Sanctuary Page 12

  “That do it for you tonight?” the demon asked. Then he lowered his voice. “We don’t usually like their kind to come back here,” he said, nodding his head toward Wesley and Gunn.

  “That’ll do it,” Angel said. He lowered his own voice and leaned in close to the demon. “They’re friends of mine. They go where I go.”

  The demon rang up the sale and shook his head slowly from side to side. “Hey, whatever, man. I think it’s a little sick, but whatever floats your boat, you know?”

  “We’ll leave my personal life out of it,” Angel said, extending a twenty-dollar bill. “But as long as we’re talking, let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of me? Name’s Angel. Vampire with a soul. Apparently I have a bit of a reputation.”

  The skinny demon pressed a button on the front of the register, and the drawer popped open. “I…uhh…I don’t think so.” He took the twenty from Angel’s hand and fumbled, trying to make change.

  Angel heard the chuff of a door opening somewhere behind him, but didn’t take his eyes off the demon at the register.

  “Angel.” Gunn’s voice was odd, but not panicked. “Somethin’ here you might want to see.”

  “I’d like my change first, please,” Angel said to the cashier, ignoring Gunn.

  “Sure, uhh, just a minute,” the demon said.

  “Angel,” Wesley put in, “Gunn’s right. You really should take a look.”

  Angel sighed and turned slowly, backing a step away from the counter so the demon cashier couldn’t make a move for him while he wasn’t looking. From a door at the back of the store, four demons like the cashier had emerged. But these were not scrawny ones. They were thickly muscled, and in their hands they carried metal or wooden clubs.

  “Angel, those are Tik’lets,” Wesley said carefully. “I didn’t recognize the first one, because they’re usually built like this lot here.”

  “Are Tik’lets bad?” Gunn asked.

  “They’re often merchants, as we see here,” Wesley replied. “But they’re also quite bloodthirsty when riled up.”

  “You guys riled?” Gunn inquired.

  The Tik’lets didn’t answer, at least not verbally. But they charged down the main aisle of the store, two abreast, clubs raised. Angel took another step forward. He didn’t want to crowd Wes and Gunn, but he didn’t want the cashier to get any clever ideas, either.

  Gunn dropped into a defensive stance, hands raised in front of his face, legs coiled and ready to spring. Wesley snatched a square metal container off a shelf and raised it over his head. The label said BATWINGS, and Angel had no reason to doubt that it was true. The aisle wasn’t narrow enough to allow Angel past them—he’d just have to wait for a chance to get into the action.

  When the first rank of demons came too close for Wesley’s comfort, he hurled the tin at them. The targeted Tik’let simply swung his metal club, swatting the wings container away, and came on.

  Gunn landed the first blow. He stepped into the Tik’let’s advance, dodged a downswung club, and brought the side of his hand in a short, sharp arc up and into the Tik’let’s exposed ribs. The creature huffed and slipped against the shelving unit. Boxes and cans tumbled to the floor. Gunn pressed his attack, feinting with a left jab and then raising his right leg, releasing a snap kick that caught his opponent just above the knee. Even from where he was, Angel could hear bones snap. The Tik’let screamed and started to buckle. Gunn grabbed the club and yanked it from the demon’s hand, then swung it around and into the demon’s face. Bright blue blood jetted from its nose and mouth, splashing Gunn and the merchandise littering the floor.

  Wesley, meanwhile, had engaged his own opponent. The Tik’let attacked again and again with its own club, and Wes dodged and wove like a practiced boxer. At the same time, he jabbed out with his fists, reaching the Tik’let only occasionally. Then the club caught him behind the ear, on a backswing, and Wesley’s legs went out from under him. Angel was about to leap to his friend’s defense when Wesley swung his own legs, catching the Tik’let in a scissors grip and knocking it down. The Tik’let flailed as he fell. Wesley scooped up a fallen can and brained the Tik’let with it, then clambered over the demon, getting a grip on its club hand.

  Behind them, though, the other two Tik’lets were coming in, clubs brandished and ready to do some damage. Angel vaulted over the struggling pair on the floor. His feet slammed into the chest of the nearest demon, and the creature fell back, gasping for breath. The other one brought its club down in a savage arc. It struck Angel’s temple, tearing the flesh there. The vampire saw bright flashes of light and felt a searing stab of pain. The Tik’let followed up with two jabs into Angel’s midsection. As Angel doubled over, the demon he had knocked down caught him from behind, wrapping massive arms around Angel’s own arms and chest. Angel struggled, but the Tik’let held him fast. The one still bearing a club moved in, jabbing a couple more times and then swinging the weapon up and across, smashing into Angel’s lower jaw. Angel felt his teeth clash together, tasting blood.

  When the demon raised his club for another blow, Angel tensed. Once the club was in motion, Angel lurched forward, bending at the waist. The demon who held him from behind shrieked as it realized it had just moved into the weapon’s range, but the other Tik’let couldn’t stop the blow in time. The club slammed down against its fellow’s skull, and Angel felt the grasp on him loosen. He took another half-step forward and spun, hurling the injured demon at the club-wielder. They collapsed in a pile of aqua-colored limbs, and Angel lashed out with his booted foot, knocking them into unconsciousness.

  He turned to see that Wesley and Gunn had subdued the demon Wesley had fought. Wes and Gunn both had clubs in their hands now, and the demon leaned against one of the shelf units, breathing hard, blue blood running in a steady trickle from between black lips. A cut over the demon’s eye bled as well, and the eye was already swelling shut.

  Angel stepped through the detritus on the shop’s floor and stood before the Tik’let. “Where’s Fred?” he demanded.

  The Tik’let looked at him defiantly at first, but as it processed the question, its expression changed to one of confusion. “Fred?” it asked.

  “My friend. The kidnapping, the deal, Pershing Square?”

  The demon shook its head. “Man, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Angel pressed his thumb against the Tik’let’s head wound. The demon grimaced in pain, and its knees wobbled. “You can hurt me all night if it makes you feel better,” it said, “but I just don’t know. Tell me who Fred is, maybe.”

  “Fred is part of my team,” Angel explained. “You guys kidnapped her.”

  The demon tried a smile, but the effort seemed to hurt too much, and it stopped. “News flash,” it said. “Wrong. We haven’t kidnapped anybody.”

  Angel glanced at Gunn and Wesley. Gunn shrugged. “Just know what we heard.”

  “What’d you hear?” the Tik’let asked.

  “We heard that a couple of demons working in here were talking about something bad headed Angel’s way,” Gunn said. “This, apparently, just days before our partner was snatched and Angel’s life put in jeopardy.”

  Now the demon did laugh, a brief, throaty bark. “We’re always talking about bad stuff for Angel,” it said. It held Angel’s gaze with its own eyes. “No offense, you know. But you never shop here. You’re constantly takin’ out some of our best customers. Do you know how hard it is to run a business in this town? I mean, it’s not like we can advertise on TV or anything. And just when we get a big spender, you’re liable to come along and dust him or send him to some other dimension. Man, you’re the worst thing that’s happened to the small business since the rise of the chain superstores. And I gotta tell you, we still don’t get a lot of competition from them.”

  “Well, then, what about this?” Angel swept his hand around the room, indicating the carnage. “Why attack us when we came in?”

  “Heh,” the demon said, smiling again. This ti
me it looked more than a little abashed. “Ka’reith over there gave the signal you were here,” it said, pointing at the cashier. “We made a pact, long time ago, that if you ever came in here you’d be history.”

  “He was asking a lot of questions,” Ka’reith said, as if that justified the attack.

  “But I was a customer,” Angel protested. “I bought something. In fact, I still don’t have change for my twenty.”

  Give him his change,” the injured Tik’let instructed Ka’reith. “Will you take it and go?”

  “You’re sure you haven’t heard anything about Fred being kidnapped?” Angel asked, still hopeful.

  “Not a thing. You talk about your private business in front of shopkeepers?”

  “He may have a point there, Angel,” Wesley said, finger-combing his hair back into place after the brawl.

  Ka’reith counted Angel’s change into his hand. Angel picked up the pint of pig’s blood he’d purchased and unscrewed the top again. “I’ll drink it here,” he announced. “So I don’t have to carry the jar around.” He noticed that Gunn and Wesley both turned away, beginning to stroll, almost casually, toward the door that led back out toward the front store. Angel downed the pint quickly, felt the warmth and energy rush through his body, and put the empty down on the counter. “Nice place,” he said as he followed Wesley and Gunn out. “You might want to try a little more positive word-of-mouth, though. Could bring you a better class of customer.”

  “Thanks,” the Tik’let called after him. “Don’t hurry back!”

  When he caught up to them outside, Angel noticed that Gunn had bought an Energy Bar and a sports drink. “What’s in that thing?” he asked, indicating the dark brown bar that Gunn was munching on.

  Gunn swallowed. “I don’t know. Oats, I guess. Cornmeal, dates, prunes, soy nuts, some crisped rice. Stuff like that.” He took another bite.

  Angel made a face. “At least I gave you a chance to turn your back before I ate.”

  “Well,” Gunn said, his mouth full of Energy Bar, “I guess you’re more polite than me.”

  For the first time in hours, Angel laughed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It had been bad enough knowing that Fred was missing, and probably in grave danger. But now Cordy knew that the danger Fred was in was only part of the story, and the other part, the really really awful part, was that Angel was apparently willing to put his own life on the line to save Fred’s.

  Of course, she thought as she paced around the hotel’s empty lobby, everybody knows that the bad guys don’t really mean to let the hostage go in the first place. That after they get the ransom, they kill the person they’ve kidnapped because she can identify them. Angel doesn’t watch much TV, but surely he’s seen that movie a hundred times. So by sacrificing himself, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

  But the only way she could see to prevent him from making that sacrifice was to locate Fred before the sun came up. The phone calls to Angel’s cell had been made from two different public pay phones, and she had no way to determine who’d made them. And, in spite of her hours of staring at the computer screen and digesting so much data on demons that she felt capable of writing an encyclopedia, she still had not been able to narrow the field of suspects enough to help much. Even with all the experience she had, as part of Buffy’s Scooby Gang back in Sunnydale, and here in L.A. working with Angel, she had never realized just how many different breeds of demon shared Earth with humanity. And that wasn’t even including those who could drop in from other dimensions, like relatives who aren’t really liked but who can’t be turned away because they’re family and might be bringing gifts.

  Pylea had been a real education for her, in that respect. An entirely new dimension, a new world filled with its own various types of creatures, and it was all accessible to Earth through the use of a magick spell, or apparently, as in her case, and Fred’s, entirely by accident. And who knew how many other worlds there were out there?

  In that context, trying to figure out who had snatched Fred was much like trying to isolate what particular human being had touched a certain drop of water in the middle of the Pacific. Too many possibilities, too broad a field.

  Anyway, Cordelia thought, I’ve gotten good at this whole online research thing, but mostly by default since Angel and technology don’t really mix, and Wes is always too busy with his books to bother joining the twentieth century, much less the twenty-first. But my real gift is the one Doyle passed to me: the visions. Why can’t I just have a stinking, nausea-inducing, skull-splitting vision of where Fred is, and get it over with? Why won’t the Powers That Be let me have some control over the power instead of just using it to torment me and occasionally ruin an otherwise entirely acceptable date?

  Since returning from Pylea, where she’d had an opportunity to give up the visions and the accompanying physical and emotional distress but had chosen not to, the vision power had seemed to be evolving in some way. She wasn’t quite sure where she was headed, but she could feel change in the air. The visions took more out of her than ever, wracking her body in ways she could not have imagined, and probably would not have accepted, in the early days. She had retained the power not only because it had become part of her, defining her own mission, but also because she knew it helped connect Angel with the Powers That Be, which seemed to be an essential part of whatever path he was on. She figured she owed Angel that much—or if owed wasn’t the right word, it was, at least, a gift she wanted to give him.

  But just now, it was incredibly frustrating knowing that the power lived within her but that she couldn’t draw it out when it was most important. Cordelia wondered if the Powers That Be even realized they were on the verge of losing Angel, when he could be spared with the simplest little TV broadcast into her waiting brain. Once, there had been a way to contact the PTB, via the Oracles, but they’d been slain by a powerful demon called Vocah, and with them went the only way Angel and his team knew to get in direct contact with The Powers. If only they had an e-mail address like everybody else, Cordy thought, or Instant Messaging. They’re as bad as Wesley.

  She stopped her aimless pacing and stood in the center of the art deco lobby, blankly noticing a dust bunny up against the foot of one of the banquettes. For a brief moment she felt it was very important to get a broom and sweep the floor, but it didn’t take long to identify that impulse as a way to avoid the genuinely pressing issue before her. Finding Fred is all that’s important, she thought. The idea occurred to her, as it had once or twice before, that she should be able to force a vision to come if she tried hard enough. She had never made the attempt before, and didn’t really know how she might go about it.

  But hey, she thought, the old cliché is that there’s a first time for everything, right?

  Just in case it worked, Cordelia sat down on the padded banquette, ignoring the dust bunny. She put her hands on her thighs, clenching her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms, screwed her eyes shut, and summoned a mental image of Fred. Fred’s pretty face, her long brown hair framing it in a cascade of loose curls, the smile that could dominate a room as easily as she could disappear from it by turning off the glow and retreating into herself. Goofy Fred, queen of the non sequitur, and brilliant Fred, who could apply her scientific mind to a problem and come up with a solution faster than most people could understand what the problem was. Shy Fred, torn between doting on Angel and hiding from him in her room. Winifred Burkle was a mass of contradictions—but then, who isn’t?

  She relaxed her fists, opened her eyes. She could bring up details about Fred, but she couldn’t force a vision. Of course. Because the Powers That Be didn’t operate in such a convenient way. They always had to be mysterious, aloof, with their own agenda that no mortal could know….

  “Big fat idiots!” Cordelia shouted toward the ceiling. “I just need a little vision here!”

  And it hit her with the force of a tsunami, driving her off the banquette and to her knees on
the cold, hard floor. A flood of images washed over her, threatening to carry her consciousness out to sea. A woman retreating from an angry man who held a bottle in one hand and a knife in the other. A man surrounded by predators—vampires, maybe, or thugs, on a dark European street. An African man running from a raging mob. A young girl swimming desperately against a ferocious rip current, with a backdrop of paradise and palm trees in the distance. An ugly, purple-skinned demon advancing on unseen prey. Then the images started to rush at Cordelia so fast, she couldn’t even make out situations, only momentary flashes of detail: a gun, flames, a jackknifing semi, more guns, fangs and claws, stones and steel and bombs and blood. A roar in her ears deafened Cordy, the images swirled behind her eyes, and the sheer volume of pain and fear and misery upon Earth rose within her, swelling until it had pushed all other awareness from her and she’d collapsed on the lobby floor.

  When she blinked back to consciousness a little while later, it was gone. There was just a remnant inside her, a dull ache between her temples, a slight ringing in her ears. She hadn’t seen Fred, or if she had, it had been only a momentary glimpse along with everything else. What she had seen, she believed, was a cutaway view of the world’s pain: people in danger, in trouble, everywhere around the globe at that moment. It had been as if the Powers That Be were trying to demonstrate why asking for a vision was not the brightest thing to do—it was their job to prioritize these things, not hers.

  So much for trying to force a vision, she thought. Bad idea. Really incredibly bad idea.

  But she also realized that the experience drove home the continued necessity of having Angel around. The world could be a dark, scary, dangerous place. It needed a champion.

  It needs Angel.

  Cordelia pushed herself up off the floor, went to her desk, and grabbed her purse and a jacket. She couldn’t do any more good sitting around here. She needed to get out, to find Angel and Wesley and Gunn, and to help them find Fred.