Chapter Two

A particularly large jolt woke Doyle. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb and lifted his head away from the window. Blinking, he rubbed the side of his face. His skin was sticky where it had pressed against the glass. He straightened in his seat, his neck and back protesting his choice of sleeping position.

Still rubbing his temple, Doyle looked out the window. The landscape was exactly the same as it had been when he fell asleep—he checked his watch—three hours ago. He had the strange feeling that the bus was on a giant treadmill, rolling and bouncing but never gaining any ground.

He remembered this empty expanse of scrub brush from his last cross-country bus trip five years ago, and it wasn't any more exciting this time around. Everything was brown and dusty, and he missed the lush green of Atlanta, with its trees and flowers and overall excess of foliage. He missed his small, snug apartment and the polished wood of the pub's bar, and he wondered if he'd ever see them again, now that the Powers That Be had once again decided his life was theirs to do with as they pleased. After the vision, he'd stuck around long enough to wheedle out of his lease and convince Jack that despite the fact he was quitting with no notice whatsoever, he really did deserve to get that last paycheck. And now he was on his way back to L.A. in an eerie echo of his exodus half a decade ago. The only difference was that he had a real suitcase this time and a checking account instead of a wad of cash.

Looking again at his watch, Doyle decided they were probably in New Mexico. In four hours they'd stop in Phoenix, and he'd change buses for the last leg of this marathon trip to L.A. At which point he fully intended to get a hotel room and sleep for sixteen hours straight.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the monotonous scenery, and leaned his head back against the seat. He couldn't decide how he felt about returning to the City of Angels, a name that, in his opinion, no longer applied. For him, at least, L.A. before Angel had been a dark place. With Angel, there was a ray of hope. But now?

He supposed that was why he was going back—to bring another ray of hope to the city.

Of course, he had to find the kid first. And the PTB, per their usual modus operandi, weren't being at all helpful. The vision had shown him little more than that Connor existed and that his life had sucked to an extent Doyle could hardly comprehend. With Angel, they'd at least shown him where the vampire lived. This time, he'd just have to hit all the old demon haunts, asking questions and trying not to get the snot beat out of him by something big and ugly. He hoped the Powers were having fun; he certainly wouldn't be.

Not quite believing himself, he silently willed another vision to hit, preferably one that included an address. But instead of mind-numbing pain, he felt something bounce off his lower leg. He opened his eyes.

"I'm sorry," the woman sitting next to him said, blushing slightly. "I dropped my pen, and it rolled…"

"No problem," Doyle said, bending down to pick up the runaway pen from where it lay between his feet. He handed it back to her.

"Thank you," she said. She paused a moment, then asked, "Did you sleep well?"

"Not really," he replied, smiling. "Did I snore?"

She laughed. "No, no." She flipped the pen in her hand so that it wove through her fingers and looked at him with interest. "Where are you from?"

"Atlanta." He tried to keep the amusement out of his smile as her forehead furrowed in confusion.

"Oh."

"Before that, L.A. And a long while before that, Ireland."

She brightened. "I thought so." She looked down at the notebook in her lap, fiddled with her pen some more, and asked, "Where are you headed?" When he didn't answer right away, she looked up at him, eyes wide. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No," he interrupted, "it's all right. I was just trying to figure out how to explain it." She watched him quietly while he searched for the words. "A…a good friend of mine died a few weeks ago, and I'm going to L.A. to find his son. I need…there's something of his father's I have that I need to give him. A legacy of sorts, I guess."

"Oh," she said in a small voice. "Wow. I—I'm sorry about your friend."

Doyle nodded and gave her a small smile.

"I'm Tina," she said.

"Alan," he returned after a fraction of a pause. He leaned his head back against the seat and looked at her. It was four hours to Albuquerque, and scrub brush couldn't talk. "Where are you headed, Tina?"

"Wait," Katie said, frowning, her fork forgotten in midair. "I thought L.A. was at the top of our No Go list."

Faith watched syrup drip off the mini-stack of pancakes speared on Katie's fork. Everyone else in the diner was eating cheeseburgers, chili, and slices of cherry pie, but the three girls in the window booth were devouring pancakes and waffles. At least, Katie and Elena were devouring their pancakes. Faith's fruit-slathered waffle was only missing two squares. Her insides were humming too loudly to eat.

"It is," she said, "but I have to go. And since you're stuck with me, you have to go, too."

Katie shoved the dripping forkful of pancakes in her mouth and said around them, "Hey, I've never been, so I'm all for it. I just thought we were trying to keep a low profile, is all, and since the last time you were in L.A. you made with the assault and battery…"

Faith took long drink of the diner's sludge-like coffee to hide a twitch. She still wasn't sure why she'd lied to them. No, that wasn't true—she knew exactly why she'd lied to them. She wanted to be worthy of being their leader. She wanted to be accepted. A murderer would be neither of those things. So she'd spun a tale about how she was drunk one night at a club, and some guy had groped her without her express permission. She'd had a bad night slaying—hadn't been able to save someone—and had snapped. She hit him, then hit him again, and then kept hitting him. His buddies had tried to pull her off him, and she'd beaten the hell out of them, then out of the club's bouncers, and then out of half a dozen police officers. She'd woken the next morning with a killer headache and a hefty load of guilt. And when she saw in the paper that the groper was in a coma and several of her other victims were in traction, she'd turned herself in.

As a story, it was too neat, too easy, and completely unbelievable, but Katie had merely mumbled something about perverts and cops and accepted it. Elena had given her a long look but had never questioned her, and for the first time in years, Faith had enjoyed the company of people who weren't just waiting for her to go bad again.

"Does this have anything to do with the phone call you made to Buffy last night?" Elena asked.

Katie looked from Elena to Faith and back again and said, "Huh?"

"I had a dream," Faith said.

Katie's eyes widened. She dropped her fork and leaned forward, her chest nearly in her plate. "A Slayer dream? Really? That's so wicked!"

Elena crossed herself and whispered something in Spanish.

"So?" Katie demanded. "What was it about? Something big coming to kill us all?" She looked excited at the prospect.

"Nah," Faith said, setting the coffee cup down. "Just gotta find someone." She told them about Angel. About his soul and how he helped Buffy then moved to L.A. to fight for the good guys.

"Were you in love with him?" Katie asked suspiciously.

Faith laughed. "That was Buffy's territory. Angel was just a good friend. He was there for me when no one else was." If there was one thing she'd mastered, it was the art of casual understatement.

"So we're going to find Angel?" Elena asked.

"Hang on," Katie said, waving her hands. "Buffy was in love with a vampire?"

Faith smirked. "Two of 'em. Pokes a bit of a hole in her goody-two-shoes act, don't it?"

Katie's face seemed stuck between an open-mouthed gape and a glower.

"And to answer your question," Faith said, nodding to Elena, "Angel's dead. We need to find his son."

She couldn't have shocked them more fully if she'd lunged across the table and sunk her teeth into their necks.

"Wait, wait, wait," Katie started, her face having slipped into a solid frown. "I remember learning that vampires couldn't have kids. I know we learned that. Right?"

Elena nodded, looking sad. "I don't think that's possible, Faith."

Faith sighed. "Everyone keeps sayin' that, but that's what the dream said: find Angel's kid."

"Maybe it was a metaphor," Katie said. "Maybe we're supposed to, I don't know, water his plant or something."

Faith glared at her. "His plant named Connor?"

"Okay, so we feed his dog."

"Angel didn't have a dog."

"How do you know?"

"Because I knew him."

"Did he have a son?"

"Obviously."

"So you've seen him?"

Faith paused. "No."

Elena jumped in. "When was the last time you saw Angel?"

"A year ago, give or take."

"Then his son must be a baby. Otherwise you'd have already known he existed, right?"

Faith thought about that for a second, then shook her head. "I don't think it's a baby. In the dream, he was grown up. Well, he was a baby, but then he grew up. Angel said he was lost."

Elena looked confused. "But if he's not a baby, then you'd know about him, wouldn't you?"

Faith shrugged.

"Angel told you about the kid?" Katie's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did you stop to think that maybe this wasn't a Slayer dream at all? That maybe you just miss your…friend, and your subconscious created this crazy son thing to give you something to cling to?"

Faith glared at her. She had wondered exactly that, if she wasn't grasping at ridiculous straws simply to still have something of Angel, but somehow she knew it was the real thing. "It didn't feel like a dream," she bit out. "It felt real. Like I was there. Like a vision or something."

Katie leaned back and crossed her arms. "I don't wanna baby-sit some blood-sucking demon spawn."

Faith placed both hands on the table and leaned forward as far as she could. She stared coldly at Katie. "That's the last time you ever insult Angel in my presence. Or his son."

She stood. "Come on. We're going to L.A."

Doyle shifted in his chair for the fifth time in two minutes. As much as they charged for bus tickets, one would think they could afford decent chairs in the stations. He should have flown. He'd have been in L.A. a day earlier, and he wouldn't need to see a chiropractor.

He squinted out the window. What little he had seen of Phoenix looked nice, he supposed. A typical smog-hazy city, if hotter and drier than most. The dryness wouldn't be so bad, he thought. After five years in Atlanta, he still hadn't gotten used to the humidity. Maybe he never would.

The boarding call for his bus came over the P.A. system, and he stiffly levered himself out of his chair. He wheeled his small suitcase outside and snagged a place near the front of the line. He was digging through his jacket pocket for his ticket when the words "Angel's son" broke through his station-chatter filter.

He froze, his hand in pocket, and listened hard.

A girl a few people behind him said, "I mean, we don't even know if he exists—he certainly shouldn't. And I don't like that you haven't told Giles where we're going." She sounded young.

Another girl, this one with a husky smoker's voice, said, "Since when do you care about following the rules?"

Doyle peeked over his shoulder. Behind him was an elderly couple in matching Hawaiian shirts, but behind them stood three girls. He scanned them quickly, trying to memorize what they looked like in a couple of seconds.

The tall one had short, somewhat spiky hair that was neither red nor brown but lost somewhere in between. Her face was sharp, and her hands were shoved into the pockets of her jeans. She slouched in a way he thought was meant to look casually confident, but came across as though she were overly self-conscious of her height.

The brunette in the middle had her arms crossed and seemed to be winning a glaring contest with the tall one. He figured she was in charge. She looked older and slightly exotic. She was dressed similarly to the tall one: jeans, tight shirt, and a jacket, though hers was leather whereas the tall one's was denim.

Standing slightly behind the brunette was a small Hispanic girl who looked about thirteen. Her clothes were too big, and she fidgeted with the front of her t-shirt. Her face was soft and round, and she glanced anxiously between the other two girls. All three of them had duffle bags slung over their shoulders. The brunette's was one of the huge ones you could get at Army surplus stores, big enough to stash a body in.

Doyle turned around and pulled his ticket out of his pocket.

"Please," said the Hispanic girl, her accent confirming English was her second language. "We are nearly on the bus. We can call Mr. Giles from L.A."

The husky voice—the brunette—drawled, "Oh, Buffy's probably told him all about my dream by now. They probably had a good laugh about how pathetic and crazy I am."

Doyle tripped as he moved forward in line and nearly dropped his ticket. Buffy.

He closed his eyes and focused. He'd been practicing for five years to control his demon half so he could determine when he changed and how much. Once he had managed to sneeze and stay human. Once—he still needed some work. He had figured out how to access his enhanced sense of smell without turning into a blue pincushion, though, and he took advantage of it now.

New odors tickled his nostrils—the couple behind him owned a cat, and the woman in front of him was in the height of her monthly cycle—and he inhaled deeply.

He smelled Power. A lot of it. Enough to make him dizzy.

His eyes flew open, and he nearly lost control and went into full demon mode in the middle of a crowded bus station. Which would be doubly bad, as there were three Slayers standing six feet away.

Three Slayers.

He'd heard the rumors, but had never truly believed them. Who in the world was powerful enough to alter the entire structure of the Slayer's existence and populate the world with them? It was ludicrous. It was also, apparently, true. The proof was behind him in the guise of three bickering girls.

"Sir? Your ticket?"

Doyle blinked. A woman was frowning at him, her hand held out.

He smiled and handed her his ticket. "Yeah," he said. "More tired than I thought, I guess."

"Uh huh," she said, scanning his ticket. "Aren't we all? Enjoy your trip." She didn't sound like she meant it, but he didn't have time to worry about cranky Greyhound employees.

He tossed his suitcase into the luggage hold beneath the bus and dashed up the stairs, heading for the seats in the back. He slid up against the window and watched the Slayers board the bus. They sat too far forward for him to hear, but that didn't stop him from staring at the back of their heads until the bus was out of the city, and he realized how suspicious he was acting. This was a nonstop trip; they couldn't go anywhere until they got to L.A.

Where Connor was.

Doyle looked out the window, his mind racing. If these Slayers were looking for Connor—why? Did they want to recruit him? Should he introduce himself, explain his own purpose? He hoped that was it, but he couldn't forget what he had seen of Connor's life in his vision. How he had fought with Angel and against him. Tried to kill him. The anger, the pain, the fear. The unpredictability. The danger he represented.

Had they been sent to kill him, to eliminate a potential threat? The tall one said that they hadn't told Mr. Giles where they were going. Were they rogue Slayers? Did he even want to think about that?

Doyle closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the window glass, wishing it were cool. If they were after Connor, he'd have to find the boy first and protect him somehow. He wasn't sure how he'd do that, or even if the boy would need him to, but the Powers had given him a mission, and he wasn't going to fail.

Not again.