Alot had happened since Cordelia had accepted the fact that she would now be getting Doyle's visions. Angel had thought he was killing people in his sleep, the team discovered it was a copycat vampire. An actress drugged him and made him think he was Angelus. Cordelia and Wesley managed to contain him until the drug wore off. A lawyer from Wolfram and Hart had helped them save three blind children from an equally blind assassin. And then Angel had stolen a scroll from Wolfram and Hart, which seems to have led to the lawyers declaring war on Angel, Cordelia and Wesley.

Cordelia was nearly catatonic in the hospital, Wesley barely survived a bomb and Angel had recruited Gunn, a human vampire hunter, to guard Cordelia while he went after the lawyers.

He went to see the Oracles for help, but found them dead.

"The Dark Ones breach our temples now." The female Oracle's spirit told him.

"My friend, Cordelia, she's in trouble."

"Vocah. He was called for the Raising. He has opened her mind to all those in trouble. Her time draws nearer."

"Her time? Cordelia's time? Is Cordelia going to die from this?"

"She may. You are not paying attention. The signs are all around you. See what is hidden, before it is too late. You need the scroll, the words of Aberjian."

"What do you mean? Before what's too late?" But the spirit was gone. "Why do they always have to be so cryptic. A straight forward answer would really be nice."

The lawyers were at the center of all this, so Angel followed them and saw them start a ritual. A demon was reading from the scroll. Angel attacked him.

"I can't let you do that." He told him.

One of the lawyer, Lindsey, grabbed the scroll and continue the ritual while Angel fought the demon.

"Are you really going to do this, Lindsey? You had a chance to leave this all behind. To do good and you're choosing to wallow in slime." Angel said, in between trading punches with the demon, Vocah. Lindsey ignored him and kept reading.

"Why, Lindsey? What cowardice makes you choose to be apart of this? Or is it greed? Are you going to answer me, Lindsey?" Angel killed the demon just as a bright light filled the crate in the center of the ritual circle. The other lawyers grabbed it and rolled it out.

"I know it was written that your link to the Powers would be severed. I know all of this was foretold." Lindsey said, holding the scroll out over a lit brazier. Angel threw the scythe he was holding and severed Lindsey's hand. He bent down to pick up the scroll. "Don't believe everything you're foretold, Lindsey. You made the wrong choice. Now you have to live with it." As Lindsey cradled the stump, where his hand had been.

Angel brought the scroll to Wesley, who read the words of Aberjian and released Cordelia from the nightmare she was trapped in. Later, at her apartment, where Angel Investigations was temporarily working out of, they talked about what happened.

"I saw so many people in pain. People who have no one else to help them. We need to help them."

"I agree and we will, as many as we can. But the Oracle said something that didn't make sense. She said, her time is drawing near. I don't think she meant you, Cordelia. She said, we need to see what is hidden, the signs are all around us. Cryptic, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean."

"It likely has to do with whatever Wolfram and Hart raised tonight in the crate you saw, Angel. Whatever these signs are, we seem to be missing them. We probably won't understand them until we know what the end game is. But we should be alert for anything that could point us in a direction. The she could be anything, a demon, a spirit, a human." Wesley said. "There's really nothing else we can do and nothing to go on. Meanwhile, I finished translating the Shanshu Prophecy, it relates to the vampire with a soul. Basically it says, after enduring many trails, he'll get to live again, as a human."

"I could be human again?" Angel asked. "When?"

"There's no set time, no prearranged number of trials. It could be tomorrow, it could be a century from now. But it is something to hope for."

"To be human again. I've never thought about it."

"Maybe you should start making a 'what I will do when I'm human list'. " Cordelia suggested. "Give you something to look forward to."

"It would nice to have something forward to. I haven't had that for a long time."