Wesley came off the phone and strode back to where Angel was slumped.
"How is it now?"
Angel nodded and gave a small smile and a thumbs up. Then his face changed and he grabbed a handful of Wesley's shirt, writhing in the chair. Finally he wilted visibly and let out a loud burp. After the shock had subsided from his features, he rasped, "Since you bring it up, it's horrible."
"I don't know what this can be, Angel." Wesley shook his head. "Beyond the things that kill you, I know very little about vampire physiology, and all your dormant human systems seem to be acting very strangely too. I'm out of my depth. I think we need to get you to some specialised help as soon as we can."
His patient wheezed and nodded, tried to speak and then curled up into a bout of coughing.
"And since there isn't any specialised help, I've called in a few favours and we're off to see a friend of Giles'."
Angel shook visibly as a violent red blush bounded across his face and then faded.
"What about Cordy? She left with Kate earlier. Should we call her?"
Wesley threw Angel's duster around his shoulders and helped him out of the door. "I've left a message for Cordy at home and one here for Gunn. We can call again on the way. Come on."
With Angel's arm around his shoulder, Wesley staggered slowly to the Hyperion's underground garage, and lowered him into the passenger seat of his own car. Angel relaxed back against the Plymouth's leather seats, and was snoring loudly by the time the engine turned over.
As Wesley's message arrived on her answerphone, Cordelia was soaking in a large bubble bath.
Arriving home, she'd cleaned up the mess from breakfast, and given Dennis strict instructions to play host if Kate arrived early.
"You'll recognise her because she's beautiful and blonde. You know - Angel's type. Make sure you ask her in and tell her who you are! Don't just lurk there and scare the crap out of her like you do with the rest my friends."
Cordy paused and added, "She's important to him. That means she's important to us, right?"
A pen wafted through the air and wrote a message on a white board above the sink.
"HOW WILL SHE KNOW WHAT I AM?"
"Oh, Dennis, I don't know! I'll write a message for her on some notepaper and you can show her. OK?"
Cordy stretched in the bath, her muscles relaxing, and groaned slightly when she heard the bell go. Resisting the temptation to carry on wallowing, she pulled the plug and stepped out, soaking the worst of the moisture from her skin with a towel and wrapping herself up in a large fluffy robe.
In the lobby, Dennis peered though the peephole and saw an elegant blond lady in the porch. He concentrated hard until the latch flipped and the door swung open. Then he waved Cordy's note under her nose.
The lady read the note aloud.
" 'Come right on in and make yourself comfortable. This is Dennis. He's a ghost. We share.' "
She smiled graciously, "Why, thank-you, Dennis." and stepped across the threshold. "I've always liked ghosts. You can call me Darla."
An hour's drive out of Los Angeles, Wesley pulled the car to the side of the road. They were midway between Victorville and Barstow, where the road tucked under a barren hillside. Dusk was long gone, but the desert around them seemed to glow, and ahead they could still see a scattered copse of low trees, silhouetted against the dim sky.
"Angel?" Wesley shook his companion's shoulder gently.
Angel's eyes slid open wearily, and he slowly uncurled himself and looked around.
"Giles has friends here?"
Wesley smiled. "Giles has friends everywhere. He's a friendly bloke."
"Where are they?
Both men started and scrambled round in their seats as a voice drifted over the boot of the car.
"Wherever he needs us to be."
The detective in Kate's brain kicked in as soon as she arrived at Cordelia's apartment.
The front door was slightly ajar, which could either mean Cordy had left it open for her or that something was terribly wrong. Kate knew instinctively that it was the latter. She pushed the door further until she could be sure there was no-one hiding behind it, and peered carefully into the building.
The place was a wreck. Furniture was thrown about as if the living room had seen a struggle involving a whole football team. There was no sign of Cordy there, no sign of any living thing, and Kate passed quickly on, looking for clues. In the kitchen, there was a message on the white board. Kate touched it with her forefinger and read aloud.
"How will she know what I am?"
Everything else there was quiet and undisturbed.
Kate sighed and thought that it was probably a good question. But kind of cryptic. Not helpful.
The bathroom was slightly steamy and there were suds in the tub. A damp bathrobe was lying on the floor, but there was no sign of Cordelia.
That left the bedroom, and the door was firmly shut. Kate looked around the living room for a weapon and picked up a chair leg that had broken off in the struggle. She squeezed the doorknob with her free hand and counted backwards from five.
The voice came from a girl, seemingly aged about seven. She was dressed in a simple cotton shift dress, and was barefooted.
Angel blinked, first at the girl and then at Wesley. Neither spoke, so he began. "Who ... what are you?"
The girl smiled pleasantly.
"You might want to stick to questions where you have a remote chance of understanding the answer."
She walked around the car, trailing a finger in the red-brown dust that coated its surface, and stopped next to Angel.
"You're here to ask about yourself."
Wesley brightened. "You're telepathic?"
The girl shook her head and then confusingly said, "Yes." Then she wrote "WASH ME" in capital letters on Angel's door. "But I don't need to be telepathic to know that. Humans are always here to ask about themselves."
"If you're telepathic," Wesley countered, "do we need to bother with a question? Can you tell us what we came to find out?"
The girl laughed.
"No. Questions! Questions!"
She clapped her hands and clambered over the side of the car. For a moment she was upended and fell to the floor and Wesley and Angel craned their necks to see if she was hurt. Then she wriggled into the back seat and folded her hands in her lap.
"Questions are fun."
Kate dialled the number of her old station, and let the phone ring twice before hitting the "No" button. She redialled slowly, and listened to the Angel Investigations answerphone message twice. When no-one answered, she picked up her bag from the hallway, and emptied the contents in a wide arc on the living room floor. Kneeling amongst the chaos, she seized on a small scrap of lined paper, and dialled again.
"Charles? Gunn? Is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me, who wants to know?"
"Kate. You have to come to Cordy's, right now."
"What's up?"
"Just come, OK?"
The line went dead.