Part Four
Lilah raised her shades, so they were resting on her brow, and watched the slimy, blue creature start to crawl up Angel's abdomen. She waited until it latched on - Angel moaned and groaned but was helpless to stop it - and then she smirked, got up off the bed and hopped out of the apartment, taking the box with her.
'No!' Angel stared down in dazed and sweaty horror at the much bigger parasite that was now suckered onto him. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth and - with the last of his strength - swung his arm out at the creature and knocked it from the bed. Then he tumbled out of the other side and began to slowly and painfully drag himself across the floor.
He reached out for the phone, but - clumsy and weak with exhaustion - he only managed in knocking it off the side. He rolled over and collapsed - too tired to move, and the creature crawled back up onto his chest.
Cordelia heard the sound of the laughter behind her - and put on another spurt of speed, though every step was painful now - she'd been running for so long. She ran down the covered Spanish style walkway towards her apartment and pushed her way through the door. 'Doyle?' she called out, stumbling into her living room, 'Dennis?' But there was no reply. She stared round - and then she heard it again, snickering and chuckling - and then the glass from the large crescent window smashed in and a vicious looking, red skinned demon came tumbling through.
She screamed and kicked it in the head, it fell backwards and - before it had time to regain its footing - she fled towards her bedroom. She ran through her room and into the bathroom, where she slammed the door behind her and locked it.
When she turned round, she found herself standing out on the landing of the Hyperion. She could see the lobby beneath her, and the grand sweep of the stairs. She took a few deep breaths. 'Hello?' she called out. 'Doyle?... Where is everyone?... Please! I can't find you...'
From downstairs she heard that soft voice again - singing to her. 'When the night has come, and the way is dark - and the moon is the only light you'll see…' She knew that voice. It meant safety and comfort, if she could only get to it. But behind her, the laughter sounded again - and the door she had just closed suddenly shook and vibrated, as something the other side of it slammed against it - trying to get through. She jumped - and then ran, heading for the stairs - and for the singing voice. 'Who's there?' she called out, 'I can't find you.'
'So darlin' darlin' stand by me - oh stand by me oh stand now, won't you stand, stand by me…' The voice sounded louder down in the lobby, and she looked around for it - it seemed right, here, in the Hyperion - like it belonged there, and she was sure if she could just find the singer then everything would be OK. She peered behind the front desk, hoping to see her friends, hoping Doyle would be there working at his computer, or Wes would be there reading his books - but it was deserted.
And then the laughter came again - and once more the windows shattered as demons, three of them this time, massive and snarling, came smashing through. She didn't even try to fight them. They were too many and she was too tired. Instead she just turned heel and fled, leaving the voice behind - as well as the demons - and running for the glass doors that led out into the courtyard.
But when she pushed her way through and stumbled outside, she found herself not out in the courtyard, as she had expected, but in the the quad at Sunnydale High. This wasn't right. She would never find Doyle here - he didn't belong here, and neither did she anymore. The place was still set up for graduation - though the chairs had been knocked over in the battle and the banner celebrating her graduating class had fallen down - but the place was deserted.
Almost deserted. She could hear the voice again. 'If the sky we look upon should tumble and fall and the mountains should crumble into the sea…' She raised her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun and gazed around. It was coming from inside the school, from upstairs. She crossed the quad and ran up the stairway, the one Marcie Ross had knocked Harmony down all those years before.
There was no sign of the laughter yet and she thought, if she kept on moving, then maybe she could outrun it. The door to the music room was hanging ajar and that seemed as good a place as any to look for the singing voice. But once inside, she found herself somewhere else again - not in Sunnydale anymore, and not in Kansas either - not by the look of the place.
She was in a corridor - the floor was stone flagged and the walls had tapestries hanging on them. The whole place was lit by braziers, which cast long, flickering shadows on the floor. She ran the length of the hallway and pushed open the grand double doors at the end and, stumbling through, found herself in Doyle's throne room. It looked just as she remembered it: the golden throne up on the dais; the high ceilings; the light flooding in the windows and the suits of armour and the trestle table of delicacies … but Doyle wasn't here.
The laughter came again - and she turned to look, wondering where she could run to next. And then she saw all the demons suddenly seem to melt out of the walls - the priests in their red robes, the Deathwok demons, and the purple, stringy ones whose name she couldn't remember. They were all closing in on her - none of them looking too pleased to see the King's cow consort back in the throne room.
But then the singing came again, a new song now - 'when you're weary feeling small, when tears are in your eyes I'll dry them all…' and suddenly the Pylean demons fell to the floor, clutching their ears and screaming as if in pain. Cordelia seized her opportunity and ran on again - not knowing where she was heading, or where she would end up next. Nothing seemed to make any sense. Not here. Though she didn't really know where 'here' was - she had been so many places, this couldn't be the real world. And Doyle wasn't anywhere - and she didn't understand that, because she couldn't believe he would leave her here - alone. The only comfort she had was that singing voice, but she knew that wasn't him.
She jumped up onto the dais, ran behind the throne and pulled the curtain back, hoping to find a means of escape, whilst the demons were still writhing in agony from the music. She fell through the curtain and came to a stop - wherever she was she had never been here before. But she was high up, and she must be back in L.A because whatever this place was it had spectacular views of the city … really spectacular views. It was night time, and the lights of Downtown were twinkling beneath her, taking the place of the stars that could never be seen in Los Angeles. But now was not the time to admire the beauty of the city at night, and regretfully she turned away.
The place was an apartment - a penthouse - beautifully furnished … so beautifully furnished … and it was large and luxurious. She could hear the singing coming from one of the rooms. 'Like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down, Like a bridge over troubled waters..' She took a step towards it.
But then, from a different room, she heard a groaning sound. It sounded like someone in trouble - not the laughter that was haunting her, and not the demons that kept attacking her - but the sound of a soul in torment. She hesitated - and then turned away from the singing, and from safety, and went to investigate. After all - if someone was in trouble - even tired and frightened and alone as she was - she was the slayer, she helped the hopeless, it was her job to help this person.
The moaning was coming from what turned out to be a bedroom - there was a giant, king sized bed with Egyptian cotton sheets and a thread count to die for. And then she saw him. Angel was lying on the floor - almost paralysed. And there was a creature on top of him, large and blue and slimy - like a parasite - and it was sucking his strength, killing him. He couldn't get free. 'Angel!' she ran over to him - and tried to pull the creature off - but her hand went right through him, as if he weren't really there, or as if she were a ghost. 'Angel I can't…' she tried again.
Their eyes met for a moment - and she knew he could see her too. He reached out for her, but just as had happened when she tried to touch him, his hand passed through her. One of them was not really there. 'Angel,' her eyes filled with tears as she saw how much he was suffering and felt how hopeless she was to try and help.
And then the laughter came again, that sinister, creepy little chuckle that always preceded a demon attack. She got back to her feet and looked around - but she stood her ground. She wasn't going to run on, run away - not when Angel was here, suffering. She couldn't just leave him behind. She was going to stay with him - until they were saved or until they were dead. She planted her feet and raised her fists and waited for the first of the demons to melt out of the woodwork and come at her.
Doyle, Wes and Gunn had left the office - leaving Fred and Lorne watching over Cordelia, as she dreamt - and were headed to the address Doyle had been able to pull from the demons demons demons database. They pulled up outside the Old Los Angeles Subway Terminal Building and got out of the car. It was a long time since this building had acted as a railway station - it was now a block of very high end apartments - but it still had access to the tunnels, inside.
The block of apartments had a doorman - who opened his mouth as if to say something when he saw Doyle headed for the building, in his cheap shirt and battered leather jacket, but then closed it again and nodded respectfully when he saw Gunn with him - and took in the cut of his designer suit. He opened the door for the three men and they marched inside, and then headed for the boiler room in the basement.
Down there was a grate, like the sewer access opening in the Hyperion, but here it led down to the old underground rail lines instead. They prised open the grate and dropped down into the hole. The air down there was humid and stagnant and hard to breathe. It was dark and oppressive, with the sound of water dripping in from the streets above and the sound of a suction pump faltering and spluttering in the distance. It was muddy under foot, with decades of mulch and ground water and debris coming up to almost ankle depth.
'Man, what is this place?' Gunn asked.
'The Pacific Electric Railway,' Doyle told him, his voice was grim. 'Red car line - or what's left of it anyway. Been closed since the 50s.'
'Yes, I've heard about this,' Wesley raised his flashlight and shone it around - the beam landing on the old platform sign that still stood there - a painting of two disembodied, little hands indicating which platform to use depending on the direction of travel. 'The official story was that it simply wasn't needed any more - not cost efficient. Buses and, of course, cars meant that less and less people used the old subway. But rumour has it that the real reason was more eldritch in nature.'
'A demon moved in,' Doyle shrugged, he jumped down from the old platform and started walking down the abandoned railway line, headed for the tunnels, 'and that's when people move out.'
'And the demon's still here?' Gunn asked, following behind him, 'it's the demon that's messing with Cordy?'
'I reckon so.' Gripping their flashlights tightly, and shining their beams ahead of them, they squelched through the mud and down the dark tunnel. 'We need to keep an eye out for the entrance way,' Doyle said, shining his own flashlight along the brick walls of the tunnel itself.
'Entrance way to what?' Wesley asked him.
'To the demon's lair.'
'You mean this aint the demon's lair?' Gunn sounded surprised. But Doyle only shrugged. 'Would you wanna live in a dark, dank, skank hole like this?' he asked. 'Nah - the demon comes from the underworld. It was only in the 19th century - or in this case the 1920s - when humans started digging deep enough to excavate underground railway systems, that some demons found a way up into our world. This is just the gateway…' his flashlight hit on a wide crack in the wall, large enough for a man to fit through if he slipped in sideways. He came to a stop. 'And I reckon this is the gate.'
They came to a stop. 'I think perhaps we should exercise due caution before we just disappear down a crevice in the wall of an abandoned, underground tunnel - into a place that is quite possibly packed with demons,' Wesley suggested.
'And I think that whatever's down there is hurtin' Cordy,' Doyle told him. 'We left caution behind several stops back. Now it's them that need to look out.'
'I'm down with that,' Gunn agreed.
Hidden in the darkness of the subterranean passageway, a strange tremor passed over Doyle's face, at Gunn's words. His eyes glinted, hard and angry - but no one saw, in the gloom, and he didn't say anything. Instead, he just glanced between his two friends, and then led the way through the crack in the wall.
...
He found himself in a narrow, downward sloping passage - the floor was uneven beneath his feet and he put out his free hand to brace himself against the wall, and shone the flashlight on the ground to light up any hidden bumps or pitfalls. Slowly, he shuffled his way down, hearing Wes and Gunn following on behind him. The narrow path twisted and turned, as he headed even further beneath the ground, and the lower they went the even hotter and staler the air became. It was getting difficult to breathe, and the darkness and the walls on either side were claustrophobic and suffocating. But this was for Cordy, and so it never even occurred to Doyle to give up and go back to safety, never even occurred to him to be bothered by the heat and the dark and the narrowness, never even occurred to him to be frightened - of where he was now or what was to come at the end of it. Nothing mattered, except saving Cordelia.
After about ten minutes of stumbling through the dark, following the twists of the pathways ever further downward, they eventually saw a glimmer of distant light. It grew brighter and rosier the closer they got until, finally, the pathway opened up into a large chamber, lit by torches - their flames casting flickering shadows across the rough hewn walls.
The chamber was empty - but across from them were two large, grand looking double doors. 'So I'm guessing we take whatever's behind door number one,' Gunn said.
'Remember,' Wesley told them both, 'whatever demons are behind there - killing them is just a bonus. If we're to save Cordelia we need to smash the statue of Akashelshi - that's the only way to rid her mind of his possession.'
They switched off their flashlights, now they were no longer needed - and left them behind in the antechamber, taking their weapons out instead. And then, 'count o' three,' Doyle said, they stood in front of the door. 'One,' he morphed into his spikes, 'two,' they raised their weapons, 'three…' he kicked the door down and they rushed inside the next chamber.
Cordelia cried out, and twisted in her sleep. She strained against the bonds that tied her down, thrashing around, but couldn't get free. Her face was pained - and even though she slept, she still looked exhausted. Lorne sat beside her, holding her hand and still singing softly. 'When your day is long, and the night, the night is yours alone…'
'I just hate seeing her like this,' Fred said quietly, sitting beside him - and watching Cordelia's distressed face, sadly. 'She's in so much pain. Do you think the guys will find who's doing this? Do you think they'll stop it?'
Cordelia cried out again. Lorne squeezed her hand, tighter. 'I'm sure of it, sugar … cause everybody cries. And everybody hurts … sometimes.'
They burst into the larger underground room. Like the antechamber, the walls were rough stone, though they were draped in tapestries and the light from the torches caught the gold of their threads and made them gleam. There was a throne, made out of what looked like the twisted and bleached bones of humans, standing empty on a dais. Whoever's throne room this was - they were not in to visitors today. And in the middle of the room, there was a pentagram daubed on the floor, surrounded by a hundred candles - and in the centre of the star was the small, squat effigy of the trickster spirit, Akashelshi.
A group of robed demons - acolytes of the one whose domain this was - were kneeling around the pentagram, chanting. They had red skin and green eyes and long, curved, rams horns - they stumbled to their feet in alarm when the door came flying in and the three men rushed them, weapons raised.
Although there were far more demons, Doyle and his friends held the advantage as they had got the jump on them and, unlike the acolytes, they were armed. They moved through the chamber, swift and sure, hacking down any demon that got in their path. Wesley skewered one with his sword, before pulling it free and then turning, swinging the blade to behead another one creeping up behind him.
Gunn and Doyle were both using axes, smashing them into the bodies of their opponents and then kicking them away from themselves. Doyle grabbed one by the collar and rammed his face full of spikes into the demon's own face in a vicious headbutt. The demon screamed out and raised its hands to its eyes - and that's when Doyle stuck his axe right in its chest. It fell to the ground with a thud.
Some of the acolytes were realising they were beaten and starting to flee. Gunn rugby tackled one to the ground and brought his own axe smashing down into its face. There was a fountain of blood and gore which sprayed up three feet in the air - and Gunn had to roll away to stop himself getting covered. Another demon came charging at him, screaming and - prone on the ground - he grabbed one of the candles which surrounded the pentagram, and used it to set the demon's robes alight.
And then Doyle saw the path clear to the small statue - such an innocuous looking thing, made from driftwood, all bumpy and gnarly, the sort of thing you would pass by in a thrift store and not look at twice except to comment how ugly it was - but it had caused so much trouble. He ran towards it, knocking candles over as he did, raised his axe high and then smashed it down onto the effigy. The wood splintered and shot out in all directions, and there was a sudden unearthly screaming noise, like the wail of a banshee, as the spirit of Akashelshi was ripped from the statue and cast out into the ether…
Cordelia threw a punch at one demon, and then kicked another, before throwing a third across the room. She glanced back at where Angel was still lying on the floor, groaning, trapped beneath the parasite that was killing him. But there was nothing she could do for him - she couldn't touch him, couldn't help him in this dream state. All she knew was that one - possibly both of them - were likely to die, but as long as she stayed here - they wouldn't have to die alone.
But then her head was filled with the most awful screeching sound, it reverberated in her eardrums and vibrated behind her eyes. She brought her hands up to cover her ears hoping to block it out, but the unearthly wail would not stop sounding. But then, the demons which circled around her suddenly started screaming out too - and they vanished into thin air, as if they had never been there.
With the screaming still ringing in her ears, she struggled her way back across to Angel. She knelt beside him and reached out to grab his hand and - just for a moment - she was able to hold onto him, but then the screeching reached a crescendo, she screwed up her eyes against the pain and woke up, screaming herself, tied to the bed.
The demons were all either dead now or gone. The statue of the trickster spirit was no more than firewood, spilled in jagged splinters across the floor. Doyle morphed back into his human face, all three men were breathing heavily after their exertion.
'So did we win?' Gunn asked looking around at the bodies of the acolytes and the remains of the effigy, ''cause it looks to me like we won,' he grinned.
But Wesley was frowning, staring down at one of the dead demons. He nudged it with his toe. 'I'm not sure,' he said, 'these demons … I've seen them before.' He crouched down to examine the body, scrutinising its face and the shape of the horns. 'Hmmm.'
'What hmmm?' Gunn asked him.
'I saw demons like these at the Halloween Party,' Wesley told his friends. 'Whoever they serve - I think it may be one of our clients.'
Doyle just nodded grimly - as if this news came as no surprise to him - and stalked out of the throne room, leaving the other two men behind.
Spike arrived back at his apartment, his six pack of beer tucked under his arm. But when he tried the door, he found it already unlocked - with a deep sigh he pushed it open and went inside. Sure enough, Doyle was sat on the couch, waiting for him. 'See you found the market,' he said, nodding to the beer.
Spike put the beer down on the table, 'thought this was supposed to be a single - didn't know I was gonna have a bloody roommate.'
'Just checking in,' he got to his feet, 'keeping tabs.' He crossed to the table and picked up one of Spike's beers. 'It's sort of what I do.'
Spike snatched the beer from his hand. 'Yeah - well I don't need a babysitter. Anyway shouldn't you be babysitting Cordy right now? Isn't she supposed to be in some kind of peril?'
'Cordy?' Doyle looked blank.
'Yeah…' Spike furrowed his brow suspiciously. 'You rang up Wes and Gunn panicking about her not two hours ago - what happened with all that?'
'Oh - right - yeah - Cordy … it's fine. Resolved. So now I'm back to being on your case … were Wes and Gunn here?'
'Uhuh,' Spike cracked open the beer and took a swig. 'Turns out you're not the only friend of Angel's hedging their bets on who's the real vampire champion in town.'
'Well isn't that interesting?'
Spike took another drink and shook his head. 'Not really, no - now piss off.'
Doyle laughed. 'You this prickly with all your friends?'
'I'm soft on the inside.'
'Spike … things would be…' he suddenly gulped and staggered a step backward. 'Things would go a lot smoother if you…' he brought his hand up to his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a sudden migraine.
'Oh bloody hell, what was that about?' Spike asked him.
'I just had another vision,' he panted, his face still looking pained.
'Oh great. Look - don't expect me to jump every time you get one of these vision thingies.'
Doyle shook his head, 'oh no - you're gonna wanna jump on this one.'
Gunn walked into the antechamber, dusting his hands off and laughing to himself. 'Man - I've missed getting my violence on,' he said to Doyle, who was just standing in the middle of the room, like he was frozen. 'Wes is goin' over those guys with a fine tooth comb trying to work out who they were - but me - I'm just happy I got to axe something. Don't care what their game was - don't know why they went after Cordy of all people th…'
He was suddenly cut off. Doyle had gone demon face again and had sprung across the room and now had the other man pinned up against the wall by his throat. He got right up in his face, so that the spikes were dangerously close to Gunn's eyes. Doyle's own red eyes were furious - there was a murderous light in them that Gunn had never seen there before.
'Those demons are the acolytes of lord D'hakmarth,' Doyle snarled. 'You remember him? The client you were so worried about impressin'? That statue I just smashed - me and Cordy found that statue. Took it off some vamps that were stealin' it. You took it off us. You gave it to this demon overlord - you threatened us with escalating the situation if we didn't hand it over.' He slammed him against the rough wall again, 'and now, your important demon client has used that statue to hurt my Cordelia.' He slammed Gunn again - the rage that he held back until the job was done was coursing through him now, electric and intense. 'If she'd got hurt - if she'd hurt someone else …'
Gunn pushed the angry half demon away from himself, Doyle stumbled back a few steps. Now Gunn was looking angry too. 'Man - I had no idea that would happen. I had no reason to think some demon overlord would go after Cordy.'
'But you knew he'd go after someone!' Doyle yelled at him. 'You knew he was a bad guy, you knew that was a dangerous artefact - and y' gave it to him anyway - 'cause you cared more about business than y' did about the people he might hurt. Thought you wouldn't have to see the consequences.'
'It wasn't like that…'
'She could have been killed,' Doyle's voice was trembling with rage. 'She very nearly killed someone else - a normal guy. I couldn't protect her from the consequences of that. And it would all be on you! If you ever put the needs of your evil law firm over the lives of innocent people again - ever do anything so stupid and selfish again - I will kill you. You have to believe me. I'll do it.'
'Like you could, Irish.'
'Just try me, Charles. Just bloody well try me.' Both men glared at each other, breathing heavily.
The moment was interrupted by Wesley walking into the chamber. He looked between them both, taking in their furious expressions. 'What's going on?' he asked. There was a moment of silence - as the two men continued to stare - daring the other to tell the whole truth, and then Doyle shook off his spikes. 'Nothin',' he muttered. 'It's between us.'
'Right - well,' he was still shooting suspicious glances between his two friends, 'Fred just called, Cordelia is awake - and her mind seems clear.'
Doyle took a few more deep breaths, and then turned and stormed away up the narrow passage, headed back for the underground tunnels and then the outside world.
Angel lay on the floor, gasping in pain. Cordelia had been here - just a second ago, she had held his hand - but then she had just vanished. And now he was alone again. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was sat out in the sunshine in a grassy meadow, on a comfy reclining, leather chair. The whole gang walked towards him - Cordy and Fred were wearing lightweight summer dresses and the gentle breeze was playing with their hair. 'This is really nice,' Fred said to him.
'You can stay as long as you want,' Wesley told him. 'Stay forever.'
'In the peace - in the sunshine,' Doyle agreed. Fred sat on the arm of the chair and smiled down at him. He looked at all his friends, smiling softly at him. 'No … there's so much work to do.'
'We've got it covered,' Gunn assured him.
'We can keep the city safe,' Cordy promised, 'you can rest.'
'But I'm not supposed to be here.'
'No fighting, Angel heart,' Lorne said. 'Time to let freedom reign. Let yourself go.'
'But I'm not finished.'
'You are if you want to be,' Wesley said, gently.
Fred reached out and stroked his hair. 'It'll be fine. Great, actually. All you have to do is stop caring. Just …' she suddenly stopped talking and threw her head back emitting a deafening and unearthly screech. And then Wesley did the same, followed by Gunn and Lorne and Doyle and Cordy. All of them - screaming out in animal agony, jolting Angel out of his dream state, just as Spike reached down and grabbed the blue creature off his chest. Then he threw it across the room, where it smashed against the wall and exploded in a burst of inky blood and gore, before falling to the floor - twitching for a moment and then going still.
'That'll be a bugger to clean up,' Spike said.
Angel peered up at him in pained confusion, 'Spike?'
'No need to thank me - I'm just helping the hopeless.'
'I'm telling you I'm fine,' Cordelia protested to Fred and Lorne for what seemed like the thousandth time. 'But if you don't untie me then I can guarantee that you two won't be.'
'We will, Cordy,' Fred said awkwardly, 'just - once Doyle's here and he's seen you're OK. If we let you go and something happens …'
'Nothing is going to happen. I'm completely OK again - one hundred percent creepy laughter free inside my noggin. So you need to untie me - and then you need to get back to the evil empire because there's something wrong with Angel and he needs your help.'
Fred and Lorne glanced at each other. 'Angel cakes is just feeling a little under the weather,' Lorne tried to assure her, 'we left him to rest.'
'And whilst he's resting this big, blue, slimy slug thing is munching on him and killing him. I saw him whilst I was sleeping. You need to go and save him. He's in danger.'
'Cordelia,' Fred frowned, 'if you saw him when you were sleeping, don't you think maybe it was just part of your dream?'
'And don't you think it hurts no one for you to get right over there and check it out?' Cordy snapped back. Fred and Lorne exchanged another dubious glance.
But then came the sound of footsteps on the stairs - and Doyle appeared in the apartment. 'Cordelia?' he called out.
'I'm in here! They won't untie me!'
He hurried into the bedroom - nodded a quick thanks to his friends who had watched over Cordy and then crossed the room to her. He sat on the bed beside her and ran his fingers through her hair, gazing into her eyes to check she was herself again. 'You OK?' he asked her, gently. She nodded, and he leaned in to kiss her - feeling almost weak with relief. He was trembling slightly as he pulled away and began to untie the knots that bound Cordy to the bed. 'Uhm - thanks for watchin' her guys,' he said to the others, though he kept his eyes firmly fixed on Cordelia, 'it means a lot that you came.'
'Yes - it's great - but now you need to go and save Angel,' Cordelia insisted, still sounding snappish and annoyed.
'Uh - well maybe we had better ... leave you to it.' Fred and Lorne got to their feet and backed out of the room. 'We'll get right on that checking on Angel thing,' Fred promised. And then Doyle and Cordy were alone and, once he'd undone the final knot, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her close - still shivering with the fear of how close he had come to losing her.
The gang were all gathered in the penthouse - along with Lilah. Angel sat on the sofa and held Connor in his arms, clinging onto this comforting solid lump of reality. He could still feel the poison sweeping through his system - though it was lessening now, and he was feeling stronger.
'I can't believe Cordy was right,' Fred was saying, sounding a little guilty. 'I guess whatever fever dream she was in and whatever fever dream you were in must have crossed over somehow…'
Wesley came out of the bedroom, wiping his hands on a towel. He had been examining the creature Spike had killed. 'It was a selminth parasite,' he told them all. 'Its teeth inject an anaesthetic, making the host oblivious to its presence. You'd never know you had it on you. Pumps neurotoxins into the body causing paralysis, hallucinations, fever dreams.'
Angel took a long sip of blood, hoping to fortify himself. 'It all seemed so real,' he said. 'All of it.' He looked at Fred, 'you were dissecting me, and there was this … bear.' He turned to Lorne, 'and you called yourself Honky Tonk, tried to get me to sing, but...' He looked over at Gunn, remembering what had come next. 'You were big with the heckling.'
Gunn had been looking preoccupied, but at Angel's words he glanced up and furrowed his brow. 'Uh … sorry?' He didn't know what else to say.
'So - if this parasite continued pumping its toxins into Angel…' Fred started to ask.
'He would have been stuck in a permanent vegetative state,' Wesley explained. There was a moment of silence whilst everyone contemplated that. 'Well, good thing Spike swooped in and saved the day,' Lorne said in the end. 'Whilst we were busy playing Doubting Thomas with Cordelia, no less. How did he even know you were in trouble?'
Angel shook his head, 'didn't say.'
'What I want to know is how that thing got here in the first place,' Gunn said. Fred told him that they were checking the firm's storage facilities. It was possible a specimen had escaped. But Angel shook his head. 'Lilah brought it in,' he said. Everyone turned to look at her. She raised a sceptical eyebrow, 'me?'
'You were here,' he told her.
'You dreamed about me?' she didn't sound like she was very impressed with this news.
'No - you put the big one on me after I killed the other one.'
'Other one?' Wesley looked at him, concerned, 'Angel there was only one.'
'No.'
'Maybe you're confusing reality with your hallucinations?' the watcher suggested. 'Lilah would have no reason to …'
But Angel shook his head. 'No - I remember now. It was Lilah. She came into my room with the box. She was wearing her pajamas and this turban...'
'A turban?' Lilah asked, she stifled a giggle.
'And then you took it off. The turban. And put your shades on - and then you opened the box, let the bigger one crawl out onto me and … hopped out of the room.'
Lilah wasn't even bothering to hide her laughter anymore. 'Angel - wonder bread - does that sound like the kind of thing I do? Am I known for hopping around the office in my pjs?'
The rest of the team were looking awkward and a little embarrassed - for him. 'Angel, that does sound like another dream,' Wesley told him softly.
'No - I …' he looked around at them all - and could see that none of them believed him. 'That's what happened. It was real.'
'But you just said that it all felt real,' Gunn pointed out to him.
'But this was different I …' he didn't know what to say to convince them, and even though he was sure his memory was accurate - even he was starting to feel a little bit of doubt. It didn't sound plausible when he said it out loud.
'I think maybe you need to get some rest,' Lilah said, getting to her feet and heading to the elevator. 'I'm sure The Senior Partners will be very interested to hear all this - but I might wait a while until we're sure there's no permanent effect before I mention it. They won't be happy if their prize vampire has had his brain all scrambled. Nighty night.' The elevator door closed on her, and Angel was left with his team - feeling more unsettled than ever.
'So is everything still quiet in there?' Doyle asked, kissing Cordelia softly on her temple to indicate what he was talking about. They were cuddled up on the sofa with a glass of wine, their arms wrapped around one another. She nodded her head. 'Yep - no creepy laughter - and I'm glad to say inanimate objects are staying inanimate objects - and not turning into demons.' She kissed him softly on the lips. 'Thank you for keeping me safe,' she said, softly, 'thanks for not letting me hurt anyone.'
Doyle held her even tighter, 'any time,' he said.
'I'm so impressed with you figuring out what was wrong, as well,' she told him. 'You must have been under so much pressure - and freaking out.'
'I was,' he admitted, 'but it was Wes who found what we were looking for in the books.'
'And it was that creepy little statue we took off those vampires months ago?' She thought about it. 'What did Gunn say about that?'
'He swore he had no idea what would happen or that anyone would get hurt …' he laughed darkly. 'But I told him - he knew someone would get hurt, he just thought he wouldn't have to see it. And if he pulls a stunt like that again, I'll kill him. I mean it too. Anythin' couldda happened… I just don't get why Lord D'hakmarth decided to go after you and not me - or anyone else in the city.'
'I do,' Cordelia said quietly. Doyle looked down at her. 'At the Halloween party,' she said, 'when I was under Lorne's spell to let my guard down, I got talking to one of his acolytes … I told him I was a slayer.'
'So this was a targeted hit,' Doyle realised, and he did not look too happy about it. 'An attempt on the slayer's life… I guess maybe that's somethin' I'm gonna have to get used to, right? Big Bads comin' after y', tryin' to kill y' - just because of who you are.'
Cordelia chuckled, 'right - and maybe you'll gain just the tiniest insight into what it's like to be engaged to The freaking Promised One.'
He smiled. 'Right - I guess our lives aren't like other people's. I guess we're always in more danger.'
'But we always have each other,' she kissed him again. 'And just like you saved me today, I will always save you as well. We'll protect each other - from everything that's out there.'
'Right - we're a team.'
'Always.'
At the wine bar they had arranged to meet up in, Lilah and Lindsey clinked glasses. 'So today went pretty well,' Lilah said.
'Pretty damn smooth. Spike is buying every word of the lie and Angel…'
'Angel's slipping faster than even he realises.' She smiled her most dangerous smile, 'and his friend's are too oblivious to save him.'
A/N Next episode is 'Damage'
