Chapter 33

Cordy looked through her window onto the street below. Leaning her head against the cool glass, she wished for a vision. She needed something to distract her from her thoughts. A vision, and the subsequent violence she would employ to save the person or people in her vision, would certainly take her mind off the problems of her life.

She was trying to tell herself that there was nothing she could have done to save Connor's family. The Powers did not want her to save them; they had been meant to die. Connor was being called into the fray, and the best way to be called was through tragedy. There were no heroes whose lives were full of happiness and ease, Cordy thought. Heroes had to be tempered by fire; they had to be tested to see if they could survive. Connor was about to be tested.

A few must be sacrificed to save many. That was the idea as she understood it. Four innocent people would die now so that Connor could save many hundreds of innocent people later. The idea made her uncomfortable, but she had accepted it as truth. There was no way to change history, she told herself. What was done was done.

Dragging her hands through her hair, she looked across the room to the mirror on the wall. Her hair was poker straight and just touched her shoulders. The choppy black locks and her dark eye liner gave her a new, more intense and severe look. She no longer looked as soft as she once had. There was a definite and hardened edge to Cordelia now.

She slipped into jeans and a white tank top. The jeans stretched; they were better to fight in since tight jeans with no stretch tended to rip during high kicks. The outline of her white bra was visible under her shirt. She completed her look with a black vest and slightly healed black boots. It was time to go hunting.

The demon population in Los Angeles was slight these days, she knew, but there were still vampires being sired on a nightly basis. Enough of them were killed that the population was no longer expanding, but there would always be things to kill during the night. Getting into her rental car, her temporary until Angel sent her a new vehicle, she started towards a cemetery. Angel had sent her a packet with a new identity. Her name was Cordelia Eason. She had a birth certificate, a driver's license, social security card, bank accounts, and many other forms of identification and paperwork.

Frowning, she continued to drive through the downtown streets. She didn't want Angel helping her so much. He had acquired her apartment, filled it with furniture, given her the means to live by for quite some time, and sent her a rental car to use. He was too much her benefactor, she thought. It was time for some separation. She was going to start applying for jobs tomorrow, she told herself. Angel would certainly give her a glowing recommendation.

Sighing, she realized the time to tell her friends she was alive and well was soon approaching. She wouldn't be able to stay under the radar for too long. Angel was careful, she doubted he would let anything slip, but sooner or later someone would recognize her and give her away. She knew she had to preempt an accidental discovery.

The cemetery was dark. Beyond the lights by the entrance gates, there was no artificial light to be seen or see by. The moon was out, though, and the sky was clear, so Cordy had good visibility for hunting. The short sword on her back, almost hidden under her vest, and the stake strapped to her thigh were the only things to give away that she was anything other than a waiting victim.

She cocked her head to the side when she heard laughter on the breeze. Turning in the direction of the sound she heard something even more disturbing in the graveyard. Someone was crying. She started to move faster. They were raising another vampire and had brought along a first meal.

She could make out three vampires and one hostage girl all huddled around a newly turned grave. The vampires were laughing, their true faces showing in the faint light, and the girl had a thin piece of cloth tied around her head, cutting into the sides of her mouth and acting as a gag. Her face was tear streaked and she looked as if she had been dragged behind a horse for a few miles. They had worked her over before bringing her here as a meal, Cordy surmised.

She didn't want to wait for the new fledging to join the party, so with a fast leap-frog maneuver over the gravestone in front of her, she landed a few feet from the group. They turned and growled, their fangs showing as they hissed in her direction. Before any of them moved, Cordy was charging, grabbing the short sword from her back.

She had decapitated one and was watching him turn to dust before her eyes when someone else joined the fray. Her eyes widened as her mind was dismayed. Working in unpracticed unison, she went for the girl as her new helper went for the other two vamps. Dragging the girl to her feet, Cordy pulled her to a line of trees and threw her to the ground behind the widest one.

Sinking to her knees, she pulled the gag from the sobbing girl and started to undo the cord that was binding her wrists. Cordy watched the girl rub her aching and raw wrists before she turned to the quickly ending fight. Walking slowly but purposefully, she pulled the stake from her thigh and swiftly stabbed it into the back of the vampire that was clawing his way out of a grave.

Dropping the stake back into its holster, she crossed her arms across her chest and stared at Will. He stared back, balking at her presence. She watched as the gears within his brain started to turn a little faster and waited for him to speak.

"You're dead."

"Obviously not."

"Right. So…what the hell? When did you come back and why? Does Angel know? No, wait, of course he does. He couldn't keep away from you even when you were dead."

Her frown deepened. "You're an ass. And an idiot. I'm back, for good, and yes, Angel knows. What are you doing here?"

Will sighed heavily and put his hands in his jean pockets. All he had wanted was a little time away from the office, he told himself. He had only wanted a reprieve from the work he was doing for Angel and Connor, and he ended up finding a dead seer, looking very unhappy and distinctly gothic.

"You changed your hair."

"So did you. What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, love. I was out for a stroll and looking for some stress relief. The way you went into that fight, you were looking for a lot more than that. To be honest, I thought you were Faith at first. Until I caught your scent. And she wouldn't wear that vest."

Cordy released a slow breath. "No one knows. I want to keep to keep it that way. I trust you to do that."

"Sure you do. Look, no one will hear this from me, I swear. You know they're going to find out, though. You can't keep this from them forever; especially if you're going around in graveyards killing things. That kind of stuff gets around, you know."

She considered this for a time. He was right, she knew; if she continued to frequent the places her friends did, they would find out about her new chance at life before she was ready to tell anyone.

"I'll go somewhere else," she finally said.

"Or you could just tell everyone. Why are keeping yourself a secret?" He cocked his head a little at her. They deserved to know, Will thought. Everyone deserved to know if she was back. This was going to turn out very poorly if she continued to hide her existence from their friends.

"It's none of your business why I'm not telling anyone yet. I just need time, okay?" She took a deep breath. "Will…we're not friends. I know you're a good guy, and you're a great friend to Angel, but you're not my friend. Don't give me advice. I will tell everyone when I am ready to. Until then, please don't say anything."

Nodding, he said, "I don't understand, but I guess I don't have to. Look, though, Angel's having a hell of a time with everything that's happening. I know he and Connor could use a friend that understands. Wes and Fred have their own lives and a newborn to deal with; they can't be there as much as they used to be. Gunn's…distracted lately. They need you."

"What about Buffy? Where's she in all of this? Angel has her, and their soon-to-be-born son, and they'll be fine. He's been in the dumps for so long he doesn't know how to be happy. Six months of being sane and having a family and all his dreams come true won't change that. And having his son smashed with such a terrific loss won't help either. He just needs time. As for Connor…well, trial by fire. I can't control that. They'll see me when they're ready, and none of them are ready yet."

"You know best, huh? Of course you do, you can see the future. Well, let me know how that works out for you." Turning on his heel, he started away from Cordy and towards the outer edge of the graveyard.

She's going to screw everything up, he thought. There was no way this transition was going to go smoothly, Will told himself. With so many things bouncing around his head, trying to steal buts of consciousness that he wasn't sure he could spare, he tried to push thought of Cordelia from his mind. He had a murderer to find.