Part 3
It took the trio about twenty minutes to get to midtown from the diner they had left.
Tara had stayed mostly quiet, glancing mostly at the Eye fragment that was neatly tucked away in her newly acquired purse (Kendra had managed to "convince" a passerby to "lend" her the purse for safe storage of the fragment.) Meanwhile, Doyle and Kendra were animatedly arguing over why they could not get transportation over to Angel Invesigations, located further upwards from their location.
"Did you not say dat we were in a hurry, Alan?", Kendra snapped, irritated at the handsome Irishman.
"DOYLE!", he shot back. "For the umpteenth blasted time, it's DOYLE, NOT ALAN! And secondly, need I remind you that our little ressurection let us shy in the, I don't know, HAVING-MONEY DEPARTMENT?! What are we supposed to pay transportation with, our eternal thanks?!"
"Then we shall force them to take us!", Kendra insisted, growing more determined.
"What is it with you Slayer types? You always think that poundin' the livin' daylights outta someone will solve any problem?", Doyle said incredulously. "What's gonna happen then if we get arrested, hmm?
"Well, at LEAST I'm tryin' to decipher a solution rather than wasting time walking up these stoopid streets like some common pedestrian!", Kendra growled.
"Hey, I'm thinking!", Doyle protested. "Unlike you, I'm coming up with a plan that resembles SANITY!"
"Stop it!", Tara demanded suddenly. Both immediately ceased their bickering and turned to look at the often quiet sorceress with a bit of surprise. "Look, you guys, we have to start thinking on the same page. Our friends need us and e don't have much time!"
"How much time DO we have, Alan?", Kendra asked, rather apprehensively.
Doyle pulled out his trusty chain watch from his pocket. Even in death, he never let it out of his possession. "HOLY SMOKE!", he exclaimed, his eyes practically shooting out of his head. "12:15?! We have only fifteen minutes left!"
"WHAT?!", Kendra shouted.
"FIFTEEN minutes??", Tara asked in disbelief. "We'll never make it! Angel Investigations is at l-least half an hour's walk from here!"
"Oh, Christ, we're screwed", Doyle swore, cursing himself mentally for not keeping better track of time.
"You see? I TOLD you we should have just snuck on de bus and took our chances!", Kendra snapped at Doyle. "But of course! You had to INSIST on walking! 'We'll make it on time, Kendra!' 'Plenty of time, Kendra!' Time me left foot!"
"HEY! Excuse me for not being up with the change in times in L.A. traffic! Sorry, I've only been DEAD FOR FOUR YEARS!", Doyle returned.
"I've been dead for SIX damn years and even I could have told you this plan stank!", Kendra shot back.
"OKAY!", Tara finally exclaimed. "That's it! Both of you better s-stop it right NOW! The next person who raises their voice is going to make me VERY cranky."
Both took a nervous glance at each other before sighing in resignation. Neither one of them felt like getting their mouth fused shut by an enormously powerful wiccan sorceress.
"Look, we're just going to have to keep walking, okay?", Tara tried to rationalize. "I know it's hard, but it's the only option we have right now."
Suddenly, Doyle's eyes lit up. It was plain to see that the ex-Seer had a brainstorm. "Wait a tick! Tara, you're a witch, right? Can't you work up some kind o' hocus-pocus thingamabob to take us to Angel Investigations right now?"
Kendra raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, now dat's de first logical solution I've heard you say all day."
Tara shook her head. "I-I don't think I'm strong enough yet. I-It's g-going to take a little time for me to regain my strength to use m-magicks."
Doyle hung his head low. "Damn it! Then it's no use! We can't make it there in time. The mission's screwed."
"Screwed?", Kendra asked, getting mad. "I'll UN-screw yer head, ye little leprachaun! You mean to tell me dat you dragged us all dis way fer nothing? Damaged de whole time continuem on a hunch?! Of all the stupid, thoughtless, inconceivable-"
"THOUGHTLESS?!", Doyle snapped. "At least I TRIED to think up a logical solution instead of HENPECKING and SNAPPING like a rabid DOG!"
"WHO you callin' a dog?", Kendra shot back.
Tara listened to this, and tried to turn away. She hated arguments, and with only fifteen minutes and counting left to find Angel Investigations before.whatever it was that was supposed to happen, she really wasn't in the mood to be around more conflict.
Unconsciously, her hands reached into her purse and wrapped around the glowing shard of the Eye. She soothed her fingers along the glassy object, back and forth as if it were a newborn child.
"God, if we could just be there already", she muttered under her breath, hands still on the Eye. "I just wish we were even close to Angel Investigations, like five blocks or something-"
And that's when it happened. As soon as she uttered the words, the Eye began to radiantly blink and then to glow a steady jade green. A green stream of energy shot out from the Eye and shot around Tara and the other two travelers, engulfing them in a swirl of green light.
"And another ting!", Kendra shouted. "If you hadn't been busy munching away at de snack bar, we'd already be."
Kendra broke off when she realized that the scenery around them had changed. The traffic flow had decreased somewhat and the stores around them were different.
Doyle looked around bewildered. "What? What in the.? What the blazes is goin' on?"
Tara was stunned to see everything around her change. One minute, she was in one corner of L.A., hoping to get at least within a few blocks of AI, and the next-
The Eye.
Of course!, she realized. That's gotta be the answer!
"Uh, Doyle", Tara called timidly. "I-I think that there's -"
"YA-HOO!", Doyle whooped. "Do you realize where we are?"
Both girls shook their heads.
"Look up there!", the Irishman said, pointing to a street corner. The words on the respective sides of the crossing read '46th Street' and 'Franklin Road'.
"46th and Franklin!", Doyle exclaimed. "That's only 5 blocks from the Hyperion Hotel!"
Tara froze up. "D-d-did you say f-f-five b-blocks?", she stammered nervously.
Doyle took a moment to think. "Yeah, about sums it up. Why's that, lass?"
Tara looked down to the bag in her trembling hands. She honestly didn't know what to say.
"Never mind dat", Kendra brushed past her, anxiously looking around the street for any pathways. "We should have only about 11 minutes left. Five blocks is a good measure, but we have to hurry. Come!"
"Hold on a sec, will ya!", Doyle called out as he raced to the head of the pack. "You don't know yer way around L.A. I DO! Follow me!"
"Then hurry up and stop wastin' about!", Kendra snapped.
"C'mon, guys", Tara said as she trotted alongside the swift-moving heroes. "We're getting closer. Maybe we'll be there faster than we think. I've got a good feeling about this." ------------------------------- "Stop saying that!"
Holtz is sitting across the table from Connor, holding his hands. Holtz simply said, "It is true, son."
Connor was furious. "You're wrong!"
"I'm not wrong", the demon hunter calmly replied to his 'son'. " Anyone who saw you together would realize - that's where you're meant to be - at his side."
Connor shook his head. "No!" He refused to believe it. Or acknowledge it. That wasn't it. It couldn't be.
"It was your need for him that drove you across the dimension", Holtz insisted calmly.
"I don't need him!", Connor shouted at the only man he had ever recognized as his father.
Holtz made sure he held the boy's eyes when he uttered a phrase that he never thought he'd tell him. Something that was painful and torturous to get to leave his mouth.
"Go back to him, Steven."
Connor felt as if he was on the verge of tears. "Why are you doing this? Why? God gave me to you."
"Yes. It was god's plan for us to be together. Nothing will ever persuade me otherwise", Holtz explained as calmly as he could without breaking down himself. "But now it's time for me to give you back."
"He's a demon", Connor bitterly spat.
Holtz let a hint of anger slip out as he looked his surrogate son in the eyes and said, "And you're the bastard son of two demons."
Connor felt himself go slack as the words hit him like cold water. "Then I'm a demon."
Holtz felt his self-hatred boiling up for doing this to him. "You're not. God help me, I don't know what you are, but I'm not the one to give you answers, and there *are* answers."
He looked to the door of the hotel room pointedly, pausing before doing one of the hardest things he ever had to do.
"Go and find them out." ----------------------------------------------
Fred and Gunn pulled up across from the French Cottage motel, still following the readings of Fred's modified Geiger counter.
Fred studied the counter. "Okay. Except for the hotel the strongest emissions are coming from somewhere in this vicinity."
Gunn shrugged "Now what? We go door to door and ask if anyone's seen any inter-dimensional boogies?"
"I'm not sure", she admitted. " I don't even know if we should be looking above ground or not."
Meanwhile in the hotel..
Connor pulled his hands out from under Holtz'.
Connor eyed his "father" with resentment. "You told me not to be deceived. But you've let yourself be deceived."
Holtz answered calmy, "If I could stop this, I would, son. But we were brought here by forces beyond our control."
Connor sprung up and headed for the door.
Connor gazed at his "father" angrily. "You're wrong." Then he bolted out the door.
Gunn spotted Connor storming out of a door on the upper level of the motel.
Gunn nudged Fred. "Hey. Check it out."
They watched as Connor reached the end of the balcony and after quick look around dropped down over the railing to run off.
Fred nodded. "Looks like we've been following Angel's son's emissions the whole time."
Gunn sighed. "Now there is a sentence I don't ever need to hear again."
"But it's good, right?", Fred asked hopefully. " It means there was no big scary that came out of the portal."
Gunn turned back to look at the room Connor ran out of.and saw Holtz appear in the open door.
"How about a short scary?", Gunn said, groaning inwardly. Bad news for Angel.
Holtz slowly closed the door.
"This isn't good", Gunn muttered. He looked at Fred. "Let's go. Something tells me Junior's getting homesick, but he ain't bringin' no hugs for daddy."
Fred nodded and the two turned around and roared off in Gunn's van towards the Hyperion.just as Doyle, Kendra and Tara turned the corner of the hotel a few feet from where they were.
Kendra looked up in the distance. Her keen Slayer sight scanned up ahead for anything potentially dangerous. "Dat's him!", she exclaimed, pointing up ahead.
"What's who?", Doyle asked, puzzled.
"HIM! Connor! De boy dat we've been sent for!", she said.
"What? You sure 'bout that, Kendra?", Doyle asked, looking up ahead for.whatever it was that Kendra's vision caught.
Kendra groaned. "YES, dat's him! I'm not blind, you know!"
"Then what do we do?", Tara asked Doyle.
After thinking a minute, Doyle answered. "Follow him. But stay at a safe distance. He can't be allowed to see us until the right time."
"Which would be when?", Kendra asked, a hint of impatience trickling through her voice.
Doyle looked at his watch. "Another 7minutes and 48 seconds."
"Then let's hurry up", Tara insisted.
"No need to rush you folks", a gritty voice said from behind them.
The trio turned around to find about 10 to 12 mean-looking biker thugs, each with either a chain or club or some lethal weapon in hand.
"Swell", Doyle groaned. "Just what we DIDN'T need right now."
The leader stepped up to the head of the group. A balding, leather-clad, red-bearded thug with a toothy grin, leering at the curvaceous Kendra and the fair Tara with appreciation. Tara shifted slightly behind Doyle in slight fear.
Kendra glared at the taller man in disgust. "What de hell do you want?"
"Well, your money and valuables would be nice", the man grinned wickedly. "And uh.whatever, er, services you lovely ladies would be kind enough to provide my boys with."
The thugs laughed and snorted at the implication.
Kendra cocked her head and balled her fists. "Doyle, protect Tara. Dis could get ugly."
Doyle's eyes widened. "Kendra-",he warned.
"Don't worry", she assured him, before turning back to the gang with a dark glare in her feral eyes. "Dis won't take long."
Doyle looked down to his watch. 7 minutes and 21 seconds left.
"It'd better not", he muttered under his breath as he shielded Tara. "For Angel's sake." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
To BE Continued.
It took the trio about twenty minutes to get to midtown from the diner they had left.
Tara had stayed mostly quiet, glancing mostly at the Eye fragment that was neatly tucked away in her newly acquired purse (Kendra had managed to "convince" a passerby to "lend" her the purse for safe storage of the fragment.) Meanwhile, Doyle and Kendra were animatedly arguing over why they could not get transportation over to Angel Invesigations, located further upwards from their location.
"Did you not say dat we were in a hurry, Alan?", Kendra snapped, irritated at the handsome Irishman.
"DOYLE!", he shot back. "For the umpteenth blasted time, it's DOYLE, NOT ALAN! And secondly, need I remind you that our little ressurection let us shy in the, I don't know, HAVING-MONEY DEPARTMENT?! What are we supposed to pay transportation with, our eternal thanks?!"
"Then we shall force them to take us!", Kendra insisted, growing more determined.
"What is it with you Slayer types? You always think that poundin' the livin' daylights outta someone will solve any problem?", Doyle said incredulously. "What's gonna happen then if we get arrested, hmm?
"Well, at LEAST I'm tryin' to decipher a solution rather than wasting time walking up these stoopid streets like some common pedestrian!", Kendra growled.
"Hey, I'm thinking!", Doyle protested. "Unlike you, I'm coming up with a plan that resembles SANITY!"
"Stop it!", Tara demanded suddenly. Both immediately ceased their bickering and turned to look at the often quiet sorceress with a bit of surprise. "Look, you guys, we have to start thinking on the same page. Our friends need us and e don't have much time!"
"How much time DO we have, Alan?", Kendra asked, rather apprehensively.
Doyle pulled out his trusty chain watch from his pocket. Even in death, he never let it out of his possession. "HOLY SMOKE!", he exclaimed, his eyes practically shooting out of his head. "12:15?! We have only fifteen minutes left!"
"WHAT?!", Kendra shouted.
"FIFTEEN minutes??", Tara asked in disbelief. "We'll never make it! Angel Investigations is at l-least half an hour's walk from here!"
"Oh, Christ, we're screwed", Doyle swore, cursing himself mentally for not keeping better track of time.
"You see? I TOLD you we should have just snuck on de bus and took our chances!", Kendra snapped at Doyle. "But of course! You had to INSIST on walking! 'We'll make it on time, Kendra!' 'Plenty of time, Kendra!' Time me left foot!"
"HEY! Excuse me for not being up with the change in times in L.A. traffic! Sorry, I've only been DEAD FOR FOUR YEARS!", Doyle returned.
"I've been dead for SIX damn years and even I could have told you this plan stank!", Kendra shot back.
"OKAY!", Tara finally exclaimed. "That's it! Both of you better s-stop it right NOW! The next person who raises their voice is going to make me VERY cranky."
Both took a nervous glance at each other before sighing in resignation. Neither one of them felt like getting their mouth fused shut by an enormously powerful wiccan sorceress.
"Look, we're just going to have to keep walking, okay?", Tara tried to rationalize. "I know it's hard, but it's the only option we have right now."
Suddenly, Doyle's eyes lit up. It was plain to see that the ex-Seer had a brainstorm. "Wait a tick! Tara, you're a witch, right? Can't you work up some kind o' hocus-pocus thingamabob to take us to Angel Investigations right now?"
Kendra raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Well, now dat's de first logical solution I've heard you say all day."
Tara shook her head. "I-I don't think I'm strong enough yet. I-It's g-going to take a little time for me to regain my strength to use m-magicks."
Doyle hung his head low. "Damn it! Then it's no use! We can't make it there in time. The mission's screwed."
"Screwed?", Kendra asked, getting mad. "I'll UN-screw yer head, ye little leprachaun! You mean to tell me dat you dragged us all dis way fer nothing? Damaged de whole time continuem on a hunch?! Of all the stupid, thoughtless, inconceivable-"
"THOUGHTLESS?!", Doyle snapped. "At least I TRIED to think up a logical solution instead of HENPECKING and SNAPPING like a rabid DOG!"
"WHO you callin' a dog?", Kendra shot back.
Tara listened to this, and tried to turn away. She hated arguments, and with only fifteen minutes and counting left to find Angel Investigations before.whatever it was that was supposed to happen, she really wasn't in the mood to be around more conflict.
Unconsciously, her hands reached into her purse and wrapped around the glowing shard of the Eye. She soothed her fingers along the glassy object, back and forth as if it were a newborn child.
"God, if we could just be there already", she muttered under her breath, hands still on the Eye. "I just wish we were even close to Angel Investigations, like five blocks or something-"
And that's when it happened. As soon as she uttered the words, the Eye began to radiantly blink and then to glow a steady jade green. A green stream of energy shot out from the Eye and shot around Tara and the other two travelers, engulfing them in a swirl of green light.
"And another ting!", Kendra shouted. "If you hadn't been busy munching away at de snack bar, we'd already be."
Kendra broke off when she realized that the scenery around them had changed. The traffic flow had decreased somewhat and the stores around them were different.
Doyle looked around bewildered. "What? What in the.? What the blazes is goin' on?"
Tara was stunned to see everything around her change. One minute, she was in one corner of L.A., hoping to get at least within a few blocks of AI, and the next-
The Eye.
Of course!, she realized. That's gotta be the answer!
"Uh, Doyle", Tara called timidly. "I-I think that there's -"
"YA-HOO!", Doyle whooped. "Do you realize where we are?"
Both girls shook their heads.
"Look up there!", the Irishman said, pointing to a street corner. The words on the respective sides of the crossing read '46th Street' and 'Franklin Road'.
"46th and Franklin!", Doyle exclaimed. "That's only 5 blocks from the Hyperion Hotel!"
Tara froze up. "D-d-did you say f-f-five b-blocks?", she stammered nervously.
Doyle took a moment to think. "Yeah, about sums it up. Why's that, lass?"
Tara looked down to the bag in her trembling hands. She honestly didn't know what to say.
"Never mind dat", Kendra brushed past her, anxiously looking around the street for any pathways. "We should have only about 11 minutes left. Five blocks is a good measure, but we have to hurry. Come!"
"Hold on a sec, will ya!", Doyle called out as he raced to the head of the pack. "You don't know yer way around L.A. I DO! Follow me!"
"Then hurry up and stop wastin' about!", Kendra snapped.
"C'mon, guys", Tara said as she trotted alongside the swift-moving heroes. "We're getting closer. Maybe we'll be there faster than we think. I've got a good feeling about this." ------------------------------- "Stop saying that!"
Holtz is sitting across the table from Connor, holding his hands. Holtz simply said, "It is true, son."
Connor was furious. "You're wrong!"
"I'm not wrong", the demon hunter calmly replied to his 'son'. " Anyone who saw you together would realize - that's where you're meant to be - at his side."
Connor shook his head. "No!" He refused to believe it. Or acknowledge it. That wasn't it. It couldn't be.
"It was your need for him that drove you across the dimension", Holtz insisted calmly.
"I don't need him!", Connor shouted at the only man he had ever recognized as his father.
Holtz made sure he held the boy's eyes when he uttered a phrase that he never thought he'd tell him. Something that was painful and torturous to get to leave his mouth.
"Go back to him, Steven."
Connor felt as if he was on the verge of tears. "Why are you doing this? Why? God gave me to you."
"Yes. It was god's plan for us to be together. Nothing will ever persuade me otherwise", Holtz explained as calmly as he could without breaking down himself. "But now it's time for me to give you back."
"He's a demon", Connor bitterly spat.
Holtz let a hint of anger slip out as he looked his surrogate son in the eyes and said, "And you're the bastard son of two demons."
Connor felt himself go slack as the words hit him like cold water. "Then I'm a demon."
Holtz felt his self-hatred boiling up for doing this to him. "You're not. God help me, I don't know what you are, but I'm not the one to give you answers, and there *are* answers."
He looked to the door of the hotel room pointedly, pausing before doing one of the hardest things he ever had to do.
"Go and find them out." ----------------------------------------------
Fred and Gunn pulled up across from the French Cottage motel, still following the readings of Fred's modified Geiger counter.
Fred studied the counter. "Okay. Except for the hotel the strongest emissions are coming from somewhere in this vicinity."
Gunn shrugged "Now what? We go door to door and ask if anyone's seen any inter-dimensional boogies?"
"I'm not sure", she admitted. " I don't even know if we should be looking above ground or not."
Meanwhile in the hotel..
Connor pulled his hands out from under Holtz'.
Connor eyed his "father" with resentment. "You told me not to be deceived. But you've let yourself be deceived."
Holtz answered calmy, "If I could stop this, I would, son. But we were brought here by forces beyond our control."
Connor sprung up and headed for the door.
Connor gazed at his "father" angrily. "You're wrong." Then he bolted out the door.
Gunn spotted Connor storming out of a door on the upper level of the motel.
Gunn nudged Fred. "Hey. Check it out."
They watched as Connor reached the end of the balcony and after quick look around dropped down over the railing to run off.
Fred nodded. "Looks like we've been following Angel's son's emissions the whole time."
Gunn sighed. "Now there is a sentence I don't ever need to hear again."
"But it's good, right?", Fred asked hopefully. " It means there was no big scary that came out of the portal."
Gunn turned back to look at the room Connor ran out of.and saw Holtz appear in the open door.
"How about a short scary?", Gunn said, groaning inwardly. Bad news for Angel.
Holtz slowly closed the door.
"This isn't good", Gunn muttered. He looked at Fred. "Let's go. Something tells me Junior's getting homesick, but he ain't bringin' no hugs for daddy."
Fred nodded and the two turned around and roared off in Gunn's van towards the Hyperion.just as Doyle, Kendra and Tara turned the corner of the hotel a few feet from where they were.
Kendra looked up in the distance. Her keen Slayer sight scanned up ahead for anything potentially dangerous. "Dat's him!", she exclaimed, pointing up ahead.
"What's who?", Doyle asked, puzzled.
"HIM! Connor! De boy dat we've been sent for!", she said.
"What? You sure 'bout that, Kendra?", Doyle asked, looking up ahead for.whatever it was that Kendra's vision caught.
Kendra groaned. "YES, dat's him! I'm not blind, you know!"
"Then what do we do?", Tara asked Doyle.
After thinking a minute, Doyle answered. "Follow him. But stay at a safe distance. He can't be allowed to see us until the right time."
"Which would be when?", Kendra asked, a hint of impatience trickling through her voice.
Doyle looked at his watch. "Another 7minutes and 48 seconds."
"Then let's hurry up", Tara insisted.
"No need to rush you folks", a gritty voice said from behind them.
The trio turned around to find about 10 to 12 mean-looking biker thugs, each with either a chain or club or some lethal weapon in hand.
"Swell", Doyle groaned. "Just what we DIDN'T need right now."
The leader stepped up to the head of the group. A balding, leather-clad, red-bearded thug with a toothy grin, leering at the curvaceous Kendra and the fair Tara with appreciation. Tara shifted slightly behind Doyle in slight fear.
Kendra glared at the taller man in disgust. "What de hell do you want?"
"Well, your money and valuables would be nice", the man grinned wickedly. "And uh.whatever, er, services you lovely ladies would be kind enough to provide my boys with."
The thugs laughed and snorted at the implication.
Kendra cocked her head and balled her fists. "Doyle, protect Tara. Dis could get ugly."
Doyle's eyes widened. "Kendra-",he warned.
"Don't worry", she assured him, before turning back to the gang with a dark glare in her feral eyes. "Dis won't take long."
Doyle looked down to his watch. 7 minutes and 21 seconds left.
"It'd better not", he muttered under his breath as he shielded Tara. "For Angel's sake." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
To BE Continued.