On the Wings of Prophets

by AriaAdagio

PostEpiphany, sequel to Reconstruction. As Angel spirals down into a world of nightmares, the ATeam races against time to solve a spree of ritual killings.

Author's Notes: Sequel to Reconstruction. This falls right into canon with Buffy, but alas, Angel canon is dead and gone. Oh well. Think of this as a substitue for Disharmony and Dead End, and we're pretty much cool.

Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. The characters are mine.

---

At first, there was nothing.

A vast black void of soundless, sightless murk--like he was underwater at night. No feeling. Just. Floating. Adrift in the ebbing tide. Not caring. Waxing. Waning. No touch. Not warm. Not cold.

Not anything.

And it was peaceful. Nerveless. No pain.

"Wesley, he's been out, for like, days..."

Far off. Muffled. An echo through a canyon. Not loud enough for him to care one way or the other. Was he supposed to care? The blackness... The blackness felt too good for him to pay any attention to the other side.

Other side of what?

"Cordelia, this type of trauma is not one he will be able to just snap back from... I fear his preternatural healing has spoiled your expectations."

An echo. Who was that? He sounded familiar. Echo. Echo... But echoes always fade. Away. Fade away.

"But..."

"I would dare say it's best he remains asleep right now. I have no idea what kind of damage has occurred..."

"But he was fine, right after..."

"Just leave him be, Cordelia. He'll need the rest..."

Echo. Echo, echo, echo. Fade away.

Silence again.

Sweet, lovely silence. A vast black void of soundless, sightless murk--like he was underwater at night. No feeling. Just. Floating. Adrift in the ebbing tide. Not caring. Waxing. Waning. No touch. Not warm. Not cold.

Not anything.

And it was peaceful. Nerveless. No pain.

And that was when the terror started.

Chains bit into his wrists like hungry dogs, scraping at the already torn skin and tendons, peeling layer upon layer of damaged flesh back into agony. He winced, and tried to right himself, but his posture was crippled by the short length of chain -- his spine locked in an uncomfortable curl, stretching open the lacerations that laced like spider's webbing over his pale skin.

But he would not collapse -- even as he cowered there, hunched, trembling, unsure of anything except that he was there, and that he hurt. He refused.

You are nothing. They had said -- dictated it as if it were an ultimate truth.

You are but an instrument of our amusement. They had said -- growled it as if it were something funny.

You are nothing. Nothing but the dirt We walk on. They had repeated over and over and over again -- chanted it like it were universal law. Things must fall, reaction for every action, he must be nothing. Nothing but dirt and muck and mire.

Nothing.

Nothing. And yet he still felt like something. A speck in the grand chaotic scheme, but something all the same.

A shadow crept across the ground in front of him -- as if it could get any darker. It stood over him, dark cloak obscuring Its grotesque, demonic features -- a big, fanged, drooling Thing that stank of sweat and sex and evil. A clawed foot came to rest inches from his knee, and his whole body chilled, his innards curling with dread as saber claws tapped on the cobbled stone.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A pause, a momentary clarity as the gnarled, scaly hand reached its apex. Slow motion. He saw the flick of the wrist, the smirk of satisfaction, heard the shrill whistle of the air, but nothing could hope to prepare him. He was too weak to brace himself.

The bullwhip sent him careening to the floor with the brute force of the blow as a lightning streak of pain ripped across his back, searing into his torn flesh like a brand. He grunted and tried to rise, but the whip came down again, his shredded back now a bloody, exposed mass of sinew and muscle.

Again, and again, the cycle repeated, until his back was throbbing and his mind was numb. Drunk with stupor, he looked vaguely at the cobblestone -- cold and dank with decay and drear, mold and mildew crawling out from the grout like a raging infection. Vision blurring, his head lolled to the side, and he saw his aggressor.

"Who are you?" the One with the whip hissed. "Who is it that you think you are that makes you so want to resist?"

He grit his teeth and tried to rise -- tried so hard he started to shake. His body simply couldn't give anymore, no matter how much he wanted it to. And the terror set in, the terror of knowing there was nothing he could do about the situation except let it come and go. Come and go -- a bloody tide. He stayed splayed like an offering, not even attempting to protect himself as the whip came down upon him again.

Again, and again.

Protection. There wasn't much use to it. They would hurt him anyway. They always did.

"Who are you?!" It growled at him, a cold leer wrapping across his face like a scarf.

When he still didn't answer, simply lay there, weak and broken, It grabbed him roughly and slammed him into the floor so hard his ribs crunched under the pressure. A spiny knee jammed into the small of his back.

He didn't scream -- but he had to bite down so hard on his tongue to do so, that his own warm blood trickled into his mouth. Coppery, rusty, good. He closed his eyes at the small relief in an unending sea of pain. Disgust riddled him as he swallowed, felt the sticky fluid slide down his throat like spit, and he winced. Not from pain. But, it was a moment of peace -- a rare thing.

It ended just as quickly.

There was pain. Pain spreading through his rear as he was flipped over like a pancake and pounded mercilessly into the cold floor, the crunching of bones and the tearing of dead flesh harmonizing together in a wailing chorus of agony. Receding shock spurred him to instinctual action. Muscles quivering with strain, he tried to get out from under the larger demon. Like a drowning man, he clawed at the cracks in the stones, trying to get some purchase, but It grabbed his shoulders and yanked backwards, pulling the bones out of their sockets.

Crunch.

Already broken ribs shattered in his torso. He gave up and lay there trembling as It continued, unblinking, unsure as to why he had even bothered to try. The floor. It was so cold... Like ice... "Who are you!?" It demanded again, its hot, stinking breath crawling up the nape of his neck.

His entire body heaved -- the force of his sudden nausea bringing his nose, lips, and forehead into the floor with an audible crack. Gagging and retching, he couldn't keep the blood that had so recently come to sit in his stomach from coming up. The viscous red liquid pooled underneath him and smeared his skin with shame.

The pounding continued. "Answer and I will release you!"

Release. Release me... Please...

He longed for that.

"I don't," he whimpered, "I don't know..." The defeat of his admission rendered him numb. He didn't know. He hadn't for a long time.

It laughed and stilled dangerously for a moment. It's thickness remained inside him -- he tried to adjust, but the pain made him dizzy and unable. "Then why do you resist?" It asked.

"I don't know," he choked as It shifted.

He didn't remember why. He really didn't. He just knew, for some reason, that he should.

And so he did.

There was silence for a moment. "You are not yet tamed."

And the pounding began anew. He lost track of how long he remained there underneath that heavy body, crushed and beaten, until finally, the demon growled and spilled into him. He felt the wetness seeping into him and began to vomit again.

"Not yet tamed," It chuckled as It got to Its feet.

Blood and gore, it seemed, was seeping out of every pore in his body, every orifice.

He blinked, but his blurry vision wouldn't focus -- every muscle in his battered body was beginning to shake. It was always like this. Every time, he'd be left chained and trembling on the floor, injured to the point that he couldn't even lift his head. They never cared what he did afterwards. And for those brief times, he was alone.

Why? Why, why, why?

A small tap on the floor. A foot hitting the stone.

He cringed. Usually, they gave him some sort of respite. What... He winced and shifted his gaze.

She stood before him, sword extended in the air as if it were an extension of her own arm, shining blond hair falling over her shoulders in all its golden glory. An angel. So familiar.

For the first time in years, he exhaled, and not for the purpose of screaming, or more rarely, talking. It was a coughing, wheezing, hacking breath that ratcheted upwards from his lungs like a solid obstruction and sent his ribs into a whining frenzy of pain. Who? With colossal effort, he swallowed and brought his torso around so that he faced her. The sight of her... For some reason, he felt ashamed -- ashamed that he was so weak while she stood there so strong.

It sat on the tip of his tongue. Something... Something important.

"B... Buffy?" he stuttered, unsure as to where the word had come from, and barely able to get enough wind to utter it. As it fell from his lips, however, it sounded like heaven to him -- rolled through him until every nerve tingled with comfortable warmth. Buffy. Maybe she was an angel...

She brought her sword down and stared at him coldly. "Close your eyes," she snapped, her eyes cold -- gaze piercing him like a spear.

Close your eyes.

She sounded so different from before.

Before?

Was there a before?

"Close your eyes," she repeated, even more coldly, this time her voice dripping with such ominous threat that were it anyone else, he would be frightened.

Close your eyes.

He let his eyelids droop and close, relishing the brief sanctuary the darkness gave him. Nothing prepared him for the feel of her sword as it rent his torso. Screaming, he arched backward and howled.

"Stop resisting," she growled, twisting the cold metal in his gut.

He clutched at the sword, sputtering and twitching. She cackled and twisted the razor sharp blade against his palms, shredding them to the bones. "I sent you here because you deserve it!"

His head fell back against the floor with a loud thump, blood-slick hands slipping nerveless from the blade. And then she pulled it out.

Howling, keening, he thrashed about before curling shakily into a ball, trying to protect his innards from further abuse. But it felt like they were coiling inside him, like a snake. A serpentine reminder.

Protection. There wasn't much use to it. They would hurt him anyway. They always did. But for some reason... this was far worse.

"You deserve it," she repeated.

Far, far worse.

Her words struck him, and he was left beaten in their wake, even as her physical substance shattered -- a million facets of a crystal splitting apart and falling like dust to the floor. It stood there, where she had been, bullwhip curled around Its grip like ivy.

You deserve it.

The whip came down again, lashing a streak of blood across him -- as if he had any blood left to give. "Who are you!?" It demanded as he spasmed helplessly on the ground.

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

Again, the whip met with ribboned flesh.

But this time, he did not get up.

---

"So, let me get this straight," Kate said, gesturing wildly for Cordelia to shush. "Angel loses his soul when he gets too happy?"

Cordelia nodded. "Yeah," she said with a shiver, remembering all too clearly the brief scare they had had with Rebecca Lowell. "One boink and the guy's back on O-Pos of the warm kind. At least, he used to be." Another thing to add to her list of things to be pleased about. Angel would never have to worry about his soul anymore. Maybe that would turn that frown upside-down.

Or, knowing Angel, he'd just get all broody and remorseful anyway. She could just picture him now. 'Woe, woe is me. I have a permanent soul, but I don't deserve it. Quick. Give me pain... I am the definition of masochism... I am one with my inner turmoil and I embrace it. I will NOT be happy... I will NOT be happy...'

She turned to Kate, who seemed to be absorbing this rather well for someone who had just recently wanted nothing more than to have swallowed her blue pill and gotten back to the more sunny side of reality. All in all, the blond woman still looked rather distraught. "The things I've said to him. I blamed him for everything Angelus did... That's why I didn't invite him in the first time he..." she whispered, her voice trailing off into oblivion.

Cordelia waved her hand, blithely dismissing Kate's concerns. "Look, Kate. One thing I've learned is that Angel's got a big heart. Yeah, what you've done to him has probably hurt, a lot, at least contributed to a major brood- athon or two, in fact, it probably helped in his whole visit with the softer side of psychoticness..."

"Cordelia?"

Cordelia looked up. Kate's face was scrunched up in the perfect picture of guilt, enough to derail her tangent, mid- babble.

"Right, sorry," she continued. "But, if you're sincere in your apologies, it really won't matter. He's the type of person who cares about who you are, not who you were. Plus, he's really generous with the benefit of the doubt..."

Kate nodded, but still protested. "Still..."

Cordelia gave her a high wattage smile and shrugged as a crash emanated from Angel's office. "Sorry!" Gunn's voice cried out.

"Gunn, would you be so kind as to sharpen Angel's lethal collection of weaponry somewhere NOT near me?" Wesley's muffled voice filtered through the door. "I'm trying to research!"

"Oh, come ON, English... There's nothing to research right now, what are you d... Oh, man... You're... What IS that?"

"It's mating season for Krelith demons -- they get highly aggressive this time of year, I figured I'd brush up on--

"You're reading demon porn!"

"I am not!" Wesley cried indignantly. "This is highly important re--"

The dry sound of Kate clearing her throat brought Cordelia's eyes back to the conversation at hand. "So, just out of curiosity. When are we going to tell him. About his soul, I mean..." Kate asked.

Another shrug. "I don't know. Certainly not now, seeing as how he's worse than a mouse doped up on elephant tranquilizer... But, seriously. How are you supposed to bring that up? 'Hey, Angel, guess what, you can be Happy now, goodbye L.A.'?"

Kate's brow creased. "Goodbye L.A.?"

"Yeah," Cordelia sighed. "Buffy. I'm happy for him and all, but... that'll just suck. I finally get my friend back only to... hey... maybe I should just dye my hair blond or something. His 'thin, gorgeous, and bleached' radar might get distracted..."

"Whoa!" Kate gestured frantically, trying to halt the conversation train. "I got lost on Buffy, what are you talking about?"

"Think the most doomed love of all time, multiply that by about seven Romeo and Juliets, and you have Buffy and Angel. She was the reason we discovered the happiness clause..."

She didn't bother to add that Buffy was probably the source of a heavy majority of Angel angst. There had been simply too many times where Angel got lost with his Buffy-face. Like, last year, when she had gone out more often, and Angel sat alone in his dark office just thinking. About her. He never said it directly, but she knew him well enough to realize, and despite the sarcastic front she put up about it, it has always made her a little sad -- that even if he weren't brooding all the time, he still couldn't be happy, really happy.

And now he had a chance to extend himself beyond a weary smile, and only mild contentment. From the way she had interpreted it, the only thing Angel was really afraid of was forgetting his pain.

He didn't have to be afraid anymore.

So why wasn't she jumping for joy?

"Oh," Kate replied after a long pause, the look on her face grim. "I take it I shouldn't mention her?"

Cordelia shrugged. "Sure, you can mention her, if you want to send him into: Brood. Mach seven," she answered, her hands hanging in air quotes. "I doubt even the missing clause would change that..."

The door to Angel's office slammed. And there stood Wesley, pink and flushed, looking some strange combination of embarrassed and angry. He crossed his arms and puffed up his posture. "I think I shall relegate this portion of my research to never."

Gunn followed, a weird smirk plastered across his face like clown makeup. "Porn. Admit it."

"Honestly, Gunn, do you think that if I wished to view pornography, I would choose ancient Sumerian texts?" Wesley almost growled, his tone still remaining strangely civil.

Gunn shrugged, the grin still stuck on his face as though it were attached with superglue. "We all have our fetishes..."

Cordelia saw the irritation radiating from Wesley's face, and chose that moment to interrupt. She was supposed to be the one that argued with Wesley, after all. "So," she began, keeping her voice so lofty and cheerful, she had no doubt the guys could tell it was fake. "When do we start worrying about Angel? He's been out for a week..."

Wesley shook his head as he came over and perched himself on the couch, Gunn not far behind. "I really don't know. He was awake after The Feast, however briefly. That, to me, indicates he'll come out of it when he's ready..."

"Can't we just go shake him really hard? I'm starting to get worried," Cordelia admitted. She'd gone to check on him practically every hour. No sign of intelligent life.

Wesley sighed. "Out of the question. His physical wounds have healed significantly, but I have doubts about his mental state..."

Cordelia grew cold at that statement. "I don't want a repeat of the last few months..."

"And I doubt that you will receive one," he tried to placate her. "This is hardly of the same nature."

"Well, good, because--" She paused suddenly. A twinge. In the back of her head -- tingling. Like a beeper going off in her brain or something.

The others were all staring at her expectantly as her hand flew up to the bridge of her nose. She knew what was coming. She knew. It felt strangely like that first uphill lift on a roller coaster. Any second it would launch and...

She pitched forward as the searing pain blasted through her skull-- grateful for whoever's hands it was that caught her. A groan fell from her lips as the Technicolor sensory overload of images began to bombard her.

((Cold.

A Scream.

Death.

A Scream.

Lion. Sword. One.

A Scream.

Flash.

A Scream.

"You are the first." A deep voice. Echoed. Dark. Evil.

"Ishtarethsraugh," it hissed.))

And as soon as it had begun, the vision had finished, leaving her panting and nauseous with pain, supported only by Kate and Gunn. "Uhhh," she groaned, grimacing.

"What did you see, Cordelia?" Wesley prodded as she righted herself. She was barely managing to keep from vomiting all over him.

"Get me a... an aspirin. Please," she groaned and eased herself onto the couch. Kate wandered off in search of her stash of industrial strength pain killers.

"There was..." She paused.

Wesley was looking at her intently.

"There was some lion thingy wrapped around a sword and a number one. And them some evil guy said 'you are the first'."

Wesley frowned. "That sounds rather vague."

"Yeah, howdy, I noticed that," she grumbled, irritated. Cradling her throbbing forehead in her palm, she winced as an another pain went shooting through her.

"Can you draw the lion?"

Kate reappeared with a glass of water and two white pills.

Cordelia shook her head as she tipped up the glass and downed them. Another wince -- bitter taste. "My talent ends at stick figures and gray blobby things. Angel's the artist..."

"I would hardly say that..."

Cordelia's eyes snapped towards the direction the weak voice had come from. "Angel!" she cried. "You're awake!"

He stood at the base of the steps in the black sweats they had put him in. Face paler than any shade of pale she had seen on him before, he looked terrible standing there with his shoulders slumped, eyes dull, hair shooting off in all directions, and a forest of stubble across his face. His body wobbled about like a tower getting ready to topple.

"You a'ight?" Gunn called from behind her, immediately followed by a gasp from Kate.

He didn't answer, apparently more focused on keeping his balance than telling them, "No. What does it look like, you lunk heads!?"

Without a second thought to her pounding skull, she leapt upwards and was at his side in moments, followed by Gunn, and Wesley. The three of them simultaneously stuck their hands out to support Angel. Cordelia felt his muscles tense up underneath her fingertips the moment she made contact with flesh. He shrugged them off and made his way over to the couch, ridiculously slow, but under his own power.

"Perhaps you might wish to go back to bed?" Wesley queried, concerned as Angel collapsed onto the sofa with visible relief.

Again, Angel tensed up, but this time, Cordelia didn't have to have a hand on him to see it. She narrowed her eyes at the mussed vampire. "No. I'm fine," he whispered, as though he hadn't fully recovered from the whopper of a sore throat he'd gotten during The Feast.

It scared her to think that, perhaps, he hadn't. He wasn't supposed to take that long to heal... "Really?" she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "Because you look like Hell to me..."

Something... something flashed across his eyes then. His look of deer-in-headlights crossed with something much deeper and more profound -- a well of pain. And then it was gone. Back to the mask. She darted glances to her left and right. Gunn and Wesley had both seen it. Kate, who was on the couch next to the drooping vampire, seemed to have caught on that something wasn't quite right as well.

Angel ignored them. "How long..."

"Six days..." Gunn answered before Angel could even finish asking.

Angel blinked. "Oh."

He leaned over the back of the couch, tipping his head back at a bizarre angle as he brought his hands down over his face. Cordelia frowned. He looked so tired... Beat didn't even begin to describe it. Asleep, there had been a certain peaceful quality to him -- he had been relaxed. Now, he looked all of his years and then some.

"So, is there something you wanted me to draw?"

Angel's query snapped her back to reality. Cordelia saw Wesley share a pointed look with Gunn and then look down at Angel. "Do you want anything to eat first?"

"No," Angel replied with a soft grunt.

"Are you sure, you haven't had anything in... a week... Surely, you must be hun-"

"NO," Angel cut Wesley off with a vehement growl before he calmed himself. "No. I'm fine."

"I'll go retrieve your paper and pencils, then, all right?"

Angel nodded slowly and Wesley walked off, leaving him with Kate, Gunn, and her. He didn't even appear to notice, or if he did notice, he didn't care about their scrutiny. Non- tired Angel would have smelled something fishy before any of them had even spoken a word.

Of course, if something was wrong with non-tired Angel, he would have retreated, not just stayed there and undergone four sets of questioning stares.

"So, what am I drawing?" he asked.

"A lion," Cordelia began. "A lion, wrapped around a number one and a sword."

"Is it even possible to wrap a lion around anything?" Gunn asked.

Cordelia shrugged. "Ask the PTB, not me," she said as Wesley reappeared with Angel's drawing tools and she sat down next to her exhausted friend.

Angel picked up the pencil slowly and put the point to rest on the paper, waiting for instructions. More carefully, this time, Cordelia described what she had seen. A roaring lion wrapped around a number one, the sword sticking downwards through the vertical center of the one like some sort of whacked Braveheart rip-off.

Wesley remained to watch the developing drawing while Kate and Gunn wandered off to do some more weapons maintenance.

Angel was very patient, never complaining, even after about the twenty-thousandth, "No, not quite like that, make the such-and-such different." A little while along, however, when they had a decent replica of what she had seen, although she could still list a few corrections to make, Angel was struggling. He leaned in towards the paper, staring intensely at the lines he was making, as if he were having trouble seeing where the pencil was going, and the hand that held the paper looked almost like it was trembling. Heck, it was trembling. To the point that the tremors were coursing up his arms and through his torso like an aftershock.

"Angel?" She stared at him.

For a moment, it didn't appear that he had even heard her, so intent was he on the drawing. But just when she was about to ask again, he took a deep, unnecessary breath, and looked up at her. His eyes didn't seem to quite focus on her. "Yeah?"

"Stop. Go to bed. This is a good enough drawing," she commanded.

"I don't want to sleep," he replied, his eyes finally adjusting.

Cordelia looked to Wesley. "Angel, you need to rest," Wesley added, helping her a bit, but Angel appeared just as determined.

"I don't want to sleep," he repeated firmly, and he turned back to the drawing.

That was it. The last straw. She grabbed the pad and pencil out of his hands, tearing it a little at the corners, but what worried her was Angel. His reflexes were so off par that he didn't even attempt to stop her.

"Angel, you look like crap. You can barely focus, and you're visibly fading on us here. Sleep. Or witness my wrath," she growled.

After he slowly came to realize that his drawing utensils were no longer at his disposal, he looked back up at her, shifted his gaze to Wesley, and then back towards her again. He stared at her pleadingly for a moment, not saying anything for a few seconds, until finally, "I'm not tired."

"Oh, give me a break, Angel! You sound like a two-year-old. You're tired!"

He said nothing.

She wanted to scream at him, shake him until it hurt, and hug him desperately, all at the same time. Angel was never one to admit that he was tired, or pretty much anything else that had the potential to show weakness, but this was ridiculous.

"Look, I'll make a deal with you. Lie down here on this couch and close your eyes. If you're not out in five minutes, I won't bug you about it anymore..." she said, trying to placate him. If he could stay awake for that long when he was as exhausted as this, she didn't know what she would do -- maybe give him a medal for the most self- damaging stubbornness she had ever seen.

Without even waiting for his response, she pushed on his shoulders. Wesley hopped out of the way, just in time. All she could think of as she saw Angel collapse was, 'TIMBER!' Never before had she seen anything like it. His muscles tensed under her fingertips, just as they had before, but the effect was to make him rigid. He didn't even have a hope of remaining upright as she applied mild pressure and sent him toppling onto the cushy surface -- just another indicator of how ridiculously tired he was.

He didn't even try to get up as she held his chest down with her palm. "Stay." Bad dog, she almost wanted to add. After several tense seconds, he relaxed and she cautiously removed her hand.

He didn't get up. Didn't say anything.

His eyelids drooped.

And then he was totally gone. "Angel?" she whispered. No response. She doubted an air-raid siren would have roused him.

"Ok. What's wrong with him?" she whispered, trying to keep the worry out of her tone as she looked up to Wesley, who was hovering over the back of the sofa.

Wesley looked at the sleeping vampire, and then back to her. "I have no idea. His behavior was very bizarre."

"Yeah, I noticed that," she replied with a glare, which softened upon coming to rest on Angel. The tension had drained out of his face, and the weary angst that clawed out from around his eyes like crow's feet was gone.

"Nevertheless, it's probably good that you got him to sleep here. He seemed almost afraid to sleep -- maybe he's having troubles again?"

"I don't think what he had before would be called troubles..." she answered dryly.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I'll take this," Wesley gestured to the drawing which he had rescued from Cordelia's grip after she had ripped it from Angel's hands, "and see if I can find anything. It looks familiar, but I can't place it..."

"I'll stay here with him -- I don't have anything else to do, anyway. You should send Kate and Gunn to the Host or something, maybe he'll know what's up with the latest memo from the PTB..."

"Perhaps." Wesley disappeared back into Angel's office, leaving them in silence.

Cordelia sighed and planted herself on one of the plush chairs, leaning backwards with a blissful sigh. "Finally." She looked to Angel and smiled wearily. "Now, see, Angel? It's easy..."

And with that, she closed her eyes, and followed Angel into sweet unconsciousness.

---

The pain raced through him, like something rending him from the inside out -- a claw starting within his stomach and working out like flame through his veins, a scythe through his flesh.

Brushfire.

No. No. No.

What had he done?

Another racking pain sent him stumbling out into the bitter embrace of the cold rain. Cold. Cold. Like little droplets of ice slapping at his skin and tearing it to shreds. Rending him. Freezing him from his dead heart to the very tips of his clenched fingers.

The Cold. The Cold. Colder than before...

Don't you feel the cold?

Water beaded on his face and sent him into frenzied shivers. Screwing up his face in pain, he bowed before the raging storm, the cold forcing him to his knees as lighting peeled across the sky in a magnificent array of illuminated spider webbing.Rain. Rain. The bringer of flowers. Would they grow on his grave?

"Don't fight it, my love," she whispered from behind him, her voice low. Sultry.

Deadly.

What had he done? What had he done? Whathadhedone?

He clutched at his chest, wishing the vice that had clamped around it would ease up its terrible, unforgiving grip. A forced, wheezy choke of breath escaped from his lungs as stars began to dance merrily around in front of his watering eyes.

"Just let it happen."

No. NO. NONONO.

Not like this...

I'm sorry. I'msorryI'msorry... Please, please...

Not like this...

"It'll only hurt for a minute."

He panted. Choked. His own ribs were crushing him -- sliding under his skin like razors with each and every shiver and spasm.

Shiver. Spasm. Tremble.

Drowning. Drowning.

Cold.

Like Winter.

Don't you feel the cold?

He felt the cold.

"Oh God. Oh God..." he cried futilely, shaking his head from side to side in denial. He wanted to curl up and die. Every muscle, every nerve, every cell was on fire.

And yet, it was so cold...

Like Winter.

Was it possible to freeze to death while burning to a cinder?

"Yes. Yes, I know. It was the same for me..."

Color swept away from the world like someone drawing the curtains at a theater. It bled away. Watercolors. Tracing twisted trails down cracked paper. Bled. Bled. Bleeding. Blood.

Gray. Dismal. Dreary.

Cold.

Like Winter.

A burning pain wrenched his gut as his senses dimmed and left one center point. One object that remained. Her.

"But it's only an echo. A shadow. The soul is gone, but it leaves a bitterness. It'll pass..."

He collapsed, panting, as sensation swept him away on a tide into nothingness.

Nothing. Nothing. Gone.

The pain was gone.

He stood -- smiled before her -- a worshipper praying to his goddess. He shook with ecstasy at the site of her. Everything about her was gorgeous. His Sire. So long ago since the last time...

The world was cold and gray and pointless.

"Thank you," he whispered, a seductive smirk crossing his lips as he took her hand and lead her back into the bedroom.

The world was cold and gray and pointless.

But he didn't care anymore.

---

Wesley stared at the growing pile of books before him and raised his hands to his face, rubbing furiously underneath the frames of his glasses in order to achieve some semblance of wakefulness. The crumpled piece of paper sat in front of him on the desk -- mocking him.

Leaning back, he continued to stare. The damn thing looked so familiar -- he knew that he had seen it before, and yet, nothing was coming to him. Nothing at all -- and so far he'd barely scratched the surface of his research collection. Without having a clue as to where he'd read it before, this search was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack, and, even worse, perhaps he hadn't seen it in his collection at all. It could have been in Giles's seemingly boundless collection, or perhaps even the collection at the Watcher's Council in England.

If that were the case -- the search had widened to a needle in the universe. Mathematically speaking, he might be able to find it in the next, oh, billion years...This whole thing was getting rather frustrating.

A lion, wrapped around a number one, with a sword. It could mean so many things! Lion - proud, brave... Sword -- fighting, war, anything with violence. The number one was even more limitless.

You are the first.

The first what? A first sacrifice? First college graduate? He didn't even know if there had been a sacrifice because Cordelia's vision had been so damn vague.

A headache. That's what this mess was.

And then, there was Angel.

The vampire appeared to be exhausted, and yet fought down to the wire against sleeping. He hadn't eaten in days, and yet he appeared to be almost sickened at the thought of consuming what was his only possible sustenance. His eyes were dull -- far from looking rested, and he seemed strangely... detached.

Wesley had noticed almost from the moment he had gone to support Angel before he fell, that he didn't like being touched. Granted, Angel had never really liked it before, but now, the vampire was actually tensing under human touch.

Something was very wrong.

Very wrong.

And he didn't have a clue as to what it could be.

Nightmares, perhaps...

With Angel being as talkative as he was being, he wasn't sure he would be able to discern what was wrong with his ailing friend any time soon. He hoped, beyond hope, that this was merely a side effect of The Feast, and that it would gradually wane away before Angel suffered from starvation, but, knowing the universe's cruel sense of humor, he felt that the matter still deserved a heavy amount of attention until it was solved.

Reluctantly, he stood and stretched his weary muscles, glancing at his watch. 4:00 AM. He'd been working for six hours. Six hours. Kate and Gunn had probably bid him farewell and gone home for the evening, and he couldn't remember for the life of him when. Had he been that absorbed in his work?

Grimly, he sighed. Yes, he probably had been that absorbed.

He stretched again, joints popping and cracking, but this time stopping short when he felt a stitch in his side -- the gunshot wound. Still not quite healed. He shifted and walked out into the lobby.

There, curled up in the chair like a lithe cat, was Cordelia. Her nap had apparently developed into a good night's rest, for once, and judging from the twitching, bare foot poking over the arm of the couch, Angel was still sacked out as well.

He shook his head and was about to return to his research, when he stopped.

Wait.

Twitching foot?

Wesley walked over to the couch, careful to keep his footsteps as silent as unvampiricly possible. The sight he was greeted with made him frown in concern. Angel was slathered with sweat -- his eyes ticking about underneath his eyelids, face a picture of activity as the muscles twitched about like spring releases firing and refiring again.

"No. No. That isn't me..." Angel mumbled softly, his entire body beginning to jerk and spasm. "Oh, God. Oh, God..."

Wesley swallowed. A nightmare.

Perhaps his earlier suspicion was true -- that Angel was having sleeping troubles.

Should he wake Angel up?

Clearly, waking a creature as strong as Angel from a nightmare so visibly terrifying would be a dangerous move. Angel could act out without even realizing he was awake until it was too late.

But...

The pitiful gasp of pain that fell from his sleeping friend's lips made up his mind for him.

Wesley walked over to Angel and gently placed a hand on his quaking shoulder. "Angel, you're having a nightmare, wake up," he whispered, shaking his friend enough to be noticeable, but nothing too severe.

"No. No. No," Angel began to whine, his whole body arching up off the couch like a possessed, writhing snake.

Wesley shot a glance to Cordelia. How she could sleep through this was astounding. "Angel!" he repeated, turning back to the vampire, "You must wake up now."

No response.

He shook harder. "Angel!" he hissed.

Angel's eyes shot open, but they were unfocused. Wild. He clawed out with his hands and proceeded to attempt to bury himself in the cracks between the cushions, trying to get away. Get away... Desperate.

"Angel, it's all right! You're awake!"

The vampire shot up into a sitting position as his eyes came into focus. He swallowed profusely, panting between each visible shift of his Adam's apple. "Wes..." A lost, terrified whisper -- a disturbing thing to hear from his stoic friend.

Wesley sat down beside Angel and rubbed his back soothingly, remembering all the times he had wished he had a father that would do that for him when he had been scared or distraught. "It was a nightmare, Angel. Not real..."

"D... Darla. I didn't mean it..."

Wesley froze at the mention of Angel's Sire, but, this didn't seem anything like before. Before... Angel had enjoyed those dreams -- they hadn't left him so out of sorts. "I'm sure you didn't, Angel. It wasn't real, Angel," Wesley stated, repeating his friend's name in hopes of calling him back to reality, calming him.

It wasn't working.

The vampire moaned and pulled his hands around his stomach, groaning in pain. Real pain. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." he rocked back and forth, clutching his abdomen.

Wesley recognized the signs immediately. "Angel, are you hungry?" It was not really a necessary question. Wesley knew enough about vampire physiology to know a hungry one when he saw one. But perhaps he could figure out why Angel seemed so intent on starving himself.

Angel blinked and looked at Wesley for the first time, coherent at last. "No," he said weakly.

"Angel, this is ridiculous. Let me go get you some blood... Please."

Angel's arms tightened around his stomach and he let out a small moan. His eyes closed and he leaned against the back of the couch. No answer.

Disturbing.

Wesley got up and walked over to Angel's small office refrigerator, grabbing a glass and a bag of blood. He poured it into the glass and returned to Angel, extending his cup-laden hand to the shaking vampire.

"Angel, please. Please eat."

Angel looked at him, visibly disgusted even as he winced in pain. "No."

He gave Angel a firm, unwavering stare. "Angel," he began calmly, "I'll call Gunn and have him help me force you if you don't do this willingly. I will not let you starve yourself."

Angel stared back at him -- one of those unblinking, soulful gazes that made one shiver at their intensity. He winced, and reached out for the glass, tipping it upwards and downing the whole thing in seconds with eyes squeezed shut against reality. The arm that still held his stomach never loosened, however.

Wesley watched until every last drop was gone. Angel handed back the glass with a trembling hand. "Better?" Wesley asked, trying very hard not to rehearse any 'I-told-you-so' speeches in his head.

Most unexpected, however, Angel shook his head negative, a strange expression plastered across his face -- far from what should have been satisfaction. Angel looked like someone had kicked him in the gut or something.

Wesley frowned.

Silence for a moment.

Blessed silence.

And then the look on Angel's face morphed into something very recognizable. Nausea -- almost like a version of what Cordelia experienced after she had one of her visions. "I think I'm going to be sick," he groaned, his hands clutching at his midsection.

Wesley barely had time to react as the vampire leaned over and began to retch onto the floor-- the exact precise moment that Cordelia shot awake and screamed in pain. A vision.

All the blood Angel had just consumed was expelled from his heaving stomach, its viscous nature making it ooze from the vampire's mouth and puddle on the floor below. His body was racked with furious spasms.

Wesley, knowing that Cordelia was well accustomed to the pain of visions, moved to help Angel through this unfamiliar territory. A small trickle of blood still fell from Angel's mouth as his stomach continued its upheaval. Wesley rubbed the vampire's back, grimacing at the sight of his ribs slip-sliding along underneath his pale skin. "Take deep breaths Angel. Deep breaths," he said. It only occurred to him after he had given his advice that it would probably do his friend no good. What use did Angel have for oxygen? He knew Angel's habit of breathing was only just that. A habit.

"Oh, my God, what's wrong with him?" Cordelia groaned, her own voice laden with ache, barely recovered from her recent attack.

"The blood I made him drink didn't agree with him. Try to calm down, Angel. Calm down. It might help stop the spasms," he tried to soothe, but he sounded tense, and about ready to lose his wits. Far from soothing.

"You made him drink?" she growled as she raced to Angel's other side. "Angel?" she asked, placing her hand on Angel's shoulder while Wesley continued to rub.

Angel's eyes were tearing up as he continued to shake. "Cor... Cordelia?"

"Shhh," she soothed. "Shhh, its all right."

Gradually, the heaving stopped.

Angel leaned back, his eyes dull and tired. Still.

Cordelia left for a moment and returned with a roll of paper towels. Dropping to her knees, she began to soak up the bloody mess on the floor. The three stayed silent as wad after wad of towels turned a wet crimson, until finally she sat back on her haunches, finished.

"I'm sorry," Angel whispered.

Cordelia's tired gaze turned to Angel. "Not your fault," she replied succinctly.

"What did you see, Cordelia?" Wesley took the time to prod, seeing that the immediate trouble had passed.

She glared. "One track mind much? Angel, are you ok?" she asked, her voice softening as she looked at Angel, who was still looking rather unwell.

"Fine. Fine," he replied, not moving.

Two problems, and Cordelia only seemed to want to focus on one. Wesley elected to go along with her. Now was not the time to battle. "Angel, that nightmare... Is that the first one you've had?"

Angel sighed, the corners of his eyes creasing with strain. He looked weary. Old. "No. There was another one. Before. Before I woke up."

Wesley frowned. "What have they been about?"

He wasn't sure whether he wanted to hear the answer, but he had to. Anything that would possibly help discover the cause of this. Because now, it had gotten worse. Angel didn't appear to be able to eat. For a vampire, that was slow torture. And, adding to the severity of the problem, was the fact that if Angel got hungry enough, he wouldn't necessarily be thinking rationally enough to realize that his instinctual food wasn't what he was supposed to be eating.

Angel flinched at the query. "Hell. Darla."

Cordelia visibly stiffened, but Wesley calmed her with a look of assurance. She caught his conveyance, that this wasn't like last time. Angel didn't seem to want to relay more. He barely met their eyes as it was.

"Anything specific?" Wesley prodded.

Angel didn't answer. He sighed and looked dully ahead. There were obviously many specifics that he didn't wish to relate. Wesley wondered what it could have been to have rattled the 247 year-old vampire so badly. "What was in the vision?" Angel asked softly, jumping subjects.

Cordelia frowned, but took the avoidance in stride, and Wesley relaxed as the conversation got onto the track he had originally wanted it on. "Same as last time. Except now it was a two, and the evil guy said 'You are the second.'"

Odd. "Any specifics? Location? Anything?" Wesley asked her.

Cordelia shook her head.

"I find it strange that the Powers would send you these visions that are obviously related, but would give you nothing to figure them out. They can be vague, but this has to be the worst that I can recall off the top of my head."

"Look, Wesley. I don't know. But we've got a mounting list of Hell to deal with, and with the Powers being all with the vague, I'd say it's one of our lowest priorities... If they want us to help some hopeless, they're going to have to at least give me a hint where. A country, maybe, would be a start." She sighed in frustration, running her hands through her hair.

"I don't know what to say, Cordelia, other than that we have to figure out what these symbols mean. I've covered as much as I can, but quite frankly, I'm tired, and unlike the Skilosh, I only have two eyes to work with."

"Give me some books. I'll look," Angel replied.

Wesley frowned. "Angel, are you honestly well enough? Perhaps you should--"

"I don't want to sleep," he snapped. "Just give me a pile and I'll start looking through it."

"But--" he tried again, but Angel cut him off.

"I'd rather read the damn books than dream, and I'd rather dream than eat. So now that we've established the pecking order of 'I'd rathers', just hand me the books, Wesley."

"I'll take a pile too," Cordelia added.

Wesley glanced back and forth between the vampire and the seer. Despite the fact that Cordelia looked sick with migraine, and Angel looked like he could barely keep himself sitting up, he knew that he had lost the argument. When it came to stubborn wills, both Angel and Cordelia were professionals.

"Fine," he conceded. "But when Kate and Gunn return in the morning, we're all taking a break. Angel, you can't handle this strain in the condition you're in, and Cordelia, you can't..."

She glared at him. "I can't what, Wesley?"

"Never mind," Wesley muttered as he stood up. "I forgot you actually got some genuine sleep."

She winked at him. "And I'll have painkillers too. Be a nice Brit and bring me some?" A terrible mockery of an English accent.

He bowed, ignoring the pain that briefly pinched his side. "Yes, oh queen Cordelia of the buxom brunettes," he said with an over-exaggerated flourish.

He could feel her glare as he retreated.

This was going to be a long morning.

---

The annoying buzzing wouldn't stop -- it kept slapping at her ears, not allowing her to remain in her notably pleasant dream. "Damn it," she grumbled, slapping out with her hand in the general direction of the obnoxious sound as she yanked her fluffy white pillow over her head.

And slapped. And slapped.

A large clunk followed as an unfortunate lamp fell to the floor, but the buzzing continued, forcing her even further awake.

"SHUT UP!"

A clenched fist and one resounding thud later, the alarm clock from Hell had been silenced. The battle was won. With a sigh of reluctant victory, Kate stumbled out of bed, looking blearily about as she brushed her unruly nest of hair out of her face.

Her finger turned the knob on the television as she swept by it and into her medium-sized kitchenette.

"Good morning, Los Angeles..."

The droning reporter faded into the background as his voice bled into her sleep-ridden haze.

Refrigerator open. She blinked back tears as the bright light shot spears into her still sleepy retinas. Raising a hand to block the light, she reached forward to claim her prize. A carton of orange juice.

The moment she freed it from its refrigerated prison, she tipped it up and started taking long, healthy gulps until her lungs began to protest. Bringing her head down, she went off to the cabinet and grabbed some bagels, plunking them in the toaster without a second thought.

"Coffee..." she mumbled. Damn. She had forgotten to buy coffee on her last grocery trip. She was out.

Damn.

That meant...

That meant she would have to down some of Cordelia's office sludge.

Oh well. At least it had caffeine.

Back to the orange juice. She chugged another copious amount of the sickeningly sweet liquid, stopping only to wipe away the bit that dribbled out of the corner of her mouth.

"And in late breaking news, two individuals were found murdered last night. Nothing connects these killings except for strange markings on the victims' chests."

Kate's eyes snapped to the snowy reception on the screen. There, was a sketch drawing of a lion. Wrapped around a one. With a sword. Exactly like...

DING! Her two bagels popped out of the toaster.

But, two kills? Cordelia had only mentioned one... You are the first. Maybe there had been another vision that they hadn't felt was urgent enough to call her in on. Or maybe it was urgent, but they didn't have anything to go on, like the last one...

"The police aren't releasing anything regarding these murders at this time, but our on site reporter was able to get a glimpse of the marks left, presumably by the killer..."

The reporter went on, one murder had occurred at approximately 8PM, the other around 4AM, blah, blah, blah, but Kate wasn't listening anymore. She threw the orange juice container back into the refrigerator, not really caring as the juice sloshed all over, and was launching herself into the barely warm spray of her shower.

Wet hair and all, she was driving like a madwoman before she realized it. Wincing as a she sped past a prowl car, she prayed that she wouldn't get a ticket. The car on the side of the street, as she confirmed upon looking back into her rearview mirror, was empty.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and sped onward, screeching to a halt in the Hyperion's parking lot. With a mighty heave, the parking brake was on and she was off at a sprint through the door and into the main lobby of the hotel.

The sight there made her pause.

Angel, looking rather sickly, had his arms wrapped around his stomach and was staring blankly at a book that rested on the table in front of him. Unblinking. Like he wasn't awake, but he wasn't asleep. "An... Angel?" she asked, panting.

A few seconds went by before he shook his head and looked up. "Kate?" His voice was weak -- slightly pained.

Her glance flew around the room. Where was everyone else? Finally managed to calm her breathing and went over to him. "Are you all right?" she inquired as she sat down, the shift in the cushions raising his body a bit -- which was odd in and of itself. Angel was much larger than she.

He shrugged. "Tired," he replied, his hands going up to rub his eyes.

Kate frowned, but said nothing, remembering how he had reacted the last time someone had told him to sleep. When she had left last night, she had smiled upon finding Angel sacked on the couch. Apparently he had either given in, or someone had made him, but either way, he had at least been getting some of the sleep that his body appeared to be screaming for. And, as much as she was concerned, she knew he was quite capable of taking care of himself. She would leave the mothering to Cordelia -- the woman was very apt at it already.

"What are you reading?"

Angel looked blank for a moment, but then appeared to remember that there was a book in front of him. "Watcher Chronicles. Cordelia had another vision -- we're trying to figure out what these symbols are." He squinted at the book slightly before collapsing against the sloping back of the couch.

Kate stiffened. "There really was a second murder?"

Angel closed his eyes. "If that's what these visions are pointing to, then yes," he replied flatly.

"The news reports this morning are saying two murders occurred last night, apparently the only thing connecting them at this time that the police are willing to give out is the symbols on the chest. The composites that were drawn of them looked mighty familiar. A lion. A number. And a sword."

Angel's eyes glided open. "We should tell Wesley." He tried to get up, but his face screwed up in a wince and he collapsed backwards, clutching his stomach.

Kate reached out, letting her fingertips brush his shoulder with the barest of contact. "What's wrong?"

Angel opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a shrill and falsely cheerful, "Kate! Hi."

Cordelia was coming down the stairs with a mug in hand. "Angel," the brunette said, "here." She handed him the mug as she sat down on the other side of him, watching him expectantly.

Angel looked down at its contents and frowned, staring as though he had just been presented with an alien... something. No sign of intelligent life here, Captain! After a pregnant silence, he turned back to look at Cordelia. "Blood ice cubes?"

"Yeah. Whenever I got sick with the flu or something, and was barfing every five minutes, my mom had me eat ice cubes. If you just suck on them, then it goes into your stomach more slowly and you're less likely to puke. In my case, it saved me from dehydration, but with you, I thought..."

Kate stared at Angel. He had been sick? But. Vampires didn't get sick, did they? Angel's gaunt, pale appearance, told her otherwise. As did the discolored stain on the floor, which she was just now noticing.

He shook the mug, the contents clanking around inside, but Cordelia went on. "Anyway, I would have given them to you earlier, but they took a while to freeze... I'll have you know that your ice cube trays are going to need to be cleaned in the worst way ever..."

Kate watched as Angel frowned and shook the mug again. Like he just wasn't quite getting something. "It's frozen."

He seemed rather unhappy about that fact, and it got her wondering, though, what it must be like for him... Was giving him frozen blood like asking a human to eat a frozen dinner without heating it first? Bleh. She cringed at the thought of frozen chicken parmesan and solidified marinara sauce sitting in her stomach.

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Well, duh -- that's sort of implied by the ice cube bit... Anyway, don't chew them, just let them melt... Which actually would take much longer in your mouth, wouldn't it?"

Angel still looked rather upset at the idea of consuming the contents of the cup. Cordelia, however, had noticed that too. "Look, Angel. Just try it. You need to eat. Please."

He sniffed at it, finally giving in with a sigh. Upturning the mug, he let one of the blood chunks fall into his mouth and started sucking on it.

Cordelia let loose a high wattage smile and turned to Kate, this time looking genuinely happy. "So Kate, what brings you here so early? It's not even seven yet..."

"I think we might have something to go on now. Two murders last night. They apparently fit the description of your visions. Where's Wes, is he in yet?"

"Right here," a British accent came fluttering through the air. Wesley was walking down the steps, surprising well- balanced for someone who's nose was almost literally stuck in a book.

"Angel, you never told me you had the Oen'Tai Prophecies-- Kate," he stopped on her name, as if just realizing that she was there. "What brings you here so early?"

Kate almost had to laugh, feeling like the Angel Investigations team was just a broken record in disguise. "Well, if my suspicions are correct," she explained, "Then we have bodies now. Not just pictures of weird symbols..."

Wesley approached her quickly, eyes widening in excitement. "What have you found?"

"The news report this morning was talking about two murders, linked only by the symbol left on the chest. The lion symbol thing that Cordelia had in her first vision."

"Damn. I was hoping we still had time to help whatever or whomever it was that we were supposed to be helping..." Wesley sighed. "I am CERTAIN that I have seen this symbol before. I just can't recall where."

"That's bugging you a bit, I take it," Cordelia mumbled.

"It's bloody maddening!"

Kate shrugged. "Would seeing the body help determine what the symbols are?"

He looked at her with curiosity. "Most likely, but I hardly expect that we could break in to the morgue and--"

"Then I suppose it's time to pull in a favor," she interrupted, making a show of walking over to the lobby phone.

She dialed a number so ingrained into her mind that she doubted she would ever forget it. "Bob LoVelle speaking. How can I help you?" a deep, tired male voice picked up the phone after a few rings.

"Bob, it's Kate."

Silence for a moment. "Katie! It's good to hear from you," Bob said the tiredness bleeding out of his voice until she almost couldn't hear it, and Kate could almost see the smile on his face. "I'm glad you caught me. I was just getting off shift. How are you. You know. Now that you've been... Sacked."

She grinned. "Actually, I'm quite well, thank you. I think I found a job that suits me better."

"Really? What?"

"Remember that P.I. I kept having run-ins with?" she queried, knowing that there really wasn't any way he wouldn't remember.

"No. You didn't..." he groaned. "Katie, I thought you hated him..."

"Let's just say I've seen the light. Besides. His cases are... special. Emphasis on special."

"Ah," he said knowingly. "Supernatural stuff, eh? I suppose that fits, considering what you've told me about him. Well, I'm glad you found people you can work with on that. The L.A.P.D. just isn't really open minded about that kind of thing..."

"So I've heard," she replied grimly.

A brief silence ensued before she finally decided to ask. "So, anyway, I hate to do this to you, but I really need a favor."

"Anything for Katie," Bob replied cheerfully.

"Are you doing the autopsies on the two bodies that were found last night. You know, the ones with the marks on their chests?"

"Sorry, Katie. They weren't in my district."

"It's all right," she assured him. "Would it be possible for you to get us in to see the bodies, though?"

He began warily. "Sure. I have clearance. But only if you tell me what this is about."

"Well, you know how I mentioned we work on special cases?"

"Yes."

Time to drop the bomb shell. "We have reason to believe this is one of those."

"Ah. They're not going to get up off the table like last time. Are they?"

"No," she laughed, remembering that all to well. "Not unless they're vampires." Bob had been brought into the world of vampires and demons and 'evil things' rather harshly, but it had been nice to have a friend somewhere on the force who believed her. He had helped her maintain the weakest of grips on reality for a while -- but after a while things had gotten too hard for her to deal with, even with Bob pulling her back into sanity.

"All right. Well, if you come by right now, I should be able to sneak you and your friends in for a peek. I need your word that this won't be going to the press, though. My superiors would eat me alive if this got out."

"Cross my heart. Thanks, Bob."

"Any time, Katie."

She hung up the phone and turned to see Cordelia and Wesley staring at her. Angel looked like he didn't much care one way or the other. Understandable, considering how green around the gills he was looking.

"What?" she asked, innocently.

Cordelia shrugged. "You could have mentioned your slightly, um, HELPFUL connections before now..."

Kate smiled. "We haven't really needed a coroner before, now have we?"

"So, we can trust this person?" Wesley asked.

"Bob had a vampire wake up on his autopsy table a while ago. He's been rather sympathetic towards my cause since then, especially since I staked it for him. Consider him entirely trust-worthy."

"Ah," Wesley visibly relaxed. "All right, then."

"Anyway, we need to get over there now. He was getting ready to book off when I called."

"Certainly. Cordelia, do you wish to come along?"

Cordelia made a disgusted face and a strange coughing noise. "Heck no. I don't want to look at dead people. They're all gross and... dead. No offense, Angel."

Angel, who look very unamused, didn't reply. The mug sat on the table beside him. Kate couldn't tell how much of the blood cubes he'd consumed, but from the look on his face, she didn't think he'd be attempting to eat any more for the time being.

"All right, well, tell Gunn to start looking through the stack of books I've left on Angel's desk when he gets in. We still have a very large portion of Angel's and my combined library to search through."

"Sure thing," Cordelia waved them off.

Kate nodded and guided Wesley out the door.

---

So tired.

So very tired.

Angel stared at the cup that contained the blood cubes. And he had thought the cinnamon was bad... At least it had been remotely similar to his regular food. This stuff was cold, it had no taste, and it didn't smell at all right. It didn't really smell at all. Perhaps that was the problem...

At least, with warmer blood he could pretend that it was the sustenance he craved. Sometimes, if he tried hard enough to imagine, it almost tasted good. Warm. Fresh.

He let his eyelids droop, his figure crumple.

No. The problem was that he was getting ill. Again.

A strange sensation in his gut. Like his innards wanted to leap out of his throat and spew out onto the floor because he was so damn shaky. No, he amended. Not strange. Unpleasant. Very unpleasant.

He shoved the mug as far away as possible.

And even as he did so, a shot of pain riddled through him. Frustrating. He was so hungry that he was literally in pain, and yet, he couldn't stomach what he needed to sate it. Oh, he'd been sick before. From poisons. But never like this. He felt as if his own body were trying to exterminate him -- like it had grown unhappy with his occupancy and was just saying 'Hell with it' and giving up. If this situation continued, he would have to ask Wesley to shoot him up with tranquilizers. As weak as he was, he was still very much a danger to his friends.

A sobering thought.

"Heck no. I don't want to look at dead people. They're all gross and... dead. No offense, Angel," Cordelia was saying.

He glowered at her, but said nothing, letting his head fall back onto the couch. He was too tired to take her jokes in stride. He was too tired for pretty much anything but sitting here and wishing he weren't tired.

With a sigh, he listened as the rush of conversation fell back into nothing. Just a breeze. Nothing he had to care about... He was so tired. So very, very tired. Every cell in his body was screaming for sleep.

But in sleep, were the nightmares.

He didn't want those.

He'd rather die of exhaustion than go back to Hell, or that awful night with Darla. He didn't need to be reminded of his sins, the bloody atrocities that his very own hands had at one time relished. As it were, he was perfectly aware of everything he needed to atone for. Past sins sat at the back of his mind like fine-tipped razors, slicing through each and every thought with surgical precision.

Every time he looked into Cordelia's eyes, or Wesley's, or Gunn's for that matter, he was aware of them.

He had caused them so much pain. So very much... You're fired. It seemed so long ago that he had said those words. So long ago that he had been alone. Again.

Cold, and alone.

He could still remember the stricken look in Cordelia's eyes. The gaping stare that had slapped itself across Wesley's astonished face.

Of all the things he had ever done, all the blood on his hands, the black shadows of sin that formed the tired bags under his eyes, why had that, that one simple action that was by far the least of his worries on the atonement scales, been the thing that made him wish desperately that his memory would be ripped away from him. He didn't want to remember those looks that haunted him every time he closed his eyes. Those terrible looks.

They had trusted him. They had been his best friends. His only friends. Of course, a long time ago, there had been Buffy. And she had been his world. The only being on the planet that refused to look upon him with disgust. And she had loved him, more than she should have, and he had basked in that. Basked in the fact that someone could ever find him attractive, both inside and out. He loved her. He always would. So much that it hurt. But, as Spike had said, they weren't friends. They would never be friends.

And friends were what he had needed then. Not heartbreak.

And then, for a year, he had had them. Friends. Interesting things, they were. Unconditional love reserved solely for him. They had celebrated the news of his Shanshu with him. They had been his crutches when Buffy's return to L.A. had threatened to break him. They had been there.

And he had betrayed them.

That simple knowledge he almost made him feel guilty for wishing the dreams would stop making him feel more guilty. Because the PTB knew, he deserved it. He deserved to remember.

A wry smile crossed his lips. The irony wasn't lost, certainly not on him. Pain lanced through his abdomen, and he clutched around his stomach with a groan.

Maybe his guilt was finally going to kill him.

"What's the matter?" Cordelia asked.

Her concerned voice brought him back to the lobby of the Hyperion. Wesley and Kate were gone, leaving only him and his Seer, who was sitting across from him on the other chair.

He peered into her eyes for a moment. "I'm hungry. And I'm very, very tired," he whispered, wishing that he had had the strength to keep his weaknesses from leaking through his tone. He didn't want her to realize how terrible he felt. She didn't need to worry about him right now. Curling up around himself on the couch, he found himself almost unable to perform that little bit of movement.

Cordelia's eyes trailed to the mug. "That didn't help?"

"They still make me sick. It just took me longer to realize..." Angel explained, giving up all hopes of ever fooling her into thinking he was all right. She would have seen through his front anyway. She always did...

She frowned. "Are you going to puke again?"

He winced at her tone. "I'll be sure to let you know," he answered her sarcastically.

Looking at him for a moment with her deep brown eyes, she stood up and moved next to him. "I'm sorry, Angel. That was really shallow..."

So tired.

Grunting, he closed his eyes. He really felt like crap. And as much as he enjoyed her company most times, right now, he just wanted to crawl into a hole and sleep forever.

Silence for a few moments. He relished it.

"Does it..." her voice intruded behind him, soft, hesitant. "Does it hurt?"

"Does what hurt?" he mumbled, gripping his stomach tighter. Perhaps if he lay there long enough some Carrion demon would pick him off and end his misery. Was there even such a thing as a Carrion demon?

"When you're hungry. Does it hurt?"

He sighed. There was still so much she didn't know about the bloodlust... With people like Wesley around, who knew at least as much about vampires as Angel did, it was easy to forget about the people like Cordelia. She knew the basics -- sunlight, decapitation, stake through the heart.

But not much else.

He sighed.

"Yes."

"Bad?"

"Yes."

Something warm touched his back unexpectedly, and he just about jumped out of his skin. His eyes shot open and he glanced wildly around like a creature under attack. "Shhh, Angel. It's just me," she soothed as her hands began running up and down his back.

He remained tense for a while, not liking the warm, human contact. Human contact. Bad. Sometimes, he still had problems getting over ninety-odd years of habit. Until he realized. It felt... rather good. He sighed and began to relax, too exhausted to do anything other than give in and enjoy it.

"Don't let me fall asleep..." he whispered. "I don't want the nightmares..."

"I won't, Angel." Her voice wavered, vibrating against the skin of his neck like the frantic beat of a humming bird's wings. Her warm touch stopped him from wondering about it further.

Soothing, relaxing circles. He groaned as he felt the tenseness in his muscles melt away into nothing. He was Jell-O in her hands. So easy to just let go. Just let go and sleep...

"Does any of this ever scare you?"

He would have smiled if he hadn't been so tired. So far, Cordelia was keeping her promise. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," she shrugged as she continued her backrub. "It scares the Hell out of me..."

Blearily, he peered at her. So tired... "The visions?"

"Sometimes. Don't the demons ever scare you? Just a little?" she asked, sounding for all the world like a two- year-old asking her father some world-altering truth.

"No."

"Vocah didn't scare you?"

"No."

She looked rather unsatisfied with his answers. "Not even the tiniest bit?" she prodded.

With a grunt, he repositioned his entire body to face her, trying not to think about the lost comfort of her hands. She was skating around something. Something far more important than a back massage. But he couldn't tell what. "Cordelia, what is this about?"

She threw up her hands and let out a heaving sigh. "I just..." she began. "I'm scared. You're dying, we've got visions coming out of the woodwork..."

He raised an eyebrow at her rant. And at the very same time, he felt something warm building in his chest -- an odd sensation. She cared about him. Really cared. Even after all that he had done. Their apology session before The Feast of Souls had helped ease some of his worries that he had destroyed the best friendship he had ever had, but this cemented it.

"Cordelia, I'm not dying," he tried to assure her, even as he felt his own tired muscles screaming for him to sleep. To just close his eyes and ride the nightmares out.

Sleep...

"I can't believe this," she sighed in frustration, her hands absently flying up to her temples where they began to rub in circular soothing motions. She growled. "Look at you! You can barely stand, and you say you're not dying."

Her concern really touched him, even if it was unfounded. "Starvation won't kill me, Cordelia. And as far as I know, chronic exhaustion won't either."

"But you're still in pain..." She frowned at him and got up, moving around to his back again and resuming her previous comfort.

He chose to answer honestly. "Yes."

"And you're not scared?"

"Of dying?" he shrugged. "No."

"Then what are you scared of, Angel? Because right about now, I'm almost ready to scream 'panic' and head for the hills," she said, a wry laugh tumbling from her lips like a falling rock.

He didn't answer her for a long time. Just stared at the space in front of him. "I'm sorry," he finally said.

She threw up her hands. "Don't apologize to me, for God's sake!"

He craned his head around and peered at her. Their eyes locked, and for a few moments, they both remained frozen.

"Hey! What's up?" Gunn called, the slam of the door snapping him back to reality with a wince.

Cordelia looked like she wanted to bite his head off. "Gunn. Desk. Books. Research," she said, through gritted teeth, her index finger pointing sharply towards his office, like a gnarled talon.

Angel sighed and leaned back into the welcoming cushions.

So tired...

"What? What am I supposed to be lookin' for?" Gunn mumbled as he wandered towards Angel's office.

Cordelia grumbled and moved to follow.

"Angelus," Angel mumbled as his eyes slid shut.

He could hear her footsteps halt. "What?"

It took a moment for him to garner enough strength to answer. "I'm afraid of Angelus."

A long silence. He heard her inhale deeply, and he wondered if maybe he'd struck a sore spot. No. Take that back. He knew he'd struck a sore spot. But she had wanted to know...

"Don't be. Not anymore."

And then she walked after Gunn into the office and closed the door.

He would have wondered what she meant, if he had been more awake to start with. As it were, the more he resisted sleep, the more it seemed to want to come and take him away.

And come it did.

---

Wesley glanced around as they entered the chilly morgue. "Bob's office is this way," Kate explained as she guided him along down a dark, narrow hallway.

A few doors down on the left, Kate paused and knocked. "If that's Katie, come in. Otherwise, I'm off duty!" a tired voice shouted from the depths within.

Kate smiled and pushed the door open gently. It eased open with the quietest of creaks to reveal a middle-aged, balding man with dusty brown hair and a very, very tired face.

"Katie!" the coroner smiled, despite his weary appearance.

"Hi Bob," Kate replied warmly. "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, meet Bob LoVelle. Bob LoVelle, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." Kate gestured between the two of them and they shook hands.

Wesley forced a smile, despite how tired he felt. "A pleasure," he stated simply.

Bob nodded. "I understand you guys are trying to discern possible supernatural causes for this case?"

Wesley's gaze shot to Kate. He hadn't expected this man to be so open about this. "Yes," he managed to reply evenly. "I understand you've had some interesting... experiences with our realm of expertise..."

Bob shrugged. "You know, with the crazy stuff that happens here, I'm surprised that I'm the only coroner who's had a dead guy jump up off the table and try to eat him..."

Wesley's smile turned genuine. "Vampires don't often get so incapacitated that they would make it to the autopsy table. Even Angel, who literally goes in search of trouble, comes back in one piece at least ninety-nine percent of the time."

"I really don't want to know," Bob replied with a wary grin. "Would you like to see the bodies now?"

Both Wesley and Kate nodded.

Bob lead them down a hallway and into another, chilly room, pointing to the wall of refrigerators. "They're both here," he said, "Ron's going to do them when he gets in. Probably in a half-hour."

Bob pulled out the tray from the refrigerated unit which the first body was in. A small hiss of air and chilly fog escaped and cleared, clawing out into the warmer room and disappearing in a puff of formaldehyde-laden stench. The coroner smiled, despite the morbid situation, and unzipped the black vinyl body bag.

The cold, dead body belonged to a young woman--perhaps not even thirty. Her red hair cascaded down around her pale freckled face, sightless, terror-filled eyes staring upwards towards the ceiling.

There didn't appear to be a mark on her, except, of course, the one particular marking they were looking for.

"Here's the burn-mark," Bob said, pulling the zipper down a bit further and peeling the black material aside. There, on the woman's chest, just above her cleavage started, was the scorched, blackened pattern of the lion, wrapped around a number one, and a sword.

Wesley stared at it long, and hard. It looked so damn familiar! He was sure that if this curious sense of deja vu lingered any longer, he would go insane. Looney. Angel, assuming he could still walk, would have to come hunt him down and lasso him before he went completely bananas.

He grunted, shaking himself back to the present and the cold body lying in front of him on a metal slab. Lack of sleep. That's what it was. Lack of sleep... He hadn't pulled an all-nighter since... well... a long time ago.

"Hmmm," Bob frowned. A look of confusion crossed his features.

"What?" Kate asked.

Wesley almost jumped out of his skin. He had forgotten that she was standing behind him. Looney. Yes, that was it...

Bob looked up. "This doesn't look like a regular burn mark..."

"As indicated by the fact that it's in the shape of a pretty picture," Wesley grumbled sarcastically.

"No," Bob replied, ignoring Wesley's tone. "I mean, this doesn't even look like it was done by fire."

"Then, what was it done by?" Kate asked.

"Something much, much hotter..." Bob scratched his chin and shrugged. "Oh well. Not my autopsy... Would you like to see the other?"

Wesley nodded.

The first body went back into the fridge and Bob moved over two columns to pull out the second. The same formaldehyde laden hiss of air escaped. The same rippling echo resounded as the zipper was pulled down.

This time, it was a black man. Eyes peacefully closed -- like he was just taking a really long nap.

Same burn mark, except with a number two in place of the one. "There's obviously a pattern -- a ritual, I would suspect, but I can't for the life of me remember what!" Wesley growled, frustrated.

"Bob, do you know if anything was found at the crime scenes that seemed out of place, other than the bodies themselves?" Kate asked, and Wesley was immediately thankful for her presence. Her knowledge of police procedure had her asking all the right questions at all the right times.

"I saw the on-site coroner's report. There were scorch marks all around the bodies, but except for the chest burns, the bodies themselves were both unscathed. Even with the burn marks that they sustained, for all intents and purposes, they shouldn't be dead. The damage was too concentrated -- only dermal, nothing fatal, at least not immediately so."

"It must have been some sort of magical focus. A spell-cast of some sort," Wesley mumbled absently. "There were no symbols else-where on-site?"

Bob shook his head. "None that got caught by forensics."

"Hmmm."

He looked back at the body.

Blinked.

And looked again.

"Oh my lord," he whispered, as the recognition he'd been waiting for since last night finally settled into his tired brain.

"What?" Kate queried from behind him.

He simply stared. "Oh my..."

"WHAT!?" Kate asked again, her voice growing slightly more panicked.

"Kate, I believe I recall where I've seen that symbol."

She looked at him seriously. "What?" This time curious.

He stared back at her, his eyes pleading. "We have to get back. Now."

She nodded, sensing his urgency. "Thanks Bob. I owe you!" she called over her shoulder as Wesley pulled her back out to the car.

He knew exactly where he had seen that symbol before.

The Scrolls of Aberjian.

---

"What the Hell is this thing?!" Gunn cried frantically as he took a swing at the gray, bulbous creature, slashing away at it with his homemade battle axe. He wasn't having much of an effect, if any.

Angel grunted as he raised his hand to block a claw with the outside of his forearm. Four of the six demons had instantly picked him out as the most formidable and dangerous of the group. Although relieved that most of the threat was surrounding him instead of his friends, he couldn't help but worry. He was tired, very tired. His running list of bodily damage had mounted from simple impalement to include bludgeoning, falling damage, and worse, all within the last twenty four hours. Vampires had stamina, but he knew he couldn't take much more of what these things were dishing out, especially on his low reserves.

"It's a Baynor! Stab at its solar plexus!" Wesley cried from somewhere behind him, his voice thick with carefully controlled anxiety, and Angel hoped that it wouldn't develop into panic. He doubted that Wesley had been prepared for battle demons of this caliber, let alone six of them in his current state. He and Cordelia were sharing the last remaining demon, and thankfully with Cordelia there Wesley was at least able to keep the thing at bay.

Gunn ducked as the snarling demon lashed out with a scaly foot. "Where the Hell is that?" he asked, dodging more frantic blows.

A pause as Wesley beat at the demon with his cane. "I'm not entirely sure!" was the former watcher's response.

"Jeez, Cordelia, you coulda mentioned that there was going to be more than one of these things, augh..." Gunn groaned as a claw met with his shoulder.

"I didn't KNOW there was going to be more than one," Angel heard Cordelia snap back. "All the PTB told me was Topanga." She sounded annoyed, but under that brave and calm exterior tone, Angel could identify a hint of fear.

This had to end. Now.

Angel snarled as two clubs came down on his back--all his luck that the armed ones had come after him. He kicked out with a booted foot and swept it under one of the large creatures that towered over him. The demon had become unbalanced from Angel's previous rain of blows, and went to the ground with a howl.

Leaping to his feet, Angel swung his claymore high and arched downward--a killing blow meant to decapitate the crippled Baynor. But one of the demons to his side knocked him out of the way with a clawed hand. The sound of tearing flesh filled the air as it opened a large gash across his shoulder blade. Flipping the sword over, he grunted and knocked the demon away with and upward swing of his claymore's hilt.

Angel desperately wanted to spare a glance at his three comrades, hoping that they were faring better than he, but he couldn't afford to. All his senses were devoted to determining his opponents' next moves and dodging the four hulking Baynors that had obviously learned strategy somewhere, as they were not kind enough to attack him one at a time.

He could smell the battle rage bleeding from the demons' scaly hides like sweat. He relished it. He fed off it.

Stabbing outward with his blade, he caught one of the demons in the upper right region of his torso. The thing wailed in agony and fell to the ground, racked with spasms before it grew still and silent. "Upper right shoulder!" Angel yelled hoarsely as the three demons left beset him with bitter fury. One of their comrades had been felled, and they were NOT happy about that.

With a vicious and calculated strike of vengeance, they all slashed out at once. Angel managed to dodge one and block a second, but the third skewered him in the quadriceps with a claw. Defensively, he bared his fangs and hissed as he fell to the ground, instinct driving him to make himself look as threatening as possible.

Another claw swept over the skin of his neck, and he whined in protest as the tissue slit open and started to bleed gratuitously. He grunted and dashed to his feet despite his protesting leg. Extending his claymore into the gut of one of the Baynor demons out of pure reflex, the demon standing directly over him faltered, but the blade hit it too low to have much effect other than to anger the other creature.

He leaned back on his good leg and thrust out again, this time taking out one of the three combatants before throwing himself into a duck and roll. A claw swiped at his back and sent stinging pain roaring down his skin as though a stream of holy water were fleeting across his torso. He shrugged it off as best he could and wobbled to his feet.

Angel's vision was getting dim, and his muscles were starting to feel leaden and sluggish. A scaly fist impacted with his left eye, probably helping along the shiner he already had there from the sledge hammer, but he managed to grab the arm and twist it over him, effectively sending his attacker to the ground as its balance shifted out of its control.

He brought his blade down into the fallen Baynor, directly into the spot that had killed the last one. The thing twitched spasmodically for a few seconds, screamed, and went silent.

Two down. Two to go.

And those remaining two? They were pissed. Anger was guiding their movements more than strategy now. Their blows were more devastating in strength, but more easily avoided because they were telegraphing their moves. That was a good thing -- Angel was so exhausted and battered he could barely muster the strength to dodge -- at least this way he didn't have to calculate which way to feint.

A claw sliced through his midsection, but a lucky stab with his Claymore brought the beast to its knees, screaming and shrieking before it stilled and went silent.

The fourth one went down shortly after, just as Gunn took out his own opponent and he fell to the ground himself. Angel sniffed the air. Gunn wasn't breathing. Wasn't moving at all. For one blind moment, he began to panic, but he forced his mind back to the fight. That left Cordelia and Wesley versus one very ugly, very annoyed demon. Wesley could barely walk with the gunshot wound he was nursing, and Cordelia wasn't much of one for combat, even if she did try.

The Baynor had raised its slashing claw and began an arch downward that would surely decapitate Cordelia. The air whistled as the sharp instrument of death began its descent. For Angel, the world started moving in painful slow motion. Cordelia turned towards the blow, her eyes widening as she saw the sharp, scythe-like claw splitting air as it fell towards her. She started to dodge, but Angel could tell that she wasn't going to be fast enough.

Angel lunged forward with a last, adrenaline-powered burst of energy. He didn't make it. Without even so much as a whimper, Cordelia fell like a limp doll, her throat slit from ear to ear.

"Cordelia!" he screamed hoarsely as he hit the cold floor with a thud, not even rolling to absorb the shock.

He groaned, trying desperately to fight the sweet urge to stay on the ground and let the darkness take him. Her dead, lifeless eyes stared back at him, and he couldn't move. Couldn't see anything except those dead eyes as little black dots began to carpet his vision and the dim light that there was began to fade away.

"Angel, help me!" Wesley cried as the last remaining demon set itself up for another killing blow.

Its claw raised high into the air.

Angel tried to get up. He really did.

But it was no use.

Wesley went down, the same as Cordelia.

Luckily, the blackness claimed him before grief, or the Baynor, ever could.

---

Cordelia watched Angel's peaceful features. He had told her not to let him fall asleep, and it had nearly shattered her to hear him say those words, but when she had disappeared with Gunn, that momentary lapse in conversation was apparently all he needed to fall asleep. He didn't appear to be having a nightmare, so she opted to let him sleep.

Angelus.

Somehow, she swore she should have known. What else would Angel be frightened of? Certainly not the dark, nor the beasties he fought on a regular basis. Angel's only true fear seemed to be that he himself would hurt them, or someone else.

Which demonstrated just how destroyed he'd been when he had tried to lose his soul.

She really wanted to tell him that his soul was permanent. And she would have, had he been awake when she had returned. Screw what Wesley would say about waiting for the 'proper time and the proper place'. 'Full recovery' blah, blah, blah. Angel deserved to know.

He deserved to know that he could be happy now. That he could go be with Buffy now, if he wanted to -- although she still couldn't understand why he would...

A twitch.

Cordelia stared at him, noticing that his eyes were beginning to roam about under the lids. That was normal though, right? She'd read about rapid eye movement in sleep somewhere before.

His entire body jerked as a spasm ran through him and was followed by a long set of aftershocks, like his heart was the epicenter for a Richter 10 earthquake.

That wasn't normal.

"Angel," she whispered, pushing on his shoulders. Hopefully, she would be able to wake him up before it got really bad.

He didn't respond, save for a moan.

She shook him again. "Angel, wake up."

And that was when he started to scream. And scream. And scream. A long, keening whine. His hand flew out and knocked her aside, just as Gunn came rushing into the room.

She rubbed her cheek where she was certain a very flowery bruise was going to develop. "Gunn, help me!"

Gunn dashed forward and placed his arms over Angel's. "Angel, you gotta wake up, man," he said, shaking Angel wildly as he did so. "Angel!"

Angel continued to writhe in Gunn's grip. Wailing in such unadulterated terror that it made even Gunn wince. "No, nonononono! CordEEEEEELIA!"

His head went back and forth, side to side like a windshield wiper. "No. NO.nonono."

Cordelia actually resorted to slapping his face. "WAKE UP, ANGEL!" she screamed loudly in his ears, just as Wesley and Kate came running through the door. She tried not to let the tremors begin to visibly shake her as she stared at Angel. She'd never seen this before. She'd never seen someone so completely enveloped in their own night terrors. And she'd certainly never seen Angel like this.

Gunn's biceps bulged and quivered -- Angel's preternatural strength giving him the one-up on his co-worker, even in his weakened state. "Wake up, Angel," Gunn said, over and over again, obviously hoping that at least one of them would sink in.

"What happened?!" Kate was yelling, trying to be heard over Angel's banshee-like screaming, as Wesley, despite the very concerned look on his face, slipped into Angel's office and disappeared behind the door.

Cordelia was almost beginning to sob as she yanked on Angel's mussed hair, slapped at his face, trying anything and everything to get the vampire conscious. "I shouldn't have let him fall asleep... I told him I wouldn't let him fall asleep. I shouldn't have... DAMN IT. ANGEL, WAKE THE HELL UP!!!"

She pounded on his chest as he had such a violent spasm that it threw Gunn off of him.

And then the screaming stopped. She looked into cold, sightless eyes as Angel struggled himself into a sitting position and began to tremble. "Angel?" she asked, but she didn't even have a chance to see if he'd heard her as a splitting pain surged through her skull and sent her into the throes of a bone-crushing vision.

((Cold.

A Scream.

Death.

A Scream.

Lion. Sword. Three.

A Scream.

Flash.

A Scream.

"You are the third." A deep voice. Echoed. Dark. Evil.

"Ishtarethsraugh," it hissed.))

And then she was back in the Hyperion. Gunn was supporting her from collapsing and Kate had her arms wrapped around a whimpering, distraught Angel. Nausea swept through her system, feeling for all the world like her brain wanted to melt out through her skull. "Ghhraaa," she groaned as she leaned back into Gunn and struggled to stand. "I can't take this many visions so close together!"

With wobbly progress, she made her way over to Angel, who was staring ahead blankly. He looked like he was in shock. "Angel?"

Kate looked at Cordelia from behind him with a frown. "Angel, it's Kate. And Cordelia. Can you hear us?" Kate prodded, giving Angel a light shake.

"I... ohhh," he groaned, his hands flying to his mouth. Cordelia saw the telltale ripple of abdominal muscles and then there was red blood oozing through the cracks between his fingers. He squeezed his eyes shut curled up as his stomach continued to rebel.

Cordelia grabbed the paper towels that were still sitting on the table and handed one to Angel. He clutched it to his mouth and continued to heave. "I'm sorry, Angel. I should have woken you up before this started..."

"It's... it's ok," he sighed as his stomach finally calmed down, and came more to grips with reality. His blind look of panic was replaced by that dull, tired stare that he had had since he had woken up for the first time. And, if at all possible, he looked even more gaunt than he had just a few seconds ago when he had been writhing in Gunn's arms.

Cordelia gave him a pained look. She wanted to ask him if he'd like to go lie down in his room where he could relax, but she knew he would shoot her suggestion down. She had the distinct feeling that he was staying down here so that he would be kept awake -- not that it was working.

"What did you see?" he asked as he shifted out of Kate's grip and into a more comfortable position, looking noticeably strained by the effort of moving.

"The same deal again. Lion. Sword. Except this time, it was, big surprise, a number three. Who'd have thunk?" she sighed.

"Any clues this time?" Gunn asked, looking between her and Angel with suspicion, and she couldn't help but wonder at it. She could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

"As usual. Nope."

Angel's arms curled around his stomach. "Would you tell Wesley that I'd like to speak with him when you get the chance?" Angel's entire body looked as though it was atrophying before her eyes -- like someone had pulled the plug on a balloon and was slowly letting all the air out. His eyelids slid shut, and a pale sheen of sweat made a thin layer over his pallid skin -- he looked like he didn't even have the strength to lift his own head.

"Sure, Angel," she replied, giving him a funny look. Why the heck was Wesley so important all of the sudden? "I'll tell him right now. You just hang in there, ok? We'll figure out what's wrong..."

"Worry about the visions, Cordelia. Those are more important than me," he whispered, but was cut off by a groan.

Reluctantly, Cordelia went into Angel's office, the place that Wesley had disappeared into. "I had another vision, Wesley. You are the third. Same symbol, different number," she mumbled as she shoved through the door and closed it behind her.

Wesley, however, didn't appear to be listening. He had that scroll that had prophesized Angel's Shanshu rolled out and he was examining it with such an intense gaze that she thought the poor scroll would ignite at any moment. "Wesley?"

"Cordelia, look at this," he said, pointing to a particular section of the scroll.

She moved over to the desk and looked. There, in the shape of a heptagon, were the symbols. The top started with the one, and progressed around to seven. "You mean I'm going to have to get four more of these goddamn visions that tell us nothing?"

"Cordelia, don't you see?" Wesley exclaimed excitedly. "This is related to Angel's Shanshu! It's on the list of things he'll have to endure in order for the transformation to take place!"

"At this rate, he won't even make it to tomorrow! We have to figure out what's wrong with him. That was the worst I've ever seen, he wouldn't wake up Wesley... He just kept screaming..." she trailed off, her voice haunted. She didn't think she'd ever forget the sight of Angel and that terrified wailing.

CordEEEEEELIA!

Her name. She had heard it said with annoyance, love, friendship, boredom, lust -- a whole catalogue of emotions. But never like that. And she hoped that she never had to hear it like that again.

"People are dying!" Wesley began, his eyes fiery and determined. "Angel may look quite the worse for wear, but I assure you, vampires don't die from nightmares, nor from starvation..."

"Are you sure, Wesley? Are you really sure? Have you even looked at him, really looked at him lately? He looks so frail that he'll just blow away if there's any kind of draft..." She tried to bite back the tears that were threatening. CordEEEEEELIA!

Wesley sighed arrogantly, looking down his nose at her. She wanted to scream. She hated it when he pulled this 'I'm smarter than you because I'm an ex-watcher' crap. "When a vampire is hungry," Wesley explained, "the demon will start feeding off of itself if it doesn't receive sustenance, resulting in the atrophy you're seeing. It won't kill him."

Somehow, that explanation didn't make her feel any better about the situation. CordEEEEEELIA! Cordelia ground her teeth together, resisting the urge to reach out and choke the man. "He's in pain, Wesley."

"As much as I hate to see him suffer, we have a much wider time limit on his problems than we do on this one, Cordelia. We only have four more sacrifices to figure out what the Hell is going on, if this diagram is any indication. At least I have a ritual to look up now. It's labeled as The Ritual of Restoration. We're going to research this, and that's final. Remember who's in charge now..." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"You're behaving like you were at graduation..." she growled.

He looked as though she had physically struck him, but he recovered. "Don't you dare insinuate that I don't care about him! He means more to me than you will ever know. Especially now. But I know which battles to fight and right now Angel's psyche isn't one that we can afford to engage in. We have to save the remaining four people. Please, Cordelia." The look in his eyes was a desperate one.

She didn't care. She upped the status of her glare from 'You stupid British guy' to, 'DIE, WESLEY. DIE!' "Angel, the one who you're selling out, would like to talk to you," she growled.

Wesley frowned and his posture noticeably slumped. "Cordelia..."

"Just go, Wesley. I'll look for your stupid Restoration thingy..." she replied coldly.

He stared at her for a moment, nodded, and left.

---

Gunn watched as Angel visibly faded before him. The vampire was staring dully at the ceiling, his eyelids drooped, arms clasped loosely around his stomach. If it wasn't for the fact that when they jolted him awake every five minutes or so and he grunted a thanks, Gunn would have thought him a real corpse.

Wesley exited Angel's office looking thrashed -- like he'd just come out of a fight to the death that had ended in a draw. Kate and he had heard the harsh, heated tones of Wesley and Cordelia yelling at each other -- what about was still a mystery, but knowing Cordelia, it hadn't been a fun argument. She could get downright pissy.

"Angel?" Wesley whispered as he sat down on the table beside the couch. "You wanted to speak with me."

Angel's eyes opened a fraction. "You need to get the tranquilizers, Wesley..."

Gunn looked between the vampire and the ex-watcher as Wesley looked at the vampire in horror. "Angel, I hardly think that's necessary right now... You can't even stand."

"Don't wanna risk it... I'm getting too hungry..." Angel mumbled, his eyes falling shut again.

Wesley stared at Angel -- there was definitely some subtext going on. Gunn could easily remember the first time he discovered that Angel could go evil -- a threat Cordelia and Wesley had considered so real that they had actually resorted to carrying a tranquilizer gun around with them. He wondered how often those reversals to evil had occurred before... Of course, there was now, when there really wasn't an evil threat. But Gunn, of all people, understood the animal beneath the human face. As human as Angel looked, Gunn knew that he still had one of those monsters inside him, even if it was bound by a permanent soul. And that monster, that demon housed in Angel's body, would go to any length to satisfy its needs, regardless of Angel's feelings on the matter.

Just like any animal would.

"I hate to say it, English, but the dude's still pretty strong," Gunn added, feeling the ache creep up in his biceps from where Angel had grabbed him in his delirium. Gunn was the strongest member of the group next to Angel, and if he could barely hold Angel down, that posed a very large problem for them.

You couldn't keep a wolf unrestrained, even if it seemed tame on the outside...

Wesley stared at the vampire for a moment and finally gave in. "All right. I'll get the tranquilizers. Before I do, though, I wanted to... Are you... What do you think we should do?"

Angels lips turned up a bit -- almost a smile. "Wesley, don't let Cordelia sway you. Figure out the visions first..." Angel groaned and clutched his stomach harder. "I understand her sentiment, but it's misplaced..."

Wesley nodded, looking grateful for Angel's intervention. Gunn leaned back in his seat. So, that was what Cordelia had been snapping at the poor guy about. He sighed. He could see both sides of the argument, but as much as he admired Angel and wanted to see him well again, he had to agree with Wesley. The Powers were telling them loud and clear that they wanted the visions solved, not Angel's deal.

"These visions, Angel," Wesley went on, "They're related to your Shanshu..."

A wheezy thing that could've been a laugh escaped Angel's lips. "Good to know I'm making progress," he whispered, his face a picture of exhaustion.

For a few moments, Wesley stood there in silence before he walked off and disappeared upstairs. Angel kept a sizable store of weaponry and tranqs up there in a room he'd converted to 'office storage'.

Gunn looked down to the vampire. "You doin' ok, man?" he asked.

Angel really didn't look all that hot. His ribs had become visible, and his features had grown bony in the space of a day. "Not really," Angel answered.

"You just hang in there," Gunn found himself saying as he gave the vampire a friendly, very light, slap. "We'll fix this up good. It sounds like Wesley's got a new lead -- everything will be fine soon."

Angel didn't respond, and Gunn actually found himself worrying. Really worrying. He didn't understand how he'd gone from not even trusting him a week before, to showing open concern for the vampire, but he wasn't going to argue with it.

Wesley reappeared with a small needle, filled with a very small amount of liquid. "You shouldn't... you won't dream with this... At least..." he commented as he sat down and brought the vampire's limp arm away from his stomach and across his own lap.

Angel offered no resistance as Wesley stuck the needle in and emptied the contents into the vein, not even a wince. "Thank you..." he whispered as every muscle in his body visibly went lax, eyes drooping shut. The arm lying across Wesley's lap slipped down and hung over the edge of the couch like a discarded toy.

"As much as I'd love to take him up to his own bed, it would be better if he remained down here where we can keep a close eye on him," Wesley explained as he stood.

"Now, we have some research to do."

Kate let loose a wry smile. "Who would ever have guessed?"

"I need everyone looking for references to The Ritual of Restoration. Go through every volume if you have to. We have four more bodies to go unless we find a way to put a stop to this now..."

And so the research session to end all research sessions began. Gunn couldn't remember the last time he had read so much -- half of which he didn't really understand. Most of it was demon stuff, of which, he got the 'how to kill' portion of the entries, and the other large portion was all related to magical rituals he had no hope of comprehending.

He just kept looking. Ritual of Restoration. Anywhere.

Flip. Flip. Flip.

Page after page of endless text. Naturally, indexes were out of the question when whoever wrote the book had decided to write it. Which meant, for the hapless researcher named Gunn, that every page had to be scoured.

He glanced over at Angel's office. The light was on inside -- its glow almost giving the window shades their own luminescence, and Cordelia hadn't emerged since her shouting match with Wesley. Angel was still and silent on the couch, not moving a muscle. On top of Angel's own mounting exhaustion, whatever drug Wesley had given him had knocked him out damn good. He looked almost like he had right after the ritual, when all he did was lie there looking beaten and dead -- in the literal sense of dead.

"Hey, Wes, come look at this," Kate mentioned from her perch on her chair as she motioned him over with her hand.

No answer. Gunn looked over to where Wesley was sitting. He was collapsed on a stack of open books, glasses crooked, letting out heavy puffs of breath with each minute movement of his chest. Gunn wouldn't have been surprised if a little trickle of drool started making its way out of the corner of his mouth.

"I think this is the first he's slept in over twenty-four hours..." Kate whispered. "We should let him rest."

Gunn nodded and stood, walking over to where she was sitting. "What'd you find, Police?" he asked her. She frowned at his recently developed nickname for her, but she pointed to the page she had opened to.

The Ritual of Restoration.

The thing went into some big long explanation about the steps of the ritual, seven summons -- entreaties to the Goddess Ishtar, whoever the Hell that was.

The door behind them clicked open, revealing a haggard Cordelia, her hair limp, her face pale. She looked... haunted. Wincing as she stepped over towards them, only sparing a minute glance to Wesley, she caught Angel in her sights and her eyes narrowed. "Why did you let him fall asleep?" she asked.

Gunn placed a hand on her shoulder, surprised to find that her muscles were trembling with strain underneath that well- tanned skin of hers. "He's not asleep, Wesley gave him some tranquilizers," he explained. He was quick to add, "Angel asked for them."

Cordelia shrugged listlessly. "I found some stuff on the Ritual of Restoration... It's some sort of prayer for an avatar, apparently."

She walked over to Wesley and shook him hard, no regards for his need for sleep. "Wesley!"

Wesley nearly fell out of his chair. As it were, he sent an array of books flying off the table as he started awake, looking like a fish out of water as he struggled for equilibrium. "Ghhh!" he gurgled as he righted his glasses.

And then he went still, pulling the index card that had stuck to his cheek off of his skin. His ears turned a slight shade of rose before he muttered, "Right, well, The Ritual of Restoration... It's a ritual. About restoration."

"Wesley," Kate soothed, "We found it." She handed him the text.

He spent a few minutes reading the text, and with each passing moment, he grew more and more agitated. "Right, right, of course! The Ritual of Restoration! Someone is trying to invoke it to get a new body..."

Kate was the first to interrupt his communion with the text. "Explain?" she prodded.

Wesley shifted, looking a bit ruffled. "Yes, well, it's a sacrificial ritual meant to call upon the powers of Ishtar."

Gunn raised an eyebrow. "Ishtar?"

"The ancient Babylonian goddess of life and war," Wesley explained. "It says here that seven lives must be traded for the conjuration of one."

"Oh my God," Cordelia exclaimed, slamming her fist on the table with such wicked force that the whole thing threatened to collapse. "Ishtar! Damn, I can't believe I missed that..."

"Cordelia?"

"The evil dude -- he said something that started with Ishtar. I thought it was just a hiss... It didn't sound like English."

Wesley looked rather annoyed. "You still could have mentioned it..."

Cordelia shot him a hateful glare. "Why don't you have the visions from now on, hmmm? Excuse me if I'm not a grade-A interpreter."

"Guys. Chill! We have more important things to worry about right now," Gunn tried to mediate. "Like, say, who the heck would want a new body bad enough to sacrifice seven other people?"

"Someone horribly disfigured?" Kate suggested.

"They would have to be a mage of some sort..."

"Yeah, and how many crippled mages do we know?" Cordelia threw up her hands in frustration and growled. "You would think that once. JUST ONCE. We would have a nice day. You know those things? The ones where there are no visions, healthy Angels, sunny skies, and NO SMOG."

She started to pace.

"Cordelia, perhaps you should lie down," Wesley suggested, his voice barely loud enough to hear. The look on his face suggested that he expected to get attacked. Knowing Cordelia's state of mind, that feeling was well justified.

Strangely, she seemed to ignore his comment -- starting to tremble like shifting faults were sending tremors through her limbs. "My head hurts."

"All the more reason for you to take a break," Wesley plunged onwards, taking Cordelia's lack of rebuttal as an open invitation.

"No. No. My head REALLY hurts!" she screeched and pitched forward, her hands clutching at her temples.

Wesley and Kate caught her, both simultaneously crying "Vision!"

Gunn paused. Cocked his head to the side. Something...

A whimper.

From over by where Angel was sacked out.

He turned back to Kate and Wesley. They were so wrapped up in Cordelia, that they hadn't heard it. Gunn walked over to the couch. The vampire was twitching a bit, eyes moving about under the lids, whining softly, certainly not in the throes of terror that he had been for his nightmare.

But for a tranquilized vampire... That was some mean trick.

And then Angel relaxed. Still. As if nothing had happened.

"Wesley? How long was that tranquilizer you gave Angel supposed to last?" he called over, not once taking his eyes from the 'sleeping' vampire.

Cordelia had collapsed the floor, sobbing and shaking. Kate was hugging her trying to calm her down as Cordelia chanted, "I can't do this. I can't..." Wesley had dropped to his haunches beside her.

Wesley looked up, his face strained. "Twelve hours. Gunn, could you please retrieve some of Cordelia's pain medication?"

Odd, then, how it had been closer to six hours and Angel had been twitching like there was a maniacal elf sticking pins in his skin.

There was something weird about this whole situation. Something... The feeling had struck him when Cordelia had had her third vision. There was something too coincidental about this whole thing.

"Is Angel supposed to be twitching or anything?" he called.

"No," Wesley answered, suspicion dripping from his voice. "Why?"

"Well, he was." His eyes narrowed. He looked back and forth between Angel and Cordelia. There was some connection here that he was missing.

Wesley sighed. "We can worry about that in a moment. Gunn, the aspirin?"

Gunn shifted on the balls of his feet and shook his head, about to go for Cordelia's stash, when a movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned and saw Angel twitch again. A moan. And then Angel was jerking about again as he had been before, spasmodically. Nothing serious, almost like a person dreaming something rather intense would look. Not a nightmare. Definitely not a nightmare. But...

"He's jerking again."

Wesley looked rather perturbed. "Fine," he muttered, not seeing the significance of what Gunn was saying. "I'll get the damn pills myself."

"English, wait..."

Cordelia screamed out in pain, wailing like a banshee. Wesley turned to look at her as she collapsed into Kate's arms, writhing from the assault of imagery. Another vision. "Damn it," Wesley said, shaking his head. He looked torn between helping Cordelia through the pain, going to get her Aspirin, and suffering a complete nervous breakdown.

But Gunn was more focused on Angel. The connection he had been looking for finally registered, making the situation even more dire than before. "Angel. Wake up," he said, approaching the vampire.

"You can't wake him up, Gunn," Wesley explained slowly, looking several shades of annoyed. "Are you daft? He's drugged..."

Gunn shook his head. "English, we gotta wake him up!"

"Whatever for?"

"Because whenever this lunk is unconscious, Cordelia has a vision!"

Wesley froze, and the light bulb almost visibly flashed before his eyes. His eyes narrowed for a moment, and then after several nanoseconds of thought, they widened in horror. "Oh, my lord. You're right!"

"Antidote, Wesley... These visions are coming in real quick succession now that you've knocked him out..."

The next few minutes were chaos. Gunn and Kate, muscles shaking from the strain, dragged Angel up the stairs, who was very, VERY heavy, despite his atrophied appearance. Panting as little black dots speckled his vision, Gunn felt like he was trying to drag a twenty-foot tree trunk uphill. Kate was huffing with the effort as well as they practically threw the deadweight vampire into the shower, turning the water as cold as it would go, while Wesley went in a frantic search for some stimulants.

Screaming ratcheted up the stairs. Another vision.

Kate ran back downstairs to help Cordelia while Gunn hopped in the shower along with Angel and brought the extendable shower-head down, drenching the unconscious vampire with freezing water. The water soaked his own clothes like billions of tiny ice needles, and he fought the numbness it brought to his own muscles. Angel began to choke and sputter as Wesley dashed in with another hypodermic needle, completely ignoring the fact that by the time he'd located a vein, he too was sopping with freezing water.

Wesley jabbed the needle in Angel's arm on the inner bend of his elbow, slapping at his face. The clear cylinder that housed the stimulant had considerably more in it than the tranquilizer dose had, but Gunn didn't complain. It wasn't like Angel could overdose, and he needed to wake up. NOW. "Angel! You have to wake up now! WAKE UP!"

Angel's eyes slid open. "Wesley?" he asked weakly, making no attempt to dodge the cold spray. His head lolled to the side, no conscious neck support there to help it stay upright.

"You must stay awake, Angel," Wesley commanded as he shook Angel roughly. "Stay with me!"

"Tired..."

"Someone will die if you fall asleep. Do you hear me, Angel? ANGEL?!"

Angel's eyes were open, but he was fading fast.

Wesley pulled another needle out of his pocket, ripping the cap off with his teeth. He stuck it in the same spot where the last one had gone. And the shaking resumed, jarring Angel this way and that as the water spray continued to rain down on them. Gunn made sure to aim it at the face, where it was likely to be most shocking.

"Damn it, Angel!" Wesley shouted.

Angel appeared to be on the verge of nodding off -- no amount of prodding seemed to be helping.

"Let me try," Gunn said. Wesley barely hopped out of the way in time as Gunn handed him the shower head and hauled Angel to his feet. "Angel, I'm sorry, man..." He didn't know if this would work on a vampire -- he'd never tried it on one, but... It was worth a shot.

Without another word, he brought his knee up into Angel's groin.

Hard.

Angel's woozy eyes widened and he let out a terrible, high- pitched whine, flailing as he moved his hands to cover himself from further attack. Air wheezed out of his lungs like a dying accordion. Choking, Angel sank back under the freezing flow of the water. "OUCH!" he screamed, his voice cracking as his face contorted in agony.

Gunn took the shower head back from Wesley. "You go figure out how to fix this. I'll keep him awake."

Wesley just cringed. "You don't... You don't need to do that again unless it's an emergency," he said, swallowing as he backed out of the bathroom, sopping wet and looking queasy.

"It woke him up, didn't it?" Gunn cried.

"Yes, but... Ah, I'd best go see what would be causing this..." He fled, not really finishing his thought.

Gunn looked down at Angel, who was still convulsing a bit. "Do we need to stay here in the freezing water, or are you awake now?" he asked, being sure to drench the quaking, crumpled form even more.

"I'm... awake," the vampire moaned, still in obvious pain.

Gunn tried not to wince, tried not to be sympathetic. He had done what needed to be done. But...

"Man, I'm really sorry about that..."

Angel stumbled to his feet, drenched and cold and looking like a drowned rat. A wave of dizziness crossed his face and Gunn reached out to grab him before he slipped and did more damage to himself, like, say, cracking his head open on the black floor tiles. Angel shook his head, groaning as Gunn helped him into his room.

Gunn noticed that underneath his firm grip, Angel had started to shake. "You a'ight?"

"I think that whatever Wesley gave me is starting to work. Quite well," Angel mumbled, releasing himself from Gunn's support. Angel demonstrated that he was able to walk on his own, actually looking pretty spry for someone who hadn't eaten in a week as he changed into a dry pair of boxers and a clean set of sweatpants and shirt. He blinked as he pulled a black T-shirt over his head, his eyes opening wide.

"Coming down off of this buzz will not be pleasant..." he mentioned. Angel looked like he was about ready to spring out of his own feet.

Gunn whistled, looking Angel from head to toe, who was already sweating with the stimulants racing through his system. "I'll say."

"How much did he give me?" Angel asked as he ran a shaky hand through his mussed, dripping hair.

"Probably enough to kill a small dinosaur... We needed to get you up. Fast. At least you don't have to worry about having a heart attack..."

"There's always that," Angel laughed, hard, stopped, and proceeded to shake some more. His muscles looked like they were playing tag underneath his skin. Man, he was doped up. Emphasis on up. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I think you should bounce that one off of English. All I know is that when you're off in the land of nod, people are dying." Gunn shrugged. "You don't, by any chance, remember summoning Ishtar to kill people for a new body while you were asleep, do you?"

Angel shook his head. He raised his hands before him and stared at them as they shook, a low, guttural growl rattling through his throat like wood over a cheese grater. With a shake of his head, the growl stopped an he started to pace.

Gunn's eyes tracked Angel back and forth, and he marveled at how similar Angel seemed to a panther. "Um..."

"Sorry. I'm just a little. Little. Little. Hungry."

Gunn was beginning to wonder if maybe stimulants had been a bad idea, feeling a chill slide down his spine at the harsh sound that had emanated from Angel's throat. He had already heard the doximall story. He knew Wesley wouldn't be dumb enough to give Angel something that even had the slightest of chances of drawing the same reaction out of him. But there still was the issue of Angel being so starving that the demon inside him had started chowing down on his own internal plumbing. Angel was a predator. A hunting machine. And they had just given him enough amphetamines to turn a small truck into an Indi-500 winner.

"You know, Angel, maybe you should wait up here while we work downstairs..."

Angel took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "That might. Might. Be good."

Wesley reappeared through the door, carrying something in his white-knuckled, clenched fists. "Angel, this might sting..." he warned.

"Wh. What?"

Angel barely had time to turn towards the ex-watcher before Wesley flicked his wrist at the unsuspecting vampire and released a shower of red dust all over him. Unable to resist the gag reflex, Angel started to choke, and his eyes tore up as Wesley began to chant Latin-y sounding words.

The climax of the speech, however, was in English. "If there be a trespasser in this flesh, let it be seen by mortal eye!" Angel's skin began to glow as he covered his mouth and continued to cough, dust falling off his hair and skin and spiraling to the ground in a little crimson snow- fall of flakes.

"English?" Gunn prodded, pointing to Angel's luminescent skin.

"That, Gunn... Is a very bad thing."

---

"Does ANYONE care to explain what the HELL is going on?" Cordelia screamed, venom dripping from her voice. Her face was pale as wax-paper, her eyes a window to the agony she was experiencing. After three visions in quick succession, she was wasted, looking as though she was suffering jetlag to the twenty-fourth degree. Wesley had told her to go home and sleep -- that he, Gunn, and Kate would be able to take care of the situation, but as usual, she hadn't listened.

Sometimes she was too stubborn for her own good.

"I think I'd like to second that request," Kate stated, her voice even, but she looked a bit disturbed at the sight of Angel. The glow had subsided a few seconds after Wesley had finished the chant, but he was still racing from the drugs.

Angel sat there fidgeting, sweat forming a thick, glistening sheen across his face and arms, and pretty much all of his exposed skin, damp discoloration on his clothes. Whether he intended to or not, he was straining hard against the chains that bound him to the chair. Angel had, somewhat nonsensically, insisted upon them, and upon seeing how close his hunger was to becoming out of control, Wesley had been inclined to agree with him.

Gunn raised his hand. "Third that!"

"Angel has... some sort of... parasitic presence... in him."

"And you thought this would be solved by giving him... What did you give him?" Cordelia asked through gritted teeth.

Wesley looked down at the floor. "D-desoxyephedrine."

Cordelia and Gunn looked confused, but Kate figured it out right away. He sighed. Inevitable, that the one time he used this stuff was right after an ex-cop joined the team. Kate shot up from her speed. "You gave him Speed?! You... I don't even want to know how you got that..."

"I got it in conjunction with the tranquilizers we use for... things. It counters the effects of heavy sedatives -- which happens to be very good considering Angel was out cold..." Kate was still staring. "What, you thought I used it? Goodness no, I don't even condone drinking to excess..."

Kate seemed to calm down a bit. "Isn't that supposed to be an appetite suppressant, though?"

Wesley glanced at Angel, who seemed to be more focused on trying to sit still than listening to the conversation. "I would hardly compare a starving vampire to a human in need of losing weight..."

Cordelia made a funny "pfft!" noise. "Yeah, and I doubt overweight people would try and eat you if they got too hungry..."

Angel winced. "Guys. Can we deal. Deal with the possibility that I'm possessed, please?" he said with some effort. Each word was carefully measured, as if he were afraid that if he let his brain get ahead of his mouth, he'd be off in orbit. Which, knowing the dose he'd given him, Wesley couldn't be positive that Angel's fears were unfounded.

"Yes, quite," Wesley said. Everyone switched gears.

"Can we skip the who, what, where, and why, and move to the how?" Kate asked.

Angel inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring, drugs roaring through his system.

"I can't be certain," Wesley began, trying to ignore Angel's frenetic twitching, "But it's quite possible that when Angel came back from the ether, he managed to bring something else back with him by accident. Perhaps this was the demon- dimension's reaction to having the ether ripped open. Angel wasn't, and still doesn't seem to be, aware of this ... thing's ... presence at all, so it certainly doesn't have dominance."

"So what you're saying," Gunn said, "Is that this is the ethereal equivalent to tracking dirt in on the floor because you forgot to wipe your shoes before you came in?"

"Put rather mundanely, yes..."

"Well," Cordelia began, "Whatever or whoever this thing is, it obviously wants out -- hence the whole avatar summonage."

"Yes. I'd imagine that if it was powerful enough to usurp Angel's demon or soul, or both, that it would have done so. It's not strong enough to battle with Angelus, so it's laying low until Angel is asleep, or unconscious, where it's utilizing enough of Angel's energy to perform the next sacrifice. As it stands now, I believe Angel's health problems stem from the fact that his body is rejecting whatever he brought back with him from the ether. His increased tiredness is most likely a result of the--"

"Soul suckage?" Cordelia interrupted.

"Ah... Yes. Soul suckage. The nightmares are a way for this thing to camouflage itself. We didn't notice anything until the nightmares were absent, but the seeming physical effects of the nightmares were still present. Which brings us to an interesting dilemma. We are unable to take the easy route and let the thing perform the last sacrifice, but we also can't keep Angel awake indefinitely."

"Can't we just..." Cordelia began, "do that exorcism thing we did with the Ethros demon last year?"

"Well, first of all, we don't even know if this is a demon. As I said, it could be a reaction from the demon dimension. It could also be a lost soul that just got sucked back along with Angel."

Gunn smiled wryly. "I find it hard to believe that a lowly lost soul would be doing this."

Angel twitched.

"So maybe Angel brought an ancient mage back with him... It's not as though souls are really differentiable in their ethereal form. Either way, we can't do an exorcism on Angel."

"Why not?" Kate asked, eyebrow raised.

"Angelus, as much as he has been a problem in the past, is what's keeping Angel's body alive, per se. If we remove the demon without taking magical precautionary steps, we would have a two-hundred-forty-seven year old corpse to deal with that would probably start decaying the second the demon was removed. Exorcisms don't discriminate. They eradicate anything that's unholy, if they're successful, that is."

Cordelia looked rather stricken at that. "Oh."

Wesley started to pace, trying very hard not to pay attention to Angel, who's eyes were tracking him like a caged animal. "We have to come up with some way to get this thing out of him. There has to be some way to convince it to come out while Angel's awake. Some way to give Angelus a crack at it."

"What makes you think Angelus will even try to kill it?"

"Demons are very possessive of the bodies they inhabit. I don't believe any of you realize what a feat it was to get Angel's soul and Angelus to co-inhabit as they are now. The original Curse must have taken exorbitant amounts of energy... If we can just get Angelus to realize that there's something else in there with him, he'll attempt to oust it."

"I think. I think that. Letting Angelus out at this point in time would be a particularly. Bad thing," Angel panted. "He was a little. Unstable. WithOUT the drugs." He shook his head and little droplets of sweat went flying off in all directions.

"I'm not saying to let him out," Wesley assured him. "It would be similar to that time with Eyghon.""That still leaves the issue of getting whatever it is that's taken up residence to come out and play while Angel's awake," Kate postulated.

Wesley tapped his forehead with his index finger. "Yes. Yes. I'm thinking."

"Hypnosis?"

"The problem with that is I could use it to bring out one particular personality, but the other two would have to be subjugated -- I'm sure it's possible to bring out two at once, but it's not an area that I've been trained in."

He paced, practically running a trough through the floor. All the while, Angel's eyes traced his movements. He couldn't take it any more. "Angel, could you... perhaps... trace Cordelia with your predatory stare, please? Since she's not moving, I'm sure it would be easier on your eyes."

Angel's eyes widened for a moment, his head snapping back like a startled bird before he shifted his gaze to the floor. His nostrils flared delicately as a tremor ran through the length of his body. "S. Sorry."

Wesley shook his head. "Quite all right." He made a mental note to never, ever give Angel stimulants again unless absolutely necessary. Or drugs. Of any kind.

"A spell?"

"I'm not like Willow, I can't do a whole lotOH! That's it!" he snapped his fingers. He looked around amongst the endless piles of books, some spread out like fans, others stacked high like towers. There. A small green book with broken binding, yellowed, aging pages, sitting right next to Kate.

He grabbed it from its stack, avoiding a book avalanche only because Kate caught the pile before it fell.

"The Watcher's Guide to Elementary Spell-Casting?" Gunn read the spine as Wesley searched frantically through the pages for one particular...

Yes. There it was.

"Angel, is the D-desoxyephedrine wearing off yet?"

Angel was still shaking, and he looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

"Apparently not." He glanced at his watch. Angel still had a while yet before he would come down off of that high.

Now, it was time to prepare.

---

"Are you all right, Angel?"

"Peachy," Angel groaned. He looked infinitely worse than he had before. The drugs, while they had kept him awake for a few hours, had taken their toll. He was shaky, weak, and even paler than before.

Cordelia placed her hand on his shoulder, wincing as she felt the tremors coursing along his flesh. "Just stay awake a little longer, Angel. I know you can do it," she said, glancing as Wesley made a circle around them with salt.

"I'm so tired..." he whispered.

"Hey, I'm standing after three visions in a row. I hear yah there. After this is over, you can sleep until next Tuesday. I promise not to complain this time..." She smiled down at him, trying very hard to keep her cheerful face in place even as he moaned and let his head loll to the side, cheek pressing flat on the floor.

She and Gunn had tried to feed him again, but they had only ended up with an even sicker Angel and a very sticky mess.

"Wesley, can we hurry this up?" she asked.

"No, Cordelia. We cannot afford to mess this up. It won't work twice..." he grumbled as he completed the salt circle.

She glanced back to Angel and saw that his eyes were closed. "Whoa! Bad, Angel!" She slapped at his cheeks. Keeping him awake was becoming a real chore. She would have actually told Wesley to give him some more of that stimulant, if it weren't for the fact that Wesley needed all the drugs out of Angel's system to do whatever it was that he was going to do.

He opened his eyelids to mere slits. "I was awake..."

Cordelia shook her head. "Riiiight. If you say so. Anyway, Wesley, you still haven't told us exactly what you're doing..."

"It involves a combination of disciplines, I'm not sure you'd want me prattling on at length about it."

"What?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows at him, knowing full well that he had intentionally dodged her question.

Wesley sighed. "Just trust me."

"So, what do me and Police have to do for this?" Gunn asked.

"Nothing, if this works."

Kate stood up and put her hands on her hips. "And if it doesn't?"

"Hopefully, that won't be an issue."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Angel, don't listen to them. It's all good..."

"I very much doubt that..." He smiled weakly.

"All right. I think I'm ready. Cordelia, get out of the circle now, and hand me that blue crystal from the bag as you go."

Cordelia let her eyes wander from Wesley back to Angel as she reluctantly stood up and grabbed the rock thing that Wesley seemed so fond of. "Here," she said, dropping the crystal none too gently in his hands.

"Angel," Wesley began, holding the blue crystal before the sleepy vampire's eyes, "I want you to look at the Grounding Crystal. Relax. Look for the flaw at its center."

Cordelia watched as Angel went from lucid to catatonic in less than the time it took for her to blink and make sure she was seeing things correctly.

"Angel?" Wesley waved his hands in front of Angel's dull, unseeing eyes.

No answer.

"You know, I would have killed for one of those things to deal with my younger sister when she was little..." Gunn joked.

"Good."

Wesley stood and took out his pouch of powdered devil's shoestring root, he had used in his identification spell.

Cordelia noticed it first. Starting with a small tick at the corner of his eye, a small spasm in the hand, Angel started to twitch and groan. Hypnosis, apparently, was close enough to sleep for whatever it was to become active. "Wesley," Cordelia protested, already dreading the vision and copious migrainage that was sure to come, "It's going to kill someone else!"

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," he replied calmly and raised both his hands up toward the ceiling. "Presence, I cast thee to the forefront! I cast thee into the light of the ethereal realm! Illuminate! Reveal thy presence and find thy home, find thy place. I cast thee into this body with permanence. I cast thee to bind. Bind. BIND."

Angel's body rippled, arching up along the floor as though a tremor was going through him. And then he started to laugh, a cackle bellowing up from his prominently ribbed abdomen and falling from his lips like an avalanche.

Cordelia froze. She knew that laugh. No one else here did. And no one else here was ever supposed to hear it. This... This wasn't supposed to happen. Angel had a permanent soul... "Wesley. What. Did. You. Do?" She didn't back away, despite the icy fingers of fear that were running down the curve of her spine.

"Certainly not that!" Wesley protested as he backpedaled a bit, right into a very confused Kate, who dominoed back into a very confused Gunn.

Angel sat up. "You didn't actually think I would do your dirty work for you? Why would I, when this is so much more fun?" He grinned as his vampire visage morphed into existence and revealed a healthy set of fangs. "Hey there, Cordy, long time no see..."

He gave her a cheerful wave.

She glanced to her side, realizing for the first time that she was separate from the group. She, Angel, and the amalgamated group of Wesley, Kate, and Gunn, all formed a neat little equilateral triangle. If she tried to make it over to them, Angel would surely pounce.

"Wesley, he can't leave this circle, right? Right, that's what you put it there for, right?" she asked, wide eyes never leaving Angel's. She felt like a bird trying to stare down a cobra.

"Actually, it was to center the spell..." Wesley mumbled grimly.

Angel's smile, if it were possible, actually seemed to grow -- a ghastly, toothy leer. "Now, see, this is so much more fair, what with me not being chained like last time," he growled and began to stalk forward. His foot smeared the line of salt and he made a show of moving across the now broken line.

Towards her.

"Wes, my friend, there's one thing I think you forgot to consider here in this situation..."

She refused to move. Refused to run. Running would only excite him... She closed her eyes as he circled her, his cold hands tilting her head to the side as he crushed her up against him.

"What's that?" Wesley asked. None of them was moving to help her. Which was probably a good thing. She didn't think she wanted her neck snapped like a twig, although... That would be slightly preferable to getting drained dry... Wouldn't it?

"I knew about the extra soul Soul Boy was carrying around since Vision One."

Cordelia felt her stomach almost drop into her knees as he blew a hot breath of air across the name of her neck. "Did I mention I'm really hungry?" he growled.

"Come on, you don't want to make yourself sick again, do you?" Cordelia asked, hoping to stall him just a little bit longer -- hoping to give Wesley and the gang some time to think of something. His left arm curled tighter around her waist.

"Somehow," Angel began, "I don't think I'll be sick to my stomach with Grade A Cordelia sliding down my throat..."

"Why didn't you kill it?" Wesley demanded. His voice sounded oddly calm.

She sucked in a breath as she felt him pause, opening her eyes into mere slits. That's right. Distract him, Wesley. Until you think of some way to fix this...

"Why would I? It's killing people, I'm getting my torture kicks, and Angel's miserable. I never thought I'd say this, but two souls are better than one... It's almost as good as doing mayhem myself!"

"You know," Angel started to laugh again, his entire body fluttering with giggles, "Sorry, it's just... I can't believe you thought that a binding spell would work..."

Wesley looked a bit ruffled. "It was supposed to try to bind--" he tried to explain, but Angel interrupted him.

"The extra soul to Angel's body so I'd be able to see it while the magic was doing its misfiring little mojo thing and kill it, yeah, I gathered. That brings us back to the whole me killing it issue, which, newsflash, won't happen..."

Cordelia felt Angel's mouth hovering millimeters from her flesh, breath clawing like hot snakes over her skin.

But he didn't move any further.

Just hovered.

Seconds ticked by. Wesley was actually smiling.

Wait.

Smiling?

"Newsflash," Wesley mocked, looking rather pleased with himself. "You have a permanent soul."

She felt Angel growl behind her in frustration. "And while Angel may have let you out for a little stroll... He's not drugged like last time. You're still on a leash."

Hearing that, she shoved out of Angel's now trembling hands. "You mean I could've just ran? He wasn't going to snap my neck? YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME!"

Angel leaned his head back and howled, roaring in frustration as lines of fury clawed out around his glittering amber eyes. She almost would have been scared. "Damn it!" he growled.

Cordelia turned and waved her wrist in front of his face. "Oooh. Look! A vein!" she teased, backing away with a singsong voice as Angel began to tremble, his eyes practically burning holes in her skin he was staring at her so hard.

"Cordelia..." Wesley began, the sigh that weighted his voice down made it obvious he was in one of his holier-than-thou, 'how can you be so immature' moods.

"What?" she asked innocently. "He deserves it..."

Angel growled and lunged at her, stopping just short of her. She couldn't help but jump back a little bit in surprise. "The second he cracks, you're lunch," he warned with a vicious snarl. "And he's hungry. He will crack."

A warm set of hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her back. "Let's not tease the starving vampire, please," Gunn cautioned her.

Cordelia glared at Angel. "So, if Angel let him loose," she said, gesturing to Angelus, "Where is Angel?"

Wesley just shrugged.

That seemed to be the question of the hour.

---

It was dark, and cold, the screams of endless arrays of victims caressing the air in a continuous wail. An old, weary man sat still on a rock, pondering the floor. His long, silver gray hair hung down from his head in silky spirals, shaking as he wept.

Confusion was the first thing that Angel decided he felt. He had come, prepared to fight to the death to kick this damn spirit out of his head, and here, he found this man who looked like he'd seen the harder side of a century.

There was a whine somewhere in the back of his mind -- his demon no doubt screaming in fury. He clamped down furiously on it, refusing to let it get the best of him. He was in control now. Ever since the Feast, he had been. Oh, the demon's urges were still there, they always would be, as they always had been, but now he had better purchase on them.

"Is he gone?" The voice was tired. Sad. Warbling and unsure, as if it hadn't been used in a while.

A hazy mist of exhaustion hung over his head, but he was able to ignore it for now, much more successfully than the growing need to feed.

Angel looked at him, confused as he pushed back his own feelings of fatigue. "Is who gone?"

"Him. The one that looks like you..." The feeble man hobbled to his feet, and Angel couldn't help but reach out to aid him. "Thank you, young man."

"I would hardly call myself young," Angel replied curiously as the man's meager wait left his supporting arm.

"In the grand scheme of things, you are an infant, but that is not important." The man looked up into Angel's eyes, his irises dull with depression and hopelessness.

Angel's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

The man bowed as best he could with his curved, decaying posture. "A humble mage of the Twelfth Order. I was the weakest."

His gnarled fingers took hold of Angel's shirt, clutching at it until the pale knuckles turned an even pastier white, and Angel half expected his joints to make a crinkling noise of some sort they appeared so aged. "Can I... Can I go home now?" the old man asked, lips cracking.

Angel frowned, ignoring the bite of the hunger in his stomach. "Excuse me?"

"I only wish to go home... He kept me here. I did not wish to stay..."

This, was certainly not what he had expected. Not at all. "You killed six people, and you expect me to just let you go?"

The man collapsed back onto the rock, shaking so hard that his silken robes started to flutter. A warn, age-spotted hand flew to his mouth. "I... He threatened to kill me if I did not cooperate."

"You're already dead!"

"I still exist, if only that..."

"But you were trying to summon a new body..."

"He did not know that -- he only knew that I was smiting innocents like he asked... Anything is better than here," the man whispered, gesturing around to the blackness that surrounded them. "All I can do is hear them screaming. Can you not hear them too?"

Angel closed his eyes and bowed his head, his muscles shaking slightly at the effort to remain standing. "Yes." He could hear them. Every day, he could hear them, clawing at the inside of his head, echoing in every moment of silence he was ever spared.

"I only wanted to go home... Why may I not go home?" The man was getting more and more distraught. "Why will you not let me leave?"

"You can leave... He can't hold you here anymore, now that I know," Angel replied uncertainly. He didn't really quite understand how all of this worked. How does one kick a soul out of a body? Give them a waiver?

"You tried to bind my essence to yours," he accused.

"Unless Wesley was on a very different page than me, that was only so we could locate you..."

"Ah," he grunted.

Blue eyes widened, twinkling with hope, as the man remembered what Angel had said. "So. You will... You will let me go? I may go home now?"

Angel knelt down before the mage. "Yes."

His old, thin lips crinkled upwards in a relieved smile. "Thank you."

"So, how do we do this. Do you just..." Angel splayed his fists, unable to come up with a good word. "Poof?"

The man nodded. "Yes. You are connected to home. He was not. With your permission, I am able to travel up your link."

"Um. Ok." He winced as a pang ran through him on frantic feet.

"The Twelfth Order is in your debt," the mage nodded his head a few millimeters towards Angel. "Ether, I bid thee, take this humble mage home!" he whispered, and faded away.

Angel sighed and collapsed, finally giving into the exhaustion and hunger tearing at him.

---

Cordelia leaped back as Angel went crashing to the floor. "Wasn't me!" she yelped. "I so wasn't teasing him this time!"

Wesley's head snapped up at the sound. Angel was now a shivering mass, groaning on the floor, and he wasn't making any move to get up. "Angel?" Wesley whispered, crouching over the fallen vampire.

Eyelids opened to half-moons. "Wes?"

"What happened?" Wesley prodded.

"An anticlimax of indescribable proportions," the vampire whispered, clutching his stomach as he curled up into a ball. "Please," he pleaded, "I need to eat."

"Gunn," Wesley ordered, "Get some blood out of the refrigerator. Angel, can you tell us what happened?"

Angel groaned and curled up tighter.

"Angel..." Wesley pressed a hand to Angel's quivering back.

He normally wouldn't have prodded when Angel was so obviously in pain, but, it was imperative to know whether that thing was gone, whatever it was. Angel needed to rest, but he couldn't, Wesley wouldn't dare let him, until their problem was solved. Angel, had he been in his right mind, would have surely agreed.

Cordelia practically dive-bombed the remaining unoccupied space next to Angel. "Why don't you leave him alone right now, all right?" she snapped.

Wesley sighed in frustration and leaned back.

Gunn appeared with a mug of blood. "Angel, here."

Angel tried to unfurl himself and sit up, but he was having trouble, wincing and almost doubling over his stomach again. Cordelia gripped underneath his shoulders. "Angel, help me out here," she grunted as she pulled him up.

Wesley leaned forward to help, and, after a bit of push and shove, they succeeded in getting Angel upright.

Gunn handed her the glass and she put it to his lips, tipping it back towards him. Within moments, he was downing it in gulps, his hands shooting upwards to grip the glass for himself.

"Angel, don't eat too fast," Cordelia cautioned, but Angel's eyes had already rolled back into his head as he frantically sought for the sustenance he had been without. He had a pasty white-knuckle grip on the glass.

The blood was gone all too soon. "More," Angel begged, practically shaking with need.

Brushing his forehead, Cordelia smiled. "I know you're hungry, but let's just make sure you're not going to spit it all back up, all right?"

Wesley couldn't help but smile at the sight of Angel in Cordelia's arms, realizing that not even two weeks before, Cordelia wouldn't have been caught within twenty feet of the ensouled vampire. Angel didn't look particularly annoyed at being in the position he was in either, whether it was because he was too tired and hungry to care, Wesley couldn't be sure, but even despite that, it was obvious that Angel had changed, since... Before. Quite a bit.

A little bustle of noise interrupted his thoughts as Kate collapsed to the floor next to him, sprawling outwards with a big sigh as her boots screeched along the ground. "Please tell me that this was a severe case?" she asked.

Cordelia laughed. "Nah. This is modus operandi for us. Except usually Angel doesn't get beat up on so much." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well," she amended, "Ok, there are the shootings. And the stabbings... Gorings... Beatings, and I think Soul attacks should be getting their own category now... Let's not even mention the--"

"We get the picture," Angel groaned, his eyes closed. Cordelia snorted a bit, and Wesley himself found a smile creeping across his lips.

Gunn surrendered to the floor as well, until they were all in one big campfire circle without the campfire. "So, Angel. Are we done?"

"Yeah."

Cordelia reached out and poked Wesley in the arm. "See? That's all you had to ask. It's all good..."

Wesley sighed. "I had rather wished to figure out what happened..."

Kate shrugged. "I think we can worry about that later, eh? Angel looks trashed, and I think, Wesley, that you look almost as bad. You've only gotten about an hour of sleep in the past two days..."

"I only did what was necessary..."

Gunn shrugged. "I'm glad I'm not the nerd."

"Hey!"

"Just sayin'," Gunn replied with a grin.

"Hey guys?" Cordelia asked, "Do you think now is a good time, to you know... mention that major development..." Her eyes wandered down to Angel, who may or may not have been sleeping -- it was hard to tell.

"I thought, and I quote, we were going to wait until he was conscious enough to care..." Wesley cautioned.

Angel grunted. "I'm conscious. Barely. Very much wishing I wasn't..."

"Do you care?" Cordelia asked.

"Not particul--" Cordelia elbowed him rather roughly. "Yes," he corrected, his eyes still shut.

Wesley took a deep breath -- preparing for everything to hit the fan quite shortly. "Angel, you know that during The Feast of Souls, when they attempted to remove your soul, that you were in the Ether for the briefest of times?"

"Yes..." Angel answered cautiously, eyes opening to slits.

Wesley sat back. He'd gotten Angel's attention now.

"And you know, that once your soul leaves your body, that the Curse is gone..."

"Yes..." Angel was struggling to sit up now.

"Angel, put quite simply, we think that since you chose to return to your body, that the Curse is gone."

Angel sat there in silence, staring dumbly out into space -- certainly not the reaction Wesley had expected.

"But... I'm not Angelus..." Angel protested.

Wesley almost felt the urge to reach out and shake him. Angel had had it so ingrained into his mind that he couldn't be happy, that he was resisting comprehension with both feet dragging.

"No, you lunk!" Cordelia laughed, giving him a soft punch on the arm. "You're Angel. And you can be happy now," she said, the grin on her face threatening to split it in half.

More staring.

"Your soul is permanent, Angel," Wesley clarified, seeing this was going to take a jackhammer of immense proportions, just to get the message to sink in.

Angel's eyes widened. Silence.

"Angel, did you hear what he said?" Cordelia exclaimed incredulously.

His head bowed as he started to tremble, shivering like a leaf in a breeze. Cordelia wrapped her arms tightly around him. "Angel?" she whispered in his ear. "Are you all right?"

Wesley bent down a little, trying to get a look at Angel's face.

The vampire's head shot up, eyes glistening. "Really?" he asked.

No, Angel, I'm lying, and I wanted to play the cruelest joke I could possibly think of on you, Wesley wanted to scream in frustration. "Really," he managed to utter sincerely.

Angel gasped and blinked, a single, wet tear tumbling down over his cheek, and Wesley smiled as Cordelia gripped him tighter.

The shrill piercing ring of the office phone sent everyone practically out of their skins, except Angel, who still appeared to be in mild shock.

"I'll get that," Kate muttered, relinquishing her crashed position on the floor for an upright one. She stepped over to the phone.

"Angel Investigations... No, he's busy right now, can I take a message?" Kate answered, her voice fading into the background as Wesley turned back to the ensouled vampire.

"I can really be happy. I can. Buffy," Angel was muttering. "Oh God, Buffy..."

Wesley didn't miss the wince that flashed across Cordelia's face.

"Angel? I think that you might actually want to take this one," Kate interjected.

Angel frowned, shaking himself out of his stupor as he weakly stood, supported by Cordelia on one side. Wesley raced around to offer assistance on the other side, and they hobbled over to the phone as a group.

"Hello?" Angel answered shakily, barely gripping the receiver. "Giles. What's--"

Angel stopped cold.

"I see. Yes. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Silence, as Angel let the phone come to rest back in its cradle.

"Is there some demon we need to fight or something?" Gunn asked.

Silence.

Angel looked distraught. "Buffy's mother -- she passed away. I have to go. The funeral is in two days."

"Angel..."

"I have to go..." Angel muttered turning towards the door, not realizing whatsoever that his support wasn't following.

Cordelia pulled him back. "No way. Not until you've had a good night's rest and some more to eat -- you're skeletal."

Angel nodded mutely. "Yeah."

The rest of the night was a blur as Cordelia finally managed to get him in bed and asleep.

---

EPILOGUE

Angel hefted a duffel bag over his shoulders as he approached the door.

Cordelia watched that small space between him and the door shrinking and shrinking, until she couldn't take it anymore. She had to ask. "Angel, are you going to tell her?"

He shook his head. "I can't. Not now. It wouldn't be right..."

"But earlier, you were saying..." she found herself protesting and wanted to curse herself. Why was she encouraging him to leave? Was she on drugs?

The look of crushed dreams that haunted his face was devastating. "What I want," he began, "and what Buffy needs are two different things. I don't. I don't really know her anymore. I didn't even know her mother was sick."

"So, you're planning on coming back," Cordelia prodded cautiously.

He looked at her, a funny smear of confusion across his face, as if she'd just asked if he had three heads. "Of course..."

Angel sighed, turning to leave, a solemn look on his face, shoulders slumped -- the picture of a defeated man. It made her heart break, and she realized, just then, why she had said what she had said earlier. "Angel!" she called.

He paused and inclined his head in her direction.

"I think that she'd be very happy if you told her. Euphoric even. You should tell her and then make love like bunnies like you did before, seeing as how you won't go all evil and eat her afterwards," she prodded.

A small twitch of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, but ultimately lost the battle. "We'll see," he whispered, and she knew right then that they wouldn't really see. He had no intention of telling Buffy. None at all. Because he was too damn noble like that.

Angel sighed, shifted his feet, and pressed the door open with a reluctant hand.

And then he was gone.

Cordelia knew he would be coming back.

FIN