They arrived back in the office to find Wesley slumped over the desk with his hands over his head, muttering under his breath.
"Impressive, Wesley," said Cordelia. "You truly sound possessed."
"Wh-what?" said Wesley, jerking his head up so fast that he strained his neck. With a grimace, he began to rub it, asking casually, "What makes you say that?"
"Easy, there, Wes," she said. "Just a joke."
"An extraordinarily poorly timed one," said Wesley, passing a hand over the papers lying on the desk in front of him. "I think I've put a name on the disaster heading our way."
"Do they teach melodrama at Watcher school?" Cordelia asked. "Because I swear, between you and Giles…."
Angel shot a silencing look in her direction, then said to Wesley, "That was fast. What have you found?"
"It was rather fast, wasn't it?" said Wesley, trying not to sound smug. "It was the vampires that tipped me off."
"Vampires were in here?" Cordelia gasped, and was rewarded by a withering glare from Wesley.
"When Cordelia described the demons from her vision," he continued, ignoring the question, "she specifically mentioned that there were a lot of vampires. Considering the veritable smorgasbord of demon races that appeared in the vision, why would there be such a disproportionate amount of vampires?"
"Something's hunting them in particular, and taking out whatever other demons it meets along the way," Angel said, an unwanted image of the Slayer flashing into his mind.
"No," said Wesley triumphantly. "No, that's not it at all. I thought so, too, at first, but…have you ever heard of an event called the Convergence?"
"It's a part of many demon religions," said Angel.
"Whoa!" said Cordelia. "Demons have religions?"
"Sure," said Angel. "Not that they go to church or anything…. Well, they do, but that's almost always messy."
"From my research," said Wesley, eager to get on with it, "it would seem that many demons believe in a sort of soul-sleep. It's more a life-force than a soul, really; most demons are without souls..." He glanced uneasily at Angel, as if he might have offended him, but Angel returned his look placidly, so Wesley went on. "When a demon is about to die, so the story goes, it may transfer its life-force to a being with a soul…a human. After which, the accounts get a little murky."
"Some believe that the life-force gains control over the host, either gradually or immediately," Angel filled in. "Others believe that the life-force is forced to lie dormant until the time of Convergence, when all of the dormant life-forces will awaken and return to walk the earth."
"Here's where it gets even murkier," said Wesley. "Again, some say the life-force claims the host, but some say that it must transfer to a new host, preferably a non-human host."
"Good news….?" prompted Cordelia.
"A few sources I've found argue that circumstances determine how the life-force will be distributed," said Wesley. "In other words, if there is no non-human host available, then the human host is essentially killed, becoming the new body for the demon life-force."
"Okay," said Cordelia. "Way confused. Vampires come into the picture where?"
"Vampires are preferred hosts, because the demon life-force needs a blood link to travel from one host to another. So when the vampire attacks the human host, the demon life-force is freed. An unfortunate side effect for the host, be it human, vampire, or otherwise, is that the demon takes complete control. There are no known cases of reassertion of the original being." He almost added, "On the plus side, human bodies are easier to kill," but decided that wasn't a very big plus, after all.
"Okay, so let me see if I've got this," said Cordelia. "Basically, we've got a bunch of demon souls in hibernation ready to insert themselves into the first walking zombie they see, and if they don't find one, then the human host is the one to go kerblooey?" She thought it was a pretty good summary, herself, but she was surprised at the reactions of the others.
Wesley's mouth was alternately gaping and pursing in a ridiculous fashion. Angel's expression, while more dignified about it, managed to register about the same level of shock.
"What?" she asked. "Is that the right answer?"
"Cordelia," began Angel, then stopped. "I don't even know what that was."
"I thought it was pretty straightforward," she said, a little offended. "Honestly, you and fish-face here are usually much quicker than…."
"No, I mean, I don't even know what language it was," Angel interrupted.
"English!" snapped Cordelia.
"Most definitely not," said Wesley, regaining his self-possession upon being called "fish-face."
"Likely not even human," said Angel.
"What are you saying?" Cordelia asked nervously.
"I think you were speaking a demon dialect," said Angel gently.
"But I don't know any demon dialects," retorted Cordelia.
"That's what's worrying me."
"It is possible, of course," said Wesley, clearing his throat awkwardly, "that Cordelia herself…."
"Is a demon?" she finished indignantly. "Like your stint as a 'rogue demon hunter' makes you some kind of expert? I am so non-demon... Have you ever seen a demon who dresses this well? Okay, besides Angel…."
"That's not what I'm trying to say at all," said Wesley, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "I was merely going to suggest the possibility that you have been possessed by a demon."
"Oh. That's all," said Cordelia. "And here I thought it was going to be something bad."
"She hasn't been acting like a demon," said Angel thoughtfully.
Wesley muttered something that sounded like, "Not usually, anyway," which he covered up with a coughing fit when Cordelia glared at him.
"I think I have a Revealing spell in my library somewhere," said Angel. "I'll go look for it. Wesley, you dig up everything you can on the Convergence. We need to know how soon to expect it." He headed for his inner office, turning back to add, "Oh, and knowing what to expect would be nice, too."
"'In his library somewhere,'" said Cordelia. "We're lucky his library is a fairly modest one of only two zillion books, then, aren't we?"
"While he's looking for the spell, you can look this up in every dictionary of demon dialects we have," said Wesley, jotting a few lines onto a piece of paper.
"I said this?" She turned the paper around in her hands. "Which way is up?"
Wesley took the paper, drew a few lines on it, and returned it to her. "The arrow points 'up.'"
Cordelia frowned. "You know, on second thought, I'm just going to go home and get some rest."
"Are you sure that's altogether wise?" asked Wesley.
"Here's my reasoning," retorted Cordelia promptly, as if she had been prepared for his objection. "If I have been possessed by a demon, it's probably been for a little while now. It certainly didn't happen since I've been here. Anyway, I haven't gone wiggy so far. It's gonna take Angel about three years to find that spell. And with two bone-crunching visions in one day, I'm exhausted."
Wesley remained unconvinced. "You could stay in Angel's apartment for now," he said. "Just in case."
"Honestly, Wesley..." Cordelia sighed. "Look, I'll update Phantom Dennis on the situation, and he can call you if anything goes wrong."
"Your ghost roommate? He can use a phone?"
"Well, more like dial and then bang the phone against the table several times," said Cordelia. "But it'll be good enough for a signal, anyway."
Wesley grudgingly agreed, seeing that Cordelia was determined. "But see that you call us if anything...suspicious starts happening," he called after her as she left the office.
"How long have I been living alone?" Cordelia asked aloud as she walked into her apartment. "And not setting the house on fire, or chopping my fingers off with pointy knives, and not being killed by roving demons who stalk by night. I am not a child."
Talking of demons reminded her of her current, yet still unproven, predicament. When had she been in close enough contact with a demon that she might have been possessed? If she were possessed by a demon, wouldn't she have known about it before now? How did demons go about possessing people, anyway? It was all very confusing, and it was making her even more tired than she had already been. But it was still pretty early; there was no way she was going to turn all grandmotherly and go to bed before 10 PM. She lay down on her couch and flipped on the TV. Naps while watching TV didn't count as sleeping.
Wesley stuck his head into Angel's office. "You'd better take a look at this."
"What is it?" asked Angel.
"My research indicates that the re-assertions of the demon life-forces are staggered; they won't occur all at the same moment in time. However," Wesley added, clearing his throat, "my sources also indicate that the time of the Convergence begins, approximately, now." He looked over at Angel, who was rubbing his temples as if it would help his concentration. "The Powers That Be don't believe in a lot of advance warning, do they?"
"They're not really so much into that, no," said Angel.
"There's another thing you should be aware of," added Wesley. "At first I'd thought that the transfer of the demon life-force from one host to another meant the death of the second host only," he said. "But there was an error in my reasoning. You see, the transfer takes a bit of time to take effect, so if the second host is a vampire…."
"Then the first host could conceivably be drained dry before the feeding is interrupted by the assertion of the demon life-force," finished Angel.
"Or the newly liberated demon life-force finds itself inside a vampire's body, hungry, with dinner readily available, yes."
"But didn't you say that the life-force will take over the first host if it can't find a second one?"
"Yes," said Wesley. "It would seem that exorcism would be the safest solution all around, but how are you going to find every demon that has gone into hibernation? No one has even found one demon in hibernation before."
Angel bowed his head in frustration. Wesley began thinking dismal, apocalyptic thoughts. Then Angel looked up. "Maybe someone has detected a hibernating demon before it fully asserted itself," he said. "Maybe we just did."
"In Cordelia?" choked Wesley. "Oh, dear. There was...one more detail I forgot to mention previously. As it happens, the demon life-force does not placidly await the arrival of a host. Once the life-force begins the process of awakening, it uses some form of telepathic connection to draw potential hosts to itself. Anyone carrying an awakening demon life-force would, in essence, be summoning every soulless creature within a radius of several miles."
"Get yourself some weapons," ordered Angel. "We have to warn Cordelia, and we'd better be prepared for anything."