Remain

by zero

Nothing is easy in matters of life and death. Sequel to "Apparitions", Doyle-centered.

TITLE: Remain
AUTHOR: zero (zero@zeroimpact.com)
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask before archiving. If you already have permission
for "Apparitions", that stands for this story as well.
SUMMARY: Nothing is easy in matters of life and death. Sequel to
"Apparitions".
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: ANGEL and its characters are the property of Joss Whedon, the
WB, 20th, Mutant Enemy, and probably some other people.
SERIES NOTE: This is the sequel to my story "Apparitions"; if you haven't
read that story, you probably won't understand this one very well.
"Apparitions" in its complete form can be found on my fiction page:
http://www.zeroimpact.com/fiction.html This story will also reside there
once the entire thing has been posted.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My effusive thanks go to Chelle and My Two Taras (coming
this fall to the WB!) for their excellent beta-reading. The flaws are
mine, where I've disregarded their wise advice.


REMAIN
by zero (zero@zeroimpact.com)


Cordelia had played the scenes over in her head a million times. Sometimes
Doyle would just appear in the doorway at the office, as if it were just
another day, and she'd throw herself into his arms and kiss him and he'd
promise never to leave again. Sometimes he'd turn up at her apartment, and
they'd be so overcome by their passion that she wouldn't even ask how he'd
come back from the dead before she dragged him to the bedroom and they
made love all night. Sometimes it would be a spell gone wrong, or a spell
gone right, and sometimes Angel would go to the Oracles and they'd just
change their minds and agree to bring him back.

Her dreams, daydreams, fantasies and flights of fancy were countless, but
the part afterward, the part where he was back and safe and with her
again, had always ended with a happily ever after -- and, to be fair,
usually a lot of sex. Unfortunately, things never seemed to turn out as
Cordelia imagined them.

Doyle was quiet as she guided him through her front door, her keys
jangling in her free hand. He stood in the middle of the room, silent and
still, until she led him to the couch; and he did nothing but shiver, just
a little, as he sank down into the cushions. When she told him she was
going to change into dry clothes, he didn't smile at her or offer to help
her disrobe.

Cordelia frowned at the blank, tired look on his face, wondering if he'd
heard her at all. With a worried and frustrated sigh, she retreated into
the bedroom, quickly stripping off her damp clothes and leaving them in a
careless pile on the floor as she pulled on a dry t-shirt and shorts.

When she returned to the living room, she found Doyle still on the couch,
but now he was lying down, his back to the door and his body curled on its
side. The clothes he wore -- borrowed from Angel in a quick pitstop at the
vampire's apartment -- were too large for the slight man; he was
practically buried in them, but he looked comfortable enough.

Smiling softly, Cordelia leaned over him to pull down the quilt she'd
piled on the back of the couch, draping it over his body and tucking it in
around him to keep him warm. Returning to her own bedroom -- though she
left the door halfway open -- Cordelia slipped under the sheets and
managed to lay still for almost five minutes before she decided to stop
kidding herself.

She stopped in the living room doorway just to watch him sleep for a
moment, then stepped into the kitchen to make herself some hot chocolate.
Ten minutes later, she was curled comfortably in an armchair that she'd
pulled closer to the couch. A warm blanket enfolded her just as her hands
enfolded a steaming mug, and the happy smile on her face refused to leave
her as she watched the half-demon sleep.

+++

The glow from the streetlights outside streamed in through Angel's office
windows, casting a pale yellow light over the floor. The lamps were all
off inside, and it was far too dark for the vampire behind the desk to
actually be reading the book in his hands, but he didn't seem to notice.
His eyes stared sightlessly toward the windows and his thoughts were
obviously not on his surroundings.

A wide, satisfied smile was fixed on his face, and there was no indication
that it would disappear anytime soon.

Wesley sat on the other side of the desk, the opposite expression on his
face. He wasn't staring into space, but nor was he reading the thick book
that rested in his lap; instead, he was staring at Angel. A deep frown
pulled his countenance downward, and his fingers tapped out a slow, steady
rhythm on the leatherbound spine of his book.

Angel paid no attention to Wesley, and while the vampire continued to
smile, the human's frown only grew deeper.

"It's a foolish, selfish risk you've taken," Wesley finally blurted, no
longer able to stand the silence. "Both of you."

"You've said that already," Angel reminded him. The smile finally faded,
but only because he was reminded that the other man was still in the room.
"You've said that several times. And on each occasion, I've told you that
I don't care."

The frown turned into an angry scowl, and Wesley picked up the book in his
lap, tossing it onto the seat of the empty chair next to him. He leaned
forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his face hardened by angry
intensity.

"The two documented cases we've found," he said, his voice loud and hard
in an effort to command Angel's attention, "have supported what the Grey
sisters told us. When people come back through that lake, very bad things
happen."

"We don't know that," Angel countered, tossing his own book onto the
smooth surface of his desk and dropping his feet from the corner where
he'd had them propped up. "And to tell you the truth, I'm not inclined to
trust anything those sisters had to say. If the Powers knew that it was
Doyle coming back, then why would they send *us* to stop him? They must've
known that we wouldn't be able to carry it through--"

"Although you should have," Wesley interrupted, raising a chiding finger.
"Perhaps they were testing you to see what you were more loyal to: your
mission? Or your friends?" He paused long enough for that to sink in, but
when Angel opened his mouth to reply, Wesley continued. "But it doesn't
matter now, I suppose. The fact is that you've put not just us in danger,
but the entire city, and probably the entire world, just to have your
friend back. If this event really has weakened the fabric between our
world and the afterlife, we'll be flooded with ghosts and ghouls of all
kinds before you know it."

"We don't know that," Angel repeated. He was frowning, now, and there was
no indication that he'd ever been smiling at all.

"Well, then, give me just one case where a dead man returning to life has
been a good thing," Wesley challenged.

Angel did not respond for long moments, and his eyebrows pulled together
in a scowl to rival Wesley's. "Christ?" he finally said, his expression
lightening as he raised an eyebrow.

Wesley rolled his eyes, exasperated. "I'm going to see if I can dig up the
shaman's spell, though most of these books are sure it's lost," he said,
standing and moving toward the door. "It's too late to stop this when we
were supposed to, but I'd rather be prepared to send him back when you all
acknowledge that I'm right."

"You won't perform that spell," Angel barked, stopping Wesley cold in the
doorway. "You can't perform it. He's our friend, Wesley."

"We may have to do it, Angel," Wesley replied, not turning around to face
the vampire. He could swear he'd heard Angel's voice crack when he'd said
'friend'. "But I'm not going to do it without you. I just want to find
it... just in case. Whatever comes, we'll deal with it together."

Wesley left quietly, the latch on the outer office door clicking shut
behind him. Angel glanced around his darkened office, and though he knew
he should be happy to have Doyle back -- alive, in the flesh, and
apparently none the worse for wear -- he could not recapture his good
mood.


-- PART TWO --

Cordelia woke slowly, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and
her empty mug hanging loosely in her hands. Doyle was gone from the couch,
the quilt she'd draped over him balled up against the arm, and she tried
to restrain the thick ball of panic that lurched from her stomach to her
throat as she rose from her chair and walked quickly into the kitchen.

"Doyle," she sighed, spotting him across the room. "You had me worried for
a second there, I thought you'd disappeared."

"I'm not going anywhere," Doyle murmured, his back to her as he stood at
the kitchen window, watching the street outside. "I had to fight to get
here, and I'm going to enjoy myself for a good long time." His head turned
just enough for him to see her from the corner of his eye, casting his
face in a stark, silver-lined profile.

"What do you mean?" Cordelia asked, her voice was deep with the lingering
effects of sleep. She drew closer to him, her bare feet almost gliding
across the smooth linoleum floor. In the dim light, the shadows of
raindrops against the window streaked down his chin, an illusion of blood
trickling from his mouth. She wondered for a fleeting moment if he'd hurt
himself.

He turned when she stood just behind him, smiling at her, the illusion of
gore gone. "The years in Hell have been long," he answered, and sharp
teeth flashed in his mouth. "And it's been so long since I killed
anything..."

His hands reached up to cup her cheeks, almost like a lover would, but his
touch was icy, burning her skin with the cold, and when she tried to
scream, the sound made her frozen body shatter--

Cordelia woke with a gasp, gulping in air like a swimmer who feared
drowning. The blanket she'd wrapped around herself fell to the floor, and
her mug had been taken from her hands, probably by Dennis; it sat on the
small end table. Her thin t-shirt was plastered to her back with sweat;
without the blanket she immediately began shivering, and her body was
uncomfortably stiff from sleeping in the chair. Her head throbbed, feeling
too heavy for her shoulders, and pain lanced through her brain, the kind
that came attached to a vision.

There was no sleeping body on the couch, and the quilt she'd laid over
Doyle was balled up against the arm. The apartment was dark, even though
the clock revealed that it was nearing eleven o'clock in the morning, and
Cordelia could hear the patter of rain against the windows.

She didn't call out Doyle's name as she stood. She had a feeling that he'd
be in the kitchen, his back to her, staring out the window, watching the
cars go by on the street below. And that was exactly where she found him.

In her dream, the shadows from raindrops on the windows had looked like
streaked blood around his mouth. But from where she stood now, just inside
the doorway, she could see those shadows again, and this time they looked
like tears sliding down his pale cheek.

"Doyle?" she whispered, her voice quavering. She could still vividly
remember the feeling of his freezing hands on her skin...

He turned from the window abruptly, startled, and then sagged back against
the counter, his hands gripping the edge of it. There were deep circles
under his eyes, and his face was much more gaunt than she'd remembered.
"Hey, Princess," he greeted, but he didn't even try to smile, and his
voice sounded tired.

"Are you okay?" she asked. The linoleum was cold on her bare feet as she
moved across the room toward him, and the strange cobwebs of her dream
clung to her mind, leaving her uneasy. She shivered a little with the
imagined cold, and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Fine," he whispered back, his eyes not meeting hers as he looked at the
floor. "Just tired."

"Why don't you sleep?" When she'd drawn close enough to touch him, she
did, but her hand moved tentatively, and she almost expected him to be icy
cold. Her hand closed over his where it gripped the edge of the counter,
and his skin was warm under her palm.

"Dreams," he murmured, but didn't elaborate. His voice was deep, and his
words stumbled, as if his tongue were unused to language. The borrowed
clothes he wore hung loosely from his too-thin frame.

He didn't reach for her like he had in her dream, but his eyes, blank and
hollow, stared at her, giving no hint as to what he might be thinking.

She looked at the floor, trying to avoid his gaze, and shivered again,
chilled by her damp t-shirt. "I'm going to take a shower," she mumbled.
"I'll make some breakfast when I get out, okay?"

He didn't respond, didn't move, but his eyes tracked her as she stepped
uneasily across the floor, headed for the bathroom. Suddenly she felt very
much like a mouse, helpless and unsuspecting, caught by the gaze of a
hungry owl.

Even under the heavy spray of the shower, she couldn't stop herself from
shivering, and her mind still easily and vividly conjured up the feeling
of his frozen hands on her face.

+++

It was still raining when Cordelia finished her shower; she could hear the
heavy, rapidly falling drops drumming against the roof and windows,
sliding through narrow gutters and slipping toward the ground below. She
dressed slowly, finally feeling warm after twenty minutes under the hot
spray. She dried herself with a thin towel and dressed in a knit sweater
and a pair of jeans, her body carrying out the motions automatically
though her mind was still occupied with her dream. She padded out into the
living room in her sock-clad feet, her fingers tangling in her hair as she
pulled it into a ponytail.

Doyle wasn't there. He wasn't in the kitchen, either, or any of the other
places she checked.

Minutes later, after her third search of the apartment, Cordelia cursed,
grabbed her jacket and keys, and dashed out into the storm, headed for
Angel Investigations.

+++

The hot chocolate that Wesley pressed into her hands was warm, and the
smell was comforting, but the warmth had fled Cordelia's body during her
frantic run through the driving rain, and she doubted she'd be warm again
anytime soon. In the background, she could hear the murmur of Angel's
voice in the next room, pausing and resuming, tones low and serious and he
talked to Kate on the telephone.

The apartment was silent after Angel hung up the phone. The quiet
stretched on for a moment, and then the sound of his feet on the hardwood
floor drew nearer, until he appeared in the bedroom doorway, hands folded
in front of him, his gaze on the floor.

"Nothing?" Wesley guessed. He slung a thick towel over her shoulders to
sop up some of the rain that had soaked her, then paused to squeeze
Cordelia's hand in an awkward gesture of comfort.

"The opposite," Angel replied, still not looking at them. "She thinks the
police may have found him already."

"Well, that's wonderful," Wesley said, smiling as he stood up. "We can go
pick him up and--"

"The crime scene's two blocks from here," Angel interrupted, his eyes on
Cordelia, his feet moving of their own volition across the floor toward
the girl. "In an alleyway between here and Cordy's place. Kate asked me to
come down and see if I can identify the body."

Cordelia didn't blink, and the tears that suddenly began rolling down her
cheeks weren't accompanied by anguished sobs. Otherwise, she had no
reaction at all to Angel's words, and merely stared at the floor, offering
up silent prayers as the vampire vanished through the grate into the
sewers below, going to collect the body of her friend.


-- PART THREE --

Angel fidgeted nervously, imagining his demon personified growing restless
in his rib cage, its clawed feet churning in his stomach, its snout thrust
into his throat, suffocating, as it tried to scramble its way out of his
body. Despite the heavy layer of clouds that protected him from deadly
exposure, Angel could feel that it was day. Beyond the dark, protective
shroud in the sky burned a fatal sun, and a shift of the wind could expose
him to it, ending Angel's existence for good. His skin itched, and he
wanted nothing more than to crawl out of it.

The shadowed alleyway was washed not just in a light drizzle of rain, but
also in alternating blue and red from the light racks of numerous police
cars. It made the rough brick walls look unreal, part of the light show,
as if he could stick his hand right through. He found Kate leaning against
the driver-side door of an unmarked sedan, sipping coffee from a styrofoam
cup, nodding vacantly at an overexcited young patrolman who seemed to be
telling her a story she'd already heard.

"Kate," Angel greeted. When she jumped, nearly spilling her coffee on her
hand, he realized she hadn't noticed his approach, and his gaze slid
sheepishly to the ground.

"Angel," she replied. She thrust her cup into the patrolman's hand and
took Angel by the arm, leading him under the yellow plastic police line.
"The body's pretty unrecognizable," Kate continued, quietly, and her eyes
became dark and shadowed as she looked down at the sheet-covered figure on
the ground. "He took a major beating. And there's some sort of wounds on
his face. But maybe you can recognize his clothes or something."

Kate grimaced, realizing that she wasn't helping, and stepped back a pace,
sending her gaze back up the alleyway, giving him some small measure of
privacy. Angel's jaw clenched tighter, and he crouched down to pull back
the sheet and uncover the still frame underneath. His heart had wound
itself tightly in his chest but no blood thundered through it to offer
release from the tension. His hand shook as he drew the cover back, and
the strong, heavy scent of blood made his stomach twist as his imagined
demon dug its feet again into the soft interior of his belly.

Angel had seen enough -- done enough -- in over two centuries that the
sight of the body didn't bother him as much as it might have, or as much
as it should have. A quick glance told him that the body was not Doyle:
the hair was too long, the body too tall, the build not quite slender
enough, the clothes unborrowed and fit to the frame. Fear unwrapped its
fingers from his heart, and he sucked in a breath that tasted of blood
before leaning closer to examine the display before him.

The corpse's chest was laid open to the air, and the day's heavily falling
rain had pooled in the gaping cavity where the organs had been. One hand,
upturned on the pavement, revealed a heavily abraded palm; the other faced
down, flat out on the pavement, but the knuckles were unmarked, as if the
man hadn't had a chance to strike a single blow at his killer. The face
had been badly beaten, and blood still oozed from at least a dozen
puncture marks around the brow and left eye.

Angel frowned, shifting his weight and bending closer to the wounds.

"Do you have a flashlight, Kate?" he questioned, looking back up at the
officer.

She returned her attention to him, pulling a small Mag-Lite from her
pocket. "What is it?" she asked, placing the flashlight in his
outstretched palm.

Angel twisted the head of the light, turning it on, then directed the beam
at the dead man's face. The pattern was familiar, of the same sort he'd
seen several times before. He'd seen it on a vampire's face during a
scuffle. And he'd seen it on the forehead of an Anomovic demon, after a
fight at a bachelor party.

"Nothing," Angel finally answered. He snapped off the light and draped the
sheet back over the body, then stood and pressed the Mag-Lite back into
Kate's hands as he headed for the alley mouth. "It's nothing."

She called his name to his retreating back, but the only response was a
low rumble of thunder and the hiss of rain on pavement as the sky renewed
its assault on the day, turning the fine drizzle into a heavy deluge.

+++

The silence was absolute and heavy, and that was how she knew when he
arrived.

The first sound was the faint click on the office door upstairs, which was
followed by the squeak of wet shoes on linoleum, accompanied by the patter
of water dripping to the floor. The footsteps paused on the heels of a
second click as the door shut, and then resumed, crossing the floor toward
the elevator.

Wesley, absorbed in a another weighty book of spells, hadn't noticed the
presence of their visitor until he heard the loud metallic racket of the
elevator doors being pulled open and shut again. When the heavier
mechanics of the elevator let their protest to movement be known, Cordelia
stood and quickly crossed the floor, shifting from one foot to the other
and back again, her neck craned to look up the shaft, watching the
torturously slow descent of the elevator.

Doyle was revealed to her one piece at a time, from the feet up. His
borrowed shoes, a little too large for his feet, were slick with mud, as
were the bottoms of his slacks. Angel's taller stature had already made
for a loose fit on the pants, but absorbed rainwater made them heavier,
and they hung low on Doyle's hips. His black button-down shirt had become
even darker, glistening with wetness and clinging to his chest. His arms
hung limply at his sides, water dripping from his fingertips to the
elevator floor, and there were deep scratches on his face, as if someone
had raked their fingernails across his cheek; the wounds oozed blood,
which the rainwater thinned and sent running down his neck disappearing
into his shirt. His hair was slick and plastered to his scalp, shining
under the lights.

As soon as the elevator completed its descent and jerked to a stop,
Cordelia threw open the grate and rushed inside the car. Doyle stood
still, not returning Cordelia's embrace when she flung her arms around him
and pulled him tightly against her.

"God, Doyle!" she growled, her mouth just inches from his ear. "Where did
you go? What were you thinking? And what the hell happened to you?"

He didn't answer, just shifted uncomfortably in her arms, pulling
backwards until she released her hold. Cordelia stood back from him with a
frown, her hands twisting one another nervously in front of her.

"What happened to your face?" she asked. Her teeth caught her lower lip as
she leaned forward, trying to get a look at the wound.

Doyle's hand raised to his cheek, fingers lightly touching the gashes
there as if he hadn't noticed them before. "Don't know," he answered,
frowning. His hand dropped to his side again, curled into a fist stained
with his own blood. His jaw clenched, making the planes of his face shift
as the muscles stood out.

"You don't know? Are you okay?" Cordelia reached for him again, and he
took another half-step back, away from her, until he had nearly backed
into the rear wall. She stopped again, her frown deepening and her hands
reflexively smoothing the front of her shirt.

"Doyle?" she said again, and this time her voice was only a broken
whisper. Her gaze had abandoned his to stare down at herself instead. The
front of her heavy, knit sweater was stained red, and her hands were slick
with blood.


-- PART FOUR --

Angel, his head bowed and his strides automatic, was twenty feet from the
grate leading up to his apartment when he heard Cordelia scream. He
immediately abandoned his troubled thoughts in favor of quick action,
running for the opening and clambering up the short ladder. The scream was
quickly followed by a shout that sounded like Wesley, and a crash as
something tipped over. Angel contributed a noise of his own, slamming the
grate open and leaping into the apartment, low to the ground, ready to
attack with a stake in his hand.

Cordelia stood with her back to him, facing the elevator, where Angel
could see a very wet Doyle leaning against the inside wall. The crash had
been the coffee table, which Wesley had apparently toppled in his haste to
get to Cordelia's side; he stood behind her, his hands clutching her
forearms.

Even from a distance, the vampire could smell the blood.

Angel's coat hung limp and heavy around his shoulders, hindering his
movements as he pushed himself up from his crouch. He kept a firm grip on
his weapon as he advanced on the scene. "What happened?" he questioned
urgently, coming to a halt between Cordelia and the elevator.

"I don't know," Wesley answered, rapidly, not looking at Angel as his gaze
searched Cordelia's eyes, looking for reassurance. "She may be injured."

Angel's frown deepened but when he glanced at Doyle, the other man just
stood still, sagging against the elevator wall, blinking dumbly at the
scene before him.

"Doyle?" There was a question in Angel's voice, but neither man was sure
what he was asking, and neither knew the answer.

"I'm fine," Cordelia muttered, batting Wesley's hands away. "I'm fine,
okay?" Her eyes turned to Doyle, who still stood in the elevator, looking
shell-shocked. "Doyle? Are you alright?"

Doyle looked down at the blood-splattered front of his shirt, frowned, and
replied, "It's not mine."

+++

From the doorway to Angel's bedroom, Cordelia could see Doyle where he
huddled in the center of the vampire's bed, a blanket wrapped tightly
around his boxer-clad form. His sleep was obviously not restful as
twitched and jerked occasionally, his eyes rolling and at times half-open.
Once or twice, he murmured in his sleep, but the language was one she'd
never heard, and his voice quickly faded back into silence.

Sighing, Cordelia turned away from the doorway, leaving the door cracked
open as she crossed the apartment toward the kitchen. Wesley and Angel sat
across from each other at the table, Wesley immersed in another book,
Angel sipping a cup of tea and lost in his thoughts.

"Something's wrong with him," Cordelia stated without preamble. Her
serious gaze was leveled at Angel, and he met it, his own fear shining
through the dark orbs of his eyes.

"Haven't I been saying that?" Wesley grumbled, his head still down over
the thick volume in front of him on the table. "He's supposed to be dead,
that's what's wrong with him." The former Watcher finally looked up from
his work, and his gaze, too, was directed at Angel. "We have to send him
back."

"No!" Cordelia quickly snapped, a frown of consternation wrinkling her
cheeks and brow. Her hands twisted the hem of her borrowed t-shirt -- one
of Angel's -- around her fingers.

Angel, however, did not immediately protest, and his face was blank,
expressionless, as he stared down into his teacup. "You've found a spell
to do it?" he finally asked, raising his head to meet Wesley's eyes.

"Not yet," the other man answered. "But I will."

"Why don't you just kill him?" Cordelia sneered, her voice low and angry.
"If it needs to be another vaporization, maybe we could set him on fire
while he sleeps." Her last word was a snarl, and she turned on her heel,
stalking out of the room.

Angel and Wesley watched each other for a long moment, then Angel stood
slowly, following Cordelia out of the kitchen. He found her standing at
the bedroom door, watching Doyle sleep. She leaned against the doorjamb,
her arms folded tightly across her chest.

"I don't want to lose him any more than you do," Angel whispered, gently
gripping her shoulder. "But that may not be him at all. That may not be
our Doyle, and we need to figure that out. We *will* figure that out...
before we do anything."

She quickly shrugged off his hand, and there was silence between them for
long, agonizing minutes. Then, in his sleep, Doyle spoke again.

"I don't even know what language he's speaking," Cordy sighed, once his
voice had trailed off again.

"It's Irish," Angel answered absently. "Gaelic. He said, 'But there's no
one else here'."

"I wonder what it means."

Angel shook his head, and touched her shoulder again. This time his hand
remained, and she turned away from the bedroom, leaning against the wall
and facing him. "I don't know," he replied. "But whatever he's dreaming
about, it's not pleasant."

"I had a dream today," Cordelia told him, her eyes fixed on the bedroom.
"There was something possessing Doyle and he was... evil is the only way
to describe it. My head hurt, like when I have a vision. I don't know what
it means."

"I'd like to say it's nothing," Angel replied. "But I'm not going to lie
to you. It could be something."

Their supply of words exhausted, they stood silently just outside the
door, listening to the sounds of restless sleep that came from the
bedroom.

+++

"I know we disagree on this subject," Wesley said quietly, watching Angel
and Cordelia as they slipped into their chairs at the kitchen table. "But
I would appreciate being kept in the loop. We are a team -- Doyle or no
Doyle -- and if you have some information on the problem at hand, it
should be shared with *all* of us, don't you think?" He focused a hard
look on Cordelia first, then Angel, and finally dropped his eyes back to
his book. "It's embarrassing to have to eavesdrop," he added.

"So you know," Angel surmised.

"Yes," Wesley answered, with a small nod. "And I may have a solution."

Cordelia leaned in over the table, resting her elbows on it. "We can't
send him back."

"And we won't," Wesley acknowledged. "Not yet." He turned the book in his
hands so that his companions could see it; across the top of the page was
the hand-inked title 'Anblick der Seele'.

"Sight of the Soul," Angel translated aloud. "What does it do?"

"It's a sort of... magical flashlight," Wesley answered. "It should allow
us to see into Doyle's body to see whether his soul is in there... or if
something else is there with it."

Cordelia glanced uneasily from one man to the other, then nodded her head.
"We have to be sure," she whispered, and her voice broke somewhere in the
middle.

Angel's hand covered hers on the table, and Wesley's chair scraped over
the floor as he stood, clutching a piece of paper in his hand.

"I have a list of the things we'll need," he said. "We'll have to visit
the magic store." He shoved the paper into his pocket and grabbed his
jacket from the back of his chair, quickly slipping it on.

"I'll go with you," Cordelia murmured, pushing her own chair back and
rising to stand beside him.

They turned to go, but Angel's voice stopped them in the doorway. "It
might be best to sedate him," the vampire offered, his voice sounding
almost sheepish. "Just in case it... isn't him."

Wesley's nod was solemn, and Cordelia's eyes were wide and rimmed with
shadows as they slipped away. Angel sighed, his head sinking into his
hands as their footsteps on the stairs faded away.

Soon, Angel knew, they would know for sure whether the man in the other
room was really Doyle. But for the moment, Angel embraced ignorance as
bliss, and took a seat on the couch, listening to the whispered sounds of
breath coming from the next room.


-- PART FIVE --

In his dreams, Doyle was in a place that he wasn't meant to remember.

The fog clung to him like a living thing trying to hitch a ride, and his
horse moved lazily underneath him, its feet slogging through heavy mud. On
either side of the narrow trail they traveled tall black trees crowded one
another, and somewhere in the darkness of their depths, there was a sound
of hoof-beats and a creak of saddle leather.

Though he strained to recall when and where this memory had been, the only
clue supplied by his dreaming mind was a cold shot of terror. He didn't
know where he was, but he knew that he should be very, very afraid, and
his heels instinctively dug into the flanks of the beast beneath him,
driving it to a faster pace.

His journey wasn't long: as soon as his horse broke into a gallop, there
was an answering thunder of hooves from behind, and barely ten paces into
the pursuit, an armored hand reached out and pulled him from the saddle.
He landed face-first in the mud, and quickly scrambled to his feet as the
riders continued past him. He could hear the horses turning, returning,
coming back to attack again, and he surveyed his options: he could break
for the woods, or he could appeal to the riders who'd attacked him for
mercy.

Somewhere deep in his mind, he knew that the riders -- foggy phantom
knights, cast in shades of grey and bearing down on him with bared swords
-- were supposed to help him. He knew that this wasn't how this scene was
supposed to play out, and he was aware, on some level, that though this
had once been frighteningly real, it was now only a dream.

But the knowledge of those things offered no comfort as the riders
advanced, or as Doyle stumbled back, trying to avoid the sharp blades
being thrust at him. And that knowledge didn't spare him the searing pain
as the tip of one sword sunk into his shoulder.

The only thing that did help him was a resounding crash somewhere beyond
the barriers of his dream. His ascent into consciousness was rapid, the
phantom knights swiftly dissipated into the fog, and the world around him
faded into darkness. When he opened his eyes he found himself staring at
the ceiling above Angel's bed.

The sheets were wet with blood, and the wound in his shoulder throbbed
steadily.

+++

Over two centuries unliving had taught Angel the importance of deep
thought. Some called it brooding, but he preferred the term
"contemplation", and he was deeply engaged in that activity, still slumped
on the living room couch, when he heard the noise coming from upstairs: a
crash, like a breaking window, and then silence.

Frowning, Angel pushed himself up from the couch, swiftly crossing the
floor to the bedroom. The door still stood ajar, and when he stuck his
head in to check on Doyle, he found the man awake, blinking at him from
the darkness.

"Stay put," he whispered. He didn't wait for Doyle to respond, but padded
quickly to the stairs instead, racing up them two at a time. In the
office, everything was quiet and undisturbed, but he checked each room
carefully, looking for anything out of place. His search uncovered
nothing, but as he double-checked the locks on the front door he heard
another sound, this time from downstairs. The cacophony of shattering
glass and splintering wood sent him racing down the stairs again.

The damage was quickly apparent in the living room. The heavy punching bag
had been shredded; it still hung in tatters, but the bulk of the sand that
had filled it was pooled on the floor. Through the open bedroom door, he
could see the bedspread and sheets piled on the floor, also shredded,
small bits of cotton still aloft, drifting downward. There was no sign of
Doyle in that room, but another loud crash came from the kitchen, and he
followed the sound.

The kitchen floor was covered in shards of glass and broken ceramic; the
cupboards all hung open, their contents emptied onto the floor; the chairs
had been overturned and the stuffing ripped from the seats; the bags of
blood from the refrigerator also lay empty on the counter, ripped open and
lying in a small pool of crimson liquid.

The rest of the blood from the bags had been splattered on the walls,
making the apartment look like a slaughterhouse. And on the center of the
kitchen table, in letters formed of wet, glistening blood, the vandal had
left a message.

I AM THE SON OF DEATH, was spelled out in gore, AND THE FATHER OF
VENGEANCE.

In the middle of the mess, his back heaving and bare chest slick with
sweat and blood, stood Doyle.

+++

Wesley and Cordelia were in high spirits on their return to the office,
their arms laden with bags of magic supplies and even more bags of fast
food. Wesley was relating a story -- his only one, Cordelia suspected --
from his rogue demon hunter days, and though she'd heard it a hundred
times already, this time he filled it with rampant exaggerations and
made-up details, each stranger than the last and designed to make her
laugh.

"So I'm fighting this terribly ferocious Seratu demon," Wesley said, his
voice bouncing down the stairwell as they descended to Angel's apartment,
"and I've nothing to kill it with but a rusty spoon. To my advantage, it's
hindered by the sundress it's wearing, and it's clearly inebriated,
singing 'Like A Virgin' in a remarkably pleasant tenor--"

His tale abruptly bit off as Cordelia stopped in front of him at the
bottom of the stairs, nearly sending him staggering into her back. He
dropped his packages, his hand going for the stake in his pocket but
unprepared for the scene in the living room.

The place was a mess, and he could see further destruction through the
open bedroom door. It looked as if some massive, horrible struggle had
taken place in the apartment while they were away, but the demeanor of the
living room's two occupants was at odds with the chaotic surroundings.

Angel sat in the sole armchair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees
and his hands steepled in front of him, the picture of calm. Doyle was a
pale figure against the opposite wall, crouched on the balls of his feet
with his back against the brick. There was a heavy gauze bandage taped to
his shoulder, and more stark white bandages wrapping his feet and hands.
He looked a little wild, sweat-slicked and with traces of blood clinging
to his torso. Neither man seemed to have noticed Wesley and Cordelia's
entrance at all; they just sat in their respective corners, staring at
each other in absolute silence, with a veneer of calm.

"Talk to me," Angel finally said, his eyes still not leaving Doyle's.

The silence after that soft demand was so long and deep that Wesley opened
his mouth to reply, almost sure that Angel had been speaking to him,
though his presence still had yet to be acknowledged. Cordelia's hand
reached blindly back to find his, quieting him, and in another moment
Doyle replied.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he whispered.

Angel's reply was quicker as he tried to draw Doyle out of his
self-imposed silence. "Anything, for a start."

Doyle shifted, letting one foot bear his weight, then the other. His eyes
dropped to the floor, and his fingers curled over his knees. "I don't know
anymore," he finally replied.

"Don't know what?" Angel urged, shifting a little farther toward the front
of his seat.

"Anything," Doyle answered, his voice barely a whisper and little more
than a sigh. He pushed himself to his feet and retreated to the bedroom,
head down as he crossed the floor, the bandages on his feet making soft
pattering sounds. The door swung shut behind him, and closed with a click.

To the vampire still seated in the living room, the sound possessed a
deafening finality. He slumped back in his chair, eyes sliding wearily
shut, willing to let Wesley and Cordelia think what they would. He wasn't
sure he knew anything anymore either.


-- PART SIX --

Doyle tried to stay sequestered in the bedroom, ready to camp there for
the rest of his life, but there was one key ingredient missing from his
plan: food. He hadn't eaten since returning to life -- well, not that he
recalled, anyway -- and when the smell of hamburgers and fries drifted in
from the other room, it was like the call of a particularly voluptuous
siren, and he found himself unable to resist.

He opened the door slowly, peeking out before slipping into the living
room. He found it empty, but a soft murmur of voices and the aroma of hot
food drew him to the kitchen. He heard his name as he entered, and stopped
at the doorway, standing uncertainly, wondering if he should retreat to
the bedroom again or continue toward the bags of fast food on the table.

"Hey, Doyle," Cordelia suddenly said, putting an abrupt end to the quiet
conversation of her companions. "We brought back food. You must be
starving!"

He nodded mutely, trying to keep his mouth from watering as she unwrapped
a cheeseburger, unloading it and a serving of fries onto a paper plate for
him. She sat it on the table in front of the only vacant chair, and looked
at him expectantly.

The kitchen had been meticulously cleaned already, but Doyle could see the
broken shards of dishes in the garbage, nearly overflowing. He shivered
with remembered cold, then his eyes lit on the food again.

His bandaged feet whispered on the floor as he crossed to the table, and
he couldn't force the tension from his muscles as he sat down between
Cordelia and Wesley. Hunger finally won out over irrational fear, though,
and he concentrated on his meal, which he swiftly consumed.

It was only afterward, when the food was gone and he stood to return to
isolation, that he realized what they'd done.

He could feel his limbs tingling as he pushed himself back from the table,
standing on unsteady legs, and his mind felt like it had turned to vapor
and was escaping out his ears.

"What did you--" he managed to gasp, before his knees buckled and he fell
to the floor.

Cordelia caught him just as he hit the linoleum, cradling his head and
looking into his eyes, clearly worried.

"I don't want to dream," he whispered. But Cordelia was already fading in
his vision, giving way to encroaching darkness. Tears streaked from his
eyes, rolling toward his ears and vanishing into his hair, but he could
scarcely feel them. "Please... don't make me dream."

Cordelia said something in reply, but her voice was just an indistinct
buzz from very far away and Doyle could no longer hear her.

+++

"I really don't think we should've done that," Cordelia said, frowning as
she watched Wesley and Angel gently placing Doyle's limp body on the
couch.

"He'll be fine, Cordelia," Angel assured, shifting the half-demon's feet
up onto the armrest.

"It's better this way," Wesley added, straightening and dusting off his
hands, having successfully settled his cargo. "We'll perform the spell
without interruption, and then we can decide what to do from there."

Cordelia nodded reluctantly, sitting gingerly at the edge of the couch,
taking Doyle's pale hand in her own, "Go get ready," she said, quiet but
not so much that the men couldn't hear her. "I'll stay here with him."

Angel nodded solemnly, withdrawing into the kitchen, where the bags of
magic supplies sat on the floor near the refrigerator.

"Watch for a mark to appear," Wesley instructed, leaning closer to the
couple on the couch, his finger brushing lightly over the cool flesh of
Doyle's forehead. "It should look something like a colored ink tattoo. Be
sure you note the color. That's the importance of the spell. Understand?"

She nodded impatiently, then shooed him out with free hand. Her
concentration was already devoted wholly to the man on the couch, and she
watched him anxiously, her grip on his hand tightening.

+++

The darkness that had surrounded him gave way slowly to a murky brown
world, and after a moment Doyle realized that he was deep underwater. Just
enough light filtered in from somewhere that he could see the black shapes
of fish swimming around him, but it was impossible to tell which way was
up. He floated for a moment, surveying his options and quickly finding
that he had none. His body smoldered as if he had a fever, and the
freezing water did nothing to soothe him.

After another few moments, the fish seemed to notice he was there, and
several of them turned his way. They were abnormally large and long,
almost like thick eels, and one of them drifted by his face, snapping at
his nose and barely missing. That was when he noticed their sharp teeth
and frantically began swimming, his strokes carrying him in a direction he
could only hope was up toward the surface. His lungs burned from lack of
breath, but it didn't compare to the pain he felt when he suffered the
first bite.

The fish's teeth sunk into his outstretched hand, immediately drawing
blood that hung suspended in the water. The creature hung on, shaking its
body and attempting to rip loose a chunk of his flesh, but it let go when
he shook it off. The blood drew more of them, and in moment the murky
brown water around Doyle was stained red. Each bite stung excruciatingly
as the creatures worried at his flesh, each trying to tug away their own
share.

When all of the fish abruptly swam away, Doyle got the distinct feeling
that he was in even more trouble. From the darkness in front of him, a
vague but massive shape cut through the water, approaching swiftly.
Pent-up air from a breath he didn't remember taking exploded from Doyle's
lungs in his panic, forming a stream of bubbles that rose to the surface,
showing him the way. He tried to kick up and follow them, but the giant
fish was nearly upon him, its gaping mouth wide open and filled with
teeth, ready to tear him apart.

+++

After more than an hour of chanting and strange smells emanating from the
kitchen, Cordelia already considered the spell a success. While she'd
watched, a mark had appeared on Doyle's forehead as though drawn by some
invisible pen. Once drawn, the mark had dried quickly, then seeped into
his skin and disappeared. Throughout the process, and for several minutes
after, Doyle continued to sleep peacefully under the effects of the
sedative.

She knew that he was dreaming when his eyes began to roll rapidly under
their lids. His breath, formerly deep and even, caught in his throat as he
exhaled. He did not inhale again. That was when the first wound blossomed
between their joined hands, and suddenly her grip was slick with blood.

"Angel!" Cordelia shouted, leaning over Doyle's prone form with her cheek
above his mouth, hoping to detect a breath. She could only watch
helplessly as his blood trickled down her wrist, her grip tight on his
hand to staunch the bloodflow. After a moment, another injury formed on
his cheek, and another on his collarbone, all shaped like little
half-moons.

Angel dashed in from the kitchen, black and white face paint from the
ritual still slick on his cheeks, making him look like a demented
monochrome clown.

"He's not breathing," Cordelia quickly explained. "And these little wounds
are just... showing up on his skin. He's bleeding."

Angel carefully checked Doyle's pulse, deemed it strong though erratic,
and held a hand over his friend's mouth, waiting for the soft touch of
breath on his palm. There was none. His eyes widened as another small
injury suddenly erupted on the half-demon's forearm.

"It's like he's holding his breath," Angel growled, frowning and
frustrated. "I don't know what these marks are... it's like something's
biting him."

Cordelia leaned over the couch, tilted Doyle's head back, pinched his nose
with her fingertips, and sealed her mouth over his, pushing a breath into
his lungs. This breath he held only for a short moment, and then it
exploded violently from his lungs, and his body jerked on the couch.

Frantic, confused, and incredibly frightened for her friend, Cordelia
gripped Doyle by the shoulders, shook him hard, and screamed into his ear:
"WAKE UP!"

Doyle sat up so abruptly that he nearly bumped heads with Cordelia, his
body slipping straight into her arms; she gripped him tightly, careful of
his wounds as she hugged him. His breathing came steadily now, though
quick and ragged, and he clung to her in return, wide-eyed and terrified,
tears streaming down his pale face.


-- PART SEVEN --

Wesley paced from one side of the living room to the other, one hand
tucked under the opposite elbow, and other cupping his chin. "It was
black, you say?"

Cordelia sighed, shifting on the couch again, trying to peer around the
corner into the kitchen, where Doyle sat at the table, pretending he
couldn't hear them and drinking enough coffee to keep him awake for the
next decade. "Yes, Wesley," she muttered in reply. "For the fifth time, it
was *black*. Can we get past that and get to the part where you tell us
what that means?"

Wesley's frown deepened, and his hands dropped as he looked at her with
the same perplexed expression he'd been wearing for the past five minutes.
"It doesn't mean anything."

Angel leaned forward in his chair, his head wearily dropped and his
fingers pressed against his temples. "Explain," he grunted, not bothering
with complete sentences.

"The mark should have been yellow, red, or white. Those should be the only
three colors possible. I can only assume that we did something wrong with
the incantation. It *was* rather complex..."

Angel flopped back in his chair again, boneless and drained, his eyes
rolling up to stare blankly at the ceiling. "So we still don't know."

"No," Wesley confirmed. "We don't."

They were silent for a long moment, with only the sound of creaking
furniture between them.

"Cordelia, would you go ask Doyle to come in here?" Angel finally
requested, his voice pitched just barely above a whisper.

"I'm right here, man," Doyle responded softly, from the doorway. A coffee
cup was clutched in his hands, and a blanket hung over his shoulders,
threatening to fall off.

Angel rolled his head to the side so he could regard the other man without
expending any effort to sit up. "Are you ready to talk to us now?"

Doyle glanced uneasily at Wesley, then Cordelia. His eyes didn't meet
Angel's again and slid to the floor instead. He opened his mouth to speak,
then snapped it shut again, unsure of what to say. The silence was long,
and heavy.

Angel finally shifted, pushing himself up from his chair with a new energy
born of anger. "That's great," he snapped, his hands clenched tightly at
his sides. He resisted the urge to stalk forward and shake the half-demon
until he talked. "You have nothing to say? Look at your feet, Doyle."

Obediently, Doyle's gaze flicked to his bandaged feet, and he frowned.

"You're obviously confused," Angel continued, voice softening. He took one
step forward, then another, and stopped, not wanting to get too close. "I
know it's hard, Doyle. But you have to talk to us. You hurt yourself. Who
else have you hurt? Who will you hurt next?"

The vampire's gaze turned pointedly toward Cordelia, and Doyle winced,
stepping back a pace and leaning against the wall.

Cordelia scowled, standing. The motion placed her between the two men, and
her attention was on Angel. "Leave him alone," she ordered, crossing her
arms across her chest.

"I saw a body today, Cordelia," Angel growled in response, rapidly losing
patience. "A Brachen demon ripped a man's guts out and ate them."

Doyle paled. Cordelia looked decidedly more green-tinged than she had
before.

"I'm suffering from a little work-related tension," Angel continued.
"Could be my friend is slaughtering people and he doesn't even seem to
know it. So, Doyle, I swear that if you don't come out of that little
world you're in and *say something*, I might do something drastic myself."

This time the silence didn't last; Wesley vanished into the kitchen with
the telephone handset, giving them privacy, and Doyle slid down against
the wall again, sitting on the floor in the same spot he'd occupied in the
aftermath of the destruction in the apartment.

"I don't know much," he answered softly. "I don't know if I know
anything."

Angel sank back into his own chair, and Cordelia nervously reclaimed the
couch, perched on the edge of the cushion. "Then it won't take you long to
share," the vampire reasoned.

Doyle took a deep breath, let it out, and made it a point not to look at
his companions as he began to talk.

"I suppose I should start with the ending," he said. "The 'Quintessa'."

+++

"Yes, Mr. Giles, I realize it's a bit late -- no, I *do* realize that
you're very busy saving the world..."

Wesley supressed a sigh, sinking onto one of the kitchen chairs and
half-listening as the other Watcher -- also of the "former" variety --
berated him for interrupting important study.

"Yes, I understand," he finally replied, sharply. "Now do be quiet, will
you? We have something of a situation here and frankly, I don't have the
time to listen to you whine all night when I know very well that you're
probably just sitting around playing your guitar and wishing that some
world-ending apocrypha would drop into your lap so you could feel useful
for once. Do I have your attention now? Good."

+++

Doyle shifted, listening to the indistinct hum of Wesley's voice from the
kitchen. He tried to focus on the details in his muddled brain, but the
harder he chased after them, trying to gain a firm purchase on the
memories, the farther they slipped away.

"When I jumped across to the platform on the Beacon," he finally said,
resolved to spill it out despite the disorganization of his thoughts, "I
immediately regretted it. I've never been the hero -- I wasn't cut out for
it. I was terrified. I wanted to take it all back and run. I wanted to let
Angel die in my place. I wanted to do anything if it meant I'd see another
sunrise. But it was too late for that; I was already burning, and I was
the only one who stood a chance to stop it. I'd committed myself, and
there was no going back. I told myself that it wouldn't be bad. I told
myself that I'd die a hero and I'd go to Heaven and I'd just sit around
bein' dead and waiting for my friends to catch up.

"And then I died. I've never felt a deeper pain; it burns all the way
through the flesh and bone and scorches the soul until it's just a
blackened husk. I don't know where I went after that, but whereever it
was, it was far more frightening than the act of dyin'. I can only
remember the terror, and when my eyes are shut it comes back to me clear
as day. The memories are gone, but the fear is still there." Doyle paused,
sighing, and finally met Angel's eyes. "The way I figure it, I didn't die
a hero after all, so the Heaven plan was out. Only one place left to go,
right?"

Doyle's voice cracked; his narrative faltered, and his voice trailed out,
fading away. He abandoned the intensely compassionate depths of Angel's
eyes, looking at the hardwood floor instead. There was a dusting of sand
over the surface, missed by Angel in his clean-up of the mess.

Cordelia slipped off the couch, not even noticing the dirt that
accumulated on her jeans as she scooted the short distance across the
floor to Doyle's side, picking his bandaged hand up off his thigh and
holding it between her warm palms.

He stared down at their hands, her slender fingers wrapped around his, and
continued, his voice catching in his throat. "What's worse," he said, "is
I deserved the Hell I got. But I couldn't even take that like a man; I ran
away, like I always do, and I weaseled my way out of there somehow and
back into life." The sound that came from his throat was somewhere between
a chuckle and a sob. "I've always been a coward. I'll always be a coward.
I didn't earn a place in Heaven, and I wouldn't take my place in Hell."
His eyes were brimming with tears when he met Cordelia's gaze, and he
whispered, "What do you think of your lost, lamented hero now?"


-- PART EIGHT --

Wesley didn't notice the tension, or the tears in his friends' eyes when
he burst back into the living room, wielding a heavy spellbook in his hand
as if it were his sword and he a knight in armor.

"I have it!" he announced, nearly stumbled over Cordelia as he crossed the
floor toward Angel. "The black mark -- I know what it means."

"You said it didn't mean anything," Cordelia said softly. She didn't turn
to look at Wesley; her attention stayed with Doyle, and she shifted a
little closer to him, one hand slipping around the back of his neck, just
for the sake of touching him.

"Yes, well, I called Mr. Giles to see if he knew anything more about the
spell -- the book was one of his that I had borrowed and forgotten to give
back."

"You stole one of Giles' books," Angel said, eyebrow raising. His tone was
more amazed than accusing.

"Borrowed," Wesley corrected. "A simple mistake."

"What did Giles say?" Cordelia asked.

"He told me there was entire page on the meaning of a black mark," Wesley
answered. "And there was. I didn't see it before because... well, the
pages were stuck together."

Angel sighed, opening the book to the page Wesley had marked. "Black," he
read aloud. "The mark of 'Verlegte Seele', or 'Shifted Soul'. Appears on
beings who currently occupy two or more separate planes of existance." He
stopped reading, frowning at the heavy book, trying to figure out what it
meant. "He looks entirely in this dimension to me," he finally said,
peering at Doyle's pale face over Cordelia's shoulder.

Wesley ignored him, turning to the two figures huddled together near the
wall. "When you sleep, you dream vividly of places you can't remember
having been to," he said to Doyle, more telling than asking. "And when
you're injured in your dreams, the pain is very real."

Doyle nodded, glancing down at the scattered patchwork of bandages that
covered his skin.

"Spell it out for us, Wes," Cordelia prompted, finally looking away from
Doyle to observe the former Watcher as he paced the floor.

"It must be some form of astral projection," the Englishman muttered,
talking more to himself than to those who were affording him their
attention. "A sort of post-traumatic stress for the soul. Some part of him
doesn't believe he's really alive, or it's still a little trapped in
death; so when he's asleep, that part travels back to the afterlife, where
it thinks it belongs. Because the soul is as real there as his body is
here, because his mind believes in the wounds as surely as it believes in
the ones he earns in this reality, the injuries physically manifest
themselves on his body."

Wesley paused for breath, his eyes bright with excitement, a flush
coloring his cheeks.

"He really gets off on the knowledge bit, huh?" Doyle whispered, squeezing
Cordy's hand. His voice still wavered, but he offered her a small smile
along with the comment.

Angel shot them a "be quiet" look, turning his attention back to Wesley.
"But he is -- him. He's not possessed."

"No," Wesley answered, shaking his head. "If he were possessed, or if his
soul were absent, the mark would have appeared red or yellow. He is
Doyle... he's just not entirely back in this world. The afterlife -- or
whereever it is he went when he died -- still has some sort of hold on
him."

"That doesn't explain what killed Angel's murder victim," Cordelia
interjected. Tired of kneeling in front of Doyle, she'd turned to sit next
to him, leaning back against the wall. She still held his hand, leaning
just a little against his shoulder. "And it doesn't explain the whole
trashing Angel's apartment thing."

"Hey, don't look at me," Doyle muttered. One of his hands clenched the
fabric of his pantleg in a nervous grip. "I didn't do anything... stuff
just started flyin' around."

"Sounds like ghosts," Cordelia declared. "And I'd know, right?"

"There was a theory in one of these texts," Wesley said, gesturing toward
the heavy books piled on the coffee table, "that when a dead spirit
returns to earth, it doesn't actually haunt anyone, but instead it can
inadvertently create a poltergeist; a sort of manifestation of the
confusion and anger experienced by the dead. I suppose that could apply to
a person who returns to living, as well."

"But you're just theorizing," Angel argued. "For all we know, there's some
very real demon stalking the city, ripping people's guts out. Or Dennis
decided to relocate and didn't like my style of interior decorating--"

"Can't fault him for that," Cordelia interrupted, rolling her eyes at the
vampire.

"-- Or our murderer is just a crazy guy with a meat tenderizer. Please,
Wesley, give me *something* we can go on."

Wesley frowned, glancing around the apartment. Many of the items that had
once decorated Angel's home were gone, the broken shards swept into the
trash can, and the space looked strangely bare. "Well, let's deal with it
one problem at a time, shall we? The murder isn't necessarily related at
all, but it's safe to say that the disturbance here was. We can do a basic
cleansing spell to clear any ill will from the air, then see if we can
locate our restless spirit. If there is indeed a poltergeist in the
apartment, it can be exorcised. And if there isn't any sort of apparition,
we'll have ruled out one possibility."

Cordelia nodded, brushing the dust from her pants as she clambered to her
feet. "Right," she said. "Exorcism. Just a little more mojo. That we can
do."

The last word had hardly been uttered when the long rug Cordelia stood on
was viciously yanked from underneath her feet. It coiled around her,
wrapping her up in a tight bundle and sending her spinning against the
opposite wall. In the same moment, a bookcase abruptly fell over, carrying
Wesley down with it and burying him under an avalanche of heavy tomes.
Angel's chair tipped back, spilling him out onto the floor; he slid across
the hardwood on his back, pulled by an invisible hand, and was slammed
against the foot of his own bed. A trunk in the bedroom popped open, and a
length of chain spilled out the top, wrapping seemingly of its own
volition around the vampire, pinning his arms to his sides and securing
him tightly against the bedpost. He growled in impotent rage as the
bedroom door slammed shut, muffling the sound.

In the living room, Doyle stood alone, unable to help his friends, the
white bandages on his hands crinkling quietly as he clenched his fists.
Across from him, in the space where Angel's chair had been, stood a dead
demon with a familiar face. Its semi-transparent smile was dark with
blood, and turned into a snarl as it took a step closer.


-- PART NINE --

"You're not real," Doyle stated, trying to sound confident. But his voice
wavered and gave him away. "You don't really exist, so you can't hurt me."

The apparition didn't open its mouth to argue, but it did draw close
enough that Doyle could feel the cold air rolling off of it, and it
wrapped a freezing hand around Doyle's throat. Its touch was cold and
burning at the same time, like dry ice, and its fingers dug into his soft
flesh as the thing flung him backwards into the wall. The impact knocked
the wind from his lungs, and he wheezed as he slid to the floor. Some of
the wounds on his back opened up again, oozing warmly underneath his
shirt.

"Okay, so you can hurt me," he gasped. "Point taken."

The ghost stared at him a moment longer, its eyes burning pits of black
nothing. Its familiar face had smoothed out, the sneer replaced by a
frighteningly blank expression. The calm lasted only moments, and then it
smiled a cold, dead smile, and stepped closer, leaning down and wrapping
its fingers around Doyle's neck again. Though the half-demon tried to
struggle, his hands passed right through the creature as if it weren't
there. It tugged up on his chin, and when Doyle's gaze met the void of the
ghost's eyes, he fell headlong into a world of agony, painted in inky
black.

+++

"Well, Francis," a gravelly voice said. "It seems we're back where we
started."

Doyle's eyes opened sluggishly, and he found himself staring into an old
man's face. Long, knotted gray hair obscured baggy cheeks and a wrinkled
brow, but the old man's eyes shone bright blue in the gloom. Surprise
jerked Doyle fully into wakefulness; he skittered backwards over dirt and
sharp grass, pulling himself out from underneath the stooping man and away
from the intense scrutiny.

"Where am I?" he gasped. His skin was still cold from the memory of the
apparition's fingers around his throat, and the steady flow of water
nearby came with a strong wind to whip the cold from the surface of the
water and onto the riverbank.

"That is a good question," the old man answered, smiling ruefully. He took
a step back, carefully lowering himself onto a large, smooth rock. "Where
do you wish to be?"

"Home," Doyle answered. The cold breeze intensified, whipping at his hair.

"You always seem to be looking for home." The old man sighed, and wove his
gnarled fingers together, tucking them in his lap. "But where is home?
Where do you belong, Francis?"

+++

At first, Wesley wasn't sure where he was, but the memories came flooding
into his mind along with the pain, and the pressing weight of books on his
back was a heavy reminder that they were all in very serious danger.

When he moved, pushing up with his hands against the weight of the volumes
and shelf pinning him down, the entire pile shifted, books sliding off his
back and tumbling noisily to the floor. From where he lay, he could see
the rug that still had a tight grip around Cordelia; she struggled weakly
against the material that held her in. Faint clanking could be heard from
behind the closed bedroom door, but he couldn't see Doyle, or their
attacker.

After a few long, torturously vulnerable moments, he pulled himself free
of the jumble of books only to stumble on one of the volumes, which sent
him crashing to the floor again. He rolled once, getting his feet
underneath him and rising into a crouch.

He spotted Doyle on the opposite side of the room, where a
semi-transparent apparition had him pinned by the throat. Doyle slumped
bonelessly against the wall, his head held up by his adversary and his
eyes wide open. His face had turned a bluish gray, and he looked dead. The
spirit that held Doyle was bent over the half-demon's unmoving form, an
eerie mirror image to the unconscious man in its grasp. The apparition's
face bristled with small spines, but Wesley could see the now-familiar
shadow of Doyle's features underneath the demonic visage. The thing didn't
appear to have noticed that Wesley had escaped his musty prison.

Taking the first action that came to mind, Wesley began sifting through
the books strewn on the floor, finally pulling a thick volume from the
pile and frantically flipping through the pages. He began to read aloud in
Spanish, and that was when the apparition turned its terribly vacant eyes
in his direction.

+++

"I don't know where I belong." Doyle sighed, staring out across the river.
In the distance, he could see the faint silhouette of a single boatman,
lazily propelling his craft over the water. "I should be dead." He paused
a long moment as the implications of the thought sunk in, then continued,
"Am I dead?"

"That remains to be seen," the old man said. "The choice must still be
made."

Doyle turned his eyes back to the fog-shrouded figure on the rock,
squinting as the old man blurred at the edges. "What do you think?" he
asked.

The old man blinked once, stupefied. His mouth opened and snapped shut
again. "No one's asked me my opinion before," he finally said. "After all,
I may be just a figment of your imagination."

"Well, I'm askin'," Doyle said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his
slacks.

The old man frowned, deepening the heavy creases in his face. "I think
it's easier to live with your sins than to die with them," he finally
answered.

Doyle nodded slowly, and the gray world around him brightened to a
blinding white.

+++

Wesley's spell was still far from complete when the apparition stepped up
in front of him, but he kept his head lowered over the book, kept his
voice steady, and kept himself from running screaming into the night. His
voice faltered with the ghost's hand passed through his neck like a sudden
blast of Arctic air, but he still didn't look up at the creature's face.

When an ancient bronze urn flew off of Angel's desk and struck him hard in
the head, he was forced to take notice of the apparition's malicious
intent. Taking the book with him, Wesley backed himself into a crouch in
the nearest corner, threw his arms up over his head, held down the pages
of the book with his shoes, and continued reading.

The apparition's subsequent assaults were not so merciful as the first;
the next objects it threw came from the battered weapons locker, and
Wesley barely avoided losing his head. The creature's invisible pull
ripped the book from Wesley's grip, and when he reached out to retrieve
it, a heavy mace grazed the side of his head. The impact was not nearly as
devastating as it could have been, but it jarred him and sent rivulets of
blood streaming down the side of his face. Icy wind whipped through the
apartment, making his eyes sting, and the blow from the mace had blurred
his vision. He sagged dizzily against the wall, the heel of his hand
pressed to his bleeding head wound, and confessed to himself that the
battle was lost. Just as he squeezed his eyes shut to spare them from the
cold wind, someone pushed him to the floor, and the book was thrust back
into his hands.

"Keep going," Doyle grunted, hunching down over Wesley to offer protection
from the wind. Wesley quickly cracked open the book, holding it in his lap
and scanning the lines of the proper page with a fingertip, trying to find
his place again. Doyle hemmed him in, pressing them both tightly into the
corner with his back taking the full brunt of the spirit's anger.

"La vida es para el que vive," Wesley finished, shouting over the gale,
just as the apparition's pale hand closed around Doyle's shoulder. The
Irishman yelped in alarm at the cold of the creature's touch as Wesley's
words faded on the wind, and then everything stopped.

The wind vanished, and the spirit's cold fingers abruptly released Doyle's
shoulder. From the bedroom there was a loud clanking as loops of chain
fell slack to the floor, and across the room, a sputtering Cordelia
emerged gracelessly from the confining tangle of the rug.

Doyle stood cautiously, pushing away from Wesley and pivoting on the balls
of his bandaged feet to survey the room. The apparition was gone, and for
the first time in days, Doyle felt like himself.


-- PART TEN --

Doyle stood perfectly still, with his eyes rolled up in a vain attempt to
see his own forehead. He could feel the wet, cool sensation of the spell
at work, a symbol slowly unfurling on his forehead as if painted there
with watercolors. Wesley and Angel's voices were a constant, rhythmic
background hum as they worked magic that they'd already performed once
that day.

The half-demon leaned back against the kitchen counter, his fingers
tightly gripping the surface's edge, and lowered his tired eyes to look at
the girl who stood in front of him. Cordelia stood with her arms crossed
tightly across her chest, her own gaze locked intensely on Doyle's
forehead, watching the magic that he could feel but not see.

"Don't leave me in suspense," he finally grumbled, when the slick symbol
began to dry on his skin. "What's the verdict, Princess?"

Cordelia's eyes dropped to meet his and a brilliant smile spread across
her face. "It's white," she said. Then she twisted around to look back at
the two men who sat at the kitchen table, performing the spell. "White's
good, right?"

Wesley nodded, still chanting, his hand held over the table as he released
a steady stream of sand onto the surface. It shifted of its own accord,
forming neatly organized hills and valleys on the tabletop.

"White means he's clean," Wesley confirmed a moment later, the spell
completed. "Completely alive and completely in this dimension." To Doyle,
he said, "You shouldn't be plagued by the dreams anymore. With a firm
grasp on this world, you won't be returning to the afterlife anytime
soon."

"That's a relief," Doyle muttered, pushing himself away from the counter
and reaching for Cordelia's hand. "Think we could go back to your place
and sleep for the next week?"

Shooting another smile and a little wave over her shoulder at Wesley and
Angel, Cordelia grabbed Doyle's hand and led him from the room. Angel
reached for a towel, wetting it under the faucet in the kitchen sink and
using it to wipe the ceremonial paint from his face as he listened to
Doyle and Cordelia's fading footsteps.

"You didn't do that last time," he finally said, once the apartment had
descended into silence again. He gestured toward the neat pattern of sand
on the tabletop.

"Great cooks modify recipes," Wesley replied. "I modify spells. This was
just a minor addition." He leaned over the table, examining the sand
pattern closely. "I'm hoping it'll give us some clue as to what might have
been causing all of this trouble to begin with. I'm sure it was just the
trauma of a dead man returning to life, but it doesn't hurt to know for
certain."

Angel approached again, examining the carefully drawn symbol himself as
Wesley consulted a book to find the meaning of the spell's result. The
sand that the former Watcher had poured straight down onto the table had
sculpted itself into a magical symbol full of precise lines and tiny
pictographs. It was slowly coming apart, the detail eroding as the magic
faded and the laws of the physical world began to reassert themselves,
gravity dragging each small grain downward.

"This symbol," Wesley suddenly said, pointing to an intricate design at
the center of the sand pile, "means that he's recently been under a
hostile spell. More than one, in fact, if I'm reading it correctly." He
frowned at his book, then pointed to another small symbol to the right of
the first. "This indicates that otherworldly forces have been called
against him, and this one over here would seem to say that someone has
been deliberately invading his mind, keeping him unfocused and confused.
That would probably also explain the gaps in his memory since he returned.
Someone was *making* him forget."

Angel nodded thoughtfully, a deep frown on his face. "But he's clear of
these now?"

"Yes." Wesley slumped back into his chair, taking the damp towel that
Angel offered and wiping his own face clean. "The spell I performed to get
rid of the poltergeist removed all unfriendly magics from his person."

"So he's safe," Angel persisted, watching as the sand pattern collapse
completely into a shapeless mound of grains.

"Perhaps," Wesley replied. His voice was low, and he sighed tiredly. "Or
perhaps not. We still don't know who cast these spells in the first place.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that any of us is out of danger from this
particular foe. But the apparition won't return, and Doyle should be able
to resume to what passes for a normal life in your employ." Wesley smiled
weakly at his own joke, but the expression faded quickly.

Angel reclaimed his own seat on the opposite side of the table, his
shoulders slumped and his head tilted downward as he stared, unseeing, at
the opposite wall.

"We may never know," he pointed out.

"True," Wesley agreed, pushing himself up from his own chair. "But we can
take precautions. There are ways to protect ourselves from black magic,
and we'll use them all. But not tonight. Get some rest, Angel."

+++

Red blood streaked bright and glistening wet across Phoebe's pale-skinned
cheek in three thin, even rows, painted on by her sister's fingers. A
matching mark slanted down across her forehead, and as she poured the last
of the sacrifice's blood into her scrying bowl, a thin line of salty gore
dripped down the bridge of her nose. It slipped into the groove at the
side of her nose, and crept down further toward her lips, leaving a
crimson streak in its wake.

"You've made a mess of yourself," her sister chided.

"It's not unpleasant," Phoebe answered absently, flicking out her tongue
to catch the heavy drop of blood from her upper lip. "Concentrate on your
task, sister."

Melanie nodded, her dark head bowing over the scrying bowl. The mixture of
oils, herbs, and human blood created a shifting dark mass of liquid and
swirling matter in the wide bowl.

"I see nothing," Melanie said, after a moment of staring hard into the
darkness. "Give me more blood from the sacrifice."

"There is no more," Phoebe responded, rocking back on her heels and
pushing her blood-smeared hands through her white hair. "I told you not to
waste so much on the half-breed. He was marked well enough to draw the
Geist without you soaking him in the stuff."

The darker sister scowled, looking up from the bowl. "It was raining,"
she retorted. "I didn't want it all to wash away before the Geist could
find him." She paused, sighing and dipping a finger into the bowl,
absently swirling the contents. "If there's no more blood, give me a chunk
of his lung. This mixture reveals nothing."

"The partners will be unhappy," Phoebe commented, cutting a thick slice
from the shriveling organ and slipping it into the bowl. It vanished
quickly beneath the dark surface of the liquid as Melanie softly muttered
enchantments in Latin. "They'll want to know why the Geist failed. Why
*we* failed."

"They've asked for too much," Melanie snapped, her head lowered over the
bowl again. "And their plan was unsound. They have underestimated their
opponent." She stared into the calm surface of the bowl for long, silent
moments, then proclaimed, "Our spells have been cast off. The Geist has
returned to its realm and the Brachen is free of us. He resides now in
this world, and cannot be drawn back."

"Unless he's killed again," Phoebe pointed out. She leaned back against
tattered couch, enjoying the heavy blast of heat that poured from a vent
in the wall.

"Shot," Melanie elaborated, a smile twisting at her lips. "Stabbed,
poisoned, burned, flayed, eviscerated--"

"Gentle, sister," Phoebe interrupted, frowning. "Calm yourself. Methods of
murder are not our forte. We kill for craft. The partners will have to
handle this problem in another way."

"They'll be displeased," Melanie said, echoing her sister's earlier
sentiment.

"We shall weather it," Phoebe insisted.

Outside, a night bird suddenly screeched its disagreement, taking flight
suddenly with a flurry of flapping wings. A large black feather drifted
through the open window, riding the air currents and landing softly in the
center of the scrying bowl. Ripples disturbed the calm surface, and the
bird's call carried back to them on the wind like distant, mocking
laughter.

THE END



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