Title: New Friends, Old Places

Disclaimer: See prologue.

Rating: PG-13

Author: Supergurl15

Author's Note: With school starting I just don't have as much time to update as I did over the summer and it's my senior year. Ack! There's so much crap to do and to top that off I'm editor-in-chief and layout editor of my school paper and copy editor of the yearbook too. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. Talk about hectic.

So anywho... enough about me. Yeah, uh, don't be too upset at me for this chapter. One, because it's extremely late (like you people have never been to school) and two, because I added a lot to a well loved (I think...) legend so it could fit into my story. Don't kill me!

Hopefully it's still 'fic worthy'.

And just for the record. I love Anne Rice novels, oh and The Ravenscliff Series. I really, really, really recommend them to anyone who loves a good horror/ fantasy story. Good stuff.

Just as a reminder, I own nothing...only the plot idea.

Takes place around season two of Angel.

Thoughts and sometimes titles are in italics.

Chapter 8

"Chloe?"

God. Would two or three more minutes of unconsciousness be asking for too much?

She closed her eyes briefly, relishing in what was probably her last sane moment for the rest of that week.

Her eyes fluttered open a few seconds later, and as her green eyes met Angel's she could clearly see the look of utter confusion present in those brown orbs.

"Uh. Lana?" She knew this situation was bound to come up eventually, she just didn't think that eventually would be now. "What are you doing here?"

"I should be asking you the same question." Lana stated with a pause as she looked around the loft for her blond attacker. Her eyes returned to Chloe and her tall, good looking friend but not before she caught a glimpse of Chloe's forgotten crossbow. "The blond that was here before..."

"He's gone." Chloe said, trying to look at anything, anywhere but Lana. Picking up her crossbow, she quickly began walking towards the loft stairs. "So I'll just be..." With those four words she bolted down the steps before either Angel or Lana could stop her.

Angel looked questionably between the dark haired girl, Lana, and the loft stairs.

"Chloe!" Lana started.

Chloe whirled back around at the sound of her name, staring up at both the vampire who, along with Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley, she had come to think of as part of her family, and the girl who she had once considered one of her best friends. Having overstayed longer than she intended, she started towards the twinkling, dark abyss that spelled freedom.

"Chloe! Wait!" Lana called after her, edging her way off of the couch slowly. She gasped when her arm bumped the edge of the sofa. She had to find some way to stall Chloe, maybe if she could talk to Chloe for just a little while she could find out why Chloe refused to speak to them.

"She's not always like this..." Angel said before glancing at the loft stairs one last time, then going after Chloe.

Staring grudgingly at the steps Lana hesitantly followed the stunningly handsome stranger. Who was he anyway?

She had wanted Chloe to believe that she hadn't opened her eyes until after she had finished talking to her friend but she had seen Chloe drop some kind of crossbow thing and run over to the good looking guy. From what she could tell they looked like they were a little more than 'just friends'. She shouldn't have said anything and just pretended to be asleep. Maybe she could've found out more about Chloe and the mysterious stranger.

"Chloe..." When the girl in question didn't even acknowledge his presence, Angel grabbed Chloe's arm and spun her around gently so she was facing him.

"Chloe."

"Angel," Her voice sounded whiny with just an edge of annoyance and choppiness that he quickly picked up on. "Just..."

He stood unwavering despite the fact that she was trying to blink back tears.

Chucking sardonically, she wiped away the silent tears that were slowly trickling down her face.

"Look. I'm fine... okay." She kept her gaze on the ground as she tried to wiggle out of his grasp.

"No you're not." He said, not letting go of his hold on her arm. Something had happened to her in this town, something that she didn't want to remember. "Something's been bothering you ever since we got here."

"Angel, do you always have to poke?" She started fixated at the ground, her tears making little spots of mud on the dirt road. "I'm... fine." Her voice was breaking and she knew it the moment the word 'fine' left her lips.

I'm not going to break down and cry over this. This isn't a weep worthy dilemma. Just forget about Smallville... think about L.A. In a couple of days you'll be back in L.A. relaxing; if you want to call it that, at the hotel, helping some poor misguided soul.

"Chloe..." Angel said seriously, his heartfelt gaze fell on the broken hearted girl. He only wished he could figure out what was wrong.

The tears began flowing rapidly down her face before Angel pulled her into his arms.

"Shhhh." Pulling the still sobbing girl to his chest, he rested his chin on the top of her head. "Shhhh, it's okay."

What happened to you?

Turning away from the hugging pair, Lana leaned against the wooden frame of the barn.

A befuddled expression assaulted her face as she clutched her injured arm. Figuring it would be better to leave the comforting vices to the guy in the black trench coat she went back to pondering. Somehow she got the feeling that she'd only make the situation worse and whoever the guy was Chloe seemed pretty 'chummy' with him. She had noticed it when she had first seen them in the loft. But who was he? A friend obviously, but there was definitely something different about him. You didn't take a sword through the stomach, get up and then go running out of a barn. Was he human, and if he wasn't... did Chloe know about it?

The melodic voices of a chorus of crickets could be heard in the cool night air as the door to the Kregburne Tavern opened and a blond haired man strolled into the dark, smoky little bar. Taking a seat at the stool he sighed heavily.

"Scotch, no ice." He told the round burly bartender, who looked more aggravated at the request than hospitable.

The blond closed his eyes against the bustling night life of the bar. Try as he might he couldn't get over the fact that he had almost been defeated that night. Surprisingly enough it hadn't been the half-breed that had almost, ALMOST, bested him. It was the human girl. He had no idea how she had ever discovered his weakness, it took most humans days or weeks to even figure that little bit of information out about him and normally they didn't live that long to even attempt to find out his weaknesses.

"Rough night, huh?"

The darkly dressed demon turned toward the sound of the human voice, taking a sip of his freshly acquired scotch.

"Something like that."

"I hear ya." The man sitting next to the blond demon god said thoughtfully.

"So I take it you have an annoyingly sarcastic vampire with a black trench coat after you too?" Normally the god wasn't nearly as cynical as he was being right now. There was just something about the girl and the vampire that really irked him and it wasn't merely the fact that he had almost been defeated by them. Besides, it wasn't like the stranger would believe him anyway; if anything he would think he was another deranged junkie seeking refuge from the streets.

Humans, so naïve about the things of their own world.

The stranger didn't even give what the demon had said a second thought as he began to speak, "Actually I've got the exact same problem." He added brandishing an artificial hand. "The bastard cut off my hand."

He turned slightly, giving the stranger his undivided attention.

Could it actually be possible that this human is familiar with the things of this world?

There was something about this human; he wasn't sure what it was yet but he was almost certain that somewhere, hidden in that almost amicable human pretense, a dark and evil force was at work. He could smell evil like a vampire could smell blood.

"We have something in common then. His blond accomplice shot two arrows at me before... I left them." His pride had been damaged once that night, why make it twice?

"Blond accomplice?" Lindsey repeated, not having to think about the sketchy description too much. There was only one person staying in this town that he knew of that was blond and had a vampire as an accomplice, unless keeping a pet vampire was the newest craze in pet ownership.

So, Chloe was lying yesterday at the diner. Somehow I'm not too surprised.

"She had short blond hair, green eyes, was about five-seven and enough sarcasm to fuel the sun for a millennia?"

"That sounds about right." The god paused, wondering how this man he had never met before knew his adversaries. "Do you know them?"

"Unfortunately, my colleges and I have run into their little team more times to count." Lindsey slid his business card across the counter and the blond man wasted no time in reading the information that was on it.

"Wolfram and Hart, Attorneys at law..." The man flipped the card over in his hand. "Attorneys, is it? I remember when it was still magic and sorcery."

"Trust me, nothing's changed that much." Wolfram and Hart was as evil, if you wanted to call it that, as ever. The only difference between the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart and Wolfram and Hart was that Wolfram and Hart helped defend their clients in the court of law. "Lindsey McDonald." He said extending the one hand that was still made of flesh and blood.

The demon accepted the other man's hand in a friendly hand shake that he had only recently discovered was human custom. Maybe if this, Lindsey, really was a messenger of the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart he could help him. "Ahuizotl, but if I had friends I would be known as, uh, call me Lloyd."

"Lloyd." Lindsey repeated, still in disbelief over the coincidence. He had begun to suspect that this might have been the same guy that he had been originally sent here to find. There wasn't a chance in hell that Lilah was getting that promotion now.

"Yes..." The man clasped his hands together and a sadistic smile tugged at the corner of his lips, "I wish to know more about this vampire and his little blond friend."

"Happy?" They had driven around half of the town for thirty minutes, Chloe doing most of the talking other than Angel's occasional respective side comments. She had told him everything, from almost being burned alive in the Torch office, to the time she had served as a witness for Lex in the trial against his father and came home to a bomb. She wasn't sure how she and her father had survived that blast. She should have been dead, six feet under, sleeping with the fishes... and the weird thing about it was that he father still insisted on living in Smallville.

About twenty minutes into the thirty minutes that Angel had been driving around Smallville they had stopped at the little pancake house across the street from the Talon.

Chloe was munching on a piece of pancake, taking sporadic sips of coffee every now and then. Angel looked a little less comfortable with a freshly refilled cup of coffee. The waitress had already stopped by their table more than five times to ask if either of them wanted anything, and based on the frequent smiles and gazes Chloe could tell that there was a lot more on her mind than just coffee refills and pancakes.

"So now you know what lies behind the ecstatic façade of this small town..." Chloe lifted the coffee mug from the table and took a long, exaggerated sip from it.

"... and your 'ecstatic façade'." Angel said playing on Chloe's own words.

She glanced down at the table glumly, stirring the coffee stirrer that she had left in her caffeinated beverage almost automatically. "Yeah..."

Angel watched the girl sitting across the table from him. She looked so distraught, so lonely. He wished he could find her so called 'friends'; she could pretend like nothing was wrong but he wouldn't. They had better pray to God that he never met any of them. The very thought of anyone treating the cute, cynic reporter like she was something that could be used and then pushed aside, forgotten and ignored, made his cold blood boil and his demon growl. Sure, sometimes Chloe was inquisitive but most of the time she had everyone's best interest at heart. From what he could tell everyone thought she was a heartless journalist who cared more about getting the 411 on her friends than about their feelings.

"Chloe, if I would have known..." How could I have been so... stupid? I should have picked up on it in L.A. She was acting pretty weird before we left the hotel and then a couple of days ago, and earlier this morning when she made me watch that... What the hell was that anyway? A vampire movie... riiiight. God, how do these people sleep at night? If I wanted to watch a load of crap like that Chloe could have just saved her money and we could have watched Glitter.

Angel watched distractedly as the piece of pancake that was currently attached to Chloe's fork twirled around and around. "Yeah, well, you didn't. So don't beat yourself up for this."

He looked at her innocently, avoiding her mind reading stare.

"Please Angel, I know you too well." She smiled brightly, the previous situation beyond her for the moment.

The bell on the front entrance chimed loudly, apparently regardless of the hour people still wanted their pancakes.

"I know you're not into the whole food thing." Chloe said standing up with Angel following her lead. "Are you sure you don't want..." She stopped mid sentence, holding up her plate with the remaining portion of her uneaten pancakes on it.

"Even if I was into the 'whole food thing'," Angel began walking to the still chiming door, "I don't think I would want to eat that."

"I say a few quotable things in my life and suddenly everyone wants to idolize them, and what do you mean you wouldn't want to eat that?"

He rolled his eyes at her sarcastic remark. You would think she would let up on the sarcasm a little, especially after he had bought her dinner. He would never understand why anyone would want to eat pancakes for dinner; there was something about it that just seemed wrong. "You picked over it."

"Oh right, because I have some fatal, incurable disease that vampires, who are immune to every kind of illness know to man, can contract." She said under her breath to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

"Something's making you hyper."

"That's really-" Her eyes scanned the friendly, café style pancake house. Partly because she was curious to see who was hanging out in the dinner crowd and partly because... she was curious to see who was in the dinner crowd. Her eyes stopped on a man sitting at the counter, for a brief second their eyes met. "Dad?"

"What?" Clearly Angel hadn't noticed the man sitting at the counter who was walking towards them.

"Chloe." The man said enveloping Chloe in a hug. "What are you doing her? When did you get in? Why didn't you call me?"

"Uh." Some things never change. "Dad..."

"Oh." Gabe Sullivan stepped back from his daughter, ending the reunion hug once he realized that he was squeezing her too tightly. "Sorry pumpkin."

"Daaaad." She whined, suddenly conscious of everyone else in the diner. It wasn't until she rolled her eyes at her dad's antics that she remembered an uncomfortable looking Angel standing behind them. "Oh! Uh, dad, this is Angel. Angel, this is my dad."

The two men shook hands; Gabe eyeing the newcomer, Angel, suspiciously. The guy didn't seem like someone his little Chloe would date, but maybe he was jumping to conclusions. "So, how do you two know each other?"

"Dad!" Chloe protested, lightly shoving her dad's arm.

At his daughter's protests Mr. Sullivan let the subject drop, for now. There would be other opportune moments. "Chloe, you should have called."

"I would have. Everything was kind of spontaneous."

"Well, I'll let it slide... this time." He said teasingly. "I don't see how you can have much of a social life, working at that coffee place twenty four-seven and then interning for that paper."

"Yeah, because I've always been a huge social butterfly." She added cynically.

"Why don't you two c'mon back to the house? I ordered Chinese before I left." Mr. Sullivan said holding open the door to the front entrance.

"And you bought pancakes?"

"I got tired of waiting."

He walked through the already open door, expecting Chloe and Angel to follow him. It wasn't until he was halfway out of the door that he noticed that his daughter and her friend weren't behind him.

"Sorry about this." Chloe said remorsefully, and she really meant that. She knew how much the vampire hated social gatherings and the like, which included being antagonized by her father, and to top that off a demon had just tried to shred him in two. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"I don't think your father's going to let me roam free about the country without a thorough interview, background check, and investigation." Somehow Angel could picture Chloe's dad as the overprotective father who would occasionally threaten or shoot a guy or two if they randomly appeared at his front porch asking for Chloe.

"Okay, so we both agree that you should never be that sarcastic ever again? That was scary." She said, referring to his previous statement, "And you're overreacting, he's not that..."

"You kids coming?" Gabe Sullivan glanced at the two so called 'kids' from the door. "I even bought some of those barnyard animal shaped cookies that you love so much. You're right. They are addictive. I remember when you had that whole iced barnyard animal cookies phase."

"I couldn't get her to eat anything else for weeks and whatever she had to eat; she had to have those iced cookies with it." He said speaking directly to Angel. "She even wanted to build them their own farm and cried when... Chimpy's arm fell off. She named one of the monkey cookies Chimpy." He said speaking directly to Angel.

"Did she?" Angel smirked; half intrigued, half thinking up ways to use that little piece of information to his advantage.

"Dad!" Grabbing her father's arm, Chloe began trying to drag him out the door before the entire café heard about her embarrassing bout with the pizza at Chuck E. Cheese.

"Right." Following Chloe and her father Angel was beginning to think that things were either going to become really interesting or they would take a turn for the worse.