Chapter 3
Plus Two More
Charles Gunn covered his nose and mouth with a kerchief. The burnt stench in the tunnels was overwhelming, and it was all he could do to control the lurch in his stomach. He walked along the burnt passageway tracing the source of the smell, and came to the Kri-kite layer. Little in it was recognizable – most of it was char and ash. But the body in the entrance was something altogether separate.
Gunn had seen enough demons both living and dead that the irrevocable proof of their existence that the body represented had little impact on him. He'd seen them stabbed, clawed, and chopped up. He'd seen them roasted by magic. Truth be told, he'd done much of the killing himself – always in self-defense.
This demon, however, had had a fist sized hole blown in its head by a very modern weapon. That was usually not the case with demon deaths, and it didn't bode well for Charles Gunn or the neighborhoods he watched over. Whoever had done this, and it was undoubtedly a human, had also torched the nest. With something very big. And hot. And flammable.
Gunn looked around the tunnels. He had come from the North tunnel, but the shot that killed the demon had come from the East tunnel. He decided to have a look down the East tunnel before going and talking to the rest of the gang. Not that he was quite sure what it was he was going to say when he got there.
It took another hour of searching down tunnel branches before he found the two that had been killed by the mines. There wasn't enough left of the two males to tell what they had been. However, the amount of purple blood and green flesh on the walls was sufficient to convince him of their relation to the dead one by the lair's entrance. He looked around the tunnels briefly, and decided that the best choice was to go find Angel.
* * *
"All I'm saying is that I've seen bear's claws, and this does nae look anything like one." MacKenzie regarded the pastry in his hand somewhat askance.
"I believe that he may have a point," piped in Wesley. "I mean, I've seen dozens of pictures of Napoleon, and the Napoleons I get at the bakery look nothing – "
"If you don't want the donuts, you don't have to have the donuts," shouted Cordelia in frustration. "But I," she looked around to challenge them all, "am going to enjoy this if I have to kill every one of you to do it."
Wesley and MacKenzie looked briefly at one another, and then at Angel. Angel simply shrugged and took a bite of his cruller. "I wouldn't mess with her," he said with his mouth full.
"Back to the initial conversation," Wesley said, changing back into his most professional tone. "We can try to alert the authorities about an attempt to break out Faith, but I doubt they'll listen to us. That means we'll need to set up some kind of perimeter watch over the facility, ready to respond when they do strike."
They had spent the last hour going over everything that MacKenzie knew, and what they could do about it. Since the information was completely unsupported by any kind of evidence that they could likely produce, they were left on their own. Had Faith been any other kind of client, they would have simply tracked her down and placed her under their own protection – perhaps moved her to a safehouse. In this case, however, they knew exactly where Faith was, but they had no hope of reaching her.
Angel scratched his head. "And there's no way to track the team down, before they strike?" he asked yet again.
"As I said, the best hope is to try to talk to the likely suppliers here in L.A." replied Mac. "Who would the team go to if they needed hardware or other operations support? If we can track them down and get some answers from them, then we might have a chance at tracking down Sheffield and the team."
"If you can help me find them," Angel responded, "I think I can definitely convince them to talk." His serious look convinced all assembled that he could carry out that threat if needed. Indeed, if they were dealing with typical humans, then displaying Angel's demonic face would be sufficient to tilt the scales in their favor. But that implied that they could find the suppliers to begin with. MacKenzie was confident that he could – given time. Time was something that they didn't have a lot of.
"Do you think you can make some calls, see if you can figure out who the suppliers might be?" Angel asked.
"I'll need to visit in person, more likely. But I think I can track it down today," Mac answered.
"Good," Angel answered. "In the meantime, we need to figure out what some options are for protecting Faith. Wesley?"
"I can see about coming up with some kind of protection charm," Wesley answered. "We'll need to get it to her, though."
"We can take care of that tonight," Angel answered. "In the meantime – "
"We got some skanky, dead demon crap down in the tunnels," Gunn said, walking through the front door of the hotel.
"Okay, so much for the actual eating of a complete breakfast," muttered Cordelia, dropping the remains of her donut in the trash as he stomach turned over.
"Gunn!" exclaimed Angel. "Good to see you."
"May I present Captain MacKenzie," intoned Wesley formally. "Captain MacKenzie, this is our esteemed associate, Charles Gunn."
"A pleasure to meet you," said MacKenzie with a half-salute.
"Damn, English," said Gunn, using his nickname for Wesley. "There's more of you in L.A.?"
"I'm Scottish, actually," replied MacKenzie good naturedly. "English here," he indicated Wesley, "is still a sole representative as near as I can tell."
"Allright," said Gunn, nodding with a smile. "I like this guy."
"What's this about skanky, dead demons?" asked Angel. "I mean, if you're done bonding and everything."
Gunn sniffed as his only reply to the crack. "Some folks from the neighborhood came to me this morning. They said there was a whole bunch of noise last night, below ground, you know. Then this morning there's this amazing stench. So I went and checked it out, and there is something definitely nasty going on. There's a whole bunch of demon parts down there all doin' the roasty-toasty."
"What kind of demons were they?" asked Wesley.
"Kinda hard to tell after they'd been flambéed, know what I mean?" responded Gunn. "There was one that was kinda intact, though – but it was taken out by a big old piece of street hardware."
"You're saying humans did this?" Angel interjected.
"Unless other demons started packing heat, yeah," replied Gunn.
"Wesley, you and Gunn should go check it out," Angel said. "I'm not wild about having this on our hands while we're trying to figure out what to do about the commando team," he added.
"Commando team? You mean with napalm and stuff?" queried Gunn, clearly off balance from having missed the earlier conversation.
"Yes, why?" responded Wesley.
"Because that looks like exactly what came into that demon nest," responded Gunn.
"Maybe I should go with them, to see if it was Sheffield," MacKenzie suggested.
"Excuse me, but who is this guy?" Gunn asked. Angel briefly explained. "Damn," Gunn said, and Wes and Cordelia simply nodded.
"I think it's more important that you track down those arms suppliers," said Angel to MacKenzie after the explanation. "I'll go with Gunn. Wesley can work on the protection charm."
"Who are you protecting?" came a voice from the doorway.
"Kate!" exclaimed Angel, Wesley, and Cordelia together. "What brings you here?" added Angel somewhat self-consciously.
"Faith," said the blonde haired woman. "She's missing. I suppose you don't know anything about that, of course."
"What do you mean, missing?"
"I mean," said Kate, walking down into lobby to join the others, "that she wasn't in her cell this morning." She picked up one of the donuts and took a bite. "Bear claws, my favorite," she muttered.
"How was she broken out?" asked Mac, curious about this new twist of events.
"That's just the thing," responded Kate. "No one is really sure. There's no sign of anything. No holes in the walls; no missed checkpoints. She was all tucked into her bed last night at lights-out, and then wasn't there this morning."
"She just disappeared?" asked Cordelia incredulously. "Geez, some people have all the luck."
"Wait a minute," said Angel. "It's after ten in the morning. When was this discovered?"
"It was discovered at about six this morning. But since there were no signs of any forced exit, the day guards just assumed she'd been sent to solitary. Not like it would be the first time. Then the solitary guards assumed she'd been sent to the infirmary. It took a couple of hours to figure out that we didn't have her."
"We?" asked MacKenzie.
"Kate used to be a cop," Angel replied. "Faith is a personal case with her."
"Used to?"
"Yeah, but I'm not now, and I have Angel to thank for it," Kate responded with a small trace of continuing bitterness. Kate had, in fact, been a cop. However, her association with Angel had led her into more and more bizarre circumstances – circumstances which she couldn't explain to her superiors. Eventually it had cost her her badge – and almost her life. Angel had saved her from an attempted suicide, but now her life was more or less adrift. She still had friends enough in the department who let her know when something of particular interest to her had happened. Faith was one of those items of interest. She knew that if Faith were missing, Angel had something, somehow to do with it. So she had come straight here.
It wouldn't take long for the rest of the force to make the same association she had. After all, Faith had been arrested following a gun battle with a watcher team at Angel's last residence. Kate wasn't sure whether she was hoping to track down Faith or protect Angel, but either way she was here now.
A lot was unspoken and unresolved between Kate and Angel. On the one hand, every part of her that wasn't busy hating him was trying to deny his very existence – and the existence of the rest of the demon world she'd been forced to confront. But he had saved her life, and there was between them some sort of bond that she couldn't quite identify.
She chastised herself for becoming so emotional about it. This should be about business – about finding and returning Faith. Somehow, though, it always came back to Angel. Everything always came back to Angel. "However, now she's gone, and it won't take the cops long to figure out that they should come talk to you."
"I don't think we need that distraction," Angel said. "Kate, we need to get out to the prison to look around."
"We?" she shot back in a direct impersonation of Mac's tone.
"What about the demon bodies?" asked Gunn. "I can't identify them by myself."
"I think you and I and the Captain should go to the tunnels," said Wesley. "It gives us the best knowledge base to work with."
"Captain?" queried Kate, latching on to the word with suspicion. "Captain of what?"
"A boat," said Wesley, unconvincingly.
"A plane," said Angel at the same time, equally as unconvincingly.
"You can call me 'Mac'," MacKenzie replied with a charming smile.
"Looks like I'll just hold down the fort," Codelia said, giving them all a goodbye wave. "Have fun storming the castle," she added.
"No," Angel said. "I don't want anyone left here for the police to question until we know what's going on. I think it would be best if Cordelia went with Gunn and Wesley."
"Into the slimy, icky tunnels," replied Cordelia, arching an eyebrow at the thought. "Hm, this newsflash just in – not going to happen. Thanks for playing, we have some nice parting gifts in the back."
"Why doesn't Cordelia just go with Angel?" suggested Wesley reasonably.
"No!" said Angel, a little too forcefully.
"Okay," said Cordelia, smiling sweetly at Angel.
"No," said Angel again, more firmly. "Kate and I have to discuss some things," he said, then lamely added, "Private things."
"No we don't," disagreed Kate with a hand upraised.
"But Angel," Cordelia whined, "I'm wearing linen."
"It's settled," said Angel.
"No it's not!" said Cordelia and Kate simultaneously.
"Wes?" said Angel, looking at Wesley seriously. "You're the boss here."
"I thought this was 'Angel investigations'," commented Mac, slightly confused.
"Management shakeup," said Gunn, leaning over to place a supporting hand on his arm. "Don't even try to understand it, just take my advice and go with the flow." Mac nodded sagely.
"All right, then," said Wes slowly. "We'll grab Cordelia some overalls, then she, Gunn, Mac, and I will go investigate the tunnels." He looked around the room for any disagreement. There was none, although Coredelia made a face. "Angel and Kate will check out the prison."
"We need to move quickly," said MacKenzie, for the first time exerting an air of authority. "They've got about four to eight hours on us so far. That puts my plans about forty hours behind schedule. I don't think we'll be able to approach this the way we intended before. We'll need to find a quicker way."
"Hopefully the investigation will yield some clues," Wesley said, nodding in concurrence. "But we need to be quick. Everyone needs to stay in contact."
"The cell phones aren't going to work in the tunnels," Gunn commented.
MacKenzie undid his rucksack and pulled out two small devices that looked like transistor radios. He handed one to Angel. "This should fix that. It works just like a walkie-talkie. Just press the red button to talk."
"What's that?" asked Kate, turning a suspicious eye on MacKenzie.
"Don't ask," replied Angel, Wesley, and Gunn simultaneously.
Mac simply smiled. "Aye, well," he said, turning his charming grin on her, "I canna tell you that, lass. Let's just say that it's not something you particularly want to have to explain to anyone who wants to know where you got it from."
"Is anyone likely to ask?" inquired Wesley curiously.
"If they do, I recommend you shoot first and not stop to ask questions," replied MacKenzie. The covert communications hardware was designed to look like a normal transistor radio so as to not arouse suspicion. The only people who would have any reason to recognize it would be other covert operatives. That was exactly the kind of attention that Mac did not want to draw. More importantly, such operatives would view their possession of such equipment as proof that they were also convert ops, and therefore a threat to the United States. Such a situation would be very dangerous for Angel and his people. Seeing the others look at him quizzically, he added, "I genuinely mean that." His tone was deadly serious.
"Okay," said Angel, clapping his hands and putting a forced smile on his face. "Sounds like a plan. Let's go."
"One last question," piped up Gunn. "Anyone going to eat the last bear claw?" He simply shrugged off the stares of the others and took a large bite.