Oz and Kendra had barely made it into the vicinity of the Bronze before trouble arose. They dashed around the corner in time to see a girl drop to the ground, either dead or very close to it. The tall, muscular vampire that had been holding her smiled with a ghastly intensity and watched as his smaller companion feasted on another girl.
"Let her go!" Oz yelled, brandishing a large wooden cross.
A laugh had just started to escape the stronger vampire's throat before the slayer was upon him: a flying kick landed him square on the chest and he fell to his back. The other fiend backed off almost immediately, as if he knew his strength was not a match for the girl.
Oz grabbed the arm of the released captive. "Run!" As soon as she was a safe distance away, he joined the fray.
"Luke! Let's get out of here, man," called the younger vampire, already turning to run with Oz advancing toward him.
"I will not be defeated by these mere humans," Luke insisted, continuing to trade blows with Kendra.
The other stood perfectly still, despite the cross drawing near his face, and Luke paused his fight and held eye contact for a split second. "We're leaving. Now."
Before Kendra and Oz could even compensate for the sudden change in focus of the vamps, the two were gone.
Kendra wanted to follow, but Oz suggested a more sensible plan of action:
"Let's make sure there's nothing bigger going on inside."
"Where are the other volumes?" Wesley called as he came into the room.
Angel didn't answer and strode to the other side of the room, looking for something appropriately valuable. He held up a blue vase covered in Chinese characters. "Is this authentic?"
Wesley, equally distracted by his pursuit for research materials, barely glanced up from a stack of books. "No. Cordelia bought it from that flea market a few weeks ago. She thought we needed more color in this room." He dropped a book onto the stack, frustated. "I can't find it anywhere. Are you sure we have it?"
"Don't we have anything left that's worth anything?" Angel sifted through the weapons cabinet.
"Angel," Wesley said, a bit impatiently. "The book."
"I'm not going to give them any of my books," the other returned. "They wouldn't like them anyway."
Wesley didn't move and only stared at Angel, waiting for the vampire to look up at him.
Angel paused as something on the floor caught his attention. He picked up the crumpled piece of paper and gently unfurled it, smoothing it on the end table.
"What is it?" Wesley asked, his attention diverted temporarily by the look in his employer's eyes.
"Buffy," Angel whispered, a barely audible sound, rather breathed than spoken. "That book," he said in a normal tone, as if he'd just realized what Wesley was talking about. "It's on the kitchen table."
Wesley strode into the kitchen to retrieve the book, all but forgetting the paper Angel had found. But Angel couldn't forget. As he stared down at the pencil drawing, he decided it wasn't quite as accurate as he had thought. There was a new picture of Buffy now in his mind, a more grown-up one. He had been away from her for so long. Now the lines in her face were more defined, and her eyes seemed darker, deeper.
She was still more beautiful than he could ever translate onto paper.