A/N:
This was my very first fiction. I still can't believe I actually finished
it!
It is set before Angel season two and so I had no idea about what was
coming in season three. If you have seen it you know what I'm referring to.
Please bare this in mind when reading.
Doyle hasn't been gone for very long and A.I the team still occupy their
original office.
Disclaimer: They are defiantly not mine. I just like to play with them.
1759. Sheldon Farm. Arkansas The chanting had lasted for hours and she was starting to get tired but didn't really mind. Isabelle was fast becoming addicted to the thrill and anticipation leading up to the kill. She had recited all the incantations, adorned her slender figure with the ceremonial cloth and painted her master's insignia on to her flesh. Now she was ready to perform the final act. To sacrifice a human life.
Her husband of only a year was about to meet a gruesome end and she was going to get away with it. She had before and no doubt she would again.
"Isabelle, what are you doing? Please... Put down the fork." The young farmer tried his best to stay calm but he was backed into the corner of the hay barn trying to guard his face from the unpleasant end of the pitchfork being held aloft by his wife. "Good lord, what has become of you?" He murmured as she carefully corrected her aim and looked deep into his eyes.
"Jonathan, my love. Yours will be a noble death." She was serious. She was really going to kill him! It could have been a trick of the light but in what he guessed were his final minutes on earth, he could have sworn he saw fire dancing in her eyes.
She lifted her head proudly and tightened her grip on the handle and spoke in a low growl that frightened him to his core.
"Lucifer, mighty lord of fire and darkness! Receive this soul, my sacrifice to thee. Take from him his life force and bestow it upon me thy faithful servant!"
"Witch! You're a witch!" He cried, desperately.
"Oh, I'm not a witch." She said with a delightfully evil grin. "I'm something else."
As she lunged forward and he heard the sound of his own heartbeat fading, Jonathan Sheldon could only imagine what evil, what demon, could have possessed his beautiful young Irish wife and had driven her to this madness.
Everything went black and then there was nothing.
Present day. Los Angeles.
Cordelia Chase meandered around the store trying to locate the latest edition of 'Vogue' magazine so that she could at least attempt to keep up with the fashion world and the 'in' crowd.
The 'in' crowd. Once upon a time she was the 'in' crowd but that existence seemed so far away now.
She took comfort in the knowledge that she was fighting the forces of darkness with Angel and Wesley and was helping to make the world, or at least LA, a better place but she still got Goosebumps every time she saw anything carrying a Prada label. Who would have thought that five little letters P R A D A could make someone so happy? She had come to think of it as the last link between herself and the life she used to know, life in a world where creatures of evil and things that go bump in the night were just a figment of the imagination. She needed something that she could hold on to. Something to touch that wasn't a nightmare.
She found her bible in pride of place, third shelf up and dead center. It was the last copy so she snatched it up and held it close to her chest like a security blanket as she walked over to the counter to part with her hard earned cash.
Before the cash register had chance to swallow up her money she was already well engrossed in an article about the relationship between Anorexia Nervosa and the media. Another one.
She didn't see a man enter the store. She didn't see him not looking where he was going and she didn't see him not realize he was about to walk straight into her.
It was only when they collided head on and she dropped her magazine on the floor that she saw him and he saw her embarrassed face as she retrieved it.
"I'm so sorry, that was completely my fault." She gushed. He was definitely a hotty! "I should really learn to look where I'm going. I seem to be bumping in to things a lot lately."
He smiled back at her and his whole face lit up.
"You really should, I mean, you wouldn't want to do anything that could jeopardize that gorgeous face of yours." His smile widened. "But, of course if you feel like making a career out of it then I'd be more than happy to offer my services, you can bump into me any time you want."
A hotty and smooth too. Probably not a trustworthy combination.
"Actually I'm working on a failing acting career right now but if I change my mind, I'll be sure to give you a call." She started to walk away but he wasn't going to let her escape just yet.
"Well you'll need my number then just in case. My name is Eden by the way."
She felt her stomach tumble as she started to succumb to his charm. She wasn't usually so easily won over but there was something familiar about him that made her feel safe. He exuded a certain confidence that told her he was comfortable with himself but not in any way arrogant. He seemed honest. It was refreshing.
"Hi. I'm Cordelia, it's nice bumping into you." She said, shaking his hand.
"Please just hit me over the head and run if you think I'm being out of line here but if you're not busy I'd like to buy you a coffee or something."
He had on the cutest little boy face he could manage and hoped with all his heart that she wasn't thinking he was just another, in what he assumed was a long line, of guys that hit on her on a regular basis.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!! Her voice screamed inside her head but she decided to play it cool. "I don't know. I mean, I just met you and I have to be back at my office in half an hour." She said, coyly.
"I thought you said you were an actress?"
Hotty. Smooth and confident. She added inquisitive to the list.
"I said failing actress, there's a difference you know. So by day and a lot of the time, by night, I work in an office for a private investigator. We go after all the bad guys and rescue the damsels in distress, that kind of thing."
He stuck out his bottom lip indicating that he was both suitably impressed and intrigued. Not only was she a traffic stopper, she was exciting too.
"Cool." He enthused.
"Nah. Just you're average every day kind of stuff really but it pays the rent." She thought he was going to say something but he didn't, he just stood there smiling at her. "Well, alright then... Coffee sounds good. On the other hand if you turn out to be all evil or some kind of monster that preys on young women, then you should know that I have some very protective friends and I would be missed. Okay?" She said wagging her finger at him.
"I guess so." He shrugged, and imagined her surrounded by body builders wielding various instruments of torture.
Of course the truth was far scarier. The friends she was referring to were a tall brooding vampire with a soul named Angel and a stereotypical English guy who went by the name of Wesley.
Yes, Wesley could be extremely intimidating... Well, at Scrabble anyway!
A short while later inside a trendy and very busy coffee shop Cordelia and Eden were sat by the window, drinks in hand, and already talking like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time.
"That's pretty embarrassing but its nothing compared to this one time I was in the office alone, or at least I thought I was, and I've got the radio on pretty loud when this really cool song came on. I forget what it was, and anyway I started singing and dancing, twirling around the room like a mad woman when in walked Angel and Wesley, grinning their heads off, and I'm like totally oblivious to them standing there watching me." She said chuckling at the memory. "The song had almost finished before I even realized they were there. All Wesley could say was that sometimes he worries about my sanity."
Eden laughed too. She had the most amazing smile, and her eyes! They were big and brown like a cow's and sparkled like a mirror ball when she laughed.
"What did Angel say to your little performance?"
"Oh my god." She started to laugh again. "He said he thought I'd been possessed by the 'Britney demon', and he was going to stake me." Her amusement quickly disappeared when she realized that she was being perfectly serious and that she may have just said too much. The look on Eden's face only re-enforced her suspicions. "Or something else absolutely nothing to do with demons, that was just as funny. Is there any chance you could just forget that I said that last part? I'm not crazy, honestly."
She didn't expect the reply she received.
"Its alright, you don't have to pretend, I know about demons and vampires and stuff." The glow in Eden's face had gone and he seemed to be struggling to form the words as he tapped the rim of his cup apprehensively.
"You do? Oh... Well. That makes things so much easier, I mean now I don't have to lie to you about my job or anything, I mean my real job." She breathed a huge sigh of relief and pretended not to notice his sudden attack of the heebie-jeebies.
"What do you mean your real job? I thought you said Angel was a private investigator?" He asked in a confused tone.
"He is, but we mostly investigate demons." Curiosity got the better of her and she had to ask. "So tell me, how do you know about all this stuff?"
"My father was killed by a vampire, it was a long time ago, before I was born. My mom told me all about it."
"Oh I'm sorry." She knew only too well what it felt like to lose someone that way.
Okay so the heebie jeebies were justified, and she was getting the impression that it wasn't really his favorite topic of conversation. But Cordelia was a naturally nosy person and kept probing whether he wanted to talk about it or not because he had potential husband stamped all over him and there were a few things she needed to know.
"This might be a dumb question but, your father being killed to one side, how do you feel about the whole vampire thing?"
He looked up at her in astonishment. That really was a dumb question but then again he didn't know about Angel. Not yet anyway.
"How would you expect me to feel? I hate them. I hate them with a passion. How else could I feel?"
To say he was a little perturbed was ever such a slight understatement.
"Whoa horsy, I get the picture. You hate them and you're entitled to feel that way but what about the good ones?"
"I've never met a good one, I didn't think it was even possible."
Still perturbed though. This wasn't going to be easy, she would have to tread lightly.
"What if I told you it was? " She held her hands together and wrung them out like a cloth nervously, hoping she wasn't about to make a terrible mistake.
If he knew about vampires that also meant he knew how to kill them and if he somehow got the wrong idea about Angel, she could be just about to sign his death warrant.
"I don't know if I like the sound of this." He looked at her as though she was delusional and added that to his own little list of attributes he had created for her. Alongside exciting, charming, beautiful, and finally, possible mental patient!
"I think I like you." She paused and summoned her sincere face to the fore. "Granted I've only known you for what? Not even half an hour but if we are going to see each other again, which I hope we will, then there's something you need to know."
"Go on."
Sincerity face was working like a charm. Those mirror ball eyes gleamed so brightly he had to let her finish. He grabbed an imaginary eraser and rubbed out 'Possible mental patient'.
"My boss, Angel, is a vampire. But he's a good guy, he really is."
Was she joking? He couldn't really tell so picked up his imaginary number two pencil and put a huge question mark on the list.
"Why are you telling me this? Wouldn't it have just been easier to not tell me?"
He obviously hadn't emphasized enough just how much he really did not like vampires. He hated them as much as it was possible to hate something, in fact he hated them more than that. And then some!
"No. It wouldn't."
She didn't have to try to look sincere anymore, it came naturally because she actually meant it. "There's one thing I've learned in my life and that's that secrets only end up causing more harm than good, and I thought you should know."
Angel and the demon world were part of her life now and they came with the Cordelia Chase package. If he couldn't handle it then she didn't think there was much hope.
* * *
Cordelia placed her hand gently on the copper doorknob and turned it slowly, hoping that Angel would be down in his apartment and that she would be able to sneak back into the office unnoticed.
Once inside she quietly closed the door behind her, craning her neck to make sure he wasn't hiding behind the filling cabinet ready to pounce and give her yet another lecture about her time keeping.
She tip-toed over to her desk with all the grace of a Prima ballerina, or someone who was constantly late for work and therefore an expert in the art of sneakiness. She sat down and waited for him to appear. There was no sign, just silence.
Ah ha! Success! She thought smugly, but her celebration turned out to be a little premature when Angel's imposing frame appeared in his office door and made her jump right out of her skin.
"Where have you been?"
"You said I could go for a break." She said, shuffling some papers on her desk trying to avoid his glare.
"That was over two hours ago."
Getting angry with her was pointless. It was like water off a duck's back.
"I'm sorry. Cordelia's been a very naughty girl and she promises not to do it again." An impish grin spread wide across her face as she put the papers in her drawer. He raised his eyebrows at her sarcasm. "Don't look at me like that! Oh come on, we're not exactly rushed off our feet now are we?"
He walked over and perched himself on the edge of the desk and folded his arms, assuming the 'I'm pissed off and you know it' position.
"That's not the point, you're supposed to be working."
"Angel, there's nothing to do, and if I have a vision I assure you, you will be the first to know." She vigorously rummaged around in the drawer on the opposite side of her desk looking for her lost car keys.
"Anyway listen, I need to knock off early today if you don't mind?"
"You're joking right? Why?" His arms dropped from around his chest in bewilderment. Did she take this job seriously at all?
"I got me a date." She said, forcing the full length of her arm inside the drawer.
Angel tilted his head observing her odd position. It looked like the desk had opened it's mouth and was trying to bite off her arm at the shoulder. It must have been incredibly uncomfortable. He decided to put her out of her misery and walked over to the coat stand and retrieved her keys from the pocket of her denim jacket, and sauntered back to the desk swinging them in the air.
"I didn't know you were seeing anyone." He watched as she struggled to dislodge her limb from the jaws of the great wooden beast.
"I wasn't, but I am now. I met this guy while I was out."
He held the keys up out of her reach. "So that's what took you so long."
"Thank you!" Snatching them from him. "So can I go?" She smiled hopefully.
"Do I have a choice?"
"No." Hope quickly turned to victory.
"Then why ask?"
She leapt out of her chair and was just about to throw her arms around his neck in appreciation but stopped herself just in time, remembering Angel wasn't big on showing affection. Unless your name was Buffy Summers and you happened to be a Slayer and the only one true love of his life.
His gypsy curse made sure he didn't get too close to women full stop. One moment of perfect happiness, just one fraction of a second of pure bliss, threatened his very soul. He would revert to his alter ego Angelus, the most evil and vile vampire of all time. So ghastly, that even the Master had held him in high regard, declaring Angelus to be the most viscous creature he had ever known. And he should know, the Master had been the oldest vampire on record. Until Buffy had killed him.
"Thank you, I promise I'll make up the extra time tomorrow."
"There's one condition." He said with a sly grin.
An alarm bell started to ring inside Cordelia's head. She knew exactly what he was going to say.
"What?" With her hands on her hips she tapped her foot and waited.
"I want to meet him."
Bingo.
"Why? Whenever I meet someone you always want to check them out first, you get all big brotherly."
"Do not."
"Do too! See, you're doing it now."
"Am not."
"Are too!" She saw his eyebrows flicker, the way they did when he was teasing her and was trying not to laugh, she managed to groan out a chuckle grudgingly. "He's a nice guy, and I think he likes me."
"I'll try not to embarrass you too much."
"You'd better not, I want to hang on to this one."
He had never purposefully set out to embarrass her, although she would swear he had, he was always polite and sincere but for some reason he seemed to come off as grouchy.
She grabbed her jacket from the stand and headed towards the door but stopped halfway across the floor and spun on her heels. "Oh yeah, before I forget... he knows you're a vampire." "What? How?"
"I told him."
So much for keeping his existence a secret! Eluding the authorities for over a hundred years hadn't been difficult. Up until a few years ago his was just another blank face in the homeless community that resided in the dark alleys of America and no one had ever even noticed him. But now he had a lot to lose and with Cordelia's blabbing left, right, and center, how long would it be before he found himself in the spotlight and somebody started asking questions?
"It's okay he knows about these things, apparently his father was killed by a vampire before he was born."
Angel's heart sank and he felt a sudden rush of shame for what he was and what his race was capable of. Although he had a soul and was no longer a killer, at the root of it, the fact remained that he too was a demon just like them. He felt responsible for every wrong the vampire species had ever committed.
"Maybe it's not such a great idea for me to meet him after all." He offered.
"Oh no, I told him that you're a good guy, he was cool with it, eventually."
"Are you sure?"
"I thought you said you wanted to meet him?"
"I do, but I don't want to make him feel awkward." Angel was hardly ever selfish but as much as he worried that Eden might feel uneasy around him, this time he was more concerned with his own discomfort at the situation. He had enough guilt to carry around with him without adding to it. Even if it wasn't his doing.
"It'll be fine. Trust me." She gave him a 'heads up' pat on the arm and disappeared out of the door to get ready for her date.
* * *
Later that evening, Cordelia stood proudly wearing her favorite black dress. Not too smart but not too casual. She toyed with the idea of aiming for slightly slutty but she didn't want to give him the wrong idea, it was only their first date. Eden was beside her out in the street in front of the office, he ruffled his spiky brown hair and tugged at his shirt apprehensively.
"Do I look okay?"
"You look great. I don't know why you're so worried, it's only Angel and Wesley, it's not like you're meeting my father or anything."
"You don't think I should go home and change my shirt?" Checks always made him look like a country boy and that wasn't the look he was going for.
"For the hundredth time, no." She straightened out a few creases on his sleeve like a mother would. "You know, Angel is just as nervous about meeting you as you are about him."
"He is?"
A vampire. Nervous? Surely that was some sort of contradiction of terms?
"Yeah, but he won't show it, he has this face of stone thing going on. To the untrained eye, it's almost impossible to tell how he's feeling."
"Why should he be nervous?"
She had told him all about Angel and he didn't seem like a nervous person, or vampire. What was the politically correct term? Do vampires even care about political correctness? Most probably wouldn't, they would be too concerned with draining you of the red ale.
"I told him about your dad, so he automatically thinks you're going to hate him or blame him somehow."
"I wouldn't do that."
"I know but I'm going to have to frisk you all the same, just in case you've got any stakes stashed anywhere." She laughed and poked him in the ribs playfully.
"Rest assured, I'm not armed or dangerous. In all honesty I think I'm actually looking forward to this. Albeit in a bizarre, 'I could be about to meet my grisly death at the hands, fangs, of a vampire' but still..."
"Relax, you're not going to die tonight... Come on." She picked up his hand and took him inside where Angel was tugging at his shirt apprehensively.
* * *
Wesley had returned to the office to give Angel some much needed moral support but he was surprised to see that he was coping quite well on his own, so sat in the background ready to jump in if needs be. He tried to make himself look busy be leafing through some files, not realizing that half of them were upside down.
After much deliberation Angel had decided not to apologize for being a vampire and to stick to the usual introductory topic of conversation and pleasantries. Avoid the awkward, for Cordelia's sake. So far it seemed to be going well.
"So, what do you do? For a living?" He said, trying to summon as much false enthusiasm as he could.
"I'm between jobs right now, as they say, but I enjoy history and I'd really like to teach one day."
Wesley's head shot up. "A man after my own heart, any particular period in history?"
"Not really but I recently started reading Irish history, it's very interesting."
"Ah well, you might want to have a word with Angel about that sometime, he's from Ireland."
Eden regarded Angel with no sense of surprise as Cordelia had already told him as much. "You are."
"Originally, but I've travelled around a lot and I haven't been back for a long time." Angel didn't think talking about Ireland would be a good idea. Ireland led to Galway, his hometown, Galway led to Darla and Darla was a vampire, and vampire talk was never good around already nervous humans.
"Have you ever thought of going home? Maybe look up some family?"
What family? I killed them all. He thought to himself with disgust. "I've never given it much thought, no." Angel flashed a look in Cordelia's direction. Help me out here?
She saw, and looked at her wristwatch. "We'd love to stay and continue this male bonding thing but if we do we're going to miss the movie... Eden?"
Eden was busy studying Angel's face. For some reason he thought he would look a lot more terrifying but his features, although striking, were soft and compassionate. All the other vamps he had encountered had worn their demon faces as they chased him. He had never seen one up close and personal. Cordelia gave his shirt a tug, snapping him out of his transfixed state.
"Right..." He looked at Angel again and shook his hand. "It was nice to meet you."
"You too." Angel smiled. I hope my hands aren't too cold.
Wesley leaned back in his chair casually as Cordelia excitedly embarked on her first date in a long time. He recalled that the last boyfriend she had had turned out to be the loyal servant of a Haxor beast, intent on world domination. As most demons tend to be. She had awoken after a safe night of passion with him to find herself heavily pregnant with a small army of the very same demons. Poor girl. He sympathized. "Well she knows how to pick them doesn't she?"
Angel sat on the most comfortable of the three uncomfortable green chairs in the outer office and raised his eyebrows in question. "What are you talking about?"
"It's obvious isn't it?" He propped his feet up on the edge of the desk. "The boy is gay."
Angel's eyebrows reached new heights on his forehead.
"You mean to tell me you didn't see the way he was looking at you?"
"He was?" "Oh please! A blind man could have picked up on it." He reported.
"If that were true, why is he out with Cordelia?" Angel waved his hand dismissively at him and continued. "You know what I think, I think there's a chance you might be jealous."
"Well that's absurd. My feelings for her are purely professional and not at all improper." Wesley argued, but then his mind hurtled back to the previous year in Sunnydale and to Prom night when he and Cordelia had danced together as librarian and student, secretly full of lust for each other.
"Actually, no. You're quite right." He admitted. "I think I might be... but just a tad."
Angel smiled.
"Or maybe it's just that I feel she needs to be protected, I mean, what with her track record."
"She does seem to attract the non human type, but Eden's alright... So far anyway. I like him."
"Only time will tell I suppose." Nostalgic for the brief period of affection they had shared. "But my money's on gay." He added optimistically.
"You need to get out more." Angel concluded and allowed himself a smirk.
* * *
After leaving the movie and arguing about whether or not it technically qualified as a chick flick due to it's impressive arsenal of weaponry, Cordelia and Eden were walking arm in arm along a quiet back street making their way to his car. She had also felt it vital to point out to him that the performance given by the lead role had been appalling and she would have done an immeasurably better job if they had cast her instead. The fact that she would be lucky to even get an audition for something that huge in the first place was beside the point.
They acted as if they had known each other all their lives and ordinarily she would have liked to have gone clubbing with her date and spent the night dancing, but with Eden it was different. He was so easy to talk to and it felt completely natural that they should go somewhere and do just that, nothing more.
"I'm not saying he was fat, let's just call it a severe case of pie retention." She said, flatly but with a glint in her eye. Reviving, for a split second, the old Cordelia. Sunnydale Cordelia. Eden laughed so hard he almost started coughing. 'Queen C' dissipated and she seemed to mature, almost instantly.
"No, seriously though, if you could have anything in the whole world, what would it be?"
"World peace." He said, in a goofy voice.
"Stop it." She slapped him on the arm. "Come on tell me."
His laughter faded and his face took on a more sensitive expression. "It sounds really lame, I don't want to tell you."
"It doesn't matter, the lamer the better. I want to know." She said, still with a hint of amusement.
Eden stopped walking and looked down at his shoes, sheepishly. "My father." There was a slight crack in his voice making Cordelia realized he was about to open his heart and it was going to hurt.
"There's nothing lame about that." She reassured him, squeezing his hand.
"I want to know who he was. I know his name and where he came from but I want know to what he was like as a person, you know? That kind of stuff." He kicked a stone along the ground in frustration.
It scuttled across the concrete paving and fell down a storm drain, making a faint bloop sound as it hit the water below. Cordelia put her arm through his as though she were cold and they started on their way again. She sensed that he wanted to talk some more but he wasn't sure where to start.
"Well what about your mom, can't you ask her?" She prodded softly.
"She doesn't like to talk about it, it's all a big 'no go' area with her. I guess she loved him so much it still hurts."
"That's understandable." Thinking that it was obvious that his mother wasn't the only one in pain.
"I'd give anything just to be able to sit down with him and tell him all about my life, and ask him about his own." There was passion in his tone of voice. The floodgates had opened and he couldn't hold back.
"I want to know if we had anything in common, could we have been friends? I haven't always seen eye to eye with my mom and it would have been great if I could have had someone else to turn to for advice when I needed it. Someone I could be proud of, someone who could be proud of me." His face was struggling to find the appropriate expression through all the pent-up emotion.
"I know it's not much consolation but I ask myself those same questions about my parents too," She offered. "and I'm lucky, mine are still alive." Way to go Cordelia! She was only being her usual, honest self and hadn't meant to be quite so blunt. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean that to sound cold." She quickly added.
"It's alright, I know what you mean."
The street had been deserted so far, and Cordelia had thought they were alone until, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a man walking a little way behind them to the right. He had his head bowed and didn't seem to be paying much attention to where he was going. Cordelia thought that was odd, there was something about him that didn't seem quite right. His clothing was dark and tatty, and he seemed to be fidgeting a lot. It frightened her a little so she tried to make Eden quicken has pace so that they could get out of the alley and back into public view. They were only two blocks away from his car.
"That's enough of the depressing talk," Eden stopped again. Even though Cordelia wanted to be on their way for fear the man behind them was in pursuit, she didn't move and let Eden pull her close to him.
"I don't know about you but I've had the best time today."
She stole a glance over to the path the man had taken, he had gone. She didn't know whether to panic or relax.
"There is only one thing that could possibly make it any better."
"What would that be?" She asked, starting to calm a little and smiled as he leaned in to kiss her. She started to go weak at the knees and as much as she would love the cause to be excitement at the thought of their lips meeting, it appeared that yet another agonizingly painful vision was about to overwhelm her. Great timing! She thought to herself as she collapsed in a heap on the ground, clutching her head.
Eden was struck dumb. He didn't know what to do.
"Oh my god! Cordelia! What's wrong? "
His voice seemed so far away, she could barely hear him. A wave of convulsions raged through her body. Her mind desperately tried to make sense of the images being sent from the Powers That Be. There was a flash of silver. Followed by a hooded figure. She felt a sense of fear and panic. Her skin ran icy cold and she trembled. Voices, lots of voices but she could not understand them. What are they saying? What are you trying to tell me? I... I don't understand! More pain, so intense she was sure her head would explode or implode, she didn't know which!
Then just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended and there was nothing.
Only silence and darkness.
Her ordeal was thankfully over. She sat up wiping her eyes and tried her best to make light of the situation. "Wow, do you have that effect on all women?"
There was no answer.
"Eden?"
Still no answer.
She looked up for the first time seeing a body lying in the middle of the road, and heard footsteps running off in to the distance. The man who had been following them was making his getaway with a small leather wallet in one hand and what appeared to be a gun in the other. She looked back at the body. "Eden! No!"
She frantically crawled over to him, he was not moving. She reached out her hand and turned his face towards her, hardly daring to look. She screwed up her nose and squeezed her eyes closed. Please no, don't let him be dead, please! Tears waited to fall from beneath her eyelids as she opened them again. He returned her horrified gaze with one overwhelmed with of pain and shock. He weakly lifted his bloodied hand from the puncture wound in his midriff, and reached up to hold her face. Struggling to hold on to consciousness he tried to whisper her name but his voice was muted by blood gurgling in his mouth and trickling over his lips.
The alley seemed to be growing colder and darker by the second as Cordelia desperately screamed for help, wondering if anyone could actually hear her cries. Her cell-phone was back at the office. All she could do was scream, and scream.
Disclaimer: They are defiantly not mine. I just like to play with them.
1759. Sheldon Farm. Arkansas The chanting had lasted for hours and she was starting to get tired but didn't really mind. Isabelle was fast becoming addicted to the thrill and anticipation leading up to the kill. She had recited all the incantations, adorned her slender figure with the ceremonial cloth and painted her master's insignia on to her flesh. Now she was ready to perform the final act. To sacrifice a human life.
Her husband of only a year was about to meet a gruesome end and she was going to get away with it. She had before and no doubt she would again.
"Isabelle, what are you doing? Please... Put down the fork." The young farmer tried his best to stay calm but he was backed into the corner of the hay barn trying to guard his face from the unpleasant end of the pitchfork being held aloft by his wife. "Good lord, what has become of you?" He murmured as she carefully corrected her aim and looked deep into his eyes.
"Jonathan, my love. Yours will be a noble death." She was serious. She was really going to kill him! It could have been a trick of the light but in what he guessed were his final minutes on earth, he could have sworn he saw fire dancing in her eyes.
She lifted her head proudly and tightened her grip on the handle and spoke in a low growl that frightened him to his core.
"Lucifer, mighty lord of fire and darkness! Receive this soul, my sacrifice to thee. Take from him his life force and bestow it upon me thy faithful servant!"
"Witch! You're a witch!" He cried, desperately.
"Oh, I'm not a witch." She said with a delightfully evil grin. "I'm something else."
As she lunged forward and he heard the sound of his own heartbeat fading, Jonathan Sheldon could only imagine what evil, what demon, could have possessed his beautiful young Irish wife and had driven her to this madness.
Everything went black and then there was nothing.
Present day. Los Angeles.
Cordelia Chase meandered around the store trying to locate the latest edition of 'Vogue' magazine so that she could at least attempt to keep up with the fashion world and the 'in' crowd.
The 'in' crowd. Once upon a time she was the 'in' crowd but that existence seemed so far away now.
She took comfort in the knowledge that she was fighting the forces of darkness with Angel and Wesley and was helping to make the world, or at least LA, a better place but she still got Goosebumps every time she saw anything carrying a Prada label. Who would have thought that five little letters P R A D A could make someone so happy? She had come to think of it as the last link between herself and the life she used to know, life in a world where creatures of evil and things that go bump in the night were just a figment of the imagination. She needed something that she could hold on to. Something to touch that wasn't a nightmare.
She found her bible in pride of place, third shelf up and dead center. It was the last copy so she snatched it up and held it close to her chest like a security blanket as she walked over to the counter to part with her hard earned cash.
Before the cash register had chance to swallow up her money she was already well engrossed in an article about the relationship between Anorexia Nervosa and the media. Another one.
She didn't see a man enter the store. She didn't see him not looking where he was going and she didn't see him not realize he was about to walk straight into her.
It was only when they collided head on and she dropped her magazine on the floor that she saw him and he saw her embarrassed face as she retrieved it.
"I'm so sorry, that was completely my fault." She gushed. He was definitely a hotty! "I should really learn to look where I'm going. I seem to be bumping in to things a lot lately."
He smiled back at her and his whole face lit up.
"You really should, I mean, you wouldn't want to do anything that could jeopardize that gorgeous face of yours." His smile widened. "But, of course if you feel like making a career out of it then I'd be more than happy to offer my services, you can bump into me any time you want."
A hotty and smooth too. Probably not a trustworthy combination.
"Actually I'm working on a failing acting career right now but if I change my mind, I'll be sure to give you a call." She started to walk away but he wasn't going to let her escape just yet.
"Well you'll need my number then just in case. My name is Eden by the way."
She felt her stomach tumble as she started to succumb to his charm. She wasn't usually so easily won over but there was something familiar about him that made her feel safe. He exuded a certain confidence that told her he was comfortable with himself but not in any way arrogant. He seemed honest. It was refreshing.
"Hi. I'm Cordelia, it's nice bumping into you." She said, shaking his hand.
"Please just hit me over the head and run if you think I'm being out of line here but if you're not busy I'd like to buy you a coffee or something."
He had on the cutest little boy face he could manage and hoped with all his heart that she wasn't thinking he was just another, in what he assumed was a long line, of guys that hit on her on a regular basis.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!! Her voice screamed inside her head but she decided to play it cool. "I don't know. I mean, I just met you and I have to be back at my office in half an hour." She said, coyly.
"I thought you said you were an actress?"
Hotty. Smooth and confident. She added inquisitive to the list.
"I said failing actress, there's a difference you know. So by day and a lot of the time, by night, I work in an office for a private investigator. We go after all the bad guys and rescue the damsels in distress, that kind of thing."
He stuck out his bottom lip indicating that he was both suitably impressed and intrigued. Not only was she a traffic stopper, she was exciting too.
"Cool." He enthused.
"Nah. Just you're average every day kind of stuff really but it pays the rent." She thought he was going to say something but he didn't, he just stood there smiling at her. "Well, alright then... Coffee sounds good. On the other hand if you turn out to be all evil or some kind of monster that preys on young women, then you should know that I have some very protective friends and I would be missed. Okay?" She said wagging her finger at him.
"I guess so." He shrugged, and imagined her surrounded by body builders wielding various instruments of torture.
Of course the truth was far scarier. The friends she was referring to were a tall brooding vampire with a soul named Angel and a stereotypical English guy who went by the name of Wesley.
Yes, Wesley could be extremely intimidating... Well, at Scrabble anyway!
A short while later inside a trendy and very busy coffee shop Cordelia and Eden were sat by the window, drinks in hand, and already talking like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time.
"That's pretty embarrassing but its nothing compared to this one time I was in the office alone, or at least I thought I was, and I've got the radio on pretty loud when this really cool song came on. I forget what it was, and anyway I started singing and dancing, twirling around the room like a mad woman when in walked Angel and Wesley, grinning their heads off, and I'm like totally oblivious to them standing there watching me." She said chuckling at the memory. "The song had almost finished before I even realized they were there. All Wesley could say was that sometimes he worries about my sanity."
Eden laughed too. She had the most amazing smile, and her eyes! They were big and brown like a cow's and sparkled like a mirror ball when she laughed.
"What did Angel say to your little performance?"
"Oh my god." She started to laugh again. "He said he thought I'd been possessed by the 'Britney demon', and he was going to stake me." Her amusement quickly disappeared when she realized that she was being perfectly serious and that she may have just said too much. The look on Eden's face only re-enforced her suspicions. "Or something else absolutely nothing to do with demons, that was just as funny. Is there any chance you could just forget that I said that last part? I'm not crazy, honestly."
She didn't expect the reply she received.
"Its alright, you don't have to pretend, I know about demons and vampires and stuff." The glow in Eden's face had gone and he seemed to be struggling to form the words as he tapped the rim of his cup apprehensively.
"You do? Oh... Well. That makes things so much easier, I mean now I don't have to lie to you about my job or anything, I mean my real job." She breathed a huge sigh of relief and pretended not to notice his sudden attack of the heebie-jeebies.
"What do you mean your real job? I thought you said Angel was a private investigator?" He asked in a confused tone.
"He is, but we mostly investigate demons." Curiosity got the better of her and she had to ask. "So tell me, how do you know about all this stuff?"
"My father was killed by a vampire, it was a long time ago, before I was born. My mom told me all about it."
"Oh I'm sorry." She knew only too well what it felt like to lose someone that way.
Okay so the heebie jeebies were justified, and she was getting the impression that it wasn't really his favorite topic of conversation. But Cordelia was a naturally nosy person and kept probing whether he wanted to talk about it or not because he had potential husband stamped all over him and there were a few things she needed to know.
"This might be a dumb question but, your father being killed to one side, how do you feel about the whole vampire thing?"
He looked up at her in astonishment. That really was a dumb question but then again he didn't know about Angel. Not yet anyway.
"How would you expect me to feel? I hate them. I hate them with a passion. How else could I feel?"
To say he was a little perturbed was ever such a slight understatement.
"Whoa horsy, I get the picture. You hate them and you're entitled to feel that way but what about the good ones?"
"I've never met a good one, I didn't think it was even possible."
Still perturbed though. This wasn't going to be easy, she would have to tread lightly.
"What if I told you it was? " She held her hands together and wrung them out like a cloth nervously, hoping she wasn't about to make a terrible mistake.
If he knew about vampires that also meant he knew how to kill them and if he somehow got the wrong idea about Angel, she could be just about to sign his death warrant.
"I don't know if I like the sound of this." He looked at her as though she was delusional and added that to his own little list of attributes he had created for her. Alongside exciting, charming, beautiful, and finally, possible mental patient!
"I think I like you." She paused and summoned her sincere face to the fore. "Granted I've only known you for what? Not even half an hour but if we are going to see each other again, which I hope we will, then there's something you need to know."
"Go on."
Sincerity face was working like a charm. Those mirror ball eyes gleamed so brightly he had to let her finish. He grabbed an imaginary eraser and rubbed out 'Possible mental patient'.
"My boss, Angel, is a vampire. But he's a good guy, he really is."
Was she joking? He couldn't really tell so picked up his imaginary number two pencil and put a huge question mark on the list.
"Why are you telling me this? Wouldn't it have just been easier to not tell me?"
He obviously hadn't emphasized enough just how much he really did not like vampires. He hated them as much as it was possible to hate something, in fact he hated them more than that. And then some!
"No. It wouldn't."
She didn't have to try to look sincere anymore, it came naturally because she actually meant it. "There's one thing I've learned in my life and that's that secrets only end up causing more harm than good, and I thought you should know."
Angel and the demon world were part of her life now and they came with the Cordelia Chase package. If he couldn't handle it then she didn't think there was much hope.
* * *
Cordelia placed her hand gently on the copper doorknob and turned it slowly, hoping that Angel would be down in his apartment and that she would be able to sneak back into the office unnoticed.
Once inside she quietly closed the door behind her, craning her neck to make sure he wasn't hiding behind the filling cabinet ready to pounce and give her yet another lecture about her time keeping.
She tip-toed over to her desk with all the grace of a Prima ballerina, or someone who was constantly late for work and therefore an expert in the art of sneakiness. She sat down and waited for him to appear. There was no sign, just silence.
Ah ha! Success! She thought smugly, but her celebration turned out to be a little premature when Angel's imposing frame appeared in his office door and made her jump right out of her skin.
"Where have you been?"
"You said I could go for a break." She said, shuffling some papers on her desk trying to avoid his glare.
"That was over two hours ago."
Getting angry with her was pointless. It was like water off a duck's back.
"I'm sorry. Cordelia's been a very naughty girl and she promises not to do it again." An impish grin spread wide across her face as she put the papers in her drawer. He raised his eyebrows at her sarcasm. "Don't look at me like that! Oh come on, we're not exactly rushed off our feet now are we?"
He walked over and perched himself on the edge of the desk and folded his arms, assuming the 'I'm pissed off and you know it' position.
"That's not the point, you're supposed to be working."
"Angel, there's nothing to do, and if I have a vision I assure you, you will be the first to know." She vigorously rummaged around in the drawer on the opposite side of her desk looking for her lost car keys.
"Anyway listen, I need to knock off early today if you don't mind?"
"You're joking right? Why?" His arms dropped from around his chest in bewilderment. Did she take this job seriously at all?
"I got me a date." She said, forcing the full length of her arm inside the drawer.
Angel tilted his head observing her odd position. It looked like the desk had opened it's mouth and was trying to bite off her arm at the shoulder. It must have been incredibly uncomfortable. He decided to put her out of her misery and walked over to the coat stand and retrieved her keys from the pocket of her denim jacket, and sauntered back to the desk swinging them in the air.
"I didn't know you were seeing anyone." He watched as she struggled to dislodge her limb from the jaws of the great wooden beast.
"I wasn't, but I am now. I met this guy while I was out."
He held the keys up out of her reach. "So that's what took you so long."
"Thank you!" Snatching them from him. "So can I go?" She smiled hopefully.
"Do I have a choice?"
"No." Hope quickly turned to victory.
"Then why ask?"
She leapt out of her chair and was just about to throw her arms around his neck in appreciation but stopped herself just in time, remembering Angel wasn't big on showing affection. Unless your name was Buffy Summers and you happened to be a Slayer and the only one true love of his life.
His gypsy curse made sure he didn't get too close to women full stop. One moment of perfect happiness, just one fraction of a second of pure bliss, threatened his very soul. He would revert to his alter ego Angelus, the most evil and vile vampire of all time. So ghastly, that even the Master had held him in high regard, declaring Angelus to be the most viscous creature he had ever known. And he should know, the Master had been the oldest vampire on record. Until Buffy had killed him.
"Thank you, I promise I'll make up the extra time tomorrow."
"There's one condition." He said with a sly grin.
An alarm bell started to ring inside Cordelia's head. She knew exactly what he was going to say.
"What?" With her hands on her hips she tapped her foot and waited.
"I want to meet him."
Bingo.
"Why? Whenever I meet someone you always want to check them out first, you get all big brotherly."
"Do not."
"Do too! See, you're doing it now."
"Am not."
"Are too!" She saw his eyebrows flicker, the way they did when he was teasing her and was trying not to laugh, she managed to groan out a chuckle grudgingly. "He's a nice guy, and I think he likes me."
"I'll try not to embarrass you too much."
"You'd better not, I want to hang on to this one."
He had never purposefully set out to embarrass her, although she would swear he had, he was always polite and sincere but for some reason he seemed to come off as grouchy.
She grabbed her jacket from the stand and headed towards the door but stopped halfway across the floor and spun on her heels. "Oh yeah, before I forget... he knows you're a vampire." "What? How?"
"I told him."
So much for keeping his existence a secret! Eluding the authorities for over a hundred years hadn't been difficult. Up until a few years ago his was just another blank face in the homeless community that resided in the dark alleys of America and no one had ever even noticed him. But now he had a lot to lose and with Cordelia's blabbing left, right, and center, how long would it be before he found himself in the spotlight and somebody started asking questions?
"It's okay he knows about these things, apparently his father was killed by a vampire before he was born."
Angel's heart sank and he felt a sudden rush of shame for what he was and what his race was capable of. Although he had a soul and was no longer a killer, at the root of it, the fact remained that he too was a demon just like them. He felt responsible for every wrong the vampire species had ever committed.
"Maybe it's not such a great idea for me to meet him after all." He offered.
"Oh no, I told him that you're a good guy, he was cool with it, eventually."
"Are you sure?"
"I thought you said you wanted to meet him?"
"I do, but I don't want to make him feel awkward." Angel was hardly ever selfish but as much as he worried that Eden might feel uneasy around him, this time he was more concerned with his own discomfort at the situation. He had enough guilt to carry around with him without adding to it. Even if it wasn't his doing.
"It'll be fine. Trust me." She gave him a 'heads up' pat on the arm and disappeared out of the door to get ready for her date.
* * *
Later that evening, Cordelia stood proudly wearing her favorite black dress. Not too smart but not too casual. She toyed with the idea of aiming for slightly slutty but she didn't want to give him the wrong idea, it was only their first date. Eden was beside her out in the street in front of the office, he ruffled his spiky brown hair and tugged at his shirt apprehensively.
"Do I look okay?"
"You look great. I don't know why you're so worried, it's only Angel and Wesley, it's not like you're meeting my father or anything."
"You don't think I should go home and change my shirt?" Checks always made him look like a country boy and that wasn't the look he was going for.
"For the hundredth time, no." She straightened out a few creases on his sleeve like a mother would. "You know, Angel is just as nervous about meeting you as you are about him."
"He is?"
A vampire. Nervous? Surely that was some sort of contradiction of terms?
"Yeah, but he won't show it, he has this face of stone thing going on. To the untrained eye, it's almost impossible to tell how he's feeling."
"Why should he be nervous?"
She had told him all about Angel and he didn't seem like a nervous person, or vampire. What was the politically correct term? Do vampires even care about political correctness? Most probably wouldn't, they would be too concerned with draining you of the red ale.
"I told him about your dad, so he automatically thinks you're going to hate him or blame him somehow."
"I wouldn't do that."
"I know but I'm going to have to frisk you all the same, just in case you've got any stakes stashed anywhere." She laughed and poked him in the ribs playfully.
"Rest assured, I'm not armed or dangerous. In all honesty I think I'm actually looking forward to this. Albeit in a bizarre, 'I could be about to meet my grisly death at the hands, fangs, of a vampire' but still..."
"Relax, you're not going to die tonight... Come on." She picked up his hand and took him inside where Angel was tugging at his shirt apprehensively.
* * *
Wesley had returned to the office to give Angel some much needed moral support but he was surprised to see that he was coping quite well on his own, so sat in the background ready to jump in if needs be. He tried to make himself look busy be leafing through some files, not realizing that half of them were upside down.
After much deliberation Angel had decided not to apologize for being a vampire and to stick to the usual introductory topic of conversation and pleasantries. Avoid the awkward, for Cordelia's sake. So far it seemed to be going well.
"So, what do you do? For a living?" He said, trying to summon as much false enthusiasm as he could.
"I'm between jobs right now, as they say, but I enjoy history and I'd really like to teach one day."
Wesley's head shot up. "A man after my own heart, any particular period in history?"
"Not really but I recently started reading Irish history, it's very interesting."
"Ah well, you might want to have a word with Angel about that sometime, he's from Ireland."
Eden regarded Angel with no sense of surprise as Cordelia had already told him as much. "You are."
"Originally, but I've travelled around a lot and I haven't been back for a long time." Angel didn't think talking about Ireland would be a good idea. Ireland led to Galway, his hometown, Galway led to Darla and Darla was a vampire, and vampire talk was never good around already nervous humans.
"Have you ever thought of going home? Maybe look up some family?"
What family? I killed them all. He thought to himself with disgust. "I've never given it much thought, no." Angel flashed a look in Cordelia's direction. Help me out here?
She saw, and looked at her wristwatch. "We'd love to stay and continue this male bonding thing but if we do we're going to miss the movie... Eden?"
Eden was busy studying Angel's face. For some reason he thought he would look a lot more terrifying but his features, although striking, were soft and compassionate. All the other vamps he had encountered had worn their demon faces as they chased him. He had never seen one up close and personal. Cordelia gave his shirt a tug, snapping him out of his transfixed state.
"Right..." He looked at Angel again and shook his hand. "It was nice to meet you."
"You too." Angel smiled. I hope my hands aren't too cold.
Wesley leaned back in his chair casually as Cordelia excitedly embarked on her first date in a long time. He recalled that the last boyfriend she had had turned out to be the loyal servant of a Haxor beast, intent on world domination. As most demons tend to be. She had awoken after a safe night of passion with him to find herself heavily pregnant with a small army of the very same demons. Poor girl. He sympathized. "Well she knows how to pick them doesn't she?"
Angel sat on the most comfortable of the three uncomfortable green chairs in the outer office and raised his eyebrows in question. "What are you talking about?"
"It's obvious isn't it?" He propped his feet up on the edge of the desk. "The boy is gay."
Angel's eyebrows reached new heights on his forehead.
"You mean to tell me you didn't see the way he was looking at you?"
"He was?" "Oh please! A blind man could have picked up on it." He reported.
"If that were true, why is he out with Cordelia?" Angel waved his hand dismissively at him and continued. "You know what I think, I think there's a chance you might be jealous."
"Well that's absurd. My feelings for her are purely professional and not at all improper." Wesley argued, but then his mind hurtled back to the previous year in Sunnydale and to Prom night when he and Cordelia had danced together as librarian and student, secretly full of lust for each other.
"Actually, no. You're quite right." He admitted. "I think I might be... but just a tad."
Angel smiled.
"Or maybe it's just that I feel she needs to be protected, I mean, what with her track record."
"She does seem to attract the non human type, but Eden's alright... So far anyway. I like him."
"Only time will tell I suppose." Nostalgic for the brief period of affection they had shared. "But my money's on gay." He added optimistically.
"You need to get out more." Angel concluded and allowed himself a smirk.
* * *
After leaving the movie and arguing about whether or not it technically qualified as a chick flick due to it's impressive arsenal of weaponry, Cordelia and Eden were walking arm in arm along a quiet back street making their way to his car. She had also felt it vital to point out to him that the performance given by the lead role had been appalling and she would have done an immeasurably better job if they had cast her instead. The fact that she would be lucky to even get an audition for something that huge in the first place was beside the point.
They acted as if they had known each other all their lives and ordinarily she would have liked to have gone clubbing with her date and spent the night dancing, but with Eden it was different. He was so easy to talk to and it felt completely natural that they should go somewhere and do just that, nothing more.
"I'm not saying he was fat, let's just call it a severe case of pie retention." She said, flatly but with a glint in her eye. Reviving, for a split second, the old Cordelia. Sunnydale Cordelia. Eden laughed so hard he almost started coughing. 'Queen C' dissipated and she seemed to mature, almost instantly.
"No, seriously though, if you could have anything in the whole world, what would it be?"
"World peace." He said, in a goofy voice.
"Stop it." She slapped him on the arm. "Come on tell me."
His laughter faded and his face took on a more sensitive expression. "It sounds really lame, I don't want to tell you."
"It doesn't matter, the lamer the better. I want to know." She said, still with a hint of amusement.
Eden stopped walking and looked down at his shoes, sheepishly. "My father." There was a slight crack in his voice making Cordelia realized he was about to open his heart and it was going to hurt.
"There's nothing lame about that." She reassured him, squeezing his hand.
"I want to know who he was. I know his name and where he came from but I want know to what he was like as a person, you know? That kind of stuff." He kicked a stone along the ground in frustration.
It scuttled across the concrete paving and fell down a storm drain, making a faint bloop sound as it hit the water below. Cordelia put her arm through his as though she were cold and they started on their way again. She sensed that he wanted to talk some more but he wasn't sure where to start.
"Well what about your mom, can't you ask her?" She prodded softly.
"She doesn't like to talk about it, it's all a big 'no go' area with her. I guess she loved him so much it still hurts."
"That's understandable." Thinking that it was obvious that his mother wasn't the only one in pain.
"I'd give anything just to be able to sit down with him and tell him all about my life, and ask him about his own." There was passion in his tone of voice. The floodgates had opened and he couldn't hold back.
"I want to know if we had anything in common, could we have been friends? I haven't always seen eye to eye with my mom and it would have been great if I could have had someone else to turn to for advice when I needed it. Someone I could be proud of, someone who could be proud of me." His face was struggling to find the appropriate expression through all the pent-up emotion.
"I know it's not much consolation but I ask myself those same questions about my parents too," She offered. "and I'm lucky, mine are still alive." Way to go Cordelia! She was only being her usual, honest self and hadn't meant to be quite so blunt. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean that to sound cold." She quickly added.
"It's alright, I know what you mean."
The street had been deserted so far, and Cordelia had thought they were alone until, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a man walking a little way behind them to the right. He had his head bowed and didn't seem to be paying much attention to where he was going. Cordelia thought that was odd, there was something about him that didn't seem quite right. His clothing was dark and tatty, and he seemed to be fidgeting a lot. It frightened her a little so she tried to make Eden quicken has pace so that they could get out of the alley and back into public view. They were only two blocks away from his car.
"That's enough of the depressing talk," Eden stopped again. Even though Cordelia wanted to be on their way for fear the man behind them was in pursuit, she didn't move and let Eden pull her close to him.
"I don't know about you but I've had the best time today."
She stole a glance over to the path the man had taken, he had gone. She didn't know whether to panic or relax.
"There is only one thing that could possibly make it any better."
"What would that be?" She asked, starting to calm a little and smiled as he leaned in to kiss her. She started to go weak at the knees and as much as she would love the cause to be excitement at the thought of their lips meeting, it appeared that yet another agonizingly painful vision was about to overwhelm her. Great timing! She thought to herself as she collapsed in a heap on the ground, clutching her head.
Eden was struck dumb. He didn't know what to do.
"Oh my god! Cordelia! What's wrong? "
His voice seemed so far away, she could barely hear him. A wave of convulsions raged through her body. Her mind desperately tried to make sense of the images being sent from the Powers That Be. There was a flash of silver. Followed by a hooded figure. She felt a sense of fear and panic. Her skin ran icy cold and she trembled. Voices, lots of voices but she could not understand them. What are they saying? What are you trying to tell me? I... I don't understand! More pain, so intense she was sure her head would explode or implode, she didn't know which!
Then just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended and there was nothing.
Only silence and darkness.
Her ordeal was thankfully over. She sat up wiping her eyes and tried her best to make light of the situation. "Wow, do you have that effect on all women?"
There was no answer.
"Eden?"
Still no answer.
She looked up for the first time seeing a body lying in the middle of the road, and heard footsteps running off in to the distance. The man who had been following them was making his getaway with a small leather wallet in one hand and what appeared to be a gun in the other. She looked back at the body. "Eden! No!"
She frantically crawled over to him, he was not moving. She reached out her hand and turned his face towards her, hardly daring to look. She screwed up her nose and squeezed her eyes closed. Please no, don't let him be dead, please! Tears waited to fall from beneath her eyelids as she opened them again. He returned her horrified gaze with one overwhelmed with of pain and shock. He weakly lifted his bloodied hand from the puncture wound in his midriff, and reached up to hold her face. Struggling to hold on to consciousness he tried to whisper her name but his voice was muted by blood gurgling in his mouth and trickling over his lips.
The alley seemed to be growing colder and darker by the second as Cordelia desperately screamed for help, wondering if anyone could actually hear her cries. Her cell-phone was back at the office. All she could do was scream, and scream.
