I stared at the clock on Shaw's wall as it ticked, the hands moving excruciatingly slowly around the white face. The minutes seemed to inch by like mentally challenged caterpillars, every second driving me more and more wild. Sweat trickled down into my collar and, not for the first time, I cursed my decision to wear a bow tie.

Across from me, Charles was wriggling against the rope Janos had bound him with. It was futile, but the blood on his forehead had dried and Shaw's taunting seemed to have given him a sudden rush of adrenaline. I stretched out my foot to brush against his leg and he glanced up at me as if he had forgotten I was there. I wished that the rag in my mouth was gone and tried to apologize to him with my eyes. His gaze softened and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine.

"How sweet." Janos drawled. "You two are just as cute as a bugs' ear. Is that an apt description, Azazel?"

Azazel nodded sullenly. Janos knelt beside us, pulling a switchblade from inside his jacket and flicking the knife out smoothly. The cold metal glimmered in the overly bright lights of Shaw's apartment. He ran the flat blade over Charles' face, paying special attention to the long, pale column of his throat. A thin red line of blood appeared under his jaw as he turned the knife slowly, pushing the sharp edge against Charles' skin.

"Shaw didn't have time to take care of you." He whispered threateningly. "But I do."

Charles locked his eyes onto mine. I nodded imperceptibly and tensed my bound legs, getting ready to channel my energy and kick out at Janos.

There was a bang, and a sudden burst of frantic muttering. Janos's head shot up and he gestured towards the front door, a few rooms away. "Azazel, go check what that is. Take care of it."

The Russian slipped out of the room soundlessly, his shoes padding along the bleached wooden floorboards. There was a shout, a crack, and a triumphant cry.

"Bam! Out like a light!" A young female voice crowed. I felt my eyes widen in recognition as Janos got to his feet and began creeping towards the noise.

"I know, right? Did you see that? Wow, talk about your glass jaws…"

I tried to yell a warning around the gag, but the only sound that came out was muffled and unintelligible. Janos moved like a cat, knife clutched in one hand and gun in the other. He started to slink around the corner, preparing to attack-

And ran straight into a gangly blonde youth. Their heads bumped together with a loud thump, and the lavender-suited goon's weapons dropped to the floor as he reached up to grab his injury. The blonde stumbled backwards, blinking.

"Ow!" He shouted angrily. "That hurt!"

A dark blur darted out from behind him, launching a kick straight into Janos' groin. He screeched and doubled over, giving the blur the perfect angle to hit him over the head with a silver candlestick. He moaned once and tumbled to a heap on the floor, unconscious.

The blonde ran up to us, picking up Janos' forgotten knife on the way. "Mister Lensherr! Are you okay?"

He pulled the gag out of my gaping mouth. "Alex? What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, ya big lug!" Angel grabbed the switchblade out of Alex's hands and got to work sawing at the ropes. "Cripes, I don't know how you keep getting yourself into these situations, Erik."

Charles looked from Alex to Angel to me and then back again. "Hmmm maaa hrmmm?" He mumbled into the fabric around his mouth, confused. Alex untied the rag from where it was knotted at the back of his head and he licked his lips, making a face as if he was trying to clean a bad taste from his mouth (Which he probably was. The rags weren't exactly clean). "Pardon me if I'm being rude, but who are you people?"

"Angel is a friend of mine. Alex is an associate." I resisted the urge to add And my stalker. The ropes snapped and fell to the ground, and Angel handed me the knife. I got to work on Charles' ties. "How did you guys find us?"

Alex grinned smugly. "Remember last night, when you told me to stop tailing you?"

"Ye-es." I didn't like the direction this conversation was going in.

"Yeah, well, I kind of ignored you." He held up his hands defensively. "I wasn't spying on you or anything, I just wanted to help! Anyway, I was going to get help after that car hit you, but when I came back you were being loaded into this black sedan, and I tried chasing after it but it was going too fast. So I memorized the license plate number and then went to Angel to see if she recognized it."

"I don't know why he thought I would; it's not like I'm the Department of Motor Vehicles." She rolled her eyes. "Fortunately I had seen my friend Remy earlier, and he had told me you two were in his shop this morning." She smirked. "Nice suit, by the way. You're lucky Remy can't keep his Cajun mouth shut."

"You know Remy?" Charles asked, massaging his wrists where he had rubbed them raw against the ropes.

Angel raised her eyebrows. "Oh yeah. Remy and I know each other in the Biblical sense."

Charles flushed. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Don't worry about it, she's a whore." Alex helped himself to the decanter of scotch Shaw had placed on his coffee table. He glanced at the shocked expression on Charles' face and grinned, handing him a glass. "I don't mean that as an insult, it's really her job."

"Girl's gotta make dough somehow." Angel shrugged. Charles buried his head in his hands.

"I'm still trying to figure out how you got here." I said as I poked Azazel's unconscious body with foot. "It's not like Remy knew where we'd be."

"It wasn't that hard, really." Alex helped Charles up. "We went to your apartment, Charles, to try to find Mister Lensherr-"

"Seriously, don't call me that."

"-We went to your apartment to try to find Erik, but before we could talk to you those two mooks shuffled you into the car and drove off."

"How did you follow us if we were in a car and you were on foot?" Charles asked suspiciously.

Alex coughed. "I may or may not have used some tricks I picked up in prison to 'borrow' a car."

I groaned. "Alex..."

"You had just been kidnapped! What was I supposed to do, make whoopee with a fire hydrant and hope everything turned out swell?"

"Can I just remind you that we saved your guys' lives recently? Just saying." Angel interjected, folding her arms over her chest petulantly. I sighed.

"Right. Sorry. Thank you very much for saving our lives, we really appreciate it, even if you had to steal a car to do it." I felt something click in my head suddenly, and a grin spread across my face. Scooping Magda up from the couch, I spun around and pointed a finger at Alex. "Do you still have the car?"

"Yeah, it's outside." He jerked his thumb back towards the door. "Look, I'm going to give it back right away-"

"You might want to hold off on that." I holstered my gun and headed for the stairs. "I'm going to crash that party."

Charles grabbed me by the shoulder. "I'm coming with you."

I shook my head. "No way. You've just been hit in the head twice and gotten tied up: Angel is going to take you to the hospital. Besides, this is going to get ugly."

His hold on my arm tightened and he scowled up at me. "My sister is in danger, Erik. I can't just sit here while Shaw forces her into…. Into unholy matrimony!"

I sighed. "All right, if I'm bringing one of you along I might as well bring all of you. But for God's sake, hurry up. We're running out of time."