Chapter Six

Doyle hunched over his drink, watching the liquid swirl as he moved the glass in small circles over the surface of the bar. He'd spent the day trying to come up with a brilliant argument to convince Connor to throw himself into the Good Fight, but somehow he doubted "chicks dig superheroes" would work, even at Connor's age. He'd used all his good reasons already—fulfilling Angel's legacy, because people needed his help, because he'd been born for a reason, because the Powers That Be said so—and Connor had neatly shot them down, saying that Angel hadn't wanted him to live that life, so he wasn't going to.

And then he had gently but firmly closed the door in Doyle's face.

Doyle lifted his head and stared in the mirror behind the bar. Why were there always mirrors behind the rows and rows of liquor bottles? Most people who went to bars wanted to forget who they were, not be reminded every time they looked up. Maybe it was a sales gimmick; seeing themselves in the mirror prompted more drinking. It was certainly working in Doyle's case. He'd apparently forgotten to comb his hair that morning, as one side was flat against his head, while the other side stuck out in unruly licks. He looked paler than usual, almost vampiric. He supposed that was handy, as he was in a demon bar. Made him fit in a little better. But then, vampires didn't have reflections, so it didn't really work.

Doyle sighed and knocked back half his drink, wondering what he was doing here anyway. There were dozens of perfectly decent human bars a few blocks away, but he'd taken the time to hunt down a demon establishment. He told himself it was professional interest, that he was casing the San Francisco demon population, trying to get a feel for things.

"Casing." Who did he think he was, Philip Marlowe? He should just invest in a fedora and a trench coat and start calling women "dames."

Judging by the fact that he wasn't sure what number this drink was, his presence in a demon bar had less to do with investigative aspirations and more to do with resurfacing bad habits.

He stared down at the remains of his drink, the amber liquid looking increasingly inviting. Demon whiskey always had an extra kick to it, some mysterious flavor he couldn't identify and was afraid to ask about. He hadn't had any in years.

He pushed the glass away and stood, catching onto the bar with one hand to steady himself as his head momentarily spun. When he was certain of his balance, he took a step away from the bar and turned, nearly smashing his nose into the furry chest of something much, much taller than he was.

Doyle jumped half a step backward and tilted his head up, the whiskey churning in his stomach.

The churlach demon squinted down at him, snout wriggling. "Doyle," it said, its voice rumbling out from its chest.

Doyle swallowed. "Hi, Grot. Nice to see you again. When did you move up here?"

Grot waved a massive, clawed hand, and Doyle ducked slightly out of reflex. "You disappear," it rumbled. "Still owe me money."

Doyle tried to look shocked and horrified. The horror came more easily. "You mean you didn't get my package? I left a package with Deng for you before I left." He looked quickly around the bar, praying Deng wasn't here as well. He didn't see any more churlachs, but that wasn't all that comforting. One was enough. "I swear. I can't believe he didn't give it to you."

Grot paused for a moment. "Deng dead."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Doyle said quickly. "What happened?"

"Train."

Doyle flinched. "Err…tragic." But not surprising. Deng hadn't been that smart.

"You owe money," Grot said.

"Oh, of course, not a problem." Doyle inched to the side, trying to circle around the churlach enough to make a break for the door. Churlachs were big, but they weren't all that fast. "Look, I've only got change on me at the moment, but I can run back to my hotel and get what I owe you. How much was it again?" The last bus out of town was at 10:30. He could take a cab to the hotel, get his stuff, and—

Grot swept out a hand, catching Doyle in the shoulder and smashing him back into the bar. He grabbed onto it with both hands, trying to stay on his feet. The whiskey was affecting his head again.

"Not leave," Grot said. "Disappear again."

Grot, apparently, was smarter then Deng.

"What do we have here?" a new voice said. A woman's voice. Human. Which in a demon bar could only mean one thing.

Doyle slowly pushed himself upright, trying to figure out why the voice sounded familiar. Grot had turned, presenting Doyle with its massive back, exhibiting that it considered him completely harmless. He'd have been offended if it weren't true.

His brain began to function again, and Doyle placed the voice: the exotic, lead Slayer he'd seen at the bus station in Phoenix. If she was here, that meant she'd found Connor. Doyle's head cleared almost instantly. He looked at the bar entrance, waiting for her two companions to show up, but she seemed to be alone. He wasn't sure what that meant. Were they injured? Had they attacked Connor, and the boy had managed to take them out of the fight? If this Slayer was here, was Connor even still alive?

"So, wolfie," the Slayer said, "I see you're pounding on something a lot smaller than you."

"Not wolf," Grot snarled. "Werewolf vermin." He punctuated this statement with something remarkably like a bark.

"Looked in a mirror lately? There's one right behind you. You look awful wolfy to me."

Grot snarled again.

"Anyway," the Slayer continued, "you're pounding on something. I want to pound on something. And you look more fun than your prey, there."

There was a pause as the Slayer and demon stared each other down, and Doyle slowly backed away, trying to circle around the confrontation and reach the door. The other patrons of the bar—few this early—stared with interest and a complete lack of concern at what promised to be a good show. Doyle managed to move far enough for the Slayer to become visible around Grot's massive, quivering back, and he started to feel hopeful. If they just kept each distracted for a few more seconds, a few more steps, he'd have a clear path to the door.

The Slayer raised a hand and pointed at him without taking her eyes off the demon. "You won't make it six steps before there's a stake in your back," she said calmly, obviously enjoying herself.

Doyle froze, made his decision, and raised his hands in surrender. "I belie—"

Grot attacked.

The Slayer sidestepped, bringing her fists above her head and clasping them together as she spun, then slamming them into Grot's neck as it lunged past her. Grot stumbled, and the Slayer followed with a kick to his lower back. Grot's head hit the wall, and its body hit the floor. The Slayer advanced, her strides long and confident.

"Aww, did the puppy bump its head?" she asked.

Grot, in the process of pushing itself off the ground, swung a long arm behind itself and smashed its fist into the Slayer's face, whipping her head to the side and knocking her back a step. The moment it took her to regain her equilibrium was all Grot needed to get to its feet.

One of the Slayer's hands came up to touch her cheekbone. "All right," she said with a grin and a nod, "puppy wants to play."

Grot lunged again, but was stopped in midair by the Slayer's fist. Her strike knocked the demon sideways, and it fell to its hands and knees, its head scarcely a foot from Doyle's shoes. Doyle leapt back. The last thing he wanted right now was to get dragged into this fight. What he needed was a way to check on Connor.

The Slayer shook her hand. "Man, you've got a hard head." She turned the dazed churlach onto its back with her boot, then straddled it. She punched it three more times with the same fist, then straightened and shook her hand out again.

"Well, that was fun," she said to the unconscious demon, "but way too easy."

Doyle wondered if he should try for the door again, but considering she had just pulverized a churlach demon in less than twenty seconds, he figured he'd last about three. Running was out, but maybe he could play the victim angle. That wouldn't take too much acting; if she hadn't shown up, he'd be the one unconscious on the floor.

"Thanks," he said, giving her his most endearing smile. "I don't think I'd have done nearly as well against him."

The Slayer stared at him, her aching hand forgotten at her side. Doyle's smile faltered.

"You're Irish," she said.

He swallowed. "Err, yes."

She crossed the distance between them impossibly fast. Her hand fastened onto his jacket collar and yanked, pulling him off his feet. She dragged him toward the bar exit.

"Hey!" Doyle shouted, his feet scrambling against the floor, his hands against her grip. Neither were effective.

As she dragged him over the threshold, one of the demons in a booth across the room waved jauntily. Then he was outside and the Slayer was tossing him into the street.

Doyle grunted as he hit the pavement and rolled. He pushed himself to his feet and angrily demanded, "What the hell was that for?" The part of his brain dedicated to self-preservation screamed that shouting at a Slayer probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but he was too angry to care. She was either going to kill him or she wasn't, and he doubted he'd be able to change her mind either way.

Instead of answering his question, she merely crossed her arms and began to circle him slowly, eyeing him like prey. "You look human," she said, "but you were in a demon bar, so I'm guessin' not. Vampire?" She pulled a stake from her back pocket, lifting it threateningly. She smiled as Doyle flinched, then lowered it. "Nah. You had a reflection. Are you playing host?" She stopped circling and took a step toward him. Doyle barely managed to hold his ground. "I don't have the fancy demon-sensing skills some other Slayers have," she said, "so you're going to have to tell me. What are you?"

Doyle ground his teeth together for a second before spitting out, "Half."

She nodded and stepped back, the stake disappearing back into her pocket. "Half Irish, half demon. That's a new one."

"That why you tossed me? 'Cause I'm Irish? You don't sound like a limey." Doyle crossed his arms, finding it surprisingly easy to look defiant.

She placed a hand over her heart and adopted a mock hurt expression. "Me? Have something against the Irish? Dude, I grew up in Boston, solid Irish neighborhood. Hell, my last name's Lehane." She crossed her arms in a more sinister interpretation of Doyle's body language, her face hardening. "You spoke to Connor."

"What'd you do to him?" Doyle demanded.

That seemed to surprise her. "What'd I do to him? What do you want with him?"

"What do you want with him?" he countered.

They stood for a long moment, staring each other down, and Doyle must have still retained some vestige of the authority that had allowed him to maintain control over a room of nine-year-olds, because the Slayer broke first.

Her face fell. "I don't know," she said, sounding young and old at the same time. "I just…needed to know he was real. That there was still…" She turned her face away from him, and her crossed arms went from a threatening gesture to one of vulnerability, as though she were attempting to protect or comfort herself.

Doyle slowly unfolded his arms and hazarded a guess. "That there was still something of Angel left in the world?"

Her head snapped around and for half a second, as she stared at him with her mouth open, he thought she was going to cry. But then she gathered herself, her face went blank, and her posture resumed its original air of arrogance and defiance. "You knew Angel?" she asked, her voice a perfect mix of casual and dismissive, as though the answer held no interest for her.

Doyle didn't believe it for a second.

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "I knew him when he first moved to L.A. You could say I was kind of a mentor of his." She raised an eyebrow, and Doyle's smile widened. "Though you'd be grossly exaggerating. I did convince him to start up that little business of his, though."

She didn't move, just watched him through narrowed eyes. He opened his mouth to explain, but what came out was, "Ow." He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the heel of his palm into his temple. "Ow, ow, ow."

He vaguely heard the Slayer say, "What? What's wrong?" She said something else a second later, her voice closer, but he couldn't spare her any attention, involuntarily focused as he was on the images flooding his brain.

When he became aware of his surroundings again, he found he was on his knees with his hands pressed to either side of his head, holding it together. The Slayer's face was very close to his, so close his eyes had trouble focusing on her, and he was certain the only reason he wasn't lying on his face in the street was that she held onto both his shoulders.

He'd forgotten how badly visions and alcohol mixed. He felt like throwing up. Closing his eyes again, he focused on breathing, randomly remembering a phrase from his college days: beer before liquor, never sicker. He'd have to make up a new one. Liquor before vision, cranial schism. Which might have worked, if he actually knew when he was going to have a vision.

On the other hand, whiskey had always been his favorite painkiller. Maybe the Slayer had a flask on her.

"Did you just have a seizure or something?" she asked, frowning. "I don't need to take you to a hospital, do I?"

He grunted and swatted at one of her hands, then regretted it as she let go and he nearly toppled over. "Wasn't a seizure," he said, struggling to his feet. She didn't help him up. "It was a vision."

"Vision? Of what?" She looked suspicious again.

"Of a nice couple staying in a hotel downtown who are going to get eaten by vampires in about twenty minutes." He looked at her, keeping one hand against his forehead. It seemed to help. "Unless you do something about it."

"Me?"

He made a show of looking around the deserted street. "I don't see any other superheroes around. And if the Powers That Be sent me a vision while you're here, they must be expecting you to take care of it."

"What about you? You're half-demon."

He shrugged. "Not the useful half, as far as killing things goes."

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and let it slide out. "Visions from the Powers. Like the ones Cordy got."

"I had them first," he said.

She nodded. "And have them again, now."

"Yeah."

She looked over her shoulder at the entrance to the demon bar. "I need a real fight." Turning back to Doyle, she said, "Which hotel?"

"Go," Doyle said, giving the man a push. "And stay away from alleys from now on." The man's wife clung to him, her hair mussed and her eyes wide, and the couple staggered out of the alley, frightened but unharmed. Tomorrow they'd have a great story about surviving a mugging.

A crash behind him made Doyle turn just in time to see the Slayer bounce off a dumpster. She rolled to her feet, grinning, and threw herself at the remaining three vamps. The first one was already gone. The others didn't last much longer.

As the dust dissipated, the Slayer shoved her stake into her back pocket and straightened her jacket. "That was more like it," she said. She strode toward him and stopped close enough to look him in the face. "So you were Angel's first seer."

He nodded.

"And now you want to be Connor's seer."

"That seems to be the cosmic plan."

She studied him for another second, then stuck out her hand. "I'm Faith."

"Doyle."

"I think we need to talk."