Close to the Ground Read online

  Angel breathed a sigh of relief and headed

  back toward Sunset.

  “Just playing it safe,” he explained. “That’s what we bodyguards do.”

  “I think you bodyguards are all whack jobs,” Karinna suggested.

  “That may be, but —”

  The car blasted out of nowhere, no headlights on, and slammed into the GTX. There was a sound like an explosion. The Plymouth went into a skid and stopped ninety degrees from the way it had been headed.

  Angel was reaching for the key to restart it when he saw nine men on the street, coming toward them from every angle.

  “We’re not here for you,” one of them said. He was tall, with steely gray eyes and black hair slicked close to his scalp. “You could go. Take your car. We’ll take the girl.”

  “No deal,” Angel said.

  “Didn’t think so,” the guy said. “Thought I’d offer, though.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Kill him,” the guy instructed calmly.

  Angel™

  Angel: City Of

  Angel: Not Forgotten

  Angel: Redemption

  Angel: Close to the Ground

  Available from POCKET PULSE

  Historian’s Note: This story takes place during the first half of Angel’s first season.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET PULSE published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  ™ and © 2000 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

  this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue

  of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-3282-7

  POCKET PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  For Maryelizabeth Hart and Nancy Holder

  My Angels.

  Acknowledgments

  For this one I have to thank Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for creating these characters, and David Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, and Glenn Quinn for giving them life.

  Thanks also to the publishing commandoes: Caroline Kallas, Debbie Olshan, Liz Shiflett, Micol Ostow, and especially Lisa Clancy.

  And the ground crew: Maryelizabeth, Nancy, Chris, Scott, Holly, Dave, and Belle. Couldn’t have done it without you.

  PROLOGUE

  Ireland — four weeks ago

  The island rose from the waters off the west coast of Ireland like a great beast thrusting its head up from the surf. Waves had pounded the island’s sheer rock walls since time began, scouring them clean and smooth. Thick tall grass carpeted the island’s interior, dotted by the stunted, twisting trees that were all the strong winds and heavy mists would allow to grow.

  No visitor but the winged ones had ever set foot on this island, and even those were soon driven off — if not by the elements, then by the sense of foreboding that blanketed the place as surely as the ever-present fog. Ireland, they said, had been rid of snakes by Saint Patrick, but that man was simply redundant here. No natural creature that could leave the island would stay on it more than a night.

  According to legend, a force of Celtic warriors had once tried to claim the island because where it sat, off the end of Blacksod Bay, might have strategic significance to anyone invading that part of Ireland. Climbing the rocky cliffs, they found in the center of the island a strange assortment of huge rocks, standing at angles to the ground, as if they would fall down at any moment. In the middle of this arrangement they discovered a broad, flat rock, and on that rock an old man’s severed head. As the warriors approached, the eyes of the head opened and gazed upon them. The head then called each warrior by name.

  By morning all the warriors were dead, and each of the big, leaning rocks was topped by a fresh human skull. The island was left alone after that.

  It was never given a name.

  So when a castle was built on the island, no one saw its walls go up, its roofs covered over. It was constructed of the same gray stone as the island itself, and from a distance — which was as close as anyone came — it looked like simply another rock outcropping.

  The castle belonged to Mordractus.

  Mordractus sat in a chair made of massive antlers, with deerskin stretched between them, watching as P’wrll shoved a tape into the VCR. The room was vast and dark, with the only light coming from small electric sconces set high up on the cold stone walls, and the glow from the rear-projection TV.

  “The quality ain’t great,” P’wrll said. His voice rasped like two rocks scraping together, and Mordractus thought that his accent was a bizarre cross of Irish and Faerie. P’wrll was an odd-looking thing, too, his body all bent and twisted, his skin chalk-white with narrow black lips and cavernous red eyes, strands of long white hair that reached halfway to the floor from his patchy scalp, and limbs that seemed made from random branches of different trees. It was a good thing he had masking spells which enabled him to pass among humans. “It was all shot at night,” he went on, “mostly from a distance. And we couldn’t exactly announce ourselves, you know, ’ad to shoot it all from ’idin’.”

  Mordractus waved an impatient hand at the bogie. Goblins and fairies in general were typically bad with modern machinery, and he’d half a mind to do it himself, or at least to summon one of his human minions to operate the thing. “I’ve no interest in your excuses,” he said. “Just show it to me.”

  P’wrll fiddled with the remote, his long, gnarled fingers finally locating the right button, and the widescreen went blue. “I think I’ve got it,” he announced. Sure enough, the screen flickered and went dark, and then Mordractus could make out a wide, urban street, at night, lit by streetlights.

  “I dinna like it there,” P’wrll said. “Too many folks.” His word for humans.

  Mordractus watched the screen for long moments. The street was empty. “This is useful,” Mordractus commented. He was never sure if sarcasm was lost on fairies and bogeymen. “You didn’t edit?”

  “We thought you’d want to see this as soon as you could,” P’wrll said. Another quality common to bogies, Mordractus thought. Always with the “we,” as if to dilute any blame for anything that might go wrong. They were mischievous, occasionally malevolent, but they dodged responsibility as efficiently as the laziest human.

  Mordractus surrounded himself with both. Humans had their uses, but for some jobs, a bogie or another type of fairy or goblin was more effective. Sometimes he just had to laugh at the modern world’s fascination with fairies, and the perception of them as innocent magical creatures fluttering gaily about the woods and fields.

  A fairy would as soon rip a human’s head off and have it for dinner as pose on the petals of a flower. People had forgotten that — forgotten so much about magic and the old ways.

  But Mordractus hadn’t. He’d lived it, for three centuries now.

  Which is, he reflected, part of the problem.

  A skilled sorceror could extend his life for a long time. But no magician had ever lived as long as Mordractus already had — not even the great ones of old, not Merlin, not Gilles de Rais, not Agrippa. Mordractus had studied the works of the greats, had learned from each of them, and had, at last, surpassed them in knowledge and skill.

  And
yet, in spite of all his efforts, even he was tiring. He had tried everything to rejuvenate himself, to restore his strength, to ward off the effects of age. Spells and rituals that had worked in the past failed him now. And there was the big one, the Summoning, which sapped more of his life force than anything he’d ever attempted, at every stage.

  Mordractus was dying, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it.

  Still, he didn’t give up. He sent his followers far and wide, looking for anything he might have missed, any sign or sigil, any clue to a new treatment, an untested technique. Most of them came back empty-handed, unable to turn up anything he hadn’t already tried.

  But P’wrll and two humans, Currie and Hitch, had returned with this tape, which they claimed revealed something quite unexpected, and possibly helpful. They had gone to America; more specifically, to the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. What they found there was, they claimed, remarkable.

  On the screen a man walked out of a doorway and onto the sidewalk. At the curb he looked both ways, as if checking to see if he was observed, and then opened the door of a car and climbed in. He was tall, young, and handsome, with spiky dark hair and intense eyes that seemed to glare right into the camera. He wore a black leather overcoat over dark clothes.

  “There ’e is,” P’wrll said. “That’s ’im now, gettin’ in the car.”

  “Amazing,” Mordractus said dryly. “A man gets in a car. Who’d have believed it?”

  “There’s more,” P’wrll protested. “Just wait.”

  The tape cut then, and started again someplace else. A different street, still outdoors, still in the city. The same man filled the screen. This time he was closer to the camera, but he still didn’t seem to see it. His attention was focused elsewhere.

  And while Mordractus watched, the young man changed.

  His forehead swelled, becoming thicker, almost plated. His eyes narrowed. His teeth grew and his lips pulled back in a grimace.

  He was definitely a vampire.

  The camera swung around, following him as he went past it.

  Two men had a woman pressed up against a concrete wall. Probably this vampire had chosen her as his victim, and these men were interfering, Mordractus thought. The men were shadowed — it was possible they were vampires as well. Hunting together? Unusual, but stranger things had happened.

  The young man — young vampire, Mordractus corrected himself — waded into the men. His fists flew, he lashed out with a mighty kick, and in a moment both men were running away at top speed. The vampire let them go.

  Then he turned to the woman. Mordractus was expecting him to take her there, but he didn’t. In fact, in the dim light, Mordractus could see that his face had taken on its human demeanor again. He looked at her with concern in his eyes as he helped her to her feet. He picked up a fallen purse and handed it to her, and then he escorted her to a nearby car.

  She gave him a wave as she drove away.

  “Is he a vampire or a Boy Scout?” Mordractus asked.

  “That’s just it,” P’wrll replied. “According to the rumors, ’e’s a vampire, but ’e does good things. ’E won’t feed on folks. And ’e’s got a soul.”

  “A soul?” Mordractus echoed.

  “’S’what they say,” P’wrll said. “Immortal, sure, but wi’ a soul.”

  “Indeed,” Mordractus said, his mind already racing, considering the implications.

  “There’s more tape.”

  “Let it run,” Mordractus told him. “Did you happen to get the vampire’s name?”

  “They call ’im Angel.”

  Angel.

  Angelus? Could it be?

  “Warm up the helicopter. And book some flights,” Mordractus instructed. He watched the tape roll on, a new optimism suddenly filling him.

  “We’re going to California.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Los Angeles — now

  “I could do this,” Cordelia Chase said. She walked into Angel’s office from his downstairs apartment, waving a glossy magazine in her hand. Angel glanced away from the TV. She seemed to be showing him a society section — dozens of small photos of L.A.’s social elite were flapping at him.

  “I really could,” she went on. “I mean, what are the qualifications? To be pretty? Look at me.”

  Angel did. Even wearing a casual tank top and track pants, the brunette was definitely pretty. Angel thought she had, even in the short time since graduating from high school back in Sunnydale and moving here to L.A., seemed to grow into herself more, becoming more elegant and lovely with each passing week.

  “And I guess you have to be able to talk for hours about nothing in particular, but, hello. High school? If they’d scored on meaningless conversation, I wouldn’t have that whole grade-point-average thing hanging over my head. And I mean that in the best possible way — meaningless conversations are so much more interesting, really, than the kind that are about deep psychological issues, aren’t they?”

  “News is on, Cordy,” Doyle announced. A little more brusque than he usually was with her, which Angel figured meant that he was so distracted by the tube he had forgotten he was still hoping to date her someday. Angel thought he sometimes played the Irish brogue up more, too, as if hoping that the Irish side of him would camouflage the demon side. She didn’t know yet that Doyle was half-demon, and Doyle hoped she never did.

  “See, that’s what I mean. What good ever comes from watching the news? I’m talking about more than a career choice here — becoming a trophy wife is more of a lifestyle choice, with the added bonus that then you don’t really need a career.”

  “Right now,” Doyle said, “the good that’ll come from it is that I’ve got some money down on the Padres, and I’m waitin’ to see if Tony Gwynn’s gonna come through for me again. It’s a sure thing, but I wanna see just how sure.”

  “Quiet a minute, both of you,” Angel said. “I want to hear this.” Cordelia and Doyle both shushed.

  “. . . another daring overnight bank robbery,” the local news blow-dry said, “but this one resulted in the deaths of three innocent bystanders who happened to be on the street in the early hours of the morning, when the heavily armed robbers left the bank. A witness says the alleged robbers came out through the front door, surprising Los Angeles residents Ford Gilmore and Tomm Coker, and a third, unnamed minor. The bystanders were between the bank door and their getaway car, and when the alleged bank robbers left the building, they opened fire with automatic rifles, killing the three instantly. . . .”

  “Listen to that,” Doyle said. “ ‘Alleged robbers.’ Like it ain’t pretty clear when they come out of the bank carryin’ stolen money, shootin’ people, that they really are robbers.”

  “Kate told me about these guys,” Angel said. “They tunnel into banks overnight, load up their bags from the vault, and then go out the front door into waiting cars. She was afraid things might escalate some day, and someone would get hurt.”

  “Looks like it has,” Cordelia said. “Does Police Woman have any clues?”

  “She said she thinks so, but wouldn’t tell me what they were.”

  “Guess she don’t want you goin’ Batman on them,” Doyle said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Hey, that reminds me, man. Those guys jumped you, a couple weeks back? I’ve been asking on the street, see if anyone knows anything. No dice so far.”

  “Well, thanks for trying, anyway,” Angel said. “It’s not a big deal.”

  He’d been out late — when one is a vampire, it beats being out early — and four thugs had come out of a car as he walked down the street, not far from his office/apartment. The car had pulled up at the curb, and the passenger door opened — letting someone out on the sidewalk, Angel assumed. No reason to think differently.

  Until the guy spoke to him. “Hey, pal,” he said. Angel glanced at him then. The man was dressed all in dark clothes, like Angel himself — black jeans, a dark long-sleeved tee, and
a Dodgers cap pulled low on his brow.

  “Hey,” Angel replied, not even breaking his stride.

  Then the back doors opened and two more guys came out of the rear seat, dressed similarly. Angel saw that they were carrying weapons — a black police-style billy club in one’s hand, and a baseball bat in the other’s. He looked back toward the first guy, and saw a knife in his fist now.

  “What’s going on?” Angel asked.

  None of the men said anything. They spread out, surrounding Angel on the sidewalk. Angel heard another car door open — the driver, he figured, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the guys nearest him.

  “I think maybe you’ve got the wrong man,” Angel said.

  Still no response.

  The guy with the baseball bat swung it lazily through the air in Angel’s direction. It wasn’t a threat, so Angel ignored it. Then the billy club came whipping toward him, fast and hard. Angel dodged the blow, felt it whistle past him.

  Knife guy lunged at him then. Angel caught the man’s wrist, tucked it up under his own arm, against his ribs, and brought his arm in fast.

  There was a snapping sound, and the guy let out a scream. The knife clattered to the walk.

  And the baseball bat slammed into his kidney from behind.

  He let go of the man with the broken wrist, turned to the bat wielder.

  “There’s still time for you to get out of this without getting hurt,” Angel said.

  “Don’t think that’ll be a problem,” said the fourth man, the driver. Angel saw him now. He was huge, six-five easy, and well over two hundred and fifty pounds. A big gut spilled out of his black T-shirt and over his belt buckle. Heavy motorcycle boots peeked from beneath his jeans. He had long dark hair, streaked with gray, and a bushy beard.

  In one massive hand he held a ball-peen hammer.

  He advanced on Angel. Angel figured this one was the most dangerous, but couldn’t turn his attention from the others, either. A bat and a billy club were still in play. He decided that a quick finish to this whole encounter would be for the best.