Part 3

"Something's wrong with her," said Wes as he held Emma in his arms stopping her from falling to the ground. Her body had gone limp. Her face became expressionless while her eyes seemed to stare into oblivion. She had retreated back into her mind as if it somehow offered her an escape from the room where the Angel still stood solid in its pose trying to reach the spot where Mark stood.

"Stay here," said Tony to Mark who had developed a cut above his left eye from his hard impact against the Angel's back. "Keep looking at it."

"Oh...ok," said Mark deeply unnerved and trembling slightly from the realization that he had become the focus of attention for the Angel. He cautiously stepped away from the front of it and stood on its right feeling less intimidated there although still quite dishevelled.

Tony rushed to help Wes with Emma as he slowly and very gently lowered her down on to the floor. Tony knelt down above her head and placed his hands on either side of her face, tapping her in an effort to snap her out of it.

"Emma, wake up!" he said almost pleading for her to respond. "Emma please. Emma!"

"Look," said Wes. "Her neck."

Tony looked down at where Wes was indicating to and saw dark red marks forming on her skin. They were bruises from where the Angel had caught hold of her. The creature had actually touched her but unlike the others that had come into direct contact with the creature while it was moving she had not disappeared. It was a fact that had been lost on them initially in the chaos of finding an Angel with it's hands around her throat but now it was beginning to make them ask the question. "Why didn't she disappear like the others?"

"Maybe she opened her eyes too early," suggested Tony. "It didn't have time to do whatever it does to people. Y'know to make them disappear."

"Maybe it didn't want her to be...disappeared," added Mark still keeping his eyes fixed to the Angel that was now appearing to be reaching for an empty space, the place where Mark had been standing.

"But why?" asked Wes looking over his shoulder away from Emma towards Mark and the Angel.

"It's not really important right now," said Tony. "Let's just be thankful it didn't and try and figure out a way of helping her."

"And to get rid of this thing," said Mark pointing at the statue. "Could one of you take over? My eyes are hurting."

"Sure," said Wes and he left Emma with Tony while he got up and began staring at the statue allowing Mark to tear his eyes away. Blinking them back into regular use he walked over and got down on one knee beside Emma and Tony who was still trying to snap her out of her self imposed exile inside her mind.

"It's all become too much for her," said Tony finally giving up on trying to bring her back to them.

"Do you think splashing some water on her face might help?" asked Mark.

"No, I'm afraid she might have a fit or something if we do that."

"What are we going to do about that thing?" asked Mark. "We can't keep taking it in turns staring at it for the rest of our lives and we still don't know how to destroy it."

"Maybe we could trap it here or something," suggested Tony desperately trying to give an answer.

"How?"

"I don't know, maybe we could brick up the doors and windows or something."

"Are you serious?" asked Mark disbelievingly. "How do we get bricks here and cement?"

"Alright, alright," said Tony trying to let Mark know he had proven his point.

Nevertheless it failed to register in Mark's mind as he continued. "And even if we could trap it in here it won't be here forever. One day this house will either fall down or be demolished and when that happens that thing is going to come zooming out and find each of us again."

"Alright Mark!" growled an increasingly angry Tony. "I fucking get it ok!"

"Guys! Guys!" interjected Wes trying desperately to resist the urge to look their way and break eye contact with the Angel. "This isn't helping."

Tony felt foolish. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, ok, it's just...Look truth-be-told; I am scared shitless." A bolt of white lightning lit up the room followed by another heavy rumble of thunder that they could each feel in their own bodies. Tony didn't need to tell any of them how scared he was for they were all terrified more so than any of them had ever been in their lives. "And right now I can't see a way out of this."

The sense of desperation seemed to ooze from their bodies like perspiration and was filling the room contaminating the wood in the floors and the walls. They were creating an environment for themselves where any suggestion, no matter how ludicrous it would appear to them under normal circumstances, was quickly becoming an option for serious consideration.

"Wait, wait," said Wes striking upon an idea. "We can't destroy it when it's like this, right, a statue? So we have to do it when no one is looking at it. When it's alive."

"Sounds easy don't it?" said Tony.

Wes continued, "What if we point a shotgun at it and put some string around the trigger. We could pull it from behind the door when it comes back to life."

"No," said Tony. "Won't work. The second we take our eyes off it it will be gone before we could pull the trigger all the way back. It's too fast. We'd need a hundred guns to make sure we get it."

"F..."

A voice broke their conversation. It was barely a whisper but it was there and only slightly audible.

"Fire."

It was Emma.

"What?" asked Mark feeling a sense of relief that she had acknowledged them.

"Emma; what did you say?" asked Tony turning her head so that she was looking up at them.

Her eyes were still bordering on lifelessness but she did appear to be coming back to them. "Fire."

"Fire?" said Tony with a quizzical look on his face. He looked at Mark. "Set fire to it?"

"Fire," she repeated softly. "Burn it."

"It's stone," said Tony. "It won't burn, not even if we pour petrol on it."

"The house," interjected Mark who was suddenly hit by a brainwave as he heard her suggestion. "She means burn the house down. We trap it inside and we burn the house down. No one will be looking at it so it will be alive and vulnerable."

"It would have to be a good fire," said Tony who was now catching on. "Otherwise it could just run through it and come after us."

"It will have to be an inferno," added Wes from behind them.

"The only way we will be able to do that is if it's in full swing when it comes back to life," explained Mark subtly hinting to Tony what that really meant.

Tony looked into Mark's eyes and saw exactly what he meant. "At least one of us has to stay with it until the very last second when there's no hope of it ever escaping the flames."

Suddenly the room filled with the sound of voice that boomed over all of them. It originated from the door and as it spoke both Mark and Tony's heads whipped around in its direction. Wes, fortunately, resisted once more and kept the Angel in its solid form. In the poor light the outline of a broad man stood in the doorway apparently carrying something in his arms. His bulk seemed to fill the entire doorframe giving him a strongly imposing persona. Not sure that what they were seeing was real none of them knew how to respond.

"What the hell is this?" the voice growled.