Convergence

© Kylie

Rating: PG

Disclaimer

I don't own these characters. BtVS and Angel belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy [ahh...grrrr]. Highlander: the Series belongs to Rysher and Highlander belongs to ...well whoever it belongs to. It sure as hell aint me.

Author's Notes:

Okay. This is set post season 1 of Angel. The old office is a burned out shell and now they have new offices thanks to some help by their friendly billionaire. Kate has realised that she may have pushed Angel a little too far and is beginning to accept the way things are. She's not buddy, buddy with the gang, but she's not as hostile as she has been.

"Morning Cordelia."

"Ow!" Cordelia cried out in pain as, startled by her brooding boss's greeting, she poured freshly brewed coffee on her feet, missing the cup completely. "Angel, how many times do I have to tell you not to skulk up on me first thing in the morning? You're taking years off my life."

"Sorry." Angel didn't sound very contrite, but she let it pass.

"Any big bad evil grrrs..last night?"

"No it was really quiet." Angel seemed rather concerned about that. "I'll talk to Wesley when he gets in. Maybe there's some prophecy or something that could account for it being so quiet."

Cordelia finished mopping herself off as best she could, and poured herself and Angel a cup of coffee. Handing him his cup, she sat down at her desk.

"You think there might be a big evil brewing?"

"Maybe. I haven't heard anything on the streets that would indicate that though. Mind you, vampires and demons aren't exactly falling over themselves to volunteer information to me at the best of times."

"That could have something to do with most demons and vamps ending up dead, after going up against you."

"You think?"

Cordelia nodded. "Trust me. The 'fear-for-your-life' thing they have going when you're around, isn't good for information gathering."

"Good Morning." Wesley called out cheerfully, as he entered the office. Personally Cordelia thought it was extremely unnatural for anybody to be that 'chipper' first thing in the morning. She certainly wasn't human until she had had her first cup of coffee.

"Just the person we need. Your research-the-prophecy skills are needed Wesley. "Cordelia told him.

"Oh? What happened?."

"Nothing." Angel explained. "Just. well nothing. It was extremely quiet last night. I only saw three vampire's for the whole night. I was wondering if there was something going on we should know about. A prophecy about to play itself out or something."

"That's unusual. Nothing comes to mind, but I'll get right on it. There may be something in Rhondac's Volumes." Both Wesley and Angel moved off to start researching, discussing possibilities as they left.

Cordelia watched as they retreated, glad that she wouldn't have to pull research girl duty that morning.

*********

Cordelia looked up, a smile pasted to her face, as she heard the front door to the office open. The smile quickly dropped as she recognized Det. Kate Lockley. She didn't like the way the woman had been treating Angel, ever since her father's death. As if it was Angel's fault that he hadn't listened to him.

"Um hi. Is Angel in?"

"He's a little busy right now. Can I help you with anything?" She was really hoping that she couldn't and that Kate would just leave.

"No. Not really. I really need to talk to him. It's about a case I'm working on."

"Oh well, I can give him a message and get him to call y...."

"Kate." Cordelia and Kate both turned to look at the vampire standing in the doorway of his office. "What are you doing here?"

"I need some help on a case. There are a few things that can't be explained. I thought you might be able to...." Kate was really uncomfortable. She really didn't want to be here, but she didn't have a whole lot of choice. The department forensic team were at a complete loss to explain what was happening on this case. So that left Angel.

"Sure. " Angel gestured to his office. "Would you like to take a seat. I'll be back in just a moment." Kate warily passed Angel and entered his office.

Angel shot Cordelia a 'what-the-heck-were-you-doing' look. Cordelia just shrugged. She really didn't want to explain herself to Angel at the moment.

Angel took a moment to tell Wesley that he was going to be needed in the office for this meeting. Kate had had a real attitude the last couple of months. She had been having a great deal of difficulty dealing with the 'whole other world' side of LA. The fact that vampires had killed her father while Angel looked on, helpless to do anything hadn't helped. He wasn't about to spend time alone with her. She was likely to pull a stake on him if he said the wrong thing.

*******

"Ok. What's the problem?" Angel asked as he entered the office followed by Wesley.

"Who's he?" Kate asked gesturing to Wesley.

"Kate this is my associate, Wesley Wyndham-Price, Wesley, Detective Kate Lockley."

"Pleasure to meet you." Wesley told her guardedly. He had heard about her. "What can we help you with?"

"A case I'm working on. A man murdered in an abandoned warehouse. He was skewered with something. Forensics hasn't been able to figure out what." Kate pulled a thick manila file out of her bag. Opening it she passed Angel a couple of photographs of the crime scene. The victim was a Caucasian male, with black hair. His eyes were brown, staring at the roof blankly. He was dressed in military garb, which immediately made Angel nervous.

"What's this?" Wesley asked pointing to a futuristic looking rifle.

"The boys in the lab identified it as a tazer blaster. It shoots electricity. It had been fired. Alot. There was evidence of power surges and electrical disturbance all over the warehouse." she handed Wesley a few more photographs which showed the condition of the warehouse. There were scorch marks everywhere.

"Oh my." was all that Wesley could say. He handed Angel the photographs and took a closer look at the ones that Angel had been viewing.

"Have you been able to identify the victim?" Angel asked Kate.

"George Bernard. 21 years old. He's a teaching assistant at U C Sunnydale." Angel swore.

"The Initiative. Damn. I thought they had been closed down."

"That is what Giles told me." Wesley informed him. "I think I may know what killed him. The way this wound is different at the exit and entrance? Whatever went through him was tapered. That's consistent with a Polgara demon." Wesley explained.

"Polgara demon?" Angel asked.

"They're tall muscular, but not particularly good fighters. Their main defenses are spike like bones that shot out of their arms. That tends to end fights rather quickly. Not many people survive an encounter with them. The Watchers council only knew of about five people."

"And there's one running around LA?" Kate asked.

"I think so. I would have to check my books to be sure."

"How do we kill it?"

"Usual ways. Fire, decapitation, running it through with a sword all work. You just have to be careful of those spikes."

"I can do that."

"You may want to warn the police to be a extra careful Det.. As a general rule Polgara's will avoid a confrontation, but if it feels cornered it will attack."

"What am I supposed to tell them? That a tall spiny bad guy wants to run them through with a long bone? That'll go down well." Wesley and Angel just look at her. "I'll think of something. Is there anything else you can tell me? What's this Initiative thing?"

Angel and Wesley just look at each other debating what to tell her.

"We may as well tell her everything." Wesley told him.

"The Initiative is a military operation. They're headquartered in Sunny....." he broke off as he heard Cordelia cry out.

*****

Angel was out of the office in a heartbeat, or so it seemed to Kate. Wesley wasn't far behind him.

She stood to follow them but stopped in the door. Cordelia was on her knees on the floor, shaking violently, the heels of her palms pressed against her temples, whimpering. Angel kneeled beside her, concern written clearly on his face, an arm around her shoulders, the other holding her arm.

Kate looked on in amazement. This man that she was so antagonistic towards, carried a stake expecially for seemed....gentle. Concerned. And helpless.

"Cordelia?"

"P...pain!" she managed. Wesley knew the drill by now and grabbed a bottle of water out of the small fridge and the extra strength Tylenol out of the cupboard.

As quickly as it had begun, the vision finished, leaving Cordelia shaken and out of breath. Angel helped her up and Wesley handed her the water and pain killers. Gulping down the Tylenol she sat on her desk and caught her breath.

"What is it? What did you see?" Wesley asked her.

"The Terminator." she told them disbelievingly.

"The Terminator?" Angel asked, not getting the reference.

"Movie about a cyborg killer." Wesley briefly explained. "Are you sure Cordelia?"

"Well no, not really. He was part machine and part demon. Lots of demons. Um...he had a..a..stick kind of thing that shot out one of his arms." Angel and Wesley shared a look. "Um..Half of his face was metallic. Kinda like that guy from Star Trek? And he had a ..a disk drive in his chest. And a whole lot of other body parts I didn't recognise. And he seemed to be sewn together. Kinda like Frankenstein's monster."

Wesley was furiously taking notes. "Is that all?"

Cordelia hesitated. "No. I saw Buffy and the entire Scooby gang. You and Angel were there, so was Kate and Spike, and a few people I don't recognize. Everyone was fighting it and it's goon squad. Angel, this thing feeds on electricity."

Angel and Wesley didn't know what to say. The entire gang was fighting this thing? What had they stumble onto?

"Is that all? Anything else you can remember?"

"Well, it's here. In LA. So I guess we can be expecting a visit."

"I'll go call Giles. See if he knows anything about it." Wesley told them and entered Angel's office.

"Are you all right?" Angel asked Cordelia.

"Oh just peachy. If I ever meet any of the PTB's I'm gonna deck them. Why must these mind-numbing-skull-crunching visions be accompanied by mind-numbing-skull-crunching pain?" she asked him, not for the first time. It was almost becoming a tradition.

"I don't know. Maybe they wanted to give you something to complain about?"

Cordelia looked at him amazed. "A joke. Hey Wesley something's wrong with Angel, he just made a joke!" she called into the office. Angel had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed as Cordelia grinned.

"I'm fine Angel. You go back to helping Kate track down whatever demon has surfaced this time, and I'll do a stint as research girl, and see if I can find out anything about our 'Mr. More-than-one-demon-part-terminator' guy." she reassured him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Go." When he didn't move she sighed dramatically. "Well? What are you waiting for? A doctor's certificate? The sky to fall? What?" That got him moving.

Once he headed back into his office, she let out a shaky breath. That hadn't been all she'd seen. She'd also seen Angel die.

********
Part 2
********

Rupert Giles sighed as he closed the volume he'd been reading. He'd spent the last couple of weeks looking through his books, trying to find something that might tell them what Tara had meant in Buffy's dream. He hadn't found anything and it was rather frustrating.

The phone rang, and he stood to go answer it, thankful of the break.

"Rupert Giles."

"Giles, it's Wesley."

"Wesley. What can I do for you? Is everything all right? Has something happened to Angel?"

"Angel's fine, but we have a problem we need your help with. A young man was murdered here recently. A George Bernard. He was a teaching assistant at U C Sunnydale. And judging from his attire and the way he died, we think he was a part of the Initiative."

Giles sucked in his breath sharply. "The Initiative? Wesley, that place has been closed down. Permanently. It was filled in with concrete a couple of weeks ago."

"You're sure about that?"

"Positive."

"Oh. Cordelia had a vision. Of some kind of demon/cyborg/Frankenstein's monster hybrid. Apparently it feeds on electricity."

"Oh my god. That sounds like Adam!"

"Adam?"

"Multi demon/cyborg hybrid. It can't be him though. Buffy.. we killed him. Now he's buried under a couple of hundred tons of cement."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure he's dead. I'll ask Reilly about this George Bernard person. See if he knows anything."

The two former watcher's talked for a few more minutes before hanging up. Worriedly Giles began calling around the Scooby gang. If they were wrong, if Adam or a counterpart was alive and on the lose, things were going to get ugly very quickly.

*****

"Giles is certain that the Initiative has been shut down. And apparently filled in with concrete." Wesley informed Angel as he entered the office. "However this Adam he described, does seem to fit the description of the demon hybrid that Cordelia saw in her vision."

"So we know who it is then. We can kill it."

"No it's already dead. Apparently it went up against Buffy and lost. According to Giles it's now buried under a couple of hundred tons of concrete."

"So it isn't Adam. Then who is it?"

Wesley shrugged. "I don't want to even hazard a guess until we know more."

"Uh guys? What's going on? What's the Initiative? Who's Giles? Who's Buffy? Who's Adam?" Kate fired questions at them. "And what the hell just happened to Cordelia?"

"The Initiative was a military operation who were demon hunters with an agenda, Giles is a former Watcher, Buffy is the Slayer, Adam is a dead demon, apparently, and Cordelia just had a vision." Wesley informed her distractedly. "Maybe the Watcher's council knows something? I could try giving them a call."

"What?!"

"I don't know Wesley. Aren't you persona non grata with the council at the moment?"

Angel and Wesley continued debating as Kate gave up. She didn't have a clue what had just happened, or what the hell they were talking about. She vaguely remembered something about a Slayer from her research, but at the moment she couldn't remember what.

Kate startled as a hand touched her shoulder.

"These two are going to be no use for a little while now. They've gone into research mode. It'd take a bomb falling on the office to get through to them." Cordelia told her. "Want some coffee? I just made a fresh pot."

"Uh..sure." Kate shot a look at the two men...well man and vampire, who were quietly debating, and pulling out books. She decided that Cordelia was right. They looked to be really involved in what they were doing. "Do they always get like this?" she asked as she followed Cordelia into the main office.

"Oh yeah. Both of them tend to get lost in books. Especially while researching. Must have something to do with being from the same continent." Cordelia handed Kate a cup of coffee.

"Are you alright? What ever it was that happened to you looked painful."

"Oh the mind-numbing-skull-crunching vision? Trust me, it's a lot more painful than it looks. I know. I saw Doyle having one and it looked really painful. Then he gave them to me, a parting gift I could have done without, by the way, and I learned that it's a hundred times more painful than it looks."

"Doyle? A parting gift? I...."

"Oh, Doyle was a friend and an associate of Angels, until he died. He saved a lot of people though. Anyway, just before he died he gave me these visions." Cordelia saw the questioning look on Kate's face. "The visions tell us where people are in trouble. Usually from demons, and ghosts and generally Eww.. things."

"So that's how come Angel keeps turning up where there's trouble."

"Yeah. That and the fact that he kinda attracts it. Lot's of people, human and demon, want Angel dead." Kate winced at this.

"Hang on. Demons want him dead?"

Cordelia took a close look at Kate. She didn't know why, but she felt sorry for the older woman. Well sure her father was killed by vampires, but hey, if he'd listened to Angel, he wouldn't be dead. And the way that Kate had treated Angel after that episode had been, unpleasant, in fact downright rude. That hadn't endeared the woman to Cordelia. But at the same time she could see that Kate was struggling to come to grips with the fact that the things that go bump in the night were actually vampires and demons and other assorted ..grrrs. And she was trying to do this on her own. Unlike Cordelia, who had had the Scooby gang to act as support, as sufferingily offered as it had been, when she had found out.

Looking at Kate now she sensed that the other woman was ready to hear the whole story. Besides if nothing else, she would need to know what was going on to help kill this Terminator demon.

"Angel, Kate and I are going for a walk. We'll be back in a couple of hours." she called out, leaning over her desk to retreive her purse, startling Kate, who hadn't been expecting to be dragged along on a walk.

"Cordelia do you think that's a good idea? We don't know where this demon is. What if he comes after you?" Angel asked from just behind her.

Cordelia jumped. "Aghh! Damn it Angel! Don't skulk up on me! It's not polite!" she paused. "Anyway, I know what this demon, terminator guy looks like. If I see him, I'll run in the other direction." Ever since the demon Vokor had given her unending visions, Angel had been more than a little over protective and it was beginning to get annoying. Angel opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off. "I've got my cell phone, which I know how to use, unlike someone I know." She told him pointedly. "If we see any trouble I'll call. Besides, I doubt that this guy has a clue who I am. Or who you are come to think of it. He didn't seem the type to be worried about what a single vampire could do to him."

"Cordelia....."

"No. I need some fresh air. And we need some more pain killers." She picked up the now empty bottle sitting on the desk and shook it. "See? Unless of course you want to put up with me being in extreme pain and as bitchy as hell after a vision." Angel, if it was possible, went paler at the thought.

"Didn't think so." Cordelia quietly celebrated. She had learned which buttons to push with Angel to get her own way, and she wasn't afraid to push them if she thought it was required.

"Be careful." Angel told her resignedly.

"Of course." Cordelia called cheerfully as she pulled a bemused Kate out of the office.

Kate for her part was trying to figure out if she was seeing things. Had the 243 year old vampire just been outmanuvered by a young woman more than 200 years his junior?

**********

"Giles! Giles are you here?" Buffy called urgently, as she and Riley entered the former Watcher's house.

"Buffy I was just trying to call you.....What happened?"

Buffy looked at her boyfriend. "Riley found something I think you should take a look at."

Giles' gaze shifted to where the ex-commando stood. Riley handed him a sheaf of papers.

"I found those while I was going through some of Professor Walsh's things." He told the older man.

"Bloody Hell." was all that Giles could say as he took a close look at the papers he was holding.

"Giles. What's going on? Is everyone ok?" Willow asked breathlessly as she all but ran into the house, closely followed by Tara. "Buffy? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine Will." A puzzled slayer reassured her friend. "Giles? What's going on?"

"Perhaps you'd better sit down. We'll wait for Xander and Anya before I'll say anything. I really don't want to have to explain this more than once."

Once an out of breath Xander and Anya had arrived and everyone was seated, Giles began explaining.

"Perhaps I should let Riley tell you about what he found."

Riley looked a little uncomfortable about having everyone's attention suddenly focused on him. "Well, I was going through some of Prof. Walsh's things and I came across some papers that referred to the 314 project. To make a long story short, they made another Adam."

"What?!"

"You can't be serious!"

"Just what we need, another psyco-killer-demon-terminator guy."

"Are..are you sure? I mean if there were more than one Adam, wouldn't we have seen some carnage by now?"

"I really am beginning to miss the mayor."

"I think I know why we haven't seen any evidence of a second Adam."

"Really? Giles give."

"Yeah G-man, you been holding out on us?"

Giles just looked annoyed at this last comment. "I received a call about half an hour ago, from Wesley. They've found a young man murdered. They think he was a part of the Initiative."

"Who?"

"George Bernard."

"George, George...doesn't r.. oh him! He was another teaching assistant. In Biology I think. He was Dr Angleman's assistant. What happend to him?"

"He was run through with a pole apparently. Wesley thought it might have been a Polgara demon at first."

"What changed his mind?"

"Cordelia. She had a vision. Gave a pretty good description of Adam actually."

"Wait a minute. Cordelia? Cordelia had a vision? Cordelia?" Xander was rather incedulous at this.

"Yes. Xander, Cordelia. Apparently she's been getting visions of some kind, for a few months now. Wesley was quite concerned, and I've got to say, knowing what we know now, so am I."

"So we all go to LA to help chase down Adam Two?" Willow asked. "I mean, to kill the first one we had to invoke the power of the first slayer. Won't Angel need some help?"

Xander groaned. "Just what I wanted. To spend summer helping deadboy save LA."

"He is going to need help though." Buffy said quietly. "LA's so big. He could be hiding anywhere. And at least we know what we're going up against. Against another Adam? I don't think Wesley and Cordelia are going to be any use."

"I agree with Buffy." Riley told them. Objectively he knew they were the only one's who knew how do deal with an Adam type demon. Personally he still had missgivings about the vampire whom Buffy had loved. Truth be told, he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him.

"I'm also inclined to agree."Giles sighed. "So, we're agreed? We head to LA to help?." he watches as all of the group nods. "Ok. Everyone might want to head home and pack for a few days. Meet back here in an hour."

"Uh..Giles?"

"Yes Willow?"

"I think we're going to have to get Spike to come along."

"Great. Deadboy and Deadboy Jr. This just keeps on getting better and better." Xander groaned. "Why Will?"

"We need his car." she explained. "Riley's jeep only seats two, same as Giles's. That leaves us four short."

"Fine. I'll go see Spike." Giles reluctantly volunteered.

***********

"Hello Watcher. What brings you here?"

"Quite frankly Spike? We need to borrow your car."

"No bloody way!"

"I thought that's what you'd say."

"Why do you need it anyway? Did yours finally kick the bucket?"

"No! If you must know, we're going to LA to help Angel. There's another Adam running around."

Spike laughed. "So you're all running off to help the poof! Typical."

"You know, it might be in your best interests to come along."

"What do you mean?"

"Word is beginning to get out Spike, that you were only working with the slayer to stop the experimentation on the demons, and to avert a war. How they figure that, I don't want to know, but at the moment you're becoming something of a hero figure among the demon world."

"That's right! And I plan to live long enough to enjoy it!"

"And how long do you think you'll live once word gets out that you were only fighting in the Initiative because the only things you can fight at the moment are demons?"

"Well they wont find out." Spike challenged. "Will they?"

"It only takes this new Adam to explain to one vampire what the chip does, Spike. And that you have one. Word will spread like wildfire."

"Bloody Hell!" A nearby table went flying as Spike vented. "Fine. Have it your way." Suddenly Spike quietened. "You say the entire Scooby gang's going?" Giles nodded. Spike laughed. "This ought to be interesting."

***********
Part 3
***********

"So what exactly do you know about Angel?" Cordelia asked Kate as they left the drug store.

"Just what the books told me. He's the demon with 'the angelic face', and that he left a trail of dead bodies accross Europe. By all accounts he was a right mean bastard."

"Yep. That's a good description for Angelus. Ok. Readers Digest version of the story is that when he was turned, and he became, probably the most vicious vampire you could imagine. He terrorized Europe, until one night, he made a meal of a favoured daughter of a gypsy clan. They punished him by returning his soul."

"Returning his soul? But.."

"Basically when someone is turned, they die. The soul goes on permanent vacation, and a demon sets up shop, animating the corpse. It looks, walk and talks like the person, but it doesn't feel those pesky emotions, like remorse and guilt."

"So what good would returning his soul have done? I mean...oh."

"Yep. He remembers it all. Everything that Angelus has done. Anyway, after his soul was returned to him, Angel basically became major brood boy. Living off the blood of rats, which is really..ugghh, and living on the streets. About 5 years ago Whistler found him and basically gave him a choice."

"Whistler?"

"Immortal demon guy on the side of good. Another messanger of the PTB's. The choice was to continue on as he was, or to do some good. Whistler then showed him the Slayer, Buffy."

"Slayer? That sounds familliar."

"Yep, one girl in all the world with the speed, strength, agility..yadda yadda...to fight vampires and win. Only there are two at the moment. Buffy and Faith."

"Faith. Wasn't that..."

"The girl that you arrested Angel for trying to protect? That's her. She has major issues, I'm not going there. Anyway...uh where was I?"

"Slayer, Buffy?"

"Oh yeah! Uh Whistler showed Angel Buffy, and he kinda fell for her, so he decided to help. He moved to Sunnydale to wait for her. The Watcher's Council," Cordelia saw a confused look cross Kate's face again, "They watch for and train the Slayers, sent Giles, who was...is..uh was I guess.. Buffy's Watcher to Sunnydale to wait for her as well. Buffy got kicked out of her old high school for burning down the gym." Kate looked shocked. "According to Buffy, it was full of vampires at the time. Anyway Buffy and her mom moved to Sunnydale not long after and the Scooby Gang was born."

"Scooby Gang? I take it you don't mean the cartoon detectives."

"Xander made a pretty good Shaggy."Cordelia deadpanned.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Originally there were four..well five including Angel, members of the Scooby Gang. Buffy, who's the Slayer, Giles, who's her watcher, Willow, who was a computer geek and still is actually..but now she's also a witch, and Xander. Basically Xander was the group clown. Things continued on for a while, Buffy and Angel fell in love and the Gang got a few more members. Miss Calender, who was the computer teacher and had a thing with Giles, Oz, who was a werewolf and Willows boyfriend and me, when I lost my mind and started going out with Xander."

Kate looked a little pale. "Witch? Werewolf?" she asked weakly.

"His baby cousin bit him." Cordelia explained briefly. "For a while things were good, we killed vampires and demons and basically saved the world a few times. Then Angel and Buffy got groiny with each other,and we discovered a clause to the gypsy curse, that nobody had bothered to warn us about. If Angel was to ever have a moment of true happiness, then the curse would be removed and he would lose his soul again. Of course with he and Buffy being together, he was very happy, and the next morning we woke up to find that Angelus had come out to play. He spent the next several month terrorizing us and he killed Miss Calender, and tried to suck the world into hell, before Buffy finally got the nerve to send him to hell, but not before Willow had managed to restore his soul."

"So you've actually met ..."

"Angelus? Oh yes. Believe me, it's not an experience you forget."

"But if Buffy sent him to hell..how is he here in LA?"

"Hell aint what it used to be? I don't know how, but my guess would be, that after a couple of hundred years of torment in hell, the PTB's figure that he'd spent long enough in hell and put him to work doing something they found useful. He returned a couple of months into our senior year and for a while he and Buffy got back together, but after graduation, and that was an experience that scarred me for life, he left Sunnydale. He wanted Buffy to have a more normal relationship."

"So now he's in LA attoning for what Angelus did?" Cordelia nodded. "So how come you're here?"

Cordelia stopped to buy a drink from a street vendor. "I came here to be an actress. I'm not very good at it though, as Angelus so 'lovingly' pointed out."

"Uh..Angelus? Angel turned bad again?" Kate asked apprehensively.

"Yeah he turned grrr again. It was only for one night though. A client gave him a drug to make him happy, trying to get him to turn her. After the drug wore off, he was back to his normal brooding self. Only more broodier."

"O....K.... So what did you do?"

"Wesley knocked him down the elevator shaft."

Kate almost choked. "What?!"

"Yeah. You wouldn't think it but Wesley can be pretty good in a fight. Now that he's grown up."

"Grown up?"

"In Sunnydale, he was a big baby. The Watcher's Council in it's infinite stupidity, sent him to Sunnydale, of all places, to be Buffy's watcher, after they canned Giles. It would seem that the Watcher's Council are big believers in 'controlled circumstances', the only time Wes had actually faced a vampire was while it was restrained. Basically he would end up screaming like baby before the first punch was thrown. But here he's cool. And if you tell him that, I'll deny it, but here he's more...well grown up. Not as naive, more sure of himself, in a good way."

"Oh." Kate was silent for a moment. "So how come you get the vision things?"

"Doyle gave them to me. When my high school human studies teacher told me that kissing can lead to other things, I don't think this was the other things she was referring to."

"Huh?"

"Doyle was a friend of Angel's at first, his link to the PTB's. He got the visions, and Angel went out to help whoever it was that Doyle saw. At first I didn't particularly like him, but he kinda grew on you. Kinda like a chia pet? We were helping a group of half demon/half human's escape the Scourge. They're a bunch of neo-nazi demons, who want to kill all the half-breeds." Cordelia explained. "They had this weapon, that shone a light. If the light hit someone who wasn't completely human, or completely demon, it would kill them. So Doyle kissed me, which gave me the visions, and pulled the plug of the weapon before it could kill alot of people. He was half demon though, and he died." Cordelia was quiet for a moment. "I still miss him. He was a really good friend."

"Why do you do this? Why are you telling me all this?"

"Why am I telling you this? You need to understand what has happened in the past, if you are going to have any hope of understanding what's about to happen. I know that you're having trouble dealing with vampires and the things that go bump in the night. You're trying to deal with it according to human laws, and what science tells you. I can tell you right now, that if you don't accept that the 'other world' doesn't run by those laws, it has it's own, then you'll never understand, you'll never be able to stop any of the demons. You'll just tear yourself apart trying." Cordelia blinked. "Oh god! If I start wearing tweed, stake me!"

Kate thought about what she had said. "So why do you do it? Why do you stay?"

"Well it's not like I could ever be rid of him now is it? I mean the visions have pretty much taken care of that. Seriously though? I know what goes bump in the night. I tried denying it and I almost got killed. I can't just sit back and pretend it's not there." she paused. "David was right. It makes a difference. It feels good to help people who need it. And Angel and Wesley need my help. They're the only family I really have. And quite frankly, your attitude was causing problems for Angel. And since brood boy wouldn't have explained what's going on, I though that I should."

They had stopped walking by now and were in a deserted park. They stood there, both so lost in their own thoughts that they didn't notice dark figure approaching.

The last thing Cordelia thought before the world went dark and she lost consciousnees was that Angel was going to be furious with her for being so careless.

************
Part 4
************

"Shouldn't Cordelia be back by now?" Angel asked Wesley worriedly.

"Cordelia did say that she would be a couple of hours."

"Yeah, but that was a few hours ago. It's almost dark now." Wesley glance up, at the nearest window.

"Oh. Maybe she's at home. Have you tried her appartment?"

"Yes, there's no answer. No answer on her cell phone either. I keep getting a message telling me that the phone I'm trying to call is out of the service area, or turned off."

"It's not like Cordelia to turn off her phone. Do you think she's in trouble?"

"I don't know." Angel grabbed the phone and punched in a number. "Hello, I'm looking for Det. Kate Lockley....she's not?...well when is her next shift?.....If she shows up?........Oh, I see, no, no message. Thank you."

"She's not there?"

"She didn't go back into work today."

"Oh dear."

************

"As business trips go, there are certainly worse places to go." Joe Dawson commented to his friend Duncan MacLeod as they walked along one of LA's many streets.

"I take it summer in LA suits you Joe."

"Are you kidding? Warm weather, sunshine, beaches, all much better than Paris in winter."

Duncan laughed. "I thought you liked Paris Joe."

"I do. I just don't like the weather there. So what time is your meeting?"

"7.00."

"Strange time for a business meeting."

"Well the CEO is a strange guy. Sometimes he doesn't seem to be all there."

"His mind on other things?"

"Seems like it. Although with David Nabbit, who knows what the other things are. Probably his game."

"He plays golf?"

"He plays Dungeons and Dragons."

"You're kidding right?"

"No I'm serious. David's extremely good at what he does, but he's very....disconnected from reality."

"Dungeons and Dragons. And this guy is how old?"

"And we should judge? You who follows around a 400 odd year old immortal, and me who believes that demons do exist?"

"Ok. So we won't judge. We'll just recommend a good psychiatrist." The two friends chuckled, and walked on in campanionable silence for a while.

They were about to step into a cross walk when a large black car careened around the corner, almost knocking them over, windows blacked out, loud music pumping from the stereo.

"What the....bloody idiot!"

The car pulled up to a sudden stop with a screech and three teenagers, all female, looking a little pale piled out of the car.

"I'm never getting in a car with him again!"

"What would I give for my powers right now!"

"That....that...that was um..."

As if in response, the car took off with smoking tyres, and the driver practically threw it around the nearest corner.

"If he keeps driving like that, he's going to end up killing someone!"

"It's alright for him, he's already dead."

"Maybe we could cast a spell on him. Make him blind. Then he couldn't drive."

"And we'd have to put up with him bitching all the time. Not to mention that we'd get roped into babysitting him again."

"Ok, so we won't blind him. Maybe we could...."

As Duncan and Joe looked on, two other cars, travelling at a more sedate pace pulled up to the kerb. As the occupants climbed out of their vehicles, Joe thought he recognised the driver of the second car.

"Giles?"

"You know him Joe?"

"If I'm right, it's Rupert Giles. He used to work as a curator at a museum in England. We met a couple of years ago, while I was in England on a research trip."

As if to confirm his identification, the young blonde passenger of the third car called out:

"I swear Giles, one of these days, we're going to have to get you a grown up car!"

"Buffy there is nothing wrong with my car. It's perfectly servicable."

"Yeah, if you like travelling with your knees up around your ears!" groaned a tall, lanky teen as he began stretching the kinks out of his muscles.

"Xander!" one of the teens that the black car had dropped off threw herself into the young man's arms. "If Spike is driving home, I'm taking the bus!"

"Me too!"

"Me three!"

"What did he do this time?" Giles sighed.

"He almost killed us!"

"I certainly would never have given him a licence."

"I think Spike only knows two speeds, Giles. Flat out and Stop."

"Giles?" Giles turned as he called his name called by an unfamiliar voice. Recognising the man now crossing the street on unsteady legs he smiles.

"Joe? Joe Dawson? Good lord, it's been years. How are you?"

"Oh can't complain, still here. How about you? What are you doing in LA? Last I heard, you were still curator at the museum."

"I'm good, in LA on business actually."

"So you knew Giles in England?" Willow asked Joe excitedly.

"Wow. Did he wear all tweed?"

"Xander!"

"Oh come on. Don't tell me you don't want to know how long it took for us to break the G-man out of tweed."

"That's not the point!"

"Children....Joe let me introduce you to this rabble. This is Willow, Tara, the young clown is Xander,"

"That's me, class clown."

"You didn't get class clown, didn't they give that to..to uh..."

"I prefer to think that the committee just didn't recognize genius when they saw it."

"the young lady arguing with Xander's is Anya,"continued Giles trying to ignore Xander, "this is Buffy and Riley. I'd like you all to meet Joe Dawson and uh...actually I don't know you."

"Duncan MacLeod. Nice to meet you."

"Hi."

"Nice meeting you."

"So how did you meet Giles?"

"I was on a research trip to England. He helped me find some more obscure references."

"Yep, he's really good at that. Aren't you G-man?"

"Xander, I really wish you wouldn't call me that."

"Really? What do you research?"

"Uh...I'm a historian."

"What period of history?"

"Uh..just the last 400 years or so."

"Joe? Do you want me to wait for you?"

"C'mon you bloody wankers, we haven't got all day!" A voice drifted out of the building in front of them."

"Who's that?"

Giles sighed. "That would be Spike."

"The maniac who tried to kill us!" Anya chipped in.

"Well, what do you expect? I've gotta have some fun somehow. It's not like I can do much to you with this bloody chip in my head." came the voice.

"You really should have let me stake him."muttered Buffy. Duncan shot her a puzzled look, not sure that he had heard her correctly.

"I'm afraid we have to go Joe. The children are getting restless."

"Hey watch who you're calling a child, Watcher!"

Giles removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really don't know why I put up with him." he muttered.

"Hey! I heard that!"

He handed Joe a card, with his address and phone number on it. "If you're staying a couple of days, give me a call. That phone number will divert through to where I'm staying."

"I'll do that." Joe and Duncan watched as Giles and the teenagers headed into the building.

"Watcher?!" Duncan asked. "I didn't see a tattoo."

"Neither did I. And he's not a Watcher that I know about. Besides if he was, who was he watching? I don't think any of those kids were immie. Were they?"

"No."

************

"Hey Peaches! We're here!"Spike called as he threw open the door of Angel Investigations.

"Spike? What are you doing here?" Angel asked cautiously, exiting his office.

"The chits needed another car, so here I am. Under very strong protest I must point out. Oh-hooh, who's this? Oh hey I know you! Aren't you that other watcher? The one that runs away screaming like a girl?"

"That would be me." Wesley agreed dryly. He knew better than to get in an argument with Spike. Living a year on the Hellmouth had taught him something.

"You're no fun. So where's the other guy? That demon guy? And where's Cordelia? I feel like saying hello."

"You feel like annoying the hell out of them you mean. Hello Deadboy! Wesley. We're here to help you kick some demon butt. Got some info for you too."

"Can you not call me that? Spike, if you mean Doyle, he died. And we're don't know where Cordelia is."

"Hey Angel."

"Hi, Willow."

"Um..Angel, this is Tara, Tara Angel."

"Hi. Uh Willow? I have a favour to ask."

"O...K...What's wrong?"

"We think something may have happened to Cordelia. I've got an idea how to find out what, but..."

"You need to hack into somebody's computer system to find out?"

"Yeah."

"OK." Willow agrees as she sits down at the computer. "So, who am I hacking?"

"Wolfram & Hart. It's a law firm."

"Lawyers?"

"Lawyers for demons. They've also tried to kill me few times."

"Oh. Uh..Angel? You hovering is making me nervous."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Why don't you go talk to Giles and Riley. They have some information on the demon Cordy saw. As soon as I find anything I'll let you know."

"Thanks Willow."

**********

"He seemed nice."

"Who? Angel? Yeah Angel's nice..boy do these guys have some major firewalls!"

"Can you get in?"

"I should be able too. It'll just take some time. This is way heavy security for a law firm."

"If their clients are demons, they won't want to take any chances."

"That's true. Ok. Let's try this..."

**********

"Giles, Buffy, Riley. Willow said you have some information?"

Riley wasn't sure what he expected when he saw the vampire again, but it wasn't that. "Uh, yeah. I found it while going through Prof. Walsh's things. We're dealing with another Adam."

"I take it that's not good."

"No, it's not. To defeat the first one we had to invoke the power of the first Slayer." Giles informed Angel.

"My god! Is everyone alright?" Wesley asked.

"The first Slayer tried to kill us in our dreams, afterward. But other than that we're fine."

"Good. So what are we facing?"

"Basically a demon version of Frankenstein's monster. The body is made up of a combination of demon body parts and robotics....." Riley told him.

"It feeds on electricity, so we can't try to overload it's robotics...." Giles continued.

"And it's smart, and it's stronger than vampires." Buffy finished.

"That's going to be a problem." Wesley said thoughtfully.

"How do we kill it?"

"Remove it's power source."

"Power source?"

"It's a small reactor type device, located near his spine."

"Well he's not going to lay down quietly while we perform surgery, so how do we get close enough to it to remove the power source?" Wesley asked.

"First step would be to find it." Angel glanced out the window. "Wesley, when Willow's finished, do a search and see if you can find anything that might tell us where this thing is hiding. I'm going to see if Gunn's heard anything." He grabbed his coat and headed out the door.

"Phone!" Wesley called after him. Grumbling he turned around and grabbed his cell phone off the top of the filing cabinet.

"I hate these things."

"Going somewhere Peaches? I think I'll go with you."

"Spike....oh fine."

"He seemed a little distracted." Buffy observed.

"He's worried about Cordelia. She's missing." Wesley told her.

"Since when?"

"This afternoon. Cordelia and Kate, a police detective, went for a walk, and we haven't heard from either of them since. We've tried everywhere we can think of."

"And you think something's happened to her?"

"Yes. Cordelia knows not to go wandering alone at night and...."

"Uh...guys? I think I found something."

********
Part 5
********

"Willow, what is it?"

"I hacked into Wolfram & Hart's mainframe, like Angel asked, and I found this." Willow brought a document up on the screen.

"According to this, Cordelia's address and details have been given to a man who wants to acquire seer's eyes."

"Seer's eyes? That doen't sound good." Xander stated.

"They have an address for him here.." Wesley grabbed the phone the phone and dialed Angel's cell phone.

*********

"So Peaches, hows life been treating you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'm just being polite. Making conversation." Angel just looked at Spike silently. "Allright, I'm bored out of my brain! I've got this bloody chip in my head, which means I can't kill people. Hell, I can't even hit them. The only things I can hurt are demons, which leaves me in a sticky situation. I've had to put up with the goody-two-shoes brigade for the last few months. Do you realize how boring they are?"

"From what I heard you tried to liven things up."

"What?" Spike tried the what-who-me-i'm-innocent routine.

"A small matter of conspiring with Adam to start a war?"

"Well, he promised to take this bloody chip out of my head! Besides, it kinda felt good to be causing chaos again."

"I bet."

"You know, you're really no fun when your in this mood. So where are we going?"

"To see a friend."

"About what?"

"If they've seen anything that could tell us where this Adam- demon is." Angel pulled the car into the street, where Gunn and his people were staying.

"Oh what fun! I probably would have had a better time staying with the bloody Slayer's groupies. At least I can bait them." Spike grumbled as he jumped out of the car. A loud clacking sound broke the quiet of the night, and Spike turned around to find about a dozen weapons of varying lethality aimed directly at him.

"Hey, it's alright, I know this guy." A voice called out, and the weapons were lowered, but still kept aimed at Spike.

"Must you insist on making friends with every bloody person who tries to kill you? "Spike asked Angel frustrated.

"So, what you here for this time?" A young negro boy asked from the doorway of the abandoned building.

"I need some information. Have any of you seen anything strange the last couple of night?"

"Strange? What you mean like Vampires?" Angel just looked steadily at the young man until he gave a frustrated sigh. "You really need to work on your people skills. It's customary to laugh when someone tells you a joke."

"The joke would have to be funny first." Spike grumbled.

"Who's the bottle job?"

"This is Spike. Spike meet Gunn."

"Oh bloody Hell! What is this, a tea party?" Weapons rose again. "Hey! Watch where you're pointing those things!"

"In answer to your question, no. We haven't seen anything strange. In fact, we haven't seen anything at all. Not a vampire in sight for the last four nights. Other than you and your friend."

Angel was silent for a moment. "He's planning something, I can feel it." he said, almost to himself.

"Who's planning something?" Gunn demanded.

"A demon." Angel startled as his cell phone rang. He fished inside his pocket, to answer the call. "You might want to keep your people inside for a few nights." he told Gunn. "Yeah?"

"Angel, you were right. Willow got the information. A client of Wolfram & Hart has bought seer's eyes."

"Cordelia."

"Yes. The address we have is for the middle man, but it's the best we could come up with." Wesley rattled off the address.

"Thanks Wesley." Angel snapped the phone shut. "I have to go." Quickly Angel bolted for the car and took off, almost leaving Spike behind.

"We are really gonna have to work on his people skills."

************

"Oh what's the use?" Kate sighed as she sank to the floor. She and Cordelia were imprisioned in a large, furniture-less, windowless room. She had been banging on the walls for a solid hour, trying to attract the attention of someone to help them.

"Don't worry. I'm sure Brood Boy is on his way." Cordelia reassured her from her position against the far wall. At least Cordelia hoped Angel was on his way. She had overheard part of a telephone conversation, as she was being dragged into this hell hole, and it hadn't sounded good.

"You always call him that?" Kate was slightly amused at the younger woman's nicknames for Angel.

"No, not always." Not for the last month or so, since he had stopped brooding most the time.

"You have a lot of faith in him don't you?"

"Yes." To Kate it sounded so simple, and to Cordelia it was. Angel was Angel. Ok, sure he was a vampire, but hey, nobody's perfect. He cared about people, he cared about her, and she knew that right now he was probably beginning to go a little out of his mind with worry. It was just one of the things she loved about him. Whoa! Love? She loved Angel? She realized that it was true. She was hopelessly in love with her brooding vampire boss.

"You were right." Kates quiet statement pulled her out of her reverie.

"What?" She was right? About what?

"About tearing myself apart. About not really accepting all of this." Cordelia was silent. This touchy, feely stuff wasn't her strong point. "After my dad died, I guess I needed someone to blame. Angel was conveinent." And the fact that he was a vampire, when vampires killed your dad, must have made him a good target, Cordelia added silently.

"I wasn't acepting it before then either, but when he died, it just was easier to blame Angel than to accept the fact that, Dad didn't know what he was getting into, and that he wouldn't listen when help was offered, and because of that he was dead, and not because of ..... It just seemed so much easier to...."

"Deny what had really happened." Cordelia finished.

"Yeah." After a pause Kate asked "You want to know the funny thing though?"

"Mmmm."

"Everytime I hear about something, strange or even vaugely demon sounding, I head straight for it. People at work are beginning to call me 'Spooky'." Cordelia just smiled slightly, unsure of what to say. After a while Kate asked about how Cordelia had found out about demon's and vampires, and Cordelia told her.

"....I was going through my own form of denial, then. It took a while for the fact that these people wanted to kill me to sink in. I was more worried about how to get the blood stains out of my clothes."

"Really?"

"Yeah. After a while it became more real. Having a bug person try to kill you will do that for you."

"Bug person?"

"He was an assasin that was after Buffy, but somehow he came after me instead. He was made up of all of these bugs, kinda like maggots? Major Gross. Still gives me the..the. auughh!" Cordelia doubled over as another vision lanced through her consciousness.

"Cordelia?" Kate sounded somewhat panicked. Cordelia moaned as the vision abated. She looked up into Kates worried eyes.

"Oh god." This time she had seen her own death.

***********

"Ok, that was a little strange." Joe commented as he and Duncan left David Nabbit's office.

"I did warn you Joe."

"That you did. A little disconnected from reality? He seemed like his head was in outer space most the time!" Joe commented as they walked toward their hotel.

"He was..spacier than usual tonight. Might have been missing a game."

"At least when he was with us, he knew what he was talking about."

"He is very good at what he does. He's just..."

"A big kid at heart?"

"Well that wasn't what I was going to say...but yes. Basically."

"So, is your business all finished now?"

"It is."

"I bet Amanda will be happy to hear that."

Duncan laughed. "My credit card will be happy to hear that. She's been pouting because I couldn't take her out, so she lifted my card."

Joe chuckled. "She doesn't change, does she?"

"Not Amanda."

"So does she know that you know she has your card?"

"Nah. I haven't let on. I've been spending some time thinking up ways to get her to pay for it though. I'm open to sugggest....."Duncan broke off as he heard voices, what sounded like a grunt, then someone being punched. Automatic reflex had him reaching into his coat to make sure that his katana was still there.

The movement didn't pass by Joe. "Immortal?" he asked.

"I don't think so. Stay here."

Duncan entered the darkened alleyway to see the young blonde woman that they had been introduced to earlier...Buffy?...standing, in a fighting stance, surrounded by three, what looked like, gang members.

"What? You guys having a party and didn't invite me?" She dropped suddenly and lashed out at the nearest would be mugger with her foot. He landed with a thud, then seemed to dissapear as she quickly leaned over him, then rolled back to her feet. She had good technique, he had to admit. He was about to intervene when he was attacked from behind.

"Oh look. Dinner to go." a raspy voice sounded in his ear as his head was forced back. What? Dinner? Who the hell were these people? Duncan brought his elbow down sharply into his attacker's midsection. With a grunt his attacker let go and Duncan turned to face him, dropping into a fighting stance. His eyes widened as he got a close look at the face of his attacker. It was grossly misshapen, and his eyes glowed yellow. The momentary hesitation was enough for his opponent to land a backhander across his face that threw him into the wall. Bloody Hell, this guy was strong!

Recovering quickly, Duncan grabbed his sword and whirled around to see his attacker, come at him with a knife. Suddenly he stopped mid-swing and disintegrated, revealing a out of breath Buffy standing there with a wooden stake grasped in her hand.

"Drop the sword Buster!" she demanded.

Shocked, Duncan did just that. Buffy kicked it away with her foot.

"Ok. You mind telling me what you're doing here, in the middle of the night, carrying a sword?"

"No. Not really." Duncan was beginning to recover from his shock. Damn! He should have never dropped his sword.

"Well your gonna have to, unless you want to explain it to the police." she threatened.

"I'm an antiques dealer, I just bought the sword, and was going back to my hotel, when I heard a scuffle and thought I'd investigate." Duncan told her after a moments silence. He really didn't want to hassle with the police right now.

Buffy backed up a little, and picked up the sword. "Uh huh." She quickly examined it. "Japanese katana, no carry case, and marks underneath the hilt that say you've been carying it in some sort of metallic holder for quite some time. Now you want to try that explanation again?" Right now Buffy was really glad that Giles had made her learn a bit about swords.

For his part Duncan was at a loss for words.

"Perhaps we should go see Giles." Joe spoke up from behind her. Buffy whirled around to face him.

Joe studied the young woman in front of him. The way she held the katana told him that she knew damn well how to use it. Maybe she was a pre-immie, and Giles was her Watcher. If he was, he was going to end up with his ass in a sling for interfering. Taking a chance Joe calmly asked,

"He is your Watcher, isn't he?"

***********
Part 6
***********

Angel pulled the car into an alleyway about a block from the address that Wesley had given him. He and Spike abandoned the car and climbed onto the roof of the nearest building. With a quiet born of long years of experience, they made their way to the building where Cordelia was being held.

"Doesn't look like there's many of them."Spike commented.

"I can't see Cordelia or Kate."

"Maybe they're not here."

Angel was silent for a moment before, "No she's here."

"How do you know?"

"Don't know. I just do." Spike's eyebrows raised, high enough to dissapear into his hairline. Did that mean what he thought that meant? Well, well, the poof and Cordelia. That wasn't a pairing he would have thought of.

Angel looked through the clerestory window of the warehouse where Cordelia was being held. If those bastards had hurt her in any way........ He didn't stop to examine the emotions washing over him, at the thought of someone hurting his seer, there would be time for that later. Right now he had to get her out of there and get her home. He watched as a tall, well built dark haired man walked up to the door cut into the far wall and checked that it was still locked. He watched as the man talked to a smaller vampire. Guards. He couldn't see anyone else.

"Spike, see that door?"

"No, this chip affects my eyesight as well. Yes I see the door! You want to do a decoy and grab?"

"Yeah. You get Cordelia out of there and back to the office. Take the car, don't wait for me."

***********

The man stood hidden in the shadows. He had tracked the cheating bastard this far, for this long. He was prepared to wait for his prey. Fortunately, his prey didn't have his patience. The man smiled slowly as a familar car pulled up at the curb.

***********

"Angel's here." Cordelia stated suddenly, with absolute conviction.

"What? How can you tell?"

"I don't know. I guess I can just feel him."

"That's kind off...."

"Disturbing? I agree."

"And that even more disturbing." Kate stated as the deafening sound of glass violently shattering sounded throughout their prison. The muffled sound of fighting could be heard. Cordelia went up to the door and pressed her ear against it, trying to hear more clearly what was going on. She gasped and drew back as she heard something....somebody moving against the door.

"What?" whispered Kate.

"There's someone on the other side." Suddenly there was the sound of metal grinding and wood splintering as the lock was ripped of the door.

Not entirely sure that it was Angel on the other side, Cordelia stood just inside the doorframe, clenched her fist, and punched the person coming through the door, in the face. If it was Angel she hoped he'd forgive her.

"Uugghhh!" Spike reeled back, his features morphing into his game face, having not anticipated being attacked by the people he was supposedly saving.

"Spike?" Cordelia was incredulous. Spike was the last person she had expected to see. "What are you doing here?" She demanded.

"Well I'm supposed to be getting you out of here! Damn! I think you broke my nose!"

"You'll survive." she told him dryly. "Men are such babies." she muttered to Kate as they exited their prison, Kate warily eyeing Spike.

"Where's Angel?"Kate asked.

"Creating a diversion, so that we can get the bloody hell out of here. So I suggest we move it." Spike turned on his heel only to be confronted by the vampire guard. Ducking to avoid a punch aimed at his head, he propelled his body forward, catching the other vampire in the mid-section.

Deciding that this was a good time to get the hell out of Dodge, Cordelia skirted around the brawling vampires, and went in search of an exit. Kate in the mean time went searching for her gun.

Cordelia had almost reached the door, when she was brought up short by the sensation of cold steel against her throat.

"Going somewhere darlin'?" the stranger drawled.

"Actually, I was trying to find the bathroom." Cordelia tried, hoping find some way out of this latest mess.

"It's in the other direction." he pointed out condecendingly. Cordelia's gaze followed in the direction he was pointing and her heart jumped into her throat. She had thought that there was, two, maybe three people at the most involved in keeping her and Kate captive. If the scene in front of her was any indication, she had been out by about 4. Two vampires and a demon were attacking Angel, a pile of ash on the floor near his feet, evidence that there had been more. Spike was still fighting with the vampire that had jumped him, Kate was involved in a fight with a human looking man, and Mr Sword-weilding-psyco, who currently held a sword to her throat. This was definetly not good.

Out the corner of her eye she spotted Kate's gun and her purse on a small table, just inside the door, about three feet from where she stood. If she could just get the gun......

"Well..uh..thanks for pointing that out. I have a lousy sense of direction." she told him brightly, and began squirming a little, trying to get away from the sword.

"And it's gonna get lousier." he started to press the sword harder into her throat, when suddenly he stiffened, withdrew the sword and glanced around as if looking for something.

Recognising her chance, Cordelia wacked him in the gut with her arm and dove for the table.

"Reynard! I'm here for your head!"

"In your dreams MacLeod!"

Grabbing the gun, she called out to Kate, and slid it across the floor. The clang of metal on metal barely registered on her consciousness as she fished into her purse for her stake, cross and bottle of holy water.

A shot rang out as, avoiding the duelling strangers, she made her way to Spike and proceeded to empty the contents of the bottle on his opponent. As the vampire reeled back in pain, she quickly shoved the stake into his chest, and he disintegrated into a pile of ash.

"Bloody Hell." Spike stared at her in amazement.

"Well? Go help Angel."

"Yes ma'am."Spike agreed still slightly shocked and went to help his sire with the remaining demon.

Cordelia felt herself being pulled from behind and stumbled backwards.

"We need to get out of here!" Kate yelled above the noise in the room.

"Well...uh...I hope you can fly, because our only exit seemes to be blocked by Arthur and Lancelot there!" Cordelia called back, as the two women stumbled backwards, looking for a relatively safe place to hide.

The demon that Angel and Spike had been fighting died, just as the words "There can be only one!" rang throughout the warehouse.

Angel whirled around looking for the source of the words and caught sight of Cordelia and Kate huddled against a wall. Relief flowed through him as he saw that Cordelia seemed unharmed.

Static electricity built up in the air, and Angel noticed that bolts of electricity seemed to be rising out of the headless corpse that lay near the door, to hit the man standing over the corpse holding a sword.

The man yelled as the first bolt hit him full force. Lightning began sparking around the room, and objects began to dance in the air. Angel and Spike dove for cover underneath the same table as chunks of wood began flying in their direction.

After what seemed like several minutes, the freak lightning storm abated and Angel crawled out from underneath the table to find himself in a nightmare.

"Cordelia!"

Cordelia sat, skeward to the wall by a sword through her chest, gasping for breath, shock clearly displayed in her eyes. In a heartbeatbeat Angel was at her side. "Spike, call an ambulance." For once Spike didn't argue, just went to do as he was asked. "Cordelia, can you hear me?"

"Angel?" Cordelia coughed, bringing up blood. "I..can't...breathe."

"Cordelia, hold on. The ambulance will be here soon."

"That's...g-g-good." Cordelia began shivering, and Angel recognised that she was going into shock. Removing his jacket, he carefully wrapped it around her. Talking to her constantly for the next few minutes, desperately trying to keep her conscious, Angel felt dread pooling in his stomach. He was going to lose his seer, his friend and his family. He was was going to lose Cordelia.

The sound of sirens came closer and closer until finally they were there. Just before the EMT's entered the room, Cordelia looked into his eyes and with a puzzled expression and asked, "Angel? Why do I have a sword in my chest?" then lost consciousness.

************

The registration nurse in emergency watched as the attending doctor talked to the small group of people gathered in the waiting room. She saw their shoulders slump and they seemed to fold in on themselves and become smaller as they heard what Dr. Carter had to say.

Only the man, who stood against the wall just apart from the group, seemed unaffected.

Sighing she glanced down at the chart in her hands. Cordelia Chase, 19 years old.

God, she hated it when they lost a young one!

*************

She was gone. Cordelia was dead. Angel stared at the walls of the waiting room blankly, as the news sank in. He hadn't been able to protect the person who ment the most to him.

Her last words echoed in his head. "Angel, why do I have a sword in my chest?"

Because of him. Because he hadn't been able to protect her like he had promised.

What was he going to do without her? Images of Cordelia ran through his head. Cordelia putting on her brave face when she had first started working for him. Cordelia standing up to Angelus. Cordelia comforting him after Doyle's death. Cordelia staring blankly at the ceiling suffering from never ending visions. Cordelia excitied over his future human status. Cordelia pinned to the wall by a sword through the chest.

Oh god this hurt! Worse than being sent to hell. In fact this redefined the word. He hadn't known that anything could hurt this much!

The woman he loved was dead. The realization shook him. Sometime during the last year, the former May Queen had worked her way into his heart. And now it felt like someone had ripped it out of his chest. She had taken it with her.

"Angel? Do you want me call the rest of them?" Spike asked quietly. He had been suprised to find that he was saddened by Cordelia's death.

Angel was brought back to earth by Spike's words. Oh god, how was he going to tell them? How was he going to tell Wesley?

"No."he shook his head. "I'll do it." Angel go up and went in search of a payphone, while the others in the room sadly watched as the vampire left.

***************

Angel found a payphone in a booth, just off the waiting area. This was the outpatients area, and at this time of night it was mercifully quiet and dark. Angel just stood there, staring at the phone for a few long minutes. Then, slowly lifting the reciever he dialled the office.

"Hello, Angel Investigations. We help the helpless."

Angel suddenly found himself unable to speak. Tears flowed down his cheeks and his throat closed up.

"Hello?"

"Wesley..."Angel managed to choke out.

"Angel?" Instantly Wesley picked up on the distress in Angel's voice. "What happened?"

****************
Part 7
****************

"Giles, we have a problem."Buffy announced as she entered Angel's office. Giles and Wesley were huddled over some computer printouts.

"Buffy? What's wrong?" Giles asked concerned as he glanced up. "Where did you get the sword?"

"Your pal Joe's friend Duncan." Giles looked puzzled.

"Huh?"

"I was fighting with a group of vampires, and suddenly, he's there, sword in hand. He almost had a meal made out of him."

"Oh dear."

"Yeah. And when I asked him about this sharp pointy object," Buffy continued, swinging the sword in a shallow arc, "he gave me some story about being a antiques dealer."

"Perhaps he is."

"He wasn't carrying it in a case, and it has marks on the handle from where it's been carried in a holder of some kind."she showed Giles the hilt. "Besides, it's a little late to be buying antiques."

"This is unusual."Giles muttered as he examined the katana.

"And wait, there's more."Buffy told him, giving a bad impression of a Home Shopping channel announcer. "Your friend Joe comes along and suggests we come see you. He knows you're my Watcher Giles."

"Are you sure?"

"'He is your Watcher, isn't he?'" Buffy quoted.

"I think perhaps I should have a talk to Joe and this Duncan gentleman."

"They're in the other office."

"You brought them here?"

"No Giles, I took them to Mc Donalds and bought them both Happy Meals. Yes I brought them here!"

***************

Joe Dawson sat stiffly on a chair in the outer office of Angel Investigations. He was suprised to see the group of young people he had meet earlier populating the office.

"What do you think they're here for, Joe?"

"I don't know. The brass is going to be furious with Giles for involving these kids."

"I'm not so sure that it's immortals they're concerned about Joe." Duncan told him. He had overheard a part of Buffy and Giles's conversation. Vampires? Vampires weren't real. Were these kids all nuts? Were they using 'I thought he was a vampire' to go around killing people?

"Joe. Mr MacLeod. Perhaps you'd like to explain what's going on?" Giles asked as he exited the other office followed by a man that Joe had never seen before.

"Giles. Perhaps we should speak in private."

Giles looked around the office. "All of these people know about Buffy. So what's going on?"

"Damn it Giles. How could you involve these kids in this?" Giles startled as Joe began to verbally tear shreds off him. "You do remember your oath don't you? Remember the part about not interfering?"

"Yes I remember my oath! How dare..." Giles fired back. "..hang on. What do you mean 'not interfering'? That's part of a Watcher's duty, remember? To train the Slayer?"

"Slayer? What the hell is the Slayer? I'm talking about the Watchers." Joe asked puzzled. "You know, the chronicles? Observing and documenting history?" Giles still had a puzzled look on his face. "Tattoos?" Joe asked desperately, showing Giles the tatoo on his inner wrist. Giles looked at the tatoo closely.

"I don't..."

"I've seen this before." Wesley said thoughtfully, as he got a look at the symbol. "Where did I see this? It was in the last month or so, so it must have been while I was looking for the demon.......I've got it! A book of Angel's" and with that he dissapeared out of the office, Giles and Joe starting after him.

"Book of Angels?" Xander asked puzzled. He had only half heard the conversation. "Angels have books? Thats'...oh. A book of Angel's" Xander blushed. "Sorry."

"Here it is." Wesley announced as he came back into the office. "I remember this now. It appears to be a diary of sorts. Written from the viewpoint of someone watching his life. Archibald Reynard, American, from down south. I found this rather interesting. It tells of Mr Reynard's life, he was, by all accounts a rather nasty gentleman. Kept attacking people with a sword and beheading them." This last sentance was directed rather pointedly at Duncan.

"Anyone else find that really Ewww?" Xander asked as most as Giles, Buffy and Wesley trained their gaze on the tall scot.

"So you like playing with pointy objects too, Mr MacLeod?" Buffy asked as the phone rang. Wesley went to answer it as Buffy advanced slowly toward Duncan.

"Hello, Angel Investigations. We help the helpless." Wesley waited for the person on the other end to identify himself. "Hello?"

"Wesley..."A choked voice issued through the phone lines.

"Angel?" Instantly Wesley picked up on the distress in Angel's voice. "What happened?" Suddenly every eye in the office was on him.

"It's....Cordelia. She....she...."

"Angel where are you?" Wesley asked as the distraught vampire seemed unable to continue.

"St. Matthews."

"I'll be right there, don't go anywhere." he told the vampire uneccesarily, and hung up the phone.

"What is it?" Willow asked concerned.

"Cordelia..she's in the hospital. I have to go."

"Well do you want one of us to go with you?" Riley asked.

"No. You guys stay here and sort out this mess. I'll call you from the hospital." Wesley told him distractedly, as he grabbed his jacket and left the office. Dread had begun settling into his stomach as soon as he heard his friends voice. He prayed to god that Cordelia was going to be ok.

**************

"I'm looking for Cordelia Chase. She was brought in here?"

"Wesley." Wesley turned to face Det. Lockley. She looked like she had been in a war. There were cuts all over her face and hands, and blood all over her clothes. Her eyes were swollen and red.

"Det. Lockley. Where's Angel?"

"He uh..he went to find a payphone awhile ago. We haven't seen him since." She informed him.

"He's in the outpatients reception." Spike told him, comming up behind Kate.

"Outpatients? But... Where's Cordelia?" The look on their faces told him that his worst fear had just come true. Cordelia dead. His friend was gone. Oh god. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. But he couldn't. Not yet. Right now Angel needed him. "Spike, can you take Det. Lockley home?"

"Oh no you don't!" Kate told him forcefully. "You're not leaving me out of this. I owe her. I'm not going anywhere."

Wesley sighed. Kate had the same look in her eye that Cordelia got when she was determined to do something. Cordelia. "Fine. Take her home. Detective..."

"It's Kate."

"Kate. You need a change of clothes, and I daresay a shower would do you some good as well. Spike, when she's got her things, take her back to the office. You have the car keys?"

"Yeah. Peaches rode in the ambulance. What about you? You got a car?"

"I have my bike."

Spike sighed and held out his hand. "Give me the keys."

"What?"

"Give me the keys. Trust me, Angel is going to be in no condition to ride pillion through the streets of LA. You'll need the car. By the time you get him home, it'll probably light out."

Wesley thought about this for a moment before handing over his keys and handing Kate his helmet.

Spike threw the car keys to Wesley, and told him where he had parked. "Take good care of him." he told the former watcher, then escorted Kate out of the hospital.

Wesley allowed himself a moment to collect himself then went in search of Angel.

*********

Connor MacLeod watched as the bleached blonde and the cop talked to the man at the reception desk.

He was rather suprised that the woman hadn't slapped handcuffs on him, and dragged him down to the station, but she seemed to have other things on her mind. In fact none of the strange group had even seemed to notice him since the doctor had informed them of the young woman..Cordelia?'s death.

The dark haired man had taken it worst, and Connor assumed that they had been lovers. He took a closer look at the man now standing alone. The other one may have taken it worst, but to Connor's experienced eye, this guy was also taking it hard. Who was he? Brother? Father? He seemed a little young to be the last. The man walked out of emergency and turned toward the outpatients ward. Probably going after the other one.

Connor pushed away from the wall and made his way toward a bank of elevators. He hoped he wasn't wrong about the girl.

************

Angel sat huddled into a darkened corner. He was alone except for his thoughts. Cordelia was dead. The thought echoed through his mind constantly. It wasn't fair! Cordelia had had so much to live for. Had had so much life ahead of her. If anyone had to die, why couldn't it have been him? Why was it that all the good people who got close to him died before their time?

"Angel?" Wesley's voice cut through the silence, dragging Angel out of his thoughts.

"I'm here." Quietly the former watcher walked in the direction of the voice, until he spotted Angel curled up on the floor. He sat down next to the vampire.

"What happend?" He asked quietly.

"I don't know." Angel eventually answered. "One moment she's fine. Then there seemed to be some kind of lightning storm. And when it was over....." Angel broke off, unable to finish. "Everytime I close my eyes, I see........there was so much blood."

Wesley sat in silence. Visions of Cordelia with blood all over her played themselves through his head. He lowered his head to rest on his knees and let the tears flow.

************

"We should head back to the office." Wesley said some time later. "It'll be light out soon."

Reluctantly Angel agreed and climbed to his feet. The pair made their way to the elevators, and Wesley hit the button for the level of the underground parking lot where Spike had parked the car.

Suddenly Angel's hand shot out and depressed the button marked 'morgue'.

"I just need to..." Angel tried to explain as Wesley looked at him questioningly.

"Say goodbye?" Wesley finished.

************

Cordelia awoke with a gasp. All around her it was dark and cold. Oh god she couldn't see anything. Had someone suceeded in removing her eyes? She took a couple of deep breaths to try and calm herself down. Slowly she began to take stock of her aches and pains. Her chest hurt a little, and it was slightly painful to breathe, but that was easing. Her eyes didn't hurt, so she took that as a good sign. Moving her hands, she felt the plastic covering her, and heard it rustle. Moving a bit more she felt a zip running down the front of........what was this thing? It felt like she was in a sleeping bag. A very cold sleeping bag. A very cold plastic sleeping bag? Oh God, it was a body bag! Someone had put her in a body bag! Squirming around in the bag she managed to undo the zip to her chest, where the zip stuck, and refused to budge any further. She managed to manuver her arms out of the bag, and in doing so made contact with cold steel. Feeling around her she felt that she was in a steel box of some sort. Oh god someone had buried her!

Oh god, Angel was dead. He would never have let anyone bury her. Someone, some demon, had taken advantage of the lightning storm and killed him.

"Angel!"Cordelia cried out, and began to hit the metal around her. Suddenly her head exploded. Or at least it felt like her head was exploding. It felt almost as bad as a vision, but no images forced their way into her brain.

There was a loud noise and light flooded into the enclosed space, temporarily blinding her. She suddenly felt herself moving and the sound of metal on rollers made itself known in her consciousness. Suddenly the movement stopped. Glancing up she noticed that her head was clear of drawers? Sitting up suddenly she gazed at the person in front of her. As if by magic her headache abated. Hey she knew this guy! He was the one fighting with Mr. Sword-weilding-psycho. Reaching out and taking hold of his coat lapels, she violently dragged him toward her.

"Alright buster! Why the hell am I in the morgue?!"

*************
Part 8
*************

"Immortals?" Buffy asked disbelievingly.

"I don't believe it." Riley stated. Giles just sat on Cordelia's desk looking thoughtful.

"You asked." Joe told them. Eventually he had seen no other alternative than to tell them the truth. They certainly hadn't believed a word of either his or MacLeod's cover stories.

"You're an immortal, aren't you?" Giles asked Duncan.

Duncan started. How the hell had this guy figured it out? "What makes you say that?"

Giles held up Reynard's watcher's chronicle. "This. He beheaded people with a sword. According to this he always carried a sword with him."

"That's a pretty big leap Giles."Buffy told him.

"The first date in this, is March of 1879, the last is June of 1991."

"So he died a very old man."

"One hundred twelve year old men don't run the Boston Marathon." He informed her, and showed her the entry.

Duncan sighed. Giles was pretty cluey. "Yes I'm immortal."

"And the only way you can die is if someone takes your head?"

"Yes. That's why we all carry swords."

"I don't believe this." Riley said as he sank into the nearest chair.

"How do you manage to hide the sword?" Buffy asked.

"Carry it in our coats. Usually on a hook sewn into the lining." He picked up his coat and showed them.

"Picking up tips Buff?" Xander asked. "Think of the weapons you could carry around, and the cops wouldn't have a clue."

"Not that the police in Sunnydale, ever had a clue." Willow added.

"So if you didn't know about immortals, what exactly do you watch, Rupert?" Joe asked.

Giles looked at Buffy. "Do we tell them?"

"They showed us theirs."she told him.

"Alright. I watch the Slayer."

"Again this Slayer thing. What is the Slayer?"

"Who's the Slayer. That's me." Buffy informed them.

"A Slayer is a girl who has the speed, strength, and agility to fight vampires and demons and win."

"Vampires. There are no such things as vampires." Joe told them.

"Just like there are no such things as immortals?" Xander asked. Joe winced as the point hit home.

"I assure you that vampires and demons are real. In fact even the United States Government believes in them. They used to have a team of demon hunters on their payroll."

"I don't believe it." Duncan stated.

"Which part?"

"The part about demon hunters working for the government."

"That's true. I used to be one." Riley told him.

"So you believe in demons Mr MacLeod?" Willow asked curious at how calm Duncan had seemed.

"Yes. I've actually met one. Ahriman."

"Ahriman. I don't recall having heard about an Ahriman. Do you know what type of demon he was?" Giles asked.

"No. We didn't exactly sit down and have a chat." Duncan told him dryly.

"Oh, I met him once. He gave me the shivers." Anya told them.

Just then Spike threw open the door of Angel Investigations. He was followed by Kate. Buffy recognized her as the detective who had wanted to lock up Angel, on her last visit. What was she doing here? She didn't look too good.

"Spike? Where's Angel and Wesley?" Giles asked.

"They aren't back yet? Spike asked.

"No."

"How's Cordelia?" Willow asked.

Spike groaned inwardly. The other watcher hadn't called to tell them yet? Terrific. The ability to really hurt this group comes along, and he can't take any pleasure in it. He silently cursed the fates for putting him in this position.

"Cordelia is..uh..." How the hell was he going to do this?

"Cordelia's dead." Kate announced faintly, then passed out.

************

"I'll explain everything a little later, right now we need to get out of here."

Cordelia felt something solid underneath his coat. "No way am I going anywhere with you, buddy!" Before the man in front of her could react, she reached into his coat and withdrew the object she had felt. Holy.... it was a sword! She placed it against his neck. "Now, you mind telling me who the hell you are? And why you're carrying this thing?"

Connor winced. Damn! Outmanuvered by a newbie! He was getting rusty. "My name's Connor MacLeod. I'm here to explain what happened. As for the sword, well that's a part of the explanation."

"Cryptic much? You could give Angel a run for his ......Oh my god, Angel!" She pressed the cold length of steel more firmly against his neck. "Where's Angel?" she demanded. "And believe me the next answer better be the right one."

"Who's Angel?"

"Tall, dark, brooding, wears mostly black?"

"Him. Uh, he's fine. A mess but fine."

"A mess?"

"Well yeah, see....what do you remember?"

"I ask the questions!"

"To answer that, I'd have to start explaining what's going on and we really don't have time right now." Connor glanced nervously at the clock on the wall. The morgue attendant would be back soon.

"I don't care. So unless you want to be minus a head you'd better start making sense. Fast."

"Uh..well," damn! How was he going to do this? He looked at the determined look in her eye. She would too, if she didn't like the answer. He might as well get this over with. "You died."

****************

"What do you mean, she's dead?" Xander asked warily. "This is a joke, right? Ha ha very funny?"

"No, it's true." Spike confirmed. "She was fine, then there was some sort of lightning storm. Stuff went flying and the next thing we knew she was sitting there with a bloody sword through her chest." At the mention of a sword, all eyes moved to Duncan and Joe.

"You said there was a lightning storm?" Joe asked faintly.

"Yeah. Which was really weird, because we were inside at the time. I've seen some strange stuff, but that took the bloody cake."

"A Quickening." Duncan muttered softly.

"A what?" Spike asked sharply. Duncan looked at him strange. How the hell had he heard that?

"Good hearing." Spike smirked, answering the unspoken question. "Now what the hell is this Quickening thing?"

"It's our....lifeforce, sort of. When one of us is killed, it's released and it transfers itself to the nearest immortal. It contains all of our memories, and experiences."

"And the process is rather spectacular." Joe added.

"That's one word for it." Kate muttered as she gained consciousness. "I would have called it something else. Like....oh....say....destructive."

"So there was some sort of immortal fight, one of them dies and the light....quickening, starts sending things flying. So how did Cordelia end up with a sword through her chest? Lightning can't move things." Giles was trying to figure out what had happened, the fact that Cordelia was dead not having sunk in yet.

"Well usually there's alot of light stuff that gets thrown around. Paper, rubbish, things like that." Duncan informed Giles.

"Well alot more than paper got thrown around." Kate told him shortly. "Things like glass and wood and....well swords!"

"By the time she reached the emergency ward, she had lost too much blood. They couldn't revive her." Spike sighed.

"Broken ribs, punctured lung, a hole in her heart, extreme blood loss........" Kate whispered.

The group fell silent as they realised that this wasn't a joke. It was true. Cordelia was dead.

***********

Angel and Wesley stepped off the elevator, and Wesley shivered at the chill in the air. They walked, along the hallway toward the morgue, in silence. Suddenly Angel stopped.

"Cordelia?" He whispered.

"Angel?" Wesley asked concerned.

Angel shook his head to clear it. He was sure he'd felt Cordelia's presence near by. "It's nothing." He shrugged it off and began walking. As they reached the doors to the morgue they heard a familiar voice.

"What do you mean 'I died'?!"

Pushing open the doors, they stared in disbelief in at the scene in front of them.

The man who had been with them in the waiting room stood, half bent over, a sword to his throat, and a pained expression on his face. Cordelia sat, wrapped in a body bag to her chest, one hand clenched in the man's coat lapel, the other holding the handle of the sword.

"You..uh...you died. What do you remember?"

"Cordelia?" Wesley asked in disbelief.

"Wesley? Where's An...umph!" suddenly Cordelia found herself crushed into the embrace of her friends. "Uh...guys? Oxygen...becoming a issue." They released her and stood back.

"But....but....how?" Wesley asked.

"She's immortal." A voice from behind him informed them.

"What?"

"This guy is nuts! He tried to tell me that I died!" Cordelia exclaimed. "And if you think that I'm going to let you guys get away with putting me in a morgue drawer you're delusional!"

"Cordelia, you did die."Angel told her quietly.

"Excuse me? Me. Sitting here. Heart beating. Breathing. Definitely alive. Not dead."

"Of course you aren't. Not now. You're immortal. You'll keep reviving from death until someone takes your head."

"That is so gross."

"How do you know this?" Wesley asked.

"And who are you?" Angel asked suspiciously.

"Connor MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod, at your service."

"MacLeod? Any relation to Duncan MacLeod?" asked Wesley.

"Duncan? You know Duncan?"

"Yes, we just met actually."

"I hate to break this up, but we should probably get out of here before the morgue attendant gets back." Angel pointed out.

"That's what I've been trying to do, since she revived." Connor felt compelled to point out.

"Um...hello? Zip is stuck." Cordelia pointed out, frustrated. Angel reached over and grabbed a side of the bag in each hand and yanked. The tough polyprophelyne tore like paper. "Thanks."

"Well, I have to be going as well." Connor told them. "Give my best to Duncan."

"Oh no you don't buddy!" Cordelia jumped down off the table and raised the sword again. "You're coming with us! You have some major explaining to do!"

"No. Really, Duncan is much better at this than me. I'll just...." Angel morphed into his game face, and approaced Connor, growling threatingly. "O......K.......maybe I will come with you." Connor finished weakly. What the hell was this guy?

"Wise decision." Wesley told him.

"Oh God." Cordelia cried out weakly as she got a look at the blood all over her clothes. Angel caught her as she collapsed. Wesley looked shocked at the amount of blood that was drying on Cordelia's clothing. Even Connor looked a little pale.

Angel hefted Cordelia into his arms. "Wesley, you want to grab the sword?" Wesley reached out and grasped the sword. "Let's go."

***********
Part 9
***********

"......really has a talent for getting me into trouble. Like the time..." Duncan trailed off as he felt the presence of another immortal nearby. Reaching automatically inside his jacket for his sword, he cursed softly as he came up empty. "Sword." He muttered urgently to Buffy. Reluctantly she gave it to him. Duncan got up and walked to the front door, holding the sword against the front of his body.

The door opened slightly, and a head poked through.

"I hope that's not for me." Connor told him, smirking.

"It is if you don't stop sneaking up on me." Duncan informed him, a grin breaking over his face. The two men hugged jubilantly. "How you going, old man?"

"Terrific, and who are you calling old?"

"Would you mind moving so that we can use the door?" came an impatient voice.

"Oh. Sorry." Connor said as they moved.

"Thanks." Angel muttered as he carried a groaning Cordelia into the office.

"What the bloody hell?" Spike yelled as he spotted Cordelia.

"Cordelia?"Xander couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Angelus, have you lost your bloody mind?!"

"Damn, we forgot painkillers." Cordelia muttered as her headache refused to abate.

"Cordelia?"

"You can put me down now. I'm quite capable of walking, you know."

"Cordelia?" Kate couldn't believe her eyes either.

"Holy, Mother of God!" Giles and Joe had just gotten a look at the blood staining Cordelia's clothes.

"Headache?" Duncan asked, amused.

"Tylenol and Exedrin are vying for advertising space." Cordelia sighed as she turned to look at the stranger. The headache magically vanished. "Another one of you. Oh wonderful." she groaned. "We really need to get some painkillers, if they're going to be hanging around." She told Angel tiredly.

"Cordelia? Spike told us you were dead." Buffy told her.

"She was!" Spike defended hotly.

"Well, she doesn't look dead to me!" Buffy argued.

"I have her death certificate if that helps." Angel offered.

"She's immortal." Duncan informed them.

There was a dull thud as Giles hit the floor unconscious.

**************

"The Seer?"

"Dead."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I spoke to the doctors."

"That was not the plan."

"Without his link to the Powers, he will be helpless."

"Very well. We will continue. Have you located the project?"

"Yes."

"Good. I trust there will be no more costly mistakes."

"No sir."

***************

Angel rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. It had been on hell of a day...uh night. He was still having trouble taking it all in. He came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the stairs that decended into his new apartment. David Nabitt had helped them find a new place, while they had been waiting for the insurance money on the old office to come through. It was remarkably similar to the old office, in that it had Angel's appartment below it, and sewer access so that he could move around during the day.

Angel stood listening to the sound of the shower running. Cordelia. She had died. He had heard her heart stop beating in the ambulance. Yet here she was. Alive, breathing, her heart beating again, just in the next room, taking a shower. He groaned at the mental images that thought brought to mind and his body tightened. "Best you not go there boy." a little voice in his head told him. He groaned again. What was he going to do about Cordelia? He loved her. Completely. Her dying had shown him that, and he cursed himself that it had taken such an event to make him realize the true extent of his feelings for his seer. But he was still who he was. A vampire cursed with a soul. Even if she returned his feelings, how could they be together? He didn't want to risk exposing her to his demon again. Although he had to admit that she had handled Angelus's last appearence brilliantly.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the shower being turned off. He moved into the kitchen and began brewing a pot of coffee.

"Where is everyone?" Cordelia asked as she padded into the kitchen wearing a pair of Angel's sweats.

Angel chuckled as he got a look at her. His clothes were at least three sizes too big, and they enveloped her. "And what are you laughing at?" she demanded half heartedly, a smile on her face.

"You." he told her honestly. He approached her and began rolling up the cuff on one arm. "You look like you're playing dress up."

Cordelia poked her tongue out at him, and asked the question again.

"Wesley and Kate have gone home, Spike wasn't very happy with the gang calling him a liar and has gone for a walk to vent his frustration. Everyone else has gone to a motel. They'll be back tomorrow....uh later today, after they've had some sleep."

"So do you think we'll see our friendly immortals again?"

"Yes." When they had left they were engaged in an argument over who should train Cordelia.

Cordelia sighed and sat down at the table. "This is going to take some getting used to." she told him tiredly. "I mean, this morning I wake up a normal...well half normal...person, and now I have to worry about people coming after me to chop my head off."

"Join the club."

"Oh...oh...I'm sorry. I keep forgetting." Cordelia put her head in her hands. "Don't pay any attention to me, I'm just.....Uggggh."

"Do you want something to eat?"

"mmmppphhh."

"Cordelia?"

"mmmmm?"

Angel tilted his head and looked at her closely. She had fallen asleep, slumped over the table, head on her hands. Smiling at the picture she made, he carefully picked her up and carried her into his bedroom. Pulling back the bedcovers he placed her gently on the be and pulled the blankets up over her. He stood next to the bed silently. Memorizing her features as she snuggled deeper into the blankets. She looked tired, peaceful, vulnerable, and as sexy as hell, in a way that only Cordelia could. Turning around and leaving the room seemed like one of the most painful things he had ever done.

***********

"No! Angel!" Cordelia's screams woke him with a start and he bolted into the bedroom.

Cordelia lay on the bed, covers kicked off, tossing violently.

"Cordelia. Cordelia wake up!"

With a gasp Cordelia's eyes flew open. "Angel?" she asked panic evident in her voice.

"I'm here. It's OK. You were having a nightmare." He reassured her.

"I....I....You....Oh god." She buried her face in his shoulder and cried.

"It's Ok." He soothed, rubbing his hands up her back. Eventually her cries stopped and her breathing and heartbeat became regular. Angel realized that she had fallen asleep again. Feeling awed by the level of trust she showed in him he gently placed her head back on the pillows, and pulled the covers over her again. Then, after a pause he lay down next to her, atop the covers. Cordelia cuddled in, closer to his body, and feeling reasured by the regular beat of her heart, he fell asleep.

************

Cordelia surfaced from a dreamless sleep slowly. She became conscious of something unyeilding pressed up against her back. Puzzled she turned her head, and stared into Angel's sleeping face.

He looked so peaceful, laying there, one arm thrown over her waist....well where her waist was under the covers. She drank in the sight of him. What had happened last night? Memory began returning in flashes. Her nightmare, Angel comforting her...then blackness. She had fallen asleep on his shoulder. She smiled contentedly. If this was what happened when she fell asleep on him, she was going to have to it more often. The bedside clock told her that it was still too early in the morning to even consider getting up, so she snuggled back down into Angel's chest, enjoying the feel of him, and fell asleep again.

************

Angel awoke feeling more rested than he had in some time. He moved slightly, then froze as he encountered another body. Cordelia. He sat up and looked down at her sleeping form. She lay on her side, her hair sprawled out over the pillow, one hand covering the hand he had around her waist. He marveled at how she accepted his presence, even in sleep.

"I love you Cordelia Chase." He whispered, unable to contain the emotions washing over him. She smiled in her sleep and mumbled something unintelligible. He gently removed his arm and went to have a shower. *************

"Riley? What's wrong?" Buffy asked her lover as they dressed.

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that." She told him frustrated that he was trying to shrug her off. "I can tell somethings bugging you. So out with it."

"I just.....I don't feel comfortable around Angel." He explained. "I don't particularly like him." He admitted.

"Well he doesn't like you either." She told him. "I don't really expect you two to get along. Just work together until we kill this Adam-demon-guy and we'll go home, and you probably won't have to see him again. Maybe."

"What about you?"

"What about me? Oh." Buffy approached him and pushed him into a sitting position on the bed. "Riley, we've been over this. Yes I'll always care about Angel. But it's over. In the past. We've worked everything out and moved on. I love you." She kissed him soundly. "Never doubt that."

"I just thought....Oh jeez. I don't know what I thought. I was worried because of Angel and...."

"Angel and Cordelia?" She asked amused. "You noticed that too huh?" Buffy silently marveled at how calm she felt at the idea of Angel and Cordelia together. A couple of months ago she wouldn't have been. Since her last visit to LA and Angel's last visit to Sunnydale however, she had taken a good look at herself and realized a few painful truths.

She cared about Angel, alway would, but as much as she had tried to delude herself that everything would work out, things hadn't been the same after he had returned from hell. He had changed, become a little more accepting of who and what he was. She hadn't been able to do that. Part of her would always see him as Angelus, the vampire who killed Miss Calender, and terrorized them for months. The trust she had held in him had been shattered when he lost his soul, never to be fully restored. But she hadn't admitted that, selfishly hoping that he would somehow become human, or that his soul would become permanant, no hidden clauses. Not for him. For her. So that she could feel free to trust in him again.

Even when she had had started going out with Riley, part of her was still hoping that Angel would somehow magically always be there for her in a romantic sense. Her last visit to LA had brought alot of the remaining issues between them out into the open. And when Angel had shown up in Sunnydale she had realized that it was truly over. He had made the right choice for both of them when he left Sunnydale after graduation.

"You're ok with it?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, I'm ok with it." Buffy told him. "Wanna bet on how long it'll take for them to admit that they're more than friends?" She asked with a mischievious grin.

"Maybe...." Riley also grinned as he realised that Buffy was fine, and his completely, having put Angel in the past. "What did you have in mind?" *********
Part 10
*********

"Morning Duncan." Connor called out to his clansmen, in the lobby of the hotel they were staying at. "Sleep well?"

Duncan rubbed his eyes. "Like a rock once I actually got to sleep. Amanda gave me hell for not calling to tell her I was going to be so late."

"Ah. Tore strips of you did she?"

"Yes I did." Amanda informed Connor brightly. "And who might you be?"

"Amanda, meet Connor MacLeod, my kinsman. Connor, this is Amanda Darieux."

"So you're the famous Connor MacLeod. It's good to finally meet you."

"Always a pleasure to meet a beautiful lady." Connor told her as he kissed her hand.

"You neglected to tell me that he was so charming, Duncan." Duncan muttered something unintelligible. "Stop being so grouchy. Tell you what, I'll buy breakfast for the both of you and you can tell me what you were up to last night."

After they were seated in the hotel's resturant Amanda turned to Connor. "You know, he tried to tell me he was so late because he met a group of teenage vampire and demon hunters?" she laughed derisively.

"Vampire hunters?" Connor's mind flashed back to Angel's face change in the morgue. "Are you sure?" he asked Duncan.

"You don't actually believe him?" Amanda asked in amazement.

"I'm not sure. That Angel guy? Well when I tried to leave them in the morgue, his face changed and his eyes went yellow. And he growled at me."

"He growled?" Duncan asked in disbelief.

"Morgue? What were you up to last night?" Amanda asked.

"Yes he growled. And I was head hunting. And apparently initiating a newbie."

"Head hunting? Anyone I know?"

"Archibald Reynard. Cheating son-ofa-bitch. Likes breaking the rules, and targeting the newbies. Killed my student Justin a couple of months ago."

"I take it you won." Amanda said dryly.

"Yeah."

"Ah. So it was Reynard's quickening that killed the girl." Duncan mused.

"What?!" Amanda exclaimed.

"The bleached blond and a woman came into the office and claimed that the girl was dead. There had been a freak indoor lightning storm - Reynard's Quickening - and the girl, I think her name was Cordelia?" Connor nodded "ended up with a sword stuck in her chest." Duncan explained.

"That must have been one hell of a Quickening!"

"It was." Connor confirmed. "I'd felt a pre-immie so I followed them to the hospital. She was in one of the morgue drawers when she woke up." Both Amanda and Duncan shivered, being familiar with the experience. "I opened the drawer, slid the drawer out, and she pulled my own sword on me!"

Duncan began laughing. "You slipping old man?"

"Apparently so." Connor chuckled. "Right about then her companions arrived, why I don't know, and they didn't take kindly to me taking off before I'd explained what had happened, so they kind of ....convinced me to come with them. Cordelia with the sword, Angel with....well whatever the hell it was he did."

"He growled at you?" Amanda asked incredulously.

"Yes he did." Connor told her with as much dignity he muster. "Next thing I know, we're at an office and Duncan's behind the door holding a sword."

"He does seem to like greeting people like that." Amanda commented, a grin on her face.

"You do the same." Duncan told her.

"Yeah, but I do it with more class." she teased. Connor and Duncan chuckled.

"So vampire hunters huh?" Connor asked when they had finished breakfast.

"I know, it's hard to believe." Duncan told them what had happened with Buffy in the alleyway. Connor chuckled when he got to the part about being threatened with his own sword, commenting that perhaps he wasn't the only one who was slipping.

"So this guy Giles, he's another watcher? Like Joe?" Amanda asked.

"No. Not like Joe. According to him his job is to train and help the Slayer. But he got fired because he got too involved, or something like that."

"So he's like Joe."

Duncan began to protest, then gave up, as it occured to him that she was right. "Yeah, like Joe." he agreed. Connor began chucking again and Duncan and Amanda looked at him enquiringly.

"Sorry, I was just remembering the reaction we got, when Angel walked in carrying Cordelia."

Duncan began laughing as well, as he recalled the looks on the faces of the Scooby Gang. "What the bloody hell?" he mimicked.

"Cordelia?" Connor joined in.

"Angelus, have you lost your bloody mind?!"

Amanda gasped. "Angelus? Are you sure they said Angelus?" she asked urgently.

Duncan looked at her concerned. "Yeah. Uh..the bleached blond..uh Spike...called him Angelus. Why?"

"I've heard of an Angelus. Um..about...oh it would be more than a hundred years now....there were stories floating around. Angelus and William the Bloody. They were called the Scourge of Europe. Um..they left a trail of bodies accross Europe. Nobody really got specific about the details, but rumor had it that they were everything, from demons, to vampires, to immortals." Amanda told them. "If this guy is the same Angelus, be careful. He's as dangerous as they come." She warned.

"Well this guys not an immortal." Connor told her.

"And he didn't seem particularly dangerous." Duncan added.

"Other than when he growled at me." Connor reminded them.

"Ok. Other than when he growled at Connor." Duncan added. "If it makes you feel any better, you can come with us when we go back there."

"You're going back?"

Duncan looked slightly embarrased. "Yeah well we ah..."

"We have to go back to find out who's going to be training Miss Chase." Connor told her.

"You were that late getting back, and you didn't even sort out training for this girl?" Connor had the good grace to look a little bashful. "You're both hopeless." Amanda declared. *************

Cordelia woke to find her clothes from the day before, cleaned and sitting on the end of Angel's bed.

She glanced around looking for some sign that Angel was in the apartment, but couldn't find one. She sighed. Damn. Why couldn't he have still been in bed when she woke up again? Was it so much to ask that her fantasy continue on a little longer? She had been having a wonderful dream. Her and Angel in bed together. Angel holding her as she slept. Angel telling her he loved her. She really hadn't wanted to wake up. She closed her eyes and attempted to recapture the dream.

She gave up as a loud thump from upstairs brought her fully into reality. "No time to daydream now Cordelia Chase." She told herself sternly. "You've got a demon to track down." She pulled on her jeans. "And people who are coming for your head to avoid." Her inner voice added as she suddenly remembered with crystal clear clarity, exactly what had happened in the last 24 hours. She groaned and briefly bowed her head. She just knew that she was going to wish she had never gotten up this morning.

*************

"Some night, huh, Peaches." Spike flopped onto the couch in the office.

"Spike, I really wish you wouldn't call me that." Angel told his childe as he started the coffee maker.

"So how's Miss Popularity?"

"If you mean Cordelia, she was still sleeping when I came up."

"Yes, but how is she? I mean, how is she reacting to the immortal bit?"

"I don't really know yet. I don't think it's actually sunk in." For any of us. Angel mentally added.

"I suppose this means that you're going to be stuck with her until one of you kicks the bucket? Her being your seer and all. How did that happen anyway?"

"Doyle gave her the visions before he died."

"Not exactly talkative this morning are you?"

"What did you expect?"

"I dunno. You carrying your part of the conversation with more than one sentence maybe?"

"What's the story with the chip?"

"How do you mean?"

"How'd you get it?"

"Got jumped by a group of bloody commandos."

"Been there, done that."Angel muttered

"Next thing I know, I'm in some sort of holding cell with this chip in my head. Thought it was the bloody Slayers doin' at first."

"What changed your mind?"

"Saw her fighting a group of them when I was with Red."

"Willow?"

"Yeah, I'd gone to the dorm to find the Slayer, only to find Red alone. Thought I'd have some fun, until the chip kicked in."

"He had a little trouble performing." Willow informed him, a smirk on her face as she entered the office, followed by Tara. "How are you this morning Angel?"

"I'm fine Willow. Hello Tara."

"Hi."

"So any more luck finding the demon yet?"

"No. Haven't been up long."

"You mean Giles and Wesley didn't tell you?"

"Didn't tell me what?"

"Morning guys. I'll be back in about an hour." Cordelia breezed through the office heading out the door.

"Ah, Cordelia? Where are you going?" Angel called out.

She stopped and turned to face him. "I'm going home to change into some clothes that don't have extra holes in them. And I have to let Dennis know I'm alright before he starts rearranging the furniture."

"Dennis? Who's Dennis?" Buffy asked as she and Riley entered the room.

"Rearranging the furniture?" Angel asked puzzled.

"Dennis is my ghost. And yes. For some reason, probably to annoy me, when I'm late without calling, he rearranges my furniture. After the demon-pregnancy thing, I got home to find my entire lounge room moved around. I tripped over the coffee table walking in the door. And the last time I forgot to call him, I got home to find my refrigerator sitting slap bang in the middle of the kitchen. Do you have any idea how heavy those things are to move on your own?"

"How heavy what is to move on your own?" Kate asked as she came through the door.

"The fridge." Everyone began to talk at once.

"You have a ghost?" Riley asked a strange look on his face.

"Yes I have......"

"Take someone with you." Angel interupted.

"Huh? Angel, I'll only be gone an hour, and it's light out."

"It was light out yesterday too."

Cordelia was about to protest, but realized that Angel was only worried about her. Better she give in to him on this, this time. If the last year had taught Cordelia anything, it was when to pick a fight with Angel, and when to give in and let him think he'd won. "Fine. Kate. Feel like meeting Dennis?"

"Who's Dennis?" Kate asked as she followed Cordelia out the door.

"I'm sorry Willow. You were saying? Something about Giles and Wesley not telling me something?"

"When I did the search on Wolfram & Hart's mainframe, amongst a whole lot of other interesting stuff, I found something about the demon we're looking for."

*************
Part 11
*************

"Are you sure this is the place? Angel Investigations?" Amanda asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Yes I'm sure." Duncan told her.

"I can't feel an immortal anywhere close by." Connor stated worriedly.

"She's probably not here then." Joe was puffing slightly, as he carefully negotiated the stairs.

"This is where we left her."

"Doesn't mean she's still here."

Suddenly the door to Angel Investigations flew open. Buffy stood in the doorway, settled into a fighting stance, stake clenched in her fist. Seeing the small group of people they had met last night, she relaxed.

"Hi. What are you guys doing back here? I would have thought you'd want to get as far away from us as possible."

"Buffy, who is it?" Angel called out from his office where Willow was filling him in on what they had found.

"It's the immortal guys and the watcher." She called back. Duncan winced at her description. Amanda just looked amused. "Only we haven't met you yet." Buffy directed at Amanda.

"Amanda. Also an immortal guy. I came to see what these two lunkheads were up to last night."

"You mean besides getting the crap beat out of them?" Buffy asked as she stood aside to let them enter the office.

Amanda chuckled. "Yeah. Besides that."

"Where's Cordelia?" Connor asked.

"She's gone home to change."

************

"Are you sure you're alright?" Kate asked Cordelia for the third time.

"Yes! I'm fine. Feeling the wiggins when I remember the sword entering my chest, but other than that, the only thing any worse for wear is my clothing." Cordelia tried to reassure her as she slid her key into the lock.

"I still can't believe there are people who are immortal."

"I personally have no trouble believing it. I mean, Vampires? Demons? After that, immortals aren't much of a stretch. Although I have a real problem with the whole beheading thing." Cordelia told her as she pushed open her front door, and walked straight into her sofa. "Dennis!"

"Who's Dennis?" Kate asked again.

"My ghost roomate." Cordelia told her as she tried shoving the sofa out of the doorway. "My soon to be exorcised ghost roomate if he doesn't help put this furniture back where it was!" She called out to an apparently empty room.

"A ghost? Your roomate is a ghost? I don't believ......" Kate trailed off as, seemingly of it's own volition the sofa moved. "Ok. Maybe I do believe it." She said weakly, as the sofa continued moving until it was in it's regular place under the window. "I think I need a drink."

"The strongest I've got is Pepsi." Cordelia told her regretfully. "Why don't you take a seat and I'll go change." Kate just nodded and sat gingerly on the sofa, as if she expected it to start moving again.

"That wasn't funny Dennis." Cordelia started talking to her roomate as she opened her wardrobe. "I know, I know." Dennis started moving the bottles of perfumes and cosmetics sitting on top of the dresser. "After last time I promised I'd call if I was going to be late, but it couldn't be helped! We had a problem come up suddenly."

Dennis grabbed a pencil and a sketch pad that Angel had left here when he had moved out. 'What kind of problem?'

"Well........if you must know, I kinda got kidnapped. With Kate."

'WHAT?!"

"It's alright now. I mean Angel came to our rescue. Kind of. Well, he rescued us, then I died. But I'm fine now." She spoke in a rush.

'You DIED?!!'

"Yeah. It's really creepy to wake up in a morgue drawer. I so don't recommend it. You're lucky that you did'nt have to go through that."

'How are you here?'

"A guy with a sword....well two guys with swords actually....told me that I'm immortal. I'll just keep coming back 'til someone cuts off my head. Least now I won't have to worry about wrinkles and old age."

'???'

Cordelia finished changing. "Don't worry Dennis. I'm fine. Angel's fine. Everyone's fine. And I promise that if I'm late again I will try to call. Alright?"

':->'

"Good."

'Be careful.'

"I will. Now you promise not to move the furniture around again?"

'-------'

"Dennis." Warningly.

'OK.'

"Thanks Dennis." Cordelia grabbed her coat and backpack. "You ready to go?" she asked Kate as she entered the lounge.

"Ready to go? Yes. Mmmhmm."

"Ok. We better head back and see what Brood Boy and Fangless has discovered."

"Fangless?"

"Spike. He's Angel's childe. The Initiative put a chip in his head so he's lost his bite."

"He's a vampire?" Kate was stunned. She had invited him into her apartment!

"Yeah." Cordelia saw Kate pale. "You didn't know? Didn't you see him go all grr last night?"

"I wasn't really paying attention. More worried about where to find my gun."

"Don't worry about Spike. He can't hurt anyone anymore. The chip took care of that."

"But didn't you just say her went....uh...grr?"

"Yeah. The only thing he can so much as hit nowadays are demons. He tries to hurt humans, and he gets a blinding headache. Must make for interesting conversations with the Scooby Gang. He really doesn't like them very much." Cordelia told her amused. She found Spike's new status as Fangless rather amusing and ironic.

************

"Oh. Hello all." Wesley was suprised to see so many people crowding the office. So was Giles. He hadn't realized how small the office was when you put more than a few people in it.

"Hi Giles. I'd like you to meet Amanda Darieux. Amanda this is an old friend of mine, Rupert Giles." Joe introduced. "And the gentlemen next to him is Wesley Wyndham-Price. Also a watcher."

"Former watcher actually." Wesley told him.

"Oh my, two handsome intellectuals. You didn't warn me the company was this good looking Joe." Amanda flirted. Joe just snorted. Giles stuttered out a 'nice to meet you' and cleaned his glasses.

Wesley turned bright red. "Where's Angel?"

"The poof's in his office with Red. She's filling him in on what you found last night, since you tightwads failed to mention anything." Spike answered, from his position leaning back on a chair in one corner of the office.

"Oh dear. He's not going to be happy. I was hoping......." Wesley started.

"Who's not going to be happy?" Cordelia asked as she came throught he door, massaging her temples. She looked around for the source of her headache, and it magically vanished.

"Angel." Wesley explained. "Willow found some files on Wolfram & Hart's mainframe about our Frankenstein demon. Wolfram & Hart financed his creation, through a subsidiary corporation, Wolf Ltd."

"Wolfram & Hart? The law firm?" Kate asked, puzzled.

"This is gonna be worse than when they got Self-mutilating-psycho-chick off." Cordelia groaned.

"Yes the law firm. Many of their clients are demons, and other....uh....things." Wesley told Kate.

"Self-mutilating-psycho-chick?" Buffy asked.

"Oh." Kate didn't know what else to say.

"An assasin who was working for Wolfram & Hart. She blinded herself, then went off to find enlightenment. When she got back she could see.....in a really creepy kinda way." Cordelia explained distractedly, looking towards Angel's office. She was worried about Angel. When Wolfram & Hart got Self-mutilating-psycho-chick off, he had gotten really agitated, then somewhat depressed. How would he react to this news? Mentally Cordelia braced herself. It was time to find out. She walked to the office door, and knocking briefly entered, closing the door behind her.

Angel sat at his desk, arms crossed over his chest, visibly fighting for control. Willow sat on the other side of the table, looking worried.

"Angel?" Cordelia called out to him softly. "Are you ok?

"I'm fine Cordelia."

Cordelia snorted. "Yeah, right. Do I look like I'm blind to you? Spill already." Willow, quietly got up and left the room. Best to let Cordelia deal with Angel at the moment. If anyone could get him to calm down it would be her.

With a violent shove Angel pushed his chair away from the desk and started pacing. "It isn't enough that they defend demons and assasins, now they're creating them." He vented.

"It sucks, I agree. But getting yourself worked up over it isn't going to do anything." She told him. "If you have energy to waste, go beat up a demon. It's a hell of a lot more productive than destroying your furniture. And alot kinder to your gold card."

"You....you don't ..." Angel gave up. As twisted as it was, there was no way to argue with her line of logic. "You're right."

"I am?" Cordelia feigned shock. "Wow. Who would have thought it?" Despite himself Angel chuckled lightly. Somehow Cordelia always managed to drag him out from under whatever cloud happened to be over his head. "So instead of you tearing your office apart. We go out. We find the demon. We kill the demon. Then you can go back to being brood boy, and we can get some room to move next door."

"It is a bit crowded isn't it?" Angel asked as she opened the door.

"And getting more so every minute." Cordelia stated as she spotted Xander and Anya. "If we keep collecting people at this rate, we're going to need bigger offices."

"I'll be sure to mention it to David, next time we see him." Angel told her dryly.

"You ok Angel?" Wesley asked, concerned.

"Yeah."

"Willow, was there anything in those files about where this thing is?" Cordelia asked.

"No. Just a lot of stuff about what kind of demons he's made up of.....kinda like a schematic. That and the financial transaction details. Nothing overly useful."

"So you want us to start researching the demon bits?" Xander asked.

"Would be useful." Giles told him.

"Oh goody. Research Boy to the rescue." Xander sarcastically commented, but grabbed a small stack of books off the bookshelf.

"We need to find out where this thing is. Spike, did you see anything on your wanderings last night....er this morning?" Angel asked his childe.

"No. Nothing. No vamps, no demons, thank christ." Spike informed him.

"None of the units on patrol last night saw anything unusual either." Kate spoke up. "I checked this morning."

"Wouldn't the people to ask be Wolfram & Hart?" Tara asked.

"Yeah, like they'd tell us." Cordelia scoffed.

"Perhaps I should have a little chat with Lindsey." Angel commented quietly.

"I don't think...." Wesley began.

"Are you nuts?!" Cordelia cut him off. "Born-again-lawyer-boy is not going to talk to you. Not after what happened the last time you two were alone in a room together. Besides, aren't you forgetting a few things? Like to see him, you'd have to go to Wolfram & Hart?"

"Take a look outside, Deadboy. Not a good place for someone with your allergy to sunlight to be right now." Xander commented.

"You'd never get past the shamans." Wesley told him.

"Do what we did last time." Angel shrugged.

"Like they'll fall for that a second time." Cordelia snorted.

"Cordelia's right. They won't fall for it a second time." Wesley's eyes gained a crafty gleam. "But perhaps we could bring him here."

"Huh?"

"Take a look around. We have a room full of people they've never seen before."

***************
Part 12
***************

"You got a moment?" Amanda asked Cordelia. Cordelia glanced around the room. Everyone had broken up into small groups to figure out the best way to get to Lindsey. She shrugged.

"Sure." She agreed easily. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I've been informed by the lunkheads that they left last night without arranging training for you. That true?"

Cordelia's lips quirked. "Lunkheads?"

Amanda shrugged. "Dense, thick skulled highlanders also works for me." She told her, a smile forming. "There are times when they really don't have a clue."

"I think it's a Y chromosome thing." Cordelia agreeed.

"So, have they arranged training for you yet?"

"Training? Training for what? If you mean training to go around chopping people's heads off? No. And no thanks. That's not something I want to spend my free time doing."

"You don't really have a choice. You can try hiding from the Game, but eventually someone will find you. You'll need to know how to defend yourself."

"Game? What game?"

"Amanda stared at Cordelia in amazement. "Didn't they tell you anything?"

"Yes they told me something!" Cordelia told her annoyed. "I won't age and I'll keep coming back from the dead until someone cuts my head off. Some immortals like doing that apparently. I guess that's why Connor carries a sword."

"We all do. And nice moves by the way."

"Huh?"

"Yesterday? Pulling Connor's sword on him? Nice moves."

"Hey, I woke up in a morgue drawer." Cordelia defended. "Then this guy, who last I'd seen was playing knights-of-the-round-table with Mr. Now-headless, was standing over me with a sword under his coat. I just....."

"Pulled his own sword on him." Amanda finished amused. "I wish I could have seen his face."

"He went a little pale." Cordelia informed her. Understatement of the century. Connor had gone practically white for a moment, a stunned look on his face.

"I bet. So they didn't explain everything to you? Figure. Well if you want a job done well...."

"You hire a professional?"

Amanda's eyes took on a mischievious glint. "Something like that." she agreed. "You got somewhere we can talk in private, honey?"

"Downstairs."

"Good. Why don't we leave the boys to their little war games, and we go have a chat?" Amanda took Cordelia's arm and began leading her out of the office.

***************

"Ok. We think we've figured out a way to do this." Buffy told Giles. "Willow hacks back into the mainframe and takes out the security cameras. We create a diversion, sneak into Lawyer Boy's office and grab him."

"How will you get him out without being noticed?"

"There's a hidden access to the sewers in this part of the building." Willow pointed it out on a printout of the building schematics she had downloaded from City planning. "We can get him back into the building the same way."

"With a bit of luck, nobody will even notice that he's been missing."

"What did you have planned as the diversion?" Angel asked.

"Not too sure. You know the place, what would they react to?"

"They reacted rather well to having a vampire dumped in their lobby. The whole place went nuts." Wesley told them.

"Finally Spike has a use." Xander commented.

"Oh no you don't. No bloody way are you involving me in this. Fighting demons? No problem. Barbecueing myself so that you can get to Lawyer Boy? Find someone else." Spike shot back.

"Well we don't actually have to use a live vampire." Willow explained. "We...Tara and I...found out a little about these shaman....things. We should be able to get away with just using vampire blood."

"So Deadboy and Deadboy Jnr will have to donate? I think I like this plan. Can I draw Spike's blood? Please?" Xander pleaded.

"If you think I'm going to let you anywhere near me with a sharp object, think again."

"Oh bite me."

"With pleasure." Spike's face morphed, shocking the hell out of Dawson, Kate and the MacLeods, and he made a grab for Xander. He got as far as grabbing his shirt before pain exploded, and he fell back clutching his head in agony.

"Well that certainly did alot of good." Giles sighed.

"Hey, it was fun for me." Xander grinned.

"Oh sod off you bloody...."

"Children. Enough. This isn't helping."

Xander just grinned unrepentantly while Spike muttered something unintelligable.

Duncan, Connor, Kate and Joe just looked at each other. What had just happened here?

"Do you really thing that it will work?" Angel asked Willow, as Xander and Spike retreated to their respective corners.

"No reason it wouldn't. We can have a spell ready to fall back on just in case."

"What kind of spell?"

"We could conjure up some bad weather in the lobby." She offered. "How does a localized thunderstorm sound? Blizzard?"

"What, you can't make it rain cats and dogs?" Buffy teased.

"It'd take a bit more time." Tara deadpanned. That cracked the Scooby Gang up.

Even Angel chuckled lightly. "Sounds like a plan."

***********

"Ummphh!" Cordelia groaned as she landed on her butt. "Was that really necessary?" she demanded.

"Hey, babying you isn't going to do you any good. You can think yourself lucky that MacLeod isn't doing this with you. He's merciless."

"Which one?" Cordelia asked as she clumbed to her feet.

"Duncan. Although I suspect that Connor is much the same. Duncan was his student for a while." Amanda told her as she brought her sword up, aiming for Cordelia's side. Cordelia blocked the move, somewhat clumsily. "Good." Amanda commented and attacked again. Again Cordelia blocked the move, almost dropping the sword in the process.

"So what's the story with those two?" she asked as she regripped the handle of the sword.

"They're clansmen, and cousins, sort of. Connor's about 50 years older than Duncan. They see each other every few year. This is the first time I've met Connor though."

"How long have you known Duncan for?"

"On and off for a couple of hundred years. I keep his life interesting."

"A couple of hundred years?" Cordelia was amazed. "How old are you?"

"Whoohoo."Amanda hooted. "You should know better than to ask a lady her age."

"And you're a lady?" Cordelia teased. She liked Amanda. They had gotten on like a house on fire. Amanda had told her everything about what being an immortal entailed and had offered to show Cordelia some basics. Which led to Cordelia landing repeatedly on her butt as she struggled to get used to the sword she held in her hands.

The sword she held was one that Angel had displayed on his living room wall. It had been on of the few items that had survived the explosion at the old office. When Amanda had gotten a look at the weapons displayed around the room, her eyebrows had lifted and her eyes had taken on a covetous gleam as she assessed their value.

"This place reminds me of Mac's. Weapons everywhere." she had commented.

"OW!" Cordelia cried out as Amanda's blade grazed her skin. She went on the offensive and in the brief moments that Amanda took to respond to her attack, managed to sweep her feet out from under her. "There can be only one?" Cordelia smirked as she placed the blade edge against Amanda's neck.

Amanda swore lightly and Cordelia removed the sword.

"You'll do alright. A bit of full-on training and you should be fine." Amanda told her as she climbed to her feet.

"Assuming of course that she doesn't pick up any of your bad habits." An accented voice spoke up from behin them.

************

Angel glanced aroung the room looking for Cordelia. He saw Wesley, Buffy, Giles, Willow, Tara and Riley huddled over Cordelia's desk, hammering out the fine details of their plan to abduct Lindsey. Xander, Anya, Connor, Joe and Kate were all going through the books, trying to find out about the demons that Adam Two was made of. Every couple of minutes one of them would comment on how gross a particlular demon was, or how they hoped that they never came across this one in a dark alley. Spike sat near them, reading out particularly gruesome demon traits, just to get a reaction from them.

It suprised Angel that Kate had seemed to fit right in with the group. She had opted for research, saying that the less she knew about what they were going to do, the better. She seemed quieter today. And she had none of the attitude that had been so annoying for the last few months. He wished he knew what Cordelia had said to the woman.

And speaking of Cordelia. Where the hell was she? She had disappeared with Amanda over an hour ago. Had she gone out without telling him? Images of Cordelia being kidnapped and tortured flashed through his mind. He quickly banished them. Over reacting wasn't going to do any good. So where was she?

"Wesley? Do you know where Cordelia went?" he asked.

Wesley half turned to face his friend. "She went downstairs with Ms Darieux earlier I think."

Joe looked up from the book he was reading. "Amanda's with Cordelia? Oh this I've got to see!"

Connor looked around for Duncan, only to find him missing. "I think Duncan already is. Seeing it I mean." He helped Joe to his feet and they followed Angel downstairs.

Connor almost ran into the back of Angel as he came to a sudden stop almost at the bottom of the stairs. He followed the younger man's gaze and chuckled softly.

Duncan was lying flat on his back, Cordelia in a seated position beside him, her sword at his neck. Amanda was sitting on the couch, laughing so hard tears were falling down her cheeks.

"Ok. That was good." Duncan managed as he got his breath back. He had been showing Cordelia a couple of moves, and they had sparred lightly, letting her get used to actually using the moves against an opponent. Catching him off guard she had gotten her foot hooked around his ankles and pulled his legs out from under him. He had tried to counter the move too late and had ended up on his back.

Cordelia hadn't moved her foot out of the way fast enough and it had gotten tangled up in his legs as he fell, taking her with him. She had recovered first however.

"You want to try that again?" Cordelia asked as she removed the sword and sprang back to her feet.

"Maybe we should try something different." He commented as she helped him to his feet.

"You're the boss." She shrugged.

Connor couldn't help grinning as he watched Cordelia quickly pick up the moves Duncan was showing her. She learned quickly. And moved quickly. Connor couldn't stop annother chuckle from escaping as Cordelia ducked under Duncan's swing and brought her sword up behind his neck. Connor noted that Duncan was having trouble defending himself. He wasn't fully attacking, probably taking it easier because she was a newbie and a woman. And Cordelia was taking full advantage of it. She was smart enough to know that strength wise, she was no match for Duncan, but she was faster, and sneakier. Duncan was slowly begining to catch on, but watching him 'fall' a few times to Cordelia he couldn't help himself.

"Don't tell me I'm going to have to retrain you." He called out.

**********
Part 13
**********

Joe's mind was reeling. He almost couldn't believe what had happened in the last 24 hrs. Vampires were real and two of their new friends were vampires. Oh boy. If someone had told him yesterday morning that he would be helping a group of vampire and demon hunters, he would have told them they were nuts. But here he was.

And what a strange group they were. He had been talking to Xander, and had found the teen a fount of information. Buffy was the slayer, Willow and Tara witches, Riley an ex-commando, Spike and Angel vampires, Cordelia an immortal, and a seer, whatever that was, even Xander didn't know what that was about, Kate a police detective, and Giles and Wesley were Watchers, well ex-watchers. Oh and Xander's girlfriend Anya was an ex-vengence demon. About that, Joe hadn't asked too many questions. Anya had volunteered enough detail for him to be glad that she no longer had her powers.

If she did, Spike would be nothing more than a pile of ash of the floor. The girl had made it known that she was royally ticked with the vampire over his earlier attempted attack on Xander.

And this strange group was planning on abducting a lawyer. And nobody seemed to have any trouble with that, other than Kate, the detective. All she had said was that the less she knew about it the better and started helping research the demons.

Joe took a close look at the man that stood in front of him, watching the MacLeods show Cordelia some moves. He had a strange look on his face, almost as if he couldn't decide whether he should be proud that Cordelia was doing so well against two much more experienced swordsmen, or worried that she was going to get hurt. He would have been proud of her. He hadn't seen anyone so completely stupefy Duncan for quite some time.

****************

Angel watched as the two immortals demonstrated moves and sparred with Cordelia. He didn't know if he should be concerned about her, all the swords floating around were begining to make him nervous, or proud of her. She was picking up everything at an amazing rate, and while her style wasn't what you'd call conventional, it worked for her. Her two opponents hit the floor just as much as she did.

"Don't worry about her. Mac...both Mac's know what they're doing." The man seated on the stairs behind him spoke up. Angel turned to face him. It was the Watcher, Joe. "You should probably worry more about them. They seem to be getting done."

"Like a turkey dinner." Amanda agreed as she came over to sit on the stairs. "All due to my getting to her first, of course." She teased.

"Thought I recognised some of your moves there." Joe teased back.

"Joeseph! You wouldn't be calling me..."

"What? Sneaky? Devious? Of course not." Joe grinned. "By the way, Duncan knows you've got his card."

"Figured he did. I'm suprised he hasn't done anything about it yet."

"He's still trying to come up with an apropriate way for you to pay him back."

"Mmmm. That has possibilities." Amanda smiled wickedly.

"And speaking of possibilities. You didn't teach her anything other than how to use a sword did you?" Joe asked suspiciously.

"Why Joe! I don't know what your talking about." Amanda told him, a grin ruining her innocent act.

"Yes you do. You didn't try to teach her some of your other skills did you?"

"Other skills?" Angel asked puzzled.

"Amanda is a professional thief. Her other skills include pickpocketing, picking locks, killing security systems...."

"Ex-thief, thank you very much." Amanda protested. "And no I didn't teach her anything else."

"She already knew how to pick pockets." Angel supplied a smile creeping accross his face.

"That's right." Amanda agreed before she could stop herself. Joe just gave her a withering look. "How did you know?"

"Cordelia has already demonstrated that particular skill to my advantage. Saved my hide."

"Oh." The trio sat and watched the sparring for a few minutes before Amanda spoke.

"You're a vampire, aren't you?"

Angel sighed silently, and looked at Amanda. "What makes you say that?"

She snorted. "The kid calling you Deadboy? Allergy to sunlight?"

"Yes. I'm a vampire." Angel told her after a minute.

Amanda absorbed this information silently for a few moments. "Your name's Angelus?"

"Used to be."

"Used to be? What happend?"

"Gypsies."

"Gypsies. Huh? Let me give you a tip. Generally speaking people prefer their questions answered in a way that makes sense."

"I was cursed by gypsies. They gave me back my soul."

"Nice of them. Why?"

"I...drained one of their clan."

"So they gave you back your soul? Gee that makes sense." Amanda didn't understand why that would be considered a punishment. So Angel explained it to her. She asked more questions, and before he realized it, he'd told her the condensed Readers Digest version of his life story.

"How did you do that?" Cordelia asked coming up behind Amanda. She had caught the last part of the conversation. "To get him to tell me anything about his past, I have to threaten him. Literally sometimes."

"Natural charm." Amanda told her with a grin.

Duncan snorted. "One trick of many, from her....less law abiding days."

"You'd be suprised what you can find out from people when you get them to let down their guard." Amanda told them. "I found out about a Duchess's stash of jewels from a rather handsome young stable boy a couple of hundred years ago. She used to hide them in the ......" she trailed off as Duncan's eyes sparked.

"Yeah, and I got the blame for that little piece of work! If I recall correctly the next time I saw you was more than 20 years later. You swore black and blue that you didn't have a thing to do with it."

"It slipped my mind?" she tried, hopefully.

"What about the peroxide blonde upstairs?" Joe asked.

"Spike? What about him?"

"I think he means, does he have a soul too, broodboy." Cordelia told him. "No he doesn't." She told Joe. "Just a chip."

"A chip?"

"He has a chip implanted in his head so that he can't hurt anyone. Other than demons." Angel explained.

"Yep. The Initiative defanged him." Cordelia cheerfully added. "So he's kind of like Angel in the way that he doesn't drink humans anymore."

"Isn't that kind of like comparing a monk and a eunuch?" Amanda asked.

**************

Cassandra inhaled deeply as she slowly moved through her meditation exercises. She was standing in the middle of Duncan's Seacouver loft, the furniture having been pushed back. Duncan had let her stay here while she was in Seacouver on business, and he was in L.A.. Exhaling slowly she moved into the next exercise. A picture began to form in her mind, starting out fuzzy and slowly becoming clearer. Standing frozen in a builing that looked extremely run down, possibly a warehouse, Duncan, Amanda, and a man she hadn't met before, but recognised as Connor MacLeod, stood side-by-side, swords drawn, a determined expression on their faces. Elsewhere around the room stood a young blonde woman, wooden stake in hand, a young man armed with some sort of strange rifle beside her.

A few feet from them, a tall dark haired man in a black overcoat stood in an imposing stance, a young bunette woman beside him, one arm reaching behind her. Behind them, almost hidden behind what looked like crates, three young women sat in a circle, the read haired one reaching into a backpack.

Suddenly the picture started to move, like a movie. The MacLeods and Amanda advanced forward, and three.....uh things, jumped out at them from behind a crate. In short order, the trio took their heads, and they fell as ash to the floor. All around the room more of the .....creatures attacked. The young woman who had been reaching behind her pulled out a sword, and together her and the man beside her attacked the creatures. As did the young blonde woman with the stake and the man beside her. Ash began to cover the floor as more, and more of the creatures disintegrated, only to be replaced by another. Slowly the creatures began to outnumber the people fighting them.

A flash of light near the trio of girls caught Cassandra's attention. They sat holding hands, candles in the circle they made, as well as a few other items that Cassandra recognized. They appeared to be chanting, and as they did a bright light began to form in the center of their circle. It coalesced into a odd humanoid like form, then also began attacking the creatures. Just as it looked like the fight was going in favour of the MacLeod's and their friends, more creatures appeared, with something that looked like Frankenstein's monster. The bodies of a couple of people that she hadn't previously seen were dumped onto the floor, where the fighting was taking place. Helplessly Cassandra watched as the creatures picked each of their foe off, one by one. They were a little puzzled by the immortals reviving, but quickly discovered the method to kill them permanently.

The image stopped, frozen on the picture of broken and headless bodies littering the floor, before fading to black.

Cassandra stood frozen in place, shaken. Whatever it was that her friends had been fighting, they needed help. That thought freed her from her paralysis. Running into the bedroom to pack her bag she frantically tried to think of anyone else she could call to help. Only one person came to mind.

**************

Methos, known to the outside world as Adam Pierson, sat at the bar of Joe's Blues Bar, staring morosely into his beer. Things just weren't the same without Joe and the Boy Scout around.

He glanced up as the front door to the bar opened. He couldn't make out the figure standing in the doorway, other than to know it was a woman. She took a step inside and he felt the tell tale sensation of a quickening nearby. Warily he stood and reached one hand into his coat.

"Methos."

Methos instantly recognised the voice. "Cassandra." He greeted carefully. "Here for my head?"

"Not today. I need....MacLeod needs your help." She told him stepping closer.

He noticed that she carried an overnight bag in one hand. "MacLeod needs help? Are you sure?"

"Would I come to you if I weren't?"

He winced. Good point. "Why didn't he call himself?"

"He doesn't know he needs help yet." Cassandra explained her vision to him.

Methos knew from past experience that Cassandra's visions weren't to be taken lightly. "What exactly did these creatures look like?" He asked her, although he already had a pretty good idea. She described them.

"Give me half an hour to pack."

***************

Amanda watched as Cordelia paced around the kitchen of Angel's apartment. Buffy, Riley, Tara, Willow, Giles and Duncan had left for Wolfram & Hart half an hour ago, just after lunch. Wesley, Xander, Joe, Kate, Anya and Connor were upstairs, continuing the research. Although judging from the noise level up there, she doubted that any actual researching was getting done. Angel and Spike had hit the tunnels to find the hidden sewer access to the Wolfram & Hart building.

"Cordelia, you're going to wear a path into the floor if you keep doing that."

"What is taking them so long? All they have to do is grab Lawyer Boy and get out of there. Where are they?"

"I'm sure they're fine." Amanda reasured her. "And I think you underestimate how long it'll take." Cordelia continued pacing.

"If you have so much energy available, how about another training session?" Connor asked from the bottom of the stairs.

Cordelia sighed. "Sure." She needed something to get her mind off the images that had been flowing through her mind. Angel getting caught. Angel being tortured. Angel getting staked.

"I have got to see this." Xander stated and sat down on the stairs, so that he had a clear view of everything. Anya and Kate sat beside him, curious to see what was going on. Cordelia threw Xander a dirty look and took her position opposite Connor.

They started sparring, Cordelia managing to block most of his attacks until he got under her guard and placed his sword at her neck.

"Damn." She muttered. Connor chuckled, and showed her what she had done wrong. They took up positions again. This time Cordelia managed to get under Connor's guard and rest her sword on his shoulder.

"There can be only ...OH!" She began to collapse as a vision hit her. Connor managed to catch her before she hit the floor, but neither he nor Amanda had any clue what was happening.

"Get her a glass of water." Kate told Amanda authoritively as she rushed to Cordelia's side.

"What's wrong with her?" Amanda asked, worried.

"She's having a vision."

"Look's painful." Anya commented from the stairs.

******************
Part 14
******************

Lindsey groaned as he regained conciousness. His mouth felt like he'd been eating cotton balls, and his head felt foggy. As he shook off the fog he became aware of utter darkness and shuffling noises nearby. Suddenly the dark hood that had been placed over his head, was violently removed. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light. He quickly took stock of his surroundings. He appeared to be in a sewer. The deafening sound of a train close by made him revise his assumption. He was in an abandoned offshoot of the LA subway system. There were rotting wooden boards closing off one end of the tunnel, and light made it's way through the cracks to dimly illuminate his surroundings. It felt damp, and it smelt awful.

Lindsey moved experimentally, and discovered that he had been bound to a chair. "Who are you?" He asked fearfully. "What do you want?"

"Information." A strange voice came out of the gloom in front of him.

"You boys have been doing business in Sunnydale. We want to know about it." A female voice.

"I don't know what your talking about." Lindsey denied. They couldn't know about the project. Could they?

"Oh I think you do." This time it was a voice Lindsey recognised. Angel. Damn! Why wasn't he off somewhere grieving for his seer?

"Angel. I don't know what your talking about." He repeated.

"I think he needs to have his memory adjusted, Peaches." An amused english male.

Whack! Lindsey was knocked half off his chair by a strong blow to the head. He scrambled back onto the chair, the rope burns he'd sustained as he fell, easing slightly.

"Professor Maggie Walsh created a demon for you boys. We'd like to know where it is."

"I told you I don...." Whack!

"Don't give us that!" The female's voice again. "We've got a nice little paper trail that leads back to you."

"We want to know where it is, and what it wants."

"Tell them and they'll stop." A voice whispered in his ear.

"I...I...can't...the senior partners...."

"I'd be more worried about us, than the bloody senior partners, mate."

"Tell us what we want to know and we'll return you to your paper pushing." The female's voice told him, in a reasonable tone.

"I....I....." Lindsey was scared. If he told them, they'd let him go. He was sure of that. But the senior partners would........ He shuddered as the possibilities raced through his mind. "I don't recall."

A voice with a light scottish accent spoke. "Maybe this will help." Lindsey froze as something cold and metalic brushed up against his neck.

*************

"Ok. This looks like the place." Cordelia told them as she pulled Angel's car up to the curb.

"Are you sure?" Connor wasn't entirely sure why he was here. Cordelia had recovered from the vision, grabbed Connor's hand and had practically dragged him upstairs. Telling a startled Wesley and Joe that they were going out, she had grabbed Angel's car keys and continued dragging him out of the office.

Amanda and Kate had caught up with them as Cordelia had started the car. Cordelia hadn't bothered arguing as they had clambered into the back seat. She had explained the vision on the way. An immortal, judging from the sword, had been fighting with another guy. Connor and Amanda had both interupted to point out the Rules. They couldn't interfere in an immortal duel. Cordelia had retorted that if two immortal idiots wanted to try to kill each other she wasn't about to interfere either, but the immortal's opponent wasn't an immortal. In fact he looked like he was part demon. Part Doyle type demon, although she hadn't told them that.

Connor tried to get Cordelia and Kate to wait in the car and let him and Amanda handle it. Cordelia and Kate had shared a look then told him, in stereo, "Yeah, right!"

They approached the building cautiously. On the outside it appeared to be a warehouse, but once they actually entered, they discovered that it had been converted into a loft/studio. The sound of glass shattering could be heard, and a pained grunt followed. As Cordelia, Connor and Amanda all stiffened, Kate drew her gun and the immortals drew their swords. The sounds of fighting stopped suddenly. Connor and Amanda motioned for Cordelia and Kate to stay where they were, near the door, and approached the area the sound of the fighting had been coming from.

"Hey Honey! We're home!" Amanda called out brightly as, seemingly sick of sneaking around cautiously, she blithely strode into the main living area. Connor smothered a groan as he followed her.

The living area had obviously borne the brunt of the fighting. There was glass and blood smears everywhere, Huddled into heap on the sofa, sat a man who appeared to have a green face with spikes sticking out of it. His clothing was torn and cut, and several gashes were visible through the holes in his clothes. They couldn't see anybody else in the room. "Where is he?" Amanda mouthed. The man on the couch shrugged, bewildered.

Cordelia and Kate found out as the immortal came up behind them. Some intinct had Cordelia turn and block the path of his sword as it swung toward her neck.

"Hey! I'm warning you buddy, walk away."

"No way little girl." He sneered and swung again. Automatically she began to fight.

**************

Angel and Spike were making their way, through the tunnels, back to the office. Suddenly Angel stopped.

"What?" Spike asked frustrated. He hadn't been able to actually hit lawyer boy, although taunting him had been fun.

Angel appeared to be listening for something. "Cordelia. Cordelia's near by."

Spike raised one eyebrow. "Do you know what you're saying?"

"Huh?"

"This is the second time you've said that you can sense Ms Popularity close by when we haven't been able to see her."

"I know."

"Can't wait to see the fireworks when the Slayer finds out about this." Spike muttered gleefully. Angel just looked at him reprovingly. Spike just grinned unrepentantly. "So you can feel Cordelia close by. She's probably shopping."

"This area of LA is converted warehouses."

"Or maybe not."

"What if she's in trouble?" Angel asked worriedly as he began looking for an exit that wouldn't lead them into daylight.

"She's been training with those sword wielding psycho's all day. I'm sure she can handle herself by now." Spike protested as he trailed after him.

Eventually Angel found an exit that let to a shaded alleyway. Spike trailed behind, as Angel followed some invisible trail.

Angel stopped suddenly, his blood freezing in his veins, as he caught sight of Cordelia, dueling with a man who was at least three times bigger than her.

The man was attacking ferociously; Cordelia was barely able to fend him off. Connor looked on worried. Amanda stood beside him, biting her lip, to stop herself from calling out.

"Bloody Hell." Spike breathed softly as he caught a look at the scene.

Cordelia cried out in shock as her opponents blade cut shallowly into her hip. Suddenly Cordelia got mad. How dare he! She'd show him! If she could take down the Mac's, as she had nicknamed them, she could take down Mr. Psycho Hulk here.

Ducking under a swing aimed at her head she stabbed him in the stomach with the tip of her blade. He grunted in pain and shock and she brought her sword up and severed his arm just below the shoulder. Acting almost automatically, she swung again. This time higher.

************

"Everybody out!" Connor yelled as a white mist began to rise from the now headless corpse.

"Cordelia!" Angel called desperately and tried to reach her, only to be stopped suddenly at the door. He hadn't been invited in. He watched helplessly as bolts of electricity began to strike her. They continued for a solid minute before subsiding, leaving Cordelia dazed and weak.

"Cordelia?"

"Angel?" she whispered weakly, dazedly looking toward him.

"Are you ok?"

She nodded weakly, and unsteadily climbed to her feet. "I'm fine." She looked down at the corpse at her feet. "Oh god." She gagged, and ran out of the door, past Angel, and threw up in the gutter of the alleyway. Angel came up behind her silently and waited for her to finish.

"Feel any better?" He worriedly asked her as he handed her a handkerchief.

"Not particularly." She told him. For a moment he thought she might start crying, but she pulled herself together. "Oh god. The guy. The...the ....the demon guy. Mr Headless was attacking him! Is..is he ok?"

"I'm ok." Cautiously the Doyle type demon peered out of the doorway. "I'm a little bruised, but I'm fine. How....how did you know?"

"Long story. Boring story. You don't want to hear it." Angel looked questioningly at her. "Vision." She explained succinctly. "I'm...I'm sorry about your windows." She offered weakly.

"Don't worry about the windows. I'm glad I'm still in one piece. How can I thank you?"

"Just....just...um..." OK. Now Angel was really alarmed. If she had been feeling herself, she would have told him that he'd be getting a bill in the mail. She looked really pale and shaken and like she was about to cry and and.......well not like her normal self. He hated that he couldn't protect her from this.

"Will you be all right?" Kate asked quietly coming up beside them.

Cordelia nodded. "I'll be fine. Just...." Connor and Amanda began dragging the corpse to the dumpsters in the alley. Cordelia stared at it silently as they passed "...fine." She finished as she lost control and began to sob. Angel put his arms around her and held her close. She buried her face in his chest, put her arms around him, and held on like she never wanted to let go.

***************

It was a subdued group that headed back to Angel Investigations. Spike had headed back into the tunnels since there wasn't room in the car for him. The Doyle type demon, whose name turned out to be Clarence, had given them a couple of blankets so that Angel would be protected from the sun on way back to the office, and told them that if there was anything he could do for them, they just had to call. Angel held Cordelia cradled on his lap, her head resting on his shoulder. She had fallen to sleep about halfway there.

"She's really something isn't she?" Kate asked him quietly.

"Yeah." He agreed softly. "What....what are you going to......." he trailed off, unsure of how to ask the question.

"Nothing." She told him. "What would I tell them? That she broke up an unfair fight between an immortal and a demon? She gave him the option of walking away."

Angel looked at Kate silently for a moment. "What happened yesterday exactly? I mean why the sudden...."

"change in attitude?" Kate finished. She reached over and gently brushed a lock of hair off of Cordelia's face. "She told me the Reader's Digest version of your life story. A rather long Reader's Digest version of the story, and then basically told me off. Made me....reevaluate a few things."

"Are you ok? I mean sometimes Cordy can get....uh.."

"In your face?" Kate supplied amused.

"That's one way of putting it."

"I'm fine. She didn't get nasty. Just pointed out a few things." They rode in silence for a minute or so. "Did you get the information from...uh...uh...I'm sorry, the only name that comes to mind is Lawyer Boy."

"Lindsey. Yes we got the information from him."

"He still in one piece?"

"Mostly. He'll look a little sick for a while though."

************
Part 15
************

Lindsey groaned as he regained consciousness. Once again his mouth felt like he'd been eating cotton balls, and his head felt like it was shrouded in fog. He slowly opened his eyes, rapidly closing them again as the bright light of his office almost blinded him. He let his eyes adjust to the light then cautiously sat up. He was now sitting on the sofa in his office. A quick glance out of the window told him that it was almost dusk. What had happened? How did he get back here? He remembered the terrifying sensation of steel at his throat, someone backhanding him across the face, the stench of the abandoned subway tunnel, and the chemical smell of the rag that had been forced over his mouth and nose. Chloroform. Damn it! He stood, weaving slightly as his head spun at the sudden movement, and walked into the small bathroom just off of his office. Looking in the mirror he noted that other than his clothing looking slightly rumpled, like he'd fallen asleep in them, he looked more like he'd had an allergic reaction to something instead of having been beaten. His face had red splotches all over it from where his abusers open hand had made contact with his flesh.

"You missed the.......Lindsey?" Lilah called out as she entered his office.

"I'll be out in a minute." He straightened himself out, washed his face and hands and looked in the mirror again. He looked more presentable, but his face was still blotchy. Sighing softly he walked out into his office.

"You....geez, what happened to you? Your face is all red." Lilah asked.

Lindsey briefly thought of telling her the truth, but he didn't think she'd believe him. "Allergies."

"Oh. You missed all the excitement."

"What excitement?"

"Vampire. The shamans went nuts. Couldn't find it though. We've checked the vault. Nothing is missing, so if it was Angel, he left empty handed. Twice."

"Oh. Anything else?"

"Not unless you count the snow storm in the lobby."

"What?!"

"There was a snow storm in the lobby the second time a vampire entered the building."

"A snow storm. An indoor snow storm. Witchcraft?"

"Probably. Nothing is missing from anywhere though so the senior partners think it might have been someone trying out a new spell. You know, playing freak-out-the-lawyers."

*************

"So. How do we find MacLeod?" Methos asked after they'd checked into the hotel that Duncan and Amanda were staying at.

"The wonders of modern technology." Cassandra told him. She pointed to a bank of payphones in the Lobby. "See those over there? They're called telephones. See this?" She held up a slip of paper. "This is a telephone number. You combine the two, and voila."

Methos watched as she walked over to a phone to place her call. "I walked right into it." He muttered under his breath.

"Ok. They're at a place called Angel Investigations." She told him as she finished the call.

"Angel Investigations? What would they be doing at a PI's if they're fighting vampires?" On the flight to LA Methos had told her what he thought the creatures she had seen were. A thoughtful expression had crossed her face. All she'd said was "Mmmmm."

"He said he'd explain when we got there."

"This ought to be interesting."

***********

"Is everyone alright?" Wesley asked worried as Connor, Kate and Amanda filed back into the office, their faces stern. "Where's Cordelia?"

"With Angel, downstairs." Amanda told him.

"Angel's back? I wonder where Spike is?" Buffy mused.

"He should be back soon. He was walking back through the tunnels."

"Back? Back from where? What did Cordelia see?" Wesley was concerned. Xander had told him that Cordelia had had a vision, but she hadn't told anyone what it was she had seen. She had just grabbed Connor and dragged him out of the office.

"Converted warehouse. Some demon being attacked by an immortal." Spike explained as he breezed into the office. He collapsed onto the sofa. "Tell you what, I'm not going to be getting too close to her anytime soon. I didn't think she had it in her."

"Had what in her?" Wesley was begining to get frustrated.

"She just took her first head." Connor told them quietly. Everybody froze.

"Took her first head? You mean........oh my. Is..is she ok?"

"She's pretty shaken up, but I think she'll be fine."

"She's stronger than she looks." Kate commented. "In more ways than one."

***********

"How are you feeling?" Angel passed Cordelia a cup of coffee.

"Oh, just peachy. This is the downside to the immortality gig. I guess I'm going to have to get used to it." she looked down into the cup, then looked up at him. "I don't want to get used to this." She told him in a small voice.

He sat down beside her on the couch. He didn't know what to say. How do you comfort someone who has just killed someone?

"I feel kinda...um....oh god, what did I do?"

"He attacked you 'Delia. You gave him the option of walking away."

"I did didn't I?" Anger began to replace the numb feeling in the pit of her stomach. "He tried to cut my head off!" She got up off the couch and began pacing restlessly. "That sneering bastard actually thought he could I'd just stand there and let him! Going after newbies, women and the defensless people who weren't immortal!"

"Isn't that assuming.."

"No! I've got Mr. Sneerer's memories floating around in my head. That bastard went after people he thought were easy prey. Well not this chick buster!"

"You have his memories?" Oh god. What would that do to his Cordelia?

"Yes! And I want them out of me! This guy was an absolute...ugh! Oh, yuck!"

"Cordelia?"

"You don't want to know." She told him disgustedly. "This guy rivals any demon you've had to kill. Ugh!" She stopped pacing as she noticed the expression on Angel's face. "Angel, I'm fine. Well I will be. The memories fade, according to Amanda."

"I hate that I can't protect you from this."

"Angel. You can't protect me from everything. Bad stuff happens. That's life."

"Yeah but..."

"Oh please. What you think that if you'd been here you could have done something? No way. This was an immortal. That meant that another immortal had to deal with him. Besides, it's not like you would have been able to get into the place anyway. Clarence wasn't exactly in any condition to invite us in, when we arrived." He had a doubtful look on his face. She walked over to him and cupped his face in her palms. "This was going to happen sooner or later, Angel. I'm going to have to deal with this whenever someone decides they want my head. If anything I'm glad it happened now, while we've got other immortals here to help."

Angel smiled his half smile. Cordelia would be alright. It wouldn't take her long to adjust to the demands her immortality would place on her. She would deal, and move on, just as she had always done.

"No more torturing yourself over not being there to stop Mr Sneerer, ok?" She asked a mock serious expression on her face. After the shock of beheading Mr Sneerer, then the disorienting sensation of seeing his memories, this felt...good. Normal. She was back on even footing. Well, as even as she could feel with her knees going weak as Angel smiled at her like that.

"OK." He agreed. Giving up on suppressing the impulse, he ducked his head and kissed her.

Cordelia froze for a second. He was kissing her! This couldn't be real. She was dreaming again. The electricity zinging through her system said otherwise however, and she softened against him and opened her mouth to allow him access. Hesitantly he deepened the kiss and wrapped his arms around her waist drawing her closer. She moaned, and kissed him back. Eventually though she had to come up for air, a problem that Angel didn't actually have. 'A plus for Vampirism' she thought dazedly.

"Whoa..that was..uh..." the normally articulate vampire was at a loss for words.

"Wow." Cordelia supplied breathlessly.

"Yeah that." Angel's eyes were glazed as he stared at her.

**********

"Doesn't look much like a PI's office." Methos commented as he paid the cab driver.

Cassandra double checked the address. This was definitely the place. She hefted her backpack onto over her shoulder and headed for the front door.

"What's in that thing?" Methos asked. He'd been watching her haul it around all day. It was obviously heavy, but she had declined his offer to carry it.

"Books."

"What kind of books?"

"Old books."

"Well that tells me alot. Wha..Bloody Hell!" Both Methos and Cassandra grimaced in pain as they felt the unbelievably strong sensation of multiple quickenings. "What are they doing in there? Having an immortal convention?!"

"Something like that." Duncan called from the top of the stairs.

"What have you gotten yourself into now, MacLeod?"

"Would you believe demon hunting?"

"Again?

"How many immortals are here?" Cassandra asked.

"Four, uh six. Define immortal. Our type of immortal? Four. All up, six."

Methos just looked confused for a moment. "What do you mean, 'All up, six"? What kind of immortal are the other two?"

"Would you believe vampire?"

Methos paled slightly. Cassandra just looked thoughtful. "I don't suppose one of those vampires would be named Angelus would they?" She asked. Methos stared at her like she had grown another head.

Duncan just looked puzzled. "Yeah, he goes by Angel now. How'd you know?"

"The vampire with a soul." She murmured. "Rumours." she explained vaguely.

"Oh. Come on in and meet everyone. Then you can tell me what you're doing here." Whatever it was, Duncan knew that it had to be serious for Cassandra and Methos to show up together, both with their heads still firmly in place.

"....up anyone who finds that to be a really scary mental picture." Xander was saying as the trio of immortals walked through the door. There was a half hearted show of hands from the small group in the corner. Spike had been trying to gross them out again.

"Hey, Old man! What are you doing here?" Joe greeted Methos.

"Cassandra asked. And since she didn't try to take my head, I agreed. I just know I'm going to regret this."

"That's what you always say." Amanda told him as she gave him a hug. "No one is forcing you to be here, you know."

He shrugged. "What can I say? Seacouver was boring without you."

Amanda snorted inelegantly. "What, did they cut you off at the bar?"

"Alright children, break it up." Joe teased. "Me..Adam, Cassandra, there are a few people we'd like you to meet. This is Rupert Giles...." Joe ran through the introductions. Mentally Cassandra began to pick their abilities. Willow and Tara were witches, and quite powerful one's at that. Buffy, judging from the strength that seemed to radiate off her, Cassandra was betting was the Slayer. She had heard rumours, that Angelus and the Slayer had worked together on the Hellmouth, and were friends, more than friends, some of the rumours said. And this Slayer was different. She had friends, and a watcher who wasn't a tradition bound old fool. She didn't fight alone. Cassandra would be willing to bet that she would become the longest lived slayer ever. The others seemed to be normal late teenagers, other than Kate and Spike, at least until you got a look into their eyes. There was something there that spoke of having to grow up too fast. Kate appeared to be a perfectly normal human. Spike on the other hand gave her the creeps.

"Hello." Spike greeted, bored. He briefly glanced in their direction as Joe introduced him. He froze as he thought he recognized the strange man. He looked again. Oh Shit!

**************
Part 16
**************

Methos froze as he recognised the vampire when Joe introduced him. That bastard! Growling low in his throat he withdrew his sword and advanced on the vampire.

Spike quickly scrambled to his feet and stumbled backward over the furniture. That was a feat in itself, there wasn't a lot of room to manuever. Hadn't he killed this guy already??

Methos was brought up short by a crossbow being pointed at his chest.

"We don't particularly like him either, but right now we need all the help we can get. So put down the sharp pointy thing in your hand or make like a pincushion." Buffy told him in a hard voice. She would too, he could see it in her eyes. Reluctantly he lowered the sword.

"Still making friends, I see Spike."Angel's glance slid around the room to make sure that everyone was still in one piece. The sound of furniture toppling had alerted him and Cordelia to the new arrivals.

"We have definitely got to get some more painkillers." Cordelia muttered as she came up behind him. "You know, at the rate we're going, we may as well declare an immortal open house." She looked at the newcomers curiously. The woman was quite striking, she seemed very sure of herself. The man looked like.....well Joe Bloggs actually. She wouldn't have picked up that there was anything special about him if it weren't for her Tylenol moment and the sword he held. He was shooting murderous glares at Spike which reassured her. She didn't mind if he went after Spike, as long as he left her alone.

"He's a little upset at being made a meal of." Spike shrugged. "I thought I killed you."

"You did."

"Guess it didn't take." Cordelia commented.

"And this is Cordelia and Angel." Joe finished belatedly.

Cassandra studied the pair. Cordelia appeared to be flushed and rumpled, like she'd just been through a quickening or had been.....oh. Cassandra checked that she still had her backpack. Those books were definitely going to come in handy.

"You want to put that thing away?" Cordelia asked Methos. "There's not enough room in here for you to be playing knights-of-the-round-table at the moment."

Methos looked at her like she had spoken in greek. Well maybe not greek, since he understood that language, but certainly she was speaking in a language he didn't know. It took him a moment to translate what she had said. "Oh. Uh..is he...."he pointed at Spike.

"Neutured." Cordelia confirmed, earning her startled laughter from everyone other than Methos and Cassandra, and an outraged cry from Spike.

"Hey! Watch it, Princess. This chip is only temporary!"

"Huh. Somehow I don't think your going to be able to find a brain surgeon who'll make a house call for a vampire."

"I used to be a doctor. I could do it right now." Methos offered raising his sword again.

"Not bloody likely!"

****************

In a rundown part of the city a homeless person stumbled into an abandoned building looking for shelter. He discovered that it wasn't as abandoned as it looked. Strong hands grabbed his worn clothes, and dragged him a short distance until he was face to face with yellow eyes and extremely long canine teeth. He didn't even have a chance to cry out as his attacker sank his fangs into his jugular.

****************

"So why are you here? I thought your busines was in Seacouver." Duncan asked Cassandra.

"Had a vision. You needed help. Here we are." Cassandra didn't go into details. She was still a little shaken at the memory of her friends dying.

"You had a vision?" Cordelia asked. At Cassandra's nod she whooped. "Halelujah! Someone else who gets them! Don't you just hate how..." she trailed off. 'oh that's not good.' she silently finished as she realized what someone getting a vision about them would mean.

Cassandra looked at her at her, puzzled. Someone else who gets them? What? She couldn't....be....could she? The Seer. The young woman in front of her was the Seer. It had begun. The prophecy. The End of Days. Oh God.

"What did you see?" Duncan asked, curious.

"Fighting. Thought you could use some help." Cassandra told him vaguely. Cordelia gave her a look, as if to say that she knew there was a hell of a lot more to it than that. Cassandra lightly shook her head at her. She'd tell her later.

Methos was the only one in the room who caught the silent exchange. Why didn't she tell them what she had seen? The MacLeods certainly wouldn't fall into a screaming nervous heap. These kids however........ Who were they? What were they doing here, hunting demons? The way that girl, Buffy, had handled that crossbow spoke of more than a passing familiarity. And their eyes! They looked like they had been through a war. As for the brunette...Cordelia?...she and Cassandra seemed to communicating almost telepathically. He noted the flash of worry on the young woman's face before she covered it with a practiced mask.

"Fighting. Right. I take it you got the information from Lindsey?" Cordelia asked the room in general, but looked to Angel for an answer.

"We got it." Angel told her.

She raised one eyebrow. "Is he still in one piece? Uh..two pieces?...um.....oh you know what I mean!"

"Of course he bloody is!" Spike told her disgustedly. "They wouldn't even hit him properly! Kept slapping him like a girl!"

"I am a girl." Buffy cut in. " Besides, if I'd used my fist, he'd have fist sized bruises everywhere. We didn't want him to look like he'd been beaten!"

"So instead he looks like he's got allergies? Sissy. You should have beaten the crap out of him."

"Then maybe you should have." Buffy smirked as Spike glowered at her.

"If you've quite finished...." Giles sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Sometimes they were worse than three year olds. "How are we going to do this?"

"Charge in, much in the style of John Wayne?" Xander offered.

"High risk factor." Giles told him. "In fact it'd be suicide. No thank you."

"Spike and I'll check it out first. Meet you somewhere nearby, go from there." Angel told them.

"What are you volunteering me for now?" Spike asked suspiciously, giving up on glaring at the Slayer.

"Reconnaissance ."

"Do I really have to?"

"Yes."

"Look on the bright side." Willow told him. "You'll probably come across a demon or some vampires, and you beat them up."

"Alright! I'm ready. Let's go!" Spike jumped up out of the chair, perking up at the thought of being able to beat the crap out of something.

Angel glanced out of the office window. Just on dusk. "Give me a few minutes." He told Spike and went downstairs to get his weapons. Cordelia's gaze followed his retreating form. She really didn't like this idea. She couldn't come up with a better one, but that didn't mean she had to like this one. Angel alone with that demon. She shivered as the image of Angel disintegrating into ash flashed into her mind. There were times she really, really, really, hated this job.

**************

"Be careful."

Angel looked up at a worried Cordelia, standing in the doorway to his bedroom. He finshed strapping the spring loaded stake launcher to his forearm. Shrugging on his coat he gave her a small smile. "Of course. Always am."

"I mean it. Be careful. This whole thing is giving me the willies." She told him seriously.

"I'll be careful." He had gotten addicted to this, he realized. Knowing that someone was worried about him. Cared about what happened to him. He brushed a lock of hair off her face. "I want you to promise you'll stay here tonight."

"But..."

"Please? I don't want to have to worry about whether or not your ok."

Cordelia was silent for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. "Ok."

"Good." He lent down and planted a quick kiss on her lips. "We'll be back before you know it."

Cordelia just nodded again, and watched as he climbed the stairs.

Damn! She really didn't want to stay here while he was out fighting this thing. The image of Angel dying fought it's way into the front of her consciousness again. Maybe having the extra help would prevent that from happening. Or maybe not.

"You love him."

Cordelia started when she heard Buffy's voice. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn't heard the Slayer enter the apartment. "Wha...Sorry?"

Buffy smiled at Cordelia's discomfort. "I said, you love him."

Cordelia looked at Buffy warily. What was she going to do?

"It's mutual you know."

"Huh?" That was the last thing she had been expecting.

"You really need to do something about your hearing. I said that it's mutual. Angel loves you too."

"I don't.....uh...I really...."

"You know, Xander would love to see you babbling like this." Buffy told Cordelia, amused.

"In his dreams!" It was the first sentence Cordelia had managed in the last five minutes.

Buffy grined. There was that fire Cordelia had had in High School. She hadn't seen it today. Mind you she hadn't seen much of Cordelia today. She looked closeley at the former cheerleader. She seemed tougher, yet at the same time, more vunerable, than she remembered. Wesley too. LA had changed them, all of them. Angel seemed more sure of himself here, less troubled and generally happier. Buffy suspected that Cordelia had alot to do with that last one. And speaking of Cordelia, she was staring at her, a strange expression on her face. Buffy laughed to herself. What does she expect me to do? Stake her?

Conversationally Buffy told Cordelia, "You know I have a bet riding on you two?"

***************

"You didn't tell them." Methos whispered to Cassandra, as the people around them began checking and loading various weapons and supplies."

"No."

"Why not? They would have believed you."

"I have no desire to inform anyone of their death. Expecially not when it can be avoided."

"Oh. What about the girl? Cordelia? You two seemed to be having a whole other conversation. You going to tell her?"

"I don't think I have to. I think she already knows."

"How?"

"Visions. She's the Seer."

"The Seer? What's that?"

"I'll explain it later. Right now I need to see Cordelia."

"Mind if I tag along?" Cassandra just looked at him steadily. "You've got me intrigued." She continued to look at him.

"Why?

"You know me. Curious about everything."

"No. Why? Why did you come?"

"Mac's in trouble." He paused. "And you asked."

She continued to look at him for a minute. "Fine."

*************
Part 17
*************

Cordelia stood stunned. Buffy had been nice. She had given her blessing and wished them well. Cordelia knew that, later, she would probably be angry that Buffy thought she would need her blessing, but right now she was too stunned. Buffy had told her about what had happened in Sunnydale during Angel's last visit, and given the whole moving on speech. Only this time Cordelia believed it. Buffy had moved on. She wasn't so sure that Angel had however.

Sure, for the last couple of weeks he hadn't been as broody. And he had kissed her. And what a kiss! But did that mean that he wanted something more? And with her? And what about the whole moment-of-true-happiness-become-mr-big-bad-vampire-Angelus deal? While she accepted Angel as he was, she'd really prefer that Angelus didn't make another appearance. She was brought out of her reverie by the sudden sensation of a quickening blindsiding her.

"You 'K?" Buffy asked concerned as Cordelia stiffened and winced.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that." She said as she got a look at the cause of her Tylenol moment, and it magically cleared.

"It eases with time." Methos told her. "It becomes a little less jarring."

"Oh. And you know this because......"

"I've been immortal a long time."

"Oh."

"How are you handling the quickening?" Cassandra asked. "Connor told me about the man today."

"Beside the guy having given Angelus a run for his money, in his day? Just peachy." Cordelia told the pair, covertly eyeing the sword hanging on the wall. She hoped they didn't start anything.

"And how are you handling the visions?" Cassandra asked cautiously.

Cordelia snapped her eyes to Cassandra, then looked at Methos questioninly.

"It's alright. He knows about mine. Trusts them enough to jump on a plane with someone who, under other circumstances would probably be trying to take his head."

"Gee thanks."

"You're welcome."

"I'm handling the visions fine. Thanks."

"What did you see last time?"

"Mr Sneerer attacking Clarence." That earned Cordelia a puzzled look and a "Huh?" from everybody in the room. "Mr Sneerer. The guy whose head I cut off, this afternoon. He was attacking Clarence, who by the way, is not immortal."

"So that's how you...."

"That's how we know when people are in trouble. I get sent mind-numbing-skull-crunching visions. Usually they're also scratch and sniff too."

"Scratch and sniff?" Buffy asked suprised. "Oh yuck. As if seeing some of those demons wasn't bad enough."

"Right there with you." Cordelia agreed.

"Did you see this?" Methos asked curiously.

Cordelia paused. "Not this." She told him, gesturing to the group upstairs. "But I saw fighting. Vampires, Demon-Terminator guy." She shrugged. "I didn't see you or her though. That's changed."

Cassandra paused. How did she approach the next part? "Did you see......"

Cordelia tuned her out as the tell tale warning ache briefly buzzed through her head. "Not again." She moaned as the vision hit her full force. Images flashed rapidly through her mind as she clung to the wall.

"Cordelia?" Buffy's worried voice was the first thing she heard as the vision cleared.

"I'm...ok.." She managed as she caught her breath.

"Cordelia?" Buffy asked again.

"Get Wesley down here. Then get whatever it is you want in the way of weapons, and get ready to go." Cordelia told her as she collected her thoughts. "Now." At the tone of Cordelia's voice, Buffy took off at a dead run.

Cordelia looked at Cassandra. "You saw them all die, didn't you?" Slowly Cassandra nodded. "So did I. Just then. But I also saw something else."

"Cordelia? Are you alright? What did you see?" Wesley called out as he decended the stairs, two at a time.

"I'm fine Wesley. Is everyone ready to go up there?"

"Just about. Are you sure you're ok? What did you see?"

"Death. Enough for everyone, if we don't hurry."

Wesley paled. "What do we need?"

"The usual. Stakes, cross bows. Swords."she added in deference to half of the present population and her new status. A thought struck her. "Holy Water. Lots of holy water. And squirt guns."

"Squirt guns?" Wesley asked astonished. "What on earth would you need squirt....oh I see. Good idea." He told her. "I think there's a 24 hrs dept store on the way."

"What about holy water? I mean we have some, but not enough."

"Would Father Mackey be available?"

"We'll make him available!"

"I'll start filling containers." Wesley headed into the kitchen and started hunting for bottles.

Methos and Cassandra looked on in bemusement as Cordelia strode over to the wall and reached up and grasped the sword. "Sorry Angel." She whispered. This was one promise she could not keep.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Angel muttered.

"Where is everybody?" Spike asked frustrated. He wanted to beat the crap out of something now. Right now. Yet nothing had crossed their paths as they crept through the area of the address Lindsey had given them. Nothing demon, human or vampire.

"This is too quiet." Angel said worriedly.

"You hear that?" Spike froze and cocked his head. "Sounds like...."

"A motorbike."The sound died at least a two blocks away, but Angel and Spike could hear the sounds of someone pushing the bike throught the streets. "Cordelia." Angel's head snapped up as he felt her presence. Damn! She had promised to stay at the office! He took off in the direction of the motorcycle. Wesley was parking the bike on the pavement while Cordelia was stowing his helmet in the gearsack. Suddenly she froze, then relaxed.

"Angel." She turned to face him, as he approached.

"I thought you were going to stay at the office!"

"I was. Vision. Changed my mind. Brought you something." She turned and rummaged in the saddlebags of the bike. She pulled out a water pistol and a large bottle of water. "Reinforcements."

"Water. Oh just what we needed." Spike thanked her, sarcastically.

Cordelia quickly poured some on her hand. Angel realised what she was up to and moved out of the line of fire. She flicked her hand at Spike, spraying droplets of water into his face.

"Auuugggh! Bloody Hell!"

"Holy water." Angel identified, trying not to laugh at his childe's antics, as Spike jumped around, his head in his hands, trying to ease the burning.

"What do you know, Spike can dance." Xander wisecracked, coming up behind the motorbike.

"Kodak moment." Amanda grinned. "What wouldn't I give for my camera just now."

"Oh sod off!" Spike growled.

"Well the gang's all here, so how 'bout we get this show on the road?" Buffy asked as the rest of the group joined them.

"Everyone's here? I don't think...."

"They chose to be here Angel." Wesley told him, knowing what Angel had been about to say. "Insisted quite vehemently actually. If what Cordelia saw is accurate, we're going to need all the help we can get."

"What did you see?" Angel asked concerned. What would be so serious that Wesley and Cordelia would let the mortals tag along?

"You're going to need help." was all that Cordelia would tell him. "There's an entrance on the far side of the building. They're going to be able to get in through there. You'll be out numbered. We have to find some way to block the exits."

"Great. Just great. This Adam has his own vampire and demon army, and what do we have? Mortals armed with sticks and water pistols!" Spike started only to come up short. "Water Pistols?"

"Super Soaker 2000, actually." Xander introduced Spike to an extremely large, compression water rifle, by squirting him lightly in the forehead.

"I think I like your weapon." Methos told Xander as Spike began howling. "I'm going to have to get one of those...."

"And don't forget six immortals." Amanda added.

"And three witches." Tara added.

"Two vampires, and a Slayer in a hunting party!" Xander finished singing to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Everyone groaned.

"Don't quit your day job." Cordelia told him.

"There's a catwalk that goes around the whole building, about eight foot off the ground. Those with water pistols, camp up there, shoot down. Takes care of some of the Vampires." Cassandra told them.

"And us at the same bloody time!" Spike pointed out hotly.

"We cover the exits. Anyone going in or out gets a shower. Should leave you plenty of room to do your stuff." Xander informed him.

Angel could find no way to disagree with them. They had thought this out. Well, as much as they could, considering that they didn't really know exactly what they were going to be up against.

***************

"There's nobody in there. Are you sure that this is the right place?" Spike asked as he peered through a high window.

"Yes I'm sure." Angel told him, double checking the address.

"It's the right place." Cordelia and Cassandra told them at the same time.

Angel looked at them. They both wore haunted expressions. What was it they had seen? "Are you two al..."

"We're fine!" Cordelia snapped. She sighed. "Sorry. I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked that today."

"Ok." Angel really wished that she wasn't here. He wanted her anywhere that was away from this danger. Hell, right now even the Hellmouth was beginning to sound good. "If no one's there, we should be able to get in no problem." He rattled the nearby door. Locked. Deadbolt from the look of the lock. He was about to rip it from it's hinges when Amanda spoke up.

"Uh...let me." She reached into the small backpack she carried, and extracted a small tool kit. 20 seconds later the door was open, Amanda standing just inside, a smug look on her face.

"You have got to teach me how to do that." Cordelia told her as she entered the warehouse.

"NO!" Angel and Duncan spoke up vehemently. Amanda shot her a quick wink, then arranged her face in her me?-i-wouldn't-do-that look.

Angel looked around the cavernous space. It had just occured to him that he seemed to do alot of fighting in warehouses. Why vampires and demons couldn't go for abandoned tenant buildings he didn't know. He watched as Xander, Kate, Wesley and Anya climbed up to the catwalk on one side of the building, Giles, Willow, Tara, Joe the other. He looked at Cordelia.

"I'm staying right here." She told him before he could say anything.

"No."

She reached behind her and withdrew her sword. Amanda had shown her how to wear it on her back while wearing close fitting clothes. "Yes. I'm immortal Angel. I'll survive."

"Unless they try cutting off your head. No." He took the sword from her grasp.

"Yes! You can die that way too Angel. And this is yours." She reached behind her and pulled out another sword, this one heavier than the one she had been using.

Angel stared at her mystified for a moment. "No. Where did you hide that?"

"Yes. And wouldn't you like to know."

Buffy, Riley, Methos, Cassandra, Connor, Duncan and Amanda stood nearby, listening in amusement to the exchange.

"Think he'll have any luck getting her to leave?" Connor chuckled.

"Not a hope in hell." Amanda and Buffy told him in unison.

************
Part 18
************

Xander waited until everybody was clear of the ladder before pouring holy water down it. He didn't want any vampires to start climbing. He double checked the taser that he had gotten off Riley. It was working perfectly, which was good, because he didn't want any demons to make it up here either. Wesley checked and loaded his crossbow, then watched as Anya and Kate filled three large compression water rifles. He briefly thought about what an absurd picture they must make. Getting ready to fight a battle with children's toys. He glanced over to the other catwalk.. Willow and Tara were digging supplies out of their bags. They had plans for a protection spell and a spell to help with the fighting. He hoped that it worked.

********

"Here they come." Spike muttered gleefully. Finally! Something he could have some fun with.

Close by, Angel stiffened and gave up arguing with Cordelia. Too late now. "Heads up!" He called out. Out the corner of his eye he saw Buffy grasp Mr Pointy, and Riley more firmly grip the taser he held. The group of immortals drew their swords and broke up into two groups. Cassandra and Methos moved to cover the main exit while Duncan, Connor and Amanda moved to cover the door they had entered through. He took another glance around the cavernous space. Someone, probably Buffy, Riley and the immortals, had moved the large crates that had littered the floor, to the walls, so that there was no place to hide. Which was good, if you considered that their opponents wouldn't have anywhere to hide either. Glancing up he saw that Xander, Giles, Joe, Anya and Kate were all armed with their water rifles. He hoped they had good aim. He wasn't particularly fond of being doused in holy water. Willow and Tara were sitting facing each other, candles and a few objects that Angel couldn't identify, between them. Mentally wishing them luck with their spell, he turned to check on Cordelia. She stood in a fighting stance, sword drawn, and a determined expression on her face. Suddenly he was glad that she was there. Which made absolutely no sense what so ever, see as he didn't want her to get hurt. He knew the expression on her face, and didn't envy their opponents. She was ready to tear strips off of whoever got in her way.

**********

The vampire minon savoured the anticipation of battle. Or food. Either way the intruders were going to be dead. He and a group of his 'friends' had been ordered to get rid of the humans that had invaded their area. Once accomplished, Chaos would be pleased and he would be in favour. He smiled as he pictured Chaos thanking him. The picture shattered as the first group of vampires howled in pain, then disintegrated.

Carefully approaching the doorway, he stuck his head inside to get a look, only to have it removed.

**********

Cordelia tensed as Methos and Cassandra took out the first group of vampires. Now that she was here, did she really want to do this? She quickly glanced at Angel, and the image of him dying flashed through her mind. Yes, she did. Angel wasn't about to die. Not if she could help it.

The last of the group of vampires who had been stupid enough to enter the building, instead of running for their un-lives, disintegrated into ash. The group in the warehouse all stood, tense and silent, waiting for the next attack. They didn't have long to wait.

**********

After hearing of the vampire group's death, two extremely large groups of vampires had been dispatched to deal with the threat. They entered from opposite sides of the building. Ripping the doors from their hinges, they stormed into the warehouse. Many of them turned to ash, as a sharp blade found their neck. Those that didn't, ended up screaming in agony as they were doused in holy water. That didn't stop many of them from stumbling further into the warehouse, attempting to move out of the range of fire however. They didn't get too far. A few got zapped with serious voltage, from Riley, and then while stunned, staked by Buffy. Others found themselves on the receiving end of a hiding from Spike, who was having a marvelous time, or suddenly without a head as they got a little too close to Cordelia and Angel.

And still they kept coming. At first just vampires, then vampires and some demons. Then more demons. Chaos was calling in his heavy hitters.

***********

Willow gasped as she saw more demons storm into the warehouse. "I think now would be a good time." she suggested. Tara nodded. Together they began to chant.

A bright light appeared between them, it coalesced into human form, then floated down to the floor of the warehouse and began fighting.

*************

"There! Demon right?!" Kate called out to Wesley, pointing to a new group of players.

"Yes!" Wesley called back, firing his crossbow at a demon who had tried climbing the ladder. A vampire had tried it earlier, only to fall back to the ground howling in agony.

"Good!" She drew her gun, sighted it, making sure that none of their group was in the line of fire, and squeezed off a few rounds. Two of the demons she had been aiming for hit the floor, dead. Two others were badly wounded, and decided that this would be a good time to desert Chaos's army.

************

Chaos howled with rage. How was it that his army was being destroyed by a handful of mortals?! He stormed toward the warehouse. If you wanted a job done right, you had to do it yourself.

************

"You ok?" Angel called out to Cordelia, as he decapitated another demon.

"Just peachy!" She called back as she ducked under the swing of the demon attacking her. Bringing her sword up, she opened a trail that went from groin to chin, before taking his head. "When is this guy going to make his appearance?" It felt like she had been fighting forever. She wasn't used to this kind of physical activity, and was begining to get tired.

"If he's going to show, it'll be soon. I think he's running out of demons." A demon armed with a sword attacked Angel, and he began fight.

Cordelia would have helped him, after all the demon wasn't an immortal, the Rules didn't apply, but she was kinda busy just then. She was tossed to the floor, but not before she managed to cut off her attacker's hand. That bought her enough time to scramble to her feet. The demon was looking a the stump where his hand had been in shock. Then it got angry. Head down, it charged at her. She neatly side stepped and brought her sword down, about where she figured his head was. She missed his head, but instead cut him almost cleanly in half. Silently she sent up a prayer of thanks for andrenalin, and shrugged. Whatever worked.

Turning she spotted Angel fighting with the demon with a sword. She began manuvering over to help him. Suddenly her heart jumped into her throat. Angel was too busy to see, but another demon was coming up behind him, brandishing a stake.

"No!" It seemed to Cordelia as if her feet suddenly had wings. She threw herself forward in between Angel and the demon.

*************

Angel managed to kill the demon, just as he felt a weight fall onto his back. Stepping forward and pivoting, he caught Cordelia as she slumped to the floor. Shock, horror and anger flooded through him, fighting for dominance. Anger won. He let his face morph into his game face and attacked the demon who had just planted a stake in Cordelia's back. It was a short battle. In less than 15 seconds the demon was just another corpse littering the floor.

Angel quickly scanned the room. Demon corpses and vampire ash lay all over the floor. The last of the demons were currently being kept occupied by the rest of the group. Good. He knelt down next to Cordelia's body. He prayed that they were right, and that she would revive again. Then he pulled out the stake.

Blood oozed out of the wound, then small sparks of electricity appeared, jumping across the gaping hole in Cordelia's back. He watched as the wound grew smaller, closed over, scarred, then completely dissapeared. Yet Cordelia still didn't revive. He couldn't hear her heart beating or her lungs taking in oxygen. Panic began to flood through his system. What if they were wrong? What if she didn't revive?

*************

Willow and Tara gasped as their strength gave out and they collapsed weakly into a heap. The magical fighter dissapeared with the last of their strength.

*************

Chaos thundered into the warehouse as his last demon bit the proverbial dust. They would pay for this! As he approached the group, he assesed the threat they posed. They had taken out his entire army. Vampire and Demon. They were obviously excellent fighters. Strong, resourceful. But they would not be strong enough, or resourceful enough to kill him. He would see their broken bodies laying at his feet, before this night was through.

*************

Buffy began to attack Chaos as soon as he entered her range. As Adam had before him, he absorbed her attack without even flinching. Contemptuously he swiped at her as if she were an annoying insect, sending her flying halfway across the room.

"Buffy!" Riley called out in alarm, and zapped the demon with his taser.

"No don't!" She called out too late.

Chaos smiled as he absorbed the voltage. How kind of them. He strode over to the male who had zapped him and backhanded him across the face, sending Riley into the floor.

The immortals approached, surrounding him, swords drawn. He grinned maliciously. He slowly manuevered over to Angel. Angel took a swing at him, but it was as if he was fighting a brick wall. Chaos blocked the next swing, picked Angel up, and threw him at Methos and Cassandra, who had been approaching him from behind. They landed in a heap, Angel ending up impaled through the stomach on Cassandra's sword. Not a pleasant sensation, but at least it wouldn't kill him.

Chaos turned to begin attacking the other immortals. He shot a long piece of bone out of one arm, aiming for Duncan, only to have Amanda sever it as Duncan dodged.

Up on the catwalk Kate was aiming for Chaos's head. Xander noticed and tugged her down to the floor of the catwalk.

"No!" He whispered urgently. "That thing has a major gun hidden in his other arm. You don't want to call any attention to yourself! Let them deal with it!"

As if he had heard Xander, Chaos extended his other arm. His forearm transformed into a machine gun.

"My god, he's a transformer!" Kate breathed in amazement.

"I so don't want that pointed at me." Xander whispered.

*************

Spike was about to attack this Adam clone demon when he thought he heard something. He cocked his head. He noted absently that Angel had also heard it, although at the present moment he wasn't in any condition to do anything about it. He was though.

"Impressive." He drawled, attracting Chaos's attention. "Do you do children's parties as well?"

Keeping his gun arm aimed at the immortals, Chaos stared at the bleached vampire. "What business is it of yours?" He asked with quiet menace.

Spike deliberately didn't look in the direction of the noise. He focused solely on Chaos. He wasn't going to be intimidated by this by this...this...freak. Casually he continued. "You could make a fortune with that little trick, if you wanted to."

"And what makes you Auggghh!" Chaos screamed in agony as fiery pain lanced up his back.

Before he had a chance to recover, Cordelia located his power source and hacked at it. As her sword cut through it, it and Chaos exploded.

*************
Part 19
*************

Cordelia stood totally stunned, covered, head to toe, in demon goo. She hadn't expected that to happen!

"Cordelia?" Angel's worried voice snapped her out of her shock.

"Angel?" She turned around to look at him. He had splatters of demon...bits over his clothes and he looked exhausted. Which was no big suprise, now that the andrenaline was leaving her system, she felt exhausted. What concerned her was the way he was slightly bent forward, hand to his stomach. "You've been hurt!" She stepped over to him and gently moved his hand out of the way, taking a close look at the wound. Blood was very slowly seeping from it. She looked up at him shocked.

"Bad landing. Nothing that won't heal." He explained at her questioning glance.

"Bad landing?" She placed his hand back over the wound. He would have to keep pressure on it until she could get the small first aid kit off of the bike.

"Uh, Frankenstein decided to give me flying lessons." Just behind him Cassandra and Methos were climbing to their feet.

"He found the sharp end of my sword." Cassandra explained apologetically.

"Sharp end of your......" Cordelia winced at the picture that brought to mind, and quickly checked his back. There was a tear in back of his coat where the sword had pierced it. Angel winced as she placed a firm hand on the exit wound.

"Is everyone alright?" He asked the room in general.

"Just....terrific." Riley managed, as he painfully climbed to his feet. There were various other answers in the affirmative from around the room.

"Are we done? Can we go home now?" Willow asked tiredly as she climbed down the ladder.

"I would kill for a shower." Amanda commented as she gingerly tried to scrape demon goo off of herself.

"Flip you for it." Duncan told her as he began to make his way out of the warehouse.

"C'mon. We've got to get you home, and patched up." Cordelia told Angel as everybody began to grab their things, or what was left of them. "Wesley can you....."

************

Angel winced as he pulled on a pair of sweat pants. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks for water proof dressings. He had really needed that shower. He felt almost human again. Well, not human, but normal. Or as normal as he ever felt.

After arriving back at AI, everyone had gone their seperate ways. After helping Cordelia patch him up, Wesley had taken Kate home, before heading home himself. Everyone else had gone back to their respective hotels for a meal, a hot shower, and a good night's....uh morning's sleep. Not necessarily in that order. Only he and Cordelia were left.

He walked into the kitchen, half expecting to find her asleep at the table. When he had gone to have his shower, she had said something about getting something to eat. He looked around the kitchen. A damp plate stood in the dish strainer, and a pint of warm blood sat on the table. But no Cordelia. After drinking the blood --he could almost hear her nagging at him to make sure he ate something-- he went in search of her.

He found her fast asleep, on his bed. Her damp hair was sprawled out over his pillows, it would be awfully tangled in the morning, she was dressed in the same pair of his sweats she had worn last night, and she had dark circles under her eyes. He didn't think he'd ever seen her look more beautiful.

She mumbled something in her sleep, and moved restlessly. He reached down and brushed a lock of hair off her face. She immediately relaxed, and pressed her face towards his hand. A frown marred her face as he removed his hand, but it dissapeared when he lay down next to her, and wraped his arms around her. Mumbling something incoherent, she burrowed deeper into his embrace. Safe in each others arms, the Vampire and his Seer slept.

***********

Cordelia sleepily opened her eyes and frowned. She had been having such a wonderful dream, why did she have to wake up? Oh, that. She groaned as the sound of a jackhammer, from the streetworks just outside the building, shattered the silence of the apartment. Why couldn't those idiots come back at a more respectable hour? Like....oh say about 1pm? Or even better, 5pm? Or...oh say, never?

Angel mumbled something inaudible and tightened his arms around her. Cordelia froze for a moment before electricity began to zing through her system. She suddenly became aware of Angel, spooned up against her. Oh wow. This was the second morning that she had woken up in Angel's arms, and it felt....wow. She could really get used to this. She tried to savour the feeling, and go back to sleep, but the sound of the jackhammer was just too jarring to block out. Giving up on going back to sleep, carefully so as not to wake Angel, she extracted herself from his arms, and rolled off the bed. She stood there just looking at him. She loved seeing him like this. Completely relaxed, totally peaceful, no guard up. He looked just like...and she knew this was cliche..an angel. An extremely handsome and hunky angel, but an angel none the less. He muttered something that she couldn't understand, at the loss of her body heat, and buried his head deeper into the pillow.

She thought back to last night as she had been dressing his wounds. The rational part of her knew that he would be fine, that the wounds would heal, and that by the next night he would be fine. But the emotional part of her, the part that loved him with her entire being, needed him around in any capacity, almost as much as she needed to breathe, had been terrified. What if the next time he sustained injuries they couldn't patch up with an oversized bandaid? What if the next time he died? Cordelia was well aware that he wasn't invunerable. She had patched him up too many times to blithely believe that he would come out of any fight without a scratch. She didn't think she would be able to go on if Angel died. Oh she would survive. Still function. But she wouldn't live. She instinctively knew that, should Angel die, he would take all the light out of her world.

Fierce protectiveness washed over her. She would not let anything happen to Angel. Nobody or nothing, was going to hurt him while she still drew breath.

Tenderly she reached down and ran her fingers down his cheek. "I love you." she whispered.

"'Delia." he mumbled sleepily. "Love you too." A brilliant smile lit up her face. In future years, Angel would kick himself for not actually being awake to see it.

************

It was around 10 am that Amanda walked into the offices of Angel Investigations. Cordelia was at her desk finishing up some old paperwork.

"Hi. How are you feeling today?" Amanda asked Cordelia cheerfully, although she really didn't need to. Anyone with two eyes could see that she was fine. In fact glowing. Something had happened, and Amanda would lay odds it had to do with the dark vampire, that was probably right now sleeping downstairs.

"I'm terrific! How 'bout you?"

"I'm always terrific." Amanda deadpanned. Cordelia groaned lightly at the pun. "Seriously? I still can't believe that last night actually happened."

"Oh it happened. Angel has the wounds to prove it." Cordelia's gaze darkened at the thought of those wounds.

"What happened there anyway? I just know that he was moving pretty carefully after." Amanda perched on Cordelia's desk.

"Had a sword run though him. An accident apparently. Exploding-demon-guy threw him at Cassandra and Adam."

Amanda nodded. "Saw that part."

"He landed on the sharp end of Cassandra's sword."

"Ouch."Amanda winced. "He alright?"

"Yeah. By tonight there won't even be a scar."

"Immortal type healing?"

"Something like that. So are you here alone? Where are Duncan and Connor?"

"Connor, I wouldn't have a clue, but if he's anything like Duncan? Still snoring his head off." Amanda told her grinning. "I wasn't sure you'd be up, but I thought, what the heck?"

"I woke up to the wonderfully jarring music of a jackhammer." Cordelia told her wryly. "After that, I couldn't get back to sleep."

"What about Angel?"

"Oh, he could sleep through an atom bomb. I guess it comes from sleeping through the day, he must be able to block out outside noise."

"Handy skill. Speaking of which...."Amanda had a crafty gleam in her eye.

"Speaking of which? What....oh." A grin spread across Cordelia's face as she caught on. Well what Angel didn't know.......

"Seeing as Duncan and Angel are dead to the world, no pun intended, I think now might be a good time for that lesson."

***************

Angel woke around noon. Opening his eyes, he automatically reached out for Cordelia. He had been doing that alot lately. She had been invading his dreams for weeks, seeming so real that he would reach for her when he woke. Coming up empty, he wondered if sleeping next to her was just a dream. No. He could smell the lingering scent of Cordelia in the room and on his pillow. It had been real. Groaning into the pillow as heat flooded his body at her scent, he tried to think of reasons why he couldn't get romantically involved with his seer. Only one came to mind. The clause in the curse. It was enough. He didn't want to expose her to Angelus, ever again. Determindley he tamped down on his desire. He would not risk Cordelia.

Hearing voices upstairs, he rolled off the bed and began to get dressed. It would seem that their friends had retuned.

****************

The group standing on the curb watched as the tail lights of of the small group of cars faded into the distance. The Scooby gang had just left to go back to Sunnydale. Or Sunnyhell as Spike had put it. He had been in a good mood all day, having been able to finally beat the crap out of something last night. Of course it had driven the Scooby Gang nuts. But then, pretty much anything Spike did, drove the Scooby gang nuts.

Giles had muttered something about getting back to Sunnydale where it was quieter. 'At the moment.' He had added at the gang's incredulous looks.

Now just the staff of AI and the small group of immortals, and Joe were left.

"This is my phone number and address. If you need any help in the future, give me a call." Connor handed Cordelia his card.

"Russel Nash?" she asked curiously as she glaced at the card.

"That's the name I'm using at the moment. Unlike Duncan, I change mine every few years." Connor grinned.

"Why get used to being called a new name, when most people buy the I-look-just-like-my-father line?"Duncan retorted good naturedly. He also handed Cordelia his card. "If you can't get a hold of this dirty stop out, give me a call."

"Dirty stop out?!" Connor protested. "I am not a .."

"Oh. And who was it who dissapeared for ten years without leaving me anyway to get in contact with you?"

"That was more than a hundred years ago!"

"Children. Please. If you're going to bicker, you can both go to your rooms." Amanda told them, trying to contain a smirk as Joe chuckled. "Besides, if your going to tell Cordy stories about your past, make them the interesting ones. Like the time that you and Fitzcairn tried to blow ummpphhh." She was cut off as Duncan slapped his hand over her mouth.

He looked embarrassed as Connor laughed. "What exactly did you do?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Duncan tried to play innocent. Connor let it slide, but decided that he was going to get the story out of his clansmen one way or the other.

"Knowing Duncan, it was probably something rather...uh...interesting." Cassandra informed them, a smile on her face.

"Foolish, you mean."Methos clarified dryly.

"Both." Joe told them. Duncan looked at him shocked. "Yeah, I know about that little escapade. I'm not the only watcher you've had, you know." Joe grinned at him. The group chuckled at Duncan's flummoxed expression.

A couple of minutes later they said their goodbyes, and the group of immortals left. Once again it was just Angel, Cordelia and Wesley.

**********
Part 20
**********

Cordelia sighed as she let herself into her apartment. It had been a long week. Things at the office had gone back to normal since everyone had left. Well semi-normal. There was a tension between her and Angel that hadn't been there before. Both wanted something more than what they currently had, but neither had a clue what to do about it. The curse was still in effect, and neither of them was naive enough to think that they could be together and not go the last step. The electric awareness Cordelia had when Angel was around testified to that.

Wesley pretended not to notice the increased tension, but he sincerely hoped that whatever it was Cassandra had planned worked. He cared about both of his friends, and wanted to see them happy, preferably without Angelus making a return apperance.

As much as things had returned to normal, alot of things had changed. Wesley had been recruited by Joe Dawson to be Cordelia's watcher, which she didn't mind because at least she knew who it was that was following her around. She was also training with Angel on a regular basis. An episode in torture if there ever was one. The work outs weren't the only thing that left her breathless. Angel sweaty and in workout clothes would do it for her every time.

Angel was trying to be a little less...overprotective of her too. Now that she was immortal, he didn't have to worry so much about her. Or be so protective. But he was. It was something he was working on. Cordelia had already had one argument with him about it.

She had kept in touch with Amanda via email. They were planning to get together the next time Amanda was in town. And Cordelia had a standing invite to Seacouver. Already she had needed to use her new lockpicking skills, when she had locked herself out of the apartment. It wasn't something she was going to tell Angel or Wesley about. Well not yet.

Entering her apartment she almost fell over two packages that were just inside the door. Dennis must have brought them in out of the hallway earlier. Picking them up, she glanced at the return address on the larger of the packages. Seacouver. From Amanda? She tore the wrapping off. A letter fluttered to the floor. She retreived the envelope and ripped it open.

Cordy,

You made it sound like such a challenge, that I couldn't resist! Unfortunately apart from some interesting looking weapons, there wasn't much of value to me. Perhaps you might feel differently.

Enjoy,

Amanda

Cordelia stared at the note in disbelief. She hadn't. Had she? A look in the box confirmed that Amanda indeed had done the impossible. She had broken into Wolfram & Hart's vault and stolen assorted artifacts. Cordelia started laughing as she imagined the look on Duncan's face when he found out what she had done. Taking a closer look at the contents of the box, the only thing that Cordelia saw that was worth anything was a few computer disks. Of course this other stuff might be worth something to Angel or Wesley. Still chuckling, she put the box on the coffee table and opened the other package.

Inside were a couple of books. Like the kind that Angel had before the last office exploded. Old, leather bound tomes, written in various languages, some of which she recognized, many she didn't. Two envelopes were pressed between two pages of one of the books, one addressed to Angel, one to her.

Shock, disbelief, amazement, hope. All these emotions flooded through her as she read the contents of the letter. Oh wow. This....this was real. Now what did she do? A smile formed on her face as she planned her next move.

***********

Angel looked curiously at the books sitting on his kitchen table. Had Wesley left them? No. He didn't think so. The handwriting on the envelope didn't look familiar. He tore it open. If it was possible, his face went paler as he read the letter.

Oh god. Could he believe this? Was this a trick? His intuition told him no. Cassandra didn't seem like the type given to elaborate practical jokes. Amanda yes. Cassandra no.

This was real.

His soul was permanent.

Cassandra had removed the clause.

Jubilation flowed through him. His soul was permanent! No more having to worry about Angelus making a reappearance. He was free to feel as happy as he wanted. He could....Cordelia. He had to tell Cordelia. He dashed for the phone. He had punched in the first few numbers before he realised he couldn't do this over the phone. He needed to see her in person.

************

Cordelia jumped at the sudden pounding at her door. Her heart sped up. Was that Angel? Had he gotten the books she had left on his kitchen table? Or was it just a Jehovah's witness? Only one way to find out. She peered through the spyhole. On the other side stood Angel. A rather...well he looked kinda nervous and jumpy. Dread shot through her. Oh no. Had something happened while he was out patrolling?

She flung the door open. "What happened? Are you alright?" She demanded anxiously. She was startled when he steped inside, picked her up by the waist and swung her around in a circle. When he put her down he had a huge smile on his face. Ok. So he wasn't hurt. In fact he was happy. Very happy from the looks of it.

"Ouch! What was that for?!" Angel asked bewildered, rubbing his arm where Cordelia had just whacked him.

"Don't scare me like that! I mean, you show up looking jumpy and...and nervous. I thought something bad had happened! Instead you're happy! Which is good, but.......Augghh! Don't ever do that again!"

Angel was immediately contrite. Well sort of. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to......."

"Give me a heart attack?" She sighed. "Forget it. Kodak moment."

"Huh? Kodak moment?" Now he was puzzled.

"You. Smiling. Huge smile. It's a Kodak moment. Wish I'd had my camera. Nobody's going to believe me when I tell them." She grinned. "So, what's got you in such a good mood?" Cordelia decided to play innocent. After all, she couldn't be sure that he had seen the books yet.

Angel's face lit up. "I got some good news. A present, of sorts."

"A present? What kind of present?" She paused. "What do people get you for a present anyway? Magic stuff? Books?" Cordelia went off on one of her tangents. What on earth was she supposed to get him for Christmas?

"Both."

"Both? What both magic stuff and books?" She should be able to do that. Wesley would probably something similar. Maybe she should call Giles. He would be able to help her figure out what to get them.

"Christmas isn't for a few months 'Delia. You won't have to worry about buying presents for a while yet."

What? How did he...?

Angel was amused. Used to Cordelia going off onto tangents halfway through a conversation, he had guessed what she was thinking. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head. He briefly wondered if she realized how much she had changed since moving to LA. In Sunnydale, Cordelia hadn't worried about what to buy other people. She had been more concerned about what she would get. So much had changed, for both of them, since moving here.

"Besides, I think I've gotten my Christmas present early." He didn't think anything could top Cassandra's gift. Well, almost anything, he amended as he gazed at Cordelia.

She arched one brow. "Well? Spill already!"

Suddenly Angel was at a loss for words. After gaping like a fish for a few moments, he pulled Cassandra's letter out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Cordelia knew what it was the instant she saw it. He knew. And he believed it. That was good. He was happy, no, estatic about it. And he was here. Also good. Now what?

As she took the envelope from his grasp he found his voice. "My soul's permanent." Angel watched her carefully, trying to gauge her reaction. He saw that she was happy for him, but saw no suprise in her eyes. "Which you already knew." He added and suppressed a chuckle at her shocked look. He had guessed that she at least knew about the present. Her scent tended to remain in the room after she had gone. Admittedly he hadn't twigged to that straight away, but still..... He arched his eyebrows at her.

"I...got a letter from Cassandra too." She explained reluctantly.

"Uh huh. And when were you going to tell me?" He asked neutrally. Stepping closer towards her.

"Hey! I only got it tonight!" She defended stepping back uncertainly.

"Mmmm. Don't suppose you know anything about a couple of books, do you?"He advanced again.

"Well...." Cordelia bit her lip nervously. Should she just tell him? Trying to figure out if he was angry with her or not, she studied him closely for a moment. And saw the teasing glint in his eyes. That rat! He knew! He was teasing her! He was...standing really close. Heat flooded her body.

"Well?" He asked.

"Well what?" What was it he had asked? She couldn't think when he was this close.

Angel's mouth quirked as realized that he wouldn't get a coherent answer out her. Nice to know that it wasn't just him that had problems thinking straight. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he bent his head and captured her mouth with his. Almost instantly she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

"I love you 'Delia." He whispered when they came up for air. His stomach somersaulted as she smiled.

"I know. I love you too." She kissed him fiercely. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

He grinned. "I think I'll come up with something."

**********

*Ring, Ring*

"Cassandra? It's Wesley. It worked. Somehow I don't think I'll be seeing either of them for a few days. I owe you one. "

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