Part Three
'C'mon, Wes,' Doyle muttered under his breath, as he and the Groosalug waited outside the demon brothel, 'this is gettin' embarassin' … hey, how y' doin'?' he gave a nod and a pleasant smile to a woman who walked past him in the street - she looked at him, looked at Madam Dorion's and curled her lip, as if she knew exactly what went on in there and what Doyle was waiting for. 'It's not what you …' he began to say, but she walked off - tutting. 'Man!' The half demon sighed, and checked his watch again. What on earth could be taking Wesley so long?
The security guards jumped and turned around, as they heard a terrified, high pitched scream emanate from Lorne's dressing room. Fred came running out, wild eyed and shaking. She pushed past them and then came to a stop, leaning against the wall and covering her face with her hands. 'Oh my god!' She looked up at them, 'it was horrible! He attacked me with - uhm - these… laser beams that came out of his … horns.' She put her hands up to her own horns to demonstrate the path of the lasers. 'And then he escaped -' she yelled, 'he's gone!' She pointed a quivering finger in the direction of the door.
But the security guards did not move. 'There's no other way out,' one of them told her.
'Right. No.' Fred's voice was panicked - and it wasn't all acting, ''cause he went through some sort of demon metamorphosis thing and he spit out his entire skeleton like, like…' she mimed a very graphic and violent throwing up and then straightened up. 'Like that. And then he just … he slithered away. Down the drain. In the sink. In the bathroom. Hurry!' She pointed again and this time, panicked by her frantic display, the guards ran into the dressing room. 'Code green, we have a code green,' one of them said into his walkie talkie as he hustled through the door.
Once they guards were inside, headed for the bathroom, Lorne; wearing sunglasses, a trench coat and a trilby; slipped out of the dressing room door. Gunn ran along the hallway to meet up with them 'someone wanna give me the lowdown?' he asked, as Lorne closed the doors and then tied the doorknobs together with the tassles from the curtains. 'Later,' the green demon said, 'suffice it to say we're dead if we don't get our tushes out of dodge.'
'Good enough.'
They ran away down the corridor, able to hear the muffled sound of the guards trying to escape. 'We need the big guns,' Lorne panted, as he ran, 'where's Angel?'
'Hello? Paging Mr. Oblivious.' Cordelia waved a hand in front of Angel's face, but the vampire ignored her. Instead, he sat at the slot machine, fed a quarter into the slot and then pulled the lever. The pictures whirred past and then landed on a bunch of cherries, a diamond and a number seven. Blankly, Angel took another quarter out of his cup, slid it into the machine and pulled the lever once more.
'Angel … what's with …' she sighed and shifted her weight, balancing Connor on her hip, so she had a better grasp of him. 'What happened in there? What happened to our plan of finding out what's up with the spin to win game?'
Angel put in another quarter and pulled the lever again. 'Angel, stop!' Cordelia put her hand out and tried to prevent him from pulling the lever. He turned to stare at her, then, and she saw the blankness of his expression. 'I have to play to win, Cordelia,' he said to her.
'Oh boy,' she sighed in frustration, 'they put the whammy on you! You stink with whammy!' She bit down on her lip and chewed it, as she stared round hopelessly at the rest of the casino. 'So now - in order to save all these nice people - I have to save you, first. Boy, are you ever the most hopeless champion I ever met. Here…' She slid Connor into the vampire's lap. 'I can't go on a rescue mission and baby sit - just - just don't move, OK?'
'OK, Cordelia,' he didn't look up, or glance down at his infant son now balanced on his knee. Staring only at the machine, he pulled the lever again. Cordy sighed, shook her head and then left him to it - going off to find a way to reverse the whammy.
'Where the hell have you been?' Wesley had finally arrived, and the three men were making their way into the demon brothel. Doyle cast an anxious glance over his shoulder to check that no one he knew could see him. Though he needn't have worried - he knew very few people who lived in or frequented Bel Air.
'There was a telephone call I had to take, it took precedence.'
'Precedence over a case where a billionaire is payin' us to do a bit of leg work for him?'
'Yes.' The watcher's tone brooked no argument and so Doyle had no choice but to let it slide. He shook his head, wondering what it was that was keeping Wesley so busy lately - and so distant.
As they walked inside, they found themselves in a large room, with plush carpets and curtains. There was a tinkling fountain in the middle and all around the edges there were velvet chaise longues with women of varying demonic species draped across them. Doyle could feel the sharp eyes of all the demon women on their little group, as they walked through the room. He swallowed, nervously, and scuffled closer to Wesley. 'Let's just get in and out as fast as we can, yeah?' he muttered.
A middle aged woman in a business suit intercepted them, as they crossed the lobby. She smiled a welcoming smile at them, 'and what can we do for you fine gentlemen today?' she asked, 'what type of morsel can I tempt you with?' she waved her hand to indicate the women.
The Irishman narrowed his eyes, 'that's not what we are here for.'
'We are here on a quest - to right wrongs and seek truths,' the Groosalug said, which made the Madam smile. Doyle gave the champion a look and shook his head, 'what did I say about stayin' quiet?'
'Forgive me, Noble Majesty.' The Groosalug bowed his head to the half demon - who looked embarrassed. Madam Dorion raised an eyebrow.
'We're just here to talk,' Wesley said to the brothel keeper. She raised another eyebrow. 'That isn't our usual line,' she told him.
'No - but I don't believe it is your usual line to have your clients photographed here and then blackmailed afterwards, is it?'
Madam Dorion looked annoyed and sighed, 'blackmailers,' she spat, 'I hate blackmailers. They're so bad for business.'
'Yeah, well - the world is full o' people who do wicked and evil things,' Doyle said to her; he fixed Madam Dorion with a hard stare to make it clear he included her in that. 'But in this case - one such person is gonna give us bushel loads o' cash if we stop another such person and well… a boy's gotta eat. So here we are. Tell us what we wanna know and we'll be on our way.'
'Do you know which girl your client was with?'
'I'm afraid not,' Wesley told her, 'but the client's name is David Nabbit. He's had similar trouble before.'
'And probably will again,' the Irishman muttered.
'Then he'll prove a lucrative meal ticket for you, Noble Majesty,' Madam Dorion replied - her tone was passive aggressive and Doyle knew he had pissed her off by intimating that, for all her fancy Bel Air mansion, she was no better than any other pimp that took advantage of vulnerable women with few options. 'You want to speak with Lina,' she said, speaking to Wesley again, 'Nabbit always goes for Lina. Come on - I'll take you to her.'
...
She led them down a hallway and up some wide, elegant stairs. As they passed through the brothel, the Groosalug found himself attracting the attention of the women - many of them blowing kisses at him and waving, as he went past. A couple even began to follow the group. 'That one's a pretty one,' one such demon girl said. She had pale blue skin, pointed ears and electric purple eyes, which glowed as she looked at the undefeated champion. 'Can I have this one, Madam?' She reached out a hand to take hold of Groo, 'I'll show you things you never even imagined,' she said to him.
But Madam Dorion removed her hand from the Groosalug's bulging biceps. 'That's not why he's here, Nadrisa - go back downstairs.' The blue woman stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, but did as she was told.
'You see?' the brothel keeper said to Doyle, quirking an eyebrow at him, 'my girls are happy here, they like their work.'
'Yeah … funny that her enthusiasm for her 'work' didn't stretch to her wantin' anythin' to do with me - or Wes. And I imagine a lot more o' your punters look more like me than they do like the Groosalug… if you're lucky. If I was a payin' client - she'd still have to rustle up that enthusiasm for me though, wouldn't she? Whether she liked it or not. Even if I was 85, with halitosis and the sweats.'
'They understand what their job entails - they accept its terms and conditions,' she said to him, frostily.
'Is that a fact?'
They reached the top of the stairs and began to walk down the corridor. The wallpaper was flocked and there were chandeliers dangling from the ceiling at intervals of several feet. From the rooms lining the hallway, they could hear the sounds of the demon women with their clients.
The Groosalug was staring around, turning his head every time he heard a new guttural moan or pleasured whimper. 'The women who serve this place - they are concubines?' he realised. Doyle nodded. 'Is this the place where you found your own Chosen Consort, Noble Majesty?'
'What? No! I met Cordy through Angel. I would never use a place like this.'
'My my my,' Madam Dorion muttered to herself, as she led them down the thickly carpeted passage, 'isn't the boot on the other foot for Mr. High and Mighty, now?'
'The Groosalug is from a different dimension,' The Irishman snapped, 'turns out I'm the prophesied King of his land. Hence the 'Noble Majesty' stuff. There was a … misunderstanding about my girlfriend. That's all. No funny business...' He trailed off, as he was distracted by a low, tinkling laugh. The door to the nearest room swung open and the whole little group were able to see inside.
The room was lit red and was mostly taken up by a gigantic bed. A man and a woman were bouncing up and down on it - fighting with their pillows. But they were moving in slow motion. As the group watched, the woman's pillow split and a shower of feathers cascaded across the room - impossibly slowly; defying gravity, as they hung in the air.
'The room is enchanted,' Madam Dorion told them.
'You don't say,' Doyle said, staring as the feathers drifted with glacial slowness to the floor.
'Everything that happens in there: every touch; every emotion; every desire - is extended for maximum pleasure.' She looked sidewards at the Irishman, 'perhaps you would like to bring your own concubine - sorry 'chosen consort' here. You could do with lightening up. I can check the schedule for you - experience sensuality that seems to last a lifetime.'
Doyle realised he had been holding his breath, he ripped his eyes away from the door and looked at the Madam. 'Girlfriend,' he repeated. 'She was my girlfriend - nothin' else. And she would hate to come to a place like this, almost as much as I would hate to bring her.'
'Alas his chosen consort loves him no longer,' the Groosalug explained to Madam Dorion, helpfully, 'she has long since chosen to be without her King.'
'Thanks, bud.'
Madam Dorion snickered softly, 'that explains a lot - you do seem like someone in desperate need of... releasing some tension.'
Doyle glared at her. 'Just take us to the girl who was with Nabbit,' he snapped.
The woman smirked, 'this way.'
Another woman came stumbling out from behind the curtains, clutching a cup of quarters; her face was blank. 'Right,' Cordelia breathed to herself, 'the game's just finished…' She glanced around and then snuck behind the curtain. The place was deserted - but the gaming table was still there. She began to examine it, trying to work out the rules - and how it managed to turn normal people into mindless zombies.
'So… I'm guessing they spin this wheel,' she muttered to herself, spinning the roulette wheel with her hand, 'and whatever the ball lands on wins.' She looked at the table itself - noting the circles. 'And I guess the gamblers choose a circle and put a chip on it.' She snorted, 'I'm guessing not many of them win. But what happens next?'
The door at the back opened suddenly and, with a gasp, Cordelia ducked down so she couldn't be seen. The croupier came out of the backroom and started setting up for the next game. Cordelia crawled her way towards that door - holding her breath as she did. As she reached the door, the croupier sneezed - and she seized her chance to use the moment of his distraction to nip inside.
She found herself in a back room. She looked around - the room was crowded, but fortunately everyone was too busy to notice her sudden appearance. She pressed herself against the wall, lurking behind a large potted plant and tried to look inconspicuous. From her vantage point, she peered between the leaves and took stock of the situation.
At first, she had thought she must have found herself in the control room for security; there were many monitors on the wall showing the CCTV footage of the gamblers out in the casino. But there were also numerous desks - and people sitting at them speaking in the phones. On the wall there was a scrolling message board - like a stock ticker - with red words moving across. 'Two term senatorship: Nevada' Cordelia read, 'Pulitzer prize winner… what?'
'Sir, you need to see this.' A big goon with a gun came in, holding what looked like stock. Cordelia jumped, behind her pot plant - surprised - but managed to get a hold of herself. The goon walked up to a small man, with thinning hair - showing him the stock. 'This is what we got from our party crasher - the demon's friend.'
Lee DeMarco took the report and glanced at it. 'A vampire?'
'With a soul.'
'Angel,' Cordelia breathed.
'Well, now,' Lee said to the goon, 'this is interesting.'
'Yes, sir - amongst other things he's supposed to be a major player in the apocalypse.'
'That's not a surprise - look at this,' Lee pointed to something in the report. The goon squinted to read it. 'He's the lover of a vampire slayer?'
'Was,' Lee chuckled, 'everything's past tense now.' Then he became all business like. 'Have our brokers get the word out on this and - uh - you might wanna put a call in to that weirdo law firm in L.A.'
Fred, Gunn and Lorne hurried through the casino, ignoring the bright lights and loud noises, focused only on finding Angel and getting out of there. Fred wiped the green makeup from her face, as she walked. Eventually they located the vampire sitting, zombie like, at one of the slot machines - feeding it quarters. Connor was balanced on his knee, but he paid no attention to his son.
'Angel, where you been?' Gunn asked him. Angel didn't look up from the machine. 'Here.' His voice was calm and blank - he sounded distant. 'I was there before,' he pointed to the machine beside of him, but again without looking up, 'and now I'm here.
Lorne was scanning the casino. He spotted some security goons headed their way - talking into their walkie talkies. 'I think we got company coming, kids,' he warned, 'and I don't mean my Aunt Gert.'
'Look,' Gunn kept his voice hurried and low as he spoke to the distracted vampire, 'there's big bad going down. We gotta get Lorne outta here. Think you can slow 'em down?'
Angel glanced at Gunn. 'OK.' Then he looked back at his game.
'Gimme your car keys,'
Without looking up again, Angel dug in his pocket and handed the keys to the Plymouth over to the streetfighter. 'Hold 'em off as long as you can,' Gunn said to him, 'I'll swing the car around to the end of the block, pick you up in front of the Nugget, OK?'
'OK,' he put another quarter into the slot. His three friends began to hurry away. 'Good luck,' Angel said, still staring at his machine. He stood up … and then sat back down in front of the next machine. He put his coin in the slot and pulled the lever.
Madam Dorion eased open one of the doors … inside, the three men could see a man - a human - wearing a dress shirt and pants, chained to the wall. 'Oh - hello,' the man said to them. With a snarl, the Groosalug raised his sword, dashed into the room, and began hacking at the chains with his blade. 'Fear not, friend, we are here to save you!'
'Hey!' the man looked startled, 'get off.'
Madam Dorion stared at Doyle and Wesley, 'can you call your gung ho friend off, please?' she asked, 'he's upsetting the regulars.'
'Groosalug - leave the nice gentleman alone!' Wesley called to the undefeated champion
'He is a slave!'
'Don't judge me,' the man snapped.
'Groo, bud, just back off - yeah? We're not here to rescue him.'
The Groosalug looked put out, but he nodded and stepped back, 'as his Noble Majesty wishes.' He nodded his head to the chained up man, 'my apologies, slave.'
'Dorion…' the man started to complain to the brothel keeper. But she shook her head. 'We'll give you 20% off for the interruption… but I need to borrow Lina, for a second.'
One of the demon women, who had been in the room with the man, headed over to the door. As it closed behind her, the men heard the sound of a whip crack. 'Now I have you all to myself, what will I do with you?' they heard the remaining demon woman say to the chained man. The door clicked shut, blocking out any more sounds, and Lina looked at her boss. 'What's up?' she looked at the Groosalug and began to smile, 'please tell me you want me to take special care of this one?' She began to rub her hand across his bulging biceps. Doyle rolled his eyes and looked away. Wesley cleared his throat. 'We need to talk to you about one of your regulars - David Nabbit,' he said to her. She glanced at her boss again, and Madam Dorion nodded, 'go ahead, Lina - answer their questions.'
...
As Wesley began to question Lina, and the demon woman continued to try and flirt with the Groosalug, Doyle glanced around. He felt … funny. Like there was a strange feeling inside of him - telling him he needed to go somewhere or be somewhere or … The last time he had felt this way had been over two years ago, underneath Wolfram and Hart, when he had felt the pull of the beacon - calling to him. His destiny was wrapped up in that beacon - it was supposed to have killed him, just like he was supposed to destroy it - and so, when he was close to it, he could feel it inside - every fibre of his being screaming at him to reach out and fulfil his purpose.
The beacon couldn't possibly be here, but the feeling was the same. His every cell was jangling inside of him, telling him his destiny was close by. His demon guide, Skip, had told him that he needed to trust in his own instincts. That he - above all others - was connected to the Powers That Be and could feel their guiding influence. Well, if they were sending him messages - even if it was different to the normal, head cracking, mind splitting migraines they usually used to communicate with him - then he knew better than to ignore them.
As Lina told Wesley what she knew, Doyle began to back away from the group and then, once he had created some distance, turned and walked off in the direction that was calling out to him. The others didn't even seem to notice.
He followed the corridor along to the end, and then - still following nothing but his own instincts - took the next flight of stairs upward. As he reached the top, he had a choice, head down another plush, dimly lit hallway - or follow the stairs higher. He took the stairs. They were narrower now, less fancy. This was not an area the punters were supposed to see. He got to the very top and found a corridor that was much more sterile and businesslike than the lower ones. He followed it until he came to one particular door. Everything inside of him was screaming at him, now, so he put his hand onto the handle and pushed.
The three of them hurried through the casino. A security guard moved over to intercept them. Gunn punched him in the face, the guard fell to the floor - and the three of them ran to the nearest door.
They came out into a brightly lit shopping centre. Neon lights flashed in every direction; the whole place was crowded with people and Elvis was blasting out Viva Las Vegas over a loudspeaker. Gunn looked around at the crush and the din, 'where the hell are we?'
'Wrong exit,' Lorne told him, 'this is Glitter Gulch.'
'Which way's the car?'
Fred twisted around, trying to get her bearings. 'I think it's back this…' she saw some security guards rushing towards them, '...nevermind.' The three of them ducked down low and began to dodge in between the crowds, trying to hide from their pursuers. When it looked like they had lost them they began to run.
'You said this DeMarco guy is destroying lives?' Gunn asked the green demon, 'how?'
'By taking them.'
'Killing people?'
'No - worse.' They came to a stop and Lorne began to explain the racket DeMarco had going on. He used the Host to read members of the audience during his show, looking for those with valuable destinies: power, wealth, fame - whatever looked good. The ones Lorne tapped would then be 'chosen' to play the game - 'Spin to Win' - except it wasn't a game. Their destiny would be imprinted on the chip - and the wheel was tricked out to never play off. The house always won - and everybody else lost. Everything. Their futures, their destinies. These were then offered up on an extremely black global market to anyone who felt like changing their own future.
'Futures trading,' Fred said.
'Can't get any more literal than that, crumbcake.'
'What happens to them?' she asked, 'the people?'
'Nothing,' Lorne told her. 'Nothing ever happens to them - or ever will. They've got no purpose, no direction; unable to accomplish or succeed at anything ever again. Most never leave here. Some never even make it out of the casino. They just sit there shovelling coins into slot machines that never pay off, like zombies, like...'
'Angel!' Gunn looked alarmed - as he put two and two together, thinking of his friend's weird and distracted behaviour. 'They got him!'
'Uh oh,' Fred said.
'Yeah - I should say that's a pretty big uh oh.'
'No - not that uh oh,' she corrected - she pointed, 'that uh oh.' Security guards were headed right to them, from every direction. They were trapped. 'What do we do?'
'Now we do that fighting for our lives thing we do,' Gunn told her. Lorne nodded - or he could just … he crossed to a nearby street performer and took their microphone. He sang a very loud, very high pitched note into the mic - until the bulbs on the neon lights smashed and everyone ducked for cover, covering their ears in pain. Then the three of them ran.
Doyle found himself in an office, he assumed it must be Madam Dorion's own. There was a large desk, with a computer and a pot plant on it - and there were filing cabinets either side of the window.
He was drawn to the left hand side cabinet. He didn't know why, but he wasn't arguing, everything was telling him to open the middle drawer and look through the files there. He pulled it open and began to flick through the manilla folders. He found one that looked like a delivery manifest. He read it and began to frown. Surely this couldn't mean what he thought it meant? Surely not?
'That was brilliant, Lorne!' Fred gasped, the three of them came to a stop once they thought they were safe. 'I may never hear my upper registers again, but nice work.'
'Right - but what about Angel?' Gunn looked at Lorne, 'did you tell them about him?'
'Of course not! You can't think I'd do that.'
'Well, I don't know why you did it to the rest of them, so…'
'Charles!' Fred admonished, softly.
'No, It's OK,' Lorne said, 'you deserve an explanation. Of course I said no - when they told me what they wanted. And the first time I did, they took one of the girls from my act and shot her brains out, right in front of me. Said that would happen every time I refused.'
Gunn looked at his shoes, 'I'm sorry.'
'No more than I am, slick.'
They headed off to get the car, and drove it back to the Tropicana, hoping they could find Angel, Cordy and Connor.
Cordelia had snuck out of the back room and crawled through the game room in order to head back to the casino. Her heart hammered in her chest so loud the whole time, she was sure the croupier would hear it - and catch her- but she got out safely. 'OK, now, Cor - think,' she hissed to herself. 'Angel's no good to you if you can't get him off that machine. So you need to get him off - but how? How?' She looked around, scanning the room, hoping for inspiration.
Her eyes fell on a heavy door at the far end of the room. 'The control room,' she said, 'if I can just get in there - maybe I can switch the machines off … but there'll be security, I need a weapon.' She looked around again. Then headed back to Angel.
She found him still at the slots, Connor still on his knee. 'How's it going?' she asked him.
'Good.'
'Well - you can talk at least.'
'Of course I can talk.' He pulled the lever. The pictured spun round - all three different. He took out another quarter. Cordelia eyed it. It had given her an idea. She took Connor's diaper bag from the vampire and emptied it out onto the floor. Angel didn't even look round. Then she grabbed a handful of his quarters and stowed them in the bag. Then she moved on to the next machine - and stole a handful of the next person's quarters. Not enough that they would notice - and get up, or cause a scene. Just a handful. She moved through the machines, stealing fistfuls of quarters from every living zombie she passed, until the diaper bag was full and she was outside the control room. Then she opened the door and stepped inside.
...
A security guard, sat watching the screens, turned and looked at her. 'Hey what are you doing in…' She swung the diaper bag packed with quarters right into his face. He fell to the floor - knocked out, and Cordelia took his place at the screens. 'Right,' she murmured to herself, 'how to shut this all off?'
They swung the Plymouth to a stop outside of the Tropicana. 'Right,' Gunn said, getting out, 'as soon as I find Angel, I'm bringing him right out. Better keep the engine running in case there's a posse behind us.' He ran off.
Fred looked at Lorne, 'but what about his destiny? Angel's. We can't leave without getting it back.'
'Yeah, well - this is Vegas, sunshine. Generally speaking, you lose here - you don't get it back.'
Gunn walked through the casino and found Angel still on the slots. 'Angel.'
When the pictures stopped spinning, Angel turned to look at him. His was face still blank and expressionless. 'You - you know who I am, right?' the street fighter asked.
'Gunn.' His voice was equally blank.
'Yeah - and I'm your friend.'
'I know that - I'm not stupid.' He turned back to face the machine.
'Listen - something's happened to you.'
'I got two cherries.'
'What?'
The vampire pointed at the pictures, 'I got two cherries. If I get another one, I get my quarter back.'
Gunn took hold of his upper arm and shook it, 'we gotta go.'
'Have to play to win.'
Gripping his arm, Gunn began to walk away, hoping to drag Angel with him. 'Game's over - we're leaving.'
'Actually - you're not.' Gunn turned to face this new voice. It was a security guard, and they had Fred and Lorne in their grip. The street fighter was grabbed, and the three of them were hustled off. Angel remained at the slot machines. When the game finished and he didn't win anything, he moved himself and Connor onto the next machine - completely untroubled by the arrest of his friends.
