Title: Head Down, Fists Up
Author: Syn
Email: cicatrixes@gmail.com
Posted: 10-30-2007
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
Distribution: Whoever wants it!
Summary: A dark entity draws down on Los Angeles one Halloween night, bringing four lives together forever.
Notes: Damn you all for drawing me back in! heee! I missed the Strangers! And Angel/Cordelia. I’m not completely in love with this story, I’ll admit. I’ve been sick (viral pneumonia) and I wrote this on some meds. LOL But yeah. Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

---

“It’s raining again!” Lily called, her breath puffing through the air as sheets of unseasonably cold rain drenched Los Angeles. The city of angels, she thought wryly. Must be a lot of angels with dripping wings tonight. The gravel lane before her was deserted, a flickering security light at the end of the block of identical concrete buildings the only guardian against the darkness. The rain muffled the distant sounds of traffic. She ducked her head back into the doorway and was immediately attacked from behind.

She was turned in a circle, her feet leaving the ground for several stomach-soaring seconds. A scream escaped her and echoed off of the thick, slightly damp concrete walls. She hit her feet and the strong, muscular arms around her spun her away and then pulled her back. Her arms were trapped between her breasts and her attacker’s broad chest. She looked up and met a pair of deep, chocolate brown eyes. “Charles! What are you doing?”

Charles Gunn grinned down at her and swept a lock of her soft blonde hair from her face. “Keeping you from drowning?”

“More like trying to steal kisses,” she said, her arms weaving around his neck. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips solidly. He tried to linger, but she pulled back moments later. “We’ve got a job to do. And we’d better get it done quickly. The kids are freaking out and I don’t want to leave them alone too long.”

“Yeah well, I don’t blame them,” Gunn said darkly. Lily nodded. For the past five weeks, bodies had been found around the city, completely torn apart. The victims had only been out of sight for a minute when they were found. It was strange and Gunn had been suspecting a demon or a vampire--something out of the ordinary. Lily agreed and she didn’t like it. “I still say it’s a demon.”

“Later, Charles. Work first.”

He groaned and glanced at their surroundings. An odd collection of assorted junk was stacked around them in piles. Boxes thick with dust were piled haphazardly against the walls. Two old couches, a dresser and a kitchen table with chairs stacked one atop each other stood in a corner. “Okay, okay. What looks promising?”

“Who knows?” Lily said, extracting herself from Gunn’s arms, even though she desperately wanted to continue where they’d left off. She pulled the sleeves of her gray hoodie up and surveyed the junk in the self-storage room. A dim bulb hung overhead, casting orangish shadows over everything. “Who do you reckon owns this stuff?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Gunn said, going straight for the couches. “We could use this down at the shelter. The table and chairs too. What about that dresser?”

“Leave it. Too bulky,” Lily said, bending over a box and ripping it open. Inside the box she found cookware. “Cookware! Definitely a keeper!”

“Load it up while I try and extract this couch,” Gunn said, jumping smoothly over a tower of boxes. Lily nodded, hefted the box of cookware and headed toward the wide door of the storage room, which they’d broken into with a pair of bolt cutters. The owners of the storage shed wouldn’t be happy when they decided it was time to come and get their things, but Lily didn’t want to think of that. She hated stealing, but donations were down and the kids at the teen shelter she and Charles helped run had almost nothing. Even something so simple as a couch for one of them to sleep on would help. Besides, this wasn’t the first time she’d had to resort to stealing and unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.

She hesitated at the edge of the gravel, glancing at Gunn’s beat up brown truck, which he’d had longer than she’d known him. The rain was beating down on everything and there was no way that she wasn’t going to get drenched to the skin just walking over to the truck. Oh well. At least there was nothing in the box that would get ruined.

Lily darted out into the rain, the heavy box digging bruises into her forearms. She squinted as the rain soaked through her hoodie and sparkled on her cheeks. Her shoes crunched on the wet gravel as she walked, keeping one eye out for the cops or another car. U-Store-It was off the beaten path though and she doubted anyone would feel the need to come down here in the rain, at two in the morning.

She stopped at Gunn’s truck and slid the box into the bed. She shoved aside the piles of stakes and Gunn’s hubcap ax, and pushed it in all the way to the stake launcher mounted to the cab. She turned around to walk back to the open storage shed, where a rectangle of light shone on the puddled gravel, like a beacon.

Cold stabbed at her chest immediately and she felt the air around her freezing. Lily blinked and the rain falling in front of her nose seemed to stop in midair. The droplets shivered, sparkling with light, but refused to fall. Shock blistered through her as she let out a breath and it hovered in front of her lips like a ghost, refusing to shift and dissipate.

“Charles!” Lily forced out, but the sound was muffled. She glanced at the doorway of the storage shed, but the light had a frozen quality to it. She tried to take a step forward, to seek the shelter of the shed and the shelter of Gunn’s arms. She knew though, as her voice dully plunked in the frozen air, that Gunn was beyond her reach now. Terror shot through her and she turned, almost afraid to face what she could feel at her back.

The dim security light flickered out, or at least she thought it had. But as the light faded, she saw that something was coming down the narrow gravel lane between the cell block-like storage sheds. Like a cloud, or a fog, only deep black and radiating cold and terror, it slid through the air, eating the light, until Lily found herself in total darkness.

Then a sound hit her ears. It was a soft, crooning noise, which resolved itself into words as she struggled to breathe, struggled to move, to make herself run. It was too late for that though and she knew it. The words of what sounded like a child’s lullaby were garbled and in a language of which she had no knowledge. The sound of it chilled her to the bone.

“Oh my God...” she whispered as the shadows came toward her, covering up the light from the storage shed. “Charles...”

“He cannot hear you...but scream anyway,” a voice said in the shadows as they swarmed over her, gripping her shivering limbs like cold fingers. Her mouth opened and the shadows swirled around her tongue and choking her. Eyes shone in the blackness, along with a sharp smile, full of dangerous teeth. The shadow, heavy with intent, filled her lungs, and seeped into her eyes, nose and ears. It was cold.

And it tasted like death.

Lily screamed, but no one heard.


“Lily? What’s taking you so long?” Gunn called as he headed toward the door of the storage shed. The rain was starting to pool into the room and his tennis shoes splashed as he walked. He picked up a box on his way, and started out into the rain. “Lily? Hey! Help me move this couch!”

Gunn stopped just as he left the storage shed. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, slapping him across the face. He knew the smell intimately. It had been a part of his life for longer than he cared to think about it. The box dropped from his hands and landed on the gravel with a wet crunch.

“Lily?” he managed through the cold rain. Water dripped down his bald head, pooling in the corners of his quivering lips. He stilled for a moment and then ran toward his truck, his feet slipping in water, gravel and blood. He fell to his knees, shock radiating through him.

What was left of Lily was scattered in a wide circle, bits of meat and organ spread everywhere. The body was still warm, steam rising off of it into the cold air. Disbelief swept through him, cold, hard and undeniable.

“No...no...” Gunn moaned, his hands shaking as he reached out, but didn’t touch. If he touched it, it would be real and he didn’t want it to be real. It couldn’t be. “You were only gone a minute. Just a minute... This is impossible... Why didn’t you scream, baby? Why didn’t you scream?”

Gunn looked up, because her attacker had to be there, had to still be around. And he saw it. A swarming cloud of black disappearing into nothing, a snatch of chilling, crooning song echoing its wake. Gunn’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ll find you.”


One Week Later

Cordelia Chase ducked her head against the onslaught of rain, but she had long since given up any hope of staying dry. Los Angeles had been drowning in rain for the past month or so, causing mudslides and sinkholes and a general air of misery to everything. Even Halloween was a washout, though that wasn’t stopping the kids in her neighborhood from seeking candy. Juggling her groceries, she watched as two vampires and a Snow White darted past her, a harried adult on their heels, rain bouncing off of her umbrella.

Rain dripped down Cordelia’s cheeks. She’d long ago lost her umbrella. Someone had stolen it on the bus. She trudged on though; her apartment building was ahead and she planned on taking a nice warm bath and putting on a Tim Burton movie afterward.

“Isn’t my life exciting?” she muttered to the wind, which took her words and swept them away. She didn’t get an answer back and she hadn’t really expected one. She’d almost purposefully kept her life simple. After spending her formative years on a Hellmouth, she was ready for a peaceful life. She’d run for her life all the way to L.A. after her parents had gone broke.

That had been four years before, and after several rough patches she had settled into a modest life. It wasn’t the most exciting, but it was better than hiding from vampires every night. Sunnydale had taught her a lot—mostly how to survive in any sort of situation—and she had learned her lessons well. She patted her pocket, where the hard line of a stake could be felt. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t go anywhere without one.

Willow had made the mistake of going unarmed just once and she had never been seen again. Cordelia had vowed not to end up the same way.

Cordelia stepped over a deep puddle on the sidewalk as she passed the opening of an alley. At the same time, she heard a moan of pain issuing from the alley. Instinctually, her muscles tightened and she held her breath, waiting to be attacked at any moment. It was reflex. Her eyes darted down the alley and she tried to see into the wet shadows, tried to find the source of the noise.

The source stumbled out of the darkness toward her, hunched, hulking and stinking of wet garbage and a musty, dead scent.

“You!” he gasped, falling to his knees. Stringy brown hair so dirty it could have been any color fell into his smudged face. Tortured brown eyes glittered up at her out of the mess, and a desperate look was on his face. Cordelia flinched and her heart seized. “Please! You’re the one!”

She pocketed her stake, realizing belatedly that she had drawn it in terror and instinct. She didn’t want to put it away, but she had a feeling that the poor homeless man wouldn’t appreciate a pointy object in his face.

“Are you okay?” Cordelia asked, crouching down in front of him. She reached out a hand, but didn’t touch him. Being a Good Samaritan only went so far, as far as she was concerned. “Sir?”

Dirty hands reached out and grasped both of her wrists firmly. The bum’s hands were covered in a thick coat of grime, but she could feel how cold he was, and with a shock, how strong. The brown eyes glaring at her from between the strands of his greasy, matted hair flared with triumph and she realized that she’d been had. Panic burst to life in her and she tried to yank her wrists back, but the bum had her.

“No! Let go!”

But he had stood and was dragging her with him, into the alley, where darkness and death awaited. Cordelia dug her heels into the wet asphalt; she wasn’t going to go out like this, not on Halloween and not in an alley within sight of her apartment, her safe haven. She’d survived this long in a world of pain and hatred and sharp teeth and here she was, going to be taken out by one of the unwashed masses.

Anger hit her, sharp and clarifying. She was Cordelia freaking Chase! She wasn’t going to die like this; she was going to go down fighting, or not at all.

“Let me go or I swear to God I’ll—!” But she was cut off as the bum swung her around and smashed her against the wall of the alley. The breath was knocked out of her for a moment and she gasped, trying to get it back. The bum swarmed in front of her, hulking and strong and smelling so badly she wanted to gag. If only she had the breath for it.

“It’s not safe for you out here!” the bum hissed in his deep, almost pleasant voice. “Don’t you know that? Don’t you realize what could happen?”

Of course I do, her terror flooded mind thought cynically. I watched half of my town being devoured by a gigantic mayor-snake at graduation. I have nightmares about what could happen to me, about what has happened to me. Oxygen finally infiltrated her lungs again and she sucked on the night, taking the bum’s foul stench with her. It was better than passing out from lack of air though and she took what she could get. Tossing her long brown hair from her face, she looked up into his gleaming eyes.

“What do you want?” Cordelia forced out. She knew from experience that true killers would already have done the deed. Whatever this creep wanted, it wasn’t to kill her. At least not yet.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Then let me go!” she snarled, snatching one hand out of his. He left a streak of dirt behind on her skin and she shuddered as she automatically went for the stake in her pocket. He grabbed her wrist again and pinned her against the wall before she could seize it. “I’ll scream.”

It was a genuine threat. There were people all over the streets, including the trick or treaters. If she screamed, someone would hear and someone might come to investigate.

The bum’s brown eyes were anguished. “I was sent to protect you. Please. Don’t scream.”

“Who sent you? Are you hearing voices or what?” Cordelia said, eyebrows rising. She was beginning to see what was going on. This guy was seriously touched in the head. “If God tells you to light fires and attack women, you really ought to stop listening.”

“It wasn’t God. God isn’t Irish or annoying,” the bum said, lifting one dirty brow. Cordelia’s mouth fell open and she tried to twist away from him, but he had her tightly. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you’re in danger, Cordelia.”

“From vomiting! You smell like dead rats,” Cordy gagged before she realized he’d said her name. That shocked her into silence. “How do you know my name?”

“I told you, I was sent to help you,” he said, staring into her eyes. She looked back and for the first time, she didn’t see madness there. She’d seen madness before, but this guy, whoever he was, was clear-eyed and sane. And that scared her more than the thought that he was crazy. It meant he knew what he was talking about. It meant that she was in danger. “You are Cordelia Chase, aren’t you?”

She could say no, but she knew she’d already given away the game. “Oh God, you’re a stalker! Why is it always me?”

“We have to get off of the streets. Now,” the bum said, ignoring her and grasping her by the wrist. He started dragging her down the alley. She dug her heels in again and wrenched her arm out of his grip.

“No! I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me who you are and why I’m in danger!” Cordelia said, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her sopping brown hair out of her face.

“We don’t have time! The longer you’re out on the streets, the more likely it is that he’ll find you!”

“Who?” she demanded, but the bum grabbed her wrist again and she was hauled toward the opening of the alley. “Dammit! At least tell me your name!”

The bum glanced behind him, his brown eyes glistening with reflected light. “Angel. Call me Angel.”

“Well, Angel, I’m not going anywhere with you until I get answers, you got that?” she said and pulled the stake out of her pocket. Angel’s gaze flicked from her face to the stake and there was an unreadable expression on his face. She wondered what he thought of it; it wasn’t everyday a damsel in distress carried around an eight-inch stake in her pocket.

“Keep that handy. You might need it,” he said in a low voice that sent shivers right down her spine. He didn’t seem fazed by it and that worried her. Who was this guy? Her life had gone from simple to complicated in the past five minutes and she didn’t like the speed in which things were changing.

“Expecting vampires?” she countered.

“Something like that,” he mumbled and dragged her into the street. Another shiver coursed up her spine as she was buffeted along in his wake, the rain stabbing her in the face. His hand was still cold and tight on her wrist and she wished that he’d let up.

Annoyed, she shot at him, “You got a girlie name, by the way!” He glanced behind him at her again and she saw a smile quirk the corners of his smudged lips beneath the scrum of his beard. Then he turned back around and dragged her toward her apartment building.

Cordelia was roughly shoved in front of him as they reached the door of her building. She pulled out the keys to the locked front door as Angel paced behind her like an angry shark. They entered the building and rode the elevator up to her floor. She backed into one corner of the elevator to keep as far away from him as possible; he looking ill at ease in the close confines. Angel refused to meet her gaze again and she found herself staring at the back of his dirty jacket, his smell threatening to overwhelm her in the close quarters.

Finally, after an eternity, the elevator let them out on the top floor and she led him toward her apartment, still wondering what madness had leaked into her brain that she was allowing a homeless man who claimed some annoying Irish guy had told him that she was in danger. What was wrong with her? Angel—if that was his real name—was just waiting to get her alone. To either kill her, rape her or rob her. It was probably the unholy trinity, knowing her luck.

But he hadn’t wanted her to get rid of the stake.

Once into her apartment, Cordelia flicked the lights and turned on Angel, who was standing out in the hallway. He looked around uneasily and she impatiently snapped, “Come in already. Mrs. Kwan down the hallway is a gossip. She sees you standing there and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Angel came into the apartment and flinched away from the light as he shielded his eyes with one grubby hand. She closed the door behind him and regarded him with a keen stare, trying penetrate the layers of grime and funk, but he merely stared around her small, neat apartment, looking as alien there as a baby in a dingoes’ den.

“Okay, smelly man, spill,” Cordelia said immediately, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Angel. “Who you sent you and why? What is supposedly after me? And why do you smell like the inside of a corpse?”

Angel started and looked down at himself. He flinched again and she wondered if she’d hurt his pride a little. She didn’t much care; the man smelled like he looked. “The guy who sent me told me your name and where to find you. Told me that you were in danger from something that had to be stopped. That your destiny needs to be protected. That you couldn’t die tonight, no matter what. So here I am.”

“Okay, so some random guy sends you on a mission to save some woman you’ve never heard of and you just do it? Why?”

“You’re in danger.”

“So? Who am I to you? Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but come on. What do you care?”

“I care,” Angel said, looking away from her. “You’re not supposed to die tonight and I’m going to make sure that you don’t.”

“Right. So what exactly is after me? Or didn’t you ask that important question?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Okaaaaaay,” Cordelia drawled, throwing up her hands. “I’m officially having a Halloween breakdown. Fun for me! I need a drink. You want?” Angel’s eyes caught hers and she saw a deep hunger in his burning gaze. She swallowed hard. “Or are you hungry?”

Angel shifted from foot to foot and she realized that he hadn’t moved away from the door. “I shouldn’t.”

“Come on,” Cordelia said, sailing toward her kitchen. “Look at you. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

“A long, long time,” Angel said, his fists clenching and unclenching as he looked around her apartment. She had the sudden thought that he was afraid to come in, to get dirt and grime on her possessions. She was grateful for that, but she also felt a stab of pity in her. She had spent a few nights on the streets herself, back when she’d first come to town. Getting back up out of the gutter was harder than falling into it.

“Listen, I’ll make some dinner and you can...freshen up,” she said, gesturing toward her bathroom. “There’s an extra toothbrush in the cabinet and everything. I think I still have some of my ex-boyfriend’s clothes here. They should fit.”

She hoped she wasn’t being too pointed, but the fact was she didn’t think she could deal with the stink any longer. Angel glanced toward the bathroom and then nodded. Clearly he was grateful himself. He was probably used to the smell, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

“You’re not going to bolt or anything? I don’t want you out in the city alone.”

“This is my home. I’m not going anywhere,” Cordelia said, drawing herself up. “You can trust me on that.”

“I’ll trust you, if you trust me,” Angel said and she laughed.

“Earn it, buddy,” she said and then she went into her bedroom and scrounged around in her drawers, looking for the jeans and shirts Lindsey had left behind. She finally found them and pulled out a pair of blue jeans and black t-shirt. She handed them both to Angel and he looked at them with a black expression on his bearded, dirt-coated face.

“Thanks,” he said. He seemed satisfied as he went into the bathroom. She listened for a moment, and then heard the shower going. Relieved, she grabbed the air freshener and started spraying it around the room, to banish the smell. She opened a window, mindless of the pouring rain and damp seeping into the apartment. Shivering from the cold, she realized that she was still wearing her wet jeans and jacket. She hurriedly changed into a dry pair of jeans and a shirt and then went into her tiny kitchen.

She found that she was ravenous, even though she was also exhausted. This was more than she could properly process, but she’d been on the receiving end of a whole lot of weird in her life. An apparently homeless savior didn’t rank that high on her strange meter. She listened to the shower going as she prepared supper; it was almost a homey sound. She had no idea what he liked to eat, but she guessed he was probably pretty hungry. She made cheeseburgers, French fries and a salad and was starting a fresh pot of coffee when Angel finally reappeared.

Cordelia stopped in mid-drink, steam curling around her face as she stared at him. What a change a long, hot shower made! His long hair was still wet and fell around his shoulders in a wave of soft brown locks. His face was strong and handsome, his brown eyes meeting hers with an intensity that shook her. He’d shaved the scrubby beard and she could see the hollows of his starved, white cheeks. Without his mountain of dirty clothes, he was much less hunched and hulking. Strong, but in a half-starved way, he was a menacing scarecrow standing in the doorway of her kitchen. The borrowed jeans and black t-shirt only accentuated his leanness.

She took a deep breath and mumbled, “Hello, salty goodness.”

“What was that?” he asked, coming into the kitchen and tossing the bundle of smelly clothing into her open trash can. He seemed glad to be rid of it.

She felt heat flood her cheeks. “Nothing. Feel better?”

“Yes. Thank you,” he said, somehow shy now that he was cleaned up. She had the sudden thought that he’d been hiding behind his dirt. Well, it had probably worked to keep people away. But who was Angel that he needed to keep people away from him? She had a feeling he was even more of a mystery than she’d thought. He sat down at her table and she put a plate in front of him.

She sat down and dug in, watching him over her cheeseburger silently. He picked at his food, which surprised her. She figured he’d bolt it down, but he just picked at it, as if he couldn’t taste it. “Sorry. I’m not much of a cook.”

“It’s not the food...” he mumbled and looked up at her again. She felt the heat of his gaze boring into hers and she wanted to shy away from it. It was too intense. It was as if he was seeing into her soul and she didn’t like that feeling.

“So tell me about yourself, Angel,” Cordelia started, trying to break the tension in the room. “Who exactly are you?”

“No one, really,” he said, biting down on a French fry. “Just...lost. And I like it that way.”

Cordelia felt a pang in her stomach. She knew a little something about being lost herself. She pushed that thought away and said, “So why would someone send you to help me? Are you a superhero or something?”

“Nothing like that,” Angel said, shaking his head. “I’m no hero.”

“Clearly someone thinks differently if they’ve sent you to save my life. I’m nobody either, so why should my death matter?” Cordelia said, feeling a bitterness on her tongue, which she couldn’t explain. The fact was, her quiet life had been too quiet. She kept her head down and her fists up and no one seemed to want to get through her defenses. She hadn’t made much of an impact in Los Angeles, despite her first desperate attempts at breaking into show business, which had been disastrous and had led to her first eviction and a few desperate nights on the street. She’d given it up soon after that and had taken a go-nowhere retail job. She’d moved on to several other odd jobs, but she was back to working retail again. She hated it, but at least she got a discount on the clothes and she was able to pay all of her bills. Not always on time, but eventually they got paid.

“You matter, Cordelia Chase. You matter to me.”

A small popping feeling hit her chest as she stared at Angel across her small kitchen table. She had no idea if it was a good or bad feeling, but it left her body tingling all over. “Who are you, Angel?”

“I don’t even know.”

“That makes two of us. I’m not so hungry anymore,” she mumbled and pushed her food away. She had no idea what was upsetting her, but she suddenly wanted to crawl into bed and forget the past hour had happened. She wanted to forget the past lifetime had happened, but she knew from experience that wishing something away wouldn’t work. Life sucked. End of story. Deal with it and move on. She looked up into Angel’s intense, brooding gaze again and sighed. “I’m tired.”

“Go ahead and sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you misunderstood me. I’m tired and you’re not staying here while I sleep all innocent and vulnerable. That’s how movies on Lifetime network start, buddy. And I am way better than a movie of the week!”

Angel blinked at her and then shook his head. “I wouldn’t...that’s not what... I can’t leave you.”

“Nothing is going to attack me in my own bedroom. At least nothing better!” Cordelia said, leaning back in her chair. “Besides, I’ve got weapons. You don’t grow up on a Hellmouth and not learn a few self-protection tricks. Are you forgetting my little stakey?” She pulled the stake out of her back pocket and wiggled it at him.

“A Hellmouth? Which one?”

“Sunnydale.”

“Never been there,” Angel said. “Is it bad?”

“It wasn’t so bad there for about a year, until this Slayer got herself all kinds of dead. A Master vampire rose up, the whole town went crazy and I spent most of my teen years in a living hell. Pretty appropriate for a Hellmouth.”

“You knew a Slayer?”

Cordelia studied his face. “Yeah. You know what a Slayer is?”

“I’ve heard of them. What was she like?”

“She was a pain in the ass and I liked her more than I ever told her,” Cordelia said shortly and stood up. She didn’t want to talk about her past, especially when Angel hadn’t spilled a damned thing about his. “You should go.”

“I can’t leave you,” he rumbled, standing as well. Hollow as he looked, he was still sturdier than she was and she had a feeling that if she tried to push him out the door he’d push back and she’d wind up against a wall again. A spark started in her stomach, which she quickly snuffed. She had no idea where her mind was, but that was probably not a good place to go.

“Well, you’re going to,” Cordelia said stubbornly. “You did your job. I’m fine.”

“I’ll stay on your couch.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I’m staying, Cordelia.”

Cordelia gave up. It was like trying to budge a wall. “Fine! Sleep on my couch! I’m locking the door and sleeping with a stun gun so don’t try anything, Hero Boy! And I’ve got nothing to steal, so don’t even think about it! I’m trusting you, here. So...earn it and don’t go through my stuff.”

Something like pain flooded Angel’s gaze, but she turned away from the sight of it. She didn’t like what it meant. She marched out of the room and slammed her bedroom door behind her, locking it tightly. She pulled on pajamas and crawled into bed, staring at the line of light showing between the bottom of her door and the threadbare carpet. She could feel Angel out there. The thought of him lingering outside of her door made her veins jump and twang. She punched her pillow several times and then laid down, the blankets over her head.

“You’re a sucker, Chase,” she mumbled into her abused pillow and listened to the rain drowning Los Angeles. She wished it would drown her too, but the thought of Angel wading through waist-deep muck to get to her sprang into her stressed mind. Mysterious homeless stalker though he was, she liked the thought of his protective arms around her. “You really are a sucker.”


Angel lay down on Cordelia’s couch, which was more comfortable than it looked, or maybe he’d just been sleeping in the sewers too long. It was like heaven compared to the den he’d made for himself beneath the subway. It smelled better too. The air was scented with the smell of Cordelia’s cooking and the smell of her perfume, which was floral and completely female. It was a heady scent; the moment he’d stumbled out of the alley, he’d smelled it and it had filled him up.

He stared at her closed door, wondering what she must be thinking in there. She didn’t trust him, no matter what she’d said to the contrary. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t know anything about him and he wanted to keep it that way. She hadn’t noticed his hesitation at her door, but he was glad she’d invited him in without getting suspicious as to why he had lingered in the hallway. He’d thought that she might; she’d certainly wielded that stake with a practiced ease. She was used to using one and that both comforted him and made him wary.

What kind of a life had she led that she was so hardened to the horrors of the night? She’d known a Slayer and she’d lived on a Hellmouth, but that didn’t tell him all that he wanted to know. He realized with a start that he liked her. She was tough and sarcastic, completely tactless, yet vulnerable in her own way.

Whoever Cordelia Chase was he was glad that the half-demon had found him. Her life was important. He didn’t know what was in store for her, but he knew that she had to live. There was something about her, the way she’d looked at him, the way she’d made him feel. He would die to protect her and he knew it.

He stared at her bedroom door and felt hunger swelling through his dead veins. He realized with a start that he’d gone too long without proper food. Rat’s blood was hardly a meal for scavengers. He had been living in a constant state of hunger for years, keeping away from humans and dwelling in the shadows. He was afraid to go near them. What if he lost control?

Even now he could smell the sweet, warm rush that flowed through Cordelia’s veins. Angel licked his lips, testing the air with the tip of his tongue. Her blood would be strong and heady. If he drank from her, it would be like being in love with her for a moment...

Angel sat upright on the couch and squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t stay in her apartment, not like this. He was starving and he needed blood. And not her blood. Never her blood. He’d promised to protect her from whatever was out in the city tonight and he wasn’t going to prey on her.

He pulled his ragged shoes on and headed for the door. He hovered at the door, one hand on the knob and turned back to face her bedroom door again. He didn’t want to leave her. What if she was attacked while he was gone? But what if he stayed and he was the one who did the attacking?

Angel left, closing the door behind him, unable to bear the thought of letting his hunger overpower him. He left Cordelia’s building and headed into the rain, letting the water drench his new clothes. He didn’t feel the cold, but he felt miserable just the same. He’d come too close to the light tonight; Cordelia Chase was too bright for the likes of him.

He let his feet wander and he looked up in surprise to find himself outside of a slaughterhouse, where he occasionally bought a few bags of pig’s blood to quench the worst of his thirsts. It was the only thing that would keep the hunger at bay, even though it was never fully gone. If he was going to protect Cordelia, he needed something more than rat’s blood in his system.

The back door was open and the usual crowd of pathetic blood drinkers, most of whom were too weak to hunt on their own, were lined up waiting for their own purchases. Angel joined the line, keeping his face down. He doubted anyone would recognize him though. He hadn’t been beardless in at least four years and he certainly hadn’t been this clean.

The butcher handed out the bags of blood and the blood drinkers departed, leaving Angel in the back. He handed the surly-faced butcher a wad of twenties, which he’d been hoarding for a few months, and took the three bags of blood the man offered. Angel took off into the darkness, heading for his comfort zone: a back alley where he could sit and drink his fill and try to banish the thought of the rich flood in Cordelia’s veins, of the warmth and scent of her smooth skin.

He opened one bag and drank the chilled liquid down. It filled his mouth and made his eyes glow yellow, his brow descend in ridges and his teeth elongate to jagged points. Hunger hit him threefold and he growled a little and drank greedily until the bag was completely empty. He started to open the second bag when he heard a noise at the mouth of the alley.

Angel looked up, always on alert, and saw a dark shadow blotting out the streetlights.

“Look what we have here,” a low male voice shaking with anger said. “Someone get takeout?”

Angel dropped the bag of blood and stood. The feel of the blood he’d consumed strengthened him, making him feel full for the first time in months. “Go away. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t want to hurt me?” the young man said, stepping forward and throwing his features into stark relief. Water dripped down his bald dome, and his haughty eyes were fixed firmly on Angel. He had what appeared to be an ax in his brown hands. He was tall and muscled and he smelled of danger and vengeance. “Well, that’s too fucking bad, bloodsucker, because I’m looking to get hurt.”

Angel had no idea whom this young man was, but he was no stranger to a fight. And he was angry. Something was driving him to the point of insanity and Angel could recognize those symptoms easily enough. He’d suffered under its heavy pull for over a hundred years. Something had happened to make this young man dance on the brink of madness. Angel had a feeling whatever it was he was about to become the target for his anger.

“I’ve got no fight with you.”

“I’ve got one with you. Vampire,” the hunter said, stepping forward again. “Tell me what I want to know and maybe I’ll make it quick?”

“Tell you what? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Life? That’s funny,” he barked, his breath steaming in the damp air. The rain tickled Angel’s eyelashes as he stood, ready for the attack he knew would come out of nowhere. The young man was too angry to win this fight, but just angry enough to hurt Angel if he wasn’t careful. It would be very easy to disarm him, if Angel wanted to kill him. He didn’t though. “All you night creatures know what each other is doing, don’t you? One demon brags to another and it trickles down from there, right?”

Angel didn’t reply. He was too busy waiting for the attack.

“You hear anything about a new demon in town, vampire?”

“I’m not exactly on anyone’s phone tree list,” Angel said, licking the last of the blood from his lips. “Demons don’t like me much. Vampires either.”

“So you don’t know anything?”

“Nothing that you want to know.”

“That’s okay, then,” the hunter said, spitting on the ground between them. “I don’t mind dusting your ass for the practice.”

“You don’t want to fight me,” Angel said quickly.

“Yes, I do.”

The hunter attacked without warning, which Angel had anticipated. He dodged to the side, sidestepping the swing of the ax, which would have cleaved his head in two, if he hadn’t moved. He grabbed the ax to block another swing. He wrenched it from the young man’s hands and shoved the V of his thumb and forefinger into the young man’s throat. He gagged and fell back, trying to get in a gasp of air as Angel dropped the ax on the ground with an echoing metallic clatter.

His head went up and fury was etched over every line of his handsome young face. He gritted his teeth and swung at Angel again. He blocked the blow and caught his hands, spinning him and shoving him against the wall of the alley.

“You can’t win so just walk away, kid,” Angel said heavily, backing up a step.

“Fuck you!” the hunter growled and shoved away from the wall. He punched Angel across the face before he could step back again. Pain hit his eyes and he reeled a bit, but recovered a half-second later. He was used to the pain. So was the kid. He moved in and tried to elbow Angel in the face again, but Angel caught his elbow and tossed him like a bag of flour.

The kid landed on the sidewalk outside of the alley. He rolled and fetched up against a parked car. Angel picked up the kid’s ax and walked toward him. “Take your ax and go, or I will end up hurting you.”

The kid looked up, his brown eyes a little dazed. “I told you, vampire, I don’t care if I get hurt.”

Angel bent down in front of him, still holding the ax. The rain, ever present, cascaded down in cold, drenching sheets, plastering Angel’s long brown hair to his skull. “Killing yourself won’t bring back the person you’ve lost. Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. Don’t punish yourself.”

“What?” the kid whispered, rain pooling at the corners of his lips. He pulled himself up and stared at Angel, as if he couldn’t believe what he hearing or seeing. “You don’t know anything, vampire! You didn’t see what was left of her!”

He dived at Angel again and he sidestepped the blow once more, not wanting to hurt him any more than he had to. The kid was too full of anger though. Whatever had happened to him, he wanted to lash out at everything. Angel couldn’t fault him for that, but he was going to get himself killed if he kept going like this.

Angel tossed him the ax and the hunter caught it on instinct. Angel was impressed. If he weren’t so grief-stricken at the moment, he’d be one hell of a good fighter. The hunter went for him again and Angel ducked and dived, dodging the swing of the deadly sharp ax. Angel dodged the ax again and caught the kid by his throat, stopping him dead in his tracks. “I’m sorry about—”

Two loud, disjointed whoop-whoop! noises suddenly broke the damp, still air and Angel looked around as red and blue flashing lights splashed the deserted bit of street. He glanced at the hunter, who cursed under his breath and took off down the alley. Angel guessed the kid wasn’t in the mood to explain why he was carrying around an ax. Angel didn’t blame him. The cops weren’t welcome to him either and he actually looked respectable tonight. He couldn’t hide behind his homeless personae. They’d arrest him for fighting and he’d get a nice sunny cell to die in.

As one of the cop cars sped down the alley after the hunter, sirens oddly muffled in the pouring rain, Angel turned around to face the other squad car as it squealed to a stop in front of him. He thought longingly of the blood in the alley. It was lost to him now, but he still needed it if he was going to be anywhere near Cordelia Chase.

“HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD! ON THE GROUND, NOW!” one of the cops shouted, pouring out of the car. Angel realized with a start that he was still wearing his vampire face. He banished it with an effort and turned to face the cops. They bore down on him, weapons drawn. He could already tell that they’d shoot if he resisted. He’d live through it, but it would make a nasty mess and he needed to get back to Cordelia in tact. He knew that he shouldn’t have left her.

“Damn,” he groaned, putting his hands behind his head and sinking to his knees.


Cordelia couldn’t sleep, though she did her best to pretend otherwise as she tossed and turned in her bed. The sheets twisted around her legs, making her feel trapped. She kept staring at her bedroom door, wondering if Angel was going to come bursting in at any moment. The more she lay there, the more foolish taking him back to her apartment seemed.

She didn’t know anything about him. Just because he’d known her name and had claimed to want to help her didn’t mean that she should trust him. It just proved that he was a stalker.

He did clean up well, she thought wryly and rolled over on her back to stare at her blank bedroom door again. The sound of the rain drowned everything out, even the sounds of the city, which were usually cacophonous. The light in the living room had gone out. He was probably asleep. She sat up in the bed and drew her knees to her chest.

Should she call the cops? Tell them to get the weird homeless guy who thought he was her hero out of her living room? How would that sound though? She’d invited him into her apartment. She’d fed him and clothed him and given him a place to stay and he hadn’t done anything to her except for that initial attack. Which she wouldn’t have classified as an attack, strictly speaking. He had very few social graces and she had a feeling he hadn’t spoken to anyone in a long time; he didn’t know how to act in polite company. He was certainly Mr. Stoic. She wanted to know more about him, but she had a feeling he wasn’t going to spill. At least not willingly.

So what was she going to do? What could she do?

“Well, I can’t sleep,” Cordelia said aloud, swishing the twisted covers off of her legs and heading out of her bedroom. She’d made up her mind. She was going to wake him up and demand to know more about him and if he didn’t answer, she was going to kick him out of her apartment. She swung the door of her bedroom open and entered the living room, her keen gaze piercing through the gloom. And coming up wanting. Angel was gone. The couch was empty and she was alone.

Paranoia and experience made her turn around, to check the shadows crouching in the corners of the room, but he wasn’t there waiting to attack her. She let out a breath. “Great. I finally get a good-looking, albeit dirty and homeless, guy in my apartment and he splits. Fantastic.”

She didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved. It was hard to tell. At least her problem of what to do about him was solved. That was that. She doubted she’d ever see him again. A sour feeling hit her guts. The next moment the phone rang, making her jump a little. She caught it on the second ring. “Hello? Hello?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment before a familiar male voice said, grudgingly, “Cordelia?”

Her brow furrowed. “Angel? Is that you? How did you get my number?”

“I called information. Listen...I’m sorry to call so late. I know you were asleep, but...”

“It’s okay. You split. I get it. You don’t have to apologize. Where are you?”

“Precinct 13,” Angel mumbled and Cordelia pulled the phone back, stared at it for a half second and then put it back to her ear.

“As in, police station? What the hell did you do? Did you turn yourself in or something? Because you didn’t do anything wrong!” Cordelia exclaimed, wondering why she was defending him. It was what she’d wanted to do, but somehow the thought of him in a jail cell didn’t sit well with her.

“I left your place and I was going to come back...but...I got picked up.”

“For what? No offense, but you don’t look all vagranty now.”

“It was for fighting,” Angel said, as if the words were being pulled out of him willy-nilly.

“For fighting! Who were you fighting?”

“It doesn’t matter. Listen, I wouldn’t ask, but I can’t stay here all night. I have to get out. To...to protect you. Could you send money down here to bail me out?”

“I could, but will I?” Cordelia countered, annoyed.

“I understand. Stay inside tonight, okay? For me?” Angel said and then hung up before she could reply.

“Angel? Angel!” Cordelia said over the dead line, but he was gone. Cursing, she turned off her phone and tossed it down on the couch where he’d so recently been. “Dammit!”

She got dressed quickly, grabbed her wallet and keys and entered the deluge again. She was chilled to the skin for the second time that night and was unsurprised to see that the Halloween tricksters had disappeared. It was too cold and too wet for any sort of mischief, though that certainly hadn’t stopped Angel.

She thought, as she walked, that she felt eyes on her. Angel was supposed to be protecting her from something and here she was, walking alone in the darkness and rain, where anything might come out and get her. She had remembered to grab her stake before she’d left, but it seemed pretty insubstantial in her pocket. It could save her from the unknown, which seemed to lurk in every shadowed corner of the city.

Precinct 13 loomed out of the darkness, its windows ablaze with welcoming light. She entered the nearly deserted station, dripping water everywhere and approached the front desk, where the cop on duty looked up from his paperwork. His gaze slid up her curvy form and fixed on her face, and then back down to her chest. She’d thrown a zip-up hooded sweatshirt on over the pink tank top she’d worn to bed, but both were soaked through. Not a lot of her mystique was hidden at the moment.

“I’m up here,” she said, switching her sweatshirt closed and glaring at him. His cheeks colored as he looked up into her face. He was in his early forties, with a heavy face and a wispy blonde mustache lording over his upper lip.

“You know, you shouldn’t dress like that. We’ve got a sicko running around the city, killing girls your age.”

“So I guess dressed like this, I’d have it coming?” Cordelia shot at him and he went an even deeper scarlet. She grasped her long brown hair and wrung it out on the checked tiles, creating a nice puddle for him to clean up. His eyes narrowed and he sighed.

“What can I do for you, miss?” Having cowed the cop, Cordelia quickly posted bail for Angel, and it didn’t take long for an officer to come leading him out into the lobby, where they finished the paperwork. He approached her after he was released and shook his head, his drying brown hair falling around his lean face. He stared at her, his brown gaze digging into hers, almost accusing her.

“I told you not to come out by yourself,” he said almost immediately. Cordelia turned on her heel and marched toward the door.

“Yeah well, I don’t listen to guys I just met too well,” she said, entering the rain, Angel hot on her heels. “Besides, now you owe me one.”

“I thought I was already saving your life?” he called as he caught up with her and grasped her arm, wheeling her around to face him. She glared up at him.

“Pfftt! You haven’t saved crap as far as I’m concerned, big boy,” she said, jabbing him in the chest with her index finger. “I walked all the way here without incident. Save one perverted cop who decided he could tell the temperature through my shirt, I’ve been completely unmolested all night. And I’m not counting the weird guy who shoved me against a wall earlier in the evening, either.”

Angel’s gaze flickered downward and she didn’t know if she’d embarrassed him or if he was checking the temperature. Possibly both. “That could change though,” Angel said heavily. “The night’s not over. It’s not even half over yet. Halloween’s a good night for danger.”

“Somehow the words ‘good’ and ‘danger’ just don’t go together,” she retorted, attempting to pull her hand out of his grip. She was suddenly feeling very energized and she didn’t want to go back to her apartment, where it would be awkward and cramped. The whole of the city, mired in rain and depression though it was, was open to them. “Like ‘comfortable’ and ‘colonic’. Or ‘personal boundaries’ and ‘stalker’.”

Angel actually cracked half a smile at that. That melted her a little. “Come on, danger boy. Let’s go,” Cordelia said, turning on her heel again and dragging him after her. He followed, his hand gripping hers tightly, as if he was afraid she’d get away again.

“About the bail money...I’ll pay it back,” Angel called. She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned.

“Damn right you will,” she snorted.

“I shouldn’t have called you, but I didn’t have anyone else...and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m your favoritest little obsession. Now come on.”

“Where are we going?” Angel asked as she dragged him along.

“You’ll see.”


Gunn was in serious trouble. He’d been on the run for nearly an hour, and it didn’t look like the cops were going to give up any time soon. Damn that vampire! He should have sliced off his head with that first blow, but the bastard had been fast. And he’d run his mouth a little too much.

Gasping, Gunn sped around a corner and nearly slipped in a puddle on the sidewalk. He skidded to a halt and saw two police cars speeding down the street in his direction. They were on to him and he was completely and totally screwed.

“If I ever see that bloodsucking asshole again, he’s getting my ax up his ass,” Gunn mumbled and turned back the way he’d come. He knew the city like the back of his hand; he’d spent most of his life running down vampires and demons on these streets. The cops didn’t know all of the back alleys, not the way he did. But there were a hell of a lot more of them than there were of him and he running out of places to hide. Not to mention that fact that he was completely exhausted.

If he didn’t get a breather soon he was going to drop where he stood and the cops would haul him in on assault, weapons and resisting charges. He already had priors and he doubted he’d get off easily this time, especially not since he was still carrying around his hubcap ax. He refused to drop it. It was his favorite weapon and he was bound and determined to keep it with him, no matter what. If he got out of this.

“Okay, I need someplace to hide,” he panted, soaked to the skin and shivering. He needed someplace warm and dry and he needed it fast. He darted down another side alley just as the cops sped past, sirens wailing and lights flashing. The cars sped off and he realized that they hadn’t seen him dart down the alley. He let out a breath, but he knew that he had to get off of the streets for a while.

A loud metallic banging behind him made him jump and swing around automatically, his nerves on fire. He swung the ax around and stopped an inch from the neck of a man holding a trash can. Tall, and scarecrow thin, he appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with a head of neat brown hair, blue eyes and a square chin. A pair of glasses was perched on his nose and his mouth was open in shock.

“Good Lord!” the man exclaimed in a voice thick with a prissy British accent. He jumped away from the blade and landed against the open door at his back. The trash can clattered out of his hands and hit the ground in a tumble of crumpled papers and used tea bags. “What do you want?”

Sirens strengthened behind Gunn and he glanced over his shoulder, panic seizing him. This would have to do.

“Inside, now!” He lowered the ax, grabbed the taller man by the collar of his white shirt and shoved him back into the building. The man stumbled and nearly fell, but Gunn shoved him further into the building, and then slammed the door behind them. He locked it and turned back to the man. “Where are we, dog?”

“The...the Watchful Eye Bookstore,” the man said, recovering from Gunn’s sudden attack. He drew himself up imperiously and straightened his tie. “And watch that ax. You nearly cut my throat.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Gunn mumbled and prodded the man in the back. “Where’s your front door?”

“In the front,” the man said dryly. “Are you on the run from the law? The big scary weapon says that you are. What did you do?”

“I got into a fight with a vampire and now the cops are chasing me,” Gunn said and eyed the man, waiting for a reaction. He’d only said it to scare the man. Let him think that he was dangerous and unhinged. If it made him more cooperative, that was fine with him.

“A vampire? Really?” the man said, pushing the ax blade away from him with the tip of his finger. He led Gunn through the bowels of his bookstore and into the main shop, where Gunn was immediately hit with an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. There were bookshelves everywhere, tucked into every nook and cranny and piled high with ancient volumes. Stacks of books teetered everywhere. Some of them looked so old that a good breath would crumble them to dust. “An old one? Did you stake the fiend?”

Gunn’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t stop to ask. And no, I didn’t get a chance to stake him. Who are you, exactly?”

The man smiled at him and gestured to the bookshop as a whole. “A fellow in arms, so to speak. I study vampires and demons and chronicle what I see. I’m a bit of a...watcher, as it were. I work for a group whose sole interest is the study and containment of said vampires and demons.”

“A watcher, huh? As in Watcher, watcher?” Gunn said, tilting his head to peer into the man’s blue eyes. He looked surprised and a little impressed.

“You know of the Watcher’s Council?”

“I been around. You hear things on the streets. People who’ve heard of the Slayer and stuff. Heard of Watchers too. So what exactly do you watch?”

“Several things,” the Brit said, going toward the front window of his shop and drawing down the blinds so that no one could look in. He turned back to face Gunn. “You’re a hunter?”

“I guess. Name’s Charles Gunn,” he said gruffly, jabbing out his hand. He didn’t know if he liked this prissy scholar yet, but he was okay with anyone who worked against the forces of darkness.

“Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.”

“That’s a mouthful, Wes,” Gunn said, releasing his hand and looking around again. He took a deep breath and clutched the stitch in his side he’d ignored for four blocks. It was aching now and he rubbed at his ribs as Wes went behind the counter and pulled a heavy book off of the shelf. As he looked around he realized that he might have hit the jackpot here. “So, you’re into demonology?”

“It’s my life’s work,” Wesley said, pushing his glasses back up on his nose as he glanced at Gunn over his book.

Gunn approached the counter and looked at the book spread before Wesley. It showed an old engraving of what looked like a demon. “Could you identify a demon if I described it to you?”

“Of course. That’s my job,” Wesley said and fixed him in his studious gaze. “What did it look like?”

“Shadows. It killed my...a girl in less than a minute. She never screamed. I came outside and she was... There was nothing left but pieces. I saw this...shadowy thing disappearing into nothing and I thought I heard a song or something. Do you know what it is?”

“You’ve actually seen it?” Wesley asked, looking disturbed. “With your own eyes?”

“Well, I didn’t borrow any. Yeah, with my own eyes! Do you know what it is?” Gunn demanded, wiping rain off of his bald head.

“The Lullaby Man,” Wesley said shortly, crossing the room to another tome pregnant shelf. He pulled a thick volume down and dropped it onto the counter atop his other book. He opened it and flipped through the time-yellowed pages until he found what he was looking for. He turned the book around to face Charles. “That’s him.”

The drawing was of a mass of black shadows, in the center of which was a pair of black eyes and sharp teeth. It was like a nightmare come to life. Gunn felt a shiver caress his spine and looked up at the Watcher, who was looking grave behind his glasses.
“That’s it,” he said tightly. That was the thing that had killed Lily.

“Nasty demon,” Wesley mumbled, turning the book back around. “He only appears every twenty years and he only murders seven times. One each week. The last death is always on Halloween. Tonight. Was it tonight?”

“No. This was last week.”

“The girl at the storage place. Of course,” Wesley said and licked his lips. “So tonight he chooses his last victim and then he goes back to his own dimension for another twenty years.”

“Why does he kill? How does he pick his victims?”

Wesley scanned the German words on the side of the picture and shook his head. “Something about their destiny. He chooses only women, for some reason, women whose destinies are to change the world. What was your...this girl you knew, like?”

“She ran a teen shelter. She was...” Gunn said and then choked on the words. There were no words to properly describe Lily. She’d been selfless and wonderful and sweet, and patient and loving and...everything to him. After Alanna had been killed, she’d pulled him out of his self-destruction and given him a purpose again. She had been the only light in his life. The only light in a lot of lives. Everyone loved her. How could they not? He couldn’t say all of this to a stranger though. “She changed a lot of lives.”

“I’m sorry,” Wesley said and looked away. Gunn swallowed hard, his anger resolving. Now he knew why Lily had been taken and by what. Now he just needed to know how to kill the bastard thing. “This explains a lot. I’ve been reading about the murders. I thought it was odd that so much carnage had been done in so little time and that no one had heard any screams or sounds of a fight. I thought it must be demonic in nature, but I couldn’t put my finger on which demon would be doing it. It must be the Lullaby Man. And he’s bringing the rain with him too. A side effect of his darkness. He abhors the light.”

“Why do they call him the Lullaby Man?”

“It’s part of his power. He uses it to put the world to sleep. He paralyzes the air around his victims and freezes time. That’s why only a minute seemed to pass for you, but...well, you know,” the Watcher said, clearing his throat. He seemed to be dancing around Gunn’s pain and he was thankful. He was walking on eggshells as it was. “The song is a chant in his own demonic language. It’s written here. Would you like me to translate it?”

“Yes.”

Wesley concentrated for several moments and then spoke:

“’Listen to my lullaby,
as my shadows creep;
don’t try to scream or cry,
for I have come to reap.’

“A simple rhyme, but effect nonetheless.”

Gunn was silent for a moment and then he took a deep breath. The stitch in his side had stopped aching. He felt strong and ready to fight now. Ready to hunt the thing that had killed Lily, the love of his life. He wanted it dead before it disappeared for another twenty years. Some other woman was out in the city tonight, with a destiny like hers. He’d save her like he couldn’t save Lily. It was the only thing he could do.

“How do I kill it?”

“You’re not serious?” Wesley asked, blinking owlishly at him. “This is a demon of enormous power! It’ll most likely kill you if you go up against it.”

“I don’t care. I’ll die trying then. I can’t let it get away with what it’s done. I just can’t. So tell me how to kill it.”

Wesley stared back down at his book and licked his lips. After several minutes of reading, he looked up, his blue gaze sharp on Gunn’s. “You can’t do it alone.”

“I’ll have to. Just tell me what I need.”

“No, you don’t understand. You’re not doing it alone. I’ll come with you.”

“I can’t let you do that, man. This is dangerous,” Gunn said, holding up his hands. He’d purposefully kept his crew out of this. He’d hunted vampires and demons to question all week and he’d done it alone. He didn’t want anyone innocent to die for his vengeance.

“I have field experience, don’t worry about that. Besides, you don’t know magic, do you?”

Gunn stopped at that. “Do you?”

“A smidgen. I know enough to do damage to our shadowy friend here so that you can get close enough to kill it. We’re going to need a weapon though. Something we can bless. Only a weapon blessed in the demon’s language will kill it. They have the blessing here…”

Gunn lifted his eyebrow and plunked his ax onto the counter with a clang. “This do?”

Wesley stared at it for a moment and then nodded. “Right then. One ingredient down.”


Cordelia Chase’s destiny had been changed, but it was still strong, still ripe and waiting to impact the world. She was the strongest yet; the perfect seventh victim. She would change lives once she fulfilled her destiny. He could taste it on the wind as he slid from shadow to shadow, a part of the world and yet not. The rain around him seemed to freeze, to lumber slowly to earth. Halloween was drawing to a close and so was her life.

He watched her moving through the rain, heedless of the destiny he would both take from her and bestow upon her. Hunger filled him, making the shadows ripple and slide toward him. He was strong. He could take her now, in full view of the cars speeding by. No one would stop him.

But it wasn’t time yet.

Following her every move from shadow to shadow, he watched her enter a police station and come out forty-five minutes later, a tall man walking behind her. They stopped. Touched. Argued. Intrigued, he tasted the air again and the flooding of the man’s destiny onto his palate nearly choked him. It was strong, stronger than Cordelia Chase’s and it was intertwined with hers.

And far more dangerous. This man, who wasn’t a man at all, was going to be a problem.


“Where exactly are we going?” Angel asked Cordelia as they edged their way down a narrow fissure between two abandoned buildings. The rain was muffled by the closeness of the buildings. Cordelia had no trouble walking in the tight crack, but she noticed that Angel’s broad shoulders scraped the brick walls on either side of them as they went. Cordelia glanced over her shoulder at him and grinned at him. He looked disturbed for some reason.

“Just wait, you’ll love this,” Cordelia said and turned back around. She could feel his presence at her back and it was strangely soothing. She had no idea why she was doing this. She should be somewhere warm, hiding from the supposed danger awaiting her on the streets, but she wanted to share this with Angel.

The narrow fissure finally gave way to a small rectangular space between the four abandoned warehouses. The strange courtyard, probably accidentally built as the buildings were erected close together, was littered with old trash. The rain resumed its onslaught, but Cordelia was so used to it that she barely felt the cold stings. She glanced up at the sky, but all she could see was an underlit, roiling murk high above them, blocked on four sides by the buildings leaning against one another.

She looked back at Angel, who stood there beside her, his gaze on the small courtyard. He seemed to be checking the corners for hidden dangers. She smiled again; she couldn’t help it. With his brows drawn low, he looked like a brooding vampire. She turned her gaze on her favorite part of the courtyard. The walls of the buildings were all painted with a strange, almost fairytale-ish mural. It was old and faded, probably several decades old, but it was still beautiful to her. She noticed Angel’s expression change as he took in the huge panorama mural. A spark started in his eyes and she wondered, vaguely, if he might not be an artist himself.

“What do you think?”

“How did you find this place?” he asked softly, going up to the mural and touching the brightest of the colors. Bloodred.

“I slept here a few times, after my first couple of evictions,” Cordelia said baldly. “I just sort of stumbled on it. All the buildings are abandoned. See the doors? All of them are locked. The only way to get here is through the crack between the two buildings. I don’t know if anyone comes here much. No one’s ever here when I come.”

“You lived on the streets?”

“A few times. You know, after I found out that being an actress was kind of not going to happen. God, I used to dream of being on the big screen. I would have settled for the small screen, most of the time. It didn’t happen though.”

“I could see you as a star. You have this light about you,” Angel said and she looked up into his eyes. His gaze was hot on hers and she felt the heat of it entering her. He looked away quickly, as if afraid to burn her. She found that she wanted to be burnt. “The mural is...interesting.”

“I know. It’s beautiful. I can’t believe people pass this place everyday and have no idea what they’re missing. It seems like a crime or something. I wonder who painted it, don’t you? And why they chose to put it here, out of sight?”

“Probably someone who realized that there’s beauty in darkness and neglect,” Angel said, caressing the painted lines in a way that spoke of familiarity with them. Cordelia felt a strange swoop in her stomach.

“Do you paint?”

“I used to.”

“Why don’t you now?” she said, seizing this piece of information immediately. “Why exactly do you live in the streets, Angel?”

“Why are you pushing?” he said, turning on her. The shadows courted his hollow cheeks, making him look dangerous and inviting at the same time.

“Because, I want to know,” Cordelia said, reaching out a hand to touch his arm. His skin was still shockingly cold, probably from the rain and the unseasonable chill in the air. “I want to know who you are, if you’re going to be protecting me. I want to trust you.”

“You shouldn’t trust me,” Angel said bitterly, turning away from her.

“Why not?”

“I’m not who you think I am.” His voice was heavy with sadness, which she didn’t quite understand. But she wanted to.

“Considering I don’t know anything about you, that’s not saying much,” Cordelia said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Spill, Angel. What made you hit rock bottom?”

“I’m cursed, Cordelia. I don’t deserve to live a normal life. I can’t be happy and I don’t want to be. No one should be nice to me. No one like you, especially. And for you to show me your favorite place. This place, of all places...”

“What’s so wrong with this place?” she asked, taken aback. She’d thought he’d liked the mural. Instead, he turned on her, his gaze full of sadness. “I thought you said you liked it?”

“I do. You don’t understand. You can’t.”

“Explain anyway!”

“I should go,” he said and started to walk away, but then stopped.

“Can’t leave until daybreak, huh?” she said waspishly. He swung back on her and looked pained. “Is that what you’re used to doing? Running away from the problems you don’t want to face? Well, it’s not working tonight. I’m a chronic problem and you have to face me.”

“Cordelia...”

“Just tell me one true thing about you, and I’ll stop pressing,” she said, approaching him.

Angel looked around the courtyard for a long moment and the touched the wall again, his fingers tracing the bloodred lines with ease. He glanced over his shoulder at her, and in a whisper, said, “I painted this.”

Shock radiated through her as she looked from him to the mural and back again. “What? You’re kidding!”

“I’m not. I painted it.”

“But...I don’t understand. This is beautiful! You could be making a killing in the art market with this stuff! You don’t have to be a dirty bum! No offense. You have a wonderful talent, Angel! Don’t hide it!” Cordelia said, touching his arm again. She squeezed between him and mural, to make sure that he looked her in the eye. “You have a beautiful soul. I can see it in the way you paint.”

“And that’s the whole problem, Cordelia,” he said softly and touched her cheek. Their gazes met and connected. She realized with a start just how close they were. The rain dripped off of Angel’s chin and hair and she shivered, unable to control the impulse. His lips were inviting and she wondered what kind of madness was taking her now.

She didn’t care though. She wanted to kiss him, to take away the pain in his gaze, even for an instant. Whatever had happened to him to make him hurt this much, she wanted to push it away and protect him from it, the way he wanted to protect her.

“Angel...”

“Tell me one true thing about yourself.”

She licked the rain from her lips and thought a moment. “I am completely lost.”

His hand slid up her jaw and buried itself in her dripping hair, pulling her face toward his. He leaned in, seemingly unable to stop himself. The gravity between was too much to resist. They both knew it; fighting it would only make it worse. His lips were cold as they closed over hers, but his kiss was gentle. He seemed fragile against her lips, as if he might break if she pressed to hard.

But she did anyway. Her fingers curled up in his black t-shirt and she pulled him closer to her. He pressed her against the brick wall, his kiss growing more urgent and deeper. Every hormone in her body fired, rocketing her pulse upward so fast she felt dizzy. Kissing Angel was like kissing heaven. How apropos.

His tongue darted into her mouth as she slid her hand around his neck, holding him that much closer. She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to take his pain and disperse it and kissing him seemed to be the only way to make that happen. He moaned as she met his tongue with hers. The hot give and take flowed between them and she pressed for more.

The drugging kiss grew deeper as he took her mouth possessively. His need was evident in the way he held her. Cordelia clung to him until she felt a sharp sting against her lips. She pulled back, feeling blood flood her tongue, sharp and coppery. Her eyes snapped open and she stared into a pair of hungry yellow eyes.


“Where do you think it’ll be?” Gunn asked Wesley as he glanced over at him in the passenger seat of his truck. The streets of Los Angeles flew by them in rainy gulps. Hardly anyone was out on the streets and Gunn liked it that way. Wesley had driven him back to his truck, which had been parked not too far from the slaughterhouse. Gunn had insisted on taking the truck, since it was more equipped for a fight than Wesley’s Dodge Stratus.

Wesley looked up from his work and squinted through the windshield wipers at the city before them. His hands were full of vials of powders and he had a streak of purple dust across his nose. Gunn had no idea what he was doing, but he’d insisted on taking the stuff with him after he’d blessed the ax. Or whatever it was he’d done to his ax. He still wasn’t sure. Gunn just knew that when he held it, his hand tingled. That had to mean something. “Wherever the victim is, I shouldn’t doubt.”

“How are we going to find her?”

“No idea, to be honest,” Wesley said, tossing Gunn an apologetic look over the tops of his glasses. “It might already be too late, you realize.”

“I realize,” Gunn said darkly. He wasn’t ready to give up though. Not until the sun came up. “What are you making?”

“Something to keep us from falling under the Lullaby Man’s spell. He’ll try to paralyze us with his power and there are ways to counteract that. I’m nearly finished. Just another teaspoon of bloodroot...”

“And you just happen to have this stuff around your shop?”

“Watcher’s are always prepared, Charles.”

“Right,” Gunn said and went quiet, his eyes piercing the gloom, attempting to catch even a glimmer of the demon he’d seen the week before. Pain and rage filled him. Vengeance coated his tongue. He wanted nothing more than to destroy the thing that had taken his Lily. And he realized if he hadn’t met Wesley, he’d have no idea what he was up against. The man didn’t look like much, but he was proving to be invaluable.

Now if only he didn’t get himself killed when or if they came up against this demon.

“Done. Here,” Wesley said, thrusting one of the vial’s under Gunn’s nose. He jerked his head back as the smell of it hit his nostrils. The powder looked like sand art, all stirred up into a rainbow mess.

“What do I do with it?” he asked as he took it from the Watcher.

“Snort it, I’m afraid,” Wesley said, and put the vial to one nostril, closed his other one with his finger and snorted it efficiently. He coughed a moment later and rubbed at his nose, his eyes watering in the darkened cab of the truck. Gunn’s mouth fell open as he watched Wesley shudder and then look at him expectantly.

“You’re shitting me, right?” Gunn said, staring at the powder in the vial and back at Wesley again. “I’m not snorting some weird powders up my nose just because you say so.”

“Trust me, it’s the only way we’re going to be able to get close enough to the demon to kill it. Without it, we’re at the mercy of his powers. It’s not bad. It stings a little, but it’s not like a drug. You won’t get high.”

Gunn stared at the vial and then back at the road. “You sure?”

“I seem perfectly lucid, don’t I?” Wesley said, packing up his supplies.

“I don’t know you well enough to know better,” Gunn said. Wesley shot him an annoyed look and he sighed. “Fine.”

He pulled up to the curb outside of a block of abandoned warehouses and put the truck into park. He hesitated for a split second and then snorted the powders. Immediately the feel of it entering his nose and then his body made his limbs tingle. It wasn’t a drugged feeling, but he was aware of a lot more than he had been a few moments before. His eyes watered and his nostrils stung. He rubbed at his nose and glanced at Wesley. “If I get giggly or hooked or something, you’re getting my foot up your ass.”

“I under—”

Wesley was cut off as a scream erupted across the night. Both of them jolted in the cab of the truck, gazes meeting in understanding. Gunn grabbed the ax, which rested on the floorboards between them. Wesley seized the hand-held crossbow he’d brought. Together they rushed out into the rain.


Angel pulled back, the taste of Cordelia’s blood on his tongue. It was sweet and rich and he wanted more. Panic seized him and his eyes flew open. Cordelia’s mouth was smeared with blood from where he’d bitten her lower lip in his hunger for her. Her eyes fluttered open and horror immediately etched itself across her face. A gasp escaped her smeared lips and she drew her hands back from his chest as if she were touching poison.

She backed up against the mural, as if she wanted to sink into the painted bricks and disappear. He didn’t blame her. He wanted the ground to quake open and swallow him whole.

“Cordelia! I’m sorry! Please—”

But her bloody mouth gave birth to the scream he’d seen seeded in her eyes the moment she’d opened them. It ripped through the air, making the raindrops shudder with the force of her terror. The echo was like an accusation. He banished his vampire face with a growl and reached for her.

She was quick though, and she’d pulled out her stake with a fluid, practiced ease. The scream died on her lips, but she looked seconds from repeating it. “Oh my God! What do you want? Are you playing with me?”

“No! I’m protecting you!”

“LIAR!” she said and tears formed in her eyes. She lunged at him and he caught her wrist in his hand, squeezing, hoping to make her drop the stake but she held it tightly, anger in her swimming eyes. “LIAR!”

“Please! I didn’t mean to scare you!” Angel said, misery building in him. He didn’t want her to hate him. He didn’t want to see the terror in Cordelia’s eyes and knowing he’d made it happen cut him to the core. “Cordelia!”

Pain suddenly sliced through his back and he gasped as something protruded from his chest. Sluggish blood spotted the front of Cordelia’s pink tank top. He let go of her and she stumbled backward, her mouth open in a silent scream. Angel looked down and realized that it was the tip of an arrow. It had just missed his heart, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.

“Well, well...seems you get around, vampire,” an angry, familiar voice said at his back. He whipped around to face the owner of the voice, already knowing that it was the vampire hunter he’d met earlier that night. Standing beside him was a tall man, drenched to the skin, with a pair of glasses on his nose. He was holding the crossbow expertly. “Guess that pig’s blood wasn’t good enough for you tonight, huh?”

“Oh my God...” Cordelia moaned behind him and slid sideways along the mural he’d painted twenty years ago, heading toward the narrow fissure between the buildings. He couldn’t let her go though. The night was deadly to her.

“Cordelia, don’t!” he said, but she had already darted into the darkness, leaving Angel alone with the two vampire hunters. “You have to stop her! She’s in danger!”

“From you!” the tall man beside the kid said, voice thick with a British accent. “Gunn, flank him!”

Gunn was the kid, Angel realized. “Got it, Wesley.”

Gunn and Wesley circled him, looking for weakness. At the moment it wasn’t too hard to find. The crossbow bolt in his chest was searing and he longed to pluck it out. It was close to his heart and if they wrenched it sideways, he’d be in serious trouble. “Please. Go after the girl. She’s in danger.”

“She was until we stepped in,” Gunn said, spinning his ax in his hands. He had a look of pure hatred on his face. “How did you get away from the cops? Kill them?”

“No. She bailed me out of jail after they arrested me.”

Gunn’s brows went skyward. “What?”

“I’m her protector.”

“Then why was she screaming?”

“I lost control.”

“Well, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Gunn growled and went for Angel. He spun and blocked the blow of the ax. Gunn twirled again and kicked him in the stomach. Angel bent double and brought his fist up into Gunn’s sternum, knocking the kid back a few steps. He glanced at Wesley, who worried him more than Gunn did. Just as he glanced his way, another crossbow bolt came sailing his way. He managed to tilt his head backward enough so that the wind of it rippled his hair instead of buried itself in his neck.

Angel turned back to Gunn, who had recovered from the blow to his chest and swiped the ax at Angel’s feet. He jumped the blade and punched Gunn across the face. Then he turned on Wesley, who had come closer, in order to get a better shot. Angel kicked the crossbow out of his hands and it clattered across the asphalt.

Gunn swiped the ax at him again and he caught it, spinning it out of the hunter’s hand. It smashed against the wall with a clink. Angel stood up straight and surveyed the both of them. He was losing time. The longer Cordelia was gone, the worse her chances of surviving were. He needed to find her now, and these two men might just be the help he needed.

“Stop,” Angel said, holding up his hands. “I could have just killed both of you right now and I didn’t. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to get to Cordelia. She’s in danger and I swore to protect her. I can’t let anything happen to her. You can help me or we fight until you’re unconscious. Which do you want?”

Gunn glared at him, still in a fighting stance. He was eyeing his lost ax with longing. Wesley had pulled out a stake, but he didn’t move an inch.

“You’re a vampire. Why should we trust you?” Wesley asked.

“Because I’m not like other vampires. All I want is to keep that girl alive. A demon is after her tonight. It wants to steal her destiny!”

Gunn and Wesley exchanged glances. It was Wesley who spoke. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

There was silence for one long, tense moment, broken only by the sound of the rain coming down. Gunn dropped his stance, surprising Angel. He hadn’t expected it to work. “I believe him.”

“What?” Wesley yelped in surprise, staring at his companion with disbelief etched across his face. “You can’t be serious, Charles!”

“I am. And give him some of the powder. He’s going to make himself useful,” Gunn said, crossing his arms over his chest and approaching Angel, as if daring him to attack him again. He stared Angel down. “If you’re lying about this, I’m going to dust you. And that’s a promise.”

Angel just stared back at him. Gunn reached out, grasped the bolt still imbedded in Angel’s chest and tugged. The arrow came free with a wet sucking sound, and Angel felt momentarily weak, then he felt better. He’d heal and heal quickly. Cordelia was what was important.

“Thank you,” Angel said, and Gunn’s face grew dark at that. Wesley came up to Angel and peered into his face. There was a corked vial of powder in his hands. He looked wary of getting too close, but also fascinated. Angel wondered if he’d ever just stood there with a vampire before. Somehow he doubted it. “What is that?”

“It prevents the Lullaby Man—the demon we think is after your friend—from paralyzing you. We’ve both taken it. You’ll need it too if you want to help her,” Wesley clipped, handing the vial to Angel. He took it and stared into its contents. “Snort it.”

“So you know what you’re after now?” Angel asked Gunn, who nodded. “Is it what killed your girlfriend?”

“It is.”

“We’ve blessed Gunn’s ax. It’ll kill the demon, if we can get close enough to him. The powder stops his power from working on us. I have another trick up my sleeve to banish his shadows. But we’re going to need you to distract him while we do this...or the girl might die,” Wesley said, eyeing Angel.

“She won’t die.” Angel didn’t hesitate. He snorted the contents of the vial and shuddered, eyes watering. He dropped the empty glass onto the ground, where it shattered with a small splashing sound. He looked up into Wesley’s keen blue eyes and saw him peering at him in suspicion and recognition.

“Angelus?”

Angel’s stomach plummeted. Who was this man to know of that name? “No, I’m not. Not for a long, long time. Not since the gypsies cursed me with a soul. Call me Angel.”

“A soul?” Wesley said, studying Angel’s face, looking for the lie.

“We don’t have time for this,” Gunn growled, grabbing up his ax and twirling it in his hands. “Come on.” The moment Gunn spoke, the air around them seemed to shiver. Water droplets in the air quivered and stilled. Gunn and Wesley’s breath refused to shift and dissipate. The night grew deadly silent, the shadows dark and deep. Gunn’s voice was heavy with terror and grief; the loudest sound in the world at that moment. “He’s here.”

“Cordelia,” Angel breathed and took off in the direction she’d disappeared.


The rain stung Cordelia as she ran, the stake clutched tightly in her hand, her shoes slapping in the puddles on the sidewalk. Terror and betrayal made her lungs heave. She wanted to run until the sun came up and then run some more. What had happened back there? How could Angel have been a vampire?

Had he been playing with her the whole time? Was he playing a sick game only amusing to him? It didn’t make sense, but he was a vampire. They were evil and soulless. They played cruel games because they could. And she’d fallen for it completely. She hadn’t seen the danger behind the homeless guy personae, or the handsome face of the man beneath.

Tears streamed steaming down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. He’d lied about everything. She hadn’t been in danger from something unknown out in the city. It was the thing that she’d willingly kissed that would hurt her. But why had he allowed himself to be arrested? Why hadn’t he attacked her when she’d invited him into her apartment?

Terrible scenarios ran roughshod through her spinning mind, each worse than the next. Whatever Angel had wanted, he wouldn’t get it now. She knew what he was and she wasn’t going to let him near her again.

But where could she go? He could enter her apartment now and she couldn’t stop him. She’d left him fighting the two men in the courtyard, but she had no way of knowing if he would win that fight. She wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that he could enter at any time. She might not even be able to breathe ever again.

Her feet slipped on the wet sidewalk and she went down, scraping her hands on the pavement. Pain bit up her arms and she sat up, sobbing, exhausted and gasping for breath. She needed to get up and run, run as far away as she could. Tossing her drenched hair out of her face, she looked up just in time to see the streetlights at the end of the block flicker out. Song, soft and crooning, came out of nowhere, carried on the wind.

The chill in the air seemed to spike within seconds, leaving her trembling and cold on the ground. She blinked, thinking she must be imagining the way the droplets of rain in the air seemed to still in their headlong flight toward the ground. A droplet in front of her nose slowed and hovered in front of her. Cordelia’s tear-reddened eyes widened.

She lifted a hand and touched the droplet, but it merely twisted in midair, bending to shape her fingertip. She withdrew her hand immediately and stared into the darkness surrounding her.

“Okay. This is worse than kissing a vampire,” she said, licking her bitten lip and standing. She needed to get the hell out of here, now. The raindrops molded to her, pushing upward in the air like sparkling beads. Her knees shook as she stared down the block, at the darkened streetlights. Darkness, swirling and ebbing, seemed to be blooming there. The snatch of song could still be heard but she couldn’t make out the words. They terrified her though. “Oh crap...”

Angel’s words of warning hit her ears and she felt a sinking in her stomach. She tried to take a step backward, but the shadows were suddenly there, hovering in front of her. She screamed, unable to stop herself. The darkness, shadows, whatever, reached for her, coiling around her arms and dragging her closer. Her scream seemed to drown in the darkness and she knew that no one would ever hear it.

She was going to die, but it wouldn’t be an easy death.

The singing stopped, though the words still shivered in the air around her. Eyes as black as ink seemed to open in the swirling void of shadows, and a mouth opened, showing teeth too sharp for speech. But words formed on the air.

“Mine.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to scream again, knowing it was useless but unable to stop, and the shadows plunged into her mouth and eyes, filling her with cold and pain and the taste of death.


Angel, Gunn and Wesley skidded to a halt in the middle of the street. Gunn’s truck had been effected by the strange slowing of time and they had had to run through the frozen rain toward the source of the disturbance. Now, staring at it swarming in the middle of the street like a drop of darkest ink in a cup of clear water, the three of them realized what it was they were facing.

The sound of the Lullaby Man’s soft, lulling song chilled Angel to the bone, but it didn’t paralyze him. Wesley’s powder had done the job. “Where’s Cordelia?”

“She’s in him,” Wesley said in a tight voice. Angel felt panic seize him. They didn’t have much time then. “He’ll kill her soon, if it isn’t already too late for her.”

“It had better not be,” Angel and Gunn said together, identical expressions of anger on their faces. They glanced at one another. Now was the time to fight and they could both do that well. Angel nodded at Gunn; the plan had been decided on already. Angel would distract the Lullaby Man while the two men came up behind it to deliver the deathblows. It wasn’t a solid plan, but it was better than nothing.

Angel edged through the frozen rain and stopped before the swirling mass of darkness. “Hey! Ugly!”

Eyes snapped open in the darkness and a mouth followed. Shock seemed to radiate outward from the center of the swirling, biting shadows. Angel couldn’t see Cordelia anywhere, but somehow he knew that she was near. The Lullaby Man seemed to regroup from seeing Angel unaffected by his powers. “You! The vampire with a soul...and a powerful destiny he turns away from! I thought you would be busy with your little friends back there?”

“We came to an understanding.”

“And how are you able to see me?” Angel just glared at the demon. “No matter. You cannot stop me.”

“Maybe not, but you’ve got something I want and I’m not going to stop until I get her. Let her go.”

“I am afraid I cannot,” he said, his voice like a thousand splinters of ice jabbing into Angel’s chest. “She is nearly finished.”

And the darkness parted. Cordelia’s limp form was displayed like a broken marionette. Darkness pouring into her mouth, eyes, nose and ears. She was pale and trembling and she seemed to be completely unconscious. Anger surged through Angel. Not Cordelia. The darkness was not for her, but it would take her if he didn’t move quickly.

“Take me instead. You said I had a powerful destiny? Take me instead of her. Who is she, anyway? What’s so great about her destiny?”

“I do not eat your kind,” The Lullaby Man crooned, lifting Cordelia like a limp doll. Her body spasmed and then stilled, though he could tell that she was still alive, but barely. “I like my food more nubile. And you have no idea what is in store for this young woman...although if you did, you would probably kill her yourself, to save yourself the trouble later.”

Angel didn’t know what that meant, but he was willing to go along with it, if it kept the demon talking. “She doesn’t want her destiny, whatever it is. Let her go. Take me instead. I’m a yummy morsel.”

“If you are so willing to sacrifice yourself for her, vampire, perhaps I will take you both?” the demon said and a tendril of darkness shot toward Angel, wrapping around his upper arms and dragging him forward. It was like plunging his hands into water; the Lullaby Man was strong and cold. Gunn and Wesley had better do what they planned on doing soon or he was a goner, Cordelia with him.

The shadows twisted up toward his eyes. He felt the darkness entering him and it was cold and heavy. The familiar taste of death, intimate to him, flooded his senses. Unimaginable pain spidered through his system. He shivered and his wide eyes fell upon Cordelia, who was growing paler as the shadows filled her body, threatening to tear her apart.

Suddenly, like a lighthouse exploding into life, the darkness was flooded with bright yellow light. Angel felt the heat of it pulsing through him, throbbing like a candle flame in the wind. The Lullaby Man screamed in pain and the raindrops hovering in the air splattered to the ground in a deafening rush.

Angel felt the shadows retreating from his body, like a wet string being pulled out of his throat. The light expanded, exploding like a supernova in the darkness. Angel had to close his eyes or be blinded. He lost sight of Cordelia and terror hit him hard. The light seemed to burn him and he didn’t know why. It was painful, dangerous...if it went on much longer he’d burst into flames. It was like sunlight, sunlight at midnight...

“GUNN! NOW!”

Angel opened his blistered eyes and saw that the light was fading, and with it, the Lullaby Man’s power. Wesley had done something magical, but it hadn’t been enough to kill the demon. His eyes narrowed on the demon, no longer cloaked in its shadows. Now it was an ugly, twisted thing, more ashy bone than flesh. Its mouth was its biggest feature and its jaws dripped with saliva. It was weak though and it knew it.

Cordelia was on the ground at its feet and she wasn’t moving.

“Who are you to subvert my magic?” the Lullaby Man growled, trying to pick itself up, the air shuddering under his coldness. He roared and turned on the two men who had crept up behind him. Wesley had his crossbow raised now, half of his shirt nearly singed off from whatever magic he’d done. He looked half-blind though.

Gunn’s face was livid with anger as he stepped forward, holding up his ax in a sure, steady way. “You killed my Lily.”

The Lullaby Man’s horrible mouth stretched to show all of his sharp, dripping teeth. “She was juicy. What are you going to do about it, human? You cannot kill me with a normal weapon.”

“Good thing I don’t have one of those,” Gunn said in a cold voice and then rage erupted out of him like a cannonball out of a cannon. The Lullaby Man screamed and lifted his weak arms to try and ward off the blow, but Gunn’s aim was true. The ax sliced right through his neck. The head rolled into the street and then dissolved into smoke. It was as if he’d never been there.

Gunn stood over the place where the corpse had been only moments before, his chest heaving, mouth open in a snarl. His body shuddered and he looked ready to kill again. The air was silent for a long moment, as Angel watched the young man get control over himself. Finally, he seemed to break. He dropped the ax and fell to his knees, his face buried in his hands.

Wesley hovered over his shoulder, but didn’t touch him. Angel ignored them both and dropped to his knees beside Cordelia. She hadn’t stirred once and he was worried. They’d saved her from being ripped apart by the Lullaby Man’s power, but what if hadn’t been enough?

He picked up Cordelia, cradling her against him. Her body was limp and cold. He checked for a pulse, realizing dimly that Wesley was hovering over him now. Gunn was beside him, his eyes red, but tear-free.

“Is she alive?” Wesley whispered, touching her hand and turning her wrist over. Angel knew he was checking for a pulse. Relief flooded Wesley’s face. “She’s alive. Barely. We need to get her warm.”

Cordelia’s eyes suddenly fluttered open, fixing him in their hazel glare. “Angel?”

“It’s me, Cordelia. Are you okay?”

“I’m cold. And wet. And...hey, it’s not raining anymore.” With another jolt, he realized that the rain, which hadn’t stopped once for the past seven weeks, had finally ceased. He looked back down at Cordelia just in time to see her eyes roll up in her head. She had passed out again. Angel brushed her wet hair back from her face and lifted her up in his arms.

“Where are you taking her?” Wesley demanded, blocking Angel’s path. Gunn stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Her apartment is close. You can come with me. I just want to make sure she’s okay,” Angel said and together the three of them took off toward Cordelia’s apartment. They got her inside as quickly as possible, and into dry clothing. Then Angel settled her into her bed, hovering by her side. Wesley and Gunn stood in the doorway, whispering to each other. Angel knew that they wanted to confront him. He didn’t blame them.

He smoothed the hair back from Cordelia’s face one last time, his fingertips lingering on her warming skin. He couldn’t stay. She was safe and once she woke up, she wouldn’t want to see him again, especially now that she knew what he was. He’d disappear back into the sewers of the city like he had for years and that would be the end of that.

“Where are you going?” Wesley asked him as he stood.

“I don’t know. As far away from her as possible,” Angel said. “Can I trust you both to stay with her and watch over her? I don’t want her to be alone.”

“We’ll watch over her,” Gunn said fiercely and Angel knew that he would.

“Thank you. For everything,” Angel said and started to walk past them, but Gunn stopped him. “You still looking to fight?”

“Naw, man. But...you were key tonight. Thank you. Sounds weird to be thanking a vampire, but...”

“Yeah,” Angel said and walked to the door. Wesley called after him.

“What do we tell her when she wakes up and wants to know where you’ve gone?”

“She won’t want to know,” Angel said heavily and left. Dawn was swiftly approaching on the toes of November, but he had enough time to do what he needed to do. Darkness enshrouded him as he glanced over his shoulder at Cordelia’s apartment. The lights were on, looking warm and inviting. But that was no place for him.

His feet took him through the empty, damp streets as the clouds overhead parted to allow a sliver of moonlight to shine on him. The chill seemed to disappear too. It would be a beautiful day, one he would never see. Angel entered the courtyard and came to a stop before the mural. He didn’t know why his feet had brought him here, but he wanted to be close to something precious to Cordelia.

It was strange; he hadn’t thought of this place in a long time. He’d painted it for no real reason twenty years before. He remembered well standing in the darkness, putting paint to brick. He’d had a sense of purpose as he’d done it, but it had faded as soon as he’d finished. And he hadn’t gone back in that whole time. But Cordelia had found it. Their lives had crossed without their knowing it.

He touched the bloodred slashes on the wall and thought of the feel of her lips, of the taste of her against his mouth. She was dangerous, far too dangerous a temptation. She’d made him feel human again and that couldn’t happen.

“I take it everything went all right, yeah?” a lilting Irish voice said at his back. Angel turned around and stared at the short, dark-haired half-demon before him. A burning cigarette was dangling in his fingers and a smirk was on his lips. “Save the lass, did you?”

“I did,” Angel choked, wondering how long he’d been there. His defenses were down and he knew it. “You were right. She was in danger.”

The half-demon touched his temple and grinned wryly. “I don’t get head-splitting visions for nothing, you know. I knew you’d do it. Had a bet going on with the Host down at Caritas. He didn’t think you’d do it. Owes me a Benjamin. So, what did you make of her?”

“She’s different. Special.”

“She’ll change lives, that one. And she’s easy on the eyes.”

“I’d noticed. Will she be okay?”

“Define okay? Her life is going to change now. She can’t hide from her destiny any longer and she won’t want to. I have it on good authority she’s already met the people who will steer her in the right direction.”

“Why did I have to save her? Why me?” Angel asked, turning away from the half-demon.

“Why not you? Heroes are hard to come by and someone out there thinks maybe you could make a good stand of it.”

“Someone’s wrong.”

“Are they? I guess we’ll see.” Doyle tossed his cigarette down and ground it out under his shoe.

“Why couldn’t I have saved vampire hunter’s girlfriend too?”

“Who knows? I don’t know why I get the visions; I just make sure they don’t come true. As for Cordelia Chase...you’re right she is someone special.”

“I still want to protect her, but she knows what I am now. She won’t want me near her. And I can’t be here...knowing she’s out there...”

“They don’t call it penance for nothing, Angel. It’s time you earned a little redemption, don’t you think? And who knows? Maybe she can protect you too?”

“Doyle?” Angel turned back around to face him and saw that he was walking away. Doyle stopped and looked at him expectantly. “Am I going to see you again?”

“I have a feeling you might. I get any messages for you, I’ll be sure to pass them along. Oh, and keep up with that hygiene. I speak for everyone with a nose when I say you smelled, man.”

Angel watched Doyle disappear into the darkness, knowing that it wouldn’t be the last time that he’d see the Seer. Someone had decided it was time for him to start living again, but he didn’t think he could stand the light. He turned back to the mural and caressed the thick red paint. What was his destiny and would it continue to intertwine with Cordelia Chase’s?


One Week Later

“I have to go, Wesley. Someone’s at my door,” Cordelia said into her phone as she walked toward her front door.

“Okay. Take care. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Wesley clipped over the line.

“Sure. Bye!” she said with a smile as she hung up. She was beginning to like the two men who had helped save her life quite a lot. Wesley was a bit of a stick in the mud and she liked to annoy him, but she liked him. Gunn was angry and hurt and standoffish, but she could tell, from the simple fact that he kept calling and stopping by, that he was going to be a friend.

She didn’t mind that. She needed some friends. Her “head down, fists up” approach to life had pretty much guaranteed her from having friends. She didn’t want to live like that any longer. And Gunn and Wesley were two people she would willingly let past her defenses. They weren’t the only ones though.

Cordelia stood on tiptoe and peered out the peephole in her door. Her heart immediately plummeted to her toes and then soared again. Her pulse skyrocketed, making her body thrum. She put her weight back down on her heels and took a deep breath. Should she open the door? Or ignore the knock?

“Open the door, Cordelia. I know you’re there. I can hear your pulse racing.” Her cheeks colored as she put her hand on the doorknob and licked her lips. What if he had come back to hurt her? She’d been having nightmares about him all week, about him coming into her bedroom while she was sleeping. But mingled in with the nightmares were dreams of the way he’d looked at her. The gentle way he’d held her. The fact that he’d saved her life...for no apparent reason... “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d just kick in the door and do it. You’ve already invited me in, remember?”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then unlocked the door and swung it open. Angel stood there in the hallway, looking clean and natty in a dark coat and a white shirt and jeans. He’d cut his hair short. He was still too thin, but she guessed that he’d had a few good meals. Probably pig’s blood, like Gunn had told her.

She didn’t have her stake on her. It was on her couch. He’d have her before she got to it, but she knew he wouldn’t attack her. He just smiled at her, nervously. They stared at one another, gazes connected. A million unsaid things passed between them. He didn’t try to enter and she guessed that he was waiting for an invitation.

Finally, he seemed to find his voice. “Are you looking for a hero?”

Cordelia smiled. “No. I’ve already found one.”


Prompt Idea By Pythia!
#36. None of the gang met. One Halloween they all run across each other in some way.