Angel roughly pulled his car up to the curb in front of a row of vintage storefronts.  The door directly to his right was lit and propped open, regardless of the fact that the owner had been killed more than a year before.  Perhaps it had been bought by some entrepreneurializing bookworm or demon hobbyist… it didn't matter, if anyone in the city had anything of use to the benefit of their cause right now, it would be that book shop.  With any luck the new owners wouldn't have cleared out the old stock, they might even prove to have some useful information.

A gratingly harsh buzzer sounded as he crossed the threshold, alerting the clerk to his presence.  A young man poked his head up from behind a teetering stack of boxes, smiling in response to his prospective customer; he abandoned his attempt to catalogue the new stock and called out to the man who now stood at the counter.  "Can I help you?"

"This store used to be owned by a man named Denver, he had… an interest in certain things…"

"Yep, Uncle Denver was really into the demons that ran around town, they say that's how he ended up on the wrong end of a sword and how I ended up with the store."  The young man shrugged.  "What d'ya' need?"

Angel looked closely at the man, there was a vague familiarity about him that could be explained away with a familial resemblance.  "Do you have anything on visions?"

"What about 'em?"

"Removing them from the host."  Remembering Wesley's comment on the spells he had found, he clarified, "relieving the host of the visions without killing the host."

"Hmm, that's the tricky part, isn't it?  I guess it would depend on how the host came to get the visions.  I mean, if it's a psychic thing then it's easy, you just block a few brain waves here, realign their Qi and voila—no more visions.  But if they got the visions because they asked for them from one of the higher ups, well, they usually have to go through this whole big rig-a-ma-role and then they may or may not be taken back…"

"What if they were given by the powers that be?"

The young man stopped his litany and turned his head to look Angel full in the face.  "The powers that be don't go around doling out visions."

"They did to one person.  That person passed them on before he died."  Angel shifted, keeping one eye on the door and the other on the man who faced him.

"The prophecies say…"

"I don't care about prophecies.  I care about helping my friend."

"Must be some kind of a friend," he murmured, then snapped his head up from the manifest he had glanced down at.  "You're him.  You're the one Uncle Denver talked about, the vampire with a soul.  You know, you really had a big influence on him, made him change all those preconceived ideas he had about demons and vampires…"

"Yeah, so he could be stabbed in the back by a vampire.  Preconceived ideas aren't always wrong."

The young man chuckled.  "You're right on that one."  He turned his back on his customer, scanning a bookcase behind the counter.  Shaking his head and tapping the spines of the books, he made his way around the corner before crying out in success, "aha, I knew ol' Uncle Denver had a copy here somewhere."

Angel watched as the man emerged again with a thick and dusty volume in his hands.

Brushing the dust from the cracked leather cover, he handed it to Angel.  "If anything'll help your friend, this will.  It's kind of the exhaustive concordance of all things visionary.  If it's not here, it ain't gonna happen."

He took the book that was offered to him, tucking it beneath his arm.  "What do I owe you?"

The man looked confused.  "Owe me?  I should be paying you, dude. 

Angel was taken aback, stammering, "I don't…"

"Man, without you, Uncle Denver never would have delved into this line of research so thoroughly, and he sure never would have left it to me when he died.  So it killed 'im in the end, but he was a happy guy at least."  The young man shrugged again, a chagrinned expression blossoming in his eyes.  "If he were still alive today I never would have met Landry."

Angel turned at the appearance of another figure in the store, resplendent with blue and green spine-like hair and a bony ridge rising up from her nose to the top of her head.  She smiled, stepping around the counter and into the waiting arms of the bookshop's newest owner. 

Cocking his head, Angel guessed, "Landry?"

She smiled.  "The one and only."

Nodding toward the couple, Angel backed up a step.  "Thanks for the book."

"Don't mention it, I hope it's useful in helping your friend."  He waved goodbye as Angel ducked out of the store and returned to his car on the curb.

Landry watched the car pull into the light traffic of the side street.  "What are odds of that book helping him?"

Denver's nephew shook his head slowly, the negative motion his only response.

~~~

"This book, did it have a name?"  Mr. Bruin continued with his scribbling as he asked the question.

"Of course it had a name, all books do."  She nodded to a bookcase that stood behind the chair in which he sat.  "It's there, the second one from the far right on the top shelf."

Rising from his chair, Mr. Bruin trailed his finger across the book spines, finally coming to rest on the thickest book on the shelf.  He tilted his head slightly to read the gold-filigreed title.  "I can't…"

"Nor can I.  You would have to ask Wesley what it says, he was the one who could translate demonic languages with such proficiency.  But you would have had to ask him quite a while back, before he was taken from us."

"Do you mind…" he asked, pausing before he pulled the book down from its place.

"Not at all.  The notes Wesley took are still tucked into the pages of the entry that was thought to be the answer to alleviating Cordelia's misery."

~~~

"So what you're sayin' is that it mentions a cure but it might not work?"  Gunn scoffed and looked back at the entry Wes pointed out.

"What I am saying is that we won't know for sure until we try it, but some of these items we will need for the spell we simply don't have.  Not only do we not have them, I'm not sure where we might be able to locate them.  I've already placed a call to the Magic Box but according to Anya they don't carry them nor is she certain of when they might be able to locate a supplier."  Wesley rubbed his forehead trying to lessen some of the tension he felt so heavily.  "Our own suppliers are lacking them as well."

Angel paced the foyer, casting worried glances toward the room where Cordelia still slept.  "What do we need?"

"Placticarion for one but the only place it grows is in one of the lower hell dimensions.  Anya promised to contact the few demons she is still in touch with to see if they might be willing to find us some.  But even if she's successful, there's still Bruitrselph as well as something I've never heard of called Janus-Triumphliante.  The Bruitrselph can be gotten from a supply house in Moravia, but I don't even know how to go about finding out about the other, it isn't in any of the books and no one in Sunnydale has heard of it either.  It is possible that Janus-Triumphliante has another more commonly known name, but I can't be sure…"  Wesley allowed his explanation to trail off as he observed Angel cross the room again and quietly open the door to the bedroom.

"Wes-man, things just keep getting' worse 'n worse."

"Yes, they do seem to be."

~~~

Angel knelt by the bed, his hand gently brushing damp tendrils of hair back from Cordelia's face.  She seemed to be resting a little easier at any rate, but as soon as the next vision struck, she'd be right back in her own personal version of hell.

At the cool and soft touch, her eyes fluttered open.  A small smile curved her mouth as her eyes slowly focused.  "Hey," she whispered.

"I didn't mean to…"  Angel's hand dropped down to his side as he leaned back from the bed slightly.

"You didn't.  Don't stop," she murmured, smiling again as his had returned to the caress.  "I must look a mess.  What did I miss?"

"You look beautiful.  Wes thinks he found a way to stop your visions…"

"Angel, I told you I didn't want to lose them."  She scooted over in the bed so that Angel could ease onto the edge of the mattress.

"We tried but there's no other way."

She stared off into a dark corner of the room.  "Oh."

"I just wanted to tell you goodbye before I left."

The statement caught her by surprise and her whole body stiffened in reaction.  "What do you mean: goodbye?"  Her voice quavered at the implication of his simple sentence.

"No, no, I'm going to go talk to Lorne and then I have to go away for a little while but I'll be back, very soon," his tone seethed reassurance and pleaded with her to not ask any more questions.

"You mean you're going to go sing for Lorne."

"Something like that."  He smiled at her before standing up and walking across the room to the door.

"Angel?" Cordelia's voice called out harshly in the quiet of the room.

He turned to face her again just as his hand was turning the knob.  "What is it, Cordy?"

"Be careful."

Angel nodded.  "I'll be back."

to be continued…