Disclaimer: They belong to the WB etc.

Summary: This is the fifth installment, or chapter 8, depending on your point of view. We have a bit of a BTVS crossover for you, and finally some action sequences! Also, the return of Cordy!

Cordy's still missing, Lorne is still in Vegas, Connor has learned the truth, and Angel and Wesley have started to patch things up. To learn more, read the damn story. Enjoy!





Chapter 8


L.A. 2002

Anya surveyed the group sitting before her. Angel and Wesley she knew, but the other three were complete strangers. All of them stared at her. Some surprised, some wary.

She guessed Buffy hadn't mentioned that she would be teleporting into Wesley's sitting room when she'd told Angel that help was on the way.

Buffy had called into the magic shop around six at night saying that she had just received a call from Angel.

Buffy hadn't been too clear on exactly what was wrong with the vampire, and Anya had assumed that this was due to communication problems between the ex-lovers, but she had told Anya that Cordelia had gone missing, and that the Angel Investigations team needed to create a temporal fold in order to find her.

Angel had called asking to speak to Willow, unaware that the young witch was currently in England undergoing a ritual cleansing process with a Wiccan group there, and would not be creating temporal folds anytime in the near future.

Buffy had told him that she would send Anya, as the vengeance demon had skill enough with magic to be able to create the fold.

Anya had not been terribly enthusiastic about the mission, having no real personnel ties to any of the L.A fang gang, but she had seen no reason why she should not help them. She had known Cordelia briefly and liked the young woman, despite the general attitude of the Scooby Gang toward her.

But despite her willingness to help find the seer, Anya had decided to keep her eyes open at all times. She remembered Buffy's words from before she had teleported out of the Magic Box.

"Just . . .be careful. Angel was kinda weird on the phone. Like there was stuff he was trying to avoid talking about. It's probably nothing, but . . . .just be careful okay?"

"Yes," Anya had replied, "and be careful with my money when you close the store."

Now she was in Wesley's living room.

"Hi," she said in an upbeat way, trying to break the awkward silence.

"How'd ya do that?!" asked a thin woman with glasses and a Texan accent.

"It's called teleporting!"

"Wow," said a tall African American who stood casually beside a bookcase, regarding her with awe. "Beats the bus. So you're the chick from Sunnydale?"

"Gunn this is Anya," Wesley interrupted smoothly, standing from the couch, "Anya this is Gunn, Fred, and Connor."

"Pleased to meet you!" said Fred enthusiastically, also standing and shaking Anya's hand.

"Hey," said Gunn, raising his hand in a gesture of greeting.

"Pleased to meet you." said Anya correctly.

Connor remained seated and looked suspicious, but nodded slightly in her direction.

"So, you got your powers back." said Angel, speaking for the first time from where he stood by the wall, and giving her a expressionless look.

"Anya is a vengeance demon," Wesley explained for the benefit of the others. "She can grant wishes to those who have been wronged by their lovers. Or she could until her powers were lost. But I suppose you can grant wishes again now? If your powers have been restored."

Gunn's eyebrows rose, Connor looked even more suspicious, Angel kept glancing at the boy with a worried expression.

"Yes my powers have been restored," said Anya brightly, trying to break the tension.

Awkward silence followed. Angel shifted on his feet and looked like he was trying to think of something to say.

"Thanks for comin'," he finally managed, "Um, Buffy told you about what's going on? That we need to create a temporal fold?"

"To find Cordelia, yes. But that's all she told me. I need a little more information if I'm going to help you. Plus the ingredients for the spell, and a second to cast it with."

"Yes, I've already located the spell," said Wesley hurrying over to the coffee table and moving Connor's hot chocolate aside so he could reach a large leather bound book with yellowing pages. "It's all right here, Gunn, if you and Fred could buy the ingredients?" He passed the book to Gunn

Gunn glanced at Angel, who nodded slightly, before he accepted Wesley's order.

"Sure thing. C'mon girl, let go," he said.

Fred quickly smiled at Wesley before following Gunn from the room.

"And I'll be your second," said Wesley to Anya, who was watching the pair leave, curiously wondering who was in charge here.

At first glance it was Wesley, but a closer examination revealed Angel as head honcho of the operation.

"What now?" said Connor, abruptly speaking for the first time and making Anya jump.

"Now someone explains how Cordelia went missing and why you think that a temporal fold will bring her back," said Anya, looking not at Connor, but at Angel.

"We don't know how she went missing," the vampire replied. "She just disappeared about six months ago. We found her car on the freeway, empty. It was like she literally just vanished. We found a prophesy that relates to time manipulation, a, ah, what was it?"

"A tefson," said Wesley helpfully.

"A time alteration," said Anya, looking thoughtful. "You think that there was some sort of spell that took Cordelia to some unknown time."

"Right, and we're also hoping that we're the ones who cast it, and that we're going to bring her to this time," said Angel.

"So how will a temporal fold bring her back?" Anya asked reasonably, "I mean usually people use them to look into the future, or retrieve lost objects from the past, a necklace for example, but I've never heard of anyone using a temporal fold to bring back a lost person."

"Why not?" asked Connor.

"It's complicated," said Wesley, "For one to use a temporal fold to time travel, the traveler must be a willing third participant in the spell. Someone separate from the two who cast it.

"As a person lost in the past has no way of knowing that we in the future are casting the spell, it is impossible for them to participate willingly at all."

"Temporal folds are no good for bringing back people from the past. You need someone with a lot more magical talent than I have to bring an unwilling person here from the past." said Anya, "Willow might have been able to do it but . . ." she left the sentence unfinished.

"Which is why we're not bringing Cordelia here right away. We're sending me to her time so that I can bring her back," said Angel.

"That's what Skip told you to do?" asked Wesley.

Angel had not yet shared the whole conversation he'd had with Skip.

He'd arrived at Wesley's with Connor in tow, paged Fred and Gunn, told his friends that they needed to create a temporal fold, ascertained that none of them had the magical skill, called Sunnydale, then set everyone to work researching the spell. After that Anya had arrived.

"He told me a lot of things," Angel said mysteriously. "He said that he was with Cordelia in the past, that he had her prepared to go forward to this time that we're in now. All we have to do, is go to the freeway, create the fold, send me back in time to where Cordelia was lost, then keep the fold . . .folded, until I can bring her back." He gestured toward Anya and Wesley. "You just can't break the circle until we return."

"We won't," said Wesley.

"We won't?" asked Anya. "What if something goes wrong and they take days?"

"Then I'll wait for days," Wesley responded, looking at Angel.

A memory surfaced in Angel's mind, *I'm your faithful servant Angel*, Wesley had once said. How long ago had that been?

Connor was staring at Anya.

"What?" she demanded, feeling his eyes boring into the side of her head.

"Why don't we just wish her back?" he asked logically.

"What's that?" asked Wesley.

"The vengeance demon grants wishes. Why can't we wish Cordelia back."

"I grant wishes to women scorned by men," said Anya indignantly, "not just anyone with a friend who's disappeared! Maybe men scorned by women too. I'm still figuring out my stance on that one."

"Anyone been scorned by a lover lately?" asked Angel, not really expecting an answer. Which is why he was surprised when Wesley opened his mouth to reply before thinking better of it.

"Somethin' you wanna tell us Wes?" he asked.

Anya felt the hair on the back of her neck rising for some reason. Connor obviously felt it too because he was glancing from Angel to Wesley in obvious distress. Anya wondered what the kid's deal was. He didn't look old enough to be out of school. Did he have parents? What was he doing hanging out with paranormal detectives after hours?

At that moment Fred and Gunn burst into the room with the ingredients for the spell.

"We got em!" Fred exclaimed, "Can we get Cordy back now?"

"Yeah, and the sooner the better because I for one will be glad to never see these chicken feet again." Said Gunn, disdainfully holding up the apparatus in question.

"Let's go," said Wesley, ignoring the fact that Angel's intense gaze was on him, and leading the way to Gunn's truck and Angel's convertible.

Everyone piled out after him.

Angel was the last to leave the apartment, and before he did, he sniffed the room carefully, picking up a disturbing scent.

He paused for a moment, trying to be rational about what it might mean, but failing to come up with a reasonable explanation for it.

Lilah had been here.



Chapter 9

Justine sat on the gravestone turning the urn over in her hands.

Within this urn was a demon that if freed, would be capable of hurting Angelus far more than she.

And she needed that.

Daniel Holtz had died, by her hand no less, to have his revenge on Angelus taken out by his foster son. But that plan had failed, and Daniel had died for nothing.

Now it was Justine's responsibility to see that Angelus paid for his crimes.

Three months in the ocean was hardly punishment enough for the hundreds of murders the vampire had committed. Daniel's dead family deserved more than that. The vampire had to be destroyed.

When Justine had first heard that the vampire was back on the streets, she had staked out the hotel, waiting to see what had become of Stephen, or Conner as he was now calling himself to please those he lived with.

She needed the boy to help her. She couldn't hurt Angelus alone.

When he had not emerged from the hotel after two months, Justine had presumed the boy dead. Murdered by Angelus as payback for throwing him into the sea, despite his claims of love and forgiveness.

She had felt that she had failed Daniel in every way. Not only was Angelus still alive, but the boy that Daniel had raised and loved had been killed by the same vamp that had taken his first family.

She had failed.

Depression had hit, and Justine had fallen back on her old habits of drinking, sleeping through the day, and obsessively patrolling graveyards and staking the disoriented vamps that rose from the ground there.

Every now and again, she would still visit the Hyperion, wishing that she possessed Daniel's skills for planning and inspiring others. She could not take Angelus on alone. And the fact that he had not even bothered to come after her suggested that he did not consider her to be a threat now that Stephen had been taken from her.

And Angel had been rejoined by Wesley.

The first day she had seen the tall man wearing glasses and an angry red scar across his neck enter the hotel had been the last day she had waited for Stephen.

Wesley had made steps toward reconciliation with his friends. He would be at the hotel on a regular basis. They were piecing there lives together, while she was completely alone. And she couldn't bear seeing the scar too often. It reminded her of what she was becoming. So her stakeouts became less frequent.

But today she had seen Stephen alive.

On one of her now rare visits to the Hyperion hotel, she had witnessed the boy and his father leave the hotel together, and jump into the black convertible.

Their expressions had been anxious yet hopeful, but above all, they had been a unit. The animosity had evaporated somehow between the two.

Justine had been stunned. The boy's hatred of the vampire had been intense. How could he have joined him?!

Stephen had indeed been destroyed by Angelus. Replaced by Connor, the faithful son.

Somehow it seemed worse this way than it would have been if the boy really had been dead. Angelus had managed to turn the innocent boy to his cause. What would Daniel have said?

So now Justine sat on a gravestone, considering her last resort: the urn.

Daniel had once made a deal with this demon in the name of vengeance. Could she? Would she follow his example?

Just then, the ground at her feet began to shift.

Ms. Evans was waking up.

Justine set the urn down on the gravestone, forgotten for the moment as she pulled a stake out of her jacket, and took on a fighters stance, tense and ready.

Evan's chest made it out of the ground, and Justine made a dive for the heart.

She was a tad too slow however, because the growling vampire managed to get clear of the ground before Justine had a chance to dust her.

She hit the loose dirt with a grunt as the vampire skittered to the side.

The red head was back on her feet in seconds though, readying for the inevitable attack.

Vampire and human exchanged violent blows. The vampire strong but clumsy with confusion, the human made strong and precise by pent rage.

The fight didn't last long, and ended with Justine managing to stake the vamp as it pushed her backward toward its own headstone.

Justine coughed on the dust as she fell.

She landed on the stone at a bad angle, and felt something crack beneath her.

The urn, she realized as she slipped to the ground, gasping in pain.

She lay frozen on the ground, waiting for the pain to subside, and breathing heavily.

Then she jerked in fright as a familiar voice said;

"Hey, thanks for letting me out! This is more like it!"


Galway 1753

Jim sat in the church and listened to the priest. The reading was a familiar one. The tale of the prodigal son.

Liam should be here, he thought. This was particularly relevant to him.

But Liam rarely attended church.

Jim glanced at Anna.

The girl sat ramrod straight, looking ahead with what looked like great concentration. He wondered what sins she would be confessing to today. He'd heard the rumors.

He wasn't one to retrench a young woman based on speculation, but he was unhappy about the degrading image it had brought upon his house.

Liam really should have been there.

He glanced at Katherine.

She was fidgeting a little. Bored, but not being impolite about it. She was sitting at the edge of the row next to her mother.

Her clothing was gorgeous, as befitted the daughter of a silk merchant on a Sunday morning. Her hair was decorated with red ribbons. Jim smiled slightly.

He faced front again, and glanced at the bible he held.

The priest continued to speak. Father Baker his was called. New to the order. Young and nervous.

The old priest, Father Moore had died three weeks ago of a weak heart. The entire town had attended the funeral. He had been well liked and respected. Liam had actually looked bored that day. He had barely known what the man had looked like.

Father Baker had ridden in the next week from Dublin, and had yet to really make an impression on the townspeople.

Katherine discretely tried to cover a yawn. Then gave her father a guilty look.

He frowned, though he did not really feel any disappointment in the girl. She was young. At her age it was difficult to be attentive for an entire service. Besides, in comparison to her brother, the girl was an Angel.

Suddenly Jim noticed that Baker's words were faltering. The man was beginning to stutter.

Jim looked up to find that he could not see the priest, for a dark red swirling light had sprung up between the preacher and his audience. Jim gaped, and heard the cries of several women behind him, and a pounding of feet as those who were inclined ran from the terrifying sight.

"Satan's work!" someone cried.

Surprise quickly descended into fear as Jim glanced at Katherine. He and his family made a habit of sitting close to the preacher at church, a sign of good faith and enthusiasm for God's teachings he had always thought. But now it seemed to be a lethal mistake. They were seated directly before the red mass.

Jim fought an urge to hurtle over the back of the bench and run screaming. The light was as tall as he, and belatedly he realized that it was not just a light, but a tunnel!

"Katherine!" he cried. Partly because he was afraid for his child's safety, and partly because she was at the edge of the row and needed to move so that the rest of the family could escape.

One look at the girl suggested that moving was not on the top of the list of things she might do.

She was frozen. Her mother was trying coax her into moving but no avail.

Anna had given into the urge to jump over the back of her seat so that she could run, but her dress had caught on something, so she hadn't gone far.

She cried out, and Jim realized that he could not hear a word she said. The tunnel was making a sound like water rushing down a riverbed during a storm, and all else was drowned out. Wind blew about as if they were in a gale.

"Katherine!" he cried out again, and moved toward his wife and daughter.

Gently he pried his wife away from the girl and indicated that she should flee with the rest of the crowd. He would carry Katherine. Reluctantly, she followed the directive.

He reached down to pick the child up, but to his horror, she was being raised from the bench by the wind.

The tunnel was trying to take her!

She screamed "Father!"

Tears of fear were running down her pale cheeks.

His cries of horror were incoherent.

His hands tried to catch her, and hold her, but only scraped across the material of her dress as she was pulled away through the air! The wind making her hair fly in all directions..

He gasped as she vanished.

Then stood there in shock as the wind, the sound, and finally the light, faded away.

He was disheveled and alone.

"What is that!" someone cried.

"The tunnel! It took the girl!"

Jim tried to focus on the voices, but Katherine's image was all he could see.

"It's a demon!"

"It's moving!"

"It's a woman!"

And finally Jim's gaze fell to the figure on the floor.

It was not Katherine, but a young woman dressed it what must once have been white robes. Now they were torn, and bloodied, and burned. As was her skin. Her hair was short, and light.

Jim could see how one might think she was a demon.

She moved once, twice. Then she stilled. Most likely dead.

Jim's vision blurred as tears filled his eyes.

Then he let out a cry of anguish.

Katherine was gone!



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