12
Wesley was peering into the darkness below, searching for any sign that Angel survived the fall. Gunn helped Cordelia to her feet and was just about to chase after the escaping vampire when they heard it.
"Guys?" Faintly.
"He's getting away!" Gunn said loudly, impatiently when he noticed that the Englishman and ex-cheerleader wasn't following his lead in the chase.
Wesley held up his hand urgently, shushing Gunn, and strained to hear.
"But…" Gunn said again, looking desperately at the door.
"Quiet!" Wesley ordered sternly.
Silence descended on the group and this time they all heard it.
"Guys? You there?" A little louder.
Cordelia's eyes grew in excitement and hope. "It's Angel," she said. "Angel! Are you okay?"
Angel's faint voice floated up to them, "Get me out of here, and I will be."
Gunn appeared next to the kneeling ex-Watcher with one of the cut chains, lay down on his stomach and reached down with the chain. "Angel! There's a chain right above you. Can you see it? Grab it!" he called into the void.
"I can't see him. Can you see him?" Cordelia worried, peering into the absolute night.
Gunn grunted as the chain went taut under Angel's weight. "Don't matter," he hissed under the weight. "Guy's got the chain and he's coming up. Grab my legs before he pulls me in. Damn! He's heavy!"
Cordelia and Wesley grabbed Gunn's legs. Lindsey appeared next to Gunn. He took up position next to the straining black man and grabbed the chain too, picking up some of the slack. Together, the four humans hauled on the chain, inching the vampire at the other end out of the pit.
Suddenly the ground started to buck under their bodies.
"Oh God!" Cordelia cried.
"Hang on!" Gunn ordered.
"The Hellmouth's closing!" Wesley shouted.
"Pull! Faster!" Lindsey commanded, putting word to deed.
Hand over hand, Gunn and Lindsey worked together to pull Angel out of the fast-closing Hellmouth while the aftershock rumbled around them. Wesley and Cordelia pulled on the laboring men's legs, slowly inching them away from the Hellmouth's edge.
Angel's hand clawed for purchase on the ledge above him. Lindsey grabbed for the hand, now pulling on both the vampire's arm and the chain. Gunn grabbed Angel's other hand and together they yanked the bloodied vampire from the closing – now closed – Hellmouth.
Everyone just lay there, panting, too tired to think.
"Thanks," Angel managed between gasps his body didn't really require. "Angelus?"
"Gone," Wesley answered.
"Anyone hurt?"
"No," Cordelia breathed.
"Good."
And there was silence, broken only by slowly steadying heartbeats and expelled breath.
"Are the bad men gone?" a fragile voice asked.
Lindsey turned over and raised his head at an uncomfortable angle to look at the boy shaking against the wall where he left him. The lawyer dragged himself to his feet and hurried to the boy, hugging him protectively. "Yes, they're all gone," he soothed softly.
Lindsey felt eyes on him. He found Angel standing over him, just staring.
"I'm sorry," Lindsey sobbed. "For everything. I never meant to…" But the words stuck in his throat. Lindsey wanted to say he never meant to hurt anyone, but he knew it was a lie. He wanted to hurt everyone that ever made him feel small and unimportant. And he wanted to hurt Angel more than anything.
He had spent so much time hating the vampire that just saved his life, hating him for being able to do good in spite of his evil nature, hating him for being able to connect to people on such a fundamental way while he, Lindsey, was always so utterly alone, just hating him because it was easier than to actually considering changing his life.
Lindsey closed his eyes. He felt old, ancient. "I'm sorry," he finished weakly, hanging his head in shame.
The vampire was too tired to hate the man silently crying into the boy's hair. Angel walked away, gathering together the discarded weapons and the tattered remains of his shirt. He used the shredded cloth to wipe the blood, dirt and gore from his aching body.
"Sun's up, so unless you can find a sewer access around here somewhere, you're stuck here until sunset," Gunn announced from the door. He'd gone out to check if any of Ma'hlak's demon lackeys were still around to make trouble. "And your car's gone. My guess, Angelus took it."
Angel nodded, his face expressionless. He rubbed his hands over his face, running his fingers through his hair, as if that would wipe the numbing exhaustion away.
Wesley laid a worried hand on the vampire's tense shoulder and asked, "Angel? Is everything alright?"
Angel tried to smile, but he was just to tired to move the muscles needed for that. "I'm just tired," he answered, briefly squeezing the hand on his shoulder in thanks. "It's been one hell of a day."
"Where do you think Angelus is going?" Wesley wondered, taking the weapons from Angel.
A dark shadow crossed the ensouled vampire's face, his brow furrowing in a disquieting frown. Angel knew exactly where his evil duplicate is going, and he hoped they could handle it until he arrived. Angelus had a big head start on him.
"Sunnydale," Angel answered Wesley with certainty.
*********************
Sunnydale. The town sparkled up at Angelus like a jewel in the falling night. A beautiful, cursed jewel. Home of the Slayer, his Other's mate in soul, if not in flesh.
"Buffy." Angelus tasted the name, salivated. He had a bone or two to pick with his pretty Slayer, but how to choose which of her delectable bones to start with. What fun!
*********************
A chill ran down Buffy's spine, making her flesh break out in goose pimples. She scanned the headstones and mausoleums of Sunny Rest Cemetery, searching for the beast that just trampled over her grave, but saw no-one.
"Wig much? Jeez!" she scolded herself, rubbing her crawling skin into submission. "When a stupid cemetery starts to freak me out, I think it's time to call it a night."
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and made her way home to the dorms at UC Sunnydale.
*********************
Angel awoke with a growl caught in his throat, his body aching with hunger. Buffy's radiant face flashed briefly across his mind. He shivered.
Angel rose in the dark room where, a few hours ago, the Hellmouth had opened and closed. He was alone, the others having left under his orders.
The only sewer access Angel could find had been caved in by the earthquake, leaving the sun-allergic vampire stranded until nightfall.
A water main had been ruptured in one of the adjoining chambers, giving Angel at least a chance to wash the grime off his body. The soreness in his muscles, along with the tension, ebbed from him as the icy water cleansed his cold skin and the fast-healing wounds marking his body.
Wesley had been kind enough to bring him a fresh change of clothes, some blankets and a pillow. Cordelia had taken care of the refreshments. She'd brought him enough blood to last him a week in a pink cooler box, along with a few sandwiches. In case you crave something more solid, she'd said. Angel smiled at the memory.
When he was finally alone and clean, Angel had fed on the liquid part of his meal, leaving the sandwiches for later. He'd made a make-shift bed for himself in the darkest corner of the room, barricaded the door to ensure a peaceful day's sleep without interruptions and had slept like a dead man (no pun intended) until the dream rudely jerked him awake.
Angel's vampiric sensed told him that the sun had set a little while earlier. His stomach cramped with hunger again. Angelus must be hunting, Angel thought wryly, downing two pints of O Negative in quick succession.
"Angel? You in there?" It was Cordelia's voice coming through the blocked door.
Angel hurriedly pulled on his clothes and opened the door for his waiting colleagues. "Did you get me a car?" he asked.
"And good afternoon to you too," Cordelia snipped. "Did you eat the sandwiches I brought you?"
"Sorry… Hi, guys," Angel greeted, frowning at Cordelia rummaging through the cooler. "Cordelia, what…?"
Cordelia held the still-sealed sandwich high in triumph, opened the bag and gulped down a bite. "You weren't really going to eat these, were you?" she mumbled around a wad of bread in her cheek.
Angel grinned and shook his head. "You go ahead," he said, marveling at how the woman who once turned green at the mere mention of his less than normal diet now eats sandwiches she herself stored with the very blood she picked up at the Bloodbank.
"There's been no sign of Angelus or your car anywhere," Wesley reported.
"I know," Angel replied. "He's in Sunnydale. Just got there, I think."
Wesley frowned. "How can you be so sure?" the ex-Watcher asked.
"Because I felt Buffy." Angel read the confusion clearly written on the two old-Sunnydale residents and tried to explain it better. "I had a dream of her."
"And what's so significant about that?" Cordelia interrupted. "You always dream about her."
Angel sighed and continued, "This was different. I dreamt I was killing her. And taking all kinds of pleasure in it. It was Angelus' thoughts I was seeing. And I felt him feel her proximity. We, Buffy and I, could always sense when the other was near. Angelus sensed her, and I sensed her… by proxy, you could say. Trust me. Angelus is in Sunnydale and I'm going after him. Now give me the keys."
Wesley made for the driver's side, ready to get in. "I'll drive," he said.
Angel laid a restraining hand on the car door, talking over Wesley's unvoiced objections. "I'm going alone. And I don't have time to argue. He's hunting Buffy right now. I have to go. Now."
"Buffy can handle Angelus," Cordelia interjected. "She has beaten him… you before."
A pained looked fluttered over Angel's face at the memory Cordelia has stirred up and said, "Buffy can't fight Angelus. Not now. It took me, the less noble me, months of goading and prodding to get her ready and willing to seriously fight me. She doesn't know what's happened here – about Angelus and me. Buffy doesn't have the luxury of time on her side."
"'Goading and prodding'," Cordelia snorted sarcastically. "What a nice way to phrase the mental torture you inflicted on her by terrorizing us, her friends."
"Cordelia, I didn't mean… I'm sorry," Angel tried to apologize. He wanted to kick himself sometimes for not thinking before sticking his foot in his mouth.
Cordelia waved her hand non-committally, not looking at the vampire's regret-ridden face. "It's okay. It's done. I'm over it." Anger built up in the brunette, and she pinned Angel down with flashing hazel eyes. "No! You know what? I'm not over it! In the years I've known you, you have put me through all kinds of hell. Not to mention the fact that you tried to kill me on more than one occasion!
"Now the bastard part of you that did those things and enjoyed it is out there, walking around, and I want payback, dammit!" She shoved Angel aside and yanked the car door open, grabbing the keys out of Wesley's hand. "Now I'm going with you and I don't give a rat's ass what you think about it!"
The fired-up brunette started the car, gunning the engine and peered out underneath the driver's side door frame, "You coming?"
The shocked men jumped at Cordelia's order. Car doors slammed and the rental screamed onto the road, making a beeline for Sunnydale.
