CHP 4 Angel season three
The phone rang and Cordelia, as usual, answered it first. This was truly an amazing place. I'd taken the opportunity to explore the depths of this old hotel in any direction I could. I'd found a few things of note, but nothing extraordinary. I spent most of my time there in the basement working out or practicing with Angel or Gunn. Everything else was just working on the cases. I didn't deal with people too much, I left that to the guys who were getting paid for it. I found myself working the same schedule as angel to include many a late night talk after the action at the end of the day. Most of the time we talked about the past, but occasionally we found ourselves talking about where we pictured ourselves. He had his prophesy to look forward to, not to mention at least one more apocalypse.
And me? I didn't know where I would wind up. He, with the benefit of experience, tried to help me puzzle out for myself what I really wanted out of life. Almost every single one of our conversations brought us back to the topic of Buffy. As we grew to know each other more, he let me in on more of their history together. I looked up from my thoughts as Cordelia started breaking down the new information on our current case. Looking from Angel to Cordelia brought my attention to something important between them. I don't think they were together...yet; but there was definitely that kind of connection there. With Angel's history with women, I had no doubt he wouldn't see it or would deny it until it finally blew up in his face.
This new case wasn't anything too difficult. A demon had been harassing a young couple after they moved into the apartment he had claimed as his den. Gunn seemed pretty intent on just killing it and being done with it, but Wesley explained it wasn't dangerous unless provoked by something bigger than it was. Something sounded fishy in Denmark, okay in L.A., but you get the idea. Gunn would do some checking around to see if anything else had been messing with the demon in question, Wesley would do some checking on peaks of demon activity in the area, Cordelia would start checking into the couple themselves to find out more about them. Angel and I would go down there now to check out what was really going on.
We took his car, and on the way the conversation picked up easily for us. Angel had a weird gift of saying a lot without saying much. We could sit together and with just a few words convey what it might take other people ten minutes to fully explain. Most of our conversations actually started with mutual brooding before we started asking about the other's point of view about something that was bothering us, but this time wasn't like that. Angel looked right over at me and started on our favorite topic.
"I was thinking about Buffy today." I didn't have to say anything, just waited for him to convey his own meaning with his words. "Some of those prophesy papers you brought back with you from that guys office pertained to the slayer. Wesley went over them quickly looking for important or upcoming stuff and now he's going over them again with a fine toothed comb to root out everything we can from them. One of them actually pertains to me, he says, but I don't know yet."
"What's the confusion about?"
"Well, don't get me wrong, I trust Wesley's interpretation of any scroll I'm likely to come across. It's just that some of the stuff this one talks about doesn't name me like most of the other prophesies that involve me normally do. The souled vampire, the dark one redeeming, stuff like that. This one calls for a dark knight, a man redeeming himself, but never mentions a vampire. I told him to keep looking into it, but I'm pretty sure it's not talking about me."
"If you don't think it's about you, who do you think it is?" He was silent and then he just looked at me meaningfully. "Me. You think it's about me." His silence gave consent. "What else was this prophesy about? What did it involve besides 'me' and the Slayer?"
"We're not sure yet, but like I said I told him to keep looking into it. He said he's going to take it apart piece by piece until he's sure." I didn't have to say anything in response, all we needed to say had been said and now the thinking would begin. We were quiet all the way to the house where he mostly talked to the couple and I did a little bit of snooping around. I found some sort of goop that'd oozed out the window sill and a lot of scratches on the inside of the glass. I filed it away to tell Angel on the way back and continued to make my way around the rest of the building. Nothing else I saw really jumped out at me as important, so I met Angel at the front of the building on his way out. I told him about what I'd found when he asked and then brought him around to show him. He sniffed at the ooze and then pulled back.
"Huh, that doesn't come from our demon. I'll have to take some back and let Wesley take a look at it." I nodded and he scooped some into a small vile before we made our way back to the car and started on our way back to the Hyperion.
"There's something else about Buffy I need to tell you. I'm going to see her tomorrow."
"Is she coming here?"
"No, and not there either; someplace in the middle." He was quiet for a few minutes and I felt no urge to respond yet.
"I thought I should ask you if you wanted to come with me." Another of our usual silences went on for another few minutes before I was sure of the right answer.
"I don't think that would be a very good idea. You need your time alone, after she just got back. I don't even think you should mention me at all. If I'm not the guy in that prophesy, I don't want to mislead her into thinking I am." He nodded and we rode out the rest of the trip in silence.
Back at the hotel, Angel spent a small amount of time getting a few things together and then he was gone. I spent a few hours in the basement working out and then headed up into the lobby to find Wesley still working on a translation. So I asked him what was up. He was startled by my presence, saying he thought he was the only one there, before he answered my question.
"Angel had the idea that this prophesy I'm working on didn't pertain to him, but to other prospective dark champions. I've been looking into the alternate meanings of the text to try and determine further if the individual in question is truly Angel."
"And what do you think so far?" I liked speaking with Wesley; he was one of the few people I could talk in depth with about some of the deeper prophesies. Plus he was really handy to have around when I couldn't read a certain text or volume.
"I think Angel was half right. This text does mention him in it, and then it refers to the term 'Him' but as a completely different person. It's this glyph here that I'm having problems with. I thought it was 'is himself' or 'is exactly' but I now think its closer to 'is almost exactly' and it may even mean 'similar'. It's truly hard to tell."
"So what you're saying basically is that there is Angel" I started using my hands to demonstrate while I broke it down, "And there's this guy with Angel. This guy with Angel is not Angel, but is like him in a lot of ways or at least a few ways and may even be exactly like him. Right so far?" At Wesley's brisk nod I continued, "So what happens next?"
"That's the most difficult part. It speaks of danger and signs foretelling the danger before it arrives, but it doesn't say what the danger is. The last section here, almost half of the second page, is almost completely foreign to me. It appears to be in a similar language, but a direct translation only results in gibberish. I think it needs more work."
"If a direct translation- but it's the same language... a code?" Thinking out loud helps sometimes.
"What? A code? Yes a code! That would explain it. I must get to work on this immediately." I almost regretted how excited that made him this late at night. I knew, though, that if this thing was going to come to pass soon, better to know what we'd be facing beforehand. He picked up the original and his handwritten translation and headed into the office to sit down with a calculator and a pen to see what he could figure out. I shook my head silently wishing him luck before heading upstairs to take a shower and wash some of the sweat off of me. After the second night, Angel told me it was kind of pointless to rent out a hotel room when he owned this hotel with plenty of empty rooms. So with his invitation to come into his home, I'd moved in temporarily into one down the hall but on the same level as his.
The next morning it was pretty quiet around the hotel for a while before Cordelia came in. She'd been talking pretty nice to me since I got here. I don't know if that was just her way or if she was actually flirting with me, it was kind of hard to tell sometimes. I was polite to her and we actually did have a few things in common, but for the most part I just liked hearing about her old high school days with Buffy and the gang. She talked about them sometimes, but mostly she wanted to know about me. I told some of what I could about my past without opening up to her and having one of those 'touching' moments like the ones you see in the Disney movies. This time, though, it looked mostly like she just wanted to get some coffee and wakeup.
"Long night?" I was after all trying to be polite.
"Coffee." Okay, so she was one track minded this morning, that's cool. I had an enjoyable morning. First I went out to get breakfast with Angel's car, which was the first time I got to drive it, and brought back some breakfast sundries for the rest of the gang. We sat around for a bit and I got roped into helping Wesley decode some of that cryptic prophesy before I had to leave again to make my appointment after lunch, so I just took a cab into a high end part of town. I had to see a man about a car.
I arrived right on time as the gentleman in question pulled into his driveway as the cab pulled up to his house. I got out and tipped the cabbie and made sure I had everything I got into the cab with before I let him pull away. Walking up to the front of the house, he met me smiling and invited me up to check out the vehicle he had for sale. We talked as I took a slow turn around the outside of this beautiful machine. I poked my head inside the opened driver's door as he spoke of the original interior of his baby he'd bought right before he got married and the wonderful picnics and days spent driving down to the beach or any number of wonderfully vivid stories he had experienced with his wife. I idly wished I could be like him one day, happy in the knowledge of what I'd done in life and the person I'd done it all with.
I asked for permission before popping the hood and what I saw underneath made me stop and whistle appreciatively. I told him of the last car like this I'd seen; back when I was in the service. We immediately found common ground as he spoke of his years as a marine in the first push into Vietnam and getting injured and then about his son's enlistment into the army. After a few more 'war' stories we found out it was a small world after all and I had known his son before I got out; he was an armorer I used to deal with all the time when I needed parts for my special detachment's weapons. The engine was so clean you could eat off it with chrome still shining on what looked like new factory parts and a few recent after market modifications. Finally it came out that this was his son's car, a pass down from his father on his graduation from high school and he'd tinkered with it and kept it up since then. I suspected I knew then, but I had to ask anyway.
"If this is his car, why are you selling it now?"
"My son died two months ago in Afghanistan. He was part of a convoy that got attacked and he died fighting." I was amazed at this man's fortitude. He'd spoken already of losing his wife to cancer and now all he probably had now was just a dog and his memories for companionship. "I'm sorry to hear that. I know that when I knew him he was a good man and always went out of his way to take care of what needed to be done." I could see his eyes go distant for a second but then he blinked and he was back with me again. I softly closed the hood and self consciously wiped my fingerprints away. Something about this car and this man told me that test driving it would just be a waste of time. However,
"Mr. Jacobs, I am very interested in buying this car from you. Please sir, how much would you like for her? I will, however, only buy it on one condition."
"What's that?"
"I'd like very much if you would come out for a drive afterward and we can share war stories and you can show me the best places around here to take a young girl so I can treat her like you did yours." His eyes clouded for a moment at my offer and we concluded our deal shortly with me insisting not to pay too little for it. This was a good man, who'd had a good family, and a good life helping others and I'd be damned if I was going to take advantage of him in any way. Shortly he backed his car out of the way and then he climbed into the passenger seat and handed me the keys to a beautiful dark blue 69 Shelby Mustang. I started her and the engine came purring to life. I got a chill as I shifted into gear and backed her out of the carport and onto the street. She was mine.
I arrived back at the hotel with a cleansed aura and a much relaxed attitude toward life in general. Whistling as I walked through the door, I drew looks from Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. Shrugging at them I continued up to my room where I marked down my last few transactions in my laptop and then checked the balance of my account. Yes, this car was definitely worth every penny I paid for it and I was still not too badly off. I came back downstairs, still whistling, to see Lorne and Wesley talking quietly by the counter where Wesley was still working on decoding and translating that tricky scroll. Lorne looked up as he heard the sound of my song with a smile on his face.
"Well, somebody's more centered than they were a few days ago." I shook hands with the green demon and as our hands touched I reached across our link in greeting. Lorne was another person I enjoyed talking with, or rather not talking with. Psychics together don't often need words, when it's easier just to think at a person and have them understand exactly what you mean and the feelings behind it. We exchanged a few thoughts back and forth before breaking our grips and speaking verbally again. I still had problems getting exact ideas without some physical contact with the person. Mostly I got feelings or sometimes strong thoughts especially about actions concerning me. Lorne had tried to help me with my talent a few days ago, but our background training was different, so we had learned in different ways. Given enough time here though, I was looking forward to learning as much as I could from the empath.
"So why so happy, Jake?" Cordelia didn't have the advantage of telepathy.
"I just had a pretty good day today. Nobody died and everything just seems to be falling into place so far." Turning to Wesley brought something else to my mind that I'd forgotten to ask him about this morning.
"Hey Wes, speaking of, did you ever figure out what that goop was we got off the windowsill at the Patterson's?"
"As a matter of fact, I did almost immediately. It appeared to be birthing fluid." Apparently the demon that was harassing them had laid eggs inside the wall and then patched it up to hide them, getting separated from its eggs was what had driven it to attack the couple that'd kicked it out.
"So what do we do about it?"
"Gunn just left to head over and explain to the Patterson's about the problem and the easiest solution. He should have it taken care of by the end of the day without any unforeseen problems. In the meantime, the headache I've got from this bloody thing will probably last until next week if I'm not careful, and I don't think I'm particularly close to figuring out anything we need to know about it."
So another slow night at Angel Investigations was to be had by all. I tried to give Wesley a hand while Lorne helped me practice by sending me stronger and stronger thoughts until I could hear and repeat the entire phrase he'd sent me. As I worked out a few hours later he was down there in the basement with me sitting in a chair drinking a fruity beverage and started teaching me how to set up bonds to people where I could trace every clear thought they had. It was difficult, but doing physical training while I tried it was helping by focusing my mind. Cordelia was nice enough to volunteer to help me practice on, as long as I kept out of her deeper thoughts. I got some of the basics of it that night before Angel got back from his trip. Cordelia and I were there when she asked him how it went, but he just kind of shrugged off the question, not wanting to talk about it. He looked at me and asked if I was too tired to want to spar a little. I sensed he needed to work out some tension, so agreed quickly. I'd rather him try and beat the crap out of me instead of him giving himself an ulcer. Wait, could vampires get ulcers? Another thing I'd have to look into.
We squared off downstairs after he stripped down to his tank top and Lorne decided to stand by and watch. I moved in first with a high low attack that he blocked easily before trying to counter with a few jabs and an uppercut leading to a reverse leg sweep that I stepped over and brought my knee up to his lowered face. He caught my leg and used the force of my kick to push me past him as he bent backwards before springing to his feet behind me and kicking backwards. I spun on my toe as my right foot hit the ground and brought my left leg up to block the kick and lash out at his chest. He blocked my kick to the outside and tried to step in close with a blow to the body that I turned aside. We kept moving together as though we had choreographed the entire fight. Steadily we started picking up the pace to an almost blur of blows, yet still none of them connected on either side. Suddenly I got a flash of pain as his elbow found my face knocking me back a few steps before I launched myself forward into a double jumping spin kick one after the other in mid air, connecting the second time with his head and knocking him back. That was about as fancy as we got, keeping it pretty simple for tonight. The fight continued for a few more minutes before we broke apart, both of us sweaty and a little dirty but none too worse for the wear. We bowed formally before I grabbed my towel and went to head up the stairs but got stopped by Lorne.
"I don't know where you learned how to do that, lemon cake, but I've never seen anything like it. I saw you reading his next attack before he did it, but even then I know it would be hard for me at some of the speeds you were just at and I've been doing this awhile, kid."
"I told you where I studied this; the rest is just reaction time and having the right instincts. My old combat training taught me what to do, and this tells me what order to do it in. The speed does get hard sometimes, you saw he got one or two in on me, but that's why I need to keep practicing."
"Are you having problems with vampires? I know that if they don't have a soul it's sometimes harder to piece through the puzzle."
"I used to, but I had to learn that everything makes ripples in the world and instead of watching the ripples, I had to see what caused them."
"Can you see the ripples? I mean really see them like what they are and how they affect the world?" It seemed important to him, but I could only tell him the truth.
"I was trained to ignore them. I get flashes of them sometimes when I'm not fighting but they're not too clear. More, they just show me how everything is connected to me and I am connected to the rest of the world. I can't really see what they mean at all, except when they pertain to me living through the next few seconds." He seemed slightly disappointed by my answer.
"I'm sorry to hear that, brother. You've got the gift, and if you had been trained differently you could have been a great seer. You've got it in you, the connection to the entire world. It's almost a shame that you can only use it for fighting." With a sigh he led the way up the stairs to the lobby and I continued up to my room to wash up before coming back down to talk with Angel for a few hours before finally hitting the sack. I appreciated the compliment he gave me before I headed up, though. He said, "When I was fighting you, it reminded me of fighting Buffy. It was almost all I could do to just hit you once. Thanks." I thanked him in return, knowing he was thanking me for the chance to blow off a little steam without having to worry about hurting someone. I appreciated both sentiments as I climbed the stairs to my room and sleep.
The phone rang and Cordelia, as usual, answered it first. This was truly an amazing place. I'd taken the opportunity to explore the depths of this old hotel in any direction I could. I'd found a few things of note, but nothing extraordinary. I spent most of my time there in the basement working out or practicing with Angel or Gunn. Everything else was just working on the cases. I didn't deal with people too much, I left that to the guys who were getting paid for it. I found myself working the same schedule as angel to include many a late night talk after the action at the end of the day. Most of the time we talked about the past, but occasionally we found ourselves talking about where we pictured ourselves. He had his prophesy to look forward to, not to mention at least one more apocalypse.
And me? I didn't know where I would wind up. He, with the benefit of experience, tried to help me puzzle out for myself what I really wanted out of life. Almost every single one of our conversations brought us back to the topic of Buffy. As we grew to know each other more, he let me in on more of their history together. I looked up from my thoughts as Cordelia started breaking down the new information on our current case. Looking from Angel to Cordelia brought my attention to something important between them. I don't think they were together...yet; but there was definitely that kind of connection there. With Angel's history with women, I had no doubt he wouldn't see it or would deny it until it finally blew up in his face.
This new case wasn't anything too difficult. A demon had been harassing a young couple after they moved into the apartment he had claimed as his den. Gunn seemed pretty intent on just killing it and being done with it, but Wesley explained it wasn't dangerous unless provoked by something bigger than it was. Something sounded fishy in Denmark, okay in L.A., but you get the idea. Gunn would do some checking around to see if anything else had been messing with the demon in question, Wesley would do some checking on peaks of demon activity in the area, Cordelia would start checking into the couple themselves to find out more about them. Angel and I would go down there now to check out what was really going on.
We took his car, and on the way the conversation picked up easily for us. Angel had a weird gift of saying a lot without saying much. We could sit together and with just a few words convey what it might take other people ten minutes to fully explain. Most of our conversations actually started with mutual brooding before we started asking about the other's point of view about something that was bothering us, but this time wasn't like that. Angel looked right over at me and started on our favorite topic.
"I was thinking about Buffy today." I didn't have to say anything, just waited for him to convey his own meaning with his words. "Some of those prophesy papers you brought back with you from that guys office pertained to the slayer. Wesley went over them quickly looking for important or upcoming stuff and now he's going over them again with a fine toothed comb to root out everything we can from them. One of them actually pertains to me, he says, but I don't know yet."
"What's the confusion about?"
"Well, don't get me wrong, I trust Wesley's interpretation of any scroll I'm likely to come across. It's just that some of the stuff this one talks about doesn't name me like most of the other prophesies that involve me normally do. The souled vampire, the dark one redeeming, stuff like that. This one calls for a dark knight, a man redeeming himself, but never mentions a vampire. I told him to keep looking into it, but I'm pretty sure it's not talking about me."
"If you don't think it's about you, who do you think it is?" He was silent and then he just looked at me meaningfully. "Me. You think it's about me." His silence gave consent. "What else was this prophesy about? What did it involve besides 'me' and the Slayer?"
"We're not sure yet, but like I said I told him to keep looking into it. He said he's going to take it apart piece by piece until he's sure." I didn't have to say anything in response, all we needed to say had been said and now the thinking would begin. We were quiet all the way to the house where he mostly talked to the couple and I did a little bit of snooping around. I found some sort of goop that'd oozed out the window sill and a lot of scratches on the inside of the glass. I filed it away to tell Angel on the way back and continued to make my way around the rest of the building. Nothing else I saw really jumped out at me as important, so I met Angel at the front of the building on his way out. I told him about what I'd found when he asked and then brought him around to show him. He sniffed at the ooze and then pulled back.
"Huh, that doesn't come from our demon. I'll have to take some back and let Wesley take a look at it." I nodded and he scooped some into a small vile before we made our way back to the car and started on our way back to the Hyperion.
"There's something else about Buffy I need to tell you. I'm going to see her tomorrow."
"Is she coming here?"
"No, and not there either; someplace in the middle." He was quiet for a few minutes and I felt no urge to respond yet.
"I thought I should ask you if you wanted to come with me." Another of our usual silences went on for another few minutes before I was sure of the right answer.
"I don't think that would be a very good idea. You need your time alone, after she just got back. I don't even think you should mention me at all. If I'm not the guy in that prophesy, I don't want to mislead her into thinking I am." He nodded and we rode out the rest of the trip in silence.
Back at the hotel, Angel spent a small amount of time getting a few things together and then he was gone. I spent a few hours in the basement working out and then headed up into the lobby to find Wesley still working on a translation. So I asked him what was up. He was startled by my presence, saying he thought he was the only one there, before he answered my question.
"Angel had the idea that this prophesy I'm working on didn't pertain to him, but to other prospective dark champions. I've been looking into the alternate meanings of the text to try and determine further if the individual in question is truly Angel."
"And what do you think so far?" I liked speaking with Wesley; he was one of the few people I could talk in depth with about some of the deeper prophesies. Plus he was really handy to have around when I couldn't read a certain text or volume.
"I think Angel was half right. This text does mention him in it, and then it refers to the term 'Him' but as a completely different person. It's this glyph here that I'm having problems with. I thought it was 'is himself' or 'is exactly' but I now think its closer to 'is almost exactly' and it may even mean 'similar'. It's truly hard to tell."
"So what you're saying basically is that there is Angel" I started using my hands to demonstrate while I broke it down, "And there's this guy with Angel. This guy with Angel is not Angel, but is like him in a lot of ways or at least a few ways and may even be exactly like him. Right so far?" At Wesley's brisk nod I continued, "So what happens next?"
"That's the most difficult part. It speaks of danger and signs foretelling the danger before it arrives, but it doesn't say what the danger is. The last section here, almost half of the second page, is almost completely foreign to me. It appears to be in a similar language, but a direct translation only results in gibberish. I think it needs more work."
"If a direct translation- but it's the same language... a code?" Thinking out loud helps sometimes.
"What? A code? Yes a code! That would explain it. I must get to work on this immediately." I almost regretted how excited that made him this late at night. I knew, though, that if this thing was going to come to pass soon, better to know what we'd be facing beforehand. He picked up the original and his handwritten translation and headed into the office to sit down with a calculator and a pen to see what he could figure out. I shook my head silently wishing him luck before heading upstairs to take a shower and wash some of the sweat off of me. After the second night, Angel told me it was kind of pointless to rent out a hotel room when he owned this hotel with plenty of empty rooms. So with his invitation to come into his home, I'd moved in temporarily into one down the hall but on the same level as his.
The next morning it was pretty quiet around the hotel for a while before Cordelia came in. She'd been talking pretty nice to me since I got here. I don't know if that was just her way or if she was actually flirting with me, it was kind of hard to tell sometimes. I was polite to her and we actually did have a few things in common, but for the most part I just liked hearing about her old high school days with Buffy and the gang. She talked about them sometimes, but mostly she wanted to know about me. I told some of what I could about my past without opening up to her and having one of those 'touching' moments like the ones you see in the Disney movies. This time, though, it looked mostly like she just wanted to get some coffee and wakeup.
"Long night?" I was after all trying to be polite.
"Coffee." Okay, so she was one track minded this morning, that's cool. I had an enjoyable morning. First I went out to get breakfast with Angel's car, which was the first time I got to drive it, and brought back some breakfast sundries for the rest of the gang. We sat around for a bit and I got roped into helping Wesley decode some of that cryptic prophesy before I had to leave again to make my appointment after lunch, so I just took a cab into a high end part of town. I had to see a man about a car.
I arrived right on time as the gentleman in question pulled into his driveway as the cab pulled up to his house. I got out and tipped the cabbie and made sure I had everything I got into the cab with before I let him pull away. Walking up to the front of the house, he met me smiling and invited me up to check out the vehicle he had for sale. We talked as I took a slow turn around the outside of this beautiful machine. I poked my head inside the opened driver's door as he spoke of the original interior of his baby he'd bought right before he got married and the wonderful picnics and days spent driving down to the beach or any number of wonderfully vivid stories he had experienced with his wife. I idly wished I could be like him one day, happy in the knowledge of what I'd done in life and the person I'd done it all with.
I asked for permission before popping the hood and what I saw underneath made me stop and whistle appreciatively. I told him of the last car like this I'd seen; back when I was in the service. We immediately found common ground as he spoke of his years as a marine in the first push into Vietnam and getting injured and then about his son's enlistment into the army. After a few more 'war' stories we found out it was a small world after all and I had known his son before I got out; he was an armorer I used to deal with all the time when I needed parts for my special detachment's weapons. The engine was so clean you could eat off it with chrome still shining on what looked like new factory parts and a few recent after market modifications. Finally it came out that this was his son's car, a pass down from his father on his graduation from high school and he'd tinkered with it and kept it up since then. I suspected I knew then, but I had to ask anyway.
"If this is his car, why are you selling it now?"
"My son died two months ago in Afghanistan. He was part of a convoy that got attacked and he died fighting." I was amazed at this man's fortitude. He'd spoken already of losing his wife to cancer and now all he probably had now was just a dog and his memories for companionship. "I'm sorry to hear that. I know that when I knew him he was a good man and always went out of his way to take care of what needed to be done." I could see his eyes go distant for a second but then he blinked and he was back with me again. I softly closed the hood and self consciously wiped my fingerprints away. Something about this car and this man told me that test driving it would just be a waste of time. However,
"Mr. Jacobs, I am very interested in buying this car from you. Please sir, how much would you like for her? I will, however, only buy it on one condition."
"What's that?"
"I'd like very much if you would come out for a drive afterward and we can share war stories and you can show me the best places around here to take a young girl so I can treat her like you did yours." His eyes clouded for a moment at my offer and we concluded our deal shortly with me insisting not to pay too little for it. This was a good man, who'd had a good family, and a good life helping others and I'd be damned if I was going to take advantage of him in any way. Shortly he backed his car out of the way and then he climbed into the passenger seat and handed me the keys to a beautiful dark blue 69 Shelby Mustang. I started her and the engine came purring to life. I got a chill as I shifted into gear and backed her out of the carport and onto the street. She was mine.
I arrived back at the hotel with a cleansed aura and a much relaxed attitude toward life in general. Whistling as I walked through the door, I drew looks from Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. Shrugging at them I continued up to my room where I marked down my last few transactions in my laptop and then checked the balance of my account. Yes, this car was definitely worth every penny I paid for it and I was still not too badly off. I came back downstairs, still whistling, to see Lorne and Wesley talking quietly by the counter where Wesley was still working on decoding and translating that tricky scroll. Lorne looked up as he heard the sound of my song with a smile on his face.
"Well, somebody's more centered than they were a few days ago." I shook hands with the green demon and as our hands touched I reached across our link in greeting. Lorne was another person I enjoyed talking with, or rather not talking with. Psychics together don't often need words, when it's easier just to think at a person and have them understand exactly what you mean and the feelings behind it. We exchanged a few thoughts back and forth before breaking our grips and speaking verbally again. I still had problems getting exact ideas without some physical contact with the person. Mostly I got feelings or sometimes strong thoughts especially about actions concerning me. Lorne had tried to help me with my talent a few days ago, but our background training was different, so we had learned in different ways. Given enough time here though, I was looking forward to learning as much as I could from the empath.
"So why so happy, Jake?" Cordelia didn't have the advantage of telepathy.
"I just had a pretty good day today. Nobody died and everything just seems to be falling into place so far." Turning to Wesley brought something else to my mind that I'd forgotten to ask him about this morning.
"Hey Wes, speaking of, did you ever figure out what that goop was we got off the windowsill at the Patterson's?"
"As a matter of fact, I did almost immediately. It appeared to be birthing fluid." Apparently the demon that was harassing them had laid eggs inside the wall and then patched it up to hide them, getting separated from its eggs was what had driven it to attack the couple that'd kicked it out.
"So what do we do about it?"
"Gunn just left to head over and explain to the Patterson's about the problem and the easiest solution. He should have it taken care of by the end of the day without any unforeseen problems. In the meantime, the headache I've got from this bloody thing will probably last until next week if I'm not careful, and I don't think I'm particularly close to figuring out anything we need to know about it."
So another slow night at Angel Investigations was to be had by all. I tried to give Wesley a hand while Lorne helped me practice by sending me stronger and stronger thoughts until I could hear and repeat the entire phrase he'd sent me. As I worked out a few hours later he was down there in the basement with me sitting in a chair drinking a fruity beverage and started teaching me how to set up bonds to people where I could trace every clear thought they had. It was difficult, but doing physical training while I tried it was helping by focusing my mind. Cordelia was nice enough to volunteer to help me practice on, as long as I kept out of her deeper thoughts. I got some of the basics of it that night before Angel got back from his trip. Cordelia and I were there when she asked him how it went, but he just kind of shrugged off the question, not wanting to talk about it. He looked at me and asked if I was too tired to want to spar a little. I sensed he needed to work out some tension, so agreed quickly. I'd rather him try and beat the crap out of me instead of him giving himself an ulcer. Wait, could vampires get ulcers? Another thing I'd have to look into.
We squared off downstairs after he stripped down to his tank top and Lorne decided to stand by and watch. I moved in first with a high low attack that he blocked easily before trying to counter with a few jabs and an uppercut leading to a reverse leg sweep that I stepped over and brought my knee up to his lowered face. He caught my leg and used the force of my kick to push me past him as he bent backwards before springing to his feet behind me and kicking backwards. I spun on my toe as my right foot hit the ground and brought my left leg up to block the kick and lash out at his chest. He blocked my kick to the outside and tried to step in close with a blow to the body that I turned aside. We kept moving together as though we had choreographed the entire fight. Steadily we started picking up the pace to an almost blur of blows, yet still none of them connected on either side. Suddenly I got a flash of pain as his elbow found my face knocking me back a few steps before I launched myself forward into a double jumping spin kick one after the other in mid air, connecting the second time with his head and knocking him back. That was about as fancy as we got, keeping it pretty simple for tonight. The fight continued for a few more minutes before we broke apart, both of us sweaty and a little dirty but none too worse for the wear. We bowed formally before I grabbed my towel and went to head up the stairs but got stopped by Lorne.
"I don't know where you learned how to do that, lemon cake, but I've never seen anything like it. I saw you reading his next attack before he did it, but even then I know it would be hard for me at some of the speeds you were just at and I've been doing this awhile, kid."
"I told you where I studied this; the rest is just reaction time and having the right instincts. My old combat training taught me what to do, and this tells me what order to do it in. The speed does get hard sometimes, you saw he got one or two in on me, but that's why I need to keep practicing."
"Are you having problems with vampires? I know that if they don't have a soul it's sometimes harder to piece through the puzzle."
"I used to, but I had to learn that everything makes ripples in the world and instead of watching the ripples, I had to see what caused them."
"Can you see the ripples? I mean really see them like what they are and how they affect the world?" It seemed important to him, but I could only tell him the truth.
"I was trained to ignore them. I get flashes of them sometimes when I'm not fighting but they're not too clear. More, they just show me how everything is connected to me and I am connected to the rest of the world. I can't really see what they mean at all, except when they pertain to me living through the next few seconds." He seemed slightly disappointed by my answer.
"I'm sorry to hear that, brother. You've got the gift, and if you had been trained differently you could have been a great seer. You've got it in you, the connection to the entire world. It's almost a shame that you can only use it for fighting." With a sigh he led the way up the stairs to the lobby and I continued up to my room to wash up before coming back down to talk with Angel for a few hours before finally hitting the sack. I appreciated the compliment he gave me before I headed up, though. He said, "When I was fighting you, it reminded me of fighting Buffy. It was almost all I could do to just hit you once. Thanks." I thanked him in return, knowing he was thanking me for the chance to blow off a little steam without having to worry about hurting someone. I appreciated both sentiments as I climbed the stairs to my room and sleep.