Disclaimer: I don't own Angel the Series.
Thanks are extended to deiticlast and Starway Man, as always.
As always, I assume a certain level of familiarity with the episode being rewritten. I appreciate this puts a burden on the reader, but at the same time, there are whole scenes that it is just not worth re-writing, because they'll be far too close to canon (and without much immediate relevance) to be worth rehashing.
Also, if you haven't read Episode 14 of The Iron Coin Chronicles Season 2, I would suggest you do, though technically you don't have to – but it will make the first scene make more sense, as it is the first ever Flip Side/Mainline ICC crossover.
This Chapter is a re-write of Episode 1x15 "The Prodigal"
The Iron Coin Chronicles: The Flip Side
By Alkeni
Chapter 3: Coming To Terms
January 25th, 2000
Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles
The sound of footsteps on the upper level of his apartment had Angel up and moving towards the elevator almost instantly. It didn't sound like Doyle's footsteps, and Harriet would have knocked first. It could be Kate... but he hadn't heard from Detective Lockley since she'd run him through the stomach, so she could get her improvised stake through Penn's heart.
She was probably just adjusting to her new reality. Still, sooner or later, he'd hear from her – she'd said as much after dusting Penn, after all.
Congratulations; you can now consider yourself an unofficial CI to the LAPD
He wasn't sure how Kate intended on that working, but he was more than willing to help her when the supernatural intruded on her cases. For one, she was one of the good cops - dedicated, unwilling to just let victims be names and faces in a file somewhere, and for another, having a cop as a friend... or at least an ally... would be helpful in his own efforts to save those people in Doyle's visions.
I might have been able to call her 'friend' seven days ago, but I don't think that works anymore.
So it probably wasn't Kate up there.
He got his answer as he opened the elevator to go up.
"Yo! Angel!" Faith's voice echoed down from above. "You in?"
Huh. Faith. What's she doing here in L.A.? Why hadn't she – or someone in Sunnydale – called ahead?
Angel pressed the button and stepped out of the elevator onto the upper level of the apartment. "Faith." Angel said, stepping around the corner and seeing her standing in the front room near the door. She had a largish hammer in one hand, which she was swinging idly as she waited for him. "You know, I think I remember locking the door before I went downstairs."
"Oh, you did." Faith agreed. "Might want to get a better lock installed. It was pretty easy to pick."
Angel considered asking her why she didn't simply knock, but after a moment, decided it wasn't worth the effort. Knocking really wasn't a 'Faith Thing' either, he supposed. As he looked at her, he realized, from her expression that -
"This isn't a social call. Something happen in Sunnydale? Is Buffy -"
"Buffy's fine." Faith interrupted. "Whole gang's fine.. more or less. Okay, a whole bunch of things happened, but that's life on the Hellmouth for you. Oz died and Willow went all grieving zombie for about a month."
Oz is dead? Angel blinked. He'd never been especially close to the werewolf/musician, but he'd know how much he'd meant to Willow, and he'd liked Willow well enough. And at least Oz hadn't been one for excessive chit-chat.
"The big important detail for why I'm here is this." Faith continued, then opened her other hand and took a step towards Angel. Resting on her palm was a brass ring with a green gemstone set on the top, the stone cased in with a criss-cross of more brass over the top. It was a relatively simple, almost unassuming little ring, but clearly it was important. "Spike dug it out of some hidden tomb or whatever months ago in Sunnydale."
"What is it?"
"Gem of Amarra."
Angel did a mental double take: Every vampire in the world that had lasted longer than a few months had heard of the Gem of Amarra. It was... legendary. The vampire version of the Holy Grail. And just as mythical, or so he'd previously thought. It was kind of the whole point. It was the story you told other vamps, the thing only the craziest ones went hunting for...
"Spike found it?" Spike wasn't an idiot, not technically, but he also wasn't the most studious of individuals. How could that particular vampire have figured out where it was? "And it really works? It's real?"
"Yea. The full package – stakes, sunlight, fire, getting your hand cut off. It handles them all. Doesn't stop 12,000 volts from dropping ya like a sack of potatoes, but that's about it, far as we could tell." There was a story there – several, Angel suspected.
"Back when Spike found it, after we got it off him, B wanted to send it down to you, let you have the fun of being invincible while you do your thing here." Faith closed her hand and lowered it down to her side, removing the Gem from view. "We talked about it, but Wes and Xander made the pretty good point that if Angelus ever showed up again..."
"The last thing you'd want is to have given me the Gem." Angel nodded. That Xander had argued against him getting the Gem was completely unsurprising. That Faith's Watcher hadn't been fond of the idea was also unsurprising. Giles probably wasn't in favor of it, either, but didn't want to argue with Buffy over it.
"Yea. Even Buffy got convinced, eventually. But since you need a vampire to destroy it, Wes convinced us all to send it off to the merrie olde England and the Council – they've got some vault or whatever where they put dangerous crap like this. Didn't work out." Faith dropped into an empty chair, letting out a long breath.
"That crazy vamp friend of yours, Drusilla. She got it from the Council people before it could get to their vault, then she came back to Sunnyhell with it." There was something low and bitter in Faith's voice, and more than a bit of guilt – the guilt Angel especially noticed. It was an emotion he was, after all, quite familiar with.
"How bad?" Angel asked slowly. Drusilla wasn't all that bloodthirsty, compared to Spike... or himself, when he'd been Angelus. Or even Darla. She always acted on her whims, and most of the time was content to leave the majority of the killing to others.
"It could have been worse, I guess." Faith admitted slowly. "Crazy bitch got it into her head that she wanted to kill me – got fucking obsessed with it. Spent a month playing hide-and-seek with her... any time I was alone and not behind a threshold, I'd have to worry about her coming out... but she stayed away, mostly, when I wasn't alone..." Faith shook her head and trailed off. "Playing bait was the only way to draw her out... I didn't want to do it..."
Angel understood that logic. Playing bait was nice on paper, but it was risky to be the bait. And I should know, I forced enough of my victims to do that way back when... especially with Holtz...
Faith released a hollow, humorless laugh, "But because I didn't play ball, Drusilla went into the mall in broad daylight, killed fifteen people, and used their body parts to spell out my name."
Oh. Yea, that sounded more like Drusilla... when she got it into her head to kill someone as something other than a quick meal, she went out of her way to mess with their heads a lot of the time... She learned from a master of the craft.
"Why would she come after you, though? Far as I know, she didn't know you at all?" Angel asked musingly.
"She's crazy. What do you expect?" Faith demanded. "She kept calling herself my mother, since her killing Kendra made me a Slayer." She shook her head, standing up. "Doesn't matter. She doesn't have the Gem anymore, and she's not gonna be a problem again anytime... ever."
"She's dust?" There wasn't really any better option for her, Angel knew... his demented offspring was a soulless vampire. And one of the worst. But he still couldn't help but feel even more guilt at the idea of her being gone. After everything he'd put her through, it was just one more indignity for Dru to suffer.
"Not exactly." Faith shook her head, "It's a long story, but that's not why I'm here." She walked towards him, flipping the hammer easily in her hand so she was holding the heavy end and holding the handle out towards him. Unsure, Angel took the hammer, testing its heft for a moment for lack of anything else to do with it. Then Faith added, "All the stories say, apparently, that only a vampire can destroy this thing." She walked by him and placed the Gem on his desk. "So, lift that hammer, smash it already and we can be done with this fucking thing."
Destroy the Gem of Amarra?
For a moment, Angel could feel the demon that was always inside him raging even worse than usual, demanding he take the ring, use it. At the very least not destroy it.
And the rest of him...
He understood the logic of destroying it. But still... priceless, unique artifact. Ancient. Where it came from was a myth, but presumably at least one of the stories was true, which meant the Gem could date all the way back to the time right after the last of the Old Ones had left this reality. Granted, it probably wasn't that old.
But at the same time...
It couldn't fall into another vampire's hands, and...
While he certainly didn't plan on losing his soul anytime... ever, there were ways it could happen even if he stayed away from Buffy for the rest of her life. Spells. Demons. Rituals. And if Angelus ever had the ring...
He didn't need to imagine the horrors that could happen after that.
And simply having the ring would keep him a target. Every two-bit vampire with delusions of grandeur would come after him if word got out that he had it. And it would, sooner or later. Somehow.
And...
It's not like I actually deserve this thing. It was a reward he hadn't earned – couldn't earn, really.
Not to mention, he somehow doubted Faith would actually let him keep the darn thing, which made all such thoughts a moot point.
"Alright." Swinging the hammer, Angel smashed the Gem – a miniature wave of green light spread out in all directions as it was destroyed, but there was no explosion, no backlash. It was just... gone.
"Huh." Faith said, looking at the crushed bits of green gemstone and brass sitting there. "I was expecting a bit more... something. Kind of anticlimactic, given how much trouble this fuckin' thing has caused."
Angel shrugged, handing the hammer back to her. "Before you go... how is everything in Sunnydale? How's -"
"Buffy?" Faith finished. "She's fine, like I said. Doing the whole college thing." She paused for a moment, hesitating, then added, "She's gotten herself a new boyfriend." There was a slight hint of apology to her words, but only just. "Figured you should know." Faith added, her voice slightly soft.
Angel didn't say anything for a long moment.
It hurt. Just even hearing that Buffy had moved on. Even though that was part of the reason he'd left... he couldn't give Buffy what she deserved. He wasn't sure anyone could, but he knew for sure that he couldn't, given... everything.
It was...
Well, how am I supposed to react to this?
"That's... that's good for her." Angel managed to say after a moment.
"Don't strain yourself, Angel." Faith said with a chuckle. "Don't have to pretend you like it. Just figured... since I was here, I'd let you know."
"Appreciated." Angel said, unsure if he meant it. It was like... a door closing. A book ending, actually. Sure, the story with him and Buffy was done. That was why he'd left. But...
That she'd moved on added a certain... finality to it all. A finality that hurt, as much as he should have – even had, in a way, expected. I guess I just didn't expect it to be this quick? But then, he hadn't given it much thought because it wasn't a subject he wanted to think about in much detail.
February 22nd, 2000
Subway, Los Angeles
"Crazy homeless guy, got on at Central Street Station." The uniformed officer told Kate as they walked towards the stalled subway car, filling her in with the details of the current hostage situation.
Kate bit her lip at the officer's dismissal of whoever was behind this as 'crazy homeless guy'. That sort of thinking was going to get him in trouble – you didn't underestimate people by just putting them in the box labeled 'crazy'. It was a bad habit to get into. Can get you get killed, even.
"Went nuts. Started tearing up the car, threatened some passengers. It was one of them that pulled the emergency brake. They're all still pretty shook up." The uniform pointed ahead the people hurrying off of the stalled subway car as the two of them weaved through various civilians milling about the station, most of them behaving business as usual, as if there was nothing strange happening.
"What about the suspect?" So, not a hostage situation anymore? Or at least, not all of them. That made sense. It was hard for one person to keep a whole group of people hostage, outside of pulling a gun in an enclosed area.
"Gone." The officer replied simply.
Drawing up short, Kate turned, incredulous. She didn't know this particular officer personally, but the LAPD didn't just hire random people off the streets, put a uniform on them and let them loose on the city. It was a subway car. It wasn't like it was a building with multiple exits!
"The call said it was a hostage situation, right?" she demanded.
"It was." The officer replied calmly.
"Then, what? The suspect escaped?" You let him escape? Kate knew it wasn't fair to judge without all the facts yet, but -
"Uh, we're still getting the whole story. It's... unclear." The man said hesitantly.
"Unclear? You have two dozen witnesses!" Kate countered. Sure, there were going to be inconsistencies and issues getting a coherent story out of all of them if they were shaken up, but not enough to make things unclear!
"I know. And they're all saying the same thing."
"Which is?" She demanded, rapidly losing all patience with the officer. He was wasting her time as he talked around whatever it was he was getting at. Clearly, there was some sort of problem with what the witnesses were saying, but he was annoying her more by beating around the bush than he could by just telling her what the witnesses had to say!
"That the suspect went out the top vent while the train was still moving."
"He climbed out of a moving train?"
"They're saying he was pulled out."
Pulled out? But what could have – A moment after those words left the officer's mouth, a sudden, worrisome thought hit her. Kate had no reason to believe he might be involved, but...
Angel.
Certainly, someone or something else could have pulled their 'crazy homeless guy' out of the roof of the train – and the inclusion of 'something' in that was a recent development – but somehow... she just knew it was Angel.
Apart from briefly speaking to Angel about that young boy that had tried to kill his sister when they'd arrested him, she'd had no interaction with the vampire since dealing with the other one, Penn.
In that month, she'd noticed things. Cases that didn't really add up – she'd always seen and had those once in a while, but now... now she had to wonder if demons, or vampires or... whatever the hell else was real out there was involved somehow.
She had no reason to believe that Angel was involved in this case, but really, who else did she know would pull someone – or something – out through the top of a moving subway car?
"Pulled out by what?" She asked the uniformed officer, wondering which answer she actually wanted. The officer just shook his head a little, not speaking. Kate bit back the retort she wanted to give him and just turned away, dismissing him with a wave of her hand as she walked off. "Get statements." She took a flashlight from one of the officers and flipped it on.
If he was pulled out, and he's not on the train now, then he's probably somewhere farther down the tunnel. Kate brushed past the disembarking passengers of the subway car, moving down the line of cars, most of whom still had their occupants or were in the process of getting off now.
It wasn't until she was almost to the end of the train that she heard the sound of fighting – flesh hitting flesh, grunts of exertion – just up ahead. Putting on a little extra speed, she reached the end of the train just in time to see Angel shove someone against the wall, hard. They fell to the ground, and Angel was left standing not far from its prone form. By dress... and smell, it resembled a homeless person – the patchwork collection of badly maintained clothes, the long heavy coat – but...
That wasn't a human being. There was no way anyone who was paying attention, like she had been the last month, could mistake that for human. Now that she knew... and now that she was seeing...
God, I wish I could rationalize all this away. This... demon wasn't especially horrifying in appearance, but what it represented, what it meant...
The... demon's prone form was lying there, unmoving.
"Well..." Kate said after a moment, eyes glued to the dead demon. "I guess I can forget about reading him his rights." She looked over to Angel. "Is it -" She had no idea. Maybe demons didn't breathe? Or there was something special they did when they died? Did they even die?
"Yea. It's dead." Angel confirmed.
"So... they do die, then?" Kate shook her head, realizing just how stupid that sounded, wishing she could take her words back. Just... she...
She'd thought she'd gotten a handle on this whole thing, mentally. Now, she wasn't sure.
"Yea. They die." Angel nodded, thankfully not mocking her ignorance on the subject.
"Sorry... I guess I'm still having a little trouble with all this... otherworldly stuff." Kate admitted. "This is what you do, though."
"This is what I am." Angel corrected. "And you're the one that said I was an unofficial CI."
"That's true." Kate admitted. "Just... haven't really had anything with vampires, or... these, to deal with." She pointed to the demon. "Nothing otherworldly."
Angel shook his head, "There's a lot of different kinds of demons, and they all look pretty different. And... technically, they're not really otherworldly-" Angel started, but Kate turned, brushing past them as she walked back towards the station. She wasn't interested in a lecture on these things, and she had other things to think about. Like, what she was going to write in her official report. She couldn't put 'demon' in there without getting ordered to take a lot of psych evals, and she hated the idea of just leaving this case to sit...
She heard Angel's footsteps behind her as he walked quickly to catch up with her.
"So what am I supposed to do here? I can't call the coroner... do I call hazardous materials?" Kate asked him, once he'd caught up with her at the train station. "Is there a... demon dead body hotline?" She added the last question more quietly.
"Don't call anyone." Angel replied simply. Oh, right. Don't do anything. That wan an excellent solution. Doing nothing. Exactly what she'd been trained for. "I'll make sure it gets taken care of."
"And I suppose you want me to lie in my report?" Kate shot back.
"You want you to lie on your report, Kate. You can't exactly tell your superiors the truth, now, can you?" Angel shot back. "Just... do what you would normally do in a case like this." The way he said it so... blandly, as if that was the answer she would have expected.
"I don't have a 'normally' for this. I haven't had -" Kate shot back quietly, pulling up short by the side wall.
"Yes, you have." Angel replied. "Cases that didn't add up... evidence and testimony that didn't make sense, if you looked too closely... you just rationalized things away. It's what most people do. I've seen it happen. A lot."
Right. Because he was a hundreds of years old vampire. He wasn't just some handsome, brooding man of mystery -slash- unofficial private-eye who was bad with social skills, but in a way that almost made him more interesting.
He was an undead mass murderer, apparently on some sort of quest to make up for his countless sins. How did that work, exactly? Everything she'd read on vampires since Angel had told her about them, since she'd met Penn the first time then staked him... the truth was that they were evil. As he'd said himself. Remorseless murderers, that killed people at every opportunity just because they could.
They can subsist on animal blood. They don't. It's murder. Though it wasn't as if she'd have had more sympathy for them if they couldn't. Even if the undead were just doing what they had to in order to survive, they were killing people and she... disapproved of that. Strongly.
So had Angel... just woken up one day and decided he would turn over a new leaf, try to be a good guy? Life didn't work like that, in her experience. People didn't really change. She'd locked up too many repeat offenders to really believe in that sort of thing anymore. Oh, sure... once in a very long while, someone did come out of prison truly changed, and honestly trying to be a better person...
So had someone suddenly locked the man – the vampire – up? The historical record for Angelus that she'd been able to find did more or less vanish sometime around the start of the 20th century...
Kate closed her eyes and shook her head. All this was a question for another time. Or possibly never. Though never was... unlikely to work.
And... he was right. She had noticed things since Penn... and... a few past cases, unsolved, rose to mind. Unlike other unsolved cases, those ones had had certain... unanswered questions and strange details... I need to know more about all this...
Creative writing. She'd need to come up with some convincing enough lies to pass this off. Or just settle for a completely unclosed file. Or both.
"You've seen this a lot," Angel repeated, looking at her intensely. "But before now, you never had a name for it."
"And now I do. I'm not sure I'm that much better off." Kate replied. She moved away from the wall, looking for the uniformed officer from before. He was talking to a man wearing the coat of some courier/delivery service. She didn't recognize the company offhand, but there were a lot of them in L.A., so that wasn't surprising.
She approached the two of them, ignoring Angel once more. "No, nothing really stood out, except maybe the smell. Just your average Joe stink homeless guy." The courier was even more dismissive about their 'homeless guy' than the officer had been.
As she reached the officer, he handed her his pad, where he'd written down his witness statements. She looked it over quickly. Nothing that said 'demon' – everyone had vague, noncommittal descriptions of the demon. At least this makes it easier to explain why we don't catch him. There was a note by the latest entry, this courier. He'd been the one to pull the brake.
"Average height, average build. No distinguishing features. Sounds like you didn't really see him at all." Kate observed, looking up from the pad to meet the man's eyes. He just shrugged. "You're the one that pulled the emergency brake?"
"Yea. The guy came right at me." The courier shrugged again.
Somehow, Kate found that a little hard to believe, if he didn't have anything more. Even repressing the event or something should get more. Right? Or maybe not. Either way, she had to at least ask the basic questions for her report.
"Why?" Kate asked him, raising an eyebrow pointedly.
"He didn't say." The man replied, as if not sure what she was asking, or why.
"No. Why did you pull the emergency brake?" Something about this guy keyed up her suspicions, but she wasn't sure what it was. And... well, she'd learned not to underestimate just how slimy people could be, even when they weren't guilty of the crime she was investigating.
"It was an emergency." The courier replied to her question, as if explaining things to a small child.
"Right." Kate cleared her throat and handed the pad back to the officer. "Circulate this description. See if we can't find this guy." She didn't bother to hide her skepticism as to that outcome – unhelpful witness statements were the bane of police work.
"We'll do our best." The officer answered, sounding about as hopeful as she had.
"Can I... go now?" The courier asked, urgently. Probably had deliveries to make.
Sighing, Kate nodded. "Yea, go." She didn't bother to watch him leave as she looked around the station, contemplating her upcoming report. All she had to say, really, was very little. She went to the end of the train, to see if she could see any signs of their suspect, found nothing, came back to the station and had nothing useful in the witness statements. Almost the truth. Except for the part where...
It wasn't.
Kate wouldn't pretend she was a saint, by any stretch, but she respected the law and the institution of the LAPD, the idea of the LAPD... even if she knew that it failed on executing its duty properly more often than she'd like – which would be never. She couldn't help but find the idea of lying on a report distasteful...
She didn't realize Angel had walked up to stand next to her until he started talking; "What's your father doing here?" She followed his gaze, and sure enough, there was her dad, chatting with another one of the officers.
They'd spoken semi-regularly since the... talking stick incident, which, thank God, he really hadn't brought up ever again. But she hadn't expected to see him here. Is he checking up on me? That was both... sweet and paternal, and... a little patronizing. She'd done just fine before he'd retired, she didn't need him looking over her shoulder. But at least he was showing some sort of concern and interest, which was a nice change of pace from what she was long used to from him.
No, that's not fair. Dad may never had had much time for her, but it wasn't like she didn't understand why, ever since she'd become a cop herself. And when he'd had time for her, he'd been interested in her life. Mostly.
Kate walked up to him, hands down by her sides and back a bit, wondering if he'd actually admit to checking up on her. "Daddy, what are you doing here?"
"In the neighborhood." He replied, and she didn't need years of experience as a detective to know he was lying.
Despite herself, she couldn't help a small smile coming up on her face. "You've been sitting in your apartment, listening to your police scanner again, haven't you?" She'd caught him doing that more than once in the months since his retirement. You could take Trevor Lockley out of the LAPD, but you couldn't take the LAPD out of Trevor Lockley. Not really.
Her father shrugged slightly, "Nothing on cable anyway." He looked around the station for a moment. "I heard you had a hostage situation. Looks like I missed all the action."
Just like dad.
"35 years on the force, don't you think you've seen enough action? Did you also happen to hear I was the lead officer on the scene?"
After a moment, her father evaded the question: "You look like you're doing okay. I'll let you get back to it." He turned and walked away, and Kate watched him, still smiling slightly. She heard Angel walk up to stand by her.
"What's he up to?" He just sounded... curious. Like you might be about someone you knew and worked with.
"I think he's actually checking up on me." She shook her head and added: "Not that he'd ever admit it."
"You sound a little surprised." Angel observed, and for a moment, Kate considered his words. Yea, she was a little surprised. Then she closed her eyes as she remembered – really remembered – who Angel was. What he was. Vampire. Mass murderer. A resource; not a friend, not even an ally.
"No." She said firmly. "You don't get to do that." She opened her eyes and turned to face him.
"What?" Angel asked, as if he didn't know. He's acting like things are just normal. Not even close. However normal this was for him, it wasn't for her, and she couldn't let herself find it normal, especially where he was concerned.
"Kill a demon in front of me, and then act like we're gonna have a cappuccino together. It doesn't work that way." Not that she wouldn't have been receptive to the suggestion just over a month ago. Hell, had he shown the slightest bit of interest, she might have suggested it herself. Like she'd told him, right before he'd told her he was a vampire, the brooding man of mystery thing worked for him.
Kate was self-aware enough – and honest enough – to admit she'd been interested in him. He was attractive; Angel had that whole 'good looking guy' thing going for him, no doubt about that. Typical as hell, but there it was. Once she'd discovered what he really was, what lurked underneath the handsome face and drool-worthy body, the whole 'getting to know him better' notion had more or less crashed and burned completely.
"How does it work then?" Angel countered. If only she could be sure exactly what he meant by that. Or maybe she didn't want to know that, either.
"I'm not convinced it does." Kate answered. "For... what you are, you're pretty decent. But let's keep this strictly business, not personal. I'm a cop, you're my CI. You're not my friend, I'm not your girlfriend. Clear?" Best to nip this in the bud. For herself as much for him.
Frustration clawing at her, Kate brushed past him towards the stairs out of the subway station.
February 22nd, 2000
Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles
"Based on your description of the demon, I'm guessing this is what you fought?" Harry handed a color photograph over to Angel, who accepted it.
After a moment, Angel nodded, "Yea, that's him."
"Her, actually." Harry corrected him. "That's a Kwaini demon, and they're always female."
Then how exactly do they- Angel immediately cut that thought off before he could take it any farther. He really didn't care that much – and more importantly, he probably didn't want to know.
"Which leads us to a problem." Harry took the photo from his hands and slipped it back into one of the folders she'd brought with her.
"Is it hard to dispose of their bodies or something? Are they hazardous after they die?" This was why he preferred vampires to demons, as enemies. They cleaned up after themselves, the whole dust thing. Even some species of demon did. This 'Kwaini' did not, which meant finding a way to deal with the body. Normally, he didn't bother too much – just put it somewhere out of the way, and the situation would sort itself out eventually. But this was a police case. And he'd told Kate he'd take care of it.
"No. Disposal's pretty simple and standard – virgin soil, Latin incantation. But Kwaini demons are an entirely non-hostile species. They're pacifists – they act as balancing creatures. They don't even eat meat." Harry explained.
"You can't always make generalizations about every demon in a given species." Doyle pointed out, before Harry turned to glare at him.
"Of the two of us, Francis, which one is the ethnodemonologist?" Harry asked him pointedly, and Angel watched his fellow Irishman take a step back, raising his hands in surrender. For whatever reason, despite preferring to go by Doyle with every other person, the half-demon seer had finally stopped insisting his ex-wife call him by that name. Whatever her reasons for doing so.
Probably habit. That was Angel's guess, anyway. Back when they'd been married, before Doyle had found out he was a half-demon, he'd probably gone by Francis all the time – Doyle really hated his first name 'Allen' – and he couldn't have gone by 'Doyle' to her when they were married, either.
"Alright, alright." He surrendered. "I bow to your superior expertise."
"Look, this demon wasn't being a pacifist. I watched it go after those passengers, and it was certainly willing to fight back against me pretty damn hard." Angel pointed out.
"Well, yes, hence the problem." Harry pointed out, opening one of the folders. "Especially that it was able to fight back, even for a little bit. Kwaini's are not naturally very strong – less so than your average human, actually." She searched through the folder and eventually pulled out a sheet of paper covered in her neat but cramped handwriting. "There has never been a recorded violent act by a Kwaini demon, except in defense of their children; and even then, they only fight long enough to make running away an option." She handed him the paper, and Angel looked it over. He didn't recognize half the sources and books she was citing here, but she'd written down numerous details about the peaceful nature of Kwaini's and their limited strength.
"Well, maybe it was taking steroids, then?" Doyle suggested. Raising an eyebrow, Angel looked at him, and he saw that Harry was giving him a look as well. "Hey, something had to happen to make it violent, right? And strong enough to be able to fight Angel for a couple minutes!" the Seer added.
He's got a point. Angel watched Harry open her mouth to counter him, then close it again. She pointed at him and then looked over at Angel.
"He's got a point," She said, unknowingly echoing his thoughts. "I hate it when he does that."
"When I do what?" Doyle exclaimed defensively.
"Be right! You're insufferable. I'm sure I don't need to remind you how smug you got, after you were right about that -"
"Thing back in March of 1994?" Doyle interrupted. "No, I suppose you don't. But in case you haven't noticed, Harry, it's been six years. I'm not exactly the same person I was back then." He added, raising his voice a little. "Making a big thing out of being right isn't really my style anymore."
"Believe me, Francis, I've noticed that you're not the same as you were six years ago!" Harry sniped back at him.
Angel closed his eyes for a moment, then held up a hand. "Look, can the two of you put the ex's argument on hold for a second? We have a nonviolent demon being violent for an unknown reason, and stronger than it's supposed to be." He shook his head. "Even if it was on some sort of mystical steroids to make itself stronger, to make it willing to be violent, why a commuter train?"
"Well, obviously, it wanted something on the train." Doyle suggested.
"Or someone." Angel added, remembering the courier who had pulled the emergency brake 'because it was an emergency'. "I'm gonna go talk to Kate. Harry, if you got a look at the Kwaini's body... could you figure out what happened to it, to make it so violent? The last thing we need is a bunch of peaceful demons attacking people all over L.A."
Harry thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yea. I could take a look, ask some people to go and pick up the body. Maybe get some time in at one of the labs at UCLA."
"That's where your office is?" Angel had been wondering about that – and what Harry did for money – ever since she'd mentioned she had an office phone. Harry nodded. "What exactly is your job, anyway?"
"Officially, I'm teaching an obscure cultural anthropology elective as part of the university's postgrad curriculum." Harry shrugged, then clarified: "It's what my Master's degree is in, so there's no issue regarding my qualifications to take on students. Unofficially, though... well, a small group of professors on campus that know about the existence of demons quietly funnel some grant money my way, so I can have an apartment and keep in, you know, food and that sort of thing. In exchange," She went on, "I do research into demons and teach a night class once a week on demon lore to some of those professors, and even some of their students that also know about demons." She shrugged, "Doesn't pay very well, but I didn't exactly go into cultural anthropology expecting to get rich in the first place."
Angel blinked. Well, he supposed that made sense. Some people were just... knowledge junkies, and university professors were the kind of people that would love to know whatever they could learn about the supernatural merely for the sake of it. And where else could she get meaningful employment being an expert on demons, apart from the Watcher's Council or a place like Wolfram and Hart? There couldn't be a whole lot of options.
"Alright. Let me know if you find anything." Angel grabbed his coat and headed for the sewer exit to his apartment.
February 23rd, 2000
LAPD 12th Street Station House, Los Angeles
Harry personally had no real experience with dissecting demons. Or dissections of any kind, really, apart from some half-forgotten experiences back in High School. But she did have access to literature on the subject, and more importantly, she had access to a biology major and a pre-med student as members of her little 'study group'/night class. They were the ones that had done most of the work in helping her deal with the Kwaini demon's body, and figure out what had happened to it.
It had been high as a kite, basically, just as Francis had suggested.
She'd told Angel, but there was someone else who needed to know. Because if Detective Lockley was going to know about demons and vampires, then she was going to have to know the full details. 'Evil Thing' indeed! If this attitude wasn't nipped in the bud, then it was all too likely that the detective would start killing anything nonhuman she came across.
Harry had seen it happen, or heard of it happening, too many times over the years; a series of bad experiences – or even just one – with the more violent and deadly demon clans turned into a hatred of all demons. Led to people going full demon hunter – and usually killing more of the harmless ones, because they were easier to kill, since they were far less likely to fight back – or to be able to fight back.
Walking to the open door of Detective Lockley's office should probably not been as easy as it was, but apparently it was that easy.
As she approached the doorway, Harry spoke, "Detective Lockley?" Harry watched the blonde detective look up at her. "My name is Harriet Abrams. I work with Angel. Can we talk?"
"Alright. Close the door behind you." The other woman said tersely, and Harry stepped into the room, complying with the instruction. Only once the door was safely closed did Lockley stand up. "I thought the only person that worked with Angel was Doyle." The way she said her name suggested she didn't have a very high opinion of Francis.
Which wasn't surprising. These days, her former husband didn't exactly make a good first impression. Though he had been getting better in the last few months, since the collapse of her engagement to Richard. He still drank – a lot – but he seemed to be doing it less often, and taking himself more seriously. Francis was still far from the man she'd married, but at least he was making improvements in his life.
Harry made a mental note to thank Angel for that. The process had probably more or less started since they'd started working together. She was only seeing it since they'd met, after all.
"That would be my ex-husband." Harry admitted. "And I work with Angel less frequently than he does. But I do work with him on occasion, because my field of expertise is useful to what he deals with. I'm an ethnodemonologist." Unsurprisingly, there was a blank look of surprise on the other woman's face, as she parsed through the unfamiliar word.
"Ethnodemonology? That's a thing?"
"Of course. Demons exist. People have known about them for centuries – you're not the first to figure it out, you know. Don't you think people would study them, once they found out?" Admittedly, most people who did just wanted to know how to kill them, but still. "I study demons, their cultures and their interactions with humans. And really, demon is a pretty sloppily applied term that basically means 'not human', but that's a discussion for a different day." Harry reached into her purse and took out the rolled up copy of her Master's Degree she'd made before coming here.
"I have a Master's in Cultural Anthropology, and for the last seven years, I've put my experiences with that subject to work on studying demons. If any university offered a Doctorate in the subject, I'd have it." Unfortunately, while grant money and a job was something that could be hidden within the labyrinthine depths of university academia, a doctorate wasn't. She'd written the equivalent of three Doctoral theses in her time as an ethnodemonologist, however. And even if she hadn't gone through the formal process of defending any of them before a panel of examiners, she did engage in rigorous academic debate with others who studied demons.
"I submit that by any reasonable standard, I'm an expert in demons." She handed the rolled up degree to the detective, who gave it a cursory once over.
"Fine. You've made your point. Is this about the..." she hesitated a moment, then, "demon, from the subway?"
"And about your choice of categorizing it as just an 'evil thing', yes." Harry replied harshly. "Kwaini demons are in fact peaceful and nonviolent. When one of them starts randomly attacking people on the city subway, there's a reason for it. Your prejudice is getting in the way of your job." Harry had come prepared to give the detective a lecture, and she was fully willing to stay in this office until she'd made her point.
"My job has nothing to do with demons. My job is to enforce the laws of the city of Los Angeles, and protect its people – its human people!" Kate snapped back.
"Your job is to protect the innocent. At least, in theory, isn't that what the police are for?" Harry pointed out. "But if you're going to want it put more pragmatically: There are a lot of perfectly peaceful demons that obey the law... human law, that is... and even pay taxes. Taxes that help pay for your job. They're some of the people you're supposed to protect." Harry shook her head and opened her purse again, taking out a Ziploc bag and a small glass bottle. She placed both on the police detective's desk. "You want to know how your prejudice has gotten in the way of your job? There's the proof right there."
Lockley looked at the bag and the oversized demon adrenal gland inside it. Unsurprisingly, she didn't seem overtly disgusted. She'd have seen worse as a cop, Harry was sure.
"I'd like an explanation regarding this so-called proof." Lockley said flatly, unconvinced.
"That's the adrenal gland of a Kwaini demon. Specifically, the demon that Angel killed yesterday. See its size? Well – it's too big. Far too big. A Kwaini demon's adrenal gland is supposed to be much smaller. About the size of a walnut. I can show you the dissection photos, if you'd like." Harry hoped to God the photos she'd gotten of a Kwaini's dissection had been of one that had died of natural causes. But...
Well, there were some pretty sick people in the field of demon studies.
"And the reason that adrenal gland is oversized, was overactive and causing the Kwaini to behave abnormally, was because of what's in that bottle. It has quite a few things in it, but the short version: It basically works like PCP for Kwaini demons."
Lockley picked up the vial and examined the liquid inside, shaking it for a moment. Harry could almost see the gears moving in the detective's head, as she started thinking like a cop. "That demon was high on this crap..." Lockley closed her eyes and set the vial down. "The courier. He knew what it was. He knew what it wanted. That's why he pulled the emergency brake." There was a resigned note in Kate's voice, like she was acknowledging an unpleasant truth.
"Probably, from what Angel told me about what happened." Harry agreed. She frowned. "I was expecting to have to spend more time convincing you, to be honest."
"You did a good job of laying out your credentials first." Lockley pointed out. "And... it's not like I wasn't thinking about this already. As much as I'd rather not deal with... all of this..." She let out a sigh. "I was already thinking that Angel had a point. He... has a good track record with this sort of thing. Right now, he does seem to be on the right side." She grabbed a folded piece of paper from her desk and held it out to Harry. "Names of everyone that was on that subway car, the courier included. Since you work with Angel..."
Harry took the paper and nodded. "I'll give it to him." She wasn't sure how much use it would be. Because Angel had followed the courier anyway. Followed him to Detective Lockley's father's house. Part of her had wanted to tell Angel to tell Kate immediately, but...
Yes, Harry hated the idea of being left out of the loop regarding something important that involved her. And the same held true for keeping other people out of the loop. But just how do you tell someone that their father is a dirty cop? Or a dirty ex-cop, anyway. And from what Angel had said about how Lockley had been acting... from what she herself had witnessed of the man's daughter just now... telling her would never have worked.
Mentally, Harry cursed Angel for not bringing a camera with him when he'd done the whole... lurking thing. If he had, if he'd taken a picture of Lockley with the courier, maybe it could have been considered proof. Such as it was...
But now, it seemed like maybe the detective's mind was a little less set than Harry had thought. Maybe there was room for...
But I can't be the one to tell her. She'd gotten it all second hand, and at the end of the day, her convincing academic qualifications or not, Kate didn't know her from Adam. Had no reason to trust her.
"I think Angel was looking into the courier anyway, but I know he'll appreciate that you're trusting him on this enough to cooperate." Harry finally said. "And if there is someone giving peaceful demons a drug that makes them violent, humans are at risk," she added. Harry doubted she'd completely convinced Kate to see that demons were people too, but at least she'd made her think past a few preconceptions. Or so it seemed. But it was still best to focus on what would likely remain the detective's priority: Humans and human crime.
"Maybe you should... check with Angel? See if he's found something out." Harry shook her head, "It's up to you. But, anyway. I've said my piece. If you come across something related to demons on a case, or have questions about them, Angel has my contact information if you want my help." Giving the detective a nod, Harry left the office after grabbing the bagged adrenal gland and vial of mystical PCP.
February 23rd, 2000
Angel's Apartment
"You went and lectured Kate on demons? And she listened to you?" Angel shook his head, clearly disbelieving. "If it was that simple -"
"No, it's not. You're a vampire, Angel." Harry cut in. "Seems pretty clear to me that that's a major hang-up for her."
Ain't that the truth.
Doyle knew that Detective Lockley was a smart woman, that much was obvious, but she was having trouble with the whole 'demons are real' revelation. Not everyone could just dive into it as a research project like his ex-wife could.
Well, that's just plain unfair. It wasn't Harry's fault – Doyle hadn't handled the discovery well at all, and really, he had just been...
Well, he'd been a pretty awful husband, those last few months before they'd separated. And her fascination with the whole subject of demons hadn't really been the reason for it.
"I don't know if she's accepted everything, but she did at least accept that there was something wrong here. That's why she gave me the list to give to you. I told her she should get in touch with you, since you were already looking into things." Harry shrugged, "She did say you knew what you were doing, Angel. You're on the right side."
"I don't want her getting involved in this more than she is." Angel replied, frowning.
"Why?" Doyle cut in, "'Cause of her dad? Look, pal, I'm not sure how you can just tell her that her dad's dirty, but she's already involved in this. And the whole reason you told her about vampires in the first place is because you knew she wouldn't just drop something. You really think she's gonna drop this just 'cause you want her to do it?" Granted, he'd thought the idea wasn't the best one – but Harry had been convincing then, and...
Well, it had worked out. And from the perspective of the mission, a friend on the force was a good thing.
"Look, I've seen this sort of thing before. Humans get mixed up with violent demons, it almost never ends well for the humans." Doyle finished. "And you don't get into dealing drugs that make peaceful demons go nuts, if you don't have a bit of violence in you. Sooner or later, Lockley's gonna get in too far over his head. She's gonna find out then."
"She deserves to know." Harry agreed. "Besides – her father chose to go into business with that sort of people. His daughter finding out he's dirty isn't something undeserved."
Out of someone else's mouth, that might have sounded callous... but that wasn't where Harry was coming from, Doyle knew that. She just believed in consequences. Besides, he was guessing Harry wasn't feeling all that charitable to the people Detective Lockley's father was working for – given what they were doing to a peaceful demonic species.
"So then, how exactly am I supposed to tell her? What am I supposed to tell her?" Angel demanded. "I tell Kate what we know, it ruins everything between them, and he could end up arrested as an accessory to dealing drugs, pension gone, the works. He may be in bed with people he knows are bad, but - he loves his daughter. I figured out that much during our recent chat... Kate finds out about all this, there's a good chance he loses her, and I don't want to put either of them through that if I can avoid it!" Angel was unusually passionate about this subject, and Doyle couldn't figure why.
"He made a mistake, but the price for one bad choice isn't always equivalent to the offense." Angel finished quietly, then took a step back and shook his head, adding: "Maybe I won't have to tell her. I'll go there, show him what I am if I have to, make Lockley realize just what he's gotten himself into. And then I'll go to that warehouse and shut their operation down."
"Alright, Angel, fine. You've made your point." Doyle nodded, stepping back. Angel had a point. There was no reason Lockley absolutely had to have his life ruined over that mistake. Besides, if he's anything like his daughter, he's probably beating himself up over this as it is.
Doyle watched Harry open her mouth to object, but before he could, an arm broke through the window on the front door and turned the knob. Two more of those demons from his vision, Kwaini, dressed in rags and looking like a homeless person off the streets like the last one burst in, growling angrily. Angel was already turning to face them as they rushed towards him. Unsurprisingly, they weren't much of a match – the vampire grabbed one and tossed her back against the wall before getting into a fist-fight with the other.
The one Angel had tossed though, was on her feet quickly and moving towards Harry and him. With Angel distracted, Doyle went at the demon – or really, the demon went at him. The Kwaini's punch to the side of his face sent him reeling. Angel had said it was stronger than it should have been, but bloody hell!
Well, if that's how it's going to be played... Doyle closed his eyes for a split second and brought out his Brachen half, the spines forming on his face. Looking astonished for a moment, the drug-addled Kwaini tried to grab his shoulders – but Doyle punched at her arm instead, knocking it aside. A few quick punches to the demon's stomach and she was doubled over, staggering back. Doyle grabbed the demon's arm again and flipped her down into her face, slamming her into the ground. She was alive, but unconscious.
Closing his eyes again, Doyle returned to normal. He still wasn't comfortable doing that, no matter how useful the extra strength could be in a fight. He turned back to Harry. "You alright?" When she nodded, letting out the breath she'd apparently been holding the entire time, he looked over to Angel, who had just finished with his opponent, pinning her to the wall.
"Alright, cough up! I know you can, so talk!" Angel demanded of the demon.
After only a few moments, the Kwaini told them what she knew: she and her sister – the other demon – had been paid in more of the drug to kill Angel, who they thought was just a human. And that their dealers, a group of vampires, had mentioned cleaning house.
It didn't take any of them long to realize that Doyle had been more right than he'd thought, not five minutes before. It was about to end very, very badly for Mr. Lockley.
Angel was pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and heading for the door within seconds, letting the Kwaini collapse to the ground, also apparently unconscious.
"Kate, it's Angel. Pick up if you're there. If you get this message, get to your father. Get him out of his apartment. He's in danger! He's in business with people. Dangerous people. My kind of people. He doesn't know what they are, Kate. He won't understand. I'm on my way there now!" Angel hung up and continued down the hall.
"Where do you think you're going, boyo?" Doyle interrupted, moving to get in front of the vampire.
"Kate's father is in danger. I'm not going to just let those vampires kill him. Or her, if she gets the message and gets to his place first! Out of the way, Doyle."
"And what do you think is going to happen if ya get there before she does? I don't think Mr. Lockley is going to just invite you inside his place – so if the vamps get to him before you get there..." He didn't need to finish the point. "At least let me come with you."
After a moment, Angel nodded. "Alright, fine."
February 23rd, 2000
Trevor Lockley's Apartment, Los Angeles
For once in his life, Doyle was actually wanting one of those migraines with pictures the Powers that Be had seen fit to grace him with. Could give him some idea of what he was up against. A vampire or two he could survive, though beating them would be another problem. Vampires usually didn't carry weapons, and the ways they liked to kill were broken necks – not a problem, thanks to his dear old demon dad – and drinking blood. Also not a problem. His blood had too much demon in it to be palatable to any vampire.
He'd actually found that out first hand, when a vamp tried to drink from him years ago. It hadn't worked out for the bloodsucker.
Doyle knocked quickly on the locked door to Lockley's apartment, hoping he wasn't too late. Angel was behind him, but Doyle had raced ahead of the vampire – no reason to lag behind. Angel couldn't get in without an invite, anyway.
The door opened and Doyle could only assume the older man on the other side of the doorway was Mr. Lockley. But behind him, Doyle could see two men in suits. "Mr. Lockley, you need to get out of here. Now!"Even as he spoke, the two men were doing exactly what he'd been worried they'd do: Donning their game faces, their fore-heads changing, eyes going yellow, fangs extending.
"Now listen-" Lockley started, but Doyle cut him off when he barged into the apartment, pushing the older man aside as the vampires lunged for him. Doyle just barely got in the way. For a second time in the same day, Doyle brought out his Brachen side. The vampires were coming at him, and even with his enhanced strength, he wasn't sure he could hold them off.
Throwing a punch at one of them, Doyle watched in small satisfaction as the vampire staggered back when the blow connected with the vampire's chest. But then the other one was on him. Doyle didn't have any attention to spare for Trevor Lockley behind him. With his demonic half out on display, Doyle had the strength to stand up to a vampire, but what he was missing was the speed that gave vampires an advantage. Punch after punch landed on him, as the vampires tried to get him out of the way, so they could get to -
Out of the corner of his eye, Doyle saw the former policeman overcome whatever initial shock he was experiencing at seeing three inhuman combatants duking it out in his home, and throw a punch at one of the vampires. Oh, damn it! The older man knew what he was doing, but Lockley was also completely outmatched in this sort of fight!
"Get out of here, now!" Doyle insisted. He got himself some breathing room by headbutting one of the vampires, letting the spines all over his face dig into its flesh. The vampire howled and went staggering back –and Doyle threw a punch at the exposed side of the other one, just in time to stop the vampire from grabbing Mr. Lockley.
Unfortunately, that action sent the entire fight downhill. In that moment, Angel finally reached the doorway, and Doyle heard him call out to Lockley, trying to get the old man to invite him in, but all it did was distract the former police officer. The vampire that Doyle had sent reeling back grabbed Lockley's arm and pulled him around, holding the arm out straight and driving his fist into the reverse of his elbow. Doyle tried to get to him, but -
It didn't work. The vampire he was facing grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him backwards, just about sending him flying into the wall – enough to break it in parts. Dazed, Doyle struggled to get to his feet as the two vampires moved on Lockley.
"You kill him, the first thing that happens is his threshold ceases stopping me from coming in and dusting the both of you!" Angel all but growled out at the vampires. Though it didn't stop the vampires, it did give them a moment's pause. Doyle took advantage of that moment, getting to his feet and rushing the vampires – but it wasn't quite enough.
One of the vampires inserted his fangs into Lockley's neck –
Doyle reached the vampire and roughly ripped him away from Lockley, knowing it wasn't exactly good for the former cop's throat, but he didn't have many more options.
But the vampire didn't let Doyle keep ahold of him. With a sweeping kick that caught him by surprise, the vampire knocked his legs from under him. As all that happened, the other vampire hit Lockley several times in the ribs and threw him across the room, letting him crash into a bookshelf, slumping to the ground, immobile. But the threshold didn't fall – he was still alive.
Both vampires started for the door, clearly interested in escaping at this point – Lockley was bleeding out from the neck. They probably assumed he'd bleed out. Assuming Angel had them in hand, Doyle rushed to Mr. Lockley, returning to his human face and pressing his hand against the man's neck, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood.
"God damn it!" Doyle muttered, pressing hard, ignoring the blood covering his hand. With his other hand, he checked the man's ribs – at least one of them was broken.
He heard the sounds of repeated gunshots in the hallway, but couldn't turn to see what was going on. He was too busy trying to keep Lockley alive. Moments later, he heard the sound of Detective Lockley's voice behind him.
"Daddy! No!" She rushed towards him. Doyle moved out of her way as much as he could, letting her crouch by her father. "Daddy!"
"Call 911. Now! He's still alive, but we need an ambulance if it's gonna stay that way!" Doyle said urgently, as Kate looked in horror at her bleeding out father's motionless form.
For a timeless moment, the blonde did nothing; but then she stood, nodding. Doyle was sure she had more to say, but right now, the focus was on keeping her father alive.
February 24th, 2000
Harriet Abrams's Office, UCLA
Under most other circumstances, Kate wouldn't be wrenching the door of an adjunct professor's janitor-closet office open. Under most other circumstances, Kate wouldn't feel perfectly willing to beat a civilian half to death. But right now, she was feeling it.
Because right now, her -
Her father... Right now, he's dead.
Her father, the man she'd always looked up to – he was dead.
Killed by vampires. The vampires he'd been working with.
The ambulance she'd summoned had arrived to take him to the closest hospital... but the paramedics hadn't been able to save him. Her father had apparently lost too much blood, and the broken ribs had punctured his lung as they'd loaded him into the back of the emergency vehicle.
But as soon as he'd gotten into the ambulance...
Kate hadn't stayed with him. She hadn't stayed with him, and later her father had died alone, surrounded by nothing but strangers.
Even now, Kate wasn't sure why she hadn't jumped into the back of the ambulance and been there for her dad, just before he'd expired. For whatever reason, she'd gone after whoever had sent those vampires after her father instead. More vampires, and some demon that had had more than enough strength to punch her clear across the room. If Angel hadn't come with her, to help her...
She'd have died there in that damn warehouse.
She'd never thought she'd ever take justice into her own hands that way. Cops weren't supposed to do that. There was a reason for all those rules about investigating the deaths of family members, loved ones...
But there was no criminal justice system to resort to when it came to vampires and demons. And so...
The university office was just as small as she'd assumed from the outside. The woman who'd dropped by the precinct yesterday was sitting there at her little desk, writing something down on a legal pad.
"You KNEW!" Kate shouted, putting her hands on the desk and looming over the seated woman.
Harriet looked up from her paper and set the pen down carefully. "Detective Lockley." She took a small breath. "And I knew what, exactly?" There was no sign of her being intimidated by Kate's posture, or her volume.
"You knew what d- what my father was into. You knew, you must have known – and you didn't tell me! And now he's dead!" Kate kept shouting. That was why she'd told her to call Angel, to ask him about the case. Instead of telling her what was happening, giving her a chance to get to her – to get to her father in time, to warn him... and now her father was dead.
Because this... woman hadn't told her what she'd needed to know, even though the blonde had known what had been happening –
"And your father dying, that's my fault?" Harriet shot back, standing up. "Look, Detective... I'm not the one who got into business with people selling drugs to demons! That was your father. He made his choices, he took the risks, and he... broke the law."
The reminder that her father was dirty, that Trevor Lockley of all people was on the take, only enraged her more. "He didn't know! He didn't know what they were!"
"Granted, but quite frankly, that's almost irrelevant. Whatever Mr. Lockley was ignorant of, he knew those people were shady and breaking the law. He knew he'd gotten into bed with dangerous criminals. It's a tragedy he's dead, I won't deny that. And truth be told, I didn't know until just now." She closed her eyes for a moment, her voice more soft, "You have my condolences."
"To hell with your 'condolences!'" Kate spat at Harriet.
"Fine. But unless you're going to arrest me for something, Detective Lockley, get out of my office. Because I didn't kill your father, and me telling you what I knew when last we met? You know as well as I do that that would have accomplished nothing. You wouldn't have believed me." The woman sat back down. "Whether you want to hear it or not, I'm sorry your father is dead, but I'm not going to let you blame me for it."
"Too bad, lady, because I'm not going to stop. Because whatever excuses you try to justify your actions with, what happened – my father's murder – is your fault." Kate felt her hands close into fists, but he stopped herself from punching the other woman in blind rage – barely – and stepped back.
She did slam the door hard enough for it to rattle in its frame a little on the way out, though.