The Cruelest Month by Starlet2367
Summary: The story of four detectives, two snitches, one candy dispenser, and an April Fool's day that Cordelia would rather forget.
Spoilers: Epiphany, Season Two.
Notes: A Stranger Things Foolish Fic Challenge for clln, who requested a story set any time in S2 with the immortal line: "I'm sorry, but I can't resist. I'm gonna have to eat those PEZ." This story is set in "real time," and falls on March 31/April 2, 2001. If I've done my job right, it'll fit neatly between Epiphany and Disharmony. Also, for the science geeks in the audience, just pretend I know what I'm talking about with this whole biotech thing. [g] Thanks for the beta go to my favorite April Fools, Julie Fortune and littleheaven. And to Queen Mab who keeps the madness alive.
April
is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead
land, mixing
Memory and desire,
stirring
Dull roots with spring
rain.
- T. S. Eliot, The
Waste Land, 1922
Merl leaned against
the wall outside Caritas with his hands in the
pockets of his
Sansabelts, waiting while his friend Andy finished his cigarette. Some techno crap pulsed through the open door and
the
sound combined with
the tangerine-colored light from the street lamps
to give the night a
weird, Farscape feel. He glanced over at Andy who was puffing his cigarette contentedly.
"I hate that
music," Merl said.
Andy snorted and
sent smoke rolling out the small blowhole on top of
his head. "The
Host's in a phase. Digging the manufactured vibe, you know?"
He gestured toward the record store across the street.
"Vinyl," he said. "They killed music when they left vinyl
behind."
Caritas fronted on
North Broadway, on the sloppy edge of Koreatown.
At eleven o'clock on
a Monday night, North Broadway was hardly crawling
with traffic. If you weren't already at the bar of your
choice, you were
home getting ready for bed.
"Thought the
rest of the crowd woulda followed us up here once he
started playing that
crap," Merl groused. Since Merl was an informant, his work came to him through his patronage of
similar
establishments in
the Los Angeles area. He also did some work in
Akron when he went
home to visit his mom, but it was never enough to keep him solvent.
He jingled the
change in his pocket. Not that you could call four
dollars and
thirty-two cents solvent. He really needed another job. Soon.
"Probably too
old to climb the stairs more than once a night," Andy
said. He reached up
and scratched under his arm. "New deodorant's giving me a rash. Hey, did you see that old geezer in the
table next to
the stage? A hundred and fifty if he was a day."
"The Mel Torme
review always packs 'em in." Merl ran a hand over the
bumps on his head
and glanced out at the sluggish traffic.
"Yeah. Hey, can
you believe they make us stand 10-feet away from the
door?" Andy
bitched, and took another drag. "It's not like any of 'em are
gonna die from cigarette smoke."
It was an old
argument, one Merl listened to every time he and Andy
came outside. Since
Andy recently stepped up to a 4-pack-a-day habit that meant Merl heard it a lot. But it was better than
getting his eardrums
punched out by synthesizers on acid. "The humans might,"
Merl said by rote.
"Humans. Pah.
Who needs--"
"Help!"
Merl turned his head
toward the sound. "Did you hear that?"
"Help me!"
A young man ran--or rather, limped--around the corner of
the building, one
leg dragging behind him at an awkward angle, one hand pressed against his belly. His fingers were stained dark
and his striped
shirt was spattered with black-looking splotches.
As he came nearer,
Merl realized it was blood. He took a step forward.
"Hey, buddy--"
"Help me,"
the guy said, stretching out his free hand.
Merl took another
step toward him, but Andy held him back. "Human,"
he whispered.
"I can smell it."
"So what,"
Merl said. "We gotta help him."
"Looks like a
mob hit," Andy said. Out of the corner of his eye, Merl
saw him point with
his cigarette. "Benny--you know, Koreatown Benny? The
Fyarl demon?"
"Yeah?"
Merl asked.
"That's his
trademark. Take out the left knee, then finish 'em off
with a gut
wound."
"I knew
that," Merl said, trying to sound nonchalant.
The guy groaned and
collapsed to the sidewalk. Andy shook his slimy,
yellow head. "Ow.
That's gotta hurt."
Merl watched, torn.
He did want to help him--but he wasn't stupid.
Now that Andy
mentioned it, it did look like Benny's work. But, hell, they couldn't just let the guy bleed to death ten feet in
front of them,
even if he was human.
So Merl did what he
did best. He abdicated responsibility. "Do
something,
man!" he yelled at Andy.
Andy took another
drag and blinked his piss-green eyes at the guy,
who was now nearly
at their feet. "Like what?" he asked, smoke trailing
out the hole on top of his head like a silver line of fog.
The guy on the
ground coughed, spattering blood on the concrete in
front of him.
"Caritas," he said with a moan. "Sanctuary." He laid
his cheek on the
concrete and Merl got a good look at him.
"Crap," he
said. That was the kid who'd done a half-decent job on "I
Will Survive"
at disco night two weeks ago. "I--" Merl's voice cracked.
He tried again. "I'm going for help." He fled into the upper lobby
of the bar, and banged down the stairs.
"Hey, don't
leave me out here alone with this guy! Ugh!" Andy said,
and followed him
down into the bar.
The bar was dimly
lit and Lorne tended bar alone. Mondays were usually
slow. "Lorne!" Merl yelled, stuttering to a halt by the glossy
black bar. "Lorne!" He shoved in between a Locos demon and an aging
hippie. Andy crowded in behind him.
Lorne looked up from
whatever he was mixing. "I heard ya the first
time, Merl. What's
the nine-one-one?"
Merl pointed toward
the stairs. "There's--there's a guy up there!
Needs your
help!"
Lorne pursed his
green lips. "Not Jimmy-the-Nut again, is it? I told
him last week to
find a shelter--"
"LORNE!"
Merl hopped up and down on his cross-trainers.
The Locos demon
growled. "Dude," he said through a bad under
bite, "*You're*
gonna be bleedin' in a minute, you don't stop with the
hysterics." He shoved Andy back a few steps. "Hey, smoke-breath. Back
off."
"Sorry,
sorry." Merl's voice cracked. Andy took a step toward the
Locos and Merl shot
him a warning glance. Then he patted the Locos on the shoulder and turned back to Lorne. "Mob hit,"
he said. "Human. Came
around the corner and crawled to the front door. Think he needs
help."
Lorne's mouth fell
open. Then he dropped his bottles and picked up
the phone. "Why
didn't you say something? Jeez!"
***
The boy's face
disappeared behind the zipper of the black body bag.
The coroner's
assistant looked up. "That about does it," he said. He motioned
to the EMTs. The one leaning against the side of the ambulance uncrossed his arms and grabbed the stretcher.
Lorne nodded his
head. "Thanks." It was a damn shame about the boy.
Kevin Wating had
been one of his semi-regulars, a nice young man with a good job who enjoyed an occasional evening in a roomful of
demons.
"You knew the
deceased?"
Lorne turned and
found himself staring at the detective, a man of indeterminate
age, gone to paunch. He held a small notepad and pen in his hands and worried a frayed toothpick with his teeth.
Lorne didn't have
to read his aura to see he would kill for a cigarette.
"Yeah, he used
to come in and sing from time-to-time." Lorne
shrugged. "I'd
give him a reading; you know, the usual. Nice kid, but he
was just that. Usual."
The EMTs loaded the
body onto the stretcher and wheeled it toward the
ambulance's open
doors.
"That's some
pretty fancy make-up you're wearin'," the detective
noted.
Lorne glanced at the
guy's badge, which was prominently displayed on
the pocket of his
lightweight gray, seen-better-days blazer. "Brings in the crowd, Detective Holmes." He paused for a minute.
"Great name for
a detective."
The detective
tongued his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the
other. "Geez, I
never heard that before." He motioned toward the doorsill.
"Any idea what that means?"
Lorne glanced down
past his red, suede Stacy Adams. There, on the
concrete floor just
inside his doorway, Kevin had scrawled the letters "p," "e," "z" in his
own blood. "Pez? Could be he had a thing
for candy."
The detective
grunted. "What about family, friends, job? He ever come
in here with anyone
else?"
Lorne shoved his
hands in the pockets of his lemon-yellow suit.
"Sometimes he came in with a friend." He rocked back and forth
on his heels.
"Uh, Don? Dan?" He squinted at the streetlight and let
his mind take him
back to the last time the guys had been in. Kevin was a beer man, but his friend preferred Scotch. "Dan!
That was it. Dan
Sparks. I think they worked together."
Holmes scribbled in
his notebook and belched. "Sorry," he said,
tapping his chest
with the side of his fist. "Shouldn't have had that second
piece of pie."
Lorne let the usual
cliches about cops and dessert roam through his
head. "Right.
Hey, you guys gonna need to keep this crime scene tape up
all night? Not to make light of what happened here, but tomorrow's kind of a big night for me. April Fool's, and all."
He gestured toward
the tape roping off the entrance to the club.
Beyond it, the press
of onlookers was dissipating. The body was gone; nothing left to see but old, fat guys in badly-tailored
jackets
talking to green
lounge singers.
Your usual Monday
night in the city.
Holmes glanced
toward the flashing blue lights. "Ramirez!" he yelled.
A dark-haired woman
in a blue LA's finest uniform poked her head out
of a parked cruiser.
"Yo," she called back.
Holmes gave her a
"come here" gesture. She tossed a clipboard and a
stack of papers on
the seat and joined them at the entrance to the club. "Yeah?"
"You about done
filing the papers here?"
She nodded.
"Yeah, we've about got it cleaned up. Rest of the stuff I
gotta go to the
station for." She glanced at Lorne. "You want us to send
in a clean-up crew, or you wanna do it yourself?"
Lorne glanced down
at the blood on his step. Kevin wasn't the type to
mix it up with a bad
crowd. From what Merl told him, he was pretty sure this had been a demon hit. The cops would do their best,
but they'd
never catch the right angle. Only one guy in the city could do
that.
"I'll clean it
up," he said. After Angel got a good, strong whiff.
Ramirez nodded.
"How much more time you need?" she asked Holmes.
He chewed his
toothpick thoughtfully. "'M done." He glanced at
Lorne. "You'll
need to stay available, though."
A card appeared in
Holmes' fingertips and Lorne took it. "Guess I'll
cancel that surfin'
safari I had on my calendar for this week."
Holmes grunted then
stuck his notepad in his jacket pocket. Ramirez
gave them a wave,
climbed in her car and radioed in to dispatch. The ambulance was already gone, the crime scene guys and their
cameras
and notebooks had
disappeared, and now Ramirez and her partner nosed
out onto North
Broadway. Everything was back to normal except for the yellow tape and the drying blood on Lorne's doorstep.
And the memory of
Kevin's face disappearing behind black plastic.
"I'll call you
if I have any more questions," Holmes said. Then he
turned and walked to
his dusty, undercover wreck.
Lorne watched him go
then reached into his pocket for his cell phone.
"Angel
Investigations."
"Angelcakes,"
he said. "Call in the troops. I need your help."
***
Cordy woke, heart
pounding in her throat, listening intently. Then
she realized the
phone was ringing. She groaned, reached for the receiver on her bedside table and knocked her glass of water
to the
floor. It hit the
wood and shattered.
"Crap,"
she said. "Dennis! Phone?"
It floated in from
the hall and she plucked it from the air and thumbed
it on. "Who died?" she said, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
"One of the
Host's clients," Wes replied.
She groaned. "Geez.
I was just kidding." She took a long, tired
breath. "We
meeting at Caritas?"
"In twenty, if
you can."
"Give me
thirty." She clicked the phone off and laid it on the
bedside table, then
dropped her feet to the floor.
"Ow! Dammit!"
she said, jerking her foot back and flipping on the
lamp. "Way to
go, genius." She lifted her heel and plucked out a piece of glass. A bright, red bead of blood welled up.
She thought about
the vial of warm, viscous blood the nurse drew at
the hospital today.
How she still had the needle mark on the inside of her elbow. "Great," she muttered. "Now I
have a matching set of holes."
She looked up at the ceiling. "I hear some people collect
salt and pepper
shakers," she said to Dennis. "Of course, some people have
the taste of a randy she-goat, but who am I to judge?"
She glanced down at
the floor, assessing the damage made by the falling
glass. Water dripped down the side of the bedside table and wall. Silver glass shards glittered in a shooting arc across
the
polished oak planks.
She dropped her shard back to the floor with its
friends, and exited
the bed from the other side. "Should have asked him to give me forty-five so I could clean up this
mess."
Her little clean-up
broom and dustpan floated into the room. She reached
for it, but Dennis pulled it away and made sweeping motions in mid-air.
"Oh, Dennis,
would you?" The broom-and-pan nodded. "Thank you,
sweetie. What would
I do without you?"
Her foot throbbed as
she hobbled to the bathroom. She slapped on a
Band-Aid, rinsed her
face, and brushed her hair. Then she pulled a pair of dirty jeans from the hamper and slid them on.
Ordinarily she wouldn't
wear dirty jeans if you gave her six brand-new Gucci bags
and took her to
lunch at Spago. But it was late. She was tired. Dead guys bled. You do the math, she thought, as she padded back
to the
bedroom for a shirt.
One stop for coffee
later, she pulled up in front of Caritas and parked--something
that never would have happened when the sun was shining. But it was late--or early, depending on your
persuasion--and the
only folks out were the street sweepers, the cops, and the third-
shift workers.
Angel stuck his head
out the bar's door. And vampires, she thought,
as she locked the
car. "Angel," she said, nodding at him.
He stuck his hands
in his pockets. "Hey," he said, giving her a
quick, almost
unobtrusive once-over. His eyes lingered on her foot for just a second too long.
Creepy dead-guy
Spidey sense, she thought, as she crossed the
sidewalk. "I
cut it on a piece of glass." She brushed past him and started
down the stairs. "Oh, wait," she said. "What was I thinking?
It's not like you
care."
He hurried down
behind her. "What does that mean?"
She didn't bother to
glance over her shoulder. "You know what it
means, Mister
I-ditch-my-friends." She stepped into the large, open
room that housed the
main portion of the lounge.
"Well, lookee
here. It's everyone's favorite little Seer," the Host
said from behind the
bar. His lemon yellow jacket hung over the back of a chair next to the door. He'd rolled up his shirtsleeves
on his
silk,
red-and-yellow, leopard-print shirt. In one hand, he held his
trademark Seabreeze;
at his elbow the coffee maker peed a brown stream into the carafe.
Cordy took a deep
breath and under the smell of freshly-perking
coffee was the usual
mix of alcohol, the bleach used to sanitize the glasses, and muted flop sweat.
Karaoke wasn't the
most calming of experiences; most people who walked
on that stage dripped like Woody Harrelson at a meat packing plant. She just hoped this little outing didn't mean any of
them
would have to take
their turn in the spotlight.
Cordy slid onto the
barstool next to Wes and set her paper cup of
coffee in front of
her. "If you don't mind me saying," she said to the
Host, "you don't look so good."
He pursed his lips.
"You try getting a dead guy's blood off your
doorstep, sweetie.
You'd be a little pink, too."
Wes nudged her with
his elbow. "Thanks for coming," he said. "I know
it was your day
off."
"Next time
remind me to find a boss who understands the concept of
personal
leave," she said.
Angel leaned against
the end of the bar, obviously keeping his
distance. "You
do anything fun today?"
She thought about
the endless round of CAT scans, the needles in her
arm, the antiseptic
smell of the hospital waiting room. "Went to Malibu. Got some sun." She reached up and hooked her
finger in the collar
of her shirt. "Wanna see my tan lines?"
Angel's mouth pulled
into a near-smile. "A day in the sun," he said
quietly.
"That's-- Good. Good for you."
Cordy felt a pang of
guilt. Then remembered what it was like to have
a heart-stopping,
head-splitting vision with no warrior to service it, and most of the guilt washed right on out.
"Cordelia,"
the Host said. "You want a hit of anything in that
coffee?" He
pulled a bottle of Bailey's from under the bar and waggled it at her.
She wasn't supposed
to drink. It affected her medication. From the
looks of her latest
scan, though, affecting her medication was the least of her worries. "Sounds like a plan," she
said, popping the plastic
lid on her cup.
He dumped a glug in
and stirred it with a swizzle stick. "Where's
your other friend?
Gunn?"
"Yo, dawgs,"
Gunn said from the doorway. He shifted his crossbow so
it hung over his
shoulder and scooted onto the stool next to Cordy. "Sorry I'm late. The crew found a nest down on
Seventh."
She reached over and
patted his hand. "Dust any vamps?"
Gunn glanced at
Angel, who still lurked at the end of the bar. "About
one too few."
Cordy snorted into
her coffee. The fumes from the Bailey's made her
nose burn, so she
took a sip and let them burn her throat, instead.
She caught the Host
shooting Angel a sympathetic look and her guilt-o-
meter went off
again. Darn it, he went postal on *them*, not the other way around. But nursing a healthy dose of anger was
hard to do when
he put on those puppy-dog eyes. So she closed her own eyes and
concentrated on the
warmth and strength of the men on either side of her. They were her real friends, the ones that didn't abandon
her for four-hundred-year-old
whores.
The ones who
remembered the mission.
"So,"
Angel said. "Wanna tell us what happened?"
Cordy's eyes popped
open at the sound of his voice. She heard Wes
clear his throat.
Angel faded back
into the shadows. "Sorry. Wes, why don't you, um,
take the lead
here?"
Cordy took in
Angel's hunched shoulders and the hands-in-pockets
slump. He didn't
look like a predator or a betrayer. But he looked a whole
lot like a sad, lonely guy. She glanced back down at her coffee.
It's not fair, she
thought. He gets to take three months off to hunt
skank, sticking her
with *his* visions. Not only that, but now she got to feel his leftover pain. If she could just get her
hands on those
Powers for five minutes--
The Host interrupted
her thoughts. "A kid named Kevin Wating used to
come in and sing
from time-to-time."
Cordy looked up at
him, took a deep breath, and pulled in her focus.
Next to her, Gunn
leaned his elbows on the bar and sipped the beer the Host had put in front of him.
"Liked disco
nights," the Host said. He took a sip of his Seabreeze.
Gunn grunted.
"Probably what killed him. Too much Bee-Gees'll do that
to a man."
The Host's eyebrows
drew together. "Hey, don't diss disco." He
gestured with his
glass. "Besides, I hear the Bee-Gees are perfectly
nice people. Not the
type to blow out your kneecap or leave you with a sucking gut wound."
Cordy's stomach
rolled. "Sounds like Koreatown Benny's work." She
pushed her cup away.
Angel stiffened.
"How do you know about Benny?"
She shot him a look.
"Hey, some of us didn't take the winter off to
track down our
skank-tastic exes."
"Kids,"
the Host said. He put a hand on Cordy's arm. "Put a lock on
it. I've had about
enough bloodshed for the night." He sounded like he was talking to both of them, but he looked right at Cordy
when he
said it.
"Fine,"
she said. "Keep going. My apologies." She waved her
hand. "Won't
happen again."
"Thank
you," he said.
"Welcome,"
she said, bordering on sarcasm.
The Host's eyes
narrowed, but his attention was diverted by Wes's
near-empty coffee
mug. "Want me to warm that up?"
"That'd be
great." Wes pushed the mug across the bar.
The Host grabbed the
carafe from the warmer. "Actually," he said,
over the wet slap of
coffee hitting china, "Merl and Adam said the same thing about it being a mob hit." He splashed some
more Bailey's in
on top of the coffee and stirred.
"If it's a mob
hit," Gunn said, "wouldn't the cops be in on it?"
"Oh, honey,
they are. I had the whole forensics crew out here for
hours. It was like
something straight out of CSI."
"Why not let
them handle it, then?" Wes asked. He twisted his mug
back and forth in
one spot on the bar.
Cordy noticed he
looked a little wilted around the edges. Not surprising,
considering it was about three-thirty in the morning.
"Because Benny's a Fyarl demon, remember?"
Wes glanced at her.
Behind his glasses his eyes were sharp, despite
the crumpled hair
and wrinkled shirt. "Still, a mob hit's a mob hit. I'm
sure the cops would be all over it."
"They'll do
their best," the Host said. He nodded at Angel. "But I
needed more. Someone
who knows something about blood."
Cordy held her
tongue out of respect for the Host but that didn't
stop her from
shooting Angel one of her nastier smirks. "Why blood? I mean,
besides the obvious gut-shot-knee-cap thing."
"Because Kevin
wrote something in his own blood on my doorstep," the
Host said.
"Like that guy
on the X-Files?" Gunn asked. He jiggled his beer
bottle against the
bar. "The one who died at Mulder's door? What was his
name?"
"Ex,"
Cordy said. "He was Mulder's informant. Same guy that used to
play on Twenty-One
Jump Street."
"Uh,
guys," Angel said, "as important as pop culture is--"
Gunn turned toward
him. Cordy couldn't see his expression, but she
was pretty sure it
wasn't friendly.
"Y-you should
t-totally keep talking about it," Angel stuttered. He
made a go-ahead
motion with his hand. "All night, you know, if you want.
I mean, the guy's already dead, right?"
The Host cleared his
throat. "Doesn't anyone care what he wrote?"
"I do,"
Wes said. He elbowed Cordy and sent her a "behave"
glare. "What
was it?"
"It was the
letters P-E-Z," the Host said.
"Pez? This
dude's dying word was Pez?" Gunn asked
"Well, we all
know candy's evil, Gunn," Cordy said. "Goes straight to
your hips."
Gunn waggled his
eyebrows and leered at her. "Your hips look jus'
fine to me,
girl."
She grinned at him.
"Why Pez?"
Wes said, starting to sound a little impatient.
Cordy took that as
her cue to quit goofing off.
The Host shrugged.
"Heck if I know. That's where you guys come in."
He glanced at Angel.
"You get anything off the blood?"
Angel shook his
head. "Totally normal. No sign of drugs or alcohol.
He was pretty
scared, though." He shrugged. "Sorry I can't give you more
to go on."
"Hey, it's more
than the murder cop gave me."
"So what do you
want us to do?" Wes asked. "I mean, why call us in at
all, if it seems
like a clear mob hit on a human?"
"Because the
last words he spoke were 'Caritas' and 'Sanctuary'," the
Host said. "I
know Benny's a Fyarl demon, and maybe he was just trying to get away from him. But that boy came here hunting
sanctuary, and one
way or another, I want to see that he gets it."
Wes nodded.
"Why don't we start with a routine search? We'll look
into Kevin's life;
see what it tells us about his death." He glanced down the bar, eyes skimming Cordy and Gunn and landing on
Angel. "Let's
hold off on pumping Benny for info. We've seen his work before.
The less we involve him, the better."
Angel nodded.
"What about Merl? Didn't you say earlier that Merl and
Andy were here when
it happened?"
The Host nodded.
"Yeah, they saw most of it. You know Andy. He
wouldn't spit on a
human if he saw one on fire. But Merl knew Kevin, so he came down and got me. Told me what happened." He
shuddered. "It wasn't
pretty, I'll tell you that."
"Why don't I go
after Merl, then?" said Angel.
The Host nodded.
"Offer to pay him, will ya? He owes me for last
night's beer."
"Don't I always
pay Merl?" he asked, looking as innocent as a vamp in
the shadows ever
could.
The Host snorted.
"Any idea where
he worked?" Cordy asked.
"Genesys. The
genetic research company out in the San Gabriel Valley."
"Near City of
Hope?" Cordy asked. "The hospital?" After the last
couple of months she
knew a lot more about LA's hospitals than she'd ever imagined she could.
"Uh huh,"
he replied.
"Why don't I
check it out tomorrow, see what I can come up with?"
The
next morning, Cordy adjusted the dove-gray jacket to the last
power suit in her
wardrobe and slipped into her tall, chunky heels. The soft, black leather was a remnant of her old life,
luxurious and sensual.
A far cry from her fifty-percent-off's from Nordstrom, or--
God forbid--her
flip-flops from Penny Saver.
She looped her
grandmother's pearls around her neck and for the final
touch dug her black,
smart-girl glasses out of her jewelry drawer. A glance in the mirror showed her five feet, ten inches of
well-
tailored,
intelligent beauty.
Now, if only she
could convince the people at Genesys of that.
She rested her hand
on her stomach to still the butterflies, then
blew out a cleansing
breath, shouldered her smallest black purse and picked
up her black leather briefcase. Dennis closed and locked the door
behind her and she took the stairs down to her car.
"Hey, Cordelia,"
her neighbor, Matt, said as he unloaded a bag of
groceries from the
back seat of his beat-up Toyota. "You look great. Audition?"
She shot him a
smile. "Thanks. Yeah, uh, I've got an audition." She
unlocked her car and
slid behind the wheel. "Wish me luck!"
"You got
it," he called, balancing the groceries and shooting her a
thumbs-up.
Cordy slipped into
the flow of traffic and made her way to Sunset.
While she waited for
the light to change, she thought about her acting career. It had been ages since she'd had an audition,
and time was
seriously doing that sands-through-the-hourglass thing. If she
was gonna have a
shot at being the superstar she knew she was destined to be, she needed to do something now.
Sunset flashed past
and she hung a left onto North Alvarado. She flipped
her radio on and caught some new song KROC had just started playing called "Drops of Jupiter."
It wasn't like her
job at Angel Investigations was furthering her
life in any
meaningful way, she thought, as she tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. She nosed onto the Pasadena
Freeway. "Two- hundred-fifty
years and he never developed a stock portfolio," she
grumbled.
Mid-morning traffic
flowed sluggishly and she glanced at her watch.
She'd given herself
an hour of travel time, but if she was lucky, she could
do it in forty-five. "Not that he has trouble with money," she said
to herself. "Haven't quite figured that out, considering he never takes a paycheck. Wonder where--"
Just as she swung
onto the 210 traffic clogged. "Crap," she said,
scanning the road
for signs of life. Nothing but a long, stinking line of cars adding to the already deadly haze.
She sighed and
reached into her purse for her lipstick. Train faded
to Rod Stewart and
she ignored him while she touched up the sedate plum gloss and smoothed her hair. At least her looks wouldn't
fade, she
thought, as she glanced in the mirror.
Live fast, die
young, leave a good-looking corpse. Pretty standard
philosophy for a
graduate of Sunnydale High. But she was one of the few
who graduated alive. And she refused to wait for that big hourglass in the sky to bury her without giving it one more
shot.
She dropped her
lipstick back into her purse and pulled out her cell
phone. Her agent's
number was still on speed-dial. She hit it and waited while the thing dialed. "Hey, Joe, it's Cordelia
Chase," she said
into the voice mail system.
"Long time no
talk. Listen, I'd like you to activate my file again.
I've got those
seizures under control--" Which was a big, damn lie, but
it was worth it if it got her a lead. "And I'd love to start auditioning again. TV, commercials, plays, whatever you've
got. My
time off has been
incredibly beneficial. I'd love to show you my new
head shots."
She rolled her eyes
at the extra two-fifty she just committed herself
to spending.
"Anyway, call me. I'm at three-two-three, five-five- five, oh-one-seven-five." She powered down the phone and
dropped it back
in her purse.
Then she steadied
her trembling hands on the wheel and took a deep
breath. Nothing like
a little proactivity to get the heart pumping.
Traffic burped, and
she rolled forward with the line of cars. She
aimed for the
rumpled-sheet outline of the San Gabriel Mountains and let the 210 suck her straight into the 'burbs.
Genesys was handily
located a couple of blocks from City of Hope. She
hopped off at
Central then wound her way through Duarte, a suburban wasteland of small, older houses, cheap hotels and car lots.
If you
believed the
billboards, which advertised Bingo parlors and
Metamucil, no one
under 60 lived here. One of the circles of hell, as far as she was concerned, though it probably wouldn't be so
bad if
you just drove in to
staff the hospital and its associated businesses.
Genesys was one of
those associated businesses. City of Hope's main
focus was cancer
research, and Genesys helped them meet their goal for a cure by providing them with biotech services. Of
course,
Genesys served a
much broader audience than City of Hope; it couldn't
have survived
otherwise.
And it was obviously
doing well, Cordy thought, as she pulled into
the driveway. The
U-shaped building shot up from the desert floor and gleamed in the harsh morning sun. The long, green lawn
surrounding it said
more about Genesys' financial affairs than the building. No one
watered that much
grass in Southern California unless they had money to burn.
She passed the
Genesys sign and curved around to the gatehouse. Her bumper
nosed the striped barrier and Cordy rolled down her window. "I have a...." She glanced at the clock on her dashboard
and fudged to the
nearest half-hour. "Nine-thirty meeting with Kevin Wating."
The guard picked up
a clipboard and ran his finger down a list. "He's
in the B Wing."
He pointed to the left side of the building. "You'll wanna
park in Lot C," he said, setting the board down and holding out a
parking pass.
"Thanks,"
she said, rolling up the window and dropping the pass on
the dash. As she
pulled into a parking space she took a deep breath. She'd gotten past the guard pretty easily; obviously word
hadn't made it
to the staff that Kevin was dead.
Now if her luck
would follow her into the building.
***
Kevin Wating lived
in a small, pink stucco house off of Grandview
Avenue in Sierra
Madre. His neighborhood looked like all the neighborhoods in this part of town: gentrified blue collar
with big lawns
and sidewalks that marched in straight lines from front doors
to wide streets.
No one used the
sidewalks except to get the mail; most houses had
more than one car in
the driveway, even at a time of day when most of the neighborhood was at work. Ah, Los Angeles, Gunn thought.
Why walk when
you can drive?
He and Wes circled
the block to scope out the place.
"Looks like the
police have already been here," Wes said.
Gunn saw the black
and yellow flutter of crime scene tape across the
front door.
"Quick work. You think they'll be back?"
Wes shrugged.
"Let's park a block off and walk over, just to be safe."
Gunn grunted and
pulled the truck around to Laurel. It shuddered when
he killed the
ignition and he patted the dashboard. "Poor girl needs service," he said.
Wes opened the
passenger door with a squeak of the hinge and closed
it with a bang.
"Sounds like more than just the engine could use some tending,"
he said. "You know the company will pay for that, right?"
Gunn wiped the back
of his hand across his nose. "Sh-yeah," he
said. "Kinda
hard for a dead guy to win the lottery last I heard. And that's
the *only* way that dude's ever gonna be payin' me anything more than a nothin'." He locked up his baby and started
around the corner
toward Kevin's.
Wes fell in beside
him. At nine thirty on a Tuesday morning, there
weren't many people
around. A green mini-van with a load of little kids passed. The woman behind the wheel was too busy
refereeing to notice
them, but Gunn ducked his head, anyway.
Habit, more than
anything. Trying to blend in; not be seen.
As they walked down
the wide, paved street, he took in the tidy lawns
and good-sized
trees. Wisteria's soft purple trumpets crept up trellises, porches and roofs. The sweet, hyacinth-like smell
hit him. He
sneezed.
"Bless
you," Wes said.
Gunn wiped his nose
again. "Damn flowers. This is why I don't live in
the `burbs."
They came up on
Kevin's house. The grass was a little long, the
mailbox door
partially open so he could see the white flash of uncollected mail. Nothing beyond the crime scene tape to hint
that Kevin
didn't live there anymore.
"It's
weird," he said quietly as they walked up the sidewalk.
"What's
weird?" Wes asked, stepping onto the small porch. He rang the
doorbell. The sound
shimmered through the house.
"How the guy's
dead, but the house still looks lived in."
"Mmm," Wes
said, punching the doorbell again. "Well, he only just
died last
night." He looked at Gunn and raised his eyebrows. "Doesn't seem
to be anyone home."
Gunn glanced across
the street. No one home there, either. The jacaranda
bushes on either side of the porch blocked the view of the neighbors next door. "Huh. Seems like the cops coulda
missed
something," he
said, elbowing Wes aside. "Maybe we should check it
out, just to be
sure."
He pulled out a pair
of surgeon's gloves and snapped them on. Then he
opened his jean
jacket and grabbed a couple of tension wrenches from the inside pocket. "Cover me."
Wes stepped in
behind him and Gunn hunched over the lock and started
picking it. After a
couple of wiggles of the wrench the door swung open. "Yeah, I still got it," he said over his
shoulder.
They slipped under
the tape and into the quiet house. "No need to get
cocky," Wes
said, shutting the door behind them.
"It's only
cocky if you ain't got the skills," Gunn said, pocketing
the lock picking
tools. They stood in the foyer, which opened up onto one, large room. The dining room table sat on one side under
the
front window. The
living room took up the other half of the space.
Fingerprint dust
smudged the surfaces, but otherwise the room looked normal.
"Pretty fly for
a white guy," he said, nodding his head at the
leather couch and
chairs and huge entertainment center on the back wall.
They moved through
the rooms quietly, getting the lay of the land.
"Not the Taj Mahal, but not the slums either." Gunn poked his finger
in the Mexican pottery centerpiece on the dining room table and found a couple of stray keys, a punch card for a free
coffee at Beanie's,
and thirty-eight cents. "Shame to risk losing it
all. `Specially when
you're likely to end up with a cellmate named Big Al."
"Everyone wants
to live better," Wes commented as he flipped through
a stack of magazines
on the nearest end table. "Besides, a guy who deals with Benny knows there are risks," he said.
"Maybe he thought they
were worth it." He moved down the long, narrow hall that
bisected the house.
Gunn lost track of
him and decided to scope out the kitchen. The
refrigerator held
several take-out cartons, a six-pack of Michelob and a bottle of mustard. "Not much with the
cooking," Gunn muttered.
"Gunn,"
Wes called.
Gunn followed his
voice down the hall to one of the bedrooms that had
been converted into
a home office. A black leather and chrome chair sat behind a black, pressboard desk. The computer was steel
gray with a
large hard drive on the floor and a set of speakers resting on
either side of the
drive-in sized monitor.
Wes ran his hand
over the back of the chair. "Dusty," he said. "He
must not have spent
much time at home." He opened the desk drawer and rummaged
around. His hand stopped moving. He let out a soft laugh.
"What?"
Gunn stepped farther into the room.
Wes held up a Pez
dispenser.
***
"Hi, I have an
appointment with Kevin Wating," Cordy said to the
receptionist. She
adjusted her glasses for maximum fashion-and- disguise impact. "I'm Cordelia Chase. He's expecting me
at nine- thirty."
A look of surprise
flashed on the receptionist's face, but was quickly
covered. "I'm sorry," she said in a well-modulated voice.
"Mr. Wating is...no longer with the company." The woman's French-blue
shirt matched the color of her eyes. The shirt was silk shantung; the eyes were sharp as a hawk's.
Cordy feigned
impatience. "Well, that's unexpected." She glanced at
her watch.
"I've traveled from Portland to meet him," she said. "Maybe there's someone else who can help me, Ms.
...." She raised
her eyebrows.
"It's
Mrs.," the woman said. "Mrs. Davis. And if you'll tell me what
your purpose is,
I'll be glad to see if I can find someone else you can speak with."
Cordy's mind went as
blank as Mrs. Davis's Zenlike white screen
saver.
"Ms.
Chase?" Her eyebrow raised and she waited, hand poised over the
phone receiver.
"Sorry,"
Cordy said, giving a toss of her head. "Having one of those
I-think-I-left-the-oven-on
moments." She took a deep breath--and a leap
of faith. "Pez," she said, hoping like heck she wasn't gonna get tossed
out on her butt by the burly guard at the front door. "I had some information for him on the Pez project."
Mrs. Price stared at
her for a long, itchy minute. Then she nodded
and dropped her eyes
to the phone on the desk in front of her. "Ah, yes," she said, picking up the receiver and dialing a
series of numbers.
"If you'll just take a seat, I'll have his partner, Dan,
come down and meet
you."
Cordy eased herself
into one of the navy-and-chrome side chairs and
drew her briefcase
into her lap. She watched as Genesys staffers, well-dressed and predominantly white or Asian, hustled
through the lobby.
Elevators binged
softly; lights and walls were muted white. Tall
palms climbed to the
top of the open, courtyard-like reception area. Brushed silver containers of camellias and trailing ivy were
strategically placed
to provide a sense of privacy in the midst of the openness. The overall feel was restrained, high-tech
wealth.
For some reason it
gave Cordelia the wiggins.
"Ms.
Chase?"
She turned to find a
young man a few years older than she was standing
just to her left. "Hi," she said, getting to her feet and
extending her hand.
"I'm Cordelia Chase." They shook hands, and she
shouldered her purse
and picked up her briefcase. "I was here to meet Mr.
Wating, but I hear he's no longer with the company."
Dan blanched.
"You could say that." His face was puffy, his eyes red.
He'd obviously taken
the news of Kevin's death hard. But he didn't mention it; instead he simply extended his hand toward the
elevator. "If
you'll come with me, we can go to my office and you can tell
me what you're here for."
Cordy followed him
to the elevator, which opened soundlessly and rode
them up the
building's spine. There were three other people in the cab with them, and no one spoke, so Cordy didn't try to make
chit-
chat.
The bell dinged, and
the doors slid open. "This is my floor," Dan
said, ushering her
out.
They made their way
down a plush, gray-carpeted hallway. Doors all
the way down were
closed, and they were the only two people in sight. She couldn't even hear phones ringing. It was eerily quiet. A
shiver traveled
up her back.
"Here we
are," Dan said, unlocking the door to office B-10 with a
pass card. She
walked inside and found herself in a generic-looking office with a sleek, black desk and chair, bookcases filled
with
books and notebooks,
and diplomas on the wall. One of the ubiquitous
palms thrived in the
light from the window that overlooked the profile
of the San Gabriel Mountains.
"Nice
office," she said.
"Thanks."
He pushed his glasses up his nose. "Have a seat." He
motioned toward one
of the two guest chairs in front of the desk.
Cordy put her bags
down, settled in, and crossed her legs, making
sure to flash some
thigh. A little thigh never hurt in a situation like this.
Unfortunately, Dan
didn't even seem to notice. Instead he settled in
his chair and folded
his hands on the desk. "How do you know about PEZ?"
Her laugh was a
nervous trill. "Everyone knows about Pez, Dan," she
said, trying
desperately to buy some time. "Who doesn't love their sweet, yummy goodness?"
Dan leaned forward
in his chair, his face going grim. "Look, I don't
know who you are
but--"
Cordy dropped the
act. "I'm working for Kevin," she said in a low
tone. "Is this
a safe place to talk?"
"Damn.
Cordy wasn't kiddin' about that stuff bein' evil, was she?"
Gunn asked.
Wes drew the Porky
Pig head back with his thumb and peered down into
the dispenser.
"Nothing too evil that I can see," he said, showing Gunn
the empty plastic.
"Huh. What do
you think it means?"
"I have no
idea," Wes said, dropping the dispenser back to the desk.
He leaned down and
flipped on the hard drive. The computer powered up.
Gunn left him at it
and followed the hall past the bathroom and to
the larger of the
two bedrooms. It looked out over the back yard and the open curtains let the bright morning sun turn the room a
cheery
yellow.
He sat down on
Kevin's queen-sized bed and tried to figure out who
Kevin was. A guy who
held a good job, sang karaoke with his friends, and hung framed prints of the Sawtooth Wilderness on his
bedroom wall.
Gunn stood and toed
the hiking boots in the corner. On the bedside
table sat a hiker's
guide to the San Gabriel Mountains. He poked it and let the quiet of the house overtake him.
He tried to imagine
living in a world like this. Where you could afford
to buy your own house, with neighbors who took yoga, and ate out with their kids once a week at the California Pizza
Kitchen.
"It just
doesn't fit," he said under his breath.
"No, it
doesn't," Wes said.
"Gyah!"
Gunn jumped. "Don't *do* that!"
"Sorry,"
Wes said. "It doesn't add up. Literally."
"What do you
mean?" Gunn asked. He followed Wes back down the hall to
the office.
Wes settled in
behind the computer and started typing. Then he turned
the monitor toward
Gunn. "Look. His finances."
Gunn's eyebrows drew
together. "Don't you have to have a password for
that?"
Wes shook his head.
"He didn't use any privacy controls. Look here."
He pointed to the
Quicken summary of Kevin's bank account.
"He sure wasn't
depending on a dead guy to win the lottery," Gunn
said. He whistled
under his breath. "Remind me, in my next life, to come back as a biotech employee."
"He was doing
well," Wes agreed. "But not as well as you'd think if
he were accepting
payments from an outside source." His body went totally still. He glanced toward the hall. "Did you hear
that?"
"Hear
what?" Gunn asked. Then he heard it. The scrape of a key in a
lock.
***
Cordy's breath
caught. "Do you think he was trying to sell it to a
demon?"
Dan nodded. "We
started going down to sing on a lark. But then one
night a couple of
weeks ago, Kevin didn't meet me until nearly closing time. Said he'd been stuck in a meeting. Now, we work
a lot of
overtime, but nothing that goes until one in the morning."
"What makes you
think he'd been meeting with a demon?"
Dan made a face.
"This is gonna sound crazy, but he...smelled."
Cordy nodded.
"Like what?"
Dan looked out over
the jetting water. "Pond scum," he said.
"Fyarl
demon," Cordy said.
Dan's eyes widened.
"You know them by smell?"
"Sometimes.
There's one I've had a few personal run-ins with." She
thought about Benny
and his pond-scum-scented pals. "The ones I know
are more what you'd
call middle management, but I could see why they might want to buy PEZ. They're highly organized, violent.
Have a good head
for numbers. Multiply them by, oh, say, a few thousand, and they
could rule the
city."
"Do you know
who killed him?" Dan asked.
"Pretty
sure," Cordy said. "Demon mafia. They leave their mark."
Dan closed his eyes
and took a couple of shuddering breaths. "Yeah,"
he said quietly.
Then his eyes popped open and he glanced at his watch. "Crap. I gotta get back to the office before I'm
missed. You think
you can find your way back to your car?"
Cordy looked at the
winding path that led off to her left. "I just
take that one back
around to the front of the building?"
Dan nodded. "Uh
huh." He turned and started for the building.
"Oh,
wait," Cordy said. "Let me give you my card." She fumbled in her
purse and came up
with a white Angel Investigations card. "Here you go."
Dan squinted at it.
"Is that a lobster?"
She huffed.
"It's an angel. Call me if you think of anything else,
okay?"
Dan nodded. "Be
careful." He glanced over his shoulder toward the
building. "And
Cordelia--" He touched her arm. "Thanks."
"You're
welcome." She watched as he made his way down the path toward
the building then
began walking down the lane toward the parking lot. The sun had risen high enough to make her suit warm, so she
shrugged out
of her jacket. The flower Dan gave her fell to the ground and
when she bent down
to pick it up, she noticed the landscaper from before had moved to a bed very near where she and Dan had
been
talking.
She shot him a
friendly wave, picked up the flower and started
walking toward the
parking lot. Something flashed out the corner of her eye and she turned her head just in time to see the
landscaper coming
at her at a dead run. For three long seconds, everything
around her stopped
and hung suspended. Then it sped up again and she realized,
oh, crap, she was about to go down under two hundred pounds of man-with-a-shovel.
She pivoted on her
heel and tried to swing the briefcase toward him.
Instead, it swung
right into his chest, in the same direction the guy was coming from. Bad luck met good physics and the momentum
spun him right
past her. He went flying, ass over shovel, into a flower bed.
Cordy took off,
cursing the heels and her full hands. She pounded
down the lane toward
the parking lot, heart in her throat. Don't look back, don't look back, she thought, knowing it would only
slow her down.
The hot prickle on the back of her neck intensified, and she
nearly screamed. But
she knew it wouldn't do any good.
She rounded a corner
and leapt off the pavement. Cutting across the
lawn would
significantly shorten her trip. She didn't count on her heels sinking in the wet grass.
"No, no,
no," she said, going down hard. Her glasses and briefcase
tumbled off in
opposite directions. She managed to collect them in one hand and push to her feet, but then her heels sank again.
"Shit!"
She dropped the briefcase and glasses, kicked off her shoes,
scooped them up, and
ran like hell.
"Stop!"
someone yelled behind her.
She was out of
breath and panicked, but she ran faster. Finally she
burst out of the
gardens and into the lot. Pavement flashed beneath her, eating her pantyhose and pounding into the cut on her
heel. She ignored
all that. Instead she wove in and out of parked cars, jumping
parking barriers,
and trying desperately to remember where her car was.
The pounding sound
of boots on concrete spurred her on. A flash of
red caught her eye
in Lot C--oh, thank God. She stumbled to a stop at her car door, fumbling in her purse for the keys. Just as she
got
them out, someone
yelled again. The keys hit the pavement with a
metallic clatter.
"Dammit!"
Luckily they landed at her feet instead of going under the
car. She jerked them
up and shoved the key in the lock. When she looked up, the guard from the front door was running down the
sidewalk, pulling
his walkie-talkie from the holster on his belt. The
landscaper hurdled a
parking barrier and was only two lanes away.
She yanked open the
door, threw her stuff in and fired up the engine.
Then she burned
rubber, weaving in and out of parking spaces, until she got to the guard shack. The old man at the station
stepped out the
door and waved his hands at her.
"Stop! Stop
where you are!"
Instead of slowing
down, she revved the engine, blasting through the
wooden barrier and
hurtling down the driveway. She didn't catch her breath until she was back on the 210. Then she fumbled for
her cell phone
and hit number one on the speed dial.
***
Gunn tensed.
"Crap." He scanned the room. "Closet," he mouthed,
pointing toward a
door on the other side of the office.
They scrambled into
a small, black space filled with sports equipment
and out-of-season
clothes. Gunn pulled the door shut. Wes's chin poked his shoulder and his foot twisted awkwardly against
something that
felt like a free weight.
The muffled sound of
footsteps told him that someone was entering the
office. File drawers
opened and slammed then the chair hinges creaked and the plastic crackle of fingers on a keyboard filled the
small
room. Gunn tensed.
"Computer,"
Wes mouthed in his ear.
Gunn nodded but then
realized Wes couldn't see him in the darkness.
"I know."
The typing stopped
and Gunn went totally still. Then the mouse-squeak
of the disk drive
started, like whoever was out there was saving something to a disk. There was more paper shuffling then the
disk
drive stopped. The
room went silent.
Gunn and Wes stood,
frozen, listening. A minute, two passed. Nothing.
Gunn's nose started
itching. Oh, no. Not now. The sneeze climbed and
his eyes watered. He
reached up and rubbed his nose, trying to stop the itch. His body tensed. Sweat crawled down Gunn's back and
under his
arms.
"Gunn?"
Wes's voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear it.
The tickle went
away. "Thought I had to sneeze," he said in Wes's
ear. Then it hit him
again, full-force. "AHHH-chooo!"
They stood, frozen,
and waited for the door to open.
Nothing happened. He
could hear his heart thundering in the quiet and
behind him Wes was a
column of tension. The room stayed quiet and Gunn eased the door open. A crack of light and a cool rush of
air
filled the closet.
He blinked to clear his vision, then peered out
and found the room
empty.
His body went limp
with relief. "Damn flowers."
"Mercy, that
was close," Wes said.
Gunn shoved the door
open and ran to the window. A blond-haired guy
with glasses got
into a white BMW and pulled out of the driveway. He never even looked back.
Gunn sank into the
office chair. "Remind me to bring my Benadryl next
time we break and
enter."
Wes came out of the
closet looking pale and sweaty. "I'll make a note
of it." His
phone rang.
Gunn jumped again.
"Gyah!" he said, pressing his hand to his racing
heart.
Wes collapsed
against the edge of the desk and thumbed the phone
on. "This is
Wesley." He arched an eyebrow at Gunn. "I'm sorry, Cordelia,
did you say a landscaper chased you out of Genesys?"
"What's she
saying?" Gunn mouthed.
Wes made a
just-a-minute-motion with his finger. "Why don't we meet
at the office. You
can tell us what--" Wes frowned. "Twelve-forty-
five? Cordelia,
that's two hours from now. Are you sure you're all right?"
He glanced at Gunn
and his brow wrinkled. "All right. We'll meet you
at the office in two
hours." He closed the phone. "Cordy was chased off
the premises at Genesys."
Gunn's heart
stuttered. "Is she all right?"
"She says she
is, but she sounds pretty shaken up." He glanced out
the window.
"Blast. I can't believe all of us were nearly caught." He
hit the keyboard in
frustration then stared open-mouthed at the screen. "Unbelievable."
Gunn glanced down
and instead of Quicken all he saw was the blue
screen of death.
"He wiped it."
"Evidently."
Wes opened a file cabinet. There were several empty
folders hanging on
the rack in the drawer. "Cleared these, too."
Gunn shook his head.
"I wonder what he took."
"No idea."
Wes turned off the computer and stood. "We should go."
Gunn glanced around,
studying the half-open drawers, the shuffled
papers and the
now-empty computer. "Good idea. This place is giving me the creeps."
Wes picked up the
Pez. "Don't forget this." He flipped Gunn the
dispenser.
He pocketed it.
"Thanks." His fingers brushed the plastic and he
realized that he
might be holding a child's toy, but they were doing anything but playing a game. "I think we need to go
check on Cordelia.
This could be serious."
***
"Dude,"
Matt said. "That must have been some audition."
Cordy limped up the
stairs, hose torn to shreds, knees grass-stained,
dragging her purse
behind her. "Yeah," she said, her sense of humor
at an all-time low.
"It was a real killer."
Matt's eyes widened.
"Can I do anything to help?"
Cordy shook her
head, and it took everything she had left to put on a
polite smile.
"No, thanks. I'm fine."
"That's
good." He rocked back and forth on his tennis shoes. "Well,
then, guess I'll be
going," he said, and he jogged out the breezeway.
She leaned her head
on her apartment door. "Dennis," she
whispered. "A
little help here?" The door swung open and she stumbled
across the
threshold.
"Oh, my
God," Wes said, dropping his book to the couch beside
him. "Are you
all right?" He rushed to her side and hovered like a mother
hen.
Gunn stuck his head
out of the kitchen. "Damn, girl, you look like
you got dragged
through a hedge. Backwards."
All she wanted to do
was take a bath and have a good cry. Not necessarily
in that order. Instead she got a roomful of testosterone.
"I thought we said two hours. At the office." Her
temper, which had
dropped back to simmer, started bubbling in earnest.
"Yeah, well, we
were worried." Gunn eyeballed her suit. "You seemed
upset."
Cordy set her shoes
and purse on the entry hall table with sharp,
controlled motions.
"A crazy guy with a shovel tried to kill me," she
said around gritted
teeth. "Even now, he's probably cackling and rubbing
his hands with glee over my briefcase and glasses, which I *lost* while I was running for my life."
She paced toward
Gunn, feeling like one of those foamers on an
espresso machine:
set on high steam. "My father gave me that briefcase! And my shoes!" She pointed at the mud-stained leather.
"They're Prada! Granted, they're two years old, but they're
my last pair. Do you
understand what that *means*?"
"More
flip-flops from the Penny Saver?" Gunn asked.
"No, you idiot!
It means someone at Genesys wants to kill me!"
Gunn squinted at
her. "Uh, how'd we get from shoes to murder?" He
looked to Wes.
Wes shot him a look.
"Actually, she may not be far from the truth."
He put his hand on
her shoulder. "Why don't you go and change clothes. I'll make you some tea. Then we can talk about
it."
She stared at him,
open-mouthed. "Big Brother tried to hunt me down
like a dog, and you
want to make me some tea," she said flatly.
Wes's mouth opened.
"Fine!"
She said, throwing up her hand to stop him. "I'll just go get
cleaned up. You stay
here and be all-- all *English*." She dumped her shoes
and purse on the couch and padded back to the bedroom.
And there was Angel,
sitting on her bed. "Gyah!" she yelled, jumping
back into the hall.
She pressed her hand to her speeding heart.
He leapt to his
feet. "Sorry, sorry! Hey, are you all right?"
She looked at her
skinned-up feet and knees, her ruined power suit,
and her
sweat-stained shirt. "Do I look all right?"
Angel put her copy
of the latest Nora Roberts book back down on the
bedside table very
carefully. "No, you look-- What I mean is, you seem
to be--" He gestured awkwardly. "Can I do anything to help?"
She marched into the
room, grabbed him by the lapels, and shoved him
into the hall.
"Why is everyone always asking me that?"
He backed up and hit
the wall. His hands flew up in front of him.
"All right, all right," he said. "I'll just--be in the living
room. With Wes and
Gunn. You won't even--"
"Oh,"
Cordy said, feeling a familiar pinch behind her eyes. Her hand
flew to her head.
"Not now!" The vision popped open like a movie on a
black screen. She
pitched forward and felt her head snap painfully on her neck. Her teeth clacked together even as the vamp in her
vision
buried his teeth
into the neck of his victim.
She tasted blood.
"Nnnnooo," she groaned. Then her consciousness
shifted, and the
dark alley became her hallway.
"Cordy?"
Her breath started
again, and with it came lightheadedness and a
sharp pain in her
mouth. She opened her eyes and found herself face- to-face with Angel. She pressed her face into his neck and
took a
breath, waiting for
the post-vision agony to bloom.
"You're
bleeding," Angel said.
His voice sounded
far away. The gong of pain reverberated through her
head.
"What?" She pulled back.
"You're
bleeding," he repeated. His eyes were dark, panicky.
Her fingers brushed
her lips and came away bloody. "Bit my tongue,"
she said, finally
realizing what the sharp, pounding edge meant.
"Is she
okay?"
Her head turned and
she focused on Wes and Gunn, standing shoulder-to-
shoulder, less than
two feet away. Behind Wes's glasses his crystal- blue gaze showed the memories of a long winter of visions
without a warrior
to fight them.
"I'm
fine," she said.
Gunn went into the
bathroom and she heard water running. He came out
with a washcloth and
pressed it to her face. It was hot and damp and she leaned into it, feeling the throbbing ache behind her
eyes recede slightly.
She took the washcloth from Gunn and held it to her lips.
"Okay,"
she said, taking a step back. Every time her heart beat the
gong rang again, the
pain so great she could almost taste it. "Your usual vamp in need of dusting. Lady's walking out of a
stop-and-rob at
the corner of--" She closed her eyes and waited for the image to
snap into focus.
"Olympic and Burlington." Her eyes opened. "No rush;
not gonna happen
till after sundown."
She drew the
washcloth away and the bright splotches of blood shocked
her. Her gaze flew
to Angel's, but instead of the hunger she expected to see, she saw a deep, sad ache. It looked a lot like guilt.
"I think she
needs to rest," Angel said quietly.
"Yeah,"
Gunn said. He took the washcloth from Cordy's hand and led
her into the
bathroom, where he sat her on the edge of the tub and turned the water on. "Bath first, then a nap," he
said quietly. He dropped
the plug in the tub and adjusted the water temperature.
It was an intimate
moment, but the three of them had weathered more
than a season
together; they'd taken on the visions and fought the good fight, side-by-side.
"Thank
you," she said, glancing toward the door. Angel hovered
outside, and even in
the shadows of the hall she could make out the dark shine of his eyes. He was on the outside because he'd
put
himself there, and
now he wanted back in. She wasn't sure she had the
energy to make room
in her life for him again.
"Wes and I will
take Angel back to the office. We'll do some
research,
okay?"
She nodded, grateful
that he understood her need to be alone.
"I'm not sure
we should leave her," Angel said, stepping toward the
bathroom door.
Wes held him back
with a hand on his shoulder. "Best thing you can do
for her right
now," he said. He turned him toward the living room. "C'mon. We'll go check out the police reports.
Then you can take
care of the vision."
Angel dug in his
heels and stared at her. "Cordelia?"
She waved her hand.
"Go. Call me when you're done."
Gunn and Wes moved
Angel down the hall and she heard the front door
close. Her head
dropped to her hands and the sound of running water and her own pain rang in her ears.
***
"Cordelia, it's
Wesley." He sat at the desk in Angel Investigation's
small office, pen in
hand, doodling on a note pad.
"Hey, what's
up?"
"I'm sorry to
disturb you, but I needed to know...what happened at
Genesys?" He
listened while Cordy told him the story. "So, what you're
saying is that Dan told you everything about a top-secret project?"
"Uh huh."
He twisted the pen
between his fingers. "And you didn't find that
suspicious?"
"I thought he
was trying to help save Kevin. I-- I didn't really
think too much about
it, to be honest. The landscape guy came after me right after Kevin left. But now that you mention it, after
I told him
about the mob hit, he ran off like a scared rabbit--and that's
when I got a load of
Mr. Shovel."
"Okay,
thanks." He paused while he let the pieces shuffle around in
his brain. "You
didn't happen to find any Pez dispensers in his office, did you?"
"No. Why?"
"We found one
at Kevin's." He glanced over where Gunn worked, head
down, over the
dismantled piece of plastic. "It had a listening device in the head."
Cordy sucked in a
breath. "I told you candy was evil."
Wes chuckled. "Gunn
said exactly the same thing."
"Why would
Kevin's house be bugged?"
"I have no
idea," Wes said. "But it seems like some sort of inside
joke."
"Call me crazy,
but I don't find murder very funny."
"Mmm," Wes
said. "Well, I'll let you go, then. Are you getting any
rest?" Gunn
glanced up from the broken bug, eyebrow arched.
VAST
blasted out the speakers at top volume and Cordy scrubbed the inside of the toilet with vicious jabs.
The vision lingered
around the edges of her consciousness like a pissed-off gang-banger, ready to blow her away
for one, false move. She'd tried to sleep but ended up feeling restless and
itchy. It left her just edgy enough *not* to roll over and play dead:
thus the maniacal cleaning.
As she swished the
toilet brush, the light glanced off the porcelain of the toilet and the bright surface faded into
the shiny, white teeth of a grinning vamp. The lurking vision opened its
jaws and swallowed her whole.
In her head the tall,
undead Hispanic man danced around her, and she stood, screaming and alone, as he grabbed her by
the hair and yanked her close enough to ram those gleaming fangs deep in
her shoulder.
Then she flipped out
of the vision and came back to herself. She paused to catch her breath and tried to relax,
like her doctor had taught her. One breath, two, three, and her pounding
heart started to slow. She rested her arm across the toilet seat and let
her head drop against it.
Good thing there was
no one here to see these little synaptic breaks. Except Dennis. Over her shoulder she could feel
him hovering so she swatted her toilet brush at him then went back to
scrubbing.
Then the first beats
of Pretty When You Cry started up and her heart raced again. "You're made of my rib, or
baby, you're made of my sin." Every time she heard it now she thought of Angel
and she didn't sing it so much as rage it.
"I didn't want to
hurt you baby. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you but you're pretty when you
cry--" She dropped the brush back in its holder and spun on her knees to
reach for her rag on the floor behind her.
Out of the corner of
her eye, a shadow moved. A tingle shot up her spine and she screamed instinctively and
scrambled back, rubber- gloved hands in the air.
"Whoa, Cordy,
it's me." Angel stepped across the threshold and squatted next to her, his black coat draping
around him on the water- spattered floor.
She slapped his
reaching hands away. "Don't touch me."
He scooted back but
didn't mask the look of pure hurt on his face.
Cordy scrambled to her
feet and over the harsh smell of Comet she could pick up the cinnamon-sweet scent of
fight-warm vamp. "What do you want, Angel?"
He rose, towering over
her. "I--" He stared at her for several, long beats, then dropped his gaze to his big, black
boots. "I just wanted to tell you that the vamps were taken of. So you
wouldn't, you know, worry."
Sure enough, the
vision-trails dissipated like fog in the sun. And the headache drained out from behind her eyes so
fast she stumbled.
Angel caught her,
then, at her look, carefully let go of her arm. "I was just worried," he said quietly.
"I'll go now." He spun and started for the door.
Cordy stepped out of
the bathroom and watched him walk down the hall. "Dennis," she whispered.
"Music." The silence was so sudden it rang in her ears.
Angel put his hand
flat on the door. "You never locked me out," he said.
Even from fifteen feet
away she could hear the wisps of hope and wonder in his voice. "More fool, me."
His shoulders
stiffened and he turned the knob.
Her conscience gave
her a good, hard poke. "Angel, wait."
He stilled, half-in
and half-out of the entryway.
She shucked off the
rubber gloves and threw them on the bathroom floor. Then she went to the door and put her hand
on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said.
He looked at her, and
for one moment, she saw the winter reflected on his face. The isolation, the loneliness. The
brutal, overpowering rage that left him helpless to do anything but shut
them out and fight his fight alone. Her soul *felt* it.
"God, I'm *so*
sorry," she repeated.
There was a long beat
as they stared at each other. Then Angel smiled, one of those bright, wonderful grins that
were as rare as her mother's Bali Queen orchids and probably more
beautiful.
Angel's phone rang
once, twice, and still he stared at her, smiling.
"You gonna answer
that?" she asked breathlessly.
He reached into his
pocket without looking and flipped the phone open. "Yeah. Hey, Merl." He broke
Cordy's gaze to nod at something Merl said. "Really? So the guy who met with
Benny wasn't Kevin? Do you know his name?" He shook his head and mouthed
the word, `Dumbass' at Cordy.
She smiled, still
buzzing on the aftereffects of Angel's grin. She'd forgotten what it was like; how it melted every
bit of resolve in her system. It occurred to her then that the problem had
never been about letting Angel in—it was keeping him from taking over
her life from the inside out.
Angel's eyes narrowed.
"Blond hair and glasses?" He glanced at Cordy.
"Dan?" she
asked, surprise rippling through her. "That can't be right."
"Cordy says no
way." A line appeared between Angel's eyebrows. "You're sure? Okay. We'll meet you
at Caritas." He closed the phone and dropped it in his pocket. "Merl
says it was Dan. He recognized him from the description. Which fits
in with what Wes told me about your experience this afternoon." His
forehead wrinkled. "Dammit."
"What?"
Cordy was still trying to connect the dots between the guy she'd met and whoever had had Kevin killed.
"We need to find
Benny. If Dan set Kevin up, then who's to say he wouldn't have set you up, too?" He narrowed
his eyes, obviously thinking.
"Just because he
told me everything? I'm a detective and I was trying to help his friend. Couldn't he have been trying
to help us catch Kevin's killer?"
Angel nodded.
"But if you knew too much, then you'd become a threat to both Genesys and the potential buyers."
He looked at Cordy. "Either he was trying to help us find
Kevin's killer, or he was very neatly tying off his loose ends."
Cordy shook her head.
"Dan wouldn't do it. He was too nice, too normal."
"It's the normal
ones you have to watch out for."
She shook her head.
"Can I just say that sometimes my job totally sucks?"
"I'm sorry about
that." Angel looked at his feet. "If you hadn't inherited the visions--" His voice sounded
gruff.
"Not your
fault," she said. "Besides, I like the visions. In a they're-ripping-my-head-in-half sort of
way."
He glanced at her from
under his lashes. "I don't deserve your forgiveness--"
"Hey, that wasn't
total forgiveness, pal." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You're still scoring pretty high
on Cordy's list of doom."
"As long as I've
dropped somewhere below--I don't know--Charles Manson." He brushed her arm with his
fingertips. "You do a good job of taking care of yourself." He smiled
ruefully. "Sometimes too good."
She tensed, wondering
just how long he'd been watching her earlier. But when she searched his face she found no
deeper meaning.
Besides, she thought.
What would have seen? Her terrible singing, maniacal cleaning and the fact that she was
tired? Like anyone with eyes and ears couldn't figure that out, anyway. She
realized he was still looking at her, expecting a response. "Hey,
kinda my job, you know?"
He shook his head.
"It should be mine, though." He stepped into the hall. "I'm gonna go track down Merl."
He stuck his hands in his pants pockets, flaring his duster around his forearms
in such a typical Angel gesture that it actually hurt to look at him.
"Stay here, where it's safe."
She shook her head.
"No way. I'm going with you."
"Cordy--"
She held up a hand.
"Nope. Not sitting around by myself waiting for Benny to find me. Besides, we just concluded that
I can take pretty good care of myself." She shot him her best,
steely glare. "So I'm going. Got it?"
He sighed. "Fine.
Just stick close."
She grabbed her bag
and her jacket. "Like glue."
***
"Till April in
Paris," Lorne sang. The spotlight cocooned him in that other world, the one he went to when he got lost
in a song. "Who can I run to?" He shifted, letting his arms lift,
feeling the music surge through him. "What have you done to my
heart?"
The last notes died
away, leaving the bar in near silence. Then the warm, golden tide of applause flowed toward the
stage. He stood up from the tall stool he'd been sitting on and laid the
mike down, turning to let the applause wash over him. It built on
the surge the song had started and crested somewhere in his
soul—and he laughed and bowed, taking in the energy and the love from the group
before him.
This was why he
performed. It wasn't about ego; it was about connection. And he was getting it in spades
tonight. He stepped off the stage and started working his way to the bar.
Speaking of
connections, he thought, catching a glimpse of Angel as he shouldered his way through the crowd. Behind
him Lorne could just see the crown of Cordelia's head. Neither of them
hummed a tune but even without the aural clue he sensed that something
had shifted. Much of the haunted look had disappeared from Angel's
eyes, and he could see that Angel held Cordelia's hand so they
didn't get separated in the crowd. Lorne smiled.
"Angelcakes!"
he yelled over the crowd noise. Angel caught his eye and nodded. Lorne pointed to the office door and
motioned them in that direction. They slipped behind the bar and
shortcutted to the back room. Lorne closed the door and the noise dropped
radically.
"Hey, there, you
April fools," he said.
Cordy arched an
eyebrow. "Guess that explains yours SRO crowd." She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair
looked flat on one side— like she'd been trying to sleep and hadn't had much
luck.
Lorne frowned at her.
"You look zonked, kiddo," he said. Now that he was closer, he could feel the tension radiating
off of her like the sun off hot sand.
"Hey,
thanks." She smoothed her hair. "Always like to know I'm looking my best."
Angel cut his eyes at
her. "She had a vision."
"Oh,
sweetie." He glanced at Angel. "You take care of it?"
Angel nodded.
"His dust is getting sucked up by street sweepers even as we speak."
Lorne nodded.
"Glad to hear you're back in the saddle." He knew how hard the winter had been for Cordy and the rest
of the crew; he also knew just how deep and dark Angel's abyss had been. It
wasn't a lie or an understatement to say he was glad they were
walking side-by- side again. "Any word on Kevin?"
Cordy nodded.
"Someone from Genesys was trying to sell a biotech thingy called PEZ on the black market. We're
pretty sure whoever it was had Kevin killed."
Lorne leaned against
the desk. "Who did it, then?" The phone buzzed but he ignored it; Julio would pick it up.
"We think it was
Dan," Angel said. He glanced at Cordy. "Well, Merl thinks it was Dan. Cordy doesn't, though."
"What's the
hold-up, pup?"
Angel shrugged.
"Word from Merl is that a blond-haired guy with glasses met with the potential buyers."
Lorne raised his
eyebrows. "Sounds like Dan. But there are lots of blond haired guys with glasses in the
world." Dan always seemed just as laid-back and normal as Kevin. But then, Dan
never sang for him, either. Lorne could get a pretty good bead on most
people even without a tune, but intuition only stretched so far.
"I still think
we're jumping to conclusions," Cordy said. "Dan seemed genuinely upset by what happened to Kevin. I
can't imagine—"
"We're not
jumping to conclusions—" Angel cut in.
"Yes, we
are," Cordy said. "We're jumping to Dan-told-Benny-and-now- there's-a-hit-on-Cordy conclusions." She
crossed her arms and glared at him.
"Look, I'm just
trying to keep you safe—"
"Which isn't your
job, Angel."
"Kids,"
Lorne said. "I'm just gonna step on the brakes here before we skid out of control." He shook his head.
"I thought you'd put all your dark days behind you."
"Partly cloudy,
chance of rain," Cordy said, shooting Angel a look. Then she sighed and pressed a hand to her head.
"I'm sorry. I'm tired, I'm stressed. My head is killing me. I just want
to get this case solved so I can go home and get some sleep."
"Understood,"
Lorne said. The phone buzzed again. This time he looked down at it and realized it was the intercom. He
punched the speaker phone button. "Yeah, bubbe, what can I do for
you?"
The ambient crowd from
the bar muffled Julio's voice. "Uh, boss? Thought you might want to know we have some
gangland activity in the building." Julio sounded spooked, and it took a
lot to spook that six- foot-five piece of man-meat.
Lorne pursed his lips.
"Demon or human?"
"Demon. Koreatown
Benny's boys. Snooping around, asking questions."
"I'll be right
out."
Angel moved toward the
door. "I'll go with you. Cordy, you stay here till we know what they want."
She looked like she
wanted to argue on principle, but then she nodded. "Okay. But only because there's a
chance you're right, and I'm too tired to cross the line from courage to
stupidity right now." She arched a brow. "But if I don't hear from you
in five minutes, I'm coming out."
Angel nodded and he
and Lorne slipped out the door.
"Goons, three
o'clock," Lorne said, spotting them across the room. One of them leaned over a table, deep in
conversation with the Bentback seated there. The other scoped the crowd,
obviously looking for someone.
Lorne strolled up to
them. "Welcome to Caritas," he said, holding out his hand in his best host-ly fashion. "Don't
believe we've met."
The goon with the
Bentback stood…and stood and stood. By the time he got up to his full height, he was nearly three
feet taller than Lorne. "Gosh, I'm gonna need a chiropractor just
to serve you a beer," Lorne said. He felt Angel's cool weight
behind him and was glad for it.
"Don't need a
beer. Looking for a girl."
Lorne's eyebrows rose.
"If I had a quarter for every time I heard that…."
The guy didn't even
crack a smile. "Name's Cordelia Chase. Hear she comes in with her friends occasionally."
Lorne put his hand
behind him and grabbed Angel's arm. Information- before-bloodshed was a rule he liked to live by.
"I know Cordelia."
He glanced around the room, pretending to scan the crowd. "Haven't seen her tonight, though.
Can I give her a message?"
The shorter guy pulled
a card out of his pocket and handed it to Lorne. "Tell her Benny wants to have a word
with her. If she don't call him, he'll call her." He smiled, showing a
gap where his front incisor should have been.
Lorne took the card
and slipped it surreptitiously to Angel. "Sure thing," he said. Just then, his office door
opened and Cordy stuck her head out.
Angel must have
noticed, too, because he cleared his throat and stepped out from behind Lorne. "So, how is
Benny?"
"Hey," the
shorter one said. "Ain't you that vampire?" He snapped his fingers. "Albert? Andrew?" Then a light
went off behind his dim eyes. "Angel! That's it!" He looked up
at his cohort and grinned. "The vampire with a soul."
The tall goon stared
down at Angel. "Not the one Cordelia works for?"
Just then, Cordy
spotted them. "Excuse me," Lorne said. "I just have to go take care of, uh, thing." He scooted
through the crowd and aimed for the door, where Cordy stood, silhouetted by
the light. He made shooing motions at her. "Get back
inside," he hissed. He looked over his shoulder and saw the big guy grab Angel
by the lapels and hoist him into the air.
"Hey, that guy's
hurting Angel!" Cordy surged out and pushed past Lorne toward Benny's boys.
Lorne grabbed her arm.
"They're looking for you! It's Benny's goons!"
She paled. "Oh,
crap."
He shoved her toward
the office. "Get back in there before they—"
"Too late,"
she said breathlessly.
Lorne glanced back
just in time to see Angel hit the floor and the mobsters start toward Cordy. "Oy vey,"
he said.
Just then, Angel
popped up on the stage and picked up the mike. "Sorry," he mouthed.
"What for?"
Lorne watched in horror as Angel did the one thing you never wanted to do in a crowded bar.
"Next round of
drinks is on the house," Angel called into the mike.
The crowd paused, as
if absorbing the information, then rushed the bar. Benny's men got swept up in the flow, even
as Cordy sprinted behind the bar and toward the stairs. Angel, whose path
from the stage had cleared, too, followed her.
Lorne squeaked and
grabbed the mike off the floor. "April Fool's!" he yelled. "Hey, April Fool's!" He waved
his arms, but the lure of free drinks was too great. He dropped the mike to his
side. "You owe me!" he yelled at Angel's back. Then he stepped off
the stage and went to help tend bar.
***
"He must not be
home," Gunn whispered. He had his hands cupped around his eyes and was peering into the downstairs
windows of Dan's house.
"It's well after
eight. You'd think he'd be back by now," Wes said.
"Let's see what
we can find." Gunn broke out the gloves and the lock picking tools. Then he stopped, thinking.
"Seems like the type of guy who has an alarm," he said.
Wes nodded.
"Maybe we should check his mail, first. See if there's anything interesting."
The street was dark
and quiet. The flickering light of TVs filled the windows and Gunn could smell food cooking on a
grill somewhere in the neighborhood. He snuck down to the mailbox, slipped the
mail out, and met Wes in the truck.
Wes pulled a small
flashlight from his pocket, turned it on, and held it in his mouth. They flipped quickly through the
mail. "Ah ha," Wes said. He took a letter from the stack, slid his
pocket knife under the edge of the flap and pulled out a piece of paper.
"'ank shtatemnt," he said.
"Huh?" Gunn
leaned over, trying to get a closer look.
Wes pulled the
flashlight out of his mouth. "Bank statement." He showed it to Gunn.
Gunn whistled.
"Someone's got a little side business going." He took the paper and looked at the logo. "Not a
local bank, either. He's trying to hide his deposits."
Wes nodded and slipped
the statement back in the envelope. Then he licked the flap, sealed the letter, and returned
the mail to the box. "That's enough for me," he said, getting
back in the truck.
"Pretty
circumstantial, though," Gunn commented.
"We need to catch
him in the act." Wes buckled his seat belt.
"Let's go find
him, then," Gunn said, starting the engine and pulling out onto the street.
"Caritas?"
"Good a place as
any."
***
Angel
and Cordy burst out the door and bolted down the sidewalk.
Angel tugged her
hand, guiding her toward the car. "Come on!" He had to
slow his pace so she could keep up and was considering picking her up and carrying her when they rounded the corner. And ran
right into
a hard wall of
flesh.
Cordy and Angel went
tumbling. Angel instinctively tucked Cordy's
head in his hand and
rolled so she landed on top of him. They hit the concrete with a skull-rattling thud.
"Ow! Son of a
*bitch*!"
The voice sounded
familiar. Angel looked over and found himself face-
to-face with
someone's tennis shoe. "Merl?"
Merl rolled over
onto his back and stared at the sky. "I should have
known," he
whined. Next to him, Andy flopped and gasped like a beached whale.
Angel pushed Cordy
onto the sidewalk and leapt to his feet. Cordy
rubbed her head.
"Well, that took care of my headache." She glared at
Merl. "In
exactly the way that it *didn't*!"
"Hey, wasn't my
fault! If the bloodsucker had watched where he was
going—"
"Sorry,
guys," Angel broke in. "No time to recriminate." He grabbed
Cordy's hand and
pulled her up. "Come on, we have to get you out of here."
The breeze brought him the scent of the tall mobster's cologne. "They're coming."
"Wait!
Wait!" Merl squawked and climbed to his feet. "I have info!"
"You'll have to
tell me on the fly," Angel said, and took off at a
dead run, dragging
Cordy behind him.
About half a block
later he heard Merl panting behind him. "In here,"
he said, ducking
into a corner store. The Korean shopkeeper stared at them
open-mouthed. "We need to borrow your stock room," Angel said.
He ran through the
aisle and down the short hall. The door to the
stockroom was
locked, so he broke the knob and shoved Cordy inside. Merl jumped in behind them, Andy hot on his heels.
The shopkeeper ran
down the aisle waving his hands. "What are you
doing? Stop!"
Angel pulled out a
handful of money and handed it to the man. "Give
us a minute. That
should cover the lock. We won't steal anything, okay?"
The shopkeeper's
eyes glazed over at the sight of the money. "No
problem," he
said. "Take all the time you need."
Angel stepped into
the stockroom and looked around. There was another
door to what was
probably the back alley, but no windows. They weren't trapped, but their exit possibilities were limited.
He pinned Merl
with his gaze. "Talk fast," he said.
"Saw--"
Merl put his hands on his knees, bending over to pant. "Saw
that guy--"
Another deep breath. "You were looking for. Kevin's friend."
Angel's skin
prickled. "We gotta get out of here. They're close."
"Angel,"
Cordy said. "If they saw Dan, we need to go track him down."
Angel took about two
seconds to think it over. "You're right." He
grabbed the car keys
from his coat pocket and pitched them to her. "You take Merl and Andy. Find Dan. Don't try to
talk to him. Just
lay low and keep him in your sight." He eyeballed Merl and
Andy. "Anything
happens to her and you're dead."
Merl tugged his
collar. "I'm not sure I want—"
"Don't really
care," Angel said, shoving him toward the door. "Go,"
he said to Cordy.
"NOW!"
"What are you
gonna do?" she asked, heading for the exit.
"Take care of
Benny's boys."
"Benny's
boys?" Andy said. "No one ever said anything about—"
"Now!"
Angel yelled. "I'll find you!"
They bolted.
***
The car was parked
three blocks over. They skimmed through the dark
alleys and side
streets, avoiding any place well-lit, and finally made it to the Plymouth.
"Get in,"
Cordy said. She unlocked the driver's door, then slid over
and popped the locks
on the passenger doors. Merl hopped in next to her
and Andy climbed in the back. Cordy started the car and gunned the gas. They took off, fishtailing, into light traffic.
Merl grabbed the
door handle. "Who taught you to drive? Jeez!"
She looked over her
shoulder, but couldn't see any sign of Angel or
the goons anywhere.
"Okay, where was Dan?"
"We passed him
on the way to Caritas. Turn right!"
Cordy whipped across
two lanes, barely missing a motorcycle. The guy
swerved and yelled.
Even though his helmet muffled the sound, she figured he wasn't saying `thanks.'
"Why the
rush?" She straightened the car's nose and held the growling
horses between the
lines.
"Sorry,"
Merl said. "Like I was saying, we were on our way to Caritas—
"
"For
dinner," Andy said.
"Right,"
Merl agreed. "You made us miss dinner."
Cordy huffed and
pressed down on the accelerator. "You can make Angel
buy you dinner. But
now you're gonna tell me where you saw Dan."
End.
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