Chapter 15

The Following Takes Place Between 2 PM and 3PM

On the Day of The Autumnal Equinox.

"Just so that we're all on the same page," said the voice of Cordelia through Spike's mouth, "this is Jasmine you're hearing. And I am currently delivering this message simultaneously to mine enemies through Leonard Kopell at Wolfram & Hart and through William the Bloody at the place that I called home for a while." Her voice became a great deal chillier as she delivered these last words. "I may not be reaching all of you but I have great confidence that the people who get this will be sure to share the message."

Buffy and Connor, as well as the orderlies and other 'non-combatants' on the first floor of the convalescent homes, were clearly freaked out by what was happening to Spike. Wesley and Angel were disturbed as well but for a different reason. They had both witnessed Jasmine do this trick before, but only on people who had "bonded" with her. They understood what was happening, just not how. That was the least of their problems at the moment but it still bothered them.

"You know I think I can guess what some of you are thinking."

Wesley and Angel exchanged a quick glance: could she see them too?

"Why do I sound like Cordelia?"

Both men breathed easier. Having her at full power would have been a little too much to deal with.

"Simple. Once I was…" the voice hesitated ever so slightly. "…banished from the physical plane-- and after a brief stop in a place where none should visit-- I went back to the last place that held me. To rest and regroup. And while I was there I absorbed all of the physical and spiritual material that was your friend. Now we truly are one and the same. I have all of her memories and she has all of my essence." Her voice grew even more cheerful. "A fair exchange indeed."

In a distant corner of his soul Angel felt a great deal of anguish pass through him. That couldn't mean what he thought it did—could it?

"Now I know that you all must have a lot of questions. However, you're not going to get an answer. Because strictly speaking I'm not here."

"Well then who's talking to us?" Buffy demanded, sounding more miffed than scared.

"I can't control people in the same way I could before. You took care of that real nice." Cordelia/Jasmine sounded scornful. "I can, however, project my spirit into those whose souls have some kind of supernatural caste to them. The service is strictly one-way so this will be a soliloquy, not a dialogue."

"That doesn't sound like Jasmine." said Wesley quietly.

"Well fucking duh, she just explained that." Buffy was becoming more and more aggravated.

Wesley remained calm. "I mean that her speech, her idioms, they sound like things Cordelia would say, not Jasmine."

"You're saying that Cordy may be in there somewhere?" Angel asked.

2:04:33/2:04:34/2:04:35

Across town Gunn and Fred, who had shown up when she heard the racket, had been going through a very similar line of thought and found themselves asking the exact same question.

However, they were hung up on a different issue. "You know this would be a whole lot easier to take seriously if Cordelia wasn't talking through Leonard," said Gunn. "I mean, looking at him makes me feel like we're in a Japanese monster movie."

"Jasmine," Fred corrected him.

"What?"

"That's Jasmine controlling Leonard, not Cordy."

"Well, if you believe her, it's the same difference," Gunn said in a quieter tone. "Sounds a lot like her, doesn't it?"

Fred seemed about to respond when a thought struck her. "Why did she stop talking?"

Gunn looked at Leonard, Jasmine-- whoever the hell it was. "Maybe she's finished," he said. So of course two seconds later Cordelia/Jasmine began speaking again.

"I bet that you thought I was gone," the voice said cheerfully. "Sorry to fade out like that but this kind of projection isn't easy when you're stuck in a primitive body. But don't worry kids, I still control the horizontal and the vertical."

Gunn and Fred exchanged a glance. "Sure they're the same," Gunn said doubtfully.

"But the reason I've gone to all this trouble," Cordelia/Jasmine continued, "is to deliver a very important message to all of you-- especially Angel and Connor."

When the two of them heard their names neither one's expression changed.

All the good humor left her voice. "Connor, you helped give me life and then you took it away from me. I think it's only fair that I return the favor," Jasmine/Cordelia sounded very grim indeed, "only it won't be as simple as a fist through the face. No, you're going to feel pain you can't imagine," she paused, "Father."

Even though he had no memory of her at all, Connor shivered just the same.

"As for you my beloved grandsire…" her voice took a lusty tone. "Before our last discussion was interrupted I told you that you were going to be on the wrong side of an apocalypse." The tone disappeared. "Now that I'm back I have every intention of keeping my promise.

"As for those of you I don't know," Cordelia/Jasmine now sounded a little human. "I am a merciful god. I will give the rest of you until nightfall to get out of Los Angeles."

"Like that's gonna happen," Gunn said derisively

"I know that most of you consider yourselves brave and fearless," she said with a touch of mockery. "You'll probably want to stay and fight. I'll just say one thing." She paused. "Your deaths will make the Passion seem like a school play."

As they considered that, the voice continued merrily: "Well, it's been good talking to you. Now if you'll excuse me, this projection has made me a bit peckish, so I think I'll get something to eat. Bye for now."

And with that Leonard and Spike, across town, fell to the ground in a heap.

Fred and Gunn moved to Leonard. "You okay?" Fred asked as she helped him up.

"If I'd... known… this was in... the package…I'd have asked for… a better health plan," Leonard gasped as he got to his feet.

"Now that the show is over," Fred asked, "what do we do now?"

2:11:06/2:11:07:2:11:08/2:11:09

"Are you all right, Spike?" Buffy had rushed to the blond vampire after he had fallen to the ground.

"I've just been used as a bloody public address system by whatever big bad this lady is," said Spike as he picked himself off the ground. "Yeah I'm all sweetness and light."

"It's not an unreasonable question," Angel said. "The last time Jasmine pulled this off, she had complete control over whomever it was she used to talk through."

"He's right," Wesley concurred. "For all we know Jasmine could be in Spike." He realized what he had said. "Oh for a different phrasing."

"Is she?" Angel asked, who didn't seem uncomfortable at all with the suggestion.

Spike looked very indignant. "Typical. I do something really freaky and everyone thinks that I'm possessed."

"Right," said Angel walking towards him, "because nothing like that has ever happened to you before."

Spike's dander was up now. "As I recall, mate, The First made you its bitch four years before it ever got its claws into me," he said walking over to Angel.

"Maybe, but it didn't make me start killing people without even knowing that I was doing it." The two were practically nose to nose.

"ENOUGH!" That drew everyone's attention. Buffy didn't usually shout even when she was angry. "We so do not time for this 'who made the better killer' bullshit." She walked over to both of them. "We are at DefCon One here and I don't have time for the two of you to get in a pissing contest!"

This reached both vampires and they stalked off into opposite sides of the hall.

"Now we need to figure out how to hell to find Jasmine and what she's planning. Any sensible ideas?"

There were a few seconds of silence, then Connor, who had not said anything since hearing Cordelia's/Jasmine/Spike's message, meekly spoke up: "I have a question?" When no one raised any objections he continued. "Just how strong do we think she is right now?"

"Blimey," said Spike in exasperation. "Didn't you hear her?"

"Yes I heard her," Connor went on doggedly, "but Jasmine—Cordelia-- whoever she is said that she wasn't doing the same thing that she did earlier."

"Possession," Wesley began thoughtfully. "No, she said that she was projecting herself."

"Well if she isn't as powerful as she was-- you know, back in the day," said Connor awkwardly, "how far away could she be projecting from? Wouldn't she have to be, you know, close by?'

Wesley snapped his fingers. "Of course. And didn't she say that she was projecting through Leonard back at Angel Slayer? That would tax whatever power she has still further."

"Let's not get carried away," Buffy said going to Wesley." If she was able to pull of that trick she must have something under the hood."

"Maybe. Or maybe she's closer than we think." Wesley pulled out his cell and began dialing. "I'm betting that she's somewhere between Elysian Park and Wolfram & Hart."

"That covers a lot of ground, Wes," Angel cautioned.

"Which is one of the things our organization can do." Wesley said as he held the phone to his ear. "Fred, it's us. Did you…" He paused. "So you got the same message we did."

As Wesley spoke to Fred, Angel went to Connor. "That was good thinking, son."

"Yeah. You got some real brains," Spike piped up.

Connor looked down shyly. "Thanks."

"They must come from your mother's side of the family," Spike said with a straight face.

2:16:59/2:17:00/2:17:01

For the benefit of the people who worked there, most of the scientific and technical labs in the Wolfram & Hart were soundproof. As a result when the hue and cry that came with Cordelia/Jasmine's transmission to Angel-Slayer, Willow and Andrew, working in the computer lab, had no idea of the chaos that was happening one floor up.

However there was a very good chance that even had Jasmine materialized in the lab, sung a rendition of 'Stairway to Heaven' and than vanished back into the ether from whence she'd come, neither would have looked up from their work. Willow and Andrew were different about almost everything but about one thing they were exactly the same: put them in front of a computer screen and the world disappeared. Both were so efficient that they had moved onto something different from what they had started out doing. Willow was checking some of the emails in Thompson's account and Andrew, after a brief talk with Fred, was trying to track down the Wolfram & Hart executive using the car he had driven from the warehouse in when Willow had been held prisoner.

Both had been working in silence, respectful of the other. Then suddenly Andrew spoke up gently: "Willow?'

"What?" Willow sounded impatient though she wasn't looking up from her screen.

"Were you able to get any new information out of the last few emails?"
"Is there anything in particular that you had in mind?" Willow said with a trace of sarcasm.

"Anything related to Venice Beach?"

Now Willow did look up. "You have something that leads us there?"

"Maybe." Andrew punched in commands that brought up an overhead view of a highway. "I finally picked up Thompson's car going down the Santa Monica freeway."

"When?"

"About an hour and a half ago." He brought up the section of Los Angeles that he had been looking at before. "After that I picked him up heading East down Venice Boulevard for a while and then…" He shook his head in confusion. "It's like he just vanishes."

"Considering who he works for , that's not entirely impossible," said Willow only half in jest.

"Except that I keep thinking that there's something about those two locations that I've heard about before." He looked over at her. "They mean anything to you?"

She thought for several seconds. "Ooh I think I got it. Way back when we got started on this magical mystery tour, one of the vampire cults we were tracking met in a diner in Santa Monica. Now that isn't that far from Venice as the bat flies."

He thought about it. "As I recall Buffy and Lorne checked out most of that location and didn't find bupkus."

Willow looked at him, bemused. "Since when does a nerd like you know Yiddish?"

"Focus Will," he said without smiling.

"Sorry. I still feel a little-- ooky from being drained." She thought again. "Is there anything near that part of town that would be a place where the villains might hide?"

Andrew punched some keys and brought up a map. After a few seconds he shook his head. "Nothing that stands out but, then, I don't know what to look for."

Willow moved closer to the screen. "Do we have any street photographs of the area?"

"Give me a few seconds." He began punching in a sequence of commands. "You know for an evil corporation this place has some really brilliant computer programs."

"I guess if you want to be the best you have to have the best even if you're on the dark side of the force," said Willow. The photographs began coming up, interrupting further discussion.

They were only working for a few seconds when they heard the indignant voice of Gunn: "Damn. World's coming to an end and you can't get away from your computers."

Willow blushed—but didn't turn from the screen. "We're trying to help save the world, Gunn. This is how we do it."

He moved towards them. "I know and I expected to see you working, not looking at old real estate. How the…" Gunn trailed off. "What the hell?"

Andrew stopped pressing the keys. "What? Did you see something?'

Gunn shook his head. "Go back one." As Andrew did Gunn moved forward until he was right beside Willow. He looked at screen for several seconds. "What the hell?"

Willow looked at the monitor. On it was a picture of a large, relatively old manor. "What is this place?" she asked.

Gunn didn't answer right away. Instead he asked: "This mansion, it's in Santa Monica right?"

Now Andrew turned away from the screen. "Yes. How'd you recognize it?" he asked.

"I'm not a hundred percent certain but I'm pretty sure that's the mansion where Holtz trained his troops to fight Angel."

2:25:26/2:25:27/2:25:28/2:25:29

There was a reason that Xander was a joker. A lot of it was a cover how truly unpleasant and painful his life in general really was. But part of it was because he had a vivid imagination that, when pressed into action, could picture the worst possible conclusion to almost any scenario. Which was one of the reasons he became a babbler when the end of the world seemed upon them.

The first reason had gradually diminished over the course of his being a Scooby. The second part was still a problem. Fortunately, his mind was arranged in such a way that he could only deal with one major crisis at the time

Now he sat in the hospital waiting room-- well, waiting-- for the nurse who had led Robin off to his bed. Xander was trying (even he couldn't believe it) to concentrate on that someone he knew was going to die so he didn't have to worry about the fact that the world was heading for meltdown.

Neither attempt was going very well.

He wasn't particularly proud of it, but the plain truth was that he was running on empty. He hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, hadn't eaten in sixteen and it seemed like he had been through every major battle they'd fought in the last twelve. Of the Sunnydale group he had the smallest threshold for exhaustion. He had passed that limit a long time ago. On top of all this, having to deal with knowing that the forces for Evil were probably going to use Cordelia--

He mentally walled off that particular avenue of thought. Xander knew that he was on the verge of a complete breakdown. He didn't want to deal with this now. And if that was a cowardly approach, well…

"I'm not king of the forest," he muttered without realizing he was speaking. Unfortunately, he was loud enough for an old woman waiting nearby to hear him.

"You all right, sonny?" she asked gently.

There were only ten million reasons he was not all right, but he chose to articulate none of them. "I'm okay," he said in, what he hoped was, a convincing tone. Apparently it worked because the woman turned her attention back to her book.

Leaving Xander to contemplate Robin. Oh, this was pleasant. When his cell phone rang a few seconds later he half hoped that it was Buffy calling to inform him that the Rapture had started and he was going to miss the big finish.

"Yeah."

"It's going that well, huh?"

It wasn't as bad as that but hearing this voice didn't make him feel a whole lot better. "Hey Faith."

"Are you there?" No doubt which "there" she meant.

"Yeah, I'm at Kildare General. It's the big hospital off Wilshire."

Pause. "Did he give much of an argument?"

"No. When I told him where I was taking him, he just said: 'You're right. I guess it's time.'" Xander shook his head as he remembered. "He… he really is very brave."

There was another long pause. "How's he doing?" There was a mild note of concern in her voice. From Faith that was a cry of pain.

"They're getting him a bed. A nurse is going to come get me when he's settled."

"They wouldn't let you go in with him?"

"I'm not his family."

Another pause. "Yes you are."

Xander needed to swallow. "That's…nice of you but…"

"I know what you meant." Another hesitation, longer this time. "How bad does he…look?"

Xander thought. "A little tired, a little flushed. All things considered he doesn't look that bad."

"But then you didn't notice he was dying until I told you." There was no blame in Faith's voice, just pain. "Goddamn it, I should be there with him!"

Xander knew what he had to say but that didn't mean that he liked it. "We need you where you are. He knows that." He swallowed trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

"I know." Faith took a deep breath. "Look, if…if he gets worse…I mean really bad…I want you to call me and--"

Xander didn't let her finish. "Faith, you don't need to know if he--" For all his years of dealing with death he couldn't finish the sentence.

"I don't care. Do it."

"All right. I will." And even as Xander spoke he knew he would not keep his promise.

2:32:44/2:32:45/2:32:46

Giles knew that they were wasting valuable time as Faith completed her call to hospital, but he knew better than to point it out. Faith had already made her feelings quite clear about his decision to keep silent: any other pestering there might well be a violent. Despite her reformation, the dark-haired Slayer was very mercurial and given her emotional state--

Stop thinking like a Watcher, he said mentally. Face the facts. You took a bad situation and helped make it worse. She's pissed at you and when Faith gets pissed bad things can happen.

Right. And he also knew that the only way to get her mind off the situation was deal with the more immediate problem.

Unfortunately the search of the warehouse that had been the Forces of Evil's hideout wasn't going much better. And now Giles was beginning to wonder how much more time they could afford to spend on it. They'd been there half an hour and the trail was only getting colder.

Faith walked up to Giles. To her credit she was keeping her expression and attitude completely neutral. "Don't tell me we still haven't found anything."

If Buffy had made the comment, even given the situation, he might have made a small jest. Instead he settled for honesty. "I've finished checking the back rooms. There's nothing here that tells us anything."

She scowled. "According to Willow, she and Spike were held prisoner here for nearly three hours. You're telling me that they didn't leave one clue that they were here."

Giles gestured towards the back entrance. "In addition to improving their abilities at evil, they also learned to clean up after themselves. There's barely any rubbish from whatever they ate."

Faith began to pace. "Ethan Rayne and you went to school together, right?"

"Yes."

"And every year or so in Sunnydale, he would pop up and do something to mess with your head."

"Unfortunately that's also right."

"So you don't think he wouldn't take this golden opportunity to do a monumental mind-fuck on you?"

Giles considered for several seconds. He was about to say something along the lines of Yes but I don't know what when something in his memory clicked. "Hold on. " He turned around and headed towards the rear of the warehouse.

In the front of one of the parking spaces there had been a trash can. At first glance it had seemed that no clues were there but…

"I saw something," He muttered to himself as he grabbed the small receptacle. He didn't even have to dig in, what he was looking for was right at the top of the rubbish. "Voila." He removed a wrapper of a chocolate bar.

"What did you find?" Faith asked as she closed the distance between them.

"A little hint." said Giles.

Faith peered at it. "Ethan gave a hint on the back of a Cocoariffic candy bar?"

"This is the kind of chocolate that Ethan used when he played his little game with the band candy. " Giles shuddered as he remembered the unpleasant (and one pleasant) memories of that particular trick. "Figures he'd keep trophies of that."

"What message did he leave?"

Giles looked at the inside of the wrapper. "A cryptic one, naturally."

"How cryptic?" asked Faith.

"We left something near the park at the beach. But hurry up before we let this genie out of the bottle."

Neither had any idea what Ethan was talking about but they knew that some fresh hell was about to be set loose.

2:38:28/2:38:29/2:38:30/2:38:31

Despite her reputation Harmony did have a fairly strong stomach. Which wasn't strange. Even if you weren't directly involved in the action, you had to be able to handle a lot if you wanted to survive in Sunnydale. So she didn't have any problem taking some of the people that had been preparing the malefactum for a good long time and handing them over to Cordelia for a mid-day snack.

She did not, however, watch as Cordy chowed down.

"After all," she said to one of her henchmen (one thing that she had learned was that nobody liked to be called a minion), "despite everything Jasmine owes me she still might decide to snuff me. Considering what the last vampire did to her I don't think its that big a leap."

Now as Cordelia (Harmony was still having a hard time calling her Jasmine) finished off the last of her meal Harmony decided that it was time to get her to help with the next phase of the plan.

Harmony walked into the main room of the abandoned building that she, Cordelia/Jasmine and a few of her followers were holed up in. Strictly speaking the building hadn't been abandoned, the previous owner had just been snuffed. But that was a minor and irrelevant detail.

She entered the room where she had left Cordelia/Jasmine and three of her followers. Cordelia was now the only one in the room with only three empty sets of clothes to indicate that the others had been there at all.

"So I hope that the meal I supplied was to your liking?" Crap, she sounded like a maitre'd at a fancy restaurant, not like the cool calculating villainess she had hoped she was becoming.

Cordelia fixed her with the kind of stare that she had mastered by the time she was thirteen. "It was scrum-diddly-umptious," she said dryly. "Can't we get on with the rest of today's events?"

Fixing her with a stare, Harmony decided to bring up the one thing that was troubling her. "You know, for a deity who was once the great ruler of another dimension, you sound an awful lot like my friend from high school."

Unfortunately Cordelia had always been able to outstare her even when they were both in high school. "Yeah? Well for someone who wants to be a master villainess you sound a lot like the mindless sheep that Cordelia knew in high school," she snapped back

"You're not doing a great job of convincing me that I'm talking to the right goddess." Harmony said as she began to close the distance between them.

Cordelia/Jasmine got a very condescending look on her face. "You know perfectly will that when I was—" Harmony was pretty sure Cordelia was going to say killed before stopping herself "--forced to return to the body that held me, much of the memories and personality of my host began to seep into my own spirit."

"That's the kind of thing that has me worried." Harmony felt herself regaining the manner of cool cockiness that she possessed. "In case you have forgotten, before you took her over the woman was a champion. How do I know some of her conscience won't do something to undermine everything at some critical point in the plan?"

She finished this remark by sneering at Cordelia-- a gesture she quickly wished she could take back when the girl reached out, grabbed her blouse and pulled her in.

"Listen very carefully because, after six months in limbo, I've run out of patience." Cordelia was practically snarling in her ears. "I may look like Cordelia Chase and I may sound like her on occasion, but that's all there is. Cordelia Chase is DEAD. Jasmine is the sole possessor of this body now." Without warning Jasmine shoved Harmony back hard against a wall. "Get that?"

Harmony picked herself up. "Loud and clear." she said coldly. Even though it was exactly what she and Ethan had set out to accomplish, she was a little dissatisfied by the end result.

"Good." Cordelia/Jasmine brushed herself off. "Now where exactly are we on the rest of it?"

Harmony definitely didn't want to take orders from her now but she realized that this was what they had wanted. "We're ready to meet up with the rest of our people," she answered, straightening her blouse. It was a Burbury and she didn't want it rumpled. "Once we get out of here, we're going to rendezvous with Thompson in Baldwin Hills. If everything is going according to plan, he should be picking up another to help with this evening's festivities."

"Who?"

Harmony gave a very sinister grin. "Let's just say that he's someone your father was never supposed to meet."

Cordelia/Jasmine pondered this for several seconds before the realization hit her. "You don't mean--"

"I do."

"But I thought… how did you…?"

"Before Justine Cooper died valiantly for our cause, she told us where to find him." Harmony gave a little curtsey. "I told you this was well planned."

For the first time Cordelia/Jasmine seemed impressed by Harmony. "And the do-gooders, how do you plan to keep them from interfering?"

Now Harmony had all of her confidence back. "Ethan's going to be keeping them busy. He may not be able to stop all of them but he can keep them occupied until we assemble our full forces. By the time today is over, they won't have anywhere to run."

2:47:23/2:47:23/2:47:24/2:47:25

When they had agreed to follow Connor's suggestion and search nearby houses for Jasmine (Angel was deliberately only thinking of her as that person) Angel, Buffy, Wesley and Spike had known that it wouldn't be easy. It was nearly ten miles from the home in Elysian Park to the offices of Wolfram & Hart which meant that they had a lot of territory to cover and not a lot of time to cover it. And then there was the problem that the search was based on the foundation that Jasmine would stay where she had broadcast her message from-- which was a very big if.

It was therefore clear to everyone that they would have to split up again. Because they didn't have the time to try and sort out who should go with whom, they decided that they would stay in the groups they had already formed: Buffy and Spike in one, Angel, Wesley and Connor in another. Angel wasn't particularly thrilled with the arrangement but he knew it was easier than going into a long explanation that Buffy would down anyway.

So they set off-- Buffy and Spike going down the west side of the street, the others going down the east side. Speaking for themselves Angel and the others weren't having a great deal of luck.

For one thing there weren't a great deal of abandoned buildings in that part of town. Most of them were apartments and places of business, which meant people. And, for all of the power Angel-Slayer had, they couldn't just go into other people's places without good reason. And since they couldn't use the truth they were verbally stumbling to find ones that worked.

"I don't care what you're talking about a dangerous killer in the neighborhood, Mr. Price." The matronly lady standing behind the latched door of the complex spoke in a very disdainful tone. "Unless you show me some kind of warrant I'm not letting you or anybody else into my building."

Wesley made sure that there was nobody else on the street besides Angel and Connor, then pulled out his gun. "Ma'am I am going to have to insist that you let us in."

The tough looking women considered this for a moment before closing the door and opening it properly.

"I'm glad you understand…" Wesley's voice ran down. Angel, standing a few feet away, soon understood why. The woman was now pointing a large shotgun at him.

"You're not the cops 'cause you don't have badges. You're not Homeland Security because you haven't got my place surrounded. You're not Jehovah's Witnesses cause you haven't tried to save me." Angel couldn't remember the last time that he'd seen a glare from a crone like this. "Now I don't what your goddamn game this is, but you can play it somewhere else. Get the fuck out of here NOW."

Wesley wasn't cowed by many people but he knew when he was outmatched. He put the gun back in his jacket and very quickly walked back to rejoin Angel and Connor.

"You think there's any chance that she's working with Harmony and Ethan?" from Angel.

Wesley shook his head. "I think they would have killed her rather than go through all of the rigmarole. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't take Jasmine here. Best to move on."

As they walked to the next building Connor began speaking hesitantly. "Look I'm really glad that you're all taken my ideas so seriously."

"But—"Wesley began.

"I've never done this stuff. I mean, even when I was…" Connor made a broad gesture, "the person you knew I was never known for my intellect."

"You're underselling yourself," Angel said quickly, even though Connor's assessment was basically correct.

"Even so we should consider that I might be wrong about my hypothesis. I mean we've been to nine buildings and we haven't struck gold yet."

My son knows what hypothesis means, Angel thought. Aloud he said: "Well I think maybe we can try one more place. Then we'll call Buffy and see if we can figure out another idea." He looked around. "Let's try this one."

He began to walk up to what looked to be an old mechanic's shop called 'Ike's Auto Repair' which seemed conspicuous because there was only one car near the place. Working on it was a young man with motor oil on his pants.

"Excuse me, are you Ike?" Angel said as he walked up to him.

"No I'm Seth. Ike retired three months ago." The mechanic got up from behind the car. "Who are you?"

"Uh, my name is Angel."

"Really?" In a motion so fast it surprised him, 'Seth' pulled out a gun and shot Angel in the chest. The force of the bullet blew him back against the car. "Get them!" "Seth" shouted.

In seconds Wesley had his own gun out but before he could get off a shot, two figures tackled him from behind. One pinned his shoulders, the other grabbed his legs.

As Wesley began to struggle against them, he realized something quickly.

His assailants were human.

Connor in the meantime was running towards Wesley before he was tackled by another burly looking man. Connor reacted quickly, spun around and slammed him against the wall of the repair place. The man collapsed.

Angel in the meantime was standing again. "I hate it when they shoot me." he muttered before charging the men holding Wesley's shoulders. The two of them struggled for a few second before Angel managed to knock him to the ground. Wesley in the meantime, managed to find the strength to lift his legs up and kick his other foe in the stomach—a move which knocked the air out of him causing the enemy to sprawl on the ground.

"You all right?" Angel asked. Wesley was about to reply when he turned around and saw that "Seth" had gotten behind Connor and was cocking his pistol.

"CONNOR!" Angel started running, knowing it was futile knowing there was no way he could outrun a bullet.

And Connor would have died if, at the second before the gun was fired, the would-be killer was hit with a bolt of electric energy. He collapsed in a heap.

Angel and Wesley turned to the east where the bolt had come from.

And were struck speechless by the sight of the man who had saved Connor.

"I suppose you were expecting somebody else?" said Lindsey McDonald.

2:59:57/2:59:58/2:59:59/3:00:00