Rating: R for language
Archive: anywhere you like, just let me know
Spoilers: everything up to and including "To Shanshu in L.A."
Summary: Angel's attempt to keep his friends safe forever may lead them into the greatest danger of all.
***********************
Captive of the Soul
by Yahtzee
***********************
PART FIVE
Angelus took one step toward Cordelia. "Come to think of it, didn't we have a date for later on?"
Cordelia screamed. Wesley gasped. Father Augustine, a man who had learned to trust his instincts, leapt quickly into the protective circle.
Wesley grabbed Cordelia's right arm -- at the exact same moment Angelus grabbed her left. The duffle bag she'd been holding fell to the floor at Angelus' feet, and Father Augustine felt his spirits collapse with it.
"Cordelia, come on!" Wesley cried, attempting to pull her toward the protective circle.
"Ooooh, tug of war. Fun," Angelus said, increasing his grip on the young woman's wrist until Father Augustine feared her bones would crack. "Is this gonna be like a wishbone thing? See who gets the bigger half?"
Cordelia lurched back hard; at that moment, Angelus let go entirely. The sudden lack of resistance sent her sprawling backwards into Wesley, and they both fell to the floor. Angelus delivered a savage kick to Wesley's gut and laughed when he cried out -- but he made no move to stop either of them as they scuttled into the circle. Father Augustine tugged them deeper within the slender boundary between their salvation and their doom. Once all three of them lay there, panting and weak, Angelus stepped right up to the edge and folded his arms across his chest.
"Turn back, demon," Father Augustine said. "This place is holy and will not admit you."
"Yeah, yeah, I know the drill," Angelus said lazily. "No big deal. If I were in a big hurry to kill these two, I would've done it a minute ago."
"Angel?" Wesley said hoarsely; the breath had apparently been knocked out of him. "Angel, are you in there? Can you stop this?"
"If he could, don't you think he would?" Angelus said. "Hypnosis is a tricky thing, Wesley my boy. Can't predict what'll happen. Oh, that reminds me." Angelus stepped over to the duffle bag with their equipment, lying abandoned on the floor. They all watched helplessly as Angelus lifted out the hypnotic crystal. "Seeing as how this thing set me free, I ought to consider it a keepsake. But I don't think so."
And with that, he threw the crystal as hard as he could against the wall. Cordelia jumped as it smashed against the concrete and exploded into a thousand glittering pieces. "Oh, no," she breathed.
"Oh, yes," Angelus said. "I'm back in business, and the world has you three to thank. Believe me, I am grateful down to the bottom of my heart. For instance, if I ever do decide to kill you, I promise, it'll be quick. No more than an hour or two, tops."
"We're gonna be waiting for you," Cordelia said desperately. "You know what I told Angel. I said I'd stake him if he turned evil, and -- and I will. I mean it."
"Like you could," Angelus said, sauntering up to the edge of the circle again and leering at Cordelia in a way that made the priest feel slightly sick. "More to the point, you're not gonna get much chance. I choose my victims carefully. I put a lot of time and thought into just the best way to make their lives a hell, until I end them. Frankly, you people are going to take some serious planning. I could think of a good way to spend the next few days with you, Cordy; that's for damn sure. But there's girls twice as sexy out there who don't own any crossbows at all.
"Someday, sure, I'll look you up," he continued as he turned to walk away. "It might be two days. It might be twenty years. Telling you when -- well, that would remove all the suspense, wouldn't it? And I want you to surprised."
Angelus looked back over his shoulder as he paused at the door. "Here's one hint, though: It won't be tonight. Right now I have more important things to do. I'm a young man, just starting out; I need to -- win friends. Influence people. Make my way in the world."
And with that he was gone, instantly vanishing into the night.
They were all quiet for a moment after he'd left. Then Cordelia breathed, "Oh, FUCK."
Father Augustine hesitated before he spoke; he was in danger of agreeing with her. "This was -- unexpected."
"Thanks for that profound insight," Cordelia snapped. "Now what? Are we gonna live in this circle forever?"
"Just until we can get to that bag," Wesley said, in a calm, measured voice. Now that Father Augustine looked at him, he could see how intent the young man was, how steady, how carefully he was still listening for any sign of Angelus. "We have stakes in there, some holy water. The tranquilizer gun. Protection."
"Protection for how long? We basically tied up our best friend and dropped him in the trunk of a mad killer. Said mad killer is going to hunt us down sooner or later, and later's not that much better than sooner," Cordelia said.
"Protection for long enough to get us to a phone," Wesley said.
"So we can call Buffy," Cordelia said. "Oh, God, is she gonna be pissed."
"True," Wesley said. "But she is not only our best hope of stopping Angelus, but she is also probably his first target. We must warn her. If Angelus simply shows up in Sunnydale --"
"She'll think it's Angel," Cordelia finished. "And won't even know to fight him until it's too late. Oh, no."
Father Augustine frowned. He'd thought he'd met all the people involved in the ritual -- and, he'd assumed, Angel's circle of acquaintance. "Who is this Buffy?"
"Angel's ex-girlfriend. Also the Slayer. You know what the Slayer is?" Cordelia asked.
"The protector of humanity," Father Augustine replied. Certain vague things Angel had told him about his curse, words about perfect happiness, about release, began to take on shape and meaning. "She was -- they were --"
"All snuggly, not so long ago," Cordelia said. "Which was actually how Angelus got out the last time. So I don't guess Miss True Love gets to bitch at us that much, now that I think about it."
Wesley was on his feet now, tensed and ready. "All right then. On the count of three."
Cordelia started, "One -- two --"
Wesley bolted, grabbed the bag and jumped back into the circle with an astonishing speed and agility. Cordelia blurted out, "That wasn't three."
"Well, if he had been listening -- as well he was off his guard," Wesley explained, handing stakes to Cordelia and Father Augustine. "Father, you'd be as well off going back to the parish. If you have any friends in the community you can contact, people who could help --"
"I will summon what assistance I can," Father Augustine said.
"And we'll break it to Buffy," Cordelia muttered.
He watched the two young people -- wretched in their misery, beautiful in their courage -- scramble out into the night. Their friend had come to him for help; they had trusted his judgment, believed that he would use the discretion of his mind, instead of following the tenderness of his heart. Father Augustine closed his eyes for one moment.
Later. There would be time for the guilt and the grief later. Now he had to prepare for the return of the demon.
*****
From his perch on a rooftop, Angelus looked out over the city. He had liked to do this before, though his thoughts then were so predictable, so maudlin. Whenever he had looked at the lights, he imagined the lives they represented, imagined himself protecting those lives. Envied the happiness he believed they felt.
But now, Angelus saw the lights as an expanse of opportunity such as he'd never known. His soul had overtaken him just before the advent of electrical lighting; Angelus had been forced to do most of his hunting in an era in which the majority of people were at home before dark. Practicing his trade in those days took skill. Patience. Craft. If you aimed higher than an endless diet of prostitutes and dockyard thugs -- and Angelus always had -- you could spend weeks or months plotting out the means for a truly fine kill, and still be frustrated. But electric lighting meant that people stayed up later. Stayed out later. Stayed vulnerable. Humanity was there for the taking, and the challenge now would wholly be a matter of artistry. He felt a bit like a painter who had made do with a few tubes of color, only to be gifted with a rich and varied pallette.
Sunnydale had given him an all-too-brief taste of the luxuries an electric world had to offer the vampire, but the town was too small, too quiet, to really provide the best hunting grounds. But Los Angeles -- oh, he could spend a dozen lifetimes here and never even come close to drinking his fill.
He inahled deeply -- not for breath, but for scent. The rain had just stopped falling, so the air was disappointingly clear, but he could still tell so much. Two women nearby: one with a fresh manicure, both with far too much hairspray, a little drunk --
No, not yet. He wasn't really hungry, and they would be so easy, so cheap.
Besides, there were more important things to take care of first.
Like beheading a certain blonde.
***
Cordelia had her knees hugged to her chest as she huddled against the passenger door of her own car. She'd begged off driving, claiming that she was too upset for it. Wesley was shaking a little, taking deep breaths as he went, but so far, he seemed to be holding together a whole lot better than she was.
But that had to be -- that could only be -- because Wesley wasn't thinking what she was thinking. About the way this might have to end.
Finally she said, in a tiny voice, "We don't have to kill him, do we?"
"I hope not," Wesley said. "We should be able to end the trance, as soon as we find a replacement for the crystal --"
"And how are we gonna do that?" Cordelia said. "Just drop on by Ancient Meditation Crystals Warehouse?"
"They're actually a rather popular item at Rick's," Wesley replied. "Our greater problem will be finding Angelus before he does any harm. At least there's no way he can reach Sunnydale before sunrise. We'll have time to warn Buffy."
"Because, as always, Buffy's the first and only thing on his mind," Cordelia muttered, and Wesley grimaced a little at the bitterness in her voice. But after a moment, Cordelia straightened up and looked over at him. "Wait a sec. What if she's not?"
"Beg pardon?"
"What if he's not going after Buffy first?"
"Possible," Wesley said. "But certainly he'll return to Sunnydale very soon. That still represents our best chance of finding him."
"I'm not so sure," Cordelia said. "Remember what he said when we were in the circle? He said he was gonna win friends and influence people. What does that remind you of?"
"I believe it was a self-help book of some sort. Dale Carnegie, was it?"
Cordelia shook her head impatiently. "No, no. Yesterday, when we were at the old office and Kate showed up with her Fraulein Fuhrer act?"
"That's a bit harsh."
"Says you. But that's what she said to Angel. That he really knew how to win friends and influence people."
They rode in silence for a moment as Wesley considered. Slowly, he said, "He could simply have been reminded of the phrase."
"Or it could just be coincidence," Cordelia admitted.
For a few more moments, they were quiet, and then Wesley looked over at Cordelia again. She glanced back at him. "We've got to find Kate," he said.
***
"You're not on the domestic-terrorism task force, are you, Lockley? No? Then why the hell won't you let this go?"
Her supervisor's words were still ringing in her ears hours later. He'd been angry at her, and with good reason; Kate was neglecting other work to do this. Spending her free time snooping around a crime scene that was probably none of her business. She had admitted it, apologized, promised to direct her efforts elsewhere.
And yet, here it was, the small hours of the morning, and she was looking at the burned-out hulk of a building that had housed Angel Investigations, not so long ago.
"I have got to be crazy," Kate said. Nobody heard, except possibly the homeless woman crouched on a nearby corner, but even she gave no sign, just kept muttering to herself and rocking back and forth.
Kate sighed and took another deep swallow of coffee straight from the thermos. She didn't really need the caffeine; these days, she seemed to run on some strange, ever-ready source of energy, something that burned inside her day and night. Something that sometimes seemed to be burning her up.
Just nine months ago, everything in her life made sense. She was a cop. She had duties and responsibilities, most of them laid out nice and neat, in writing, for handy reference. She did her job, did it well, won the approval of coworkers and superiors. She had a couple of guy friends at the station who were good for a beer or a game of poker sometimes. She didn't have any girl friends, but she didn't much feel the lack. She had a dad. Maybe he wasn't the greatest dad in the world, but he was there -- and she maybe, just maybe, had a chance of finally winning some respect from the man. And when Angel walked into her life, she had thought, for the first time in way the hell too long, that she might have found a man who wasn't intimidated by her job or her strength. Who had his own sense of self, his own intelligence, his own drive. Who just happened to be damn good-looking on top of all that.
Now she had a reputation as the station psycho, an obsession with things she used to laugh off in horror movies, the fact that her last date had both witnessed her public humiliation and turned out to be undead, and a small plot in a cemetery where she could kneel in the dirt and finally pour out all the words she'd wanted to say to her father, now that he could never hear.
And the only thing all those changes had in common? Angel.
Fallacy of causation, she reminded herself. Angel's connected to all of this, yeah. But did he make any of it happen? Or do I just need somebody to blame for the total destruction of my life?
Intellectually, she knew that Angel had not killed her father. But that was the beginning and the end of what she knew about him; everything else was jumbled up, confused, dark and terrifying and mesmerizing all at once.
She looked again at the blackened rubble of the building. Kate leaned back against her car, trying to remind herself how soft and warm her bed would be, how much better she'd feel in the morning if she'd spent more time sleeping, less time knocking around this place.
Besides, when she'd been here the day before, Angel honestly looked pretty depressed, pretty shaken up. Like most of the fire and accident victims she'd seen, he'd been half-angry, half-zoned. His friend -- yeah, call him that -- really had been hurt in the blast. Surely Angel wouldn't have endangered him. Or destroyed his own home.
So why can't I believe it? she thought.
After a moment, Kate screwed the lid on the thermos and tossed it back into the car, then doublechecked her weapon before reholstering it and heading into the building. If this checks out, she told herself, then that's an end to it. If Angel didn't have anything to do with this, then I'm just gonna let him be. Let the whole thing be. He can go after the creepy-crawlies from another dimension, and I'll stick to the human criminal element.
If this checks out.
As she carefully stepped underneath the yellow CRIME SCENE tape, she felt a tiny shiver in her back, as though she were being watched. Kate whirled around, took a look at the area -- and saw nothing besides the old homeless woman, now staring at her with frank interest.
Kate shook her head as she turned back toward the door. "Lockley, you're losing it."
***
"What are we going to do if he kills her?" Cordelia said as Wesley struggled to keep the car steady through a sharp turn at high speed. "I mean, it's not like he can help it or anything, but you know Angel. King of Guilt. He'd never get over it."
"Although I realize the situation would be problematic for Angel, I think it would be rather worse for Officer Lockley," Wesley pointed out.
"Like I care," Cordelia muttered.
"Cordelia, you don't mean that," Wesley chided -- gently, he thought. So he was surprised when she dropped her face into her hands. "Cordelia?" he said again.
"I don't know if I mean it or not," Cordelia said. "I keep telling myself this is the new-and-improved Cordelia Chase. But I feel just like the old Cordelia. Right now I ought to be worrying about Kate and Buffy and the rest of humanity. But all I want is my friend back, so we can all go home and get some sleep."
"That's not wrong," Wesley said. "I'd rather like that myself. But we do have to stay focused on, ah, the big picture."
"I don't do big-picture," Cordelia said miserably. "I seem to be a small-picture person."
"Nonsense," Wesley said. "Why, ever since we first met, I've seen you plunging into the most frightening battles the Hellmouth had to offer. You've never shied from the hardest work."
To his surprise, this speech only seemed to dampen her spirits further. She shook her head. "You never saw the real me. You just saw what I wanted you to see."
"That's ridiculous. You were always in the library, always volunteering to help out --"
Cordelia muttered something he couldn't quite catch. "What was that?"
"I said, that was -- that was only because I was trying to impress you. Because I had a crush on you," she said, then added in a rush, "Way back then a whole long time ago."
"Right," he said, a bit embarrassed by their first acknowledgment of that long-ago infatuation. Then he thought -- good Lord, after what we've each heard tonight, what is there to be embarrassed about?
"Cordelia, I don't know about your motives, but I know that you understood the work we were doing. How dangerous it was, how much depended on our success. You knew that facing the Mayor could very well have lead to your death. And you never once flinched from the prospect. I may not have seen the real you, but I saw -- the best you. As far as I'm concerned, that is the real you, more and more every day."
She looked over at him for the first time in a while, a soft light in her face he hadn't seen in a while. "You really think that?"
"I really do."
"That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me in a long time," Cordelia said. "Maybe ever."
"You deserve it," Wesley said. "Besides, I spent a fair amount of time pretending to be brave for your benefit. Though I don't see how you or anyone could have been fooled." When she grinned, he could feel himself smiling back despite everything else that was happening --
Good Lord, man, he thought. Concentrate. "We're almost at the office. If she's not there, we'll head straight to police headquarters, try to get in touch with her there."
"Right," Cordelia said, squaring her shoulders as if for action. But she was still looking over at him. "Wesley?"
"Yes?"
"If it weren't for all her superpowers and stuff, you would totally kick Faith's ass."
Wesley stared at her, and she shrugged, a little sheepishly. "I know it's not some big poetic speech or something --"
"No, no," Wesley said, smiling again. "That was marvelous. Wildly untrue, but marvelous."
***
Angelus looked down through the web of exposed, dead wires and bare metal beams that had once comprised the roof of his building. He could see the layers of his old existence, strewn in ruins, rendered black by fire.
And he could hear her footsteps as she gingerly made her way up the rickety stairs, her cough as she inhaled stray cinders.
Oh, Kate, he thought. You're so damn sure of yourself, so sure of everything. Sure that I'm some madman out to get the law-abiding, god-fearing citizens of Los Angeles, assuming there are any. Sure that it's safe to stop wanting me, okay to start hating me. And I do so love proving someone right.
*************************
CONTINUED IN PART SIX