26

Handcuffed and helpless, they were taken down to the semi-circle of people awaiting the Hellmouth opening while the ground continued to tremble like a beaten animal.

Angel found himself shoved into the custody of a Frenik demon armed with a crossbow, who also had an oddly shaped burn mark on his left cheek: it was almost shaped like a knife blade. The Frenik kicked his legs out from under him, so he landed hard on his knees on the miry ground, the scent of blood almost overwhelming up close. He could feel the blood, still tepid, soaking into his pant legs.

He noticed Dru looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Angel beast has come in time for the party," she said, with a small, tittering laugh. He didn't know why she was here, but he was far from surprised. Dru and apocalypse went together like chocolate and peanut butter.

He looked away, not wanting to see the gloating in her shining blue eyes, and saw Cordy and Gunn were briefly uncuffed-guns pressed to their temples the whole time-only to be handcuffed around a charred metal pole that rose out of one corner of he cement foundation. It could have been a former streetlight or even basketball hoop post-he had no idea, but it looked secure. Still, that didn't prevent Gunn, as soon as the guards had moved away, from trying to pull it over with nothing but his chained wrists.

Angel felt something like a tremendous magnetic pull, and his head turned seemingly of its own volition, completely against his will ,until he was looking at Marla. No, Bellara in Marla's body.

"Angel," she snarled, clearly having access to Marla's memories. He felt pinned like a butterfly to a board: her power was overwhelming, inescapable. Bob was so subtle you couldn't even feel your world shift and slip away; but she was like a bulldozer, tearing up and tearing down everything in its path, overwhelming and drowning you in the sheer magnitude of her power. He felt his own brain twist-honestly move-like a fish on land, flopping desperately for water as it suffocated in air.

He grimaced in a pain so strange and disturbing it was almost beyond pain, and he heard Dru laugh as the world threatened to fall away around him, sounds as hollow and distant as if from down a long metal tunnel, the view narrowing to a pinpoint.

After a moment of pressure-when it felt like his brain was being squashed by a two ton weight-it eased up, and the world swam back into focus, although he still felt as if he had been run over, and was now looking out at the world-for some reason-through the bottom of a glass. He was surprised to find he was still on his knees: he would have sworn he was on the ground, as flat as a pancake.

"I'm going to have so much fun with you," Bellara growled, much to Dru's delight.

Angel now realized death at the hands of whatever came out of the mouth of the portal would be preferable than that. Being one of those empty, hollow eyed people-what had Bob called them...meat puppets?-was a fate worse than death.

The air in the center of the bloody vacant lot seemed to shimmer like heat waves in the desert as the ground started to fissure with hair thin cracks, the mud slowly burbling into the gaps as the portal grew, warping the view of everything behind and beyond it, as if through a funhouse mirror.

Angel lost all track of Bob, until he appeared beside Caliban and his Sri-thal familiar. "Howdy mates," he said jovially. "So, what's comin' up?"

Caliban cast a disdainful look at Bob, then ignored him, staring at the burgeoning Hellmouth instead, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his long black ceremonial robe.

But the Sri-thal answered him in its own language, which sounded like a series of deep, long burps issued from its diaphragm. Bob nodded as if he understood, and then answered in a similar manner, making his voice as deep as humanly (Belial-y?) as possible. He had no idea he spoke Sri-thal.

They continued burp talking away happily, and Bob's guards started backing up, both bored and trying to avoid the spittle, as Caliban began intoning another spell to hasten the birthing of the Hellmouth.

The Frenik planted a hard boot in between his shoulder blades, sending him face down into the mud, ass in the air because he was still on his knees. Before he could straighten up into a more dignified position, the Frenik pressed the arrow tip of the crossbow to his skull, and said, "Move and I nail you to the spot, dickhead."

Angel could feel the warm blood beneath his left cheek, imbuing the dirt, making it mud, and the smell brought out his vampire side unbidden (or maybe it was the proximity of the new Hellmouth-he really didn't know).He was running out of time to do anything, if there was anything to do.

He really didn't care-if he was going to die, he was going to die fighting. Now he just had to figure out how to do that.

***********

Gunn continued trying to yank the pole out of the ground, until the handcuffs cut so deeply into his wrists he could feel blood making the cuffs slick and slippery. But in a way, that was good-maybe he could slip out of them.

Of course, he had no idea what he'd do after that; the bastards took all his weapons. But killing Bob sounded like a real capital idea.

Then, as the ground continued quaking like Jello, Cordy moved around until she came shoulder to shoulder with him, and whispered, "Did you hear that?"

He listened, and not only did he hear it, he felt it; a small crack, almost directly beneath their feet, that seemed to cut a jagged path across the cement foundation that held the pole in place. It was loose; not wildly so-it was still embedded in a big hunk of concrete-but maybe, working together, they could knock it over and free themselves.

He didn't even need to tell her. He simply looked into her wide hazel eyes, still red rimmed from angry tears ,and gave her a single nod. She returned it, her expression strangely calm considering all the hell going on around them.

And together, they started to slowly but surely topple the pole.

**************

A vortex of wind kicked up, screaming like a banshee but enclosed with the semi-circle, the newly emerging Hellmouth both its source and its calm center, as the fissures in the bloody mud united to make a deep crack in the middle of the lot, the air above it no longer simply undulating and twisting, but now beginning to take on a strange glow, a dark but hellish light: old blood through a neon filter.

And Angel didn't realize anything was wrong until he noticed Drusilla had dropped her doll.

It wasn't Miss Edith-she had been lost long ago. But it was a porcelain headed doll much like her, which made a small plop as it hit the mud. In the cacophony and chaos of the ritual, no one-even Bellara, standing closest to her-noticed. But Angel knew Dru, and he knew her moods: she never dropped her 'children' unless something dire was occurring.

He saw the nearly ecstatic expression on her pale face had turned to one of slow blooming but certain horror, her azure eyes darkening and possessing none of the mirth they had before. Dru slowly turned her head, and looked towards Bob. Moving his eyes alone, so did Angel.

Bob was still standing next to the towering, reptilian Sri-thal, a menacing presence of gray scales and golden eyes as big as his fist, wrapped in a hooded robe of crimson, but the Sri-thal looked like it was swaying ever so slightly on its large, three toed feet.

Swaying in the same exact rhythm as the vampire guards behind Bob, and Bob himself. Bob was saying something...no, singing something, under his breath; inaudible to all, torn away by the hellish wind, but Angel was just able to pick it up, gifted with sharp vampire hearing."...twisting hollow hell, the truth can't hear me, "Bob whispered. It could have been a spell, a song, or something in between-he wasn't really sure. "Cursed by my own mind, your heart can't hear me..."

Angel almost laughed, but restrained the urge. Had Bob pulled the rare and tricky triple cross?

No one noticed. Not Nathan Reed, standing in the direct midpoint of the semi-circle holding-of all things-a briefcase, like he was on his way to a meeting; Caliban, still spellcasting, shouting to be heard over the growing tempest, unaware the mind of his sponsor demon may have just been ripped out from under him; not the Frenik demon, who was still determined to have him face down in the mud; or even Bellara, whose lambent electric blue eyes were directed at the growing distortion of the Hellmouth, but still seemed distracted, her mind partially back with her 'meat puppets', the ones she left standing in the street.

Only Dru seemed to notice, and Bob noticed her. He smiled at her, a seductive smile that was honestly cold at its core, and he said something to her that Angel couldn't catch this time, but he was pretty sure he read his lips. Bob said to Drusilla: "A battle of wits with an unarmed opponent is so dull, isn't it ,love?"

God-Bob had to have a set of big brass cajones. And a major league death wish. No wonder he'd kept talking about death back at the car.

Dru started backing away, making a sort of troubled keening noise, but it was mostly lost in the howling winds. Dru must have been cognizant of that, as she was backing straight towards Bellara.

Bob made his move then. He gestured back towards his vampire guards-what he said to them Angel couldn't catch-but suddenly they all exploded into dust, their screams lost in the maelstrom, their remains instantly lost in the grit circling the edge of the vortex like a star's event horizon.

Dru had just bumped into Bellara's shoulder as Bob stabbed the Sri-thal between the shoulder blades with his ornate, Gods blessed dagger.

And that's when hell really broke loose.

27

For a moment, it was like time had stopped around the vortex of the forming Hellmouth, but inside it was distorted, overlapping, chasing its own tail like a dog, making curious circles.

The instant the blade punctured the Sri-thal, the tornado of warped, blood hued light in the center of the lot spasmed as if physically hit, and Caliban, startled, turned towards his familiar, anger naked on his face. But the moment he turned, he found himself staring straight into Bob's electric, consumptive eyes.

Angel did not hear what Bob said, but again read his lips. He spoke only two words to the warlock: "Massive coronary."

Caliban fell to his knees, possibly trying to cast a spell that would send Bob to some dark pit somewhere, but all he could do was make a sort of choking noise as he gasped for breath that was not entering his lungs, grabbing his chest with his one good arm, as his left arm hung loosely, functionless, at his side.

Angel felt the tip of the arrow disappear from the back of the skull, and twisted his head painfully to see the Frenik was alarmed and distracted by what was going on. Angel lashed out a single foot in a donkey kick that hit the Frenik's knee straight on, snapping it with a crack as loud as a rifle shot.

The Frenik screamed and fell onto his one good knee as he raised his crossbow, but as Angel rolled over onto his back he knocked it aside with his legs before slamming both feet hard into the Frenik's face. The Frenik was down in the mud, allowing Angel to jump up to his feet before the armed guards rushed in.

At the same time, Bob's head snapped back violently, as if he'd just taken a hard upper cut, and he stumbled back on rubbery legs before collapsing to the mud on all fours. It was easy to see why: Bellara was glaring at him, focusing her rage on him. She was shouting, so he could easily hear her-her voice half Marla's, half something else. "Traitorous bloodchild! Do you think you can get the better of me, you weak, pathetic suckling?! Blood does not attack blood!"

A guard armed with a taser charged Angel, but he spun into a high kick and caught him flush in the jaw, knocking him aside and out as he struggled to regain his balance. Having his hands cuffed behind his back was throwing off his center of gravity, and the quivering, muddy ground was no help either, but he managed not to fall over as a guard with a stake came at him, and in spite of the guard's attempt at evasion, Angel caught him with a snap kick in the throat that sent him reeling away, gagging for breath.

The handcuffs must have been heavy duty and reinforced; Angel couldn't break them, no matter how hard he tried. He had to give them credit-Wolfram and Hart had thought of everything. Well, almost everything.

Angel decided to go for Nathan Reed when suddenly he could no longer feel his body. Save for his brain, which felt like it was being crushed in a giant's fist.

He didn't know if he was standing or had fallen; he would have screamed, except he was no longer in control of his vocal cords.

His vision narrowed and started moving away from him, noises narrowing to a sort of a murmur heard through a drainpipe, but he heard Bellara,l oud and clear in his mind: "You're mine, Angel. Where do you think you're going?"

He could not even muster a coherent thought as a response-the pain was too great, and he felt lost in darkness, swamped, black waves like water crashing over his head, filling him, swallowing him whole.

But then suddenly he heard another voice in his head; strong, clear, and cold as liquid nitrogen: "Deal with me first, bitch."

Bob.

The darkness instantly receded, like a river suddenly and completely diverted elsewhere, and Angel stumbled as Bellara released him, reality crashing back down around him like it had just fallen to earth.

Dru, who had retreated behind Bellara, was staring at Bob still, face as pale as the hidden moon, but now her eyes had narrowed to her angry slits as she glared at him. "He's not alone," she hissed, continuing to retreat. "He's brought crashers to the party." Dru wheeled away and ran off into the dark as Bellara stared at Bob-still on all fours on the muddy ground-in utter bewilderment. He didn't need to be a telepath to know she was thinking that Bob could not possibly be fighting back, not in a successful manner.

But Bob got back up to his feet, momentarily unsteady but quickly recovering, and when he looked at Bellara ,they all got a bit of a shock: Bob's eyes were orbs of pure, glowing neon blue. There were no longer any whites or pupils-just pure, radiant blue energy. And when he spoke, there were maybe a half dozen voices of various genders layered beneath his, echoing like a small crowd attempting to speak in unison without a script. "Your time has passed, Bellara. You don't belong here anymore."

The eye of the Hellmouth hurricane continued to grow-the spell was too far gone, even though Caliban was face down on the ground, not moving and possibly not even breathing anymore-and the ground seemed to jerk as the chasm in the ground gaped wider, and Angel stumbled in an attempt to keep his footing as two guards charged him in unison. Nathan Reed was shouting orders, but Angel couldn't hear them.

Angel spun into another high kick, taking down one guard, then charged the other, hitting him squarely in the midsection with his shoulder; the guard's breath left him in a solid 'oof' before momentum carried him straight over Angel's back and face first onto the ground.

Angel noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the pole holding Gunn and Cordy had toppled over, and they were busily trying to free themselves from it. In all the chaos, the guards had yet to notice them.

He looked back towards Bob and Bellara, and saw they were both standing ramrod straight, attempting to stare each other down, muscles and veins in both their arms standing out like cords and cables, as if psychically fighting on a mental landscape; what he dismissed initially as mud on Bob's face turned out to be blood. Bob was bleeding from his strange and angry eyes, rivulets of cerulean dribbling down his cheeks like tears, but he did not back down; he did not flinch or look away. And Bellara had gone from startled and pissed to confused and scared.

Angel was so fascinated by the quiet, life or death psychic battle going on between them (Dru had said he was not alone-was he 'channeling' something? Had he invoked his own possession in hopes that what took him would be strong enough to take on Bellara?) that he was blindsided; the remains of a charred wooden support beam slammed into the side of his head, hard enough to send him crashing down to one knee, stars exploding briefly before his eyes before his vision solidified.

It was Drusilla, wielding a piece of building wreckage.

"Angel beast, you always ruin my fun," she said, pouting, swinging the post again.

He intended to block the blow with his arm, but he belatedly realized his hands were still cuffed behind him before the post smashed into his head again, and he fell over on his side, consciousness reeling as he felt his own cold blood starting to trickle down a new gash on the side of his scalp.

Dru raised the post, either to hit him again or shove it through his heart, but Angel used a sweep kick to take her legs out from under her, and she let out a yelp of surprise as she fell on her ass and he rolled up to his feet. "Haven't you learned yet, Dru?" He asked, kicking her in the face and sending her falling onto her back. "You and Hellmouths just don't mix."

Dru rolled aside, out of his immediate range, and grabbed the beam, swinging it like a baseball bat as she rose to her feet, snarling angrily. "You're going to burn; you'll burn for an eternity." She snapped, as Angel kicked out and broke the support beam in half, the near part flying away before it could hit him. But rather than solve the problem, the beam had gone from a foot and a half long blunt ended lance to a nine inch, jagged ended post.

Okay, maybe he shouldn't have done that.

But Dru seemed to look past his shoulder and smile at something behind him. "Mmm, he's so evil," she said happily, a small smile gracing her face. "He will have meat cakes for tea." Angel could see the reddish brown light reflected in her eyes, and he knew ,with a lurch in his stomach, that the Hellmouth had opened enough to allow something to come through to this dimension.

They were too late.

28

As Dru lunged for him, stake first, Angel spun into a kick that hit her in the back and sent her aim to hell, although not quite enough: as she flew past him, she still managed to jab the stake through his upper left arm, tearing his coat and ripping off a big chunk of flesh.

He was unable to keep from cursing-damn that hurt; not as much as a stake through the heart, but still-and as he staggered Dru whirled on him and slashed out with her crimson, razor sharp fingernails. He ducked back, but his uncertain balance had thrown him off, and while she missed his eyes, her target ,she caught his forehead, her nails tearing through his skin and sending blood pouring down into his right eye. It stung like salt and temporarily blinded him, leaving him with only his left eye to see with, as she came at him again. He still managed to kick her aside, but goddamn it he needed to get rid of these handcuffs if he was going to do anything at all.

It was then he tripped on something and went down hard on his knees.

Looking with his one good eye, he was he'd tripped on the Frenik demon, who was still out cold, but maybe not for long. It was then Angel realized he was either really turned around or the Hellmouth was now distorting everything in its proximity, because he would have sworn the Frenik was farther away.

As he struggled back to his feet, a hard kick to the small of his back sent him face first into the mud, and suddenly Dru was sitting on top of him, her knees digging into the sides of his hips as she rested the point of the stake on his back, just over his heart.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to uncuff me and give me a fair fight?" He asked, the stench of blood making him dizzy with hunger. It was a long shot, but hell, Dru liked to play games.

He heard her chuckle as she drew a single fingernail down his arm to his bound wrist, slicing cloth and flesh all the way. "You used to like handcuffs," she mused.

He wanted to point out that was Angelus, not him, but Dru knew that; that's why he was at the wrong end of her stake.

"Give Mummy a kiss for me," she said, and he knew Dru meant her extremely late Human mother-the one he killed.

He braced for the stake, wondering how much of it he'd actually feel, when he noticed one of the jittering shadows cast from the Hellmouth's tainted amber light had solidified, and he heard a flat, solid noise, like someone punching a side of beef. At the same moment, the weight of Dru fell off of him, and she went down heavily in the mud beside him, splashing him, as he heard the snap of breaking metal, and his hands were suddenly free.

Angel looked up, pushing himself up off the ground, and saw...Wesley?

Wesley with a pair of long handled bolt cutters, the light of the vortex making his glasses look like mirrors of flame, beneath which his eyes were impossible to see. "Are you all right?" Wes asked, giving him a hand up.

"Now, yes. Thanks," he told him, looking over at Dru. She was face down and bleeding from the side of the head, where Wesley must have hit her with the bolt cutters. Couldn't have happened to a nicer vamp.

He noticed Cordy and Gunn standing behind him, wearing handcuff bracelets but otherwise free.

"Now are you going to tell us what the fuck is going on?" Gunn said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind. Or at least Angel hoped that was the wind.

"It's complicated," Wesley shouted, looking between them. "And I think we have bigger problems at the moment."

Angel turned to look at what Wesley was staring at-the vortex.

The vortex was now large enough to drive a compact car through, a photonic swirl of blood red, decay brown, and brimstone orange, with black shapes appearing and disappearing in the background like the negative of flames, the eye either unwilling to focus on them or the mind unable to comprehend them.

And something was starting to come out of the rift in the ground beneath it.

They were tentacles, as thick as boa constrictors but at least twice as long, as black as oil, muscles rippling beneath the leathery flesh like deadly undertows. First there was one, then two, and suddenly they could count at least a half dozen snaking out of the chasm, from one end to the other of the twelve foot crack in the ground, making Angel wonder how big this thing was.

There was a noise that was not really a noise: it was a scream felt slicing along the nerves like icy blades; a sound that instantly turned bones to glass and marrow to liquid; a sound that threatened to take your legs out from under you and reduce you to a quivering mound of hopeless insanity.

Oh yes, this was bad.

"What the hell is that?" Cordelia shouted.

"How the hell do we kill it?" Gunn shouted.

Angel got a sick feeling this was one of the Old Ones-if it completely manifested on this plane, there would be no killing it. The madness caused by Bellara would be nothing compared to what it could do: just looking upon it could cause instantaneous madness, and there was no way to bring a person back from that.

"We can't kill it," Wesley shouted back, voicing Angel's thoughts. "We have to collapse the Hellmouth before it fully emerges."

"How?" Cordy asked.

"I can do it. Now where the hell is Helga?"

"Helga?" Angel asked, confused. The Stansin demon? What did she have to do with any of this?

Out of the corner of his eye, Angel noticed Bellara and Bob were still locked in silent combat, but a clear victor was emerging. Every step one took forward the other instantly took one back, as if they were bound together by a magnetic field, both negative and naturally repelling each other. Bellara was backed up to within several feet of the Hellmouth, and may have been drawing strength from it, because Bob was clearly losing.

Blood was now not only dripping from his eyes but gushing from his nose, running over his lips and down his chin, and there was a dark runnel down the side of his neck that probably meant he was bleeding from the ears. His arms and neck were a spider's web of dark veins beneath skin now so ashen it looked almost luminous in the light of the Hellmouth. Angel did not know how he was still conscious, nonetheless on his feet; he was dying, his brain being crushed an inch at a time in the deluge of Bellara's overwhelming power, his mind drowning in its own blood.

He saw Helga on the far side of the lot, walking towards the Hellmouth, carrying a ...painter's bucket? This was getting so damn strange it almost seemed normal.

One of the few remaining Wolfram and Hart guards-most had fled-charged towards her with his taser out, and since she was carrying the obviously heavy bucket with both hands, it looked bad. But before he could jab her, her tail lashed out and wrapped around the man's throat, and with a single sharp twist she snapped his neck and tossed him aside.

Bob was right about her tail.

"What do we do about Marla/Bellara/whoever the hell she is, "Gunn asked, looking around as if for a weapon. "Bob looks like he's gonna have to tap out."

"Oh, yes!" Cordy suddenly exclaimed, and grabbed Angel's arm. It was his bleeding arm, and the pain made him wince, but she probably hadn't noticed it. "Bob said-well, sent: you know what I mean-that when the time came, you'd know what to do; that there was only one place Bellara could go."

Angel looked towards the two Belials, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, but as the visibly shaking Bob took another step forward, forcing her a step back, he suddenly understood what Bob was trying to tell him. Hell-Bellara could go to Hell.

Angel ran across the muddy lot, Bellara too wrapped up in her crushing of Bob to even notice anything going on around her, and slammed into her full force and shoulder first, just like when he fought Marla on the roof. She didn't seem to loosen her hold on Bob and notice what was happening until she was falling into the vortex, right into the mouth of Hell itself.

She screamed angrily as she fell away, and Bob collapsed to his knees, bleeding and barely conscious, chin lolling on his chest, as Helga came in and tossed the contents of the bucket towards the portal. It looked like water, but as soon as it impacted the vortex it seemed to contract, the light swirling darker as if ink had been fed into it, and as the where the water hit the ground, it seemed to boil and sizzle.

Holy water.

Wesley started walking towards it, shouting a Latin invocation, and he realized they were sanctifying the ground-would it be enough to collapse it before the Hellmouth could open all the way?

Wesley pulled something out of his coat pocket and threw it into the chasm, and the Old One screamed again, a noise that made the air quiver in fear and reverberated through their bodies like the shockwave of a sonic boom, and the portal began to shrink, the air around it shimmering unsteadily as the Old One retracted one tentacle, then another. It was working.

But that was when he heard the screams from the Hellmouth.

"Angel!"

Something had happened; something had happened around him and he had missed it.

Deep inside the rapidly shrinking portal of the Hellmouth, he heard Buffy screaming for him. And Doyle. And-oh god-Cordelia and Gunn and Wesley-when the Old One started to withdraw, it must have taken them with it.

He raced for the portal, trying to think up a plan on the fly. It was still collapsing, but slowly; he probably had time to get in and pull them out before it closed for good.

Suddenly Angel found himself face down in the mud, just short of the vortex, something crawling up his body and pinning him down. As he tried to throw it off-the Old One, trying to keep him from them-he heard a voice in his head, weak but clear. "It's bullshit, Angel. Calm down."

Bob's voice. But Bob was in no shape to do anything; Bob was dying. This was another trick.

Angel tried to buck off the tentacle wrapping around him, sinking him into the mud, but suddenly he had no feeling in his legs at all; he was paralyzed.

Crying out in frustration, rage, and a sort of acidic sorrow that felt like it was hollowing out his chest and eating away his mind, Angel threw a hard elbow and tried to crawl forward using only his arms, but the weight kept pressing him down, crushing him, and suddenly his arms felt like lead, two ton weights he could no longer move.

"Let me go!" He shouted in anger, barely aware of the tears now rolling down his cheeks. He could hear their cries of agony, the narrowing of the portal amplifying their screams, and in his mind he was panicked, flailing, trying to break the hold this thing had on him. Angel knew if he could not get free he would go insane; his mind would shatter like glass, and god knows what would be left in his shell of a body, but it wouldn't be him.

"Angel, goddamn it! Listen to me-Bellara is doing this. She's trying to take you with her. Stop fighting me!" Bob's voice again, stronger, angrier, with something in the background like static on a bad cell phone line, or arguing in another room.

"Fucking let me go!" Angel raged, trying to squirm out of the crushing grip of the Old One as the portal shrank even more, and any chance of saving them going with it. No, this could not be happening. This could not happen-they were so close...the PTB's couldn't allow this...

"I should let you go," Bob's voice said, sounding bitter ,a little ticked off. It was then Angel realized he heard other voices-a half dozen, maybe more-talking behind Bob's voice. They were living static. "But I won't, just to piss you off."

Angel screamed in frustrated rage as the portal collapsed to the size of his hand, and then, wavering in the air like a mirage, fell in on itself and disappeared.

The sudden peace and silence that washed over him was as loud as a roar, as thick as mud.

"Angel?" He heard Cordelia ask, hearing her and Wesley and Gunn slog across the lot towards him. "Are you all right?"

Those feelings hadn't been his; those thoughts had not really been his either. Bellara, that sneaky bitch-she'd almost gotten him to throw himself back into Hell.

When he tried to raise himself up from the ground, he felt a weight on his back that slid off into the mud beside him. Bob.

Bob landed on his back, limbs so loose he was obviously dead weight ,face so caked in blue blood he looked cyanotic. He must have used the last of his strength to fight Bellara in Angel's mind-becoming their final battlefield-and hold him here until the Hellmouth collapsed. Why?

As Angel sat up, Cordy knelt beside him ,but rather than look at Angel, she seemed to save her concern for Bob. "Bob?" She asked, reaching down to his blood spattered, vein corded neck. Needless to say ,the shirt he loaned him was ruined.

"Is he still alive?" Wesley asked, standing over them. At some point he gave his bolt cutters to Gunn, who was holding it at his side like a sword.

"Barely," she replied, taking her hand away. It came away streaked with his cerulean blood, and her face crumpled slightly as she tried not to cry. "He's going to die, isn't he?"

"I don't know," Wesley said, but the hesitation in his voice was obvious.

Angel leaned over, carefully prying open one of Bob's eyelids to have a look at his pupils, but as soon as he opened one blood came pouring out, so much that Angel could not tell if his eyes were normal again, if there was indeed any pupil at all.

Cordy made a sort of strangled sobbing noise before brushing hair from Bob's forehead and giving it a gentle kiss.

Even having witnessed it, Angel couldn't believe a Belial had died to save him. Or, in fact, the world.

29

According to Wesley, Bob had double crossed them, but for a greater purpose.

Luke had found out something shortly after kicking them out; an 'ancient' Belial like Bellara, in the olden days, was often 'rounded up' by a collection of other Belials headed by 'The One', an elder chosen to be the vessel for the other Belials. So, instead of one weaker mind taking on a very powerful. God-like mind, several minds joined their power into the vessel, The One, to face the rogue, more powerful Belial.

It was an old ceremony, which hadn't been performed for at least a century, and as soon as they found everything they needed, they realized someone else outside of them-'them' being Lia, Luke, two of Bob's other great grand children (Ash and Akira),an actual child (Bryn),and, of all things, an ex-wife (Lilly, a fellow 'full' Belial, and Luke's great grandmother)-had to help conduct the ceremony. Bob apparently volunteered Wesley for the job ,just like he elected himself to be 'The One', knowing full well most vessels died after the fact-channeling so much power through a brain not equipped to handle it was like putting seven hundred thousand volts through a like a line only made to take two thousand volts, tops. But Bob refused to let anyone else do it. And Bob couldn't tell Angel and the others for fear of Bellara seeing it in their minds, and killing Bob on sight, before the ceremony could be completed.

The 'binding' ceremony for The One was complicated and slightly messy, which explained the charred circle of ash-ground Belial bones (nice)-in the center of the Hyperion's lobby, and the splatters of blood in its heart (they needed to combine their blood on a rare Raven's Sphere, which Lia somehow managed to find among the knick-knacks in Bob's closet).According to Lilly, a good steam cleaning would take the stains right out, but, being a Belial almost as facile and glib as her ex-husband (as well as over one hundred years old and powerful in her own right), Angel knew better than to trust her on that.

It explained the voices he heard when Bob was 'talking' to him, trying to slip him out of Bellara's grasp; they were the thoughts of the six who had joined with him, lending him their power. Having had three days to sift through the input, Angel realized several of the voices, none of which he could identify (save for Luke's-her colorful vocabulary translated in thoughts as well),were telling Bob to let him go, to let Bellara have him-to save himself, Angel figured, although maybe not in Luke's case ("The feckin' bloodsucker ain't worth it! Let the gobshite go, ya feckin' bastard!").But Bob ignored them, for some unfathomable reason, and held on to him, mentally and physically, until there was simply nothing left of him.

In fact, when they staggered back to the Hyperion, only to find the six relatives of Bob in almost as bad a shape as they were, Luke punched him in his bad arm, and spat, "I hope you're feckin' happy-he promised me he wouldn't get killed," before storming out the door, into the quiet, confused streets of Los Angeles. Angel felt bad for her. No, not just for her.

Maybe Bob had been right to call him a bigot: he had not been surprised when Bob seemingly betrayed them, but he still couldn't quite believe he had saved his life...or at least saved him from a life in hell. Belials didn't do that. But it was safe to say he had never met a Belial like Bob before.

Most people not killed outright had survived the Hellmouth debacle: Nathan Reed, Dru (who ran off-Cordy found a piece of wood to 'stake the crazy bitch', but when she returned to where she had last been laying, she was gone, and nowhere to be seen. But by then, the show was over, and it was clear the Old One wasn't going to be showing up for tea), even Caliban, although he wouldn't be casting spells for a very long time, perhaps even the rest of his drastically shortened life. He was in the hospital on life support, and probably would be for a very long time; the heart attack he suffered was devastating, and, strangely enough, he seemed to be aging before the doctor's eyes, going from sixty to eighty in the span of two days. Angel figured he'd be dead before he hit his true chronological age, and, if not, he'd wishing he was.

Even Bob had survived, so far. In a manner of speaking.

Lilly had some pull-apparently she was the vice president of a major record company-and she got Bob a private room at a hospital where the staff on the floor was not at all surprised to have to deal with a three hundred plus, blue blooded man, who looked Human enough on the surface but wasn't quite underneath. Bob had been on full life support since that night, and had no signs of recovery at all-it was probable he'd be dead before Caliban.

And even though it had been Cordy's suggestion, Angel knew he had to see him one last time, even if his apology would fall on deaf ears.

The hospital was a marvel of gleaming, blue veined white tile, and when Angel saw a brass plaque declaring this to be the 'Lilly Lyle-Oberon Wing', he wished he was surprised, again, but he wasn't. Bob would never marry someone who could not keep up with him.

According to the nurse on the floor when they signed in to visit him, they had never been besieged by so many flowers, gifts, and people for a patient. "We're going to need to install a turnstile," she cracked, leading them into Bob's room.

Angel couldn't shake the idea that Bob looked like a corpse laid out for a viewing before the burial.

Nearly as white as the sheet he was laying on, at least his blue network of veins had recessed enough that they were no longer standing out in bas relief. But they were still visible as faint, dark tracers beneath his ghostly pale flesh, especially on his neck and arms.

An oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, the machine forcing air into his lungs filling the room with a rhythmic hissing as it worked, nearly blotting out the faint, steady beeps of the other machines, clustered around the head of the bed like acolytes awaiting words of wisdom from their master. They looked very high tech, digital; being the high tech kind of demon he was, Angel bet Bob would have appreciated that.

The nurse, whose name tag said she was Terri Delgado, checked the monitors and scribbled some notes on a clipboard as Gunn asked, as tactfully as he could, "Is he a vegetable?"

Cordy slapped his shoulder, but the nurse ,a plump but attractive woman, with her dark brown hair piled up on top of her head in an elaborate knot, only shrugged as she replaced the clipboard at the foot of the bed. "It's hard to tell with Belials. They have such...unique brainwave patterns, especially ones this old, they have a tendency to foul up the equipment. But so far there's been no measurable response to stimulus at all."

After a moment, Gunn asked, "Is that a yes?"

"It's a qualified maybe," Delgado replied with some humor, before leaving them alone in the room.

Cordy grabbed one of Bob's hands carefully, as there were several tubes snaking into both his arms, dripping in fluids and presumably some kind of medication, as they had needed to use some to stop the hemorrhaging. "He's cold," she reported sadly.

"It's probably a miracle he's survived this long," Wesley told her, but not without sympathy.

Thanks to Luke, Wesley knew where to look up the exact 'joining' ritual, and investigating it further, he found an interesting passage none of the others had mentioned; it may have explained why Bob felt such a need to destroy Bellara personally. Angel wondered why he never told them, because, thinking back on what Bellara had said to Bob, she already knew.

Angel stood beside Cordelia, to the left of Bob's bed, and realized anything he had to say now was pointless. Maybe the best thing to do was leave him in peace.

Gunn had wandered over to the window of the small room and drew back the dark green curtain, looking out at the nighttime cityscape below. "Hell of a view," he commented, before adding, "Why does he need a view? He could be in a ditch next to a brick wall-he wouldn't know."

There was a muttered response, and Angel looked at Wesley, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed. "What?"

"I didn't say anything," he replied, equally confused, as Cordelia gasped in shock.

"Bob?" She asked, squeezing his hand tighter.

Bob's free hand reached up and pulled off his oxygen mask before his eyes fluttered open, revealing his electric blue irises were a bit wan, but still reasonably brilliant. And the whites of his eyes were back, although dotted with tiny blue clusters of broken blood vessels. "I would so know," Bob said weakly, looking in Gunn's direction. "For one thing, I would be covered in fast food wrappers and used condoms."

Gunn raised an eyebrow at him, and gave him a small smile for the joke. "I stand corrected."

"As well you should," Bob agreed, coughing slightly.

"How do you feel?" Cordelia asked, now clasping his hand in both of hers.

"Fucking fantabulous." Bob gave her a frail sarcastic smirk, but even that seemed to take it out of him. "But hey, we kicked ass, right?"

"Always do," Gunn agreed, wandering back to his bedside. "We're in the ass kicking business."

"Angel has something he wants to say to you," Cordelia said, elbowing Angel in his bad arm. It was mostly healed now, but he wasn't ready to be elbowed in it yet.

"Hey!"

"Don't be a wuss," she said, and gave him a 'do this or I'll elbow you all the way home' sort of look. Bob was right-she could be a very violent person.

With as much of a sigh as he could muster, Angel muttered, "I'm-I'm sorry. I was wrong about you."

Bob just stared at him a moment, and then replied, in his slightly raspy voice, "Look, all I want is the gasoline."

Gunn laughed, but Angel scowled at Bob: he must have felt better if he was back to being an obtuse asshole. "What?"

"A Mad Max Two reference, mate. Oh, come on, I know you've seen it."

He should have guessed. That movie seemed to be a running in joke with Bob for some unfathomable reason.

Cordelia kissed Bob's hand, and, still holding his hand between hers, said gently, "Why didn't you tell us you were related to Bellara?"

He looked mildly surprised, but only just. "Who spilled the beans?"

"No one," Wesley assured him. "I simply researched the joining spell."

"Ah. Shit."

The passage the other Belials had left out was that 'blood of blood'-that is, a close relation-was best in rounding up the rogue Belial, since both specific powers and certain psionic 'frequencies' ran in families. That's why five of the six Belials taking place in the joining were members of Bob's family; while Lilly wasn't, not by that blood, she was an old Belial and very powerful, which compensated for much.

So when Bellara told Bob that blood did not attack blood, she didn't mean Belials didn't attack Belials; she meant family did not attack family.

"What was she to you? Great great grandmother or something?" Cordelia continued.

Bob shrugged as best he could without dislodging tubes in his arms. "I don't really know; something like that. It wasn't something I was very proud of-not only was she the crazy old coot of the family, she was a crazy old psycho coot."

"We all have skeletons in our family closets," Cordy said, trying to be comforting. "Some of us literally."

She didn't look at Angel, but she didn't have to.

"And she probably passed her longevity genes on to you," Wesley added, trying to look on the bright side.

"Yeah, I'm sure, but does that mean I got the fucking raving loon genes too?"

"Don't worry," Gunn said to him. "If you get wacko, we'll punch your ticket before you do too much damage."

Cordy shot him a harsh glare for that, but Bob only grimaced. "Thanks, mate; that's almost comforting." Then his sarcastic grimace turned into a sly smile. "But you and what army?" Bob then gave him a comical wink, and Angel knew he'd be back on his feet and bugging the hell out of them in no time.

That was a good thing, right?

EPILOGUE

It was yet another bright ,unrelentingly sunny day when Maximum Bob strode through the doors of the Hyperion again.

He looked much the same as he had that first time, wearing dark sunglasses and a sleeveless top that let him show off his arms, but it was white instead of green, and he wore loose olive green cargo pants as opposed to tight leather pants, and was carrying a leather carry on bag over his shoulder. He still looked like a male model straight out of some glossy magazine. Angel didn't know if his normal skin color had come back naturally, or if Bob had spurred it along by spending time at the beach.

Cordy, sitting at the front desk and scouring the newspaper for any mention of recent missing persons-there seemed to be an increase in missing runaways lately, and Gunn heard rumors of a new, large nest of vampires downtown, but so far they had had trouble pinpointing their location-looked up first, and while she smiled brightly at first, it instantly became bittersweet. "You've come to say goodbye, haven't you?"

Bob grimaced guiltily as he took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his top pants pocket. "Sorry love, but business calls."

"What kind of business?" Wesley asked curiously. He was sitting at Cordy's desk, pulling up L.A. street maps and going over them with Gunn, who was standing behind him and looking over his shoulder.

Angel was standing at the opposite end of the front desk, going through coroner's reports that Wesley managed to get, concerning all recent Jane and John Doe's found in the city in the last couple of months. Already he had identified two victims-both teenagers-as vampire victims, and both found within a seven block radius of their targeted area.

"Jiang still hasn't turned up, so she's undeniably dead. We once promised each other that whoever outlived the other would make sure any final business was taken care of, so I'm gonna make sure none of her creepy rivals have taken over her empire," he explained. Although his neon blue eyes scudded around the room, they seemed to settle most on Cordelia.

"Good luck," Angel said idly, going back to the coroner's reports.

"I won't need it. They're mostly vampires and Guldar demons; they look at me funny and they'll wake up on a cargo hauler half way to Norway."

"You're back to full strength?" Wesley asked.

Bob nodded. "Yep. And Luke's even talking to me again, so all in all it's been a stellar week. "Glancing at the floor, he noted, "Hey-you got rid of the stain."

"Lilly lied," Angel said bitterly. "Steam cleaning didn't even make a dent in it."

"Cleaning was never her thing."

"But at least the Host knew a good spell for stain removal," Cordy replied cheerfully.

"How long are you gonna be gone?" Gunn wondered.

Bob shrugged, shifting his bag from one shoulder to another. "At least a month or two. I'm going to swing by Australia first, before I hit China. I haven't seen my kids there for a bit, and I've got a new great granddaughter on the way that'll probably be here by the time I get there. Oh, and a couple of my employees in Australia found something interesting in the Outback-the Necronomicon."

Angel and Wesley both looked up at Bob sharply, and Angel hoped that Bob was making a tasteless joke. "You can't be serious," Wesley gasped.

"The what what? "Gunn asked, brow furrowing in consternation.

"I thought that disappeared into the portal of another dimension a long time ago," Angel said grimly.

"I know, so did I, but Kayleigh and Jamal were doin' a survey of some territory I bought last year, forty acres of nothin' West of Uluru, and they got a big hit on the metal detector," Bob explained, his expression lighting up with a sort of childlike enthusiasm. "It was down deep, so they had to bring in the earth movers, but after digging about a mile deep, they found a late '60's model Buick."

"You're kidding," Wesley accused.

But Bob just went on. "It had a bit of gas in the tank and everything; Jamal hotwired it-the bugger still runs. Can you believe that? I mean, that's how you make an auto. Anyways, there was some blood in the car, Human by the smell, but not enough to suggest someone died in it; they figure someone was just wounded.

"Anyhow, they found this book under the front seat; leather-bound, falling apart, and stinking of blood, but not just Human blood this time. They didn't recognize the dialect the book was written in, but by comparing the cover markings to what's uploaded on the demon lexicon database, they found it was a direct match for the missing and presumed lost Necronomicon. Needless to say they threw that sucker in the trunk and called me immediately."

"It's a book?" Gunn asked. He sounded disappointed.

"Not just a book," Wesley told him, straightening his glasses and getting comfortable in pedantic mode. "The Necronomicon is a cursed book, full of evil spells. Reading any of them aloud can open portals that allow a particularly vicious kind of demon into this dimension."

"Not another Bellara," Cordy asked Wes warily.

"No, not like that. This type of demon has no corporeal form here, but they can take over dead bodies."

"So we're talking real zombies here?" Gunn now sounded interested again.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Ever seen Night Of The Living Dead?" Bob asked. "Kind of like that, only they're stronger and a hell of a lot more animated."

Cordy grimaced in distaste, turning her attention back to Bob. "You're not saying they eat people, are you?"

Bob rolled his shoulders, clearly hesitant to tell her. "Well, really they only want to eat your soul. But they have been known to snack on an intestine or two along the way."

Cordy wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Eww. I mean seriously eww."

"You don't want to invite them to a garden party, no," Bob allowed.

"If it's really the Necronomicon-" Angel began, but Bob didn't let him finish.

"Don't worry, I know-destroy that motherfucker. I'll douse it with gasoline and put a match to it before you could say 'goose'. But I am kind of curious as to how it ended up in a car buried a mile deep in the Outback, especially since it's last known location in this dimension was in the Eastern part of the United States almost three decades ago."

"And what happened to the guy in the car?" Gunn wondered aloud. "You know, the guy whose blood you found? How'd he get out? Where is he? Or she, whatever."

"It is very odd," Wesley agreed. "But if you were going to try and hide the Necronomicon, putting it in a car deep underground in the Australian desert would be a very creative way to do it."

"True. I only bought that parcel of land 'cause some Aboriginal friends of mine told me freaky, otherworldly shit was always happening out there-I bet they had no idea how freaky. I certainly didn't."

Out of the corner of his eye, Angel noticed Cordy gesturing for Bob to come over; her hand was low, hidden by her body so Gunn and Wesley couldn't see her doing it, but Angel still did.

Bob raised an eyebrow, and approached her casually. "Somethin' I can do for you, darlin'?"

She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him over close enough to whisper in his ear. But thanks to his sharp vampire hearing, Angel heard it anyways. "You left this at my place this morning," she whispered, reaching into the pocket of her red tank dress and slipping something over the desk towards him. Angel saw a glint of silver, and figured it was a watch as Bob smoothly grabbed it and pocketed it before he could get a good look at it.

"I bet Dennis nicked it, the jealous bugger," Bob whispered back, and Cordy giggled as Bob raised his eyebrows in mock irony.

Oh no-she didn't...no. Not with Bob! Cordy was too smart to fall for his little seduction games. Right? But she was unusually awake and chipper this morning, wasn't she? She didn’t even mind scanning the obituaries.

Oh shit.

"What's so funny?" Gunn wondered, looking at the pair of them warily.

"I'm not repeating that joke in mixed company," Bob said, stepping back from Cordy and the front desk. That made Cordy laugh again, and Gunn look even more confused.

The hotel doors opened again, and Helga, the Stansin demon with the lethal tail, came in. She still wore low slung jeans to keep her tail free, but today she was also wearing mirrored sunglasses and a black lace tank top that seemed to be fighting to contain her cleavage. Only in L.A. would no one notice that not only did she have a tail, but she was also as green as spinach.

"If I knew you were going to be this long, I'd have gone a block over and gotten an ice cream cone," Helga complained, pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head. "Come on old man, get that sweet ass of yours in gear-we have a plane to catch."

Bob laughed, seemingly embarrassed, but Angel knew better. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?"

"I'm much more fun in private," Helga replied, giving him a sultry little smile.

"Well, on that note, I suppose I'd better go," Bob admitted. Helga was apparently shameless ,but that was more or less par for the course with Stansin demons. She probably also wouldn't care if Bob was faithful, as they were a naturally polygamous species; she probably had at least one other boyfriend of her own.

"Have a good trip," Cordy said, her smile not at all diminished by Helga's appearance. She really didn't care? Well, maybe she didn't want to date a creature like Bob; maybe she just wanted...oh, he was so not going there. "Drop me a line, huh?"

"Oh you bet. I'll miss you most of all, Cord," he said, leaning in to give her a seemingly chaste kiss on the cheek.

Angel shook his head in disbelief. Only a Belial could so easily juggle lovers like that. But if he hurt Cordy he'd kill him-he hoped Bob knew that.

"Have fun fightin' evil guys," Bob said to the rest of them, turning back towards Helga and the door.

"Yeah, you too," Gunn said casually, giving Helga an appreciative once over before turning back to the computer screen.

"Wait a minute," Angel said, making Bob stop before the door. There was one question Bob had never answered, and while Angel pretended for a while it didn't bother him, it did, and he saw no point in lying about it anymore. "You never told me why you bothered to save me."

Bob considered that a moment, taking his sunglasses out of his pocket as he did so. "Frankly Angel, a lot of the time you're an uptight prick," he said, and Gunn let out a bark of laughter he hastily tried to cover in a cough, but Angel knew damn well what it was and shot him a dirty look for it. "But you generally mean well; your heart's in the right place, and hey, somebody's got to take care of those demons that are trying to fuck it all up for the rest of us. After all, there's a lot of us who really would like to live in peace." Bob slipped on his sunglasses before he added," Besides, anyone who has lawyers as enemies is a friend of mine."

Angel wasn't sure if that was the complete answer, or if that was just a convenient lie, proffered by the king of all liars. But he couldn't force Bob to answer; he wasn't sure anyone could force Bob to do anything.

"Oh, and here," Bob dug in another pocket, the one he had slipped his forgotten watch into, and pulled out a small ,neatly folded wad of bills, held together by a brass money clip, which he tossed onto the desk before him.

"What is this?" Angel asked cautiously. He still couldn't bring himself to completely trust Bob.

"It's to replace the shirt I borrowed," he explained, as Helga's tail snaked around Bob's waist and pulled him closer to her. He put an arm around her shoulders, partially reassuring and partially out of habit. "Hey, maybe you can go nuts and buy yourself an actual color this time."

Gunn continued coughing in the background, and Angel was sure Wesley had briefly joined him, although Angel saved his unamused scowl for Bob. A smartass until the end.

"Ta guys, see you in the funny papers," Bob said, and as he and the Stansin went out the door, Helga lowered her sunglasses and waved, adding a somewhat flirtatious, "Bye Shaft."

Now everyone was laughing, and Angel just shook his head in disbelief, glad to see them go.

But he knew Bob would be back, probably sooner rather than later. If only just to piss him off.

THE END