I watched the fallen warrior demons carefully while climbing awkwardly over the pile that their bodies made, ready to do a little quick stab work with the sword if any of them happened to move on their own, but none did. Something was feeling itchy in the base of my throat though. Somewhere near here would be the last and strongest line of defense, and considering what we had already been through, I had no idea what that would be or how we were supposed to fight it. Willow caught my eye and nodded slightly, then smiled a fierce little smile. Well, that was something we still had on our side at least, and the thought made me feel a little better.

I looked around, and realized that I couldn't see Wesley. Was about to ask Fred about him, and then I realized that he had probably popped in to visit with Illyria for a moment, to make sure that she knew what to do with the gateway.

"Oh, hey Angel - you'll need this back I think." It was Buffy's voice... as I looked up at her I realized that she had thrown the mithril sword back to me, and I caught it awkwardly, then looked at the spear I was still carrying and back at her. Buffy shook her head, so I threw the spear shaft and broken point away, and Buffy pulled out a stake from one of her pockets. I shook my head silently, and she broke out laughing.

Spike and Faith opened the door to the hotel lobby first, and then did a bit of a double take at what they saw inside. I went up and took a look myself... and then I knew how they felt. For a second, it looked like the place was empty, but that might have been my eyes paying tricks on me in the darkness, combined with the fact that it wasn't at all what I expected to see.

There were a fair number of horrible beings, fiends, and goons inside, as I had expected, but they weren't milling out on the lobby floor, or waiting in perfect formation for us. Instead, they were mostly staying somewhere out of the way. Brrzhac demons standing behind the registration desk. Cthugans waiting solemnly in the doorways and the corridors beyond. Klensis beasts visible through the glassless windows there in one corner of the room. Vampire ninjas - Kobyame clan it looked like - were waiting on the stairway, weapons drawn. Up on the balcony, phalangoid demons, Khee Shaks and Konsoos, and a few revenants were waiting in eerie silence and stillness. A couple of Vartite fiends and about a dozen zombies were sitting on the floor in corners of the room, as if there was no other place for them.

And then, there was the dimensional gateway, a shimmering disk of rainbow colors down the far side of the lobby, blocking off the garden door. A few humanoid priests seemed to be attending to its workings, and a picked squad of shock troops were standing guard in formation immediately in front of it... Granok demons it looked like, (ouch!) Tribulation mercenaries, and Tantrice.

"Well, if you're gonna come in, come on in," a familiar voice called out. "I mean, you look like you're expecting a fight - want us to try giving you one?"

I stepped through the doorway. "Maybe that'd be best, Lilah. I imagine you can probably guess why we've come."

"To shut down the gateway, yeah, yeah." She was stepping out into the middle of the lobby floor now, as the rest of the team gathered in behind us. "So... looks like the odds are about, umm, two hundred and fifty to six. How're you feeling?"

"Ready for a little action!" Spike called out.

"Hi, William," Lilah replied. "Think your boss is as confident as you are?"

"He's not my boss," Spike spat out automatically. "But yeah, he knows we can get this done."

"Methinks the boy doth protest too much," Lilah declared theatrically. "About not being your lackey that is, Angel. Well, okay, how do you wanna do this? Start it up slowly, or just come rushing at you as quickly as possible? Or we form a defensive formation and wait for you to come at it?"

"Ummm..." I thought about that, including wondering whether Lilah was playing some sort of a mind game with me here. But it didn't seem worth the bother to say anything other than my honest preference. "Yeah, a few of you at a time sounds good to me."

"You got it," Lilah replied, laughing, A half dozen of the demons broke off from their groups and approached us... Faith and Spike shrugged, and they, Illyria, and I attacked simultaneously, killing four of them. Five more started approaching to take their place.

We kept at it like that for a little while. Some of the demons that went up against us were not so easy to bump off, of course, the vampire ninjas and the cthugans for example, were tough fights, but still they came only a couple at a time, with the rest watching and waiting, which was really intensely creepy. Soon I realized that a few of the zombies and lesser monsters had approached, not to fight, but simply to helpfully drag away some of the bodies of our fallen enemies so that we didn't get surrounded by them.

We started to drift apart, to each have a little more room to fight in, since if the other guys were going to keep playing by the same rule they couldn't yet send in masses of enemies to surround each of us. A little bit after that happened, I realized that nobody was coming for me. Buffy, Faith, Spike, and Illyria were getting all of the action - I pulled a Klensis beast away from Faith and slapped it around for a bit before ripping off its fundament gland with my bare hands, which gave it about ten seconds in which to shudder and die. But the next demon I tried to engage actually backed away from me. "What the hell?"

"They're saving you. They've been told to."

I turned around and saw Lilah smirking at me. Well fine, let her smirk all she wants, as long as she doesn't realize what we're really here for and shut down the gateway. "Saving me? Why, I didn't realize that you cared so much."

Lilah shook her head. "No, I don't think you understand. Not saving you as in 'saving yout life.' Saving you as in 'letting you be until the V.I.D. who wants to kick your ass himself shows up."

Okay, I have to admit that idea was starting to frighten me. "V.I.D... that mean Very Important Demon?"

"Pretty much... though I don't want you to think I'm making light." She let out a long and slightly melodramatic sigh. "We had to clear most of the vampires, lesser demons, and assorted monsters out of the entire hotel - can you believe that? Only those who were considered worthy of seeing him remain." She made a soft little 'sheesh'ing sound.

Power-freaked now, I was starting to get an idea what she was talking about. "Any idea when you expect him to drop by?" I checked the situation. Nobody seemed to be too heavily pressed. Willow was just hanging around near Buffy, not doing much of anything, probably conserving her strength, and no-one bothered her. Faith, Buffy, and Spike were each being kept busy, separately, by capable opponents, but not really endangered. It was as if they were humoring us - we'd obviously barged in here looking for a fight, so Wolfram & Hart was happy to supply us with one.

Illyria was being pressed a little more emphatically, with about four hulking yellow toad demons surrounding her and fighting as well as they could, but I got the sense that Illyria was stalling. She'd wait to make her move until the moment that it was least expected... which presumably would be after this Mister Big arrived. "Oh, any moment now," Lilah answered my question, shaking me out of idle thoughts.

"Really?" I looked towards the pulsing violet circle of light... it was practically expected at that moment. If I hadn't, Lilah would have wondered what was up.

On the other hand, if I hadn't, she probably wouldn't have chuckled. "No, no Angelino. You're going to miss it if you keep staring at that thing. Bascellicoze knows how to make an entrance." She laughed. "As in, his own entrance."

And then I saw it... a moment too late. In the empty space near the passageway that used to lead to my office, red lightning was starting to spark out of nowhere. "Illyria!" I shouted, and she knocked the toad demons away from herself and came running, but it was too late. In mere seconds, a new figure stood there, dominating the entire scene.

Even though the shape it wore here on earth was probably a pale imitation of the malevolent splendor it was used to, I had to admit that the new arrival made an impressive sight. About fifteen feet tall, roughly hominid in outline but with soft, sleek tufts of gray fur all over its body, a mouthful of shiny teeth including four prominent points, perked triangular ears, and a long snout-like nose that tended to dominate its face. I stepped forward grimly.

"Should have realized that Ram or Hart wouldn't have been the ones to come. Wolf is the nastiest, the hunter and killer." A short breath. "And I've been wanting to meet one of you for a while now."

"Basil Lykos," Fred's ghost whispered, looking at the huge towering shape and altering the stresses with which Lilah had said the name. "King of the wolves... and one of the firm's senor partners?"

"Well, now I am here," Lykos said, sneering his wolf's mouth a little. "After the lackeys here on earth screwed up one thing after another, I decided that finally I'd have to deal with the little snot of a 'ensouled vampire' myself. Shall we get to it?"

Buffy staked the ancient vampire who had been occupying her, until Lykos' arrival, and rushed towards me. "You wanna fight us?"

"No, actually, that doesn't appeal at the moment, my darling," he snorted, and then quickly began to speak in another language, a tongue that I had never heard before and yet somehow, possibly because of the magical properties of the conjuration he was speaking, I understood it perfectly. "Here and now do I call on thee: Angel, Liam, Angelus - three persons bound to one body, and challenge thee to defend thy cause on the field of honor. Thou and I, tooth against blade, hand to claw, for the fate of this earth and the resolution of prophecy. To this challenge I constrain and bind thee, by the word that shall not be spoken until all worlds come, finally, to their utter end." (There were no literal 'thee's and 'thou's I admit - it was a mystic language, but they seem to fit the tone of his meaning.)

I sucked in a breath. The binding spell that this wolf-king senior partner had laid on me was real enough... it probably wouldn't kill me to break it but it would take its toll one way or another, and probably in some fashion that would cripple me in the battle to come. Besides, I kind of liked the idea of settling my grudge against the Senior Partners by dueling one of them to the death. (Death was a little different for demons of such incalculable power I knew, but in a mystically mediated duel to the death, killing king Lykos would be a huge blow to Wolfram and Hart throughout the dimensions, even if it wasn't quite permanent.)

And I knew something else. Demons like the senior partners might be strong, but they weren't omnipotent. The Senior Partners would never have worked through lackeys on Earth, no matter how busy they might be on other worlds, if they weren't a little afraid of stepping into a dimension beyond their full control and getting killed there. I made up my mind and was about to take a step forward towards Lykos, when I heard Spike object. "Why are you challenging him? I'm the real vessel of destiny here!" He sounded almost desperately sincere.

"Maybe some other day and in some other place, but not here and now, William the Spike," Lykos told him with a harsh laugh, and Spike just sat there, his last hopes cruelly dashed. I actually felt sorry for him, knowing what it would feel like myself to stand by and watch if the senior partner had chosen him.

Just then, Faith cried out "Willow!"

I turned to see what was happening now. Willow had bent over slightly, gasping in sudden exertion, and I realized that she had drawn on the reserves from the Dover coven. She whispered a spell under her breath... and beside me, more or less in the direction I had been about to step, a globe of softly glowing white light popped into existence.

"You can't go through with this, Angel," Buffy called out, the worry throbbing in her voice.

"I have to," I said softly, stepped forward, and grabbed the white globe. As I had expected, it was a battle spell that Willow had prepared for me, knowing that this was the only thing that anyone could do to help me in this ritual combat. It wasn't considered to be illegal interference, I somehow knew, it was just preparing a tool and leaving it for me to find, before I had formally accepted the bond of battle. Lykos' wolf eyes narrowed as he saw the energy absorbed into me, but he didn't object or even exclaim in surprise.

"I accept your challenge," I said simply. "Let the battle be joined." And Willow's spell took action then, somehow warping space and mass so that I was nearly as tall as Lykos was, and with momentum to match, though my motions and agility seemed unaffected. That violated the laws of physics of course, but physics was temporarily out to lunch, here in this room that had been warped slightly out of reality by so many strange effects. Willow's spell was taking advantage of that, in the same way that the firm had when they set up the gateway here in the lobby.

Lykos was on me in an instant, the blunt part of his forearm (foreleg?) swinging towards my throat, his canine teeth bared. But I had expected something like this, and my reflexes seemed to be much sharper than usual... was that Willow's booster or just the fact that I knew this was the most important duel I had ever been in? I let my body flow back before his attack, melting away with a useful 'aikido' technique... never resist and never impede. In aikido it is the rudest thing possible to interfere with an enemy's motion... such as being in the space he wants his arm to move through. Once I was down on the floor, propped up by one elbow. I swept out a foot, trying to hook Lykos' legs and knock them out from under him, but he hopped over the attempt and backed away a little, smiling that he had taken my measure, and maybe looking forward to the next round of combat.

I flipped back up to my feet and eyed him warily for a moment, trying to figure out what he was about to do. It didn't seem like he was up to anything much - he was waiting for me to make my move. I thought about drawing the sword, but didn't... against a really good opponent using a weapon can make you more predictable and thus be counterproductive. Stepped forward towards the wolf demon, carefully, trying to see if he would leap to the attack once I was within a certain range. Nothing. He was just standing there, every fiber of his body tense and straining with energy, but held back.

Well, I had to try something that might surprise him. I broke into a run, noticing that Lykos was standing his ground, and bent down as if I was going into a cartwheel or handstand, but soon as my hand touched the ground, I swung around that point of leverage as best I could, so as to kick into the wolf demon's side horizontally with both feet. It worked, well, in that I was able to connect, but he trapped one of my feet in between his torso and forelimb. Not a great situation for me. I kicked at his upper arm with my other foot, and that gave me enough leverage to flip my upper body off of the floor with my hands, so that I was flying up into the air, knocking him back... and my foot was free. I scrambled away... and realized that Illyria was moving towards the dimensional portal.

I had to keep anyone from realizing what she was really up to, so it was a calculated risk to even mention the portal. "You're going down, wolf boy," I muttered. "And then, that gateway is coming down too."

"Even if that's true, then what?" He spat. "You and your little friends can't fight your way out of a city under siege. My army will kill you all and then they will go on to destroy Los Angeles." He laughed. "And that's if you by some freak chance were able to take me out, which you won't. I'll win, and that will give me and mine enough influence over your world to make it ours."

"You talk big, shaggy," I taunted. "But hey, I'm not even bruised yet!"

"Increase the gate power!" Lilah called to the acolytes standing near it. "Full crossover intensity. They're going to try something."

It was hard to keep from laughing - that was exactly what I'd hoped Lilah would do. Anything to keep them from closing the gate on their own, prematurely, before Illyria could do her little trick.

Lykos, meanwhile, growled deep in his wolf's throat again, and let the claws on his hands extend until they looked like short swords, and slashed out at me with some of them. Figuring that a good defense is made of mithril, I drew my sword to fend them away.

I could see now that I'd taken the wrong tack a moment earlier. I couldn't win this fight by pushing an attack against the Senior Partner while he was calm, cool, and collected... he'd see a weak spot in my defenses and destroy me utterly. But King Lykos wasn't calm, cool, and collected really - if he were, he'd never have come. He'd come because he was angry, and that anger just might let me destroy him.

And so I hoped that what was going to happen next would really piss him off.

I concentrated for the next little bit on trying to perfect my defense as the wolf demon king launched ever more energetic attacks against me, knowing that it had to be frustrating them to see them fail. Spin kick with his toe talons glinting brightly... fall back and roll away. He grabbed an axe that someone had dropped (using discovered tools was within dueling rules, remember,) and tried to chop one of my arms off with it... I actually used a variant of the trick that Buffy had used on Angelus in the middle of that fight during the Acathla ritual, stopping the axe by catching the flat sides of the axe between my hands. He raked at me with arm claws and I blocked them with the edge of my sword.

And then it happened.

The demon broke off his attack to stare in disbelief at Illyria, calmly stepping into the middle of Wolfram and Hart's dimensional gateway, but not passing through. She must have simply pushed past the elite demons standing guard. Dimensional energy was flowing through her body, through Fred's old body, and beginning to change. I saw the patterns of light start to form circular and spiral patterns, as if they were getting surrounded by themselves. One of the tall cyclopes was starting to grow hazy, not in outline, but in the details of his face and body... as if I was seeing him, and only him, through smoke - not the desk that was past him, not the floor that was at his feet. And then it wasn't just the cyclops, it was all of Wolfram and Hart's demons and monsters. Then the gateway and the monsters were all gone, just blinked out like someone had hit a button on a tv remote or a computer mouse to delete them.

It was me and Lykos, and the slayers and Spike and Willow, and the ghosts and Lilah. Illyria's body lay where the gateway had been - maybe alive, maybe dead, it was impossible to tell. Nobody else left in the lobby. Probably no-one else left within several city blocks, unless there were local survivors that the horde hadn't killed 'just because.'

The demon king roared. "Omabbed!" He kicked a hole in the floor in his rage. "That godsforsaken little demon bitch - I knew we should have found a way to kill her before this." He whirled to stare at Lilah. "This comes out of your hide, Morgan. Sixty-six point six million warriors transported to this puny little world on your say-so, and now they are lost. Well, a few probably got washed up somewhere, but it'll be worth more than they are to find and recover most of them. So I think that you will suffer in absolute agony one year for each and every one of them!"

Lykos reached out to point at Lilah, but before he had finished the gesture, Wesley had appeared out of nowhere (literally,) in between them. Lilah disappeared in a soft blaze of light, but Lykos roared with annoyance and Wesley smiled with quiet triumph.

"She's safe from you now, and free of her quote unquote perpetuity contract," Wesley informed him. "The ones that I'm working for now have seen to that. 'Infinite in mercy' is the usual phrase. Now, unless I have it very wrong, you have a mortal duel that you're supposed to be concentrating on." He nodded to me slightly, just past the massive bulk of Lykos' body.

The wolf turned around, and scowled at me. "The way you're grinning, you must actually think Illyria's little trick has accomplished something, vampire. Once you're defeated, the kind of devastation I'll rain down on everything you think of as 'good' in this world will make Lilah's army look like a couple of little boys with toy tanks! And your friends will be the next ones to die horribly!"

"Well, there's that," I conceded, then whipped the sword towards his shoulder. He reached out his own arm and blocked it fiercely, but I had been expecting that, relaxing the shoulder, and didn't get hurt. At the same time, I rolled into him, so that our bodies were close together, and practically whispered into his perked-up ear.

"On the other hand, we've been at this a little while already, and you haven't kicked my ass yet. So I'm starting to wonder if this is all 'call of the wild' bluster."

He roared, actually snapping at my nose with his teeth, but I was already rolling back away, sheathing the sword and shifting my weight slightly from foot to foot. The gloves were well and truly off now. I couldn't hope to keep up a perfect defense against the kind of attack that this demon, (who was in the top five of anybody I'd ever faced,) was about to open up against me. But maybe, just maybe, I would have an opening for a devastating counterattack.

Even staying alive in that fight was far from easy. Lykos was truly a formidable opponent... well versed in the use of his natural weapons of tooth and claw, and obviously grandmaster in about a dozen different forms of martial art, most of which were unknown anywhere on Earth. Despite Willow's spell altering my effective height and mass, he was still about half a head taller if he stood up straight, and his body blocks and power punches had about one third more impact in them than my own. I did what I could, and had my hopes when I managed to take him in a jujitsu throw that would have given a homonid of any size a badly sprained ankle... but the wolf man's joints worked differently, and he didn't seem to be affected.

It was during that moment of disappointment that I let my guard down, and Lykos viciously slashed with one forepaw, his claws raking deep into my throat.

It was a bad wound; I knew it, even as I tried to fend off his attempts to leverage the scratch into an even more crippling bite. Generally, a vampire's physiology shrugs off what would be fairly deep wounds to a human, but that wasn't happening this time. Whether the wolf demon's claws were magic, or my quick-healing powers had simply been tapped out by the rest of the battles that I had been in today I wasn't sure. My neck was bleeding badly, and I could feel my strength running out with the blood.

Lykos let me struggle away, enjoying every drop and splatter of blood that landed on the tile. Was this it? Was it the beginning of the end? And how ironic was it, after dating a werewolf girl, that I'd finally be killed by a huge wolf demon?

Something tugged at me with the thought of Nina... not that I cared for her and hoped she was safe in Mexico, though of course I did. And if what Lykos said was true, he'd win this fight and be able to bring the Apocalypse no matter what, then she wouldn't be safe. But it really wasn't that.

It was something important, something that could mean the difference between victory and defeat right now. In a second I had found it, or thought that maybe I had. It seemed much smaller of a chance now that I was thinking of it directly, but maybe that was the only chance I had left.

When I started dating Nina, remembering the fact that her werewolf self had nearly killed me as a puppet, I'd asked Wesley for some kind of simple protection against werewolves or wolves, and he had given me a silver disc amulet marked with an ancient rune, that would confuse and stun magical wolves.

Would it possibly work against a senior partner, a demon king of all wolves?

Lykos was drawing near to me now, his teeth bared for the final attack, and I was starting to feel my strength ebb away. I had to try it. All that I needed was for the wolfman to flinch slightly from the amulet, and I would have my opening.

I thrust my left hand beneath my shirt, and couldn't find the amulet. Lykos roared and leapt, bearing me down to the ground, his teeth snapping at my shoulder. I tried to fend him off and look for the amulet at the same time, but it didn't work, so reluctantly I focused on the search, feeling the agony bloom all along the right side of my body as those cruel fangs tore into my flesh, mauling their way down towards my heart.

And then, of course, I found it. The silver disc was in my fingers, and I brought it out, nearly shoving it into Lykos' face. He flinched slightly, and impulsively I flipped the silver chain over the demon's own neck. For just a second, he seemed to be confused.

And I grabbed at the mithril sword with what strength I could muster in my right arm and drove the blade straight through its heart.

King Lykos roared and its body was consumed with bright blueish-white flame, melting the sword almost instantly, and I scrambled back and beat at my own clothes where they had caught fire. For a second the wolf's eyes looked at mine, with incredible rage and hatred in them. And then they were gone.

He wasn't dead for good, somehow I could tell that. The most powerful of demonkind always insisted on playing fast and loose with life and death in ways that we lesser folk could not. But that didn't matter to me so much. I had won the duel, at least, and in so doing, had beat back the entire Wolfram & Hart firm on this world. Their offices across the globe would be shutting down, for many decades at least. Willow's spell shut off and instantly blinked me back to my regular size without changing anything else.

I struggled up to my feet, and almost got knocked down again by Buffy. "You did it!"

"Yeah, I think so," I muttered tersely. I didn't want to mention my deepest fear, that having saved the world and won out, I didn't think I would survive myself. My wounds were critical, and we had no more healing magic. But there was something else to check on first. "Illyria!"

She was alive, barely, but definitely at death's door as well. Her eyes looked up as all of us crowded close, but I think the only one that she saw was Wesley. "What do those words you said mean: 'infinite in mercy?'"

Wesley smiled tightly, ethereal tears streaming down his cheeks. "I don't think that I could explain it to you," he said softly. "But maybe, if you want, I can show you what they mean. Would you like that?"

A long pause, long enough that I was wondering if the demon would ever speak words again. Then, ever so softly. "I believe... that would be... acceptable."

Wesley shot a look over at the spirit of Fred, and she nodded, also smiling, also crying about as hard as she could at the same time. The four ghosts were all starting to glow softly, which I suddenly realized might mean their time to remain here was almost up. It had been the energy from the gateway that sustained them here on earth, someone had mentioned, and that was gone now. How long did we have?

Wesley reached out and laid an insubstantial hand on Illyria's face, and her eyes closed for the very last time. He shone brighter and brighter there, kneeling over her, and then winked out. Was he conveying the demon's spirit to meet with the Powers that Were? What a meeting that would be.

My knees buckled, and I only just managed to get myself sitting on one of the steps up to the garden door instead of sprawling out embarrassingly on the floor. "Well, if Lilah and Illyria qualify for going to heaven," I muttered, "then I hope that I can get in. All but my vampire side, at least... Angelus can finally go to hell I guess, and good riddance."

"No!" Buffy exclaimed, squatting close to me. "Angel, you're not going to... to die. You can't die!"

"There's an awful lot of my blood on the floor that says different."

"You can't!" she insisted, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Not after... after everything you've done, everything you've given up, everything you've risked, everything you've accomplished. Not after everything that I did to save your incredibly cute ass!"

"I'm not sure that all of that always makes a difference," I said, lifting up an arm with difficulty towards hers. "I always knew that many people might have to die to make a difference, that the good guys don't always make it to the end. And you've accomplished so much, by being here. You and the rest, without you guys we could never have vanquished the horde, or smacked Wolfram and Hart down damn good, or... or saved Spike and Gunn." I took a deep, ragged breath. "And I think when I'm gone, you and Spike are gonna figure things out. You're cookies now, baby, and he's chocolate milk or something the hell like that. He's learned a lot, hanging out with me for a year... He's good enough for you, and that's about the highest compliment I could ever think of."

"You're delirious, Angel," she said, with some justification. "Just... just hang on, okay. We'll be able to heal your wounds somehow, just as long as you..."

"There isn't enough time for that," Cordelia said softly. Buffy looked up at her, and now the tears flowed like a miniature stream from each of her eyes.

"God, no! Buffy, honey, I didn't mean to put it like that. We can't heal Angel, but we can do something better. I won the privilege of being the one to do this, but I didn't expect the scene to be nearly like it is. "

"I... I don't understand," Buffy and I said in unison, and looked at each other, and laughed without much in the way of real mirth.

"That scroll that the circle of the black thorn made you sign, keeping you from getting the reward of your destiny," Fred said, a big grin on her face. "They took it through the dimensional gateway here, to a holding dimension for safe keeping."

I didn't understand what that meant. I was starting to lose my grip on the whole situation, but I heard Buffy say "But that... that means..."

"It doesn't exist any more," Cordelia said. "And I am now honored to be the vessel from which destiny flows, or something like that. Angel... Angel?"

Something changed, like I had taken a huge fall and landed very hard and joltingly. The first thing I noticed was the pulse pounding in my throat and my ears. The second thing was that my neck and my shoulder didn't seem to be hurt anymore. The third thing I noticed was that Buffy smelled really nice.

Wait a second... pulse pounding?

I got up, looked around myself. We were still in the Hyperion lobby, with Illyria's body lying still a little way, and the scorch marks where Lykos had been vanquished maybe fifteen feet beyond. But everything else seemed to be slightly different.

I was looking at the world through human eyes now. Living eyes.

I spun around to face Buffy, and she was sitting in an awkward half-kneel, looking up at me with utter shock. "You're... you're human?"

"Damn!" Spike swore, and the predictable-ness of that response made me laugh, and swing Buffy up in my arms, hugging her.

"I'm alive, and I'm human," I repeated out loud, just savoring the words. "I never thought it would happen for real, but it did."

"And the world is saved, or at least safer," Doyle added pointedly. "So that you don't really need to worry about retiring as a Champion for a little while, and just enjoy your reward. There are others to carry on."

"Like you," Fred told Spike. "You're a hero now, and a champion, but you haven't earned this like Angel did. Maybe one day... but you've got a lot of work to do before that day ever comes."

"And with that," Cordelia said a little sadly, "We really do have to go now." She took a deep breath and grinned at me. "Shanshu, baby! You did it!"

"Couldn't have done it without you - any of you," I said. "Make sure to pass that along to Wesley."

"He knows," Fred assured me. "But I'll tell him you said so."

The three remaining ghosts faded away, and Buffy grinned at me teasingly. "So, you've saved the world and now you're human. What do you want to do now? I understand there's a cute blonde werewolf girl waiting for you in Cabo san Lucas."

That bit hard at my suddenly human heart. But... "No, I can't go and see Nina now. With the news reports, she may think that I died here... but, well, in a way I did. To her, I was the mysterious handsome vampire CEO, and all of that is gone now." I brushed a bit of hair away from Buffy's forehead and looked deep into her beautiful eyes. "But I think that you always saw me as more than a vampire, maybe, because you fell for me before you knew that I was that. You always saw the man that I could be, that I have the chance to be. Am I right?"

She beamed for a second, and kissed me sweetly on the mouth. "Well the slayer and vampire thing had its odd lure, but yeah. I really do think you're right." She sighed. "On the other hand, I'm not so sure I'm cookies yet, Angel."

I blushed in mortification, remembering the things that I had babbled to her when I thought I was dying. "Well then, what do you want to do?"

She smiled. "I want you to come and see Rome with me. I'm not sure if that'll lead to anything, but I want to spend time with you that has nothing to do with fighting evil monsters. I want to show you my world, the world of the sunlight and the flowers and the white puffy clouds. Come to Rome, Angel. If anything else needs to be figured out, we'll think about it there."

"I'll come," I assured her, starting to feel tears flowing myself. She reached up on tiptoes, pushing me down gently, and kissed my eyes dry.

"Umm... any idea how we get there?"

Buffy led the way out of the hotel. "Umm... well, we're probably walking a ways, until we get somewhere that the horde didn't ravage so much and we can catch a taxi. The charter jet is waiting at an airfield well outside the city... they dropped us at the Wolfram and Hart offices on parachute and continued on."

"Oh, joy." We led the way down the ruined street, hand in hand, Willow following a little way behind. I was starting to wonder if sometime I could drop by Connor. I had been plucked out of my old existence and handed a new one in very much the same way it had been done to him. Maybe we could start to get to know each other again. But Buffy came first.

"Say, Spike, have you ever wanted to go to Cleveland?" Faith asked, as they brought up the rear. "Wolfram and Hart didn't have anything to do with the Hellmouth two, so you can probably build up some good champion cred around there."

"Oh, wait a second," Buffy realized. "We have to go back to the retreat, and check on all of our friends and such. Umm... do you remember where the portal that Wesley led us to was? Can we do an outgoing from there?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said, and kissed her - just because. "I think it was down this side street..."