Part Two
"Maybe someday I'll have the strength to run into the man that I once was
But for now I think I'll walk into a brawl."
Kane, "In The Darkness"
"She's breathing!" someone yelled. Cordelia groaned and tried to turn her head away from the noise and the fingers that were probing into the crook of her neck.
"Worms," she whispered.
"Don't try to move." Same voice, different volume. The fingers moved from her neck to stroke her hair back from her forehead, kind and soft. A tacky substance on her skin was making the strands stick.
'Blood?' Cordelia wondered. Her thoughts were foggy and slow, her brain reduced to a computer struggling to reboot over and over without success. Her eyelids fluttered and she tried to sit up. She was still in Angel's convertible, technically, but there was something horribly wrong with it. The windshield had been reduced to a glittering constellation; the driver's door bent inwards and was pressing painfully into her shoulder. There were shards of glass glittering in her hair. When Cordelia shifted, they fell across her shoulders like diamonds.
"Don't move," the EMT said again. Cordelia wanted to tell him that if it hurt this much while she was sitting still, then she wasn't going to stand up and dance a polka, but her tongue felt thick and stupid.
Cordelia gathered enough saliva to swallow and tried again. "Angel," she moaned. "I have to tell Angel about the birds."
"You can tell her later," the EMT said, his voice pitched low and soothing. Cordelia's eyelids were slipping downwards. The EMT shouted something at her, but she couldn't make out the words through the roaring noise that was echoing through her skull. She gave up after a few seconds and spiraled downward into a long tunnel, towards a darkness that held and comforted.
---
Angel ran his hands through his hair for the thousandth time in the last fifteen minutes, turning it more into an arrangement of so many feathers than an actual style. Wesley took another sip of revolting vending-machine coffee and tried not to think about what might be going on beyond doors that were closed to them.
"She's going to be okay," Angel said, more to himself than to the lounge at large.
"We would have been told if she were in real danger," Wesley agreed. His face was white and his lips were compressed into a thin line, hollowing out the confidence in his voice. Antiseptic lingered in his nose, bringing forth memories of another recent hospital visit, where Cordelia's prognosis had not been nearly so optimistic.
As if he were reading Wesley's mind, Angel said, "We're spending way too much time in this place." He glared at the array of magazines on the waiting room table as if they were the personal cause of his troubles.
Wesley took a final sip of the coffee, grimaced, and set it down on the table as a lost cause. "Cordelia was in a car accident, Angel," he said, standing. His hand hesitated, then came down lightly on Angel's shoulder. "One that could have happened to anyone. It certainly wasn't a consequence of who we are or what we do."
Angel gave him a look of such respect as would have been unheard of even a month ago, and Wesley glowed under its warmth. "I know," he said. "But she's Cordelia."
"I understand." Wesley's lips curved, just for a moment. He removed his hand and Angel took up glaring at the glossy people on the magazine covers again.
A doctor approached them, all white coat and stern dignity, and both men straightened. "How is she?" Angel asked.
"Ms. Chase is going to be fine," the doctor told them. "She has a concussion, a sprained wrist, four broken ribs, and more bruises than she'll probably care to count, but all in all she got out lucky. Car accidents of that magnitude normally have far more serious injuries."
"I'll be sure to let her know that," Angel said in a tight, strained voice. "When can we see her?"
"She's asking for you now," the doctor said. "But we don't normally allow people in who aren't family."
"We are family," Wesley responded.
"That's what Ms. Chase said." The doctor glanced at his stack of charts. "317. A nurse can help you if you get lost." And he was gone without another word.
Cordelia was awake and had the bed reclined up when Angel and Wesley entered her room. She gave them a crooked smile; the newly split lip she was sporting didn't make it easy. "Hey, guys."
Angel tried to smile back, but it was difficult. The Seal of Anatole had by far done her more injury, but its physical evidence had been much less. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, independent of his control.
Cordelia watched Angel's face carefully. "Wow." She reached up to touch her hair. The blood and glass had been washed away and it hung in damp, listless strands around her face. "I must be a mess." One eye was swollen nearly shut and was beginning to turn black. A twilight purple bruise stretched across her forehead, a souvenir from her head striking the steering wheel. Nicks and bruises littered her face and arms and her left wrist was engulfed by a heavy Ace bandage.
"You're beautiful," Wesley told her, taking a seat beside the bed.
Cordelia tried to smile again and cringed. "You're a sweet liar."
Angel took Cordelia's hand. "How are you feeling?"
"About as well as I look," Cordelia said. "Definitely non-beautiful." She shifted and winced. "Hey, guys, don't look so glum. I know all the nurses this time around. And, not crazy, which is always a check in the plus column." Cordelia snuck Angel a look around her hair. "I think I killed your car."
Angel made a dismissive gesture. "I have insurance."
"You could get insurance on your car but you couldn't fake enough of a paper trail to insure our office?" The sentence ended in a squeak and Cordelia laid her hand quickly against her side. She waved Wesley off as he reached for the nurses' call button. "I'm fine. Just forgot that broken ribs mean my outdoor voice is not allowed for a while."
Angel squeezed Cordelia's hand. "You're thinking about money. It can't be that bad."
"That only proves that I'm not comatose." Cordelia tried to rub at her eyes with her injured hand, winced, and disentangled her fingers from Angel's long enough to do the job. He was pleased to note that her hand found his again as soon as she was done. "And you haven't heard why I crashed yet."
Wesley leaned forward. "Witnesses are saying you accelerated through traffic suddenly without regard for any of the other cars." He waited a moment before adding in a gentle tone, "There may be reckless driving charges."
Cordelia shrugged off the prospect without any change in expression. Angel and Wesley exchanged a look. "I had a vision while I was driving," she said.
"Nice to know that the Powers That Be care about your safety," Angel said.
Cordelia's lips twitched. "Isn't it, though?"
"What was your vision of?" Wesley asked, leaning forward in his seat. "Something immediate?"
Cordelia's brow furrowed and she shook her head once before closing her eyes in pain. "I don't think so. People aren't dropping like flies on the sidewalk, are they?" Wesley shook his head. "Oh, good. Then no, nothing immediate." Cordelia drifted for a moment, lost in the images in her head. "I saw worms," she said at last. "And crows. Millions and millions of crows, and there was a man who could control them like he was one of them." Cordelia broke off long enough to indulge in a shudder. "He wanted me to worship him. His voice…made me feel filthy. There were all these people around him and…they were dead. Every last one of them. The skin on their necks had swollen up, all black, like tires. I think that's how they died; they couldn't get any air. Some of their hands had hooked into claws and there was blood on their fingers, like…" Cordelia's voice was rising into a whine. She paused and swallowed before she continued. "Like they had clawed at themselves." Cordelia made a soft, wet noise. Angel and Wesley had been too wrapped up in the vision to realize that she had begun to cry.
"Hey." Angel squeezed Cordelia's hand until she looked at him. She couldn't wipe the tears from her cheeks while her fingers were still entwined with Angel's, so he did it for her, the barest moment of skin against skin before he pulled away. Cordelia struggled through a limping version of her famous smile. "Don't worry about it. Wesley and I will figure out who this Bird Man is and stop him."
"All you need to concern yourself with is resting." Wesley cradled Cordelia's cheek for a moment, being mindful of the bruises.
"Thanks, guys." Her tone was light, but the expression in her eyes remained hooded. "I could really use some sleep now."
"We'll let you rest." Angel surprised himself and Cordelia both by leaning forward and kissing her, whisper-soft, on the forehead. He and Wesley left with scarcely another word, promising to be back with good news in the morning.
Cordelia watched them go. Her eyelids felt as though someone had tied barbells to the lashes and her face was wooden, all of her reactions trailing a half step behind her thoughts. The aches in her body were being buried beneath a warm morphine glow. Succumbing to the painkillers being delivered into her bloodstream, Cordelia closed her eyes and dreamed that Death wore feathers in his hair.
---
"Do you have any idea what she saw?" Angel asked Wesley as they walked down the hallway. Doctors and nurses scrambled about them in a sort of ordered chaos that they found themselves having to step around several times.
Wesley's brow furrowed. He pulled his glasses off his nose and worked the earpieces through his hands. "I don't know," he said at last. "There are demons that can resemble birds and demons who feed on birds, but the ability to control them suggests a sorcerer, especially if it wasn't crows that Cordelia actually saw, but ravens. Historically speaking, ravens have long been associated as harbingers of death, particularly among the Celtic mythologies."
"That's less than comforting," Angel said.
Wesley's eyes grew vague as he retreated into his own world. "I'll have to check the books when we get back to Cordelia's, of course, but I don't anticipate any great difficulty. Once you get down to it, you discover that it's nearly always the eve of the rise of the Dark Lord Something-or-other." Wesley came out of his reverie, realizing that Angel was no longer with him. He turned and saw the object of Angel's distraction conversing with a well-groomed doctor further down the hallway.
'Oh, fuck.'
Wesley hurried down the hallway, hoping to intercept Angel before he reached his target. At the same time, he knew that nothing short of a miracle was going to turn that hope into a reality.
"Lindsey." The faux-warm tone in Angel's voice fooled the doctor only. "So good to see you up and about again."
Lindsey jumped, but only for a moment. The look of fright barely had time to register before the mask of the cool, composed Wolfram and Hart slave-just one of the many in Lindsey's repertoire- fell back into place. It was only marginally compromised by the fact that he was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans rather than a suit that cost more than most people's bedroom suites. A bandage stood out in stark relief where his hand had been, ruining the façade. Angel's gaze lingered on the injury one deliberate second too long for politeness, and in response Lindsey favored him with a smile that would have been more at home on a shark.
"Dr. Richardson," Lindsey said in a voice like honey gone rancid, "I'd like you to meet an old acquaintance of mine. Angel made me into the man I am today." Ice chips glittered in his eyes. Angel could smell the faintest twinge of liquor, far too faint for the human nose, every time Lindsey opened his mouth to speak. "Angel, meet Dr. Richardson, my miracle worker. He put me back together again after my unfortunate accident."
"Looks like he missed a piece," Angel said.
Lindsey's smile grew wider, until it was impossible to mistake it for anything other than a snarl. "No fault of his," he said. "Limbs don't tend to regenerate all that well when they're severed from the body. They're funny that way." Dr. Richardson looked as if he wanted nothing more than to slink out of the line of fire.
"I'll see you at your next appointment, Mr. McDonald," he said.
Lindsey nodded, his expression saying that the words were barely registering. His eyes never left Angel's, and Angel stared back with the same infuriating half-smile that he had worn when Lindsey walked into his office for the first time. It said exactly what Angel thought of Lindsey: that he was nothing at all.
Angel may have been going for subdued and enigmatic, but if Lindsey's flush grew any deeper he was going to burst something vital. His gaze flicked over Angel's shoulder, to where Wesley was standing with a disapproving expression on his face. "Who's missing from this picture?" Lindsey asked. "Why, it's the lovely Miss Chase." Lindsey looked at Angel. "It appears she can land herself in the hospital perfectly well without the firm's help."
Angel placed his hand on Lindsey's shoulder and enjoyed the way he jumped, the narrowing of his eyes as he tried to conceal the gesture. Lindsey stiffened as Angel's hand crept closer to his neck. His thumb ran idly over Lindsey's pulse point and monitored the beat-beat-beat as it doubled in a span of seconds. To a casual observer, the gesture looked almost friendly.
Wesley stepped to Angel's side, extending his arm to provide a physical barrier between the two men. Angel gave the arm as much attention as he would an unusually colored rock before he turned his eyes back to Lindsey's face. "We need to go," Wesley said, speaking to Angel but looking at Lindsey.
"Your firm ever interferes with Cordelia again," Angel said in a low voice that forced Lindsey to lean forward in order to hear him, "and your hand will seem like nothing more than a warm-up." The two of them locked eyes until Lindsey was forced to look away. Angel snorted, releasing his grip as if he had touched something filthy. He stalked past Wesley without another word.
Lindsey's lip curled as he watched Wesley trail after Angel like a well-trained dog. The stump was pounding out a slow, sickly rhythm, as a distant roar echoed through his ears. Lindsey was long overdue for his next dose of pain medication, but wouldn't take anything until he was hidden away in the claustrophobic cave that his apartment had become and could pass out in peace. In the meantime, his arm felt as if it had been hollowed out and filled with broken glass.
Biting the inside of his cheek to provide some distraction, however small, from the agony, Lindsey threw a passionate, hate-filled glance down the hallway and turned to go.
At the nurses' station, someone was coughing.