to know an awful lot of people on the seedier side of the demon divide. Bob for one; Rags for another. “He still hangin’ out with that demon who’s like a big pile of phlegm?”

“Thrak? Yeah; they’re almost inseparable.”

“What the hell is up with that? I mean, seriously. They ain’t datin’ or nothin’, are they?”

That was a good question as well as a frightening one. Wow, he had no idea. Could they even date? Did Thrak have any … er … wait - did he even have a gender? They called him a him, but there was no signs if Thrak was a he or a she; Thrak may have even been a gender they didn’t have a Human term for, not to mention having the necessary equipment. Oh man, If he thought about this too much, he was sure he’d have nightmares. “I have no idea.” He shuddered as he suddenly pictured it. He had to have Bob burn that image out of his brain.

Once they got past Sunset the traffic thinned appreciably, to the point that they were often the only people on the sidewalk. He wasn’t sure if the paltry excuse for rain had scared some people off or if it was just the time of day, but there wasn’t a lot of street traffic either.

Perhaps that’s how come he noticed it.

Logan paused to light a cigar out of the rain, under the awning of a coffee shop, and Doyle peered in. “Didn’t this used to be a sex shop?”

“Why the hell you askin’ me? I ain’t from around here.”

He shaded his eyes and glanced in the window anew, finally asking, “What’re you lookin’ at? I don’t see any good looking birds in there. Or birds at all. Is this a gay coffee shop?”

Logan felt like shoving him, but that would have attracted too much attention. "Someone in a black Explorer is following us. I'm tryin' to figure out who the fuck they are."

Doyle turned around and looked out at the street. "What, you mean th -"

Logan grabbed him and spun him around violently. "Don't look at them!"

Doyle broke out of his grip. "Why the hell not? We want to know who the fuck they are, don't we?"

The Explorer must have noticed, because it suddenly turned down a side street, and the last thing Logan saw of it was the red flare of its tail lights. Now he really wanted to punch Doyle, but he was in Xander's body, and it would be unfair to Xander. Wait a minute - did he give a fuck about Xander? "Yeah, asshole, but I wanted to commit 'em to a less public area where I could grab one of 'em and make 'em talk," Logan snapped. "Not make ‘em rabbit like they just did."

"Well sorry, tough guy," he said, sounding deeply insincere. He glanced across the street, clearly trying to spot more possible tails. "Who'd be followin' ya, anyways?"

Logan managed to get his anger under control, but just barely, and shook his head. "I dunno. There's a couple of possibilities, none of 'em good."

"Oh terrific. What, you indebted to the mob or something?"

He grunted. "I wish. That'd be easy to take care of."

Doyle stared at him for a moment, then paled slightly as he realized he was being serious. "Holy shit. Who's after you?"

Logan shrugged, and started off down the street again. "What day is it, Wednesday? Could be the Triad."

Doyle followed him, but with obvious reluctance. "The Triad?! You mean those Chinese gangster assholes? How the fuck did you get in bad with the Triad? Please tell me you're joking."

"Okay."

"Now I know that's a lie. Why the hell did Bob send you to take me anywhere? Is this more of teachin' me a lesson?"

"I thought he was teaching me a lesson," he shot back, finding it difficult to keep his cigar going in this constant drizzle.

Doyle kept several steps behind him for several blocks, which was fine by him. Who was it that were following him and why? The problem was there was so many possibilities to choose from. Of course, what if they weren't following him - what if they were following Xander? He could have gotten himself into something he hadn't mentioned to the rest of them - the problem was, Doyle wouldn't know. He was a passenger in his body, and he didn't have access to the main hard drive (so to speak).

The El Greco was a small apartment building that had once been a fairly grand, sizable house. It was done in an old Spanish style, like many Hollywood houses of the '40's and 50's, with genuine slate tiles and a stucco exterior that was for some reason painted an unattractive brick red, with a small garden of low maintenance succulent plants wrapped around the front, an accent sized eucalyptus tree the centerpiece. A small concrete walk led to the front doors, where no security locks were in place - anyone could enter the El Greco, as the only locked doors belonged to the apartments within. That was fairly rare nowadays; most buildings made you buzz in before you could even get in the building.

Doyle had looked at the address on Xander's driver's license and determined that he lived in the first unit (marked for some reason as 101), but he had to flipped through Xander's key ring, as none of the keys were marked. And he had a lot of fucking keys.

The interior hallway was larger than Logan had anticipated, the walls cool white stucco with the floor bearing red carpet that had probably seen better years, and the corridor had a faint odor of tamales and microwave popcorn that someone must have cooked last night. The doors were heavy wood, stained to a fine finish (perhaps to give some sense of glamour), but there was an elegantly wasted aura about the place, like it was an old actor's home that fell into decay just about the time as his career did, and he kept slopping paint on it (and himself) so you didn't notice how shabby everything actually was. Xander also had a deadbolt, which was in general a good security move, but it meant that Doyle had another key to find.

While he was going through the ring, a woman emerged from around the corner of the hall, a slightly plump but pretty Latina with glossy black hair that spilled to her shoulders, and an eyebrow ring that glittered golden in the filtered light. "Hey Xander," she said, pasting on a phony smile as she gave Logan a wary glance.

Logan subtly nudged Doyle, because he had clearly forgotten his name was Xander for the meantime. He looked up, and said, "Oh, hi. How you doin'?"

Her dark eyes regarded him gravely. "What's with the accent?"

Doyle forced a chuckle. "Oh, just fuckin' around, you know. I heard chicks dug accents, so I was playin' with that one," he replied, in an American accent so flat it almost sounded like a parody of one. "So what d'ya think?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and continued to give Logan a minor variation of the stink eye. Clearly she didn't trust him. "I think ... Colin Farrell you're not."

Doyle shrugged, smiling faintly. "Can't blame a guy for tryin', can ya?"

"No, I suppose not. See you later," she said, putting the emphasis on later as she continued glaring holes in Logan's head. What, did she think he was robbing him or something?

"Yeah, manana," Doyle said, turning back to his key search. As soon as she was gone, Doyle asked, "Who's Colin Farrell?"

"Some drunk actor from Ireland."

"Hey, I resent the implication that all Irish are drunkards. I'll have you know some of us can stay sober for two, three hours at a time." He slid a key in the doorknob lock, and the tumblers clicked. "Jackpot." He tried to push the door open, but it didn't move; the deadbolt was engaged. "Damn it. Can't you just slice it off or somethin'?"

"I could, but I ain't buying him a new lock."

Doyle cursed him under his breath, and started searching for the deadbolt key.

Somewhere between five and ten minutes later, Doyle got the entire door open and they entered Xander's apartment. Logan wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it really wasn't this. The apartments were laid out in a kind of loft style, with other rooms implied by entryways, but the only true inside door belonging to the bathroom. The living room, kitchenette, and bedroom were separated only by implied borders, although the bed itself was in a little raised alcove; not a Murphy bed, just a bed that would have been considered a loft bed if it was five feet higher off the ground. The bed wasn't made, there was an empty pizza box on a low slung coffee table decorated with mail and a few magazines, and a couple of cups and a plate were in the sink, but it was otherwise remarkably neat for a bachelor's apartment. The main curtains, of a heavy dark red fabric that probably helped keep some of the heat at bay, were open, but the gauzy ivory panels beneath were closed, so there wa! s no view out the front window. It was stuffy in here in spite of the dreary day, so Logan went over and turned on the air conditioner.

“Do you feel like we just broke and entered too?” Doyle wondered, going over to Xander’s refrigerator.

Logan shrugged, taking a tour of his living room. He had a brown leather sofa and an overstuffed burgundy armchair that had seen better days, and a flat screen television that looked fairly new on a rather older entertainment stand. His DVD player was one of the older variety too, as was his stereo. Wire racks beside it held CDs (lots of alt-rock, some emo) and some DVDs (mostly contemporary films with hot females in them, action films, and classic monster and sci-fi films - if he had porn, he didn’t display it), The only art on his walls was a Matrix movie poster, but there were some smaller framed photos on and around the entertainment center. He recognized Willow, as well as the blonde girl that was with Giles at Wesley’s funeral (Buffy, right?), as well as Cordelia in a much older photo, but occasionally there was someone he didn’t recognize. Perhaps family members, or a name from that dead pool he didn’t recognize: Tara, Anya, Jenny. There was also a particle board b! ookcase, the kind you could buy really cheap, and it had a messy pile of mostly paperbacks and graphic novels, as well as a few magazines. Nothing here said anything particularly remarkable about him, except perhaps a leaning towards being a science fiction geek (most of his paperbacks were sci-fi, and he had a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Stargate SG-1 season box set).

Doyle let out a low whistle, and said, “I have hit the mother lode.”

Logan wandered over to the fridge, which Doyle was staring into, and looked over his shoulder. Xander’s small fridge contained many a fast food and take out carton, enough ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce packets to build your own restaurant, and many cans of beer, some bottles of whiskey, rum, vodka, and wine, all with varying liquid levels. Doyle patted his (Xander’s) stomach, and said, “Could this boy have a drinkin’ problem?”

“I dunno; I’m not sure he’s Irish.”

He turned and wagged a finger at him sternly. “Oi, only I can make Irish jokes. You’re not Irish, are ya? So keep your cakehole shut.”

“My name’s Logan.”

Doyle stared at him in confusion. “Yeah, so?”

“Ain’t that Irish?”

That puzzled him, and they both pondered it for a good minute. “Well, it kinda sounds Irish … but you’re not from Ireland, are ya?”

“Don’t think so. I’m Canadian.”

“There you go - America’s gay cousin. If you’re Irish, it’s buried under all those hockey pucks.”

“I can still beat you to a pulp.”

Doyle clicked his tongue, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and kicked the door shut. “Touchy. So you Canadians are super sensitive, huh?”

Logan glared at him. He knew that Doyle was just being a smart ass, but he still felt like socking him. Still, he just weighed the odds of Angel and Bob getting mad at him if he severely damaged Xander’s body as Doyle wandered off, sitting on the couch and glancing at some of Xander’s mail before grabbing the remote. “I wonder if he has cable.”

“You’re being rather casual, aren’t you? That ain’t your body; this isn’t your place.”

Doyle rolled his eyes and clucked in exasperation. “I know that. But I’m doin’ you guys a favor. You know where I was before all this? I was at this big beach house where everything I wanted just appeared as soon as I wanted them. If it wasn’t precisely Heaven, it was close enough. And it’s weird to actually be in a body again. I mean I thought I had been in a body all this time, but apparently I wasn’t, and it’s … weird to feel gravity, aches and pains that aren’t even mine. And he’s not half-demon, is he? He’s got some good muscles, I’ll give ‘im that, but I still don’t know what this body can do, what it can take.” He took a swig of the beer, and after letting it settle, he admitted, “I gotta bad feelin’ about all this. Even if Bob can find this guy’s soul, how they gonna get it back in ‘im?”

Those were actually good question, and some were ones Logan had been pondering. How were they going to play this? There was one thing he did know, one answer he could give him. “Bob will find his soul; if it’s out there somewhere, Bob’ll track it down.”

Doyle nodded reluctantly. “Guess so. There’s nothin’ Maximum Bob can’t get, right? Or so that used to be what they said. I guess things might’ve changed in five years.”

“Not Bob. He just gets stranger.”

“I bet.” Doyle settled back, started flipping through channels with the remote - Xander did apparently have cable - and after a moment, Doyle exclaimed, “There’s a Food Network now?”

Logan continued looking through Xander’s apartment, and he didn’t know why, until he realized that he was still thinking about that Explorer that trailed them down Sunset. Was it following him? Odds were yes, of course it was following him - how many people had he pissed off in this town alone? It could hardly be following Xander, could it? Or could it? How well did any of them know this guy? What if he had problems he hadn’t shared with others - such as his secret drinking. (Which Logan knew about, because he could smell it on him, but he hadn’t realized it was supposed to be secret.) What if those people weren’t following him, but following Xander? Why?

That’s what he was looking for: the why. Something that might indicate that Xander had a problem, or was in trouble. He wasn’t sure why really, except he hated to be the constant center of bad things. It would be so nice if someone else had a turn at the wheel. But he had to face the fact that it was most likely someone after him, someone aware he was here and still nursing a grudge. How could he narrow down the list of suspects?

There was a small side table behind the couch where his phone was, along with a few scribbles on various pieces of papers. Some of them were phone numbers, others reminders of chores or grocery lists, one was a reminder to “call Haley”. But nothing was incriminating; nothing stood out as a warning flag or a clue. It was the random detritus of a normal life.

He had an odd feeling, which made him glance up and look around. What was wrong? It took him a moment, but he realized it was out on the road; he’d been peripherally aware of a car engine changing its pitch in an odd way. Car problems? He started to approach the window to look out, but that’s when someone outside opened fire, spraying bullets straight into Logan’s chest.