Author's Note: As every, a big thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read and review. Your kind words mean a lot to me and I'm glad that people are still enjoying the story. You guys rock.

A big thank you to 'J', who posted a nice, long review (twice, in fact). Thankyou for your support. You had a couple of concerns which I want to address for you. You're worried about the balancing demons involvement in the war and the Lorne/Angel situation - as I mentioned in my note before the last chapter, there is so much going on in these stories with so many characters that it takes a while to get round them all. The demons will feature in this chapter and the reasons that some (not all) are so willing to fight will become clear. As for Lorne and Angel, it's something that isn't going to go away any time soon, mainly because Lorne isn't really ready to deal with it. He's being eaten up inside and, in truth, he hates himself as much as he hates Angel over what happened with Lindsey. Again, we get some more Lorne action in this chapter as well...

So, thats it and on with chapter 11. Please Please Please drop me a line and tell me what you think...

CHAPTER ELEVEN: ... BEFORE THE PLUNGE

'Tonight?' a very worried Giles repeated, immediately taking off his glasses and cleaning them vigorously.

The lobby had suddenly become as silent as a tomb as everyone present processed this new and very unsettling information. Unconsciously, several people glanced at their watches. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Dark would come in a little over four hours.

'What exactly did you see?' Giles wanted to know. 'The war will begin tonight?'

'I just saw pieces. I feel like there's more to it, but…' Cordy closed her eyes, desperately willing her mind to fill in the blanks, to see the rest of the vision. But it was of no use. The rest of the puzzle wouldn't reveal itself to her. 'There was a battle. Fear. Death. I sensed the forces of evil would make their first move tonight… And…' she trailed off, uncertain of how to put the rest of her vision into words.

'Cordy?' Angel asked softly. He had said nothing since they came upstairs to tell the others about Cordelia's vision. He had been going over and over the information, trying to make sense of it. Not just the words, but the look that had etched itself onto the Seer's beautiful face during the vision. She had looked… haunted. He knew, without knowing how, that Cordy was barely scratching the surface of what had been revealed to her in the vision.

She hung her head and looked at the floor, afraid to give him her eyes, afraid of what he would see there. Tentatively, not wanting to push her but knowing he had to all the same; he placed his hand below her chin and raised her eyes to his.

'Tell me.'

Cordy opened her mouth and took a deep breath. At first the words wouldn't come, so she took another desperate gulp of air. 'I saw myself somewhere… a room… I recognized it, somehow. But… I'm not sure where it was. I don't know what it means. But I feel… I feel like it's a big piece of the puzzle.'

'Give yourself time. You'll figure it out,' he told her gently.

'Angel,' Cordy shook her head. 'We just ran out of time.'

Buffy was the first to recover from these new revelations. She had realized that the battle would be soon, but she had never imagined… They needed to move quickly. 'Cordelia's right. Time is a luxury we no longer have. We know the enemy has been gathering in town. We need to know where. How many.'

'Recon,' Faith jumped in, reading Buffy's mind. 'I'll go. And I'll take the kid,' she jutted her chin in Connor's direction. 'He's a good tracker, if memory serves.'

Giles nodded his approval and turned to Willow. 'Willow, have you pinpointed where the portals from demon dimensions have been opening recently? That would give Faith and Connor an area to start from.'

Willow nodded and went to the desk, where she retrieved a map of downtown LA. Spreading it out on the counter, she showed her findings to the group.

'The strongest concentration of portal manifestations has been in these areas,' she told them, pointing to six large red dots she had drawn on the map.

Angel recognized the area the portals were circling. 'They're all centered around the Wolfram and Hart building,' he remarked. 'No surprise there then…'

'So that's where we'll start,' Faith announced, grabbing her crossbow and a dagger. 'Ready kid?' she asked Connor. He nodded and went to the weapons cabinet to load up.

'Faith,' Buffy walked up to the dark-haired Slayer with a serious, big-sisterly expression on her face. 'Do not engage. Just get a head count and get back here.'

'Stop worrying B,' Faith grinned. 'You'll get wrinkles.'

Connor finished stocking up on stakes, a knife and a small axe and turned to join Faith at the door. Angel stepped into his path. 'Be careful.'

Connor gave his father a confident smile. 'I will.'

Cordy paced Angel's bedroom, muttering with frustration to no one except the four walls.

'Think Cor. Think!' she said, incessantly pacing. 'What else was the vision telling you?'

She shut her eyes and focused. She could see the battle again… but that wasn't what she needed to see. In her mind's eye, she transported herself to that room. She was alone. Isolated. Afraid… Where was she?'

Infuriated with herself, she flung herself backwards onto Angel's bed. The palms of her hands kneaded her closed eyes, making her see white spots. What wasn't she seeing?

She focused on the room itself, trying to ignore the horrible fear that overloaded her system when she pictured herself in it. Markings on the wall. She hadn't noticed them before… Markings, in a strange language. A faint glow came from one corner. Torchlight, maybe? A table, several feet away. With… with books on top of it.

Bits and pieces of information were coming back to her now, but nothing told her where the room in her vision was. Or what significance it held to the upcoming battle. But she knew. She knew that the room was familiar to herIf only…

Then it hit her. The solution. If she held this information within her mind, there was one person she knew could gain access to it.

'We have no business being here,' Drask, a member of the Lister clan was saying. 'This is not our war.'

The four demon clans had withdrawn to the ballroom, now protected by the witch's spell. Most planned to make sure their children and those women who would not be fighting were settled in, and then they would prepare for war. Others still wanted to flee.

Farque, an Anomovic demon stepped forward. 'I agree. The forces of Wolfram and Hart may be here in a matter of hours. We should leave this city while we still have time.'

'And go where?' Rieff demanded to know. 'They have chased us for years. No matter where we go, where we hide, they find us!'

There were murmurs of agreement from among the ranks of the Listers and the Brachen demons.

'There are places we've heard of,' Farque said. 'Safe havens where they will not find us…'

'You think we haven't tried that?' Karte, a Brachen demon, asked angrily. 'We have run to so many different so-called 'safe havens', hoping for salvation. And they still hunted us.'

'My people fled to Briole,' Rieff told them. 'We thought we were safe there. But the Scourge found us. Slaughtered half our clan. They will always find us.'

'You saw how the humans looked at us,' Gratt, an Anomovic demon protested. 'They do not want to help us. And why should we help them in this battle? It's not out concern. Farque is right. We should flee.'

Maret, another Brachen, spoke up. 'You don't understand. You have not suffered what we have suffered. The Anomovics have been able to assimilate into the human world. Hide, to a certain extent. The Kwainis have remained underground, mostly untroubled by the human and demon worlds. Your clans have been left alone by the Scourge until now. We have had to watch countless family members murdered at the hands of the 'pure bloods'.'

'My clan leader, my sister, my parents… I watched them all die at the hand of the Scourge,' Rieff told the doubters of the group. 'This is not our war? Aren't our people being attacked by the same enemy as the humans? Don't we walk in the same world as them? Do we want to see this evil spread, so that there is no safe place for us to raise our families? Don't we want to live in peace?'

'We are non-violent,' a member of the Kwaini clan finally spoke up. 'We do not belong in war. What can we possibly do to help?'

'I used to believe that,' Rieff replied. 'I used to believe that there was nothing I could do to change the way the world was. I used to be bitter, hating the humans for hating me. I believed that the only place I had in this world was to be alone. To forsake the company of my own people, to avoid the company of other demons and humans. To keep to the shadows, believing in nothing. Belonging to nothing. Another half-breed taught me otherwise.'

An Anomovic demon snorted. 'Your legendary 'Savior'. The 'Chosen One'.'

'That's right.'

'He's dead!'

Several members of both the Lister and Brachen clans stood up at this, infuriated by the disrespect in his tone.

'He was a hero!' a Brachen demon yelled.

'He saved us!' cried a Lister.

'Doyle gave his life fighting back the forces of darkness,' Rieff told them. 'Either we can be prepared to do the same, for the sake of our futures and that of our families; or we can choose to run. To walk away from this battle. The choice is there for everyone in this room. No one here can be forced to fight, if their hearts are not in it.'

He looked around the room, taking in the mixture of fear, apprehension, bravery, anger, uncertainty and conviction that shone in the eyes of everyone present. 'I wish we could go back to our normal, peaceful lives. I wish we weren't standing on the edge of this war. But we are… There are less than four hours until sunset. If you do not want to be part of this, if you wish to continue to run, then I suggest you do so before the sun goes down.'

Faith and Connor looked down on the ruins of the Wolfram and Hart building from a neighboring rooftop. And what they looked upon was far from comforting. Literally thousands of demons covered the ruined building, having set up some kind of make-shift demon camp site.

'So, uh…' Faith looked over the scene, feeling a little overwhelmed. 'I don't think I can count that high… How many do you think are down there?'

'Any number I come up with is just gonna scare the crap out of everyone back at the hotel,' Conner commented quietly. 'There's a lot…'

Movement near the road attracted Faith's gaze. 'What's happening down there?'

Several army trucks had pulled up, and a number of demons in fatigues, looking vaguely like Nazis, Faith mused, were loading something into the back of one of the trucks. While the rest of the demons around the encampment seemed to be taking it easy, the army demons seemed to be mobilizing.

'The first wave?' Connor suggested. As he spoke, around a hundred demons, all in similar uniforms, marched towards the trucks.

Faith nodded. 'Looks like,' she agreed. 'Let's get back to the hotel and let the others know.'

Buffy faced her troops, Angel at her side. For a moment she remembered the last vampire who stood at her side prior to battle – and she couldn't believe that it was over a year since she last marched into war with Spike at her side. Her heart ached for the fallen vampire. But she had no time to indulge her emotions at this moment. Time was running out fast.

'I know this battle has suddenly been sprung on us,' she told the assembled Slayers. 'But we've know it was coming for while now. We just didn't know when. Now we know. This is what we've trained for. We're ready. What I need you all to do now is know it too. Know that you're ready. Believe it.'

She looked from face to face of her army. She hadn't met all of them yet. She only knew a handful of their names. But she knew that they would give their heart and soul to this fight. It was their birth right.

'Now, rest up while you can. Keep your weapons close at hand.'

Cordelia found Lorne in his old room. Normally bustling about, full of energy and humming some Motown tune or other, she was surprised to find him staring out his window pensively. Almost… broodingly?

'Lorne?'

He turned, surprised, plastering on a big, fake smile as soon as he saw her. 'Hey, princess. What's up?'

'You tell me,' she told him. 'I need a reading.'

Lorne sighed. 'I'm not really in the mood, sweetie…'

'Get in the mood,' Cordy told him urgently. 'We've officially run out of time and options. I had a vision, and I need to know what it means.'

'Cordelia…' a twinge of annoyance in his voice.

'Lorne,' she said, her voice urging him to look at her. When he didn't she crossed the room and made him, placing her hand on his shoulder and physically turning him round to face her. 'What's wrong?'

He started to speak, to tell her 'nothing's wrong', but she was on to him. 'And don't give me the 'nothing's wrong' brush off, because I'm not biting. I don't need a vision to sense when something's wrong. Now talk to me.'

'I don't want to talk about it, Cordy,' Lorne told her, walking away.

'Here's the deal, Lorne. A lot of us are having issues right now. And in an ideal world, we'd all sit down and sort through them before going into this battle,' Cordy sighed, thinking of her own, unresolved issues. They were still there, haunting her. But she had to put them to one side. For now. 'Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. Bad things are coming. Tonight. So I need you to give me the quick and nasty version, get it off your chest and then afterwards, if we survive the apocalypse this time, I swear I'll help you deal properly.'

Before he could talk himself out of it, he turned to her and blurted it out. 'Angel asked me to kill Lindsey after he completed his mission. And I did. In cold blood.'

Cordelia was stunned. Whatever she had been expecting, this certainly wasn't it. She had sensed a vibe between Angel and Lorne since they had arrived back at the hotel. A coldness. A distance, mainly emanating from the Pylean. Now she knew why.

'God. Lorne,' Cordelia stammered, not really knowing what to say. 'It… it was your…?'

'First kill?' Lorne said, no small amount of bitterness in his voice. 'Yeah. It was.'

'I'm sorry,' Cordy told him. 'Angel…'

'What? Had his reasons?' Lorne sighed angrily, trying to regain his composure. 'Look, Princess. I'm angry at him and I'm angry at myself. Wet works weren't what I signed on for and I… And I really don't want to talk about this… Sing.'

Cordelia was confused. 'What?'

'You came in here to sing. So sing.'

Faith and Connor returned to the hotel to find their army assembled and ready for battle. In their absence, Buffy had trebled the guards around the exterior of the hotel. Several Slayers also stood sentry at each of the hotel's main entrances and ten more waited on the rooftop, to guard against an aerial assault.

Almost fifty demons stood at one side of the lobby, armed and ready. At the other side of the lobby, and spilling out into the gardens, where the battalion of street fighters under Rondell's command.

'Faith,' Buffy greeted her sister Slayer. 'What do you have for us?'

'A whole mess of trouble,' the dark-haired Slayer replied. 'There are a lot of demons hanging round the Wolfram and Hart building.'

'How many?' Angel wanted to know.

'A lot,' Faith emphasized. 'We're talking Helm's Deep, at the very least. But the interesting thing is, they don't seem ready to move out.'

'Cordy's vision said it was going to happen tonight,' Angel insisted.

Faith shrugged. 'Something's happening tonight, alright. Around a hundred, a hundred and fifty demons are gearing up to come here.'

'What kind of demons?' Giles asked.

'Didn't get a real good look,' Faith replied. 'Dressed in army fatigues, marching in step, like some group of weird demon-Nazis.'

'Their faces were really messed up,' Connor added. 'Sort of stitched together.'

'The Scourge,' a soft, terrified voice said from the stairway.

Angel looked up to see Cordelia, her face frozen in horror. Only a moment ago, she had been descending the stairs, frustrated by the fact that she still couldn't tap into the rest of her vision. Lorne had no success in reading her either. Whatever she wasn't remembering, it was buried and would come 'in its own good time', Lorne had told her.

All of that was forgotten the second she heard Faith and Connor describing the demons that were about to attack. It could only be one group. She recognized the description instantly, her nightmares having been focused on them numerous times in the past. Now they were back.

'Angel,' she said fearfully. 'It's them.'

Angel nodded grimly, walking to the foot of the stairs to meet Cordy and to put a reassuring arm around her. 'It'll be alright. There's only a hundred or so. There are more than two hundred of us. Odds are in our favor.'

'The odds are stacked. In their favor,' she told him. 'What if they have another beacon?'

'They won't…' Angel told her, not even remotely convincingly.

'Come one, Angel. They have to know what size our army is. They wouldn't send that many demons against us without some serious firepower.'

Giles, Buffy and the others were looking on, confused and intrigued.

'What's this beacon thing?' Buffy asked. 'A weapon?'

Cordy nodded, tears forming at the memory. A flash of light. A final leap. A scream of agony as his disintegrating hands disconnected the cable, saving everyone on the ship. Except himself.

'Its light kills anything with human blood,' she said, trying desperately to keep her voice from shaking. 'Humans, half-demons, vampires…'

'If it detonates, it could kill everyone within a quarter mile radius,' Angel added.

'Good Lord,' Giles exclaimed. 'You've seen this weapon in action?'

Angel nodded.

'How did you stop it?'

'I didn't,' Angel replied quietly. 'Doyle did. That's how he died.'

Buffy turned to Willow. 'Will, research mode. Try and find a magical way to stop the beacon. Dawn. Give her a hand,' she turned from her sister to her Watcher. 'Giles. We're running short on time. Have you gotten anything else about the prophecy?'

Angel, Cordelia and Connor gathered closer to hear what Giles had to say. 'Everything is still rather vague,' the Englishman began. 'There are references to traveling to a 'holy place', the 'origin' 'the meeting of the two suns'… And I found a random collection of letters, which don't seem to make any sense at all…'

'Letters?' Angel asked, frowning at the parchment that Giles was translating from.

'Random consonants…' Giles began, but he was interrupted by a scream.

Cordelia clutched at her head as the vision hit her. She saw the beacon, glowing. Ready to detonate. Then, it seemed like time sped forward. She saw Angel, Connor and herself leading a small group towards a swirling pool of light. She saw green fields and trees and a temple, high on a hill. She saw books. Three books, in a chamber lit by candles. She saw herself, alone in a room. This time, however, she knew exactly where she was…

She came out of the vision to find herself in Angel's arms. She had fallen when the vision hit her and, as ever, her hero had caught her. She looked up to see worry in his eyes.

'Cordy?' he asked. 'You okay?'

Shaking off the residual pain and fuzziness that filled her head, and ignoring the nagging worry that her last two visions had hurt far more than they should have, she sat up urgently. 'Angel! I know where we have to go…'

Her revelation was cut short by a Slayer running into the lobby, shouting a warning. Almost instantly she was followed by another, thrown head-first through the glass of the hotel's front door and landing, unconscious in front of them.

To Be Continued...