CHAPTER EIGHT

Angel checked on Connor. They had gotten in just before dawn with nothing to show for a night's work. Spike, Illyria and Buffy had been no more successful. Angel couldn't stay asleep but he was hoping Connor was. He quietly peered into the spacious bedroom. Connor was curled into a ball, face buried in the pillow he was hugging. Angel wanted to just let him sleep forever. Connor needed it so much. He could only hope his son's rest was peaceful.

Angel jumped when a hand touched his shoulder. He had been so involved in watching his child that he had tuned out the world, hadn't heard or felt Buffy approaching him. She pressed the phone into his hand.

"It's Detective Danforth," she said softly as Connor shifted on the bed.

"Why are you people staring at me?" he asked, blearily.

Angel watched Buffy go soothe Connor while he stepped just outside of the room. "Yes, detective?" Angel's face molded into one of confusion as he listened to what the detective was saying. It didn't make any sense. "Is it him?...Yes, of course, I'll meet you at the hospital shortly."

"What is it, Dad?" Connor asked, sitting up in bed, looking so little and lost in only his boxers, soft cotton with Scooby Doo on them. Thalia had to have bought them. Angel couldn't imagine his son buying anything other than utilitarian underthings.

"I'm not sure. Danforth wants me to meet her at the hospital. There's someone there she wants me to see," Angel said, the look of puzzlement not easing off his face.

"My son?"

The look in Connor's eyes was heartbreaking and Angel didn't want to have to hurt him further but there was no choice. He shook his head. "No, and she wouldn't say who." Angel glanced at the curtained palladium windows in the room where the sun shone behind the necro-tempered glass. "Buffy, you'll have to drive me. Madison isn't well equipped with an underground." Built around a chain of lakes and bogs, Madison's water table was too high for the expansive underground sewers L.A. had.

"I'm going, too," Connor said, swinging out of bed.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Angel said, unsure of what Danforth might show him and more unsure of Connor's mental stability.

"Why not? Did Danforth tell you not to bring me?" Connor asked, pulling on his pants.

"No, but she didn't ask for you either," Angel replied. Would the detective become uncooperative if they all showed up?

"I'm going. And it's not like you can stop me, what with you being locked in the trunk," Connor shot back.

"He's got you there, Angel." Buffy offered a soft smile. "It might be good for Connor to have something to do."

Angel rolled his eyes. "All right. But if Danforth says you're to leave, you sit in a waiting room until I come and get you."

"Deal." Connor's voice was distorted by the shirt he yanked over his head.

"And I won't be in the trunk. I'll be in the back seat," Angel told him. He hated riding in the trunk like luggage.

While Buffy told Dawn and Giles where they were going, Angel crawled under the heavy blankets that were in the back seat of his car. He kept them there just in case Illyria had to drive him or Spike in the day, though he hated the thought of Illyria driving. She wasn't very good at it but Buffy made her look great.

"Did Danforth give you any clues what this about, Angel?" Buffy asked as they drove on.

"No," he said, muffled by the blanket. "Just that she wanted me to see someone who was brought in early this morning."

"Maybe Eve's partner turned on her and she's in the hospital morgue," Connor offered hopefully.

"It's more likely the other way around knowing Eve," Angel said.

"I'll settle for that," Connor replied grimly. "And Dad, you need to stop watching me sleep. It's creepy."

"I wasn't watching you. I was checking on you. There's a difference," Angel protested, feeling smothered by the blankets. He had no intentions of not keeping an eye out on his son.

"No difference. I don't like waking up to an audience," Connor grumbled without any real heat in his voice.

Angel sighed heavily and let his stubborn child have the last word. It didn't take Buffy long to make the short drive to the hospital and pull up under the covered drive way. Angel bailed from the car and waited for his family to arrive. Funny how he was thinking of Buffy as family. She probably would hate the idea of being a step-mom, even though she really was filling the role well ever since she had arrived in Madison. Somehow the idea pleased Angel. It was like the one bright thing that had happened since her arrival.

Danforth eyed Buffy and Connor sourly as they approached her where she had asked Angel to meet her. Zuelsdorff was still absent, and Angel could only hope he was out somewhere else following more clues. There was something about the man the vampire didn't like. "I wasn't expecting you to bring reinforcements."

Angel shrugged. "I wasn't expecting you to ask me here. What's this about?"

Danforth sighed, apparently resigning herself to their presence. She waved at the tattered waiting room seats and sat down herself. "A jogger running around the lake found a woman on the edge of the water around dawn. She had been shot, strangled, beaten, raped and tossed in the water, left for dead. She must be a remarkably strong woman because she managed to get herself out of the water. She hasn't been able to give us much since she's fading in and out of consciousness but she kept asking for Angel. The detectives who caught the case thought she was being metaphorical, maybe raving about heaven but they had this." Danforth held up a paper bag. "And knowing we were looking for a baby, they brought the case to my and Carl's attention. That's when I thought she might not be talking about angels and was looking for a specific Angel."

"What's in the bag?" Angel asked, feeling the agitation roiling off of Connor as his son shifted anxiously on the seat next to him.

Danforth slipped a latex glove on and pulled out a pacifier on a string. "It was still around her neck. The person who did this to her used his hands. You can see the pacifier as a mark over her larynx."

"Can we see her now?" Connor asked, his eyes not leaving the pacifier. Angel expected him to snatch it away from Danforth.

"In a moment, I'll take Angel to see her...alone. But first I would like you both to submit to a quick test." Danforth waved at a doctor at the nurses' station. She came over with a device in hand. "This is Dr. Michaels from the coroner's office. She's a forensic specialist and I'm asking you to voluntarily submit to a measurement of your hands."

"They didn't strangle this woman," Buffy said crossly, putting a protective hand on Angel's knee.

Connor just shoved his hands out. "I've got nothing to hide."

The doctor took the electronic measurement of Connor's hands then Angel's. She looked at Danforth. "It's definitely not the first subject's. His hands are too small. The second subject is closer. He could be your suspect."

"I'm not," Angel said, looking at his hands as if they were aliens that had attached themselves to him without him knowing.

Danforth nodded. "You both were spotted at the lake last night, not far from where she was put in the water." Her fingers strayed over her gun meaningfully.

"You have us under surveillance?" Connor snarled and Buffy took hold of his arm just in case.

"Would you like to step inside the room with me now, Angel?" Danforth asked, ignoring Connor.

Angel nodded. He knew that Danforth was watching the victim's face as she led him inside, her hand hovering over her gun, ready to draw down on him if need be. She was hoping to see fear on the woman's face, something that would say, 'yes, this was her attacker.' Angel was surprised Connor and Buffy were capable of restraining themselves at the door. When he saw the petite blond lying on the bed, Angel knew it was his face Danforth should be watching, not the victim's. Through the bruising and swelling, he felt his hope for a clue to the puzzle draining away. This woman's face wasn't recognizable but as he took another step closer he got a familiar scent underlying the terrible stench of the hospital. He looked more carefully and for a brief moment he wasn't sure if he was still on his feet or if he had fallen. Vertigo whirled him around.

"Darla?" he croaked, his throat too tight for words. He heard Connor making a small noise from the doorway before Buffy pulled him away.

"Who?" Danforth asked.

"Darla..." Angel choked then pulled himself together. He couldn't believe what his eyes and nose were telling him, and he had to explain it to Danforth. Darla was as alive as she had been that time Wolfram and Hart had dangled her in his way to torment him. Was she just a pawn this time? A willing participant? No, he couldn't believe that. Someone had to have brought her back since he didn't think it was possible for a spirit to force their own reincarnation from beyond. Eve, then; she had to have done this but for what purpose? "She's my cousin, Darla Reilly. I didn't know she was in town."

"Do you have any idea why she might be working with the kidnappers?" Danforth watched him warily.

"If she is, you mean. You don't know that," Angel said, getting closer to the bed as he listened to the heart monitor. It sounded regular to him. Darla had a bad heart. He'd need to tell them that.

"No, but we're testing the DNA on the pacifier against the mother's, and we'll be asking for Connor to give up his. He'll need to do that to prove paternity anyhow when we find the baby," Danforth said, managing to sound nonchalant.

"If she was there, they had to have had her prisoner, too," Angel said. "Eve had a man she was in love with and he was in love with Darla. I don't know if that helps."

"Maybe...if I were Machiavelli," Danforth said wryly.

A soft pain-filled moan from Darla brought Angel's attention back to her. Her dark eyes opened and she smiled, the oxygen cannula under her nose wiggled on her purpled cheeks. "An...gel," she said, her voice a harsh ruined whisper.

He touched her hand. It was so warm and soft that he wanted to just capture some of it. It was a strange sensation. The woman he loved was outside the door with his son but there was no denying his connection to this woman. She had twice altered the course of his life forever, once when she killed him, once when she gave him his son. He shoved his emotions in a box so hopefully Danforth wouldn't notice. "Darla," he said softly. "Who did this to you?"

She took a swallow of air, the effort obviously weighing on her. "Eve...Gene."

"Sounds like you were right about her, Angel," Danforth said, making a notation in her notebook. "Do they have the baby?"

"Was fine...had me...caring." Darla's voice broke as her eyes filled with tears.

"Shhh, it's okay." Angel caressed the back of her hand with his thumb. "Now we know for sure he's alive and well. That means a lot."

"How did you come to be involved in this?" Danforth asked, giving Angel a look that said 'back off.' He ignored it. "How were you selected to care for the infant Reilly?"

"Kidna..." Darla trailed off, giving Angel a hopeless look. She couldn't explain her presence there any more than Angel could. She was supposed to be dust again, after all.

"Kidnapped?" he filled in helpfully. "See, detective. I told you if my cousin was involved, it was because she was being forced into it."

Danforth just nodded, no expression on her face. "Do you know where you and the baby were being kept?"

Darla flicked her tongue over her swollen, split lips. "A ghrá mo chroí," she whispered, surprising Angel. It was their old code when they had to talk about something that they didn't want Penn or Dru or Spike to hear. It was the only words in Gaelic he had ever taught her, 'love of my heart.' It was a joke. 'My dear boy' was her pet name for him but "A ghrá mo chroí worked as a diversion. It sounded like a term of endearment, which it was, and the others never guessed it was code. Darla wanted to tell him something but not the cop. She was sending him to kill the people who did this to her and the baby. He had no doubt of it. He leaned closer and she said, "Don't know...never saw from the outside."

Danforth looked disappointed and asked a few more questions but Darla couldn't tell her much beyond telling her what Gene looked like and that they liked to go to the Blue Velvet lounge. When Darla's eyes shut, Angel felt panic tickle up his spine. If she passed out now, he wouldn't know when she'd awaken next. He didn't want to wait until then to find out what Darla wanted to tell him in private. All his questions about how she was here, who brought her back and why would have to wait. Danforth waved him out of the room.

"We'll be releasing a false statement to the press, saying she was killed," Danforth said to him and Buffy and Connor who were still hovering by the door.

"Did you find i.d. on her?" Connor asked.

"No, and we'll list her as Jane Doe. If we put the name Darla Reilly in the papers, they'll know something is up," Danforth said. "We don't want them coming back here to finish her off. She said your son was alive and well when she was separated from him, Connor."

Connor sagged a bit and Angel caught him, putting a steadying hand on his back. "He's alive...oh God."

"Unfortunately she couldn't give us a place to look but we're gathering evidence from where she was dumped. I'm going to meet my partner now and see where it leads us to," Danforth said. "I'll be back later and hopefully Ms. Reilly will be more lucid. If she remembers anything in the meantime..."

"We'll call immediately," Angel broke in on her train of thought.

"Please be sure that you do." She spared Connor a sympathetic look. "This is the best lead we've had, and now we know that your son is alive. Chances are that hasn't changed. He was obviously taken for a reason."

Connor bobbed his head. "Thank you."

Danforth left them. Angel waited until she was well out of sight. "Darla had more to tell me, that she didn't want the detective to know. I just hope she hasn't totally lost consciousness." He spun around to go back into the room.

"Angel," Connor said weakly. "I want to see her."

"Of course."

"It'll be all right," Buffy promised, putting her arm around him, letting Connor lean on her. What she thought about Darla, Angel could only guess. It wasn't good but her insecurities could wait until later.

Angel feared the worst when he got back to the bed side, pushing in amongst all the medical odds and ends. Darla's eyes were shut and her breathing labored. "Darla," he said softly.

Her eyes opened and she managed another soft smile for him. She turned her head and saw Connor. Tears welled as her hand came up, wobbling, questing for him. Connor took her hand so she wouldn't have to strain past injuries and IV tubing. "My baby...so handsome."

"Mom," Connor said, his legs going out completely. Buffy held him up and Angel grabbed the only chair in the room. He set it at the bedside, and Buffy plopped Connor onto it. "Your baby...so beautiful." Darla didn't take her eyes off her son who shook as he wept. "Angel?"

"I know there was more you had to tell me," Angel said.

Darla looked like Atlas when he put the world on Hercules' shoulders. "You remembered. Can barely stay awake... Dawl Irrifletta."

"I'm right here." Angel leaned in close, and Darla whispered what she could remember from her view in the apartment. By the end he could barely hear her. "We'll find him, Darla. Don't worry," he said but she had already drifted away.

Connor tucked her hand under the thin hospital blankets. "Does she know where my son is?" He managed to get up, now more in control of himself.

"She told me where to find her prison. I'll tell you in the car. The only problem, she was too disoriented from being brought back again that she doesn't remember how she got to the place, and she was strangled into unconsciousness by the time they took her out to dump her body."

"So she could only describe what she saw from the window," Buffy said and Angel nodded. "Maybe it'll be enough."

"Let's go."

Once tucked away under a blanket in the back seat, Angel told them everything Darla had remembered, and this time Connor tried to take over the wheel. Buffy refused and Angel was just as glad, given Connor's state of mind. As she drove, Buffy called Dawn so she could start faking an identity for 'cousin Darla.'

"I hope this is it. It looks like what you described," Buffy said after driving aimlessly throughout Madison trying to find the office area. Darla's interior point of view had been difficult to capture from the outside, and they had killed two hours and had three false starts. Buffy pulled into the shadows so Angel could get out.

"There're no cars this time," Connor observed hopefully.

There were no signs of life on the inside either but there were scents mixed in the building of sweat and dust. The building had been emptied out and hastily. They poked around the first floor just long enough to determine the building had been abandoned then decided to go to the third since that was where Darla had thought she was being kept. There was no blood or good scents in the stairwell but that changed when they exited onto the third floor.

Buffy stared at the floor and walls, splattered with blood. "Guess this is where it happened."

Angel tried to ignore the scents of blood and sex and from the look on Connor's face he could tell his son was trying to do the same. "They didn't try to clean this up."

"Why not?" Buffy asked as Connor pushed ahead of them, moving at a frantic pace.

"I think I remember what the Dawl Irrifletta is but I need to check with Giles. I think they were working in the lower floors and this place was Eve's special project. With Darla presumed dead, they cleared out of the lower floors and left Eve to clean up her own mess," Angel said, wanting something to vent his frustrations on.

"He's not here!" Connor's voice came high and hysterical from inside the room at the end of the hall.

Angel and Buffy jogged down to meet him. Connor was in the nursery, holding a little octopus to his chest as he stared at the decorations eerily like the ones he himself had lavished on the nursery in his home. Tears streamed down his face. "He's not here."

Angel tried not to get overwhelmed by the scent of his grandson and his former lover that were ripe and sweet within the apartment. He couldn't talk.

Buffy put a hand on Connor's arm. "They must have moved him...but he's alive, Connor. I know it."

"You don't," he snarled, pulling away from her.

"I do," she snapped back. "Look around. They made a home here. This was... I don't know what, but they put out a lot of effort. They wouldn't kill him now."

"They killed Darla, or they thought they did," Connor argued, clenching the octopus harder, triggering its mechanism. It jiggled and giggled.

"It was an experiment," Angel said slowly. "The Dawl ...I think they're a group of mages and scientists. I need to check with Giles. I don't know how Darla fit into the experiment but she must have been expendable or she did something that made Gene and Eve lose control. Buffy's right, Connor, this tells us Stephen is important to them. They didn't go through all the effort to build this and murder Thalia just to kill your son now."

"And the effort it took to bring back Darla? That had to be even harder, and it didn't protect her," Connor replied, hope fading from his eyes.

"No, but thinking negatively won't help," Buffy said gently, smoothing a hand up and down his arm.

Connor's shoulders drooped. "You're right. But where would they have taken him?"

"There might be clues," Angel said. "We need to search this place."

"Hang on." Buffy opened her purse and rooted past the stakes and holy water to pull out latex gloves. "No fingerprints this way. Faith's always so paranoid about it, with reason, so I started packing them just in case we had to break into some place...like this."

"Smart thinking," Angel said, accepting them.

They all put on the gloves. Connor picked up the toy again, holding it like a life line. They looked at the baby diary on the coffee table but it offered nothing helpful. The entire apartment refused to give up its secrets. When they decided to leave, Connor went back for the baby blanket.

"I want it," he said simply, keeping a tight grip on the blanket and the toy.

Angel took the baby diary. "Darla recorded everything she did with him." He didn't mention that she was calling the baby Liam. "That might be part of what Eve wanted her to do. I'm not leaving it here for the cops to find. It won't help them and it might...I thought you might want it, Connor."

Connor nodded, a thankful look on his face.

Buffy started out then stopped, seeing the condition of the door. "Look." She pointed to the bent hinges. "Darla was trying to escape. That must have been why they tried to kill her."

"We need to know why they brought Darla back," Angel said. "It's so risky. Why would she want to help them? She knew who the baby belonged to. She loved Connor. Gave her life for him. She wouldn't agree to do this to him."

"And it would be easier to pretend the baby was Eve's and hire a nanny or just take him to this i Dawl thingie's lab," Buffy said, mulling it over.

"That might be where to look next," Connor said. "Their lab. This experiment failed. Eve can't take the baby to wherever she's staying. Someone will notice she suddenly has a child. But where would the lab be?"

"I don't know but Giles would be our best bet to get a lead on them," Angel said.

"Then let's go home," Connor said, grimly.

"No, first we go back to the hospital and pretend Darla just woke up and told us all of this. We'll call Danforth. Let them work the crime scene. They might find something that we can't see with the naked eye," Angel said and they carried their treasures out to the car so they could head back to 'mansion hill.'

X X X

"God, why won't this thing shut up?" Eve said, trying to cram a pacifier in the infant's mouth. "Just shut up already, Lindsey."

"We could remove its vocal cords," one of the Dawl scientist's offered, as she finished drawing off another tube of blood from Connor's son. "But we should do the blood work first, see if the subject has any demonic DNA to begin with. This was always the proper place for the subject and not in that social experiment of yours, Eve." The scientist made a disgusted face. "Social science isn't a science, it's more an art form, a waste of time."

"Yes, Jade, you've made your opinion known on this matter more than once," Eve said tiredly. "It would have had much more impact on Angel when he got his grandson back years from now realizing his lover had raised him. Besides, the Dawl wanted to experiment with a twice resurrected woman who had been host to two separate vampire demons. It was a shame she had to force us to exterminate her...if Gene didn't screw that up. He's your man," she reminded the Dawl scientist.

"He's with the Protectorate. None of them are selected for their brains," Jade replied, fixing heart monitors to the baby's chest. "Put him in the crib. We'll see what kind of information we can get from him before we start more invasive tests."

"I don't want him killed," Eve said as Gene came into the lab. "The baby does me no good if he's dead." Eve thought for a moment, realizing it wasn't true. If she buried the baby in Connor's back yard and made an anonymous tip to the cops, they'd probably arrest him for murdering his wife and his own son. That would devastate Angel. She smiled at the thought. She'd keep that plan in reserve.

"We won't kill him. He's an interesting subject," Jade replied distractedly.

"Listen to this." Gene rattled the newspaper he was carrying. "A Jane Doe floater was found in Lake Mendota in the early hours of the morning. The police are putting together a sketch of the woman to put on the news. See? Told you she was dead."

"She was still moaning when you put her in the SUV," Eve shot back. "You should have weighted her down when you tossed her in." Seeing the look of anger on Gene's face, Eve figured she needed to placate him before she was the next floater. "But I guess no harm, no foul. Let's get out of here. I can't stand this noise. Keep me informed if you find anything, Jade."

The scientist didn't even look at Eve. "Of course."

Eve fished the pacifier out of the crib and shoved it back into the howling baby's mouth. "Shut up you little monster." She took Gene's arm and dragged him out of the room, realizing that she no longer really needed him. It might be time for him to die as well because she could see too many scenarios when it might be him or her.