A/N: First of all, big shout out to rcaqua, who became the first person to review 'Belief' - thank you thank you! At least someone is reading this... The last chapter was a little heavy on talk, and this one starts out the same but I promise, there is quite a bit of action coming up in this chapter, with a lot more on the way,so take heart! So please read and review - if you don't like it, let me know why, and if you do like it - please leave a review! Enjoy...


'So how are you doing?' Kathy asked the Seer a little later. After Angel had spent half an hour shooting pointed looks at his sister, she finally got the hint and decided to have a talk with Cordelia.

'I'm okay,' Cordy answered, only partly lying. True, the headache had now subsided to a dull ache, but internally she was still on edge. The prospect of having another vision now terrified her as much as never having another one. As much as she didn't want Angel and the others to worry, she knew that they had good cause to. The visions were getting steadily worse and she couldn't shake the feeling that they might end up doing permanent damage.

'I take it Angel talked to you about trying to find a way to ease the headaches?'

'Yeah. He said you were working on it,' Cordy replied. She shot the witch a hopeful look. 'So? Come up with anything yet?'

'Yeah. How about some tea?' Kathy replied with a smile.

'Tea?' Cordelia was incredulous. 'I'm having my skull split open on an almost daily basis with these mind-ripping, soul-crushing, un-freaking-believably painful visions, and you think tea's gonna help? Are you friends with Giles, by any chance?'

Kathy smiled in reply as she switched on the kettle and took some herbs from her bag. 'It's not your standard English blend,' she told the irate Seer.

As the water heated up, she poured a combination of the herbs into a mug, and then poured the boiling water in on top of them. The smell it produced reminded Cordy of something between freshly cut grass and mud. She wrinkled her nose.

'What is it?'

'An old herbal remedy,' the witch replied, taking a vial of amber-colour liquid from her pocket and pouring a few drops into the tea before handing the cup to Cordelia.

'Did you just make it Irish?' Cordelia asked wryly, nodding at the vial.

Kathy narrowed her eyes in mock displeasure. 'You know, we Irish don't put whiskey into everything Yankee. It's a potion, brewed by my own fair hand, to give it that extra kick.'

Cordy lifted the mug to her nose and took a sniff. It didn't smell that bad, and it looked just like any other herbal tea. Hesitantly, she took a small sip. Instantly, the warmth spread through her and the pressure that seemed permanently present in her head eased slightly. The taste was nothing to write home about, but she couldn't deny its positive effect. She took another, larger, sip.

'See. Not so bad. For a second there, I thought you didn't trust me,' Kathy said.

'So this'll stop the vision headaches?' Cordy asked hopefully.

Kathy shook her head sadly. 'If you take these herbs a couple times a day, carry around the crystals I'm going to give you and practise some of the meditation techniques I'm going to teach you, it'll help with the pain. Hopefully, the headaches will last for a shorter time and leave you less drained. But…' she trailed off after seeing the crestfallen look on Cordelia's face.

'But it won't stop the headaches,' Cordelia finished for her, disappointed and unable to hide it.

'I'm afraid not. That'll take more drastic action.'

'Like what?'

Kathy shook her head again. 'No. We'll try this first and see if it helps and then we'll consider other options. When I've worked out the kinks.' At Cordelia's querying look, she went on, 'at the moment, the spell that might help the most is too dangerous to work. It could leave you in a coma or, you know, kill you.'

'Ah, one of those kinks,' Cordy replied. 'Gotcha. We'll try this first then.'


Angel sat in his office with Wesley and Gunn, talking battle strategies. 'So what do we know?'

Wesley spoke up. 'Well, from the research myself and Kathy have done, this particular group is known for its viciousness. They are single-minded and utterly fanatical.'

'Didn't seem that vicious when we were kicking their ass,' Gunn remarked.

'Those were only three monks, Gunn. I imagine we will face a great deal more than that before the end.'

'Wesley's right,' Angel said. 'I've faced an organisation like this before. A faction of Inquisitore founded by an Italian priest named Rivalli. Individually, they're not much of a threat. But collectively, between their religious fervor and their training, we might have a problem.'

'Add into the mix the fact that they may have made a pact with a demon, and we certainly have a problem,' Wesley added.

'I don't get that,' Cordelia said as she and Kathy entered the office. Angel looked at his sister, and she gave a small nod. 'I mean, aren't they meant to be all 'demon's bad, religion good'? What's the deal with them joining up with one?'

'I wish I knew,' Wesley replied. 'But it doesn't bode well. Doodheks is known for instilling viciousness and blind fanaticism in his worshippers. And in a group that already is fanatical… He was behind some of the bloodiest witch-trials in history, turning mild and peace-loving villages into fanatical killers.'

'Wait, wasn't that Hansel and Gretel demon responsible for the witch-hunts?' Cordelia asked. 'The one that struck in Sunnydale a couple years ago?'

'Well, yes,' Wesley replied. 'But only the ones in Northern Europe and America. There are many demons who feed by fostering persecution and hatred among mortal men. Doodheks is one of the worst, growing in strength each time he is fed a sacrifice and distilling some of that strength to his followers.'

'From what we can tell,' Kathy said, 'Doodheks prefers witches as his source of… well, nourishment, for the lack of a better word. He incites his followers to go on a killing spree and feeds off the magical energy that's dispersed after the witch is dead. I think the words that are carved onto his victims are a way of focusing that energy towards him.'

'So, if he's just fed twice in the last couple of days, he's got some major mojo working for him?' asked Gunn.

'Precisely,' Wesley replied.

'But why doesn't this Doo-hicky guy just kill the witches himself? What does he need the monks for?' Cordelia wanted to know.

'He's non-corporeal.'

'Like the First?' Cordelia gulped visibly.

'Not exactly,' Wesley went on. 'His body was removed from him in the 11th century. It happened to a lot of demons during the middle ages to try to end their reigns of terror. He is pure essence now. But the worry is, if he gets enough power…'

'He'll get re-integrated with his body,' Kathy finished for him.

'Which means we need to stop this before anyone else dies,' Angel told them.


The chamber was lit only by a flickering torch. Victor let his eyes adjust to the gloom. He was, after all, accustomed to it and besides, he was illuminated by the word and therefore felt no need for additional light.

'Victor,' a voice said softly behind him. 'I have a new soul for you to save.'

'I have a sacrifice for you now, my Lord,' Victor replied. 'She is sinful and unrepentant, but by tonight, she will be filled with your word and her sins washed away with her blood.'

'This new soul is strong,' the voice spoke again. 'She is a much more powerful witch than the others. She spreads her evil like a sickness, corrupting all around her. And she consorts with unclean creatures. This creature of evil must be purified soon, before she contaminates all those in her path.'

Victor bowed his head. 'I will retrieve her tonight then, my Lord. And once the girl who is currently in my care is dead, I will begin the purification of her soul. Where will I find her?'

'The Hyperion Hotel,' Doodheks smiled. He was about to get a serious power boost.


The men folk had gone out on patrol, trying to track down the murderous monks, leaving Kathy and Cordelia behind to work on their other problem. Kathy had set up a circle of crystals and was now explaining the process to a somewhat skeptical Seer.

'The quartz is to channel the healing process,' Kathy told her, pointing to each type of crystal in turn. 'The sodalite calms and clears the mind. And the agate helps ease pain and promote healing.' She took one look at Cordelia's face and sighed. 'And you're not buying any of this, are you?'

'It's not that I don't buy it,' Cordy explained, trying to sound open minded. 'It's just that it all seems a little… hoaky to me.'

'Cordy, you live with a ghost, work for a vampire and fight demons on a regular basis, and this sounds hoaky?'

Cordelia shrugged. 'I have to be skeptical about something.'

'Well, trust me on this. Please. After all, you saw how crystals helped me when I was hurt last month.'

'I know, I know,' Cordy conceded. 'So what do I do?'

'Just lie down in the centre of the circle and close your eyes,' Kathy replied, lighting the candles she had set around the circle. When Cordy had positioned her self in the centre, and closed her eyes, Kathy sat cross-legged on the floor near her and began to talk her through the meditation. 'Now, concentrate on your breathing. Imagine you are breathing in pure energy. Let it flow right through your body with every breath.'

Cordelia took a deep breath; let it out, then started giggling.

'Cordy.'

'Sorry,' Cordelia replied, clearing her throat and controlling herself. 'Okay, breathing. Pure energy. What's next?'

'Every time you breathe in; imagine you're breathing in positive energy. When you breathe out, you're breathing out the negative energy from within. Try to visualize it.'

Cordy started to concentrate and, after a minute or two, actually felt something happening. She just wasn't sure what. She started to feel – lighter. Like a weight that had been pressing down on her was being gradually lifted.

Kathy had begun to chant softly, and Cordy felt the witch's fingers gently rest on either side of her head at the temples. Trusting her completely, she didn't open her eyes, but continued concentrating. The lightness she had sensed before was becoming more pronounced, spreading through her like clouds of weightlessness. Cordy allowed herself to drift, feeling all the tension leaving her body.

Kathy was also concentrating. She hadn't given Cordelia the full low-down on what she was going to do. Tapping into someone else's mind was hard enough, but when they knew it was coming, they tended to put up unconscious barriers. Kathy wanted the Seer relaxed and unawares.

Once in Cordelia's mind, she took a good look around, so to speak. Mind reading wasn't like they showed it in the movies. A person's mind wasn't an open book. It was more like a series of images, impressions, which she could interpret. What she needed to find was the pathway through which the Powers were communicating with Cordelia. Then she could see if it could be altered so that it would be a less painful, but still effective route for communication.

'There are a lot of images of Angel in here,' was Kathy's first impression. It was only natural that Cordelia would be thinking about him, but… 'No,' Kathy chided herself. 'Not any of my business.' Instead, she kept looking for what she was there for.

Cordelia had never felt so relaxed in her whole life. Well, maybe that time her Mom had taken her to that Swiss health spa – one of their few mother-daughter moments… Suddenly, the relaxation she had begun to experience was replaced by something much more familiar. Shooting pains went through her skull, traveling down through her body like an electric shock.


Angel, Wesley and Gunn had driven round and round the dark streets looking for something, anything that might be a lead. They started from the first known scene, the warehouse where Angel had found the first victim, and worked their way out. Getting no where fast in the car, they had parked and begun to pound the pavement in the warehouse district, hoping to get lucky.

What they weren't hoping for was to get ambushed.

Turning down a darker than usual alleyway, Angel stopped, his vampire senses picking up on something. Holding up a hand to signal for quiet, he listened. He heard the arrow coming before he saw it, and pushed Wesley out of the way just in time, before the ex-Watcher became a shish kebab.

Suddenly, they were surrounded, twenty dark-robbed figures appearing from the shadows, all heavily armed.

'Okay. That's a little more than three,' Gunn said, hefting his weapon. 'I hate it when you're right, English.'

'As do I,' Wesley replied. 'On this occasion, at any rate.'

'You guys take the 10 on the right, I'll take the 10 on the left,' Angel told them. After all, they were just monks. How hard could it be…?

Before Angel could charge at them, a dozen more arrows flew towards him. He dodged all but two of them. One hit him in the shoulder, the other in the upper leg.

'Okay, ow!' he exclaimed, looking down at the arrow protruding from his thigh. 'That could have been nasty.'

Yanking the arrow out of his leg, he moved forward with vampiric speed and plunged it into the nearest monk. The monk smiled as he fell to the ground, dead. He had died for the cause. He was happy in death. Damn fanatics, Angel thought.

Chaos broke out around him, the monks all attacking as one. Fending off blow after blow, Angel tried to get near to the wall, where he could keep his attackers on one side of him only. He sliced his sword through one, then another, but they kept coming. One pulled out a stake and charged at him.

Wesley and Gunn were fighting back to back. Already Wesley's arms were tiring. He was a relatively accomplished swordsman, having studied fencing at private school and all forms of sword-play during his Watcher training, but he had never had to parry so many blows from so many attackers at once. Gunn was putting his street fighting experience to good use, combining his hacking action with his trust axe with a combination of roundhouses and upper cuts. But none of it fazed the attacking monks.

Spinning out of the charging monk's path at the last moment, Angel swung his sword round and decapitated him. Sensing another body coming towards him, he sidestepped and landed a punch to the attacker's jaw, sending him flying into the monk behind. His sword swooshed up to meet that of yet another attacker. Staving for a moment, he kicked out at another monk, keeping him at bay long enough to parry a blow, and plunge his sword into his opponent's chest.

Angel was sure he'd taken care of his ten opponents by now. But their numbers kept getting replaced. How many monks were hiding in the alleyway, waiting to surge forward? In the chaos, Angel couldn't tell, but he sensed that this could go on of a while.

Wesley's arm felt like it was on fire. The sword had sliced through both his jacket and shirt, and into his skin. He didn't think it was too deep, but he couldn't tell for sure. Trying to ignore the pain, he fought on. After all, these monks didn't look the type to allow for a time-out.

Gunn had lost track of how many he'd killed, and now two bad-asses were coming at him, both armed with what looked like the freaky mace Gogo used in Kill Bill. He hoped these ones didn't have retractable blades attached too. Both swung at him at the same time, and he ducked just in time. The first guy took another swing at him and this time, Gunn was ready for him. Using his axe like a baseball bat, he hit the mace as it flew towards him, straight into the chest of the second monk. Unfazed, the first monk swung again. This time he connected with Gunn's stomach, sending the young street fighters sprawling across the alley. Without pausing to think, to acknowledge the not small amount of pain he was in, he tumbled over and used the momentum to get back to his feet. The mace-wielding monk had been joined by three others.

Angel looked over the shoulder of the monk he had just impaled on his sword and saw that his comrades were in trouble. Gunn was cornered by three angry-looking monks, while Wesley was obviously injured and fighting two at once. Flinging his latest defeated opponent another two approaching monks, he moved to help his friends. He was stopped by a voice that echoed through the dark.

'Enough!'

At the sound of the voice, the monks pulled back to form one group. Out of the shadows behind them, a new player appeared.

'Are you this great leader your buddies have been talking about?' Angel asked. 'The Vessel?'

'No, vampire. I am merely his messenger.'

'What? We didn't rate an appearance from the head cheese? I'm insulted,' Angel quipped. He was thrown by the fact that the monks had stopped attacking and wondered what the angle was. Were they calling an end to the fight, or planning something else?

'I'm afraid he's otherwise engaged,' the messenger replied. 'He's been detained with a new soul that needs to be purified. Actually, you might know her.'


Kathy felt the vision coming too. Not only that. She saw it. Still tapped into Cordy's mind, she experienced the full force of the vision.

Another girl, bound, tortured. A warehouse, similar to where the first girl had been found. Figures in cloaks, chanting. A knife. Words etched in flesh. Blood. So much blood. A flash of steel as the knife cut the girl's throat. A scream. A piercing scream filled the warehouse. Kathy saw herself, bound, watching helpless as they killed the girl. All she could do was scream…

Kathy stumbled back, breaking the connection with Cordelia. Dizzy from the shared vision, she had not fully begun to process what she had seen when someone hit her from behind. The last thing she saw before the world went black was Cordy, lying motionless in the centre of the circle.


To Be Continued... Next chapter, Kathy's missing, Cordy's unconcious, and Angel's frantic. And a couple of familiar faces from the Hellmouth turn up to lend a helping hand...