Part Twenty
"Nobody said it was easy.
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy.
Nobody said it would be so hard."
Coldplay-"The Scientist"
The windows shook as the sound of the explosion rolled up the sound of the building, making a noise like a thousand chattering teeth, but not a one of them broke. Lindsey was willing to bet that extra care was put into the windows of offices this high up so as to block the possibility of black jack inspired high dives. The noise shocked Flagg away from both his invisible companion and his eye, diverting it instead onto the chaos occurring floors below. Good news. Lindsey lurched to his feet and staggered towards the door, making a grab for the wall as the world twisted around him. His fingers left long streaks of red behind on the paint.
Bad news: distracting Flagg's attention from his wound gave it plenty of time to fall back onto the person who put it there.
"Oh, no." Flagg's voice had gone deep and phlegmy, as if his throat was struggling towards a transformation that it couldn't quite complete. "Oh, no, it doesn't get to be that easy."
'This is not what I would call easy.' Flagg's hand came down on the broken shoulder, causing colors the likes of which he had never seen before to flash before Lindsey's eyes. He barely registered the feel of Flagg's fingers around his throat until his larynx was pressed shut with one squeeze and he was lifted off his feet entirely. "Not that easy, no, never that easy," Flagg was muttering, his remaining eye stared at a point quite beyond Lindsey even as the other man kicked and struggled. His lips had pulled back from his teeth and spittle gleamed off his lower lip. As his lungs heaved and burned, setting off a whole new chain reaction of unwelcome sensation through his torso, Lindsey had to wonder how he had ever thought this man could be sane.
Realizing that there weren't going to be any miracles coming his way a second time, Lindsey reached out with his good arm and pushed down on the shard of jade that protruded from Flagg's eye as hard as he could, driving it even further into the unresisting flesh. It made a soft squelching noise, like half-rotted fruit being broken open, as Lindsey shoved the makeshift knife far past the point where it should have impacted brain tissue. Flagg squealed and let Lindsey's feet touch the floor again, dragging them both across the room in a bizarre tango. Lindsey gathered his final strength and wrenched himself free at last, lurching backwards until his back nearly struck the far wall. Flagg had fallen to one knee and let out a sound like the howling of a wolf as Lindsey hobbled out the door.
The elevators still worked. Lindsey didn't realize how afraid he had been that Flagg's will would grind the machinery to a halt and leave him suspended in limbo with his final avenue of escape snatched from him until he felt himself beginning to descend. Lindsey's knees buckled and he slid down against the wall, resting the back of his head against the cool paint. A keening, hysterical laugh or pure relief was rising in Lindsey's throat, and the sound that echoed behind it was far too close to madness to provide a strict level of comfort. Lindsey held it back by the barest of margins.
It was understandable that the sounds of fighting that gathered and swelled in the air as the elevator came to a halt did little to soothe nerves that had been frayed, snapped, and rewoven more times than Lindsey could count over the past several days. His adrenal glands made one sputtering attempt at an alarm reaction before giving up and telling Lindsey that he was on his own. Lindsey used the wall to push himself back to his feet, swearing and weighing together his options, which came to a grand total of two. He could either let the door open and cope with whatever likely unpleasant surprise was waiting for him on the other side, or he could send the elevator back upwards and put himself back into the arms of Flagg's tender mercies. The frying pan paused for a moment to issue warm welcome to the fire.
Just as Lindsey was leveling his finger over the button that would send him back up to play the odds, the door began to slide open, helped in large part by the fact that a very large, very unconscious body had been hurled into it. Lindsey stumbled backwards from the door and stared at the arm that flopped into the elevator with him. It was still attached to the body that it had come from, at least. Much more about the condition of the body could not be said, other than the fact that he was not likely to be pleased if and when he woke up.
He was also, Lindsey noticed, one of Flagg's men. Broken ribs two and four belonged to this guy. Lindsey entertained the thought of returning the favor for a moment or two, but if it was one of Flagg's men…
"Lindsey!" Right, okay. Lindsey could cope with the fact that every major event in his life was going to come back to this vampire so much more easily if Angel didn't always say his name as if it were something that he had caught wriggling across his shoe. "Can you walk?"
Lindsey took his hand away from the wall, wobbled, and put it back again. "Short answer or essay?"
Angel spun away from the angry crowd that swarmed him and snap-kicked a man in the face. The sound of a wishbone cracking echoed and reechoed through the lobby, leaving no doubt that this one would not be getting up. Lindsey noticed no change in the expression on Angel's face. Angel stepped over the body and into the elevator, grabbing Lindsey by his uninjured arm. "C'mon. We don't have much time." Eyeing the cut on Lindsey's cheek, Angel added, "You look like shit."
Angel wasn't cutting the most debonair picture himself. His clothing was soaked in blood, most of which did not look as if it had come from himself. Not the most comforting picture that Lindsey would have chosen, to say the least. "Thanks for noticing," Lindsey said, striving to keep his tone casual even though pain was making it difficult to unclench his teeth. "You're about to get shot, by the way."
Angel whirled them both to the side and the bullet that was intended for his cranium dug into the wall instead. His fist struck the woman who had fired up them before she could shoot again, ensuring that several of her teeth would not see morning. The gun clanged to the floor. Wincing, Lindsey began to bend to pick it up, but Angel was faster.
"You've done enough of that already to last you several lifetimes," Angel murmured, for once with no venom gleaming bright and bloody in his voice. He didn't, Lindsey noticed, have any trouble turning the gun upon the crowd himself. Three well-placed shots were all that it took to make the majority rethink their positions.
There were several comments that Lindsey could have made about hypocrisy while smoke was still rising from the bullet holes, but in the end he decided not to look a gift rescue in the mouth. "Why are you here." Strain was making his tongue loose; it slipped out before he could stop himself.
"Cordelia thinks you've changed," Angel said as he hustled them towards the lobby doors. "She thinks you could change more if you don't die. How fast can you move?"
"I'm not sure that I have a solid rib left, so I'm thinking not very."
Angel glanced at the front of Lindsey's shirt, where the amulet had once hung. "You and Flagg had quite a party."
"Made a stand," Lindsey grunted, swaying as black flies danced in front of his vision. Angel put his arm around Lindsey's waist before he could fall, half-carrying him out the door. Pain lit up Lindsey's torso like a neon sign and he doubled over, gagging on bile and swallowed blood.
They emerged from the hotel to greet the burning conflagration set in the center of the street, still crackling cheerfully in spite of the efforts of at least twenty people to put it out. Every few seconds another minor explosion would roll out from the parent flames, scattering the crowd. In those instances, Lindsey could catch glimpses of abuses yellow paint. He grinned.
"Your idea or Cordelia's?"
"Mine." There was a smirk to Angel's voice as he said it. "Though there were a few details that she failed to mention."
"It's clever." That was easier to admit than he had expected.
Angel, though, wasn't paying attention. His nostrils flared and he darted a look over his shoulder, eyes going dark and fish-cold. The last time that Lindsey had seen that look, he had walked away from the encounter minus a limb. Being in close proximity to it wasn't much better than being its target. "He's coming." Still wearing that disturbing dead look, Angel turned back to the street. "Cordelia, where are you?"
Right on cue, a pair of headlights lit up the night.
---
Finding a truck with the keys in it had been easy. Perhaps fueled by the overall 'consequences can wait' tone of the city, few people had tried to flee. While Flagg had crews working overtime to remove and bury or burn the bodies, the possessions themselves still lay scattered about like a child's forgotten toys. It was enough to make Cordelia wonder what else might be lying around, waiting.
Cordelia banished the thought from her mind with a physical shake, like a dog throwing water off its back, and forced the gas pedal to the floor. She drove straight at the inferno in the center of the street, swerving at the last moment and causing people to scatter like bowling pins to avoid her, though none of them were actually hit. Good. Cordelia had already been in enough crashes to make her want to invest in a bicycle for the rest of her life.
A few people had the presence of mind to chase after the vehicle, crap. It was too late for her to do anything about it other than drive fast and hope that was enough.
The truck's headlights picked Angel out of the shadows in the agreed-upon place, scarcely two blocks away from the MGM Grand itself. Lindsey was sagged against his side like an abused rag doll, and even from a distance Cordelia could see that one side of his face was dark with blood. Her heart crawled into her throat in spite of her best efforts to force it back down.
The brakes screamed as Cordelia threw her full weight on top of them to bring the truck to a sliding, smoking stop that left long streaks of rubber behind on the pavement. She watched the approaching mob through the rearview mirror. Angel took a step back and threw up his arm, shielding both his body and Lindsey's from the worst of the detritus that Cordelia tossed into the air, before glancing over his shoulder at the same scene. The look on his face was almost hungry, and the expression that a month before would have made Cordelia's mouth go dry now brought with it and eerie sense of camaraderie.
Angel opened the truck door and quickly shoved Lindsey inside. Lindsey let out a short, muffled cry and threw Angel an ugly look, but said nothing. A long gash ran down his cheek, spilling blood across his jaw and neck and nearly covering the bruises that tattooed the rest of him. He looked as if he had received the beating of his life. Thinking back over the dreams of Flagg that she had been receiving since the onset of the plague, Cordelia realized that that was probably exactly what had happened.
"Scoot towards the middle as much as you can," Cordelia told Lindsey. "Angel-"
Angel was not getting into the truck.
"Go on," he said, bracing his hands against the door and leaning in. "I'll take care of this, then meet you wherever Mother Abigail is if I can."
Cordelia's heart went from beating so loudly that it drowned out the sound of the truck's engine to not beating at all in the span of seconds. 'Notagainnotagainnotagain.' She had thrown the truck into 'Park' and hopped down from the driver's seat before her brain had time to catch up with her, darting around the front of the truck. Cordelia grabbed at Angel's arm, digging her nails in so hard that her knuckles would ache for hours afterwards. In the moment itself she didn't even feel it. "No," she said. "No, you are Inot/I doing this again."
Angel uncurled her fingers from his arm. "Get in the truck and get out of here, Cordelia."
Tears were springing up in Cordelia's eyes and she hated them, hated every goddamned one of them, hated them and Angel at the same time, a little, at last, for putting them there. "So, what?" she asked. You're going to do the big hero thing while I stay safe and hope that you live through it? I can't do that any more."
"You have to." A bullet pinged off the fire hydrant to their right; their window of time was drawing to a close. "Damnit, Cordelia! You've dreamed of Mother Abigail, haven't you? You've dreamed of going to her?" Cordelia nodded, her eyes bright. "I haven't. Not once. Every time that I dream of her, she only tells me to do one thing. Make my stand."
Cordelia startled before a cold look stole across her face, giving her the impression of having been caved from marble rather than flesh. It was a terrible expression, and Angel rejoiced in it because it meant that she understood. "This world sucks," Cordelia said in a low voice. "Every inch of it. If this is our destiny, then I want a refund."
Angel pressed his lips to Cordelia's forehead, was pleased when she did not tense or pull away. "Get in the truck," he said. "Drive out of this city. Don't come back."
Cordelia nodded, the steely look still casting her face into harshly lit angles, and swiped at the few tears that would dare to crawl down her face. She got back into the truck and Lindsey leaned across the seat to say something to her that made her shake her head. Lindsey glanced out the truck window at Angel, frowning, as the vehicle pulled away from the curb. Angel didn't need to look around to know that Cordelia was watching him in the rearview mirror as she disappeared down the street.
When the first member of the mob reached him, Angel didn't both with niceties. Hands at the temple and the jaw, a quick twist, and a sound like a bottle opening. The body fell to his feet, so much cordwood, as Angel dove for the next. If this was not the way that a Champion was meant to behave, then he really could not bring himself to care. Anyone left in this city of hijacked promises was fair game as far as Angel was concerned, up to and including Flagg himself if Angel made it that far.
A woman rushed Angel and he spun, kicked. Her skull made a peculiar cracking sound as it struck the pavement. Didn't matter. Angel had heard the sound made by her neck when his boot struck it.
'Wasn't supposed to be like this,' Angel thought as he moved like a scythe through the crowd. He was supposed to be saving the humans, not killing them, and when it was finally over…but that didn't bear thinking about, any longer.
The itching, tingling feeling started at Angel's bullet wounds and spread outwards, so that Angel at first mistook it for nothing more than blood flaking off his skin. Then it moved beyond the skin and filled up his chest, a squeezing, burning, terribly Ialive/I feeling that cut through his righteous rage when nothing else could have. He doubled over and clutched at his chest, gasping, seconds before the pain drove him entirely to his knees. If he had been human, he would have thought that he was having a heart attack.
If he had been human…
"Oh, dear God," Angel choked, catching himself on his hands as the burning feeling, like a thousand ants spitting their ants onto him at the same time, spread across his entire body. He gasped for air, and the sound of his heart beating was a brass band in his ears.
It was almost enough to drown out the sound of the boot heels.
Click, click, click, echoing across the hushed crowd. They parted as one being, the Red Sea before Moses, to allow Randall Flagg through. A mess of blood and fluid had run down Flagg's cheek, matting strands of hair to his face and resembling nothing so much as rancid scrambled eggs, but his eyes gleamed with good cheer. Both of them. "Well, now," he said as Angel levered himself to his feet. "Don't this just beat all. Fate really is a wheel, don't you agree? You can be at the very bottom, and still find yourself at the top again in no time at all." Only Flagg didn't say 'fate'. It was another word, a shorter word, but Angel didn't have time to puzzle it out, because he was drawing his fist back and punching Flagg squarely in the face. Flagg's head snapped back, and he laughed, and his mob of followers laughed along with him. Their god was great, their god was good, and they kept laughing as Flagg placed his hands on either side of Angel's head and gave it that crucial twist that he had delivered to so many of their own moments before.
Angel lived, and then he died.
---
Cordelia slammed on the brakes just outside of Las Vegas, fishtailing the truck wildly in the dirt off the highway. The vision hit a bare second later, lurching her forward and back, and Lindsey kept her head from striking the steering wheel as he thanked whoever had seen fit to give a warning this time. Cordelia came out of the vision and burst into tears before Lindsey could ask her what she had seen. After that there was no need.
Lindsey slid across the seat and held Cordelia as well as he was able with his good arm while she sobbed. He didn't think that she even realized he was there.