CHAPTER 7: NEVER AN EASY WAY


Angel's panic rose as he ran as silently as he could through the muck-filled sewer, searching for a place where he could put Buffy down. He could hear voices somewhere behind him – someone from the Council must have followed him down into the tunnel.

Buffy was barely conscious and hung slumped over his arms, the arrow still sticking out of her side. The best thing would be to get out of the sewers and back to their temporary home, the bomb shelter, but he couldn't risk it. Chances were the Council was watching the nearest manholes, and Angel didn't know these tunnels well enough to take a detour back.

Finally he found an empty tunnel which wasn't quite noticeable for someone that lacked vampire senses. Making sure no one was watching them from a distance Angel entered. He spread his coat on the ground and put Buffy down on it ever so lightly, to avoid hurting her again.

"Buffy," he whispered. "Buffy, are you awake?" He moved a few strands of blonde hair away from her face, feeling her forehead and neck, swallowing hard. She was much warmer than she should be. Much warmer than him. She opened her eyes.

"Angel…"

"Buffy."

"Pain," she managed, grimacing.

"I know," Angel whispered. "Look, I have to get the arrow out. It's very close to your heart… it might be why it hurts so much."

He knew it was a lie. It shouldn't hurt this much, close to the heart or not. Buffy must know it too – or maybe she could just see it in his eyes. She clenched her teeth, curling her hands to tight fists when he moved her to examine the exit wound in her back. He broke it off to be able to pull it out of her and Buffy moaned silently, but she kept her brave face. Just like always.

"Okay," he said. "On three, 1-," Angel quickly pulled out the arrow. Buffy winced from the pain and bit her lip to avoid crying out.

"I knew you were going to do that," she said with a wry smile.

"One time a little blond did that to me," he said softly.

"I remember," she whispered, extending a slightly trembling hand and touching Angel's face softly. He smiled at her, or tried to, but he was pretty sure it came out more as a grimace. Her hand was hot – much too hot. Soon the pain took the upper hand again and she closed her eyes for a second, letting her hand drop. She was so pale, and sweating, her system obviously in deep distress.

It wasn't as it came a surprise when he grabbed the arrow and smelled its tip. An involuntary shudder went through his body. He knew that smell - he would never forget it.

"Damn it," he cursed in a silent voice, but Buffy heard him and opened her eyes.

"Angel? What is it?" He just looked at her, his clearly worried expression frightening deeply. It wasn't just worry in his eyes. It was panic – and fear. And that wasn't something she had seen in him very often.

"What is it?" she repeated as sharply as she could muster.

"The arrow. It's poisoned."


It was early afternoon in Los Angeles when the phone rang in the Hyperion Hotel. Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia were all there, waiting nervously. They were well aware of what time it was in London – it was about the time when Angel or Buffy should call with news. Hopefully news that told them that they were on the plane heading back with Buffy the second contained… That everything was fine and that they were both... or, all, safe and sound.

They all physically flinched when the phone rang. Of course, it could be a client. Or a wrong number… or someone wanting to sell them a soda machine for the lobby…

Or not.

Wesley swallowed hard when he picked up the phone.

"Angel Investigations, Wesley Wyndham Pryce speaking."

"Wesley!" he heard Angel's voice. Wesley nodded to let Cordelia and Gunn know who it was, and they moved closer. But something was wrong – Wesley could hear it. Even if Angel had only said one word… something was wrong. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Overly paranoid. He had been known for being that on occasion, after all.

"Angel? We're glad to hear from you," he said. "How… how are things going?" Wesley looked at Gunn and Cordelia, frowning. He heard something in the background, and he had heard it before – dripping water. And the reception wasn't too good.

"Are you in the sewers?" he asked, trying to figure out if that was good or bad. Either they were running for their lives, or Buffy the second had escaped into the sewers, or something had happened to either of the Buffies, or…

"Wes, I need you to do some research," Angel cut off his train of thoughts.

Not good. Couldn't reasonably be good. Wesley swallowed hard.

"Concerning what?" Angel said something Wesley couldn't hear because of the background noises and the bad reception.

"What? I'm sorry Angel, I can't hear you very well."

"I need you to find a mother curse for my killer from hell."

Wesley was quiet for a moment, not sure if he heard right. What he had heard sounded like something that could be used on Angelus to make him want his mother, and Wesley was fairly certain that wasn't quite right. Even if the thought was... almost amusing, in some silly, twisted way.

"Pardon me?"

"I said, I need you do find another cure for Killer of the dead, the poison!" Angel almost yelled, frustrated. Even Gunn and Cordelia could hear him this time. Gunn frowned, not sure what it meant. Cordelia on the other hand understood perfectly, as did Wesley.

After all they had been there the first time around.

"Good lord, Angel, what's happened? Have you been shot?"

"Not me, Buffy! They shot her."

There was really no need for anyone to ask who "they" were.

"Okay, just… stay calm. Where did they shoot her? I mean, where did the arrow strike?"

"Close to the heart." Wesley swallowed.

"That's… bad."

"Do you think so?" Angel snapped angrily. "Find a cure for her!" Wesley swallowed hard.

"Angel, I-I'm afraid there is only one cure and… we already know what it is." Now Angel was really upset. Quite frankly Wesley was glad that he was only talking to him on the phone.

"I know that we only know of one cure, but guess what? Maybe there's another solution."

"Angel, of course we will do what we can, but truth be told... I'm really not sure there is no other cure."

"There has to be." His voice was pleading. Desperate. Wesley swallowed hard, not sure what to tell him.

"Find it, or consider yourself fired!" Angel hissed. The line went dead.

"Angel? Angel!" Wesley put down the telephone. "He hung up."

Cordelia started pacing back and forth between her desk and the counter. "This is bad. What the hell happened there?"

"And what is 'Killer of the Dead'? Doesn't sound great," Gunn said.

"It's, er, it's… a poison. One of the very few that affects vampires; thus the name," Wesley replied, not sure how to proceed. "It's… it's deadly. And it destroys the vampire rather fast."

"Miss wacky nutbag-slayer used it on Angel once," Cordelia supplied. Gunn nodded slowly, frowning at the nick-name.

"And apparently he got better," he said.

"We found a cure," Cordelia continued. "Only it's… not real easy to come by."

"The only known cure for the poison is for the vampire to drain the blood of a Slayer," Wesley proceeded. "Which Angel did." Gunn furrowed his brow.

"Wait a minute. Isn't the 'nutbag-slayer' still alive?"

"She is, certainly. The slayer doesn't have to be completely drained, and besides, it wasn't Faith that cured Angel." It took a few moments for Gunn to comprehend.

"Ah. Oh."

"So what do we do?" Cordelia's voice was unusually small and unsure.

Wesley wanted to have answers, he wanted to be able to use all his years of book-learning to lay out a plan, execute it and make everything better. But he couldn't. In fact, he had no idea what to do. He was fairly certain that there really were no other cures for the poison, and even if there was, how were they supposed to find it and bring it to Angel within… say 24 hours, tops?

He shrugged.

"I don't know."

Cordelia nodded silently. Was that blame in her eyes, or was he just imagining things? Perhaps – it was likely. His whole life he had been surrounded by people who had taught him how shameful it was to be something other than the best, the one with the most knowledge, the one with answers to all questions. From a very young age he had been driven to the edge to be the best, at the same time as he had been told how useless and stupid he was. It had left its marks, even though he would never admit it to anyone.

After all, admitting a weakness was even worse than actually having one.

"Can't we use this Faith-chick?" Gunn suggested. "Time for paying back, kinda." Wesley shook his head.

"She's in prison – and even if she wasn't… I don't see how we could get her there in time." Gunn nodded. Cordelia sat down. Wesley just stood there.

"What can we do then?" Cordelia said after a minute's silence. "Just sit her on our asses and say there's nothing we can do? Let her die?"

"No… no. Of course we'll try. I'll contact Giles as well. We'll… we'll do everything we possibly can."


"Poison, huh?" Angel stiffened when he heard her voice from behind him. He let the cell phone slide into the breast pocket of his shirt, slowly turning around to face her. Had she heard his call to L.A.? Did she know how bad it was? She had lost consciousness shortly after he first told her that the arrow was poisoned, and he wasn't really sure how much she had heard. He approached her slowly, getting down on his knees beside her. She didn't move her head when she followed him with her gaze.

He put his hand on her forehead, already knowing how she would feel. The heat was coming off of her in waves, she was radiating with it. The poison was moving through her system fast, and it was destroying everything in its way, sending her body temperature considerably higher than what would be normal even if she was human.

"You're burning up," he muttered worriedly.

"You think I'm hot, huh?" She smiled painfully. "You're not so bad yourself."

"We should get you out of here," Angel said. "You'd be safer in the bomb shelter."

"I'm okay here," she told him, trying to smile reassuringly, but failing miserably. Her hand was shaking when she lifted it to wipe sweat from her face.

"We don't want to move until we're sure the bloodhounds lost our trail," she continued in a strained voice. "Too risky." He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter – that he would gladly take the risk for her, for getting her to a safer place. But he knew it was a rash decision, one that might very well kill them both if the Council was still out there. So he stayed silent. Buffy swallowed, gathering her strength.

"So you're saying poison. Yeah, pretty much expected, what with the sweating and burning… What kind of poison is it?"

Angel realized she hadn't heard his phone call to L.A. after all, at least not all of it. Too bad. It would have been easier if she'd known.

"It's… um…"

"Come on. I'm I gonna be a toad, or what? Scaly skin? Will my fangs rot?"

How was he supposed to tell her this? There was no easy way. Well, he should have learned that by now. There's never an easy way.

"I think it is… I mean, by the smell it is Killer of the dead."

Buffy was quiet for a moment.

"The same one Faith used on you," she said finally in a neutral voice. It wasn't a question, and she didn't sound afraid, not angry, not panicked. She was just stating the obvious fact. Angel looked at her sorrowfully, at a loss. He had no idea what to do right now – what was there for him to say that could make things better? Buffy already knew how serious this was, and so did he. No shallow words would make either of them feel better.

"So I'm gonna die again, huh? Seems I haven't done anything else these last few years. Or maybe being turned into a vampire doesn't count." It frightened Angel how calm she sounded. Did she view death like a release?

"I… I put Wesley on it, he's gonna try to find another cure. I'm sure he will call Giles too. Everyone's working on it."

Another cure. Yeah, that was just it. They both knew all too well what the only known cure was, and that it was impossible for them to use that.

"Yeah, good luck with that." Buffy's arms trembled when she tried to get her jacket off, and Angel came to her aid. She looked at him with tired eyes when he pulled her slack arms out of the sleeves, folded the jacket and put it behind her head to support her neck.

"You know, all the guys researched it when you were sick. Even Xander, believe it or not." She chuckled a little but quickly stopped herself when pain overwhelmed her.

"We really tried. But there is only one cure, you know."

"Don't worry about that now," he whispered.

"Hmm. I don't know. No time like the present, especially when you'll be dead in a day," she murmured, sinking back into unconsciousness. Angel caressed her face very carefully, as if he was afraid that touching her too much would hurt her even further. He tugged his coat closer around her – an unimportant gesture of course, since she wouldn't actually feel cold even if her body temperature went down. He got up and started pacing the tunnel, frustration clawing at him. What was he supposed to do?

He couldn't just sit here and feel the life slip away from her for every minute; he had to do something. But what? Of course going to the source seemed like the obvious thing to begin with. He also knew that doing so came with the risk of getting killed instantly, but frankly, he didn't care. Getting killed trying to save Buffy would be better than going on living and knowing that he might have been able to save her.

He had no idea how much time she might have left, how quick her condition might escalate. How long had it been from he was shot when Buffy forced him to let her cure him? He didn't know exactly. Maybe 7 or 8 hours, or maybe it was more – his memories were fuzzy, to say in the least. Maybe it was less. Buffy had been shot closer to the heart, and in comparison to him, she was just a fledging vampire. Not that he knew it that would actually make any difference, but either way…

Things weren't looking good.


Giles was tired. He was so tired of bad news. He was so tired of the feeling of shock, and disgust, and fear, and guilt… all mixed together in his head. He was fairly certain all the events of the past few months must have sped up his aging considerably – at least it felt like it.

He was sitting on the edge of his couch, staring at the receiver of his phone, which he had put on the table. For once he had decided to go home for lunch, and he was just about to head out, back to the Magic Box when the phone rang. It was Wesley, again. And he had thought that the last call was bad. Apparently, that was nothing.

Wesley hadn't said very much, but the few sentences he had spoken was quite enough. Something had gone horribly wrong in London – the Council had done something, and whatever it was… however it had gone down, the point of it all was that Buffy had been shot... shot and poisoned.

Infected with poison that had only one known cure – which was safely locked up in a prison somewhere in California, thousands of miles away from where Buffy was. Giles wasn't even sure which prison Faith was currently in. Wesley had said that Angel had called him, asking – no, ordering him to look for another cure.

Giles had heard the hopelessness in Wesley's voice when he had said it, and he had felt just the same thing himself. Bringing Faith to Buffy was out of the question. It would never work, merely the suggestion was ridiculous.

Even if they actually managed to find her, talk her into escaping the country to risk her life to save Buffy's, and break her out of the prison, they would never get there in time, and they would never a wanted criminal out of the country just like that.

So what were they supposed to do? Just come to terms with the fact that Buffy was in London somewhere, suffering horrible torment, death closing in on her for every minute that passed?

Giles closed his eyes for a second, trying to shut out the imaginary images of Buffy suffering just like Angel had last spring. It had gone very quick – his condition had been critical within hours. Who knew how long he would actually have lasted before dispersing into ashes on his bed. That couldn't happen to Buffy. It just couldn't.

Giles' body physically hurt when he got up from his seat. He wasn't sure when he had gotten to rest, sleep soundly without worrying, the last time.

He knew how worthless Wesley felt right now, because he felt it himself as well. They were Watchers born and raised, which meant that their strength mostly lay in their theoretical knowledge; researching, forming plans, coming up with ideas. And when it came to this… they had nothing.

It wasn't even either of them that had found the cure to the poison the last time; the kids had taken care of the research themselves, and done it brilliantly. Giles felt so tired. How was he supposed to go back there, to his magic shop, make the necessary calls to gather everyone and once again tell them the bad news? Well, he had to, obviously.

He often found himself forced to do big, tiring things that he didn't want to nowadays. Things he didn't even feel like he could master in a good way, things that might mean the difference between life and death for someone, and yet he was forced to try and do his best.

The recent events hadn't exactly done much good for his self esteem either. Not only had he let his Slayer get killed, he hadn't even been there afterwards. He hadn't done anything when he learned that she was in England, preparing to face a Council that he had known his whole life – perhaps he could have done something. Or perhaps not, but he should have tried.

He should have been there.