Chapter 9

When the Powers Come a-Calling

"I hate dealing with these people!" Angel exclaimed to no one in particular. The phone receiver was cradled in the crook of his neck and an immense copy of the yellow pages was held out in one hand. The team was all back at the hotel trying to follow-up on the clues they had garnered from their visit to Caritas. Everyone was scattered around the lobby trying to find a way to research clues.

Cordelia and Kate sat facing the lone computer Angel owned, arguing over the right web sites to research. Gunn was on his cell phone calling people he knew; while medical facilities were pretty much out of their league, certain controlled substances probably were not. Angel was calling all the hospitals and clinics in the area with a description of Faith, hoping that some Jane Doe had been admitted sometime in the last twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Mac was simply sitting and thinking. So far, none of the approaches were producing results.

Results were precisely what the team needed at this point. They needed to understand what was happening, and why, and what it possibly had to do with Faith. They needed to understand the why's and wherefore's of Sheffield's team. They needed something to happen.

Cordelia got up and poured another cup of coffee. She was tiring, and the caffeine would provide a suitable stimulus to stay awake. She looked over her shoulder to where Kate had taken over the keyboard. "Do you want some?" she asked as politely as she could – a feat considering that the ex-cop was beginning to grate on her nerves.

"Hmmm?" Kate mumbled, concentrating on the screen in front of her. Kate was, despite her best intentions, getting drawn into this case. She really didn't want to; a large part of her didn't want anything at all to do with Angel. She told herself that she despised what he was – that she'd just as soon kill him as look at him. But deep down she knew the truth: the cases were just too exciting. Growing up with a cop as a father, Kate had been exposed to every mundane crime, criminal, and motive before she was twelve. She knew every thing this world could throw at her inside and out. There was nothing new about it. The cases Angel followed, though, were something else entirely. They were all new to her, and that made them too exciting – too inexorably engaging – to refuse to play in them, despite the chaotic world it drew her into.

Cordelia walked up behind her and attempted to read the computer screen. Kate had logged into a private web site that allowed law enforcement agencies to exchange information on cases new and old. Kate was still using the I.D. and password she had used when she'd been an active duty officer. If there's one thing you could rely on in any large bureaucracy, it was that the wheels of process did not spin quickly. Kate didn't know when word of her dismissal would finally be passed on to this web site, but it would be months before enough paperwork was done within the department to declare her officially terminated; it would be months more, if ever, before they got through the process of telling anybody else. Given that it had taken her nearly eighteen months to get an approved login onto this site to begin with, she wasn't worried about its removal.

"Kate," Cordelia said, straightening up, "take the coffee."

"Thanks, but I don't want any," Kate replied distractedly.

"No," Cordelia said, an odd tint to her voice, "take it. NOW!"

Kate turned to see Cordelia's hands trembling, the coffee shaking out of the cup, over her fingers and onto the floor. Kate grabbed the cup from her just as Cordelia pitched backwards with a scream.

It was a vision – a message from the Powers That Be. Visions from the PTBs were extremely powerful. They were also decidedly abrupt. They came with only a moment's warning. In them, Cordelia could see what Angel needed to know. Not everything; not answers, per se, but clues. They were also debilitating. Cordelia would be thrown into near-unconsciousness from the vision, and suffer extreme headaches afterwards. But for the moment, the important thing was the vision. She had to allow herself to experience it, to communicate it. It had to be lived through – fought through, really – and then explained to Angel and the team with her last vestiges of consciousness. The visions told them where they were needed; what they were needed to do. They were the guidance from the Powers that set the direction of their mission, and an occasional course correction.

The team dropped what they were doing as they gathered around her. Her eyelids fluttered spastically as her body convulsed. It was like an epileptic fit combined with the most vivid nightmare imaginable. In her visions, Cordelia was the victim.

All at once, it was over. Cordelia crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been severed by an atomic blast. They only sign of consciousness was how tightly her eyes were screwed shut. The team waited, wondering if she would speak.

Without warning, only by some internal signal of her own mind, Cordelia gasped, inhaling oxygen in a sudden, mad rush to fill her lungs. Once; twice; three times. And then spoke – her voice distant, filled with hurt and sadness. "They're killing her," she said, and then stopped as tears of empathetic pain leaked from the corners of her eyes.

"Who?" Angel rushed out. "Faith? Do you see Faith?"

"No!" she shot back, her hands crumpled into fists that banged defiantly against the floor. "Blonde girl. Homeless," she muttered, recalling the details of all she had felt and somehow known from being in her vision. "Free clinic, down on Jackson. They're injecting her with something – something cold. Her heart is stopping. She knows it, and she can't stop it."

"Clinic. Medical equipment. We've got a lead," Angel said. "The Powers are cluing us in."

"Maybe," said Mac. "Maybe not."

"Either way, we have to check it out," Wesley replied.

"Yeah," chimed in Gunn. "And pronto. Y'all coming, or what?"

"Someone needs to stay with Cordelia," Angel said. He looked around at the team, one by one. His gaze settled on Kate. "You and Mac are the least experienced fighting demons," he said flatly, "and if it's Sheffield, we need Mac with us."

Kate's gaze sharpened, a deep penetrating glare in Angel's direction. She was defiant to being relegated to the role of babysitter. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that this was the break they were looking for. Pride bent to logic, albeit slowly. She nodded, just once.

"Okay, let's go," Wesley said, taking command of the team. They all moved to the weapons case in the lobby, filled with swords, axes, and less identifiable items. Kate, meanwhile, picked up Cordelia and carried her to the couch.

"Keep researching," Angel told her as they began to move out. "Call us if you find something," he said.

"You too," Kate replied. "I'm not getting left out of this shindig." They gave her no reply as they left. Alone in the lobby with now unconscious Cordelia, Kate had to wonder what she had gotten herself into.

* * *

The Jackson street clinic was, officially, closed for the night. It would open again at seven A.M. However, that was four hours from now; Angel and his cohorts were disinclined to wait that long. So, with malice and aforethought, they went about breaking and entering.

Between Gunn's criminal past and MacKenzie's military one, the alarm system and door locks were defeated before Angel and Wesley could finish debating whether or not they should try to enter. The debate being thus rendered moot, the team began a thorough search.

The squat two story building had no patients, or any other signs of life, to give credence to Cordelia's vision. However, there was no reason to doubt it. The visions had never led them astray. With this in mind, they began a more thorough search, which is how they found the basement – and with the help of Angel's enhanced senses, the sub-basement.

The seemingly innocuous ancient brick wall swung away to reveal a thoroughly modern set of stairs. The stairs led down to a brightly lit hall, where steady beeping noises could be dimly heard in the distance. The team descended, on their guard and ready for any sort of creature that might attack them. Nothing met them.

The guard desk at the bottom of the stairs was unoccupied. While this might be considered fortunate for the team, the large bloodstain on the wall behind it spoke of something more sinister. "Damn," Gunn whispered.

Wesley walked over to the sign-in / sign-out book at the guard desk. The last entry was nearly twelve hours ago. Wesley held up the book and pointed to the imprinting on the bottom of the page: A Wolfram & Hart Property. The team moved even more cautiously through the corridors after that.

Most of the rooms were dark. The few checks of them yielding little information. The each contained an empty bed and medical monitors. All were empty and unused. That corridor ended in a 'T'. Light came from a room father down on the left. As the team spread out though, Angel moved right.

The others stopped their movements and turned back to follow him. He walked purposefully down towards the end of the hall. Wesley rushed up to him. "Where are you going?" he whispered harshly, demanding an answer for the odd behavior.

"Can't you smell it?" Angel replied, looking up.

"Smell what?" Wesley asked.

"Blood," he said simply. He stopped at the last door in the corridor. It was the utility closet. Slowly, deliberately, he reached towards the door handle. Mac and Gunn gathered on either side of the door. As his hand turned the knob, everyone unconsciously moved their weapons into a 'ready' position.

The door opened to a horrific site. Bodies were stacked in the closet – two nurses, a doctor, a patient, and the security guard. All showed signs of multiple bullet holes. Clearly, this was not a demon they were dealing with – it was Sheffield and his commando team.

Without a word, Angel closed the door. The team turned and headed back down the corridor towards the light. They were silent, each one trapped in the grimness of what they had seen. Demons were terrible creatures on Earth, but nothing compared at times to humans.

The last door on the left had a light on. It was a patient's room. Wesley and Angel moved in, directing Mac and Gunn to check the other rooms. Inside lay a blonde-haired girl, hooked up to a series of monitors and IVs.

She was alive, that much was clear from the regular beeping of the heart monitor. She was also unconscious. He face, weathered from a hard life on the street, was relaxed in this artificial repose. Her chest rose and fell with the gentleness of a deep sleep.

"I thought Cordelia said they were killing her," Angel said, perplexed by the sight before them.

As a means of reply, Wesley picked up the chart and examined it. The notations were all in order. What had been done to her, as extreme and inhuman as it was, had been done professionally. For that, at least, they could be grateful. "They did," Wesley responded at last.

"Did what?" Angel said, having distractedly begun examining the room.

"They killed her," Wesley said. "Six minutes, clinically dead. Then they brought her back."

"What?" Angel stepped forward, looking over Wesley's shoulder at the chart which he could not hope to make sense of. "But why?" he asked aloud.

"Test case, I'd say," Wesley responded. "They needed to make sure it worked."

"More specifically," came Mac's voice from behind them, "they needed to make sure they had everything they needed to make it work." Wesley and Angel looked back at him, startled.

Mac moved further into the room with Gunn following. Gunn jerked his thumb back towards the corridor. "There's an O.R. back there, but it's cleaned out."

"Dear God," Wesley said, the truth beginning to dawn on him. "This is diabolical."