Title: Summer's Past (Part 1 of "The Seasons of the Soul" Chronicles)
Author: Elektra
Disclaimer: Joss and company owns all rights and everything. I own nothing and accept nothing except the wonder of feedback
Timeline: A few days after The Shroud
Spoilers BTVS season 3 and ATS season 1 and 2 up to The Shroud
Rating: PG-13, please don't read this if you are too young, thanks.
Part 1a
POV:Cordelia
How long had it been?
A day? a week?
How long had it been? She swept around the hotel counter and demanded, "How long has it been?"
Wesley jumped but then shrugged and went back to flipping through another one of his demon books. Sighing, Cordelia tugged at his Oxford shirt. "I asked you a question!"
"It's usually polite to inform the person you're talking to about the subject to which you refer." Reclining on the sofa, Wesley settled against the arm cushions and continued to ignore her.
"Very funny, Wes." She knocked his feet off the couch and, sitting next to him, asked again, "How long has it been since Angel drank blood."
He frowned and, closing the golden leafed book, patted her knee. "You know that, Cordelia. It was when Angel had been poisoned by Faith." She thought she detected a slight hesitation in his voice as he pronounced the rogue Slayer's name. "The only cure was for Angel to drink the blood of a Slayer."
"No, no." Cordelia dropped her gaze to the book and touched it, fingering the golden leaf. "I mean since the whole death shroud makes me want to eat Kate thingy."
Shaking his head, he stood and slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "I don't know what you mean. I suppose he's eaten," he stopped, then sat down again. "What do you know?"
Cordelia shook her head, not wanting to face the truth, not wanting to venture toward the inevitable. "You know," she perked up as she waved the book in the air. "We could probably scrape all the gold off your fancy pants books and hock it to pay for the up keep around here."
He jerked the book out of her hand and, like a father reprimanding his child, asked, "What are you talking about Cordelia?"
She played with the tangles of her hair and then squeezed the bridge of her nose. Not even one of those puke in her head, kill me please and be merciful migraines felt as bad as facing the truth. "He isn't drinking the blood in his frig."
"What?"
"What's up for today?" Angel appeared as he normally did. A quiet figure half in shadow and without notice.
Cordelia bit her lip and shook her head. Wesley patted her knee again and stood to face their employer. "Gunn came in earlier and wanted to talk with you. He was a little put out by your behavior but I assured him all was well."
Angel moved to the chair and sank into its depths. It amazed her how he always seemed to find the shadows of the room. Or was it just his demeanor?
"All is well, isn't Angel?" Wesley leaned against the corner of the desk and Cordelia smirked. He never could pull off nonchalant. She dropped the book on the coffee table and went back to the computer, maybe surfing some shopping sites would relieve her anxiety. Yeah, worry about Angel, but what about her? Sleeping became a dream of the past and dating was just a fairy tale to her. Her work, his work became her definition. Plopping down on the stool, she rested her chin in her palm as she scanned the screen only half listening to the boys' conversation.
"I told you Wesley, I didn't go bad." He let out a heavy breath and Cordelia frowned, why did he do that if he didn't need to breathe? Was it left over from the days he was human? Such a habit to keep for 247 or was it 248 years?
"The w-whole K-Kate thing?" Wesley was stammering again, attempting to find words not to offend Angel. As if Angel would bite him if he was insulted. She arched an eyebrow, well maybe he would. Her skin crawled and she reverted her attention to the screen again.
"Really, it's over, it's done. Let's not talk about it." He jumped up and slung on his coat. "Did Gunn say where I should meet him."
Cordelia peered up from the computer screen and for the first time saw the vampire's face. Strained lines etched his forehead and he seemed paler, ashened, weakened.
This time she stuttered, "He, he said he would be, be somewhere. Where did he say Wesley?"
Wesley glanced away and nodded, "I think he mentioned a cemetery."
Angel mumbled something but kept his eyes averted.
"There seemed to be something going down as he put it."
Snapping to attention, Angel retorted, "Now and you didn't come get me?"
"He thought it —" Wesley stopped as Angel raced out the door. Muttering, Wesley said, "Damn."
"Damn is right!" Cordelia rounded the front desk and, pointing a finger at him, said, "Damn is right! He hasn't been eating. I knew it."
"I don't," he shook his head and rubbed his temple as if he was afflicted by one of her head splitting visions. "You try a man's patience, Cordelia. What are you talking about?"
"There's loads and loads of pigs' blood up in his frig and he looks like the walking dead."
"Well technically."
"Oh Wesley, shut up and listen!" She slammed her open palm on the counter. "You don't see it. You're either too blind, or too much of a man -- which I doubt. He's pale." She raised a hand to halt him. "Paler than normal. His lips didn't have any color."
"You notice his lips?" Wesley touched his own.
Rolling her eyes, she put a hand on her hip and shook her head. "Of course. I am a woman, although I guess you could categorize me as a nun-like woman. I still notice!"
Distracted, he glanced over his shoulder to the door where Angel had disappeared and then back at her. "You notice." It hit him. "How, may I ask, do you know the amount of blood in Angel's refrigerator." He didn't give her time to answer. "Oh Cordelia, don't tell me you're still stealing. And from Angel. You should be ashamed of yourself."
She bit her lip and let the air out through her clenched teeth. "For heaven's sake, Wesley. No, I wasn't stealing. What would Angel have that I would want anyway? Crossbows and broad swords. Yeah, just what a gal needs in her hope chest."
"So?"
"I was, I was cleaning up." It was a lie, of course. But Wesley needn't know why she was there. Why she had to be there. For Angel's sake. For everyone's sake. She gave him her wide-eyed school girl, I am so innocent look.
As always he fell for it. "Then, we have to do something. Why wouldn't he be sustaining himself."
"Guilt, you know he's the champion, the superhero of guilt. Hey, you know what, we could call him Guiltman."
Wesley brushed by her, not listening to her, staring up to the rooms in the massive empty hotel. "Why would he isolate himself."
"Hey, what's the word for the day, my fellow fighters for justice?" Gunn strolled in, carrying his homemade ax. He favored Cordelia with a quick smile but noticed their distraction immediately. "What, Angel go bad again?"
"He hasn't been bad." Cordelia sank down on the couch and rubbed her temple. "Not since he moved here anyway."
"So, what's the glum coming over your house?"
"It seems Angel isn't eating." Wesley paced.
"Ain't eating, like we have an anorexic vampire on our hands." Gunn grinned.
"That isn't funny, Chucky." Cordelia snapped.
"Not a lot's been funny around here lately." Gunn sat on the edge of the coffee table. "And don't call me Chucky. Weirds me out. You know, that psycho doll creature."
"That was a movie."
"Life is stranger than fiction, my Uncle Theo used to say."
"No he didn't! I know that one." Cordelia smiled, her first smile of the day. "And you don't have an Uncle Theo."
"Excuse me," Wesley interrupted them, but he kept staring up at the stairway to the rooms above. "But where is Angel?"
"He went to see you, meet you at the cemetery." Cordelia jumped out of her seat.
"Didn't show. Maybe we crossed paths or something." Gunn shrugged and polished his ax with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
"No, no you did." Cordelia said. They both stared at her, glared at her. She dropped down and put her head in her hands. "I had a vision."
"A vision?"
Wesley was standing over her, Gunn crouching beside her.
"Yeah, a few days ago. I had a vision." She wiped her eyes. "It was about Angel. I never have visions about him."
"Just about me." Gunn gave her a weak smile.
"It wasn't good."
"Describe it for us Cordelia." Wesley perched on the arm of the couch, his hand resting on her shoulder.
"Couldn't make out the images very well." She looked up to Wesley. "He was starving, Wes. Starving. All I could feel was his hunger."
"That's why you checked his apartment."
She sniffled. "Yes, yes but that's not all. There was sunlight, all over. Sunlight and he was confined somehow. Someone had him Wesley. Someone."
"Good Lord! And you didn't see fit to share this bit of information. Really Cordelia!" Wesley leapt to his feet and went to the phone.
"The last time I tried that I interfered!" She called after him but Gunn squeezed her hand.
"Don't wig out about it. We're here, we ain't going to let nothing happen to him."
Clasping his hand, she whispered, "Thanks."
"Damn, he isn't answering his mobile." Wesley hung up the receiver. "He's in trouble and we have no idea."
"Yeah we do." Gunn stood and straightened his shoulders. "Wolfram and Hart."
No one replied. They sat in silence, yet knew he was right.
"What next?" She glanced at Gunn but then shifted her attention to Wesley. She needed him to be strong, she needed him to lead.
"Lindsey." In a word, he'd done it. She went to the phone and started to dial, but he slammed the receiver down. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Calling turncoat boy," she answered.
"Bloody hell, you think he'll just give over what's been planned."
"It's better than just sitting around here," she said as she pulled the phone from his clutches.
"How about we just go look for Angel at the cemetery and warn him?" Gunn said.
"A plan!" Cordelia clapped her hands and grabbed her coat from behind the counter.
Ushering them out, Wesley muttered as he opened the door, "We still don't have a plan."
Cordelia glared at him.
She sank into the chair, sighing, as a slight tremor passed through her body. "Two more days, Wesley. Two more days, how many is that now?"
"I don't like to keep count, I'm pulling a Florida."
She managed a giggle but it faded in her throat as she watched the tall Englishman pace the lobby of the hotel. Their search had proved fruitless and any trace of Angel had vanished from the face of the Earth. Everything but the car and the drawing pad. She fingered it, teasing the corners of the page.
"Any word from Gunn?"
"Nothing good." Wesley crumpled to the arm of the couch, shoulders sagging. "Angel put up a fight. We know that."
"What if he was dusted?" She hated to say it. She hated to even think it.
Wesley squeezed her shoulder. "There was no residue left. He wasn't dusted."
"How can we be sure? How?" She started to tremble again, she hated being weak."How? How?" She needed to move needed to get the energy out of her. As she stood the drawing pad fell to the floor, a few loose pages fluttering to the carpet. "Oh Wesley, I just." She couldn't help herself, couldn't contain herself anymore. "I just can't see life with Angel there. To protect us, you know. He really isn't a bad guy. He's helped us so many times."
But Wesley wasn't paying attention to her, as usual. He picked up one of Angel's drawings, and focused solely on it.
"Wesley?"
He looked up at her, stumbled for words and then went back to staring open mouthed at the drawing.
"What? What is it?" Cordelia ripped the paper from his hands. There it was the image from her vision. A figure collapsed on the floor, sunlight streaming in through the cell's high window and the words Summer's Past scrawled on the bottom. "This, this is it. This is my vision. Except the figure is kind of blurry, like he didn't know what he looked like." She swallowed and tears formed in her eyes. No, of course he wouldn't know what he looked like. His memory would be over two hundred years old. "He knew."
"How?" Wesley took the sketch from her. "How could he have?"
She shook her head. "Summer's Past. That wasn't part of my vision."
"But it was part of Angel's vision or dream. Whatever it was, we have to find out what it means." As Wesley stood, the door to the hotel lobby opened and Kate walked in. Her stance and general demeanor radiating LA cop.
"May we be of help Detective?"
"Where is he?" She let her eyes roam the lobby yet never let them out of her sight.
"Wish we knew," Cordelia mumbled and took the drawing from Wesley as she moved around the front desk.
"Missing again? About to vamp out on you, again?"
Wesley grimaced and turned from her, following Cordelia. "Really Detective if you don't have any questions"
"Yeah I have questions." She joined them at the counter. She caught sight of the drawing. "What's this? Looks like a cell, holding cell or something."
"Or something," Cordelia muttered.
"Summer's Past." Kate traced her finger over the drawing, smearing the figure. "There used to be an old orphanage called that. It was shut down years ago, child abuse." Her cheek muscle twitched. "Over a dozen children died there."
"Where, where is it?" Cordelia grasped the detective's hand. "Please, please don't be your bitchy self. Angel's in trouble. Someone is trying to hurt him."
She shifted and bit the corner of her mouth as she considered them. "Okay, I'll tell you if I come along."
Cordelia met Wesley's gaze. "We don't have much of a choice."
"Call Gunn too," Cordelia said and pushed the phone to him.
"Right."
As he called Gunn, Kate turned to her. "Who're the players?"
"Possibly our favorite law firm."
"What evidence?"
"Just the usual, mysterious visions, dreams and goblins."
"Goblins?" Wesley asked. She just waved him off and asked about Gunn. "He's on his way."
POV:Angel
Dawn.
The rays of daylight warmed the cell, warmed the air. The river of light hit the opposite wall and slid down to illuminate the floor. He stayed to the shadows, yet the area of safety shrank with each passing day. They cut off the room. Each day making it smaller, more confining, more dangerous for him. They kept him in chains. The self imposed hunger had allowed them to take him. The inflicted hunger weakened him, made him no threat at all.
He shifted away from the expanding light. Each day smaller, each day less safety.
The door opened. It was in the full light of day. They were safe when they chose to visit him. When the wall closed in on him, they stood there and laughed.
"How are you today?"
He didn't answer. He didn't know if he could.
Holland Manners walked to stand beside him, yet still in the safety of the sun. The smell of blood, human blood overwhelmed every other sense and he reached to the man. Instantly he pulled his hand away.
"Now, now." Holland laughed. "You thought you could save the world and save yourself? You thought the world would care if you died?" He looked up to the sun. "See the sun is coming. Tomorrow there will be no more room for you to cower in. Times up, my friend."
"I'm not your friend," Angel gasped. His throat was dry, parched.
"Maybe not." Holland clicked his fingers and the door opened again. A young woman was led in. Ropes were tied around her wrists, chains bonded her feet. "She's yours."
The terror whitening the woman's eyes pulsed in her blood, throbbed through the air to fill his head. Angel hid his head in his arm.
"Closer Rose." The guard brought the girl closer, her red hair matted and filthy. The rags she wore hung in tatters over her too thin body. "Come, come." Holland pulled her to his side. "She's yours, Angel."
A knife appeared in the guard's hand before Angel realized it and the girl was lying face down in the shadows in a pool of blood.
"Don't torture yourself."
Angel didn't hear the last words, didn't care what Holland said as the demon transformed his features to his true vampire face. His mouth found the woman's throat and he gathered her to his chest in a lover's embrace. He drank.
And in that moment there was freedom, in that darkness as the blood poured over his dried throat there was a certain solace. He suffused through the girl's blood, through her heat and knew a new peace as the blood pulsed for only a moment in his dead veins. He felt the joy of life again, the angst of living. He suffered and died again. And he drank the power of ripping away another life, taking it in his hands and squeezing it, crushing it out like an ember of dying fire.
As he dropped the girl, he glimpsed her glazed eyes and the demon within him laughed. Laughed and he wanted to laugh, wanted to grab the Son of a Bitch Holland and tear his throat out as well.
It happened then.
The blood in his mouth turned cold. He swallowed yet a nauseated feeling plagued him. He coughed and saw blood spill out of him mouth. Deep within his chest something spread, spread like a spider's web, encircling his heart, constricting his ribs.
Holland chuckled. "And now it begins." The lawyer stood up and walked to the door. "Say goodbye."
Angel grappled with the dead girl's body, threw her to the side. Still barely able to stand, he leaned against the wall for support. Screaming, he said, "What did you do? What did you do? You bastard!"
"Only what you wanted all along." Holland left.
Angel slid down the wall, staring at the dead girl and watching as the spell concealing her identity faded. Blues and golds glittered over her face, her hair tied up in beads. An oracle. Not the ones he had known, some other one. Some other link to the Powers that Be.
Shivering, he felt the blood coagulate in his veins, felt a dull pain.
He drank the human girl because he was hungry, yet he felt no remorse for her death.
Yet now he cried out, cried for himself.
And knew for the first time, his human soul would surely be lost.
Part 1b
POV:Cordelia
As they entered the orphanage, Cordelia pulled her sweater around her shoulders. The sun was just dying over the ocean, leaving the zenith of the sky black and the rooms of the abandoned site in darkness. There were no guards and Gunn insisted they must have the wrong place, yet Kate strode forward as if she led them. Cordelia cursed as she watched the blonde (probably dyed blonde) march them through the hallways.
"If they were here, they've left the site. They must have had an inkling we'd be finding them." Wesley said.
"How man, we only got a scrambled brain vision and a sketchy drawing. How'd they know anything?" Gunn replied as he swung his ax. "We ain't got the right place."
"It has to be," Kate mumbled. "I remember this place. The kids. Wolfram and Hart defending the managers. Messy case." A muscle in her check twitched again. "It has to be here." And her hand went to her throat as she said, "He has to be."
A chill swept through Cordelia and then the pain slammed into her brain. Bashed her, knocking her down as Wesley hunched over her. She felt Gunn cradle her in his arms but couldn't see him, couldn't hear Wesley's questions.
She saw. Only her eyes, only her mind, saw the children. Their sobs of pain, their loneliness haunted her. They crouched and huddled in a large shadowed room, begging for help. And in the corner shielded by the children, a man hid. His arm was draped over his head and his feet were bare and bloody. The children wouldn't let her see him, yet she knew.
"God, Angel," she whispered.
"What is it?" she heard Kate saying. "What's happening?"
"A vision, she's having a vision," Wesley answered and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "Cordelia can you hear me?"
But the children were crying. Crying out in terror. Their mouths were open and their eyes wild and wide. Yet they were not frightened of Angel.
But for Angel.
One child, a young girl maybe five or six, came to her and said, "Only you can help him. Only you." Cordelia bent down to the little girl whose hair was the color of flame and eyes were of gold and blue. The girl touched Cordelia's temple, then her neck. "Only you can save him."
POV: Angel
Within the shadows they crept, living things, dead things. They moved and shifted and called to him, laughing at him, cursing him. The manacles clamped around his wrists, too tight. Blood oozed from bruises around his wrists. Leaking from above, far above water dripped.
Tiny drops, one, two, pause, one, two.
Holland was gone and he was a prisoner of someone else.
And the water continued to drip.
One, two, pause, one, two.
They hit him, sizzled as they struck his bare skin.
In hell, he lived through hundreds of years of torment, yet each and every torture was different in its cruelty and originality. And now something else had him, something new and different. Something equally uncaring and malicious.
Himself.
Angelus.
The soul within him wilted, melted under the scourge of the demon as if holy water washed away his sins, only to wash away his existence.
"Burn, burn, burn," something, someone said. And he shivered.
Blood dripped from the bindings, pooled at his feet. He struggled to free himself.
"Don't you know?" he heard someone say. "Don't you understand?"
He glanced around the room, but found no source of the voice. Only the dead oracle at his feet. His feet were bloody, burnt from the rays of the sun. He curled them underneath himself. He stared at the glitter of the oracle's face as the moonlight hit it. Reflected sunlight, isn't that what moonlight was.
"Yeah, a poor imitation."
"What do you know?" he screamed out. Searching the room for the source, he saw no one.
"More than you think."
And the burning in his veins swelled, the flames under his skin boiled up and he yelled out.
"The burning is your soul. It's dying. You don't have long now." It laughed. The thing haunting him, taunting him. The darkness. "You won't have any semblance of the human you used to be."
"No, no!" He clawed the air and scraped the ground, leaving the trails of bloody footprints. The blossom, the rose of his soul fell, crumpled and died. The pit of his stomach heaved and he cried out in pain. The decaying rot of the demon inside swirled in his veins following the last drops of the oracle's sacrifice and devouring it. The demon shredded his muscles, shattered his bones and flayed his skin. Consuming every image, every figment of humanity.
It felt like this the first time. When she made him a vampire. When Darla came to him, took him in the alley and drank away his humanity. She damned him. His soul took leave of him then and the demon took root and coiled like a snake around his dead heart.
Every flash of his life had dissipated, disappeared on that night over two hundred years ago. He had been a man, a disappointment to his father. A layabout. And his father had hated him for being a waste, for being a whoring drunk. For being an artist. His father despised him and mocked him. He relished killing his father.
And he recalled those moments again. The fear in his father's eyes as his dead son walked through the open door, invited in by the young sister. Did he ever see remorse in his father's eyes, feel remorse in his father's dying breath. Never. And the demon reveled in his remembered joy of killing his father, his family, his village.
Angelus rejoiced in his surrender, his transformation.
POV: Cordelia
Struggling to her feet, Cordelia swayed but Wesley caught her arm.
"Can you go on, Cordelia?" He held her up as Gunn took the sword she carried from her.
The nausea overtook her and she crumpled again, yet Wesley cradled her against him and said, "We can come back tomorrow, this may not be the right place after all."
She murmured into his sweater. No, she wanted to stay. This was the place. The children were telling her something. She recalled their wide eyed terror. She felt the pain stabbing into Angel's soul, the searing pain flaying his very humanity from him. Angel was in danger. The children couldn't protect him any longer, only she could. She tried to say it all, but the weakness won over and her knees gave out.
"You best be sitting," Gunn forced her to the floor.
"We have to search for Angel." Kate clenched her gun. "Maybe you should take her back to the car and Wesley and I will continue."
"Hey man, ain't no LA cop gonna tell me what to do!" Gunn jumped up.
"No! Stop it!" Cordelia put a hand up and asked Wesley to help her. Slipping a hand under her shoulder, he slowly guided her to her feet again. A regular gentleman, in a very ugly sweater. Well, the immediate after effects of the vision were lessening. That was good. "I have to be there. There isn't much time left. There isn't much time left at all."
"What is it that you saw, Cordelia?" Wesley bent down to look at her, his face only half lit by the weak moonlight. But she saw the concern, recognized the fear in the Englishman's stance.
"Angel isn't going to make it without me."
"He's going to die."
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she didn't care if Lady Cop Bitch saw them or not. Kate sighed and paced in the dark hallway. Glancing at the cop briefly, Cordelia continued, "No, Wes, no."
"What then?"
"Angel," she stammered for the right words. "Angel isn't going to survive this."
"But you just said the man ain't going to die. Be straight with us." Gunn slashed the ax nervously in the air.
She couldn't answer him, the tears choked her.
"No, no." Wesley gathered her to him. "No, she means Angel isn't going to survive but Angelus will."
And a terror filled scream echoed in the blackness. Echoed and reverberated the walls of the orphanage. A scream laden with such pain, such dread, such loneliness it tore her heart out.
"Angel," she whispered.
They found him shuddering in the corner of a small room, a window high above rained down moonlight. Welts riddled his body, blood puddled at his feet and holy water still dripped from a crack in the ceiling scalding him with every precious drop. Lying by his feet a young woman slept in dead slumber.
Cordelia entered the room first, Kate followed immediately behind her. The woman had charged ahead when they heard Angel's anguished plea, and blew the lock off the door before they even caught up with her.
As the door swung open, Kate had stumbled back and clutched Wesley's hand. "God, this is where they found the children. The stains are still on the tiles."
Solemnly they entered the room, its silence only disturbed by the shivering of Angel as he clawed at the wall. His back was burnt and he kept his face hidden.
"Angel, Angel?" Cordelia approached him. "Can you hear me?"
He only groaned a response and as she reached to touch him, he cried out as if her touch burned.
She swung around to Wesley and Gunn. "We have to get him down." The manacles clanged as Angel curled in a tighter ball.
"We're not letting him free until we figure out what happened to this woman." Kate stepped over the prone girl and then crouched on her haunches to examine the body.
"Listen here, you're just here on our good graces. We'll do what we need to do!" Cordelia went to Angel but Wesley stopped her. "What?"
"I think it might be best to listen to Kate."
"Traitor!" She tugged her arm from Wesley's grasp.
Kate put a hand up to halt her. "This woman was knifed first but that isn't what killed her. I would bet it was the bite." She stood, dusting her pants off as she did. "Your boss killed her."
"Damn, we're too late." Gunn strode to Angel's side, readying his ax for a swing. Racing to him, Cordelia threw herself between the ax and the huddled Angel.
"Don't you dare, not until we figure this out!"
"She's right." Wesley said as he too stood.
"Well, thank you!" Cordelia replied.
"No, I mean, Kate." Wesley sighed. "The evidence shows a minor knife wound to the woman's shoulder. It wouldn't have killed her. Angel did."
He groaned from the corner of the room and grappled to free himself of his bonds.
"Damn," Cordelia whispered and saw the young girl in her vision again. "We're too late."
"What concerns me even more is the identity of the woman." Wesley bent down again, brushing his hand over her blue and gold flecked skin. "From all the reports and accounts, I can only determine that she was an oracle."
"Oracle?" Gunn stepped up to the body. "Some kinda priestess or something?"
"Or something," Wesley said, nodding. "I can't believe.."
"No, no!" Cordelia shoved him away from the woman and looked down at her. "The little girl in my vision. Her eyes were this color." She glanced at Wesley again then back to the body. "She was trying to tell me something."
"What's that? I'm dead?" Gunn said.
Folding her arms, Cordelia glared at him and then said, "Get him down."
"I don't think so." Kate shook her head.
"Get him down!" Cordelia turned to Wesley, pointedly staring at the man. He moved forward but Kate stopped him.
"I'm sorry, but she has seniority over me." Wesley started around the cop and as she began to draw her weapon, Gunn swung around with the ax blocking her.
"Don't try anything stupid, you know, ‘cause my opinion of you ain't too high as it is."
She smirked and folded her arms. "Tell me when you need me."
"We won't!" Cordelia approached Angel. She touched his skin, his flesh burned with an unnatural heat. "God, he's burning from the inside."
"The oracles blood." Wesley commented as they assisted Angel. He never recognized them, only lashed out as they tried to clear him of the chains. "Do you have an adequate shot?"
"Yeah," Gunn swung the ax, hard, twice. The chains fell to the floor. The bindings still clamped about Angel's wrists. "He don't look like himself."
Angel's face transfigured into and out of vampire form. His eyes flashed amber then burned gold, then settled to dark again.
"He doesn't know who he is." Wesley helped to carry him free of the corner, to the door of the cell. "I don't know how we will reach him."
In a moment's hesitation as they carried him to the hallway, Angel broke free of their grasp and turned to them. A haunted, hellish glow about his face as he turned into Angelus.
"Cordelia," Gunn grabbed her and they eased backward.
"Well, look who came to the party. It'll be a fine feast tonight!" Angelus said. "All kinds of tasty morsels."
Shots rang out and bullets impacted into Angelus's back. He swung around and glared at Kate. "I thought we already worked this out, honey. I told you I'm not a one woman kinda vampire. But if you insist," he broke off and raced toward her.
"Angelus!" Cordelia yelled out, running after him.
He stopped, skidded on his blood soaked feet. Turning to face her, he said, "Sweet Cordelia, my friend, my family. Oh when I remember what I did to my family." He laughed, an ugly malicious sound. "If I could only relive that again!"
She went forward.
"Cordelia!" Gunn warned.
She peered over her shoulder. "No, I know what I'm doing."
"Please, Cordelia!" Wesley said.
Kate still aimed the gun at Angelus' back, her hands shaking.
"Wesley, I saw it in my vision." She tugged her blouse open, revealing her neck. "Don't stop him. Only Angel can stop him."
And in that instant, Angelus seized her. His mouth sliced into her neck and she grasped his arms. The blood flowed and beat out of her. It was her vision. She was sure. Only Angel could save her. Only she could save Angel. Her connection to the Powers That Be could reach Angel, could pull him from the depths of the demon's coil. Only her soul could save his.
But the void came closer, beckoned her, the darkness.
Even as she called out to him, the void enclosed her.
POV:Angelus/Angel
Stillness and the echo, the singular beat of a heart. It throbbed in his grasp, slammed through his cold veins and poured into his core. He couldn't make out her cries for pity, her cries for help. He only heard the great sound of her heart, the one thing he lusted for, the one thing in this life he wanted.
Pigs blood – cold and dead.
Nothing like the taste, the joy, the bliss of human living blood. And hers.
To have hers.
He saw her life. He glimpsed the carelessness with which she lived her younger teenaged days. He experienced the softness in her soul when she thought of Xander, when she dreamed of Doyle. He drank it in, consumed it. It gave him life and took it away from her. That's all he wanted. It was what he begged for everyday of his damned existence.
Locked in a body, a body of a souled creature. It cursed him, it imprisoned him. That soul, the worthless soul. And now he would tear away everyone that eased Angel's burden, that made the pig's blood tolerable. Made the cold and lonely nights less terrifying. He would rip them from their beds, tear their throats out and laugh at them.
Starting with dear sweet Cordelia.
And yet.
Her blood ran cold, swiftly cooled his brain. It whispered and spoke in tones he could not make out. He heard her. In his embrace she crumbled and they staggered to the floor. She was silent, yet he still heard her.
"I need you."
Simple words. Three words. Like those other cursed three words.
She said it again, "I need you."
In his brain it sounded and resounded. Clanged and exploded and begged for him to listen. Need. He needed too. He wanted her. He tightened his grip, sank his teeth into her harder until she cried out in pain.
"Angel, don't do this." Her voice said in his head. "Come back to me."
He struggled to keep his hold on her. Squeezed his eyes closed as he heard the others crowd around him. They bent over them and he heard a weak voice press past her lips, "Stay away."
He wrenched her closer, wanting it to be more. Wanting her.
"Angel, I need you." Cordelia's voice resounded again. "Don't betray my love."
It burst from the core where he held it at bay, broke forth and surged free. His image dissipated, faded, torn away. Sank, down into the deeps, into the holding cell of non-existence. Yet the taste was there. The demon was awake. But the soul was free again.
Angel tore himself from Cordelia's prone form and lay on the cold tiles, his flesh cooling as he stared sightless into the dark.
Kate, Wesley, Gunn huddled around the inert Cordelia. He fumbled and crawled to her side, knocking them away.
"Cordelia?" He could still taste the sweet salt of her blood in his mouth. He smelled the fragrance of her flesh and bit the inside of his cheek to quell the hunger. "Cordelia?"
"Yeah boss?" she mumbled. "I expect a big raise."
He brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. "Anything."
She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, tears wet them. "Just don't scare me again."
"Why'd they do it?" Gunn said as he paced. "Why'd W and H do it to you, man?"
Angel and Cordelia stood, leaning against one another for support. Wesley and Kate went to their sides.
"I'm not sure I have an answer to that, but I would like to know why they left." Wesley said, aiding Angel as he limped. "They had no idea we were coming."
"How, how did you find me?" Angel stammered, the weakness overwhelming him.
"The picture you drew of yourself here. At Summer's Past." Cordelia said but swayed. Kate caught her.
"You need to get to the hospital."
"I never drew a picture of this." Angel shivered. "This place gives me the creeps." He staggered again. The visions haunted him, the raking of his soul.
"We found it in your sketch pad in the car." Wesley said as they moved through the hall.
"W and H," Gunn cursed. "They planted it."
"They wanted us to find you." Wesley stopped. "They knew about Cordelia's vision. How would they know without a connection to the Powers."
"The oracle?" Kate said and turned to look at the cell.
"They come in pairs, you know." Angel mumbled.
"Pairs?" Kate asked.
"Two, there are always two oracles." Angel stumbled to the wall and leaned against it for support.
"That begs the question, where is the other one." Wesley said.
"Yeah, it does, doesn't it." Cordelia said but couldn't seem to care. She went to Angel's side and leaned against him, putting her head on his shoulder. "Can we go home now."
Petting her hair, he nodded. "Yeah."
Yes, my Sweet Cordelia. We can go home now.
Something inside him squirmed with delight.
The End....Part II: Winter's Blood