Title: Bound
Author: inamorata
Posted: 02-26-2003
Email: inamorata14@hotmail.com
Rating: R for violence and sexual content
Category: AtS 1
Content: A/C
Summary: Doyle's last vision brings Angel and Cordelia closer in unexpected ways.
Spoilers: Up to the AtS season 1 ep "Hero"
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: Fine, but please let me know.
Notes: This fic is set between the AtS season one episodes "Hero" and "Parting Gifts" -- that is, in that tiny sliver of time after Doyle's death but before Cordelia learns he passed her the visions. I would like to make it clear that it is absolutely not the case that this whole fic exists simply because I thought it would be fun to get Angel and Cordelia to take a shower together. I'm not that cheap. And if you believe that, I've got a timeshare in Marbella I'd like to sell you.
Feedback:
Thanks: Thanks, as always, to Dazzle for beta'ing and encouragement.Part 3
I woke up in hell. I knew it must be hell because Cordelia wasn't there.
She wasn't there, and her absence was a huge, all-consuming void that was about to swallow me whole. She wasn't there, and I needed her presence, her voice, her touch, needed her the way the living need air to breathe. She wasn't there, and every second that passed was more terrible than the one before it. She wasn't there, and there weren't words for the horror of being without her.
I could feel my throat starting to tighten as a scream began to rise in my chest.
Somehow I managed not to cry out. Instead I balled my hands into fists, and lay where I was -- somewhere cold, somewhere hard, I knew that much -- with my eyes shut. No need I'd ever experienced, no hunger or thirst or desire or terror, had ever been this overpowering. I had no thoughts, only the searing, brutal agony of want.
Back at the apartment, I'd told her that whatever we felt wasn't real. I'd barely been able to bring myself to believe it then, and I sure as hell didn't believe it now.
Time -- seconds, minutes, longer -- passed. The crushing sense of loss and need didn't abate, but after a while I managed to focus enough to realize it wasn't getting any worse. When I could think about moving again, I sat up slowly and opened my eyes. I unclenched my fists and looked at my palms, and saw blood oozing sluggishly from the wounds my nails had made in them. The physical pain actually provided some measure of relief; at least this was something I was used to tolerating.
I was in a cramped, metal-floored room which had the unmistakable shape and design of a ship's cabin. The room was barely larger than a closet and -- fortunately -- windowless. But sunlight wasn't going to be a problem for hours yet; I knew it was still dark outside because the buzzing sensation at the top of my spine that heralded each sunrise was barely a hum. Or maybe it was simply being drowned out by every nerve ending in my body screaming for Cordelia.
I wanted to see her face again, to hear her voice, to feel her skin, smooth and warm against mine, to taste her, to inhale the scent of her hair as I'd experienced it in the shower, sweet and unique and crisply clean from washing with my soap --
Wait. I wasn't imagining that. I really could smell her.
Her scent hung on the air. She was somewhere close.
I looked around. Opposite the door, there was a small, circular vent, covered by a metal grille. As I stood still, I could feel the faintest of drafts coming from it.
In a second, I was at the vent, my face pressed so hard against it I could feel the metal wires cutting into my cheek. I listened, and heard a noise I doubted human ears would have picked up -- the sound of ragged, frightened breathing.
"Cordelia?" I called. "Cordy?"
"Angel? Oh, God, Angel? Where are you?"
Her voice echoed down the ventilation system's pipes, hollow and faint. Hearing it filled me with a mixture of insane joy and intense relief, and at the same time increased the torture of not being able to see her. But, like an addict, I couldn't stop now. "Not far from you. Are you okay?"
"Sure, if you zero out the shuddering, icy, heart-palpitating PANIC." She made a noise that was half-way between a gasp and a sigh of misery. "Is it as bad as this for you?"
"No heart palpitations. Otherwise, yeah." I closed my eyes, breathed in her scent, and pretended she was in the room with me. That way, I almost felt normal.
"I woke up and you weren't there," she said. "I couldn't breathe. It felt like there were metal straps around my chest and someone was pulling them tighter and tighter and my heart was thumping so hard I thought it was gonna burst and I was gonna die right then and you weren't there and --"
"Cordelia," I interrupted, "Cordy, it's okay. Listen to me. I'm going to find a way out of here and come and get you. But, in the meantime, I need you to keep talking. Just -- keep talking."
I heard her take a deep, steadying breath. "It's easier when we're talking, isn't it?" she said finally. "I still want to throw up because you're not here, but when I hear your voice, it's not just so terrible."
"Right," I said. "But I pretty much suck at conversation. And I need to figure out how to get out of here."
I started to explore the cabin. It was an effort to move away from the ventilation grille, where her scent was strongest, but as I began to prowl around the confined space, the sound of her voice followed me, calming and comforting me.
"Sure. Keep talking. I can do that. I mean, I talk all the time anyway, right? So, talking now -- that's gotta be a cinch." There was a short silence, then her voice floated uncertainly out of the ventilation grille again. "What should I talk about?"
Under my feet, I could feel the floor rolling gently from side to side, and I realized we were headed out to sea. Since it was still night, we couldn't be more than a few hours' distant from land, but that was far enough to make escape more problematic. And it raised other unsettling questions, too. Such as, where were they taking us?
"Anything," I said. "Anything you like."
There was a second's silence. "Angel?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you really want me to leave L.A. and go back to Sunnydale?"
I put my shoulder to the cabin door and pushed experimentally. It didn't budge. "I want you to be safe."
"Right, and Sunnydale and safety go together like ketchup and ice-cream. Try another line, buddy."
"You could have broken your neck when you fell last night," I said, feeling the familiar stab of guilt as I recalled just how lucky she'd been. "How many other times have you nearly gotten killed just in the last couple of months? If you stay here with me, sooner or later you'll end up dead. Like Doyle. And I don't want your death on my conscience as well as his."
"So, what you're saying is, it's okay if I go back to Sunnydale and get turned into chowder for some vamp or Hellmouth freak -- just so long as I'm nowhere near you when it happens so you don't have to feel guilty about it."
I knelt at the cabin door and began to examine the lock mechanism. It was rusting at the edges, and several screws looked as if they could be removed without too much difficulty. I started to twist them, making them looser. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying -- I can't protect you."
"That's right. You can't." There was a note of triumph in Cordelia's voice, as if I'd just conceded an important point. "I figured that out already, Angel. When I was high school, I thought that being pretty and popular would protect me from all the bad stuff, but it didn't, 'cause Xander still cheated on me. And then I thought Daddy being rich would keep me safe -- and then all the money went away. And then, when I came to L.A. and met you and Doyle, I started to think maybe being good was the answer, but it's not, because Doyle was good and he still died." She took a deep breath, and I realized her voice had started to shake a little. But it was steady again when she concluded, "I KNOW you can't protect me from the bad stuff, Angel. I'm not asking you to."
She spoke with a sadness that didn't belong in the voice of a girl as young as she was. It reminded me of the way Buffy had sounded during our last conversations.
"Cordelia," I said at last, "I've been responsible for a lot of bad stuff myself, in my time. Now I'm trying to make up for it. You're not obligated to be part of that. My mission --"
From the other side of the vent, I heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like Cordelia blowing a raspberry. "Mission, shmission! Get over yourself, Angel."
I jiggled the door lock again, and was rewarded by two of the screws falling out. The lock was now definitely loose. Dryly, I said, "It's so nice to know my quest for redemption has your respect and support."
Cordelia laughed. It was the best sound I'd heard in days. "It does. You do. But sometimes you talk as if nothing happens that isn't because of a prophecy or a mission or Doyle's Powers-That-Be. You want to know why I'm still here?" Her voice softened, became gentle. "It's because you're my friend, Angel. The only real friend I've got in this city. I like you, and I'm not gonna stop liking you."
I stopped working on the door's lock mechanism and instead stared down at my hands -- the same hands I'd used to hurt and torture and kill in the years before the gypsies had cursed me. I remembered the long decades during which my existence had consisted of nothing except days of guilt-disturbed, fitful sleep and tortured, empty nights. When Whistler had found me in New York and told me I had a purpose other than to suffer, I had fallen on the idea with the hunger of a starving man. Since then, I had grown so used to the idea that my fate was to fulfill whatever prophecies and missions had been allotted to me as punishment for my litany of sins that I had stopped even considering the possibility that anything could happen to me that wasn't pre-ordained, outside of my control. Even falling in love with Buffy, for all that it had freed me, had sometimes felt like my destiny rather than my choice.
And now Cordelia said she liked me. That we were friends. As if that were the simplest, most natural thing in the world, and not the greatest and most unmerited gift a creature like myself could receive.
"Thanks," I said.
Cordelia didn't reply.
Hesitantly, I added, "I like you, too."
Still no reply. The cabin felt unnaturally silent.
Then I realized why -- I could no longer hear the gentle susurration of Cordelia's breathing coming from the ventilation grille, and her scent was already growing stale on the air.
"Cordelia!" I yelled.
She was gone. She was gone and I didn't know where she was --
Unthinkingly, I began to pound the cabin door, kicking and shoving it until it started to rattle in its frame. It would have made more sense to finish the job I'd started on the lock and make a quiet escape instead of creating enough noise to attract the attention of everyone on board. But I wasn't thinking about anything except the overriding necessity of finding Cordelia.
Lowering my shoulder, I rammed the door. It started to buckle and, ignoring the pain, I backed up and made ready to do it again.
As it turned out, I didn't have to. The door opened.
Two of Hunter's hench-demons were standing in the corridor looking in at me. They were each over seven feet tall, including their curled horns -- they had to stoop in the yacht's low corridor -- and in appearance they most resembled the unwanted by-product of a genetics experiment carried out on a lizard and a goat. I recognized them as Xohotical demons: stupid, vicious and insanely loyal to anyone who gives them fresh raw meat and scratches between their horns.
"Boss wants to see you," growled the first demon.
"Where is she?" I demanded. I wasn't in a position to demand anything, but I figured I had nothing to lose trying.
"Boss wanted to see her," the second demon said, roughly grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the cabin. "Boss wants to see you." It smiled unpleasantly at me and added, "Boss has special job for both of you."
That should have been enough to tell me the bad situation we were in was about to get even worse. Yet, as they dragged me along the yacht's corridor, the only thing I felt clearly was relief that Cordelia was still okay and we were going to be together again soon.
***
Our route to the Delilah's wheelroom took us outside and along the yacht's deck, and I seized the opportunity to try to pick up any clues as to where we were going. In front of the yacht, the sea stretched ahead, ink-black under the clear night sky. Off to starboard, I could see the faint, flickering lights of the city. That, at least, was good news: we weren't headed straight out to sea, but were instead maintaining a course parallel to the shore.
I squinted at the distant lights, trying to judge how far offshore we were, but before I could make a guess, my demon captors hauled me up a set of steps and into the Delilah's wheelhouse. And then every other thought evaporated from my mind, because Cordelia was there.
She was being guarded by two more of the Xohotical demons; she looked frightened and pale, but she didn't seem to be hurt. She looked around as my captors pulled me through the door and tried to come to me, but the demons held her back. So did the two flanking me when I tried to get to her.
For an instant I felt a tide of red rage rise up in me, felt my teeth sharpen into fangs and my face harden. Dimly, I was aware that losing control now was more likely to get both Cordelia and myself killed than solve anything, but that didn't quell the mounting fury I felt at the idea of anyone keeping us apart.
"Let her go," said a man's voice.
The demons holding Cordelia hesitated, then released her. She ran the few paces it took to get to me, and we clung on to each other. Suddenly I wasn't thinking about Hunter or Jameela or the really, really bad situation we'd somehow gotten ourselves into; everything I needed and wanted was in my arms.
"Are you okay?" I asked when I could speak.
"Better now," Cordelia whispered back. I knew exactly what she meant.
We maneuvered ourselves so that we were standing side by side, although we were still holding hands. Our enforced separation hadn't done anything to weaken the enchantment -- if anything, our need to be close to each other had intensified to the point where we couldn't even think straight unless we were in physical contact. Now that we were holding hands, I didn't think either of us was going to be able to let go; we weren't handcuffed together, but we might as well have been.
But at least now I had the reassurance of Cordelia's hand in mine, I could concentrate sufficiently on other things to look around properly. The Delilah's wheelroom was as redolent of money and taste as the rest of the yacht. The instrument panels were finished in dark wood, the antique effect a pointed contrast to the abundance of hi-tech navigation aids which probably had more to do with indulging the owner's love of gadgets than helping to point the boat in the right direction. A sweeping, curved window gave whoever was at the yacht's wheel a comprehensive view of the yacht's prow and the ocean beyond.
Right now, that person was Michael Hunter. He was standing at the Delilah's wheel, wearing the rich man's weekend uniform of chinos and a khaki sweater, and looking urbane and relaxed and very much as if kidnapping and drug-running were part of his normal daily existence. Jameela stood close to him, one hand clutching his sleeve. Her gaze was lowered to the floor.
"We know all about you, Mister," Cordelia said. "We know about the drugs, and the magic, and the -- and the creamer!"
"The creamer isn't actually illegal," I pointed out quietly.
"Yeah, but two things is a pretty lame list," she whispered back. Then she raised her voice again and demanded, "Where are you taking us?"
Hunter didn't reply; he didn't even look around. He turned the wheel a fraction, and adjusted his stance. As he moved, I saw there was a gun sitting on the edge of the Delilah's navigation panel. It was resting where Hunter could reach it easily -- but it was also within Jameela's reach.
I decided to try another approach.
"Jameela," I said.
She didn't look up from the floor, or meet my gaze.
"Jameela, what he's doing is wrong. You know that. What you think you feel for him isn't real -- it's just magic." Jameela still wouldn't look at me, but I saw her glance toward Hunter. Encouraged, I continued, "He's not even a person, Jameela. He's a creature called a Siren, pretending to be a person. He doesn't love you and you don’t really love him. Look inside yourself and you'll realize that's true."
Hunter respond to that at all, but Jameela tightened her grip on his arm. But I saw her other hand start to work its way across the Delilah's instrument panel, toward the gun. "Michael," she said quietly. "Michael, you love me, don't you?"
Now Hunter turned and looked at her. "I adore you."
"That's a crock!" Cordelia exclaimed.
"I would do anything for you," Jameela said. "Would you do anything for me?"
"Baby," Hunter whispered, "you know I would." His hands had fallen from the yacht's wheel; he seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be steering it.
A sudden and unpleasant suspicion formed in my mind.
Jameela's hand tightened around the gun. She lifted it. "I would die for you. Would you die for me?"
"In a second," Hunter said.
A human in a siren's thrall is a pitiful thing, Sorcha had said.
Oh shit.
"Then die for me," Jameela said, and gave Hunter the gun.
He was smiling at her as he blew his brains out.
It happened so fast there was no time to intervene. Cordelia cried out, and there was a horrible, wet splattering sound as most of Michael Hunter's brains exited his skull and hit the inside of the cockpit's window. The air thickened with the scent of blood as his body thudded limply on to the floor.
Jameela straightened up, tossed her hair back and dropped her little-girl-lost act for the first time. Looking at us with a gaze that was as composed as it was utterly malevolent, she said, "I'm impressed you've heard of Sirens. There aren't many of us, and we like to keep a low profile." She nudged Hunter's body with her toe. "For obvious reasons."
Cordelia was still staring in horror at Hunter's body. "You killed him."
Jameela shrugged. "He killed himself. Humans are pathetic -- they take pheromones and biochemistry and they slap the word 'love' on it and pretend it's somehow transcendent. Look at you," she added, waving contemptuously at Cordelia and myself, "a vampire and his lunch, holding hands. Do you have ANY idea how ludicrous you are?"
Regaining some of her composure, Cordelia said, "I am no one's lunch."
The Xohotical demons quietly moved around so that they flanked Jameela, two on either side of her.
"You know, this used to be so much less work," Jameela said wistfully. "Back in the day, all we had to do was sit on a rock singing and wait. The ships practically dashed themselves, you know? And all that lovely gold just washed up around us..." Her eyes grew unfocused as she fell into reverie. "Coins and jewelry and rings. So many beautiful things. Do you know how wealth is stored now? Stocks and bonds and options, little pieces of paper or electronic pulses moving between bank accounts. Money doesn't go clink anymore."
Jameela's eyes were shining as she warmed to her topic, and I realized this was probably the only thing Sirens felt real affection for.
"That's why you targeted Hunter," I said. "You realized his legitimate business was just a cover for the real source of his money."
Jameela shrugged. "No one ever got that rich from creamer. All I had to do was wait until he told me everything I needed to know -- the sources, the contacts, the channels." She glanced disparagingly at the body on the floor. "He was too dumb to realize everything he told me was bringing him closer and closer to permanent retirement."
"Wow," Cordelia said. "I mean, demons are evil. Got that, down with it. But -- drug trafficking demons? You're in a whole new league of evilness."
Jameela smiled. "Why, thank you, my dear."
"Well, now you're sunk," Cordelia said. "Because Angel and I know all about you, and we're gonna go straight to the cops, and, and --" She broke off abruptly, and I felt her hand tighten around mine. "And you're gonna kill us before we can do that, aren't you?"
"That's the plan," Jameela conceded. "But not before you help me."
"I don't think so," I said.
"Oh, but I do." Jameela was smiling again. "Tonight, a sudden and mysterious fire will sink the Delilah. By the time the last charred timber sinks to the bottom of the ocean, I'll be a hundred miles away -- with the real cargo."
"It's not that easy to disappear," I said. "The authorities will expect to find a body."
"And they will." Jameela was looking at Cordelia in a way I didn't like at all.
Nervously, Cordelia said, "You think that'll work? The cops check things like dental records, you know."
"They won't be able to," Jameela said sweetly, "if you don't have any teeth."
She motioned at the nearest demon, which lumbered threateningly toward Cordelia. Raising a clawed hand and smiling unpleasantly, it casually swiped at her face. It was just playing with her, taking the opportunity to cause a little terror before it got down to the serious business of maiming, but Cordelia didn't move back quickly enough, and one claw grazed her cheek. A tiny scratch just below her eye started to well with blood.
She was bleeding. They had hurt her.
Suddenly, everything -- Jameela, the demons, Michael Hunter's dead body, the yacht, the night and the wide Pacific ocean -- faded, became insignificant and inconsequential. My world began and ended with Cordelia; for each drop of her blood that had been spilled, I wanted to wring pints from whoever had hurt her.
I brought the first demon down without difficulty -- nothing could have prepared it for the violence of my attack. The second demon put up more of a struggle, but made a fatal error when it lowered its head to try to ram me with its horns. I grabbed one of them and twisted it until it broke off in my hand, leaving the demon writhing on the floor, clutching the bloody hole in its head where the horn had been. When the third demon charged at me, I threw the horn at it like a missile. The point slammed into the middle of the demon's chest, and it flew backward into the wide window at the front of the cockpit. It hit the window and kept going, sailing out into the night in a shower of shattered glass, before landing on the deck below with a satisfying crunch.
I was only warming up.
"Angel!"
Cordelia's voice. Was she in trouble?
I looked around, and saw with relief she wasn't. But she was glaring angrily at me, and for a moment, I couldn't figure out why.
"Angel, you're gonna dislocate my shoulder!"
I looked down, and realized I was still holding her hand -- gripping it so tightly her fingers were white and bloodless. Somehow I'd made it through the whole fight like that.
"Sorry," I said. I loosened my grip, but didn't let go, and Cordelia didn't ask me to.
"THANK you," she said, rubbing her shoulder with her free hand. "Where'd skanky Siren lady go?"
I looked around the wheelhouse, and saw it was empty. The door was swinging in the breeze blowing in through the shattered window, and I could hear the sound of footsteps, rapidly growing fainter.
"Come on," I said, and together we ran out of the wheelhouse and down the steps, still holding hands.
We raced toward the yacht's stern, following the sound of Jameela running ahead of us. We hadn't gone far when I caught the first scent of smoke in the air. The next porthole we passed glowed with an orange-red, flickering light.
"Great," Cordelia said, gasping a little as she ran next to me. "You know what's worse than being trapped with drug-smuggling demons in the middle of the ocean on a boat? Being trapped with drug-smuggling demons in the middle of the ocean on a boat THAT'S ON FIRE."
"We're not trapped," I said. The Delilah had everything else; it had to have a lifeboat --
We rounded the next corner, and I saw the Delilah did have a lifeboat. Jameela was already in it.
The fourth Xohotical demon was loading small, plastic-wrapped packages into the dinghy while Jameela untied the ropes securing it to the side of the Delilah. She looked up at us as we ran on to the aft deck, the look on her face one of faint annoyance. "The other three were supposed to take care of you." She snapped her fingers and barked a command at the demon.
The demon rushed at us. "Don't move," I said to Cordelia. "And get ready."
"Get ready for what --?"
I didn't have time to answer -- the demon was nearly on us. I put my hand on Cordelia's shoulder, leaped, twisted, and kicked, using her body as leverage. I heard her gasp in surprise, and her shoulder dipped a little, but she didn't move. My foot connected squarely with the demon's throat; the force of the blow knocked it back, and as I landed I saw it skid across the deck and over the side of the yacht.
Cordelia glared at me. "Next time, a little more warning, please." She looked toward the side of the deck. "Do you think it can swim?"
"Oh, yeah, Xohotical demons can swim," I said. From the side of the yacht, we heard a scream, followed by an unpleasant hissing, bubbling sound. "Salt water, on the other hand..."
Jameela looked at the spot where the last of her demon helpers had gone into the sea. Sounding more irritated than anything else, she said, "You people are starting to piss me off."
As she spoke, her voice changed, becoming rougher and more guttural. Then she stood up, her body twisting and warping as she rose. Her hair rose and hardened into poisonous-looking spikes and iridescent scales appeared on her skin, exactly the same as the one I had found in Hunter's bedroom. Her eyes reddened, the pupils shrinking and disappearing, and webbing grew between her fingers, at the same time as they lengthened and sharpened into claws.
Jameela -- in her real and not at all attractive form -- stepped out of the lifeboat and on to the Delilah's deck. With one scaly and powerful arm she -- it? -- broke off a portion of the yacht's boom. Apparently she was much stronger in her true shape.
"Cordelia?" I said.
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm going to need both hands for this."
With effort, we let go of each other. Immediately, I felt worse -- lifeless, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, or a TV with the plug pulled. Just staying on my feet was a struggle.
Jameela wielded the boom like a club, swiping it low through the air. I jumped, and looked around frantically for something I could use as a weapon. I didn't see anything.
Jameela roared, and attacked again. This time, I wasn't fast enough, and the blow glanced off my shoulder. I lost my balance and fell on to the yacht's deck, landing hard on my back. I heard Cordelia yell, and when I looked up I saw Jameela towering above me, making ready to bring the boom down on to my skull.
Suddenly, a thick coil of rope dropped over Jameela, temporarily pinning her arms to her sides. She dropped the boom, and I rolled out of the way. When I got to my feet, I saw Cordelia holding on to the other end of the crude lasso. She wasn't going to be able to hold Jameela for long.
I dived for the boom and retrieved it. Behind me, I heard a snap, and when I turned around I saw Jameela break the rope with a roar. Cordelia staggered backward, losing her balance as the rope went slack. I only had a few seconds. It was all I needed.
Launching myself at Jameela, I knocked her over, and we rolled together across the yacht's deck. When we stopped, I was on top of her. I hefted the boom and made ready to slam the sharp, splintered end into Jameela's chest.
Jameela smiled, mouth twisting back to reveal several rows of teeth. A black tongue flicked over her lips. In a quiet, deceptively soft voice, she said, "When I die, she won't want you anymore."
I hesitated.
Jameela reached up and grabbed the boom out of my hands. Then she threw me off herself with such force that I slammed backward, only stopping when I collided painfully with the main mast. As I picked myself up, I saw Jameela heading back to the lifeboat. And I saw Cordelia running toward her, clearly intent on stopping her reaching it. She was going to get herself killed.
I heard myself shout Cordelia's name. As if in slow motion, I saw her turn around and look at me. And I saw Jameela wielding the boom, knocking Cordelia sideways, across the deck and over the yacht's railings.
I ran across the deck, ignoring Jameela, who was lowering the yacht's lifeboat into the sea. I skidded the last couple of yards on my knees, and looked over the side of the boat with a sick sense of fear.
Cordelia's face was about six inches below mine. She was clinging on to the edge of the deck with both hands. Her knuckles were white and I could see every muscle in her arms was stretched and taut.
"Take my hand," I said, reaching down to her.
Through gritted teeth, she said, "I thought you'd never ask."
I grasped Cordelia's arms and wrists, feeling an intense and almost physical sense of relief as I touched her, and pulled her back up on to the yacht. When she was safely back on the yacht's deck, I enfolded her in my arms, and we stayed that way for several minutes.
Cordelia spoke first. "Did Jameela take the lifeboat?"
I looked around, and saw the dinghy was gone. "Yes."
"Great," Cordelia muttered. "So much for women and vampires first. You know what? The only way this could possibly be worse would be if the boat was on fire." A pall of smoke drifted above us, blocking our view of the night sky. I could hear the crackling of flames. "No, wait, the boat IS on fire, and this situation cannot, officially, get ANY WORSE."
"Maybe there's another lifeboat," I suggested.
A quick tour of the parts of the yacht which weren't yet impassable due to the fire dashed that faint hope. When we returned to the aft deck, Cordelia leaned over the rails and waved at the distant lights of Santa Monica. "Hey!" she yelled, "Hey! Help!"
"We're too far away," I said. "No one will hear."
Cordelia looked desperately toward the shoreline. "It looks so close. We can't be more than a mile or two out. I used to swim in the sea when we spent summer at the beach house. I know we could swim that distance." She turned around, her voice and face alight with sudden hope. "Angel, we could swim to shore."
I looked at her, and knew with cold certainty there was only one way out of this. "You could swim it."
Cordelia stared at me in confusion for a moment, and then her face took on a look of dismay. "Oh -- Angel. Oh, God, I forgot." She shook her head. "This would usually be the point where I would make a nice speech about how I can't leave you behind. Except --" She held up her hand, in the process raising mine, too. Our fingers were entwined tightly around each other. "Except it happens to be literally true. I can't leave you, Angel. I can't."
"You'll have to," I said. "Look, I'm not going to drown. The worst that can happen is I'll sink to the bottom and have to walk back to land."
Caustically, Cordelia said, "Using what -- the map of the ocean floor you always keep handy? There are no signposts at the bottom of the sea, Angel. If you pick the wrong direction, the next stop is Japan." She screwed up her face in something not unlike pain. "Besides, that's not the point. The point is, we'd be apart, and I -- just -- can't --"
I knew exactly what she meant. The idea of being separated from her was making me feel physically ill.
Making my voice deliberately harsh, I said, "If you stay here, with me, you're going to die. You have to swim." I looked around, and saw a lifebelt hanging on hooks on the deck's railings. I pulled Cordelia toward it, took it down, and pushed it into her free hand. "Take this."
"We already had this argument!" Cordelia yelled, and pushed the lifebelt back at me.
"And this is exactly why I was right!" I was shouting back at her, now. I thrust the lifebelt back at her so hard she had to take a step back.
Cordelia looked at the lifebelt, then at me. "No, you're wrong," she said, "and we're gonna prove it."
Then she hugged me, grabbed me with one hand and the lifebelt with the other, and deliberately pulled us both over the deck's railings.
Part 4
Cordelia and I plummeted off the burning yacht together, and for an instant I was aware of nothing except the feel of her body in my arms and the rush of the wind whistling past my ears. Then we hit the water's surface, and the Pacific swallowed us up.
As I knew I would, I started to sink. I let go of Cordelia -- this time, I wasn't going to drag her down with me -- and let myself start to go under. The water was mild, even warm, but it grew rapidly cooler as I started to descend. I wondered what it would be like at the bottom. At least I wouldn't have to worry about sunlight.
Then I felt Cordelia's hand tighten around my arm. She was pulling me back to the surface, using the lifebelt to give her enough buoyancy to keep us both afloat.
"Let go --" I gasped as soon as my head was above the water.
"Haven't you ever been to vampire life saving class?" Cordelia asked. Her face was set with a determination I hadn't known she possessed. "Kick, dammit!"
"Cordelia --"
"I'm NOT letting go of you," she said. "So you'd better start kicking before you get me drowned."
I kicked. And kicked. And kept kicking.
What we were doing was hardly swimming -- we were barely floating, and sometimes it felt as if the lights of the shore weren't getting any closer, and once or twice I was afraid they were actually becoming more distant. When Cordelia started to tire, I pushed the lifebelt under her chin so her head was above the water, and tried not to drag her under the waves. It was difficult: my limbs were corpse-heavy, and I had to fight the urge simply to give in, to let myself sink to the bottom and settle into dark and silent rest. But I couldn't let go of Cordelia, and I wouldn't allow myself to pull her down with me.
"Did I -- say this -- was a good -- idea?" she spluttered, struggling to speak between desperately snatched breaths. "Really -- stupid --"
"Listen," I said.
"To -- what --?"
"I hear an engine."
We both listened. Somewhere in the darkness, he whining, high-pitched drone of a powerboat was rising above the ocean's dull roar. As it grew louder, I saw the waves near to us shine with reflected light.
Cordelia raised her arm out of the water and waved frantically. "Over here! Hey! Woman and vampire overboard! Hey!"
I shouted, too, and for a second the powerboat's lights seemed to veer toward us. But instead of slowing down, the boat accelerated past us, bouncing through the swell and disappearing rapidly back into the night.
Cordelia shouted until her voice hoarsened and exhaustion forced her to stop waving. I saw her look toward the still-distant lights on the shore, hope draining from her. Her head started to bob lower and lower in the water. "It’s too far. We're not gonna make it."
I kicked harder, but even with the lifebelt's buoyancy to help me, I couldn't keep both of us above the water. The truth was, I needed Cordelia. I just hadn't let myself acknowledge how much until now.
I struggled to keep my head above water, so I could speak. "Cordelia," I said. "Cordy, listen to me. I needed you and Doyle, and now Doyle's gone -- I need you. I thought -- when I came to L.A. -- I could make it by myself. I can't. I don't want you to go. I was wrong."
"Well, of COURSE you were wrong," Cordelia said as we bobbed up and down together on the swelling and subsiding waves. "But jeez, Angel, you couldn't have admitted it BEFORE we got enchanted, chased, kidnapped, beaten up and nearly drowned?"
She was trying to look annoyed, but there was something in her voice that told me she wasn't. "I'll keep that in mind for next time," I said.
Cordelia made a snorting sound that was clearly meant to convey her firm intention that there wasn't going to be a next time, and we started swimming again. This time, our progress was significantly easier --- the incoming tide had caught us and was bearing us swiftly toward land. When at last I heard the sound of waves breaking on the shore, I gave one final kick, and felt sand under my feet.
I staggered forward, walking now instead of swimming. Cordelia was near-exhausted, and for once our need for physical closeness actually had a purpose, as she hooked her arm over my shoulders and I put mine around her waist, giving her support. We made our way through the surf toward the beach, the waves reaching first my chest, then my waist, then my knees, until finally Cordelia and I were standing in water that was barely ankle-deep, while tiny wavelets lapped around our feet.
I let the lifebelt drop. It sat for a second on the damp sand, before an advancing wave lifted it and carried it back out to sea.
"We made it," Cordelia said at last. She sounded almost as amazed as I felt.
"We made it," I agreed. "But -- I don't think I'm going to take up swimming any time soon."
Cordelia looked at me, her face serious. "That's a shame. 'Cause, you know, I can just picture you in a pair of little red Speedos --" She broke off, unable to keep a straight face any longer, and started to giggle. Her joy was pure and infectious, and I smiled back at her. Cordelia moved around until she was hugging me with both arms, and I embraced her in turn. We stood that way for some time, the cool ocean stealing the sand from under our feet while the moonlit, empty beach rang with the sound of Cordelia's joyful laughter.
A larger wave broke around our feet, spraying us with seawater. Californian winters are mild, but even L.A. can be cold in November, and the night air was chill and dry. Cordelia hugged herself closer to me, and as welcome as the sensation of her body pressing against mine was, I knew there wasn't much I could do to warm her up -- I was cold to the core, stripped of even minimal warmth by the sea. Cordelia shivered violently in my arms.
"We need to get you warm," I said.
She stammered her agreement through chattering teeth.
The moon was almost full and the sky was cloudless, and there was sufficient light to see some distance in both directions along the beach. Cordelia and I were the only people on it -- not surprising, since it was the middle of the night -- but just above the tide line I saw a small, windowless wooden hut, timbers bleached from long exposure to the sun.
"This way," I said, and helped Cordelia toward it.
The hut's door was padlocked, but the chain it hung on was rusted and brittle, and I was able to break it without difficulty. Inside, the walls of the hut were lined with shelves piled high with towels, and there were boxes of neatly rolled beach mats on the floor. Stenciled lettering on the sides of the boxes informed us that everything we saw was the property of the Pacific View Hotel, and the management would take an extremely dim view of anyone who wasn't a patron of the hotel using it.
I decided the management of the Pacific View Hotel could take a leap, and lifted down a bundle of towels from the nearest shelf. I handed them to Cordelia, who wrapped them around herself, cloak-like, while I continued to dig through the contents of the boxes. It wasn't long before I found an even better prize -- matches, probably kept down here to light the hotel's beach party barbeques.
I lifted an armful of beach mats and carried them outside. They were made from roughly woven cloth, and lit easily when I put a match to them. Within a couple of minutes, sparks were rising high into the air from the fire I'd made in a hollow in the sand. The flames rose, banishing the darkness and creating a circle of warmth and light with us at its center.
When I looked around, Cordelia was kicking off her wet jeans, letting them fall into the pile on top of her sea-sodden blouse. In place of her clothes, she had draped Pacific View Hotel towels around her waist and shoulders, neatly rolling and tucking them so they stayed in place. She looked like she was wearing a fluffy white kimono.
We sat down together by the fire, leaning against each other and the outside of the beach hut. Here, we had shelter from the cool breeze coming off the ocean, and the hut's timber proved effective at trapping the fire's warmth and reflecting it back on us. It wasn't long before the color started to return to Cordelia's lips and cheeks.
"Warmer now?" I asked.
Cordelia nodded. "Most of me. My hands and feet haven't gotten the memo, yet, though."
I took her hand; her fingers felt cold in mine. Gently, I started to rub them between my palms, hoping to use the friction of the motion to warm her in place of the body heat I didn't have. My reward was a small noise of satisfaction from Cordelia. "Mmmm. That's nice. Keep doing that."
Encouraged, I moved on to her other hand, and then to her wrists and arms. Her skin was porcelain-cool, and as smooth as fine china. The more I touched her, the more I wanted to keep touching her, and it felt natural to keep working my way up her arm until my hands were underneath the towel, caressing her shoulders. It was difficult to reach her other shoulder from where I was sitting, and so, without really thinking about what I was doing, I repositioned myself so I was straddling her.
A sudden, loud crashing noise snapped both of us back to our senses.
Cordelia looked up sharply. "What was that?"
"It came from the ocean." I concentrated on listening, but apart from the crackling of the fire and the breaking waves, I couldn't hear anything.
"Maybe it was the noise of the Delilah sinking."
"Maybe," I said doubtfully. The only noise the Delilah would have made as she sunk under the waves would have been a hiss as the water extinguished the fire which had destroyed her, but what I had heard had sounded like the crash of a high-speed impact.
My hands were still on Cordelia's shoulders, her face still close to mine. I was kneeling in the sand, her legs resting in the gap between mine. The only polite way of describing our position was 'compromising'. There were a lot of impolite descriptions for it, too. "I'm sorry --" I began.
Cordelia put her hand lightly on my arm, and suddenly my absolute intention to get off her dissolved like the foam on the waves breaking down the beach. In a quiet voice, she asked, "Angel, what are we gonna do?"
I didn't answer straight away. I'd been hoping to avoid this question at least until we'd both had a chance to rest. But it wasn't going to go away, and we might as well confront it.
Finally, I said, "We have a couple of options. We could go looking for Jameela. Or we could go back to Sorcha and ask her if she knows any other way of undoing the magic." I tried to sound upbeat as I added, "There's usually a ritual for this kind of thing."
"Involving entrails?" Cordelia asked.
"Probably. But not ours. I hope."
Cordelia looked at me. "You don't know how we're gonna fix this, do you?"
"No," I admitted.
I felt a stab of guilt as I remembered that it had been my hesitation back on the yacht which had allowed Jameela to escape. Just for a moment, I'd listened to the selfish inner voice that wanted to keep Cordelia close to me, and in the process I'd only caused her more distress -- and maybe ruined our chances of breaking the enchantment, ever.
"I'm sorry," I said again. "I know how tough it must be for you, being tied to me like this --"
Cordelia made a sound that was more like a moan than a sigh. "It's not that. When we were apart on the yacht I kept thinking it'd just be okay if I could see you and touch you again, but it doesn't matter how close we are, I just want to be closer. It feels like I'm fighting, fighting, fighting all the time -- I don't think I'm gonna be able to stand another five minutes of this, and it might be five days or weeks or even longer --" She broke off. "Being close to you isn't the problem, Angel. The problem is I can't get close enough."
She looked up at me, her face aching with a frustration and longing that perfectly mirrored my own.
In that instant, I knew I would do anything, anything at all, if it would make her happy.
I kissed her.
Her lips were still cold, but the inside of her mouth was warm like the heat radiating on to us from the fire. A faint flavor of seawater still clung to her, but the more deeply we kissed, the purer her taste became, until I felt as if I were kneeling at the clearest spring.
I forced myself to stop kissing her long enough to say, "I don't want to take advantage --"
"You're not," Cordelia whispered, tipping back her head so I could kiss her throat, starting under her chin and working my way down to her breast bone.
"You're not in control of yourself," I murmured into the hollow between her breasts.
"And you are?" When she spoke, the vibrations from her chest tickled my lips. "If you want, we can stop and both sign waivers."
She curled one arm around me, and I felt her index finger tracing a pattern of lines and curves on my shoulder. C, O, R... I realized she was signing her name on my skin.
"I don't want to stop," I said, and lifted my head just enough to look her in the eye. She looked back at me, her gaze a heady mixture of excitement and certainty.
"Me either," she said.
She slid downward, so she was no longer sitting but was instead lying beneath me. She reached up, looping both arms around the back of my neck, and the towel which had been draped around her shoulders slid off her and on to the sand. The second towel she was wearing covered her upper body, tucked so that it stayed in place just below her arms, and the third was rolled around her waist. Slowly, deliberately, I unfolded them, opening out each one in turn. I felt as if I were unwrapping a perfect, priceless gift.
When I had finished, Cordelia was lying naked under me on a soft white bed of hotel towels. I could feel the heat rising off her, see the slow ripple of gooseflesh moving across her as the cold air caressed her skin.
"Touch me," she said. Her voice was low and husky and slightly breathless. I could hear the hunger in it.
"Where?"
She arched her back, lifting her chest toward me. "Everywhere. Oh, God, just -- everywhere."
I put my hands on either side of her waist -- my thumbs almost met just above her belly button -- and slowly brushed my palms upward, marveling at the way her body seemed to hum and tremble under my touch. I cupped her breasts, one in each hand, their cool softness a contrast to the tiny, hard knot at the center of each. I ducked my head and let my lips brush each one in turn; when she cried out in response, I felt something rise within me, a swell of water becoming a wave, starting to move toward the distant shore.
I worked my hands over her body slowly, methodically, thoroughly. I marveled at how every part of her felt slightly different. Just under her breasts was as delicate and yielding as fine silk, but when I put my hand on her hip I could feel the solid resistance of muscle and bone working together as she changed her position. I wanted to know every inch of her, leave nothing unexplored.
When I had visited every other possible destination on her body, I tracked my fingers upward, along the inside of her thigh, burying them in the soft, dark mat I found there. The triangle of hair was as dark against her pale stomach as the hair on her head was as it fanned out against the sand. I worked my way deeper, until I was touching the source of her warmth, the furnace burning at her core.
She gasped and raised her hips, pushing against me, tightening her thighs, squeezing my hand between them.
Then she unhooked her arms from around my neck and started to unbutton my shirt. It was a relief when she tugged it off -- the warmth of the fire and her fingertips on my bare skin were infinitely preferable to clammy, damp material. "I want to touch you," she said, starting to undo my belt.
A second later I felt the fire's heat on the backs of my legs. Then her hands were on me, squeezing and compressing me in exquisite, unbearable tightness. At the same time I could feel her working herself against my trapped hand, chafing against my palm. The growing wave inside me surged forward, threatened to break. I extricated my hand from between her thighs and used it to break her hold on me.
Cordelia gave a moan that was thick with raw need and desperation. The sound of it was almost enough to do what I'd been afraid her touch would. But not quite.
"Not close enough," she said. "Closer."
Her legs parted and slid outward, making ridges in the sand. I planted my hands on either side of her and lowered myself so that we were chest to chest, belly to belly, skin against skin. We were as close as it was possible to get. It still wasn't close enough.
Cordelia slipped her hand between our bodies and took hold of me again, but this time it was to guide me into her. As I entered her, I felt a sense of completion; we fitted each other, two halves of a whole, entire only when joined. It felt so right, so essential, that I took a second to wonder why we'd ever believed we had to fight this.
I slid in and out of her slowly, savoring the intimacy of the touch, the intensity of sensation. As we moved together, the sand underneath the towels shifted to accommodate us, molding to fit our bodies. In this position, I could look down at Cordelia; her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her face tight with arousal and need. I quickened the rhythm of our movement, and saw her bite down on her lower lip in an effort to control her mounting pleasure. The sight of it excited me, made it harder to keep control myself.
Then she opened her eyes and looked up at me. Her gaze was piercing, clear, accepting. My oldest memories tell me that when humans look deeply into another person's eyes, they see themselves reflected there. I didn't reflect in Cordelia's pupils any more than I reflect anywhere else, but when I looked deep into her gaze, I saw something much better than myself. I saw her.
I pushed into her, more deeply than before, as deep as I could go. Finally, we were close enough.
"I'm gonna, I'm gonna --" She broke off, gasped, and then I felt a long, sweet shudder pass up through her body, making her tremble from feet to fingertips. She gasped, then shouted, her voice rising above the distant sound of the waves breaking on the shore. I felt her clench around me, as a dam deep, deep within her burst, releasing a euphoric tide. And I saw the tension in her face dissolve as bliss overtook her.
Her body became liquid against mine, fluid and pliant. As she relaxed, limbs loosening, the last spasms deep inside her carried me onward, a rip-tide I was helpless to resist. I felt the wave breaking inside me, starting at the point where our bodies met and spreading outwards, washing away everything in its path.
When the wave finally subsided, I lay still for a moment, exhausted and grateful, like a shipwrecked man washed up on a welcoming shore after the storm. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the Pacific breaking on the beach, over and over, the ocean caressing the land with the gentleness of a lover's touch.
I rolled off Cordelia, and made a hollow in the sand beside her. Then I pulled the towels over both of us like blankets, so that we were swaddled together in a cocoon made warm by the fire and her body heat.
"Shoulda done that way sooner," Cordelia said, smiling drowsily at me.
I wanted to agree, but before I could we were both asleep.
***
I was woken up by cold water lapping at my feet.
I sat up. The sky was still dark, although the moon was setting and the buzz at the back of my head told me dawn was not far off.
The fire had gone out, although the ashes of the Hotel Pacific View's beach mats would smolder for some time yet -- if the incoming tide didn't swallow them up first. That was what had woken me; while Cordelia and I had slept, the sea had crept up the beach, and now the most far-reaching of the advancing waves had reached my feet. Cordelia, still wrapped up in the towels, had curled up next to me, fetal-style. She was still dry and warm, and slept on, in blissful ignorance of the advancing ocean.
I put out my hand to wake her up and tell her she needed to move, then thought better of it when I saw the look on her sleeping face. She was smiling faintly, immersed in some pleasant dream -- one, I hoped, where she lived in a world without enchantments or evil demons, where Doyle was alive and there were plenty of shoes. I didn't want to have to bring her back from that place before I absolutely had to.
Very carefully, I got up and lifted her in my arms. Then I carried her to a spot above the tide line, and set her down gently, still swathed in the towels. I pulled on my shirt and pants -- they were dry now, and stiff with salt -- and sat down next to her, bending my legs and resting my arms on my knees and looking out at the ocean. Next to the Pacific's vast and timeless expanse, I felt mortal.
After a while, I noticed that the incoming tide was washing something on to the beach -- some kind of debris. Curious, I got up and walked the short distance down to the water's edge. I found some shattered wood and fiberglass panels, of sufficiently different sizes and shapes to convince me I was looking at the wreckage of not one but two small vessels.
Another wave broke over my feet, carrying more pieces of wreckage. But these were different. When I reached down into the surf and picked up an item at random, I found I was holding a small plastic package. The package had been punctured by the ocean, and was now little more than a shriveled husk, but a small amount of white residue still clung to its interior. It looked like flour-and-water paste and was probably about as valuable.
I turned the package over in my hand -- and froze.
A single, iridescent scale was sticking to the underside of the plastic. It glittered harshly in the moonlight.
The water lapped around my ankles, and I looked down. All around my bare feet floated a collection of empty plastic packages and shimmering, reptilian scales.
I remembered Jameela gloating as she made her escape in the Delilah's tiny dinghy, taking Michael Hunter's shipment of illegal drugs with her. I remembered the powerboat that had sped recklessly past Cordelia and myself as we swam to safety. And I remembered the crashing noise we had heard once we reached the beach.
I held the scale up in the moonlight, hardly daring to believe in the string of coincidences required to make what I thought had happened possible. The scale was sharp, and I cut myself on it as I examined it. Even dead, Jameela was still dangerous.
But she was dead.
I looked to where Cordelia lay sleeping. As an experiment, I walked along the water's edge, away from her. I looked back several times, but I didn't feel a compulsion to return to her. I didn't feel unreasoning panic when I deliberately walked behind a sand dune, blocking her from my sight for a minute or more.
I walked ten yards further along the sand, twenty, forty. I was further away from Cordelia than I had been in days, and I was okay. Jameela was dead; the magic that had bound Cordelia and myself together had been broken.
It was over, I realized with a growing sense of relief. The part of the enchantment that had kept us physically tied to each other had already dispersed; pretty soon I could expect the confusing, conflicting emotions I'd been feeling about Cordelia in the past few days to dissolve away, too.
Pretty soon.
Any time about now, in fact.
Any time.
And then I remembered something else. If the crash we had heard had been the sound of Jameela's dinghy colliding with the powerboat, that meant the Siren had been dead, and the spell broken, for hours. It also meant that when Cordelia and I had made love, we'd already been free of the enchantment.
I recalled Jameela's last words to me: When I die, she won't want you any more. Well, Jameela had been wrong.
And so had I.
I'd told myself it I could make love to Cordelia because I didn't love her. That I was safe from the curse because what I was doing was for her happiness and not my own. That I was acting under the influence of powerful magic, and not on my own desires at all.
In the face of all the available evidence, I'd somehow convinced myself I wasn't in love with Cordelia.
Like I said, I can be really stupid sometimes.
Slowly, like a man in a dream -- or maybe a man waking from one -- I walked back up the beach to where I had left Cordelia. She was still asleep, and I knelt beside her, taking care not to disturb her. There was sand sticking to her cheek, and seaweed in her hair. She was beautiful.
But she wasn't going to stay asleep forever. Sooner or later she'd wake up, and I had to decide what I was going to tell her when she did.
With sudden clarity, I saw a number of possible futures branching out from this moment. There was one future where I told Cordelia how I felt, and she responded in exactly the way you'd expect someone to react to a confession of love from a guy whose last serious relationship resulted in multiple homicides and a near-apocalypse. There was another possible future where she felt the same way about me -- but I already knew how that future turned out, because it was my recent past. I'd played out that story with Buffy, and I knew how it would end -- in bitterness, with me walking out of Cordelia's life before she hated me for everything I couldn't give her.
Then there was another future, one where I couldn't be Cordelia's lover, but I remained her friend. In that future, I saw her every day, shared her problems and her triumphs, and my life was better because she was part of it.
I knew which future I preferred.
Cordelia stirred and blinked sleepily. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Hi," I said.
She looked at me suspiciously. "Okay, I gotta ask -- are you evil?"
"No," I said. "Never further from it."
Cordelia gave a relieved sigh. "Oh, good. 'Cause I thought I was gonna have to remind you of something bad if you looked like you were getting too happy. Like death or taxes."
"I'm already dead," I pointed out, "and I don't pay taxes."
Cordelia sat up, pulling one of the towels around herself. She took a deep breath and then exhaled. "Well, I guess we'd better head back to my apartment. We'll get Sorcha's number from Doyle's address book, give her a call and ask if she knows anything else about enchantment breaking."
"No need," I said. "Jameela's dead."
Cordelia stared at me, the look on her face one of almost comical bemusement. "What? When? How?"
"She -- ah, she --" I hesitated, then made a decision. It would be easier on both of us if Cordelia believed, and kept believing, that what had happened between us had been purely the result of magic, and nothing else. "She landed on the beach in the Delilah's dinghy just a little while ago. We fought and -- well, and I won. She's dead."
"You had a fight to the death -- and I slept right through it?" The look on Cordelia's face was a mismatch of hope and skepticism.
"You were pretty exhausted," I said, aware of just how lame my version of events sounded.
Cordelia was silent for a second. Then: "She's really dead?"
"She's really dead," I said, and held up the scale I'd found in the water as proof.
"Then we're -- disenchanted." A wide smile lit Cordelia's face. "Angel, you're my hero!"
She threw her arms around me and hugged me fiercely. The towel she'd pulled around herself slipped down, and I hugged her back stiffly and a little awkwardly, not sure where to put my hands.
Cordelia pulled away from me, and frowned. "What's wrong?"
Unconvincingly, I said, "Nothing. Nothing's wrong."
She eyed me. "You're not gonna go all When Harry Met Sally on me, are you?"
I got up and fetched Cordelia's blouse and jeans. They were wrinkled and salt-stained, but they would do until she could change into clean clothes.
As I handed them to her, she said, "Angel, you're not answering the question."
"I'm still trying to work out what the question is," I said.
"AN-gel. You know -- When Harry Met Sally. Classic romcom, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, the restaurant scene, 'I'll have what she's having.' Don't tell me you've never heard of When Harry Met Sally."
"I've never heard of it," I said. "Is it a movie?"
"Yes, it's a movie." Cordelia looked at me, her voice and face uncharacteristically serious. "It's about a man and woman who are best friends, then they sleep together and it nearly ruins everything."
There was that word again. Friends. I liked the way it sounded when Cordelia said it.
I took hold of Cordelia's hand -- this time by choice rather than compulsion. "Real life is not like the movies."
She smiled at me, and I could see the relief in her eyes. "No," she said. "It's much, much weirder."
Then she got up, and I went back to watching the ocean while she got dressed. When I looked around, she was trying, unsuccessfully, to undo the damage that a swim in the ocean and a night on the beach had done to her hairstyle. "I have never needed conditioner as much as I do right now. The first thing we're doing is going to my place."
"Actually," I said, eyeing the lightening sky, "the first thing we have to do is get the car. It's still parked back at the marina."
"Is there time to walk there before the sun comes up?"
"I don't know," I said. "I'm not sure how far along the coast we are."
"I vote we don't take the chance," Cordelia said. "I'll get the car and drive it back here. If it gets light before then, you've got somewhere to go to avoid going crispy."
The Pacific View's beach hut wouldn't be roomy, but I wouldn't have to stay in it for long. "Okay. We'll do that," I said, and threw Cordelia the keys to the Plymouth.
She caught them, and started to walk up the beach. But she hadn't gone more than a few yards when she hesitated and looked back.
"Feels kind of weird," she said. "Walking away, I mean."
"You're coming back," I said.
"I am," Cordelia said. Then she turned around and walked over the first sand dune, and out of my sight.
Dawn was still some minutes away; I didn't have to retreat to shelter just yet, and so I walked back down to the water's edge. The stars were becoming less visible in the brightening sky, and the ocean was slowly turning from a black expanse to a blue one.
Sunrise was Buffy's favorite part of the day. Although she never said so, I think it was because every new day she saw was proof she'd emerged victorious from the night that preceded it. It's been two and a half centuries since I last saw the sun come up; when I briefly wore the gem of Amarra, I watched the sun set, then destroyed the ring before it rose again. Fear of the sun's light is as much a part of me as constant thirst, and what I was seeing now -- a lightening of the sky from black to gray, the faintest blush of color in the sea -- was as much of the dawn as I would ever experience.
Unconsciously, I put my hand in my pocket, and was surprised when I found something there. When I took it out, I saw it was a scrap of paper, brittle and fragile and almost unrecognizable. Then I saw Doyle's faint handwriting, and realized it was the lottery ticket Cordelia had found in his apartment. The blurred word JAMEELA was the only part of his last message which was still legible. I couldn't help thinking we could have avoided a lot of trouble in the last couple of days if he'd just taken the time to write something a little more prescriptive, like KILL JAMEELA.
The other side of the ticket had been erased by the sea; Doyle's lottery numbers had been washed away. The drawing would have been yesterday, I remembered, and I wondered for a second if he'd won anything, and if, by a capricious turn of fate, I was holding a dead man's winning ticket.
But coincidences do happen; fate does intervene. Coincidence had killed Jameela, and fate had brought Cordelia into my life.
Suddenly I remembered something Cordelia had said about Doyle when she found the ticket. She'd said he never stopped believing he'd get lucky, if he just waited long enough.
That sounded like a pretty good philosophy to me.
The sun was about to come up. I went into the beach hut, closed the door, and settled in to wait for Cordelia.
End.