Chapter 4

They were back at Cordelia's hotel after her invitation. She'd changed quite a bit. She had the eyes of both of the men, well vampire and demon, behind her. But her attention was solely on Angel, apart from the first curious glance that she shot the demon. He just shot a smile back at the time, still a little shocked about the whole fighting. Sure he'd experienced it before but in real life it seemed more, well, real.

Anyway, they were now sitting down at this big table that was included in her suite. Yes, suite. Apparently done quite a bit of good and she'd made quite a bit of money with her new agency. Emphasis on the made quite a bit of money bit. Of course her charging crazy prices had nothing to do with it. Yeah, whatever. Anyway, the sitting arrangement was Cordy sitting on one side of the table and Angel sitting on the other. The demon had inconspicuously (okay, not really) dragged another chair next to Angel, whilst being glared at by Angel himself. The demon wasn't exactly sure if it was from the noise or the fact that he was joining them or that he was choosing to sit next to Angel. He just chose to grimace and sit down, and hope that Angel didn't have an axe handy. He had seen what Angel had done in Wolfram & Hart, remember.

"So what's with the scar, not trying out a life as a pirate I hope?" Cordelia said with a smile and weak laugh. Angel shifted around uncomfortably. He seemed not to want to sit down properly, at least not till Cordy did. She was also not completely at ease.

"Uh no, dragon talons. They cut deep."

"Oh." Cordelia said and then looked to the side of Angel instead of at him. The demon looked at the both of them and decided to get the ball rolling, in a sense. Something that no one had been able to do in previous Angel and Cordelia history. Usually Cordelia broke the silence, but she had changed.

"So. How are you Cordelia? Well I hope." Cordy looked at the demon.

"Yeah, I'm actually oh-k…Who are you?" Cordy cut off her own sentence because the curiosity was back and in full power. The demon looked at her 'innocently'. He pointed to himself.

"Who? Me?" He asked with an 'I don't know what's going on' expression on his face. Cordelia nodded and the demon continued on with a casual demeanour. Well as casual as he could muster. Something he'd gotten without meaning to while he'd experienced from all of those people's lives that he'd lived was that truth was always the best way out. And this was not something he learned voluntarily.

"Well, that's a nice surprise, you know as a certain someone else didn't exactly care to find out," The demon shot Angel the first bad look he'd ever given him, not that the look he gave him was even that threatening, "My name is Russet. Russ for short. I'm a demon, well half-demon. Demon comes from my father's side."

"Really?" Cordelia asked, she was slightly shocked. Or more than slightly shocked. After all Russet didn't even look like a demon, he had spiky brown hair with a dash of red colouring throughout and brown eyes, with just a touch of yellow, that were a tiny bit bigger than average. He was wearing dark jeans and a dark button up t-shirt. He looked a bit like a puppy dog with big brown eyes but perfectly humanoid. After a second of shockedness she continued,

"Well, Russ, who around here isn't half-demon anyways?" The demon smiled. It was a nice smile. One with white teeth and a calming demeanour that reminded Cordelia of the Groosalugg. Sure he didn't have the gorgeous big blue eyes but he was nice enough.

"I'm able to imitate people, to change my body to duplicate someone else's. Just by touching someone I can know their whole life. I work for the Powers That Be, I was sent here to guide Angel. To secure his soul. Or at least help him so that he is ready for me to do this. This power, the power of being able to reach into someone's soul and remove or put in place, or secure it, was given to me by the Powers. For one purpose only. Helping Angel get back on the path and continuing on it."

Cordelia's attention soon returned to Angel. (As we all knew it would.)

"Securing his soul?" Both of the men knew the tone of Cordy's voice was hopeful and they both knew the reasons, actually the one reason. Okay so they aren't men, they're both part demon or full demon or whatever, but you know what I mean. The whole understanding of what Cordy really meant is what matters.

"Yeah, for good." Russ responded, because Angel was too busy communicating it with his eyes to Cordelia. This was obviously going to be the same for the future too. Angel being the action guy and Russ the talking guy. Except for when the fights begin, because everyone knows that Angel loves throwing insults at the big bads. At least the three people sitting there all knew that. The two men (demon's, half-demon's, whatever) sitting there knew that even more, they'd both lived it (to some extent).

"Wow. And you're saying the Powers have sent you." Although Cordy was obviously talking to Russ her eyes were lost in Angel's brown brooding pools that he called eyes. Russ nodded.

"Yeah, the Powers." Russ replied.

"Oh." Cordelia said. It was obvious she wanted to launch across the table and secure her lips on Angel's.

"Yeah, oh." Russ replied again. But his attempt to get some attention didn't work, Cordy's eyes were still very lost in Angel's.

"Okay, you two lovebirds, I'm just going to…" When Cordy's eyes flickered to Russ' as he failed to finish the sentence she saw him get thrown across the room by an invisible force. He hit the wall and collapsed onto the floor. Cordy ran over to him and Angel stood up. He felt something behind him and he turned his head slightly.

There, standing in all its glory, was a big bad. It had broken through the back glass door from the balcony. Time for Angel to get all quippy with the phrases. Not that quippiness was exactly on his mind at the moment. More like Cordelia, the securing of the soul and the following events. Plus how Russ was uncomfortably getting closer and closer to resembling Doyle in the whole half-demon thing and he reminded him of Doyle at times. In fact, he reminded him of many people, Lorne, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, even Cordelia.

Russ lifted his head and Cordelia asked,

"Are you okay?" Russ saw past Cordy and to Angel who was now looking at the big bad with an annoyed expression. He pointed to Angel and said,

"Help, him." Cordy saw Angel and then turned back to Russ. She gave him an apologetic expression and then left his side to get an axe from her bag and threw it to Angel after yelling his name. Angel caught it with practiced ease and then ensued a big fight with the big bad.

Russ then started to crawl over to the fight, trying to help Angel. After crawling a metre he was thrown up against the wall, once again by an invisible force. He groaned and, as he fell down off of it, he gripped his arm which had been broken during the falling. He'd fallen onto his arm as he fell and that brought about a yell. He tried to get up but the pain and the fact that he just couldn't get up stopped him.

Cordelia looked torn. She was holding another version of the axe she'd thrown to Angel. Angel turned to see what had happened and saw Cordelia's position.

"Cordelia! Give me the axe and help him!" He turned just as the big bad was about to sink its claws into his head. Cordelia threw Angel the extra axe and he continued fighting the big bad. She then rushed to Russ' side and helped him up. His arm was definitely mangled and Cordy winced as she saw it.

"We should probably get you to the hospital." Russ shook his head and said, after swallowing his pain,

"No, I'll be fine."

"Don't go trying to be all macho about this Russ." Russ tried to smile but it turned into a grimace of pain. He closed his eyes in concentration and then his body glowed as it seemed to regenerate. He was all better again. Even a small nick on his cheek was gone. Cordelia looked at him in surprise, this was definitely not expected.

"I'm not being macho. I told you I would be fine." He stood up slowly, as if getting used to his 'new' body. He smiled at her and she smiled back hesitantly. He opened his arms and said,

"See, all better." Cordelia launched herself into those arms and giggled slightly. But she retreated as soon as he drew in a quick breath and saw him wince. He bent over slightly in pain, or not exactly so slightly.

"Not exactly all better it seems." Cordy said and he looked up. He smiled slightly as he explained.

"Regeneration takes a lot out of me. Even if it's just a broken arm and a few scratches."

"So I guess you aren't invincible." Cordy said but didn't lose the whole worried and concerned look.

"At full power I could be practically invincible, in theory. But I'm never at full power, always at half and before this I wasn't even at half because I had to get into Angel's soul, or where it's meant to be anyways." Russ glanced to where Angel was fighting the big bad. Cordelia followed his gaze and her look of concern and worry deepened.

"Meant to be? Is he-?" Cordy turned back to Russ quickly as he straightened up.

"No, he's not evil. I'm just saying that his soul is buried deep. Well it was before he saw you. It's pretty fair to say that you bring out the… soul in him." He left that with Cordelia, to make of that what she wanted to.

They both turned back to Angel who had just slain the big bad. He was now standing over its body looking slightly worse for wear and with two axes covered with blood. Well you know, the green yellow demon blood which can be expected from a big bad such as the one lying on the ground with its head a metre away.

"Hallo?" All three people (demon's, half-demon's, whatever) turned to see an unsure woman walk through the front door which was slightly ajar after knocking on it softly.

"Is anyone-?" The sentence got cut off as she saw the three people and the dead, headless big bad. She seemed torn between happiness and curiosity. Curiosity about the new demon standing there (not that she knew he was a demon) and the one lying on the floor. The happiness from the fact that everything seemed to be normal again. Well as normal as fighting demons can be.

"Angel, Cordy, hi." Russ stepped forward immediately and stuck out his hand.

"I'm Russet. Russ for short. I'm helping Angel now." Fred then shook his hand.

"Ah'm Fred. Russet's brown." Fred then hesitated before continuing, "Ah-ah don't mean you're brown. Ah-ah'm not racist or anything. Ah just mean that the word Russet means brown." Russ smiled.

"I know what you mean Fred. I get that a lot. Well... Not really, just from smart people who know what Russet means." Fred smiled and giggled slightly. Then the two finally realised that there were another two in the room and both separated as they came back to reality. After one last look at each other they then busied themselves. At least Russ got busy with looking busy. Fred got busy with questioning Angel and Cordy about how things were, how she was glad to see things normal in that un-normal way and etc.

"Fred." Fred stopped questioning and turned to Russ who had promptly stopped looking busy to talk to Fred.

"I was just wondering where you disappeared off to. I mean, Angel and I were wondering." Fred turned to continue her curious look at Angel, she didn't know that Russ knew that she'd disappeared. Obviously. Because she didn't know that Russ was from the Powers. Or even that he was a demon. Anyway. Angel nodded, he really was wondering and Russ had managed to steal the words from his mouth. He was probably going to pay for that later.

"Well… To tell you the truth, ah was looking for something."

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Angel asked, just before anyone else could get a word in edge wise. Fred nodded.

"Yes, ah did. And that's not a good thing. It's a very bad thing."

"What is it?" Russ popped in before anyone else could. One more point to go to the time when Angel is going to go off at a certain humanoid looking demon.

"It's…"

There was another crash behind Angel. And considering that the thing that had popped in before had been huge and had already made a hole, this thing had to be even bigger to make a crash. Fred's eyes widened and she pointed to the thing. Everyone else turned around and they all took in a large amount of air in a small amount of time.

"That." Fred finished and everyone else glanced over their shoulder in shock at the Texan before turning back to the very big very bad standing before them. Or should I say towering over them?