"Okay Buffy, we're here," said Angel. "I'm parked around the corner about a block away. I'll send Wes and the others up to you, while I go have my chat with Lilah. Is there a back way into your dad's building so they won't be seen?" Angel heard Buffy asking her father about a back door, and she relayed his reply.
Angel sent Wesley, Gunn and Fred in the back way while he cautiously approached the corner. He checked his watch. He still had five minutes, so there was no need to rush this. Angel peeked around the corner and saw the black limo parked about half way down the block. He was coming at it from behind, so he didn't have to worry about someone spotting him in the mirror. Lilah was used to having him just pop up, so there shouldn't be any problem with her not seeing him come out of the building ahead of the limo.
Angel moved quickly and silently down the sidewalk. He was examining the car carefully. He could see the silhouette of a woman in the back, and a driver in the front. The woman in the back seemed to checking her watch frequently. When he got closer Angel started paying special attention to the side mirrors. They showed an empty front seat. Buffy's informant had neglected to tell her that Lilah's driver was a vampire too, not that Angel expected that to cause him any problems.
Angel took one last look around to make sure that no one was watching, and put on a burst of speed just before he got to the back bumper of the limo. He was around to the driver's side door in an instant. He smashed through the window with his fist, and grabbed the driver by its collar. He pulled it half way out through the window before his stake plunged into the vampire's back. He reached in and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
Angel heard the snick of automatic car locks closing. He tried the back door, and wasn't surprised to find it locked. "Come on Lilah, you know that won't stop me, but I hate sitting on broken glass. Open up."
The locks snicked again, and Angel opened the door. He saw Lilah Morgan sitting in the far back corner with a cross in her hand as he climbed in. He smiled at it as he took the seat farthest away from her. "Now Lilah, I thought we knew each other better than that."
"What are you doing here?" asked Lilah Morgan.
"That's supposed to be my line," said Angel. "What is so important about some bit of land in Pasadena that you'd let three…" He glanced back toward the front seat of the limo. "…well, four now, of your pet vampires be killed to get it. I know vamps are cheap, and you can always get more, but four vamps well enough behaved to take out in polite society are hard to come by."
Dawn was putting the vacuum cleaner away in the front hall cupboard after cleaning up the last of the vampire dust. Her father was still having serious problems adjusting his world view. Even seeing the third vampire turn to dust when Buffy staked it in front of him didn't leave him fully convinced. Buffy had him sitting on the sofa with a glass of scotch. He seemed to have retreated into his private thoughts. He reminded Buffy of her mother just after she found out, and she hoped that the next half hour would go better.
Dawn heard a knock at the door, and looked through the peephole. "Buffy! It's Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, and a couple of others."
"Let 'em in!" said Buffy.
Dawn opened the door. "Hi, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce!" She stepped back from the door to make room for them to enter, without saying "come in." It was a habit she had developed over the last couple of years in Sunnydale.
Wesley smiled. He recognised the reflex. "Dawn! Good to see you again. God you've grown! Call me 'Wesley.' 'Mr. Wyndam-Pryce' takes too long."
"Okay, Wesley." Dawn was a little surprised. This man was quite a bit different from the stuck up prig who had left Sunnydale three years ago. She couldn't recall not seeing Wesley in a three piece suit before, and he looked like he hadn't shaved today. It gave him a ruggedly handsome look that she approved of.
Wesley and his companions stepped across the threshold into the apartment, and Wes made introductions. "Dawn, I would like to present Winifred Burkle, and Charles Gunn. Fred and Gunn, Dawn Summers."
Greetings were exchanged. Dawn thought that Gunn was every bit as handsome as Wesley had become. His shaved head looked very sexy, and he had a warm smile. Fred was a pretty petite brunette with a charming Texas accent. She seemed to be rather shy. Dawn also noticed that she was carrying a laptop computer bag.
Dawn took a look out into the hall. "This is it? No Cordelia?" She sounded rather pleased by that.
"Cordy will be along in a while," said Wesley. "She went to pick up some reference materials that I think we may need to try and figure this thing out, assuming Lilah isn't going to be very forthcoming with Angel."
Dawn took them all into the living room, and made the round of introductions. Gunn was rather surprised when he met Buffy. "This is the Slayer? I was expecting some six foot amazon."
Buffy smiled sourly. "I get that a lot. Angel said pretty much the same thing, the first time I knocked him on his ass."
Gunn's eyebrow went up at the thought of this little girl knocking Angel on his anything. Wesley read his reaction. "Don't let her size fool you. The one time she and Angel were really trying to kill each other, she won."
Gunn and Fred both shot Buffy a look.
"Long story. We don't have time for it now," said Buffy. "Have you guys got anything on what this Morgan woman is up to?"
Fred pulled her TiBook out of its bag. "Is there a phone line or something I can hook up to?"
"Um…one of Dad's neighbours has an unsecured WiFi network," said Dawn. "You could use my iBook." She saw the disapproving look Buffy was giving her. "Hey, it's not my fault they left their network open! And I didn't really do anything with it. I just saw it was there. Willow does a lot worse things when working to save the world from evil than piggybacking off someone else's internet connection, like that little back door she's got into the Coroner's computers."
Fred smiled at Dawn. "That's okay. I've got WiFi too, thanks for the info." She set her TiBook down on the coffee table, and sat on the sofa beside Mr. Summers. She quickly connected to the neighbour's base station, with Dawn looking over her shoulder, and supplying a couple of bits of configuration information that made it clear to Buffy that she'd done a lot more than "just saw it was there." Willow was teaching that girl some bad habits. Buffy was going to have to have a talk with both of them.
Fred started pulling up files on her computer. "Okay, based on what you told Cordelia earlier, I pulled the records out of Harmon and Ross's computers on their current projects, and cross referenced with Wolfram and Hart to see if there were any matches. We got three, but two of them aren't in Pasadena, so that leaves this one. Is it the Del Mar project that Wolfram and Hart is interested in?" she asked Mr. Summers.
"Uh, yeah…" Hank leaned forward, coming out of his daze a bit, and looked at Fred's computer screen. "How did you get those files. They're supposed to be confidential."
Fred looked embarrassed. "Um…when this is over you should talk to your IT people. They're a couple of security patches behind." Fred didn't tell him that she'd exploited a hole she'd discovered on her own, that no one had a patch for yet.
"I'll do that," said Hank.
"Anyway…" Fred typed a couple of commands into her computer. "I pulled up the ownership history on the property in question, and cross referenced that with our database of weird, or supernatural occurrences in Los Angeles County and came up with this." Fred pulled up a brief newspaper report from 1953:
POLICE HAVE NO CLUES IN MULTIPLE HOMICIDE (Pasadena CA) Police officials are remaining silent about their progress investigating the multiple murders that took place at an exclusive Pasadena club last Thursday. They have released no details about how twelve people died in the club, but sources close to the investigation who wish to remain anonymous report that all of the victims had their throats slashed. Police dismiss rumors that there was any sort of Satanic ritual involved in the deaths.
"There's more, but it all adds up to 'we don't know anything.'" said Fred. "But a lot of the newspaper files from that far back have never been scanned, and it's pretty clear that the police did their usual sweeping under the carpet about what really happened anyway. I asked Cordelia to go check the L.A. Times morgue to see if they've got more info. She knows a guy there who'll let her in after hours."
"A newspaper has a morgue?" asked Dawn.
"That's what newspapers call their files of past issues Honey," said Hank Summers. He noticed the surprised look Buffy was giving him. "Hey, I used to watch Lou Grant."
"Ah. Classic TV," said Buffy.
Angel sat looking at Lilah for a moment, thinking about what to do next. She hadn't told him anything, not that he'd expected her to. He sighed, and reached for her purse.
"Hey!" Lilah tried to snatch it away, but Angel was too quick. He opened it up and pulled out her cell phone. He crushed it in his hand. Next he picked up the handset for the phone built into the car, and ripped it out.
"I guess you're going to have to walk to a pay phone to call yourself a taxi or something," said Angel as he got out of the limo again. "There's one at the 7-11 just around the corner there." He pointed east.
Angel paused long enough to do the same with the car phone in the driver's compartment before he started to walk toward the entrance to Hank Summers' apartment building. He took the limo keys out of his pocket and tossed them into a storm sewer.
Angel looked back toward the limo as he went inside. He saw Lilah starting to walk west. In some ways she was so predictable. There really was a 7-11 just around the corner to the east. He had no idea how far she'd have to go west.
Angel knocked at the door to Hank Summers' apartment. He heard movement inside, and a few seconds later saw that someone had looked out the peephole. "It's Angel," said a muffled voice.
The door swung open, and Angel saw Dawn. 'Damn, but she's gotten beautiful!' was his first thought which he quickly pushed back down. Way down. He watched her step back from the door, but she didn't say anything.
"Uh, I need an invitation," said Angel.
"Oh yeah, come on in."
Angel stepped forward, and bounced back. "I need an invitation from your dad."
Buffy had been coming toward the door too, but she turned back to her father. "Dad, invite Angel in."
"What?" Angel saw Hank Summers get up and start to come toward the door too.
"Invite him in," said Buffy. "A vampire can't come in without an invitation. Angel is one of those extraordinary exceptions to the 'all vampires are Evil' rule I told you about."
'One of?' thought Angel. "There's more than one?" he asked out loud.
"Aw…long story, I'll have to explain it later," said Buffy.
"Wait a minute. Isn't this the guy that…" Hank pointed back toward Wesley. "…he said was trying to kill you once?"
"Another long story," said Buffy. "We don't have time for this. Just invite him!"
Hank Summers looked suspiciously back and forth between Angel, and his daughter for a few seconds. "All right Mr. Angel. Please come in."
"Thank you sir." Angel stepped inside. "Hey, Dawn. You've gotten taller."
Dawn turned away, and headed back to the sofa. "Yeah, I keep hearing that."
Angel reached out his hand to Buffy's father. "Mr. Summers, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Hank Summers shook Angel's hand. It was surprisingly cool to the touch, and something about Angel's attitude made him think that he was being introduced to one of Buffy's boyfriends, who was very nervous about how Dad was going to react to him. "So, have you known my daughter long?"
"Um, about six years," said Angel. "But we haven't seen each other much since I left Sunnydale three years ago."
Everyone returned back to the living room. "So how'd it go with this Morgan woman?" asked Buffy.
"Lilah believes that I killed the vamps she sent to kill you. She has no idea you're the Slayer, and she told me nothing about what her interest in your father is," said Angel. "I left her looking for a pay phone to get transportation home."
Buffy couldn't help noticing that everyone from Angel Investigations seemed to be on a first name basis with this Morgan woman. She let that slide. "So she has no idea what a Slayer is?"
"No…" said Angel. "Unfortunately she does. A couple of years ago she and a couple of her colleagues tried to hire Faith to kill me. You came in on the tail end of that, remember?"
Buffy hissed in a breath of air through gritted teeth. "Oh, yeah…"
"Faith?" asked Mr. Summers. He saw Buffy start to take a deep breath. "I know. Long story. No time. Tell me later."
"I've been saying that a lot tonight haven't I?" asked Buffy. Her dad nodded. "Sorry."
Buffy turned back to the others. "Okay, so what do we know? It seems that almost fifty years ago someone did some sort of ritual sacrifice on the site of Dad's new project. Maybe someone wants to do it again, on the fiftyth anniversary of the first sacrifice, but that's still months away. Why the sudden rush now?"
"We start demolition of the old structure on Monday," said Hank Summers. "Maybe something got left behind."
"Ah," said Buffy. "That gives them a deadline. Dad, will killing you stop this project?"
"Nope. It's going ahead with or without me," said Hank Summers. "I've got the authority to kill the project, and sell the land, but if I did that I'd be down at the unemployment office right after."
"Okay, so Lilah Morgan probably won't try to kill you. She may make another try at me and Dawn, to force you to sell, but that seems less likely since she failed once, and knows that we'll be on guard now. What else could she try?"
"There's always legal action," said Angel. "No one can put out requests for restraining orders faster than Wolfram and Hart when they put their mind to it, and they've got a fair number of judges in their pockets, who will grant them on the flimsiest excuses. I'm surprised they haven't done that to you yet."
"Oh, they have," said Mr. Summers. "This project has already been delayed a couple of months, but as you said, the excuses have been pretty flimsy, and we managed to get them overturned without too much difficulty. They may come up with something new on Monday though. If they keep it up long enough we might just sell to them, to end the nuisance, but they haven't gotten close to costing us that much yet, and the longer they keep it up, the more annoyed Harmon and Ross are going to get with them. They might hold out just for spite, and then give someone else a bargain."
"So Harmon and Ross are actual people?" asked Gunn.
"Yeah. They own the company," said Mr. Summers. "Mr. Harmon and Ms. Ross are also the only other people who have the authority to kill this project."
"Might Wolfram and Hart make a try for them?" asked Dawn.
"They're both out of the country, and, being rich, they tend to have good security people around them, and their families," said Mr. Summers. "But I suppose we should warn them… What the hell could I tell them that wouldn't have them thinking I've gone nuts?"
"That is always the problem." says Buffy. "Cordy mentioned something about you losing your friend in the police department?" she asked Angel.
"Kate stuck her nose into one too many cases that her bosses didn't want looked into," said Angel. "She's on more or less permanent medical suspension. They say the stress got to her."
"I suppose we could phone in an anonymous tip," said Wesley. "That tends to put security people on a higher state of alert."
"I can do that," said Gunn. "I'll find a pay phone. Not too close a one." He got to his feet. "Who should I call?"
Hank grabbed a pen, and a pad of paper. He wrote down a number. "Here's the number for the company's security desk. They'll probably take a warning from someone who knows to call it more seriously." He ripped off the top page and handed it to Gunn.
"Go east," said Angel. "I sent Lilah west looking for a phone." He tossed Gunn the keys to the Plymouth. "I guess you can park the car in front when you get back."
Fred got up too. "I'll come with you." They left the apartment together.
"So what else might they try?" asked Buffy.
"If they really do want to do this ceremony again, do they have to do it on schedule?" asked Dawn. "Could they maybe do it early?"
"Insufficient information," said Wesley. "We really have no idea what sort of ritual it was, what it was supposed to accomplish, or how, or why. Some rituals are very time specific. Others are more flexible. But if Lilah could do the ritual ahead of schedule, why put so much effort into stopping, or delaying the demolition?"
"How about we move up our schedule," said Buffy. "If there is something there that they don't want destroyed, how about we destroy it early?" She grinned. "I haven't burned down, or blown up anything for a couple of years."
"It might be a good idea to take a look," said Angel. "Hopefully we can find a less drastic way of destroying…whatever it is."
There was another knock on the door. Dawn got up to go answer it. "I didn't expect Gunn and Fred to get back so soon." She checked through the peephole, and turned around. "Uh, guys? It's Cordelia, and it looks like she's got a green demon with little red horns with her."
"Oh, that'll be Lorne," said Wesley. "He's a friend."
"Wait a minute," said Mr. Summers. "There's a demon in my hallway, and you're telling me that it's okay to invite it in?"
"Some demons are very nice people," said Buffy. "They aren't all evil monsters. Dawn has a couple of demon friends herself." She looked at Angel. "You sure this guy's okay?"
"We've known him for a couple of years." says Angel. "He's helped us out of some tight spots. You can trust him."
"Okay." Dawn opened the door. "Hi, Cordelia."
"Dawn! Hey! Oh my god—"
"Yeah, yeah, I've grown. I've heard."
"Well, yeah. Duh! I haven't seen you in three years, of course you've grown. I was going to say you look great! You seem to have inherited your mother's fashion genes…the ones Buffy didn't get."
"Hello Cordelia," said Buffy. "It's nice to see some things don't change."
"Hi Buffy," said Cordy. "Uh, Buffy Summers, Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan."
Lorne held out his hand. "Just call me Lorne. I'm trying to forget most of the rest of my family."
Buffy shook the demon's hand. "Hi. This is my sister Dawn, and the dazed and confused looking man over there is my father Hank."
Hank Summers blinked, and shook his head. "This is all too much for me. You're really a demon? That isn't just a makeup job?"
"Well, I do use a little eyeliner, but for the most part, it's my natural skin colour."
Hank blinked again, and started looking around. "Where did I put that scotch?"
Angel noted that Cordelia was carrying a large manilla envelope. "So did you find anything?"
"I did." Cordelia opened the envelope and started pulling out papers. "Oh yeah, we also saw Lilah Morgan, about half a mile west. She was walking away from here."
"I told her there was a pay phone just a block to the east," said Angel. "At least we know she isn't putting some new plan into action yet."
People gathered around the coffee table again as Cordelia layed out photocopies of newspaper articles from 1953. "It seems that on February 13, 1953, someone slaughtered twelve people in the basement of the Chalajuaxis Club. The police did a very thorough job of keeping the newspapers from getting any real information about what happened. This is all I could find." Cordy handed one of the pages to Angel. "This is the only crime scene photo that got out to the public, and it doesn't show much. The bodies are all still there, but they're covered in sheets. It looks like they were laid out in a hexagonal pattern."
Angel handed the page to Buffy. She could see the rough shapes of twelve bodies under the sheets. Six of them laid out like the spokes of a wheel, with the other six forming a hexagon around them. She handed the page to Wesley.
"The police never made much of any sort of official statements about what happened, beyond that there were twelve dead, and they were treating it as a homicide," said Cordelia. "The crime was never solved, and theoretically there's still a file for it somewhere in LAPD's cold case files, but I'm betting that they 'lost' it long ago. My friend at the paper checked the bylines for the stories we found, and the reporters all retired long ago. He promised to check to see if he can find any current addresses for them, that aren't cemeteries. Most of what they got came from unofficial sources, so they may have had information that they didn't put into any of the articles, or maybe they might remember the names of some of the police officers involved in the investigation."
Cordy handed another page to Angel. "According to this report, which was based on 'anonymous sources in the Coroner's office' the six inner bodies were all female, and the six around them were all male. All of the bodies were nude, and they all died from having their throats cut. There was very little blood at the scene, but the lividity patterns indicated that the people died where they were found. All of the bodies had a hexagonal pattern, similar to the way they were layed out, branded on their foreheads."
Cordelia looked up at the rather spooked expression on Dawn's face. "Are you sure you should be hearing this?"
Hank Summers had been too busy feeling a little queasy himself to think about the effect this conversation might be having on his daughter. "Uh, yeah Honny, maybe you should, um, wait in your room till we're done here."
"No, no, I'm fine," said Dawn. "This stuff is nothing. Who do you think took over raiding the Sunnydale Coroner's computers while Willow was off in England with Giles? Buffy's hopeless with computers."
"She has seen a lot worse…heck half the TV shows she watches have more gore than this," said Buffy. She gave Dawn a look. "Something is bugging you though. What is it?"
"It's him." Dawn pointed at Lorne. "He keeps staring at me. It's creeping me out."
"Oh, I'm sorry kiddo," said Lorne. "I just can't help myself. You have got the most amazing aura I have ever seen. It's incredible! All green and—"
"STOP!" barked Buffy in her command voice. Lorne stopped. Nearly everyone looked stunned, except for Buffy, who was angry, and Dawn, who was scared. Buffy turned to Angel. "How much to you trust this guy, really?"
Angel started to say something, but he stopped, and thought for a moment. He could still read Buffy better than he had read anyone in his over two centuries of unlife, and he could see that her anger was masking a deep down scared too. He sucked back his initially planned response of 'absolutely' and went with something less glib. "He has risked his life for each of us, on more than one occasion. He has never lied to me, that I know of. He has never betrayed a confidence that I asked him to keep."
Buffy looked at Cordy and Wesley. "You guys agree with that?" They nodded.
"Buffy, what is going on?" asked Cordelia.
"Just a minute," said Buffy. She got to her feet. "Dawn and I have to have a private chat with Lorne." She indicated they should follow her as she walked toward the back bedrooms.
Buffy led Lorne and Dawn into the room that she was sharing with Dawn. The door wouldn't latch in the splintered doorframe, so she shoved a chair against it before turning on Lorne. "Tell us what you saw."
"Just this incredibly beautiful green swirling…light. God I could stare at that for days. There are no words for it. If I could put it to music it would make Mozart sound…Pylean!"
"Pylean?"
"Oh, that's where I'm from. There's no music in Pylea. That's kinda why I left. I was the only person in the whole dimension who had any idea that they were missing out on something so wonderful…" He looked at Dawn. "But you…Never sing for me. I think it would kill me."
"Huh?" asked Buffy and Dawn together.
"Oh, didn't anyone tell you?" Lorne looked surprised. "I normally have to listen to people sing to read their auras. The music amplifies them, makes them clearer. I can sometimes see a little something in people with a particularly strong destiny." He gave Buffy a good look. "You have a very nice shimmer to you. Lots of destiny, I guess that goes with the Slayer gig." He looked back at Dawn again. "Amplify that, and I think I could lose my soul in it."
"Do you have any idea what's causing Dawn's aura?" asked Buffy.
"None whatsoever!"
"Good!" said Buffy. "Keep it that way."
Buffy stayed silent for a moment that seemed to drag on forever. "Okay. Here's the deal, subject to Dawn's approval: Angel, Wes, and Cordy trust you, so I'm going to trust you. Angel said you can keep a confidence, so you are going to keep this one closer than any other you have ever heard. You will keep it like your life depends on it, because it does. You will not mention anything about what you see in Dawn's aura to anyone without Dawn's approval. Not even to Angel. If I ever learn that you have violated our confidence, I will hunt you down, and cut your head off. Do you give us your word to never talk about this in any way ever again?"
"You got it, Sugar. I won't breathe a word to anyone."
"Good enough?" Buffy asked Dawn.
"I guess it will have to be," said Dawn.
Buffy looked at Dawn, and saw that she did understand the situation. They either trusted Lorne, or they killed him. There really wasn't any other option. Buffy could see that Lorne had figured that out too. She wasn't sure how that made her feel.
"Oh, one thing," said Lorne. "Kind of a token of my good faith."
"What?" asked Buffy.
"I don't spread this around much, but decapitation won't kill me," said Lorne. "To do that you have to chop me up into little pieces."
"Thank you," said Buffy. "That's…good to know." She pulled the chair away from the door. "Shall we rejoin the others?"
Buffy saw that Gunn and Fred had returned while they had been talking with Lorne. They looked almost as puzzled as everyone else who was sitting around the coffee table. She sighed. "What did you tell them about what happened?"
"Just that you were having a private conversation with Lorne," said Angel. "Nothing about the events that led up to it."
"Okay. Sorry about that everyone," said Buffy. "We have asked Lorne not to discuss this matter any further with anyone, and received his word that he won't. I would also like to ask that none of you ask him about it either. We would also appreciate it if you don't mention this incident to anyone else, or even discuss it amongst yourselves." Buffy looked around the room, making sure she made eye contact with each of them. "This matter has nothing to do with our current problem, and lives depend on it remaining a closely guarded secret." Buffy could see from the glances that Wes, Cordy, Angel and her father made toward Dawn that they guessed who's life depended on it, but she couldn't help that, and it probably helped to ensure their cooperation. She could also see that her father really wanted to ask some more questions, but he was keeping quiet for now. "So, anything new with you guys?"
"No," said Wesley. "The other reports that Cordelia found don't contain any additional information, and the later ones just seem to devolve into wild speculation, until they peter out. I would like to consult my books about this 'Chalajuaxis.' It sounds familiar. It might be the name of some demon or something."
"Well, you good people don't need me!" said Lorne. "I've got a Charago Demon waiting for a reading. Cordelia, can I borrow your car?"
Angel looked around at Buffy, Dawn and their father. He rose to his feet. "Actually, I think we've all done pretty much all we can do here for tonight. Wes wants to hit his books back at the office."
Wesley got the message. The Summers family needed some time for a private chat of their own. "Oh yes: 'Chalajuaxis.' I have to look that up."
Buffy smiled a "thank you" at Angel. Dawn helped Fred pack up her computer, and Cordelia told Buffy she could keep the pages she'd brought. She'd made another copy. Everyone headed for the door.
"Thanks again guys," said Buffy. "It's good to see you all again…even you Cordelia."
"Nice seeing you too Buffy," said Cordy. "We must do it again…in another couple of years."
Buffy closed the door after the last of them was out, and turned back to her sister and father.
"Wesley has turned into a total hunk!" said Dawn. "And that Gunn guy's not bad either."
"Dawn. Wesley's a little old for you, and from the way Fred was sticking to him, I think Gunn's taken."
"Hey, you're the one who had the 240 year old boyfriend when she was sixteen," said Dawn.
"Buffy. I think it's time you told me some of those 'long stories.'" said Hank.