| Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Chapter 10: Dead Man Walking L.A.'s midday traffic seemed, if possible, even worse than usual, and the drive back from Glendale shredded Cordelia's already fraying patience. Arriving at the apartment, she parked the car on the street, badly, looking out for the black Plymouth convertible and not seeing it. "Angel's not back." Wesley got out of the passenger side of the car and locked the door. "Hardly surprising. He hadn't returned by the time we left for the school this morning, and it was light then. His transport isn't exactly suitable for daytime travel." He shook his head. "What makes a vampire want to drive a convertible?" "A sense of style," said Cordelia with admiration. She crossed the street, digging her keys out of her purse as she went. Outside her apartment door, she made to turn the key in the lock, then hesitated. She looked at Wesley, who looked back. "What is it?" he asked. "In the movies, this would be the part where one or both of us pulls out a gun, and we walk into certain danger in a stealthy and heavily armed way. You don't happen to have a gun?" He held up a stake. "I have a sharp stick." "One of us really needs to apply for a gun license." Cordelia exhaled, turned the key and pushed the door open. The apartment was dim, the blinds drawn. "Dennis? Safe to come in?" The vase of flowers by the door swayed and bobbed in a non-existent draft. Cordelia decided to interpret that as an all-clear, and stepped inside. She stopped after several paces. "Oh, my God. What is that smell?" Beside her, Wesley put his hand over his nose and mouth. "Something rotten in Denmark, I fear. Cordelia, look." He pointed at the floor, and she looked down. The Indian-patterned rug by the couch was stained with a sticky black scum of blood. The front door had only been open for moments, but already half a dozen flies buzzed interestedly over it. There was more blood congealed in the hall which led to the apartment's bedrooms and the bathroom. Cordelia wrinkled her nose in distaste at the stench, and tried not to gag. "Jeez, I'm never gonna get this out of the grain. I'll have to sand and re-varnish it or something." "Cordelia." There was a quality of urgency in Wesley's voice that made her drop her bag and join him immediately. He was in the kitchen, and she could see him kneeling by the stove. "What is it? Oh, God." Angel lay on the floor, eyes closed, moaning quietly. There was another pool of what Cordelia now realized was vomit beside him. "Help me move him," said Wesley. She nodded dumbly, and took Angel's left arm as Wesley grabbed his right. Together they half-dragged and half-carried him into the living area, depositing him on the couch. He groaned again and his face twisted in pain. "Angel?" She touched his forehead, and found his skin clammy. Was that good or bad? She was certain vampires didn't feel hot and cold in the same way as mortals, but Angel was shivering violently. He shifted slightly, and she saw that his right hand was badly burnt. The practical side of Cordelia's nature stepped in, relieved to find at least one aspect of the situation she could do something about. "Wesley, get the first aid kit. It's in the bathroom." "Right." Angel convulsed and dry-heaved, before gasping and rolling over on the couch. Cordelia still couldn't tell if he was conscious or not. Leaving him, she went to her bedroom and lifted the spare blankets from the top shelf of the closet. Next she found a plastic basin under the sink. Returning with her haul, she busied herself converting the couch into a makeshift bed. She set the basin on the floor near Angel's head. "I wonder how he got back here." "Detective Lockley brought him," replied Wesley, reappearing with gauze and a bottle of antiseptic. Cordelia looked at him, impressed. "How'd you know? Oh, wait - Watcher magic." Wesley appeared slightly embarrassed. "Actually, no. She left a note." He held up a sheet of paper. "It's short, but the gist is that if we don't collect his car from the car park on Central Avenue by this evening, she'll have it impounded. Oh, and don't under any circumstances try to contact her." "And I thought she didn't care." Carefully, Cordelia dabbed antiseptic on to Angel's hand, then pressed the gauze on top. Wesley pulled out a seat from the dining table, and sat down. "She helped Angel back here. That's more than I might have expected." "I guess." There was little more Cordelia could usefully do, so she lifted the unused gauze and started to fold it back into its packet. Her hands were shaking too hard to complete the task accurately. She abandoned the gauze and folded the extra blankets instead, burying her trembling fingers inside swathes of material. Hiding her fear, she looked up at Wesley and said in a steady voice, "He's got it, hasn't he." "It appears so." She shook her head. "But we talked about this. He doesn't drink human blood. He *can't* be sick." "We were wrong about the water making Lauren sick, and now it appears we were mistaken to think it was tainted human blood making the vampires sick." Wesley looked defeated. "We haven't made a correct deduction about whatever this is yet." Cordelia heard a gasping noise from the couch. It was Angel, breathing. She hadn't even registered that up to now he hadn't been. He started to say something but couldn't get the words out. After a moment, he tried again. "You were right... about this being connected... to the prophecy." His voice was thin, and he was struggling to sit up. Cordelia helped him into a sitting position, then pushed cushions behind his back to keep him there. "How do you feel?" asked Wesley. "Like death." "In your case, not necessarily a bad thing," said Cordelia brightly. It was a poor joke, but she was gratified to see Angel smile faintly. "Angel, what about the prophecy?" He lifted his bandaged hand and gestured sloppily with it. "I made a new friend this morning. Vampire with a facial tattoo and a strong affinity for sunlight. Or at least, more of an affinity than I have. He quoted the prophecy at me. Talked about something he called 'the winnowing'." Angel looked at Wesley. "Mean anything to you?" Wesley was thoughtful. "It might do... I've heard the term before, I can't quite recall where." He got up and began to dig through one of the boxes of books behind the couch. "What sort of tattoo was it?" "Writing. Some kind of script." "Did you see what language it was in?" "Wesley, he was trying to push me into direct sunlight at the time. I got that it wasn't English." Without warning, Angel doubled over, gasping. Cordelia pushed the basin towards him and waited while he retched over it. When the seizure had passed, he leaned back on the couch. "What did you find at the school?" "Glinda the Good Witch of the Second Grade," said Cordelia. "Lauren's teacher is a white witch," elaborated Wesley. "She said she felt the presence of evil within the school. It seems less likely now that the tap water is responsible. Angel, another child is sick, and what we saw looked less to me like poisoning and more like a curse at work. Aha, here it is." He lifted a leather-bound volume and began to flip through the pages, scanning each in turn. "What I don't get is how Angel got this thing," said Cordelia, getting up and going into the kitchen. She poured a glass of water from the refrigerator and pulled a plastic trash bag from the roll. She returned to the main room and handed the glass to Angel, saying, "I mean it's not like you've been snacking on the quiet. Have you?" Angel accepted the water and sipped it slowly. "I haven't drunk anything unusual lately." Cordelia folded over the blood-stained rug and with extreme distaste, fed the rancid bundle into a plastic bag. "Using the word 'unusual' in the loosest possible sense, obviously." "Aha," announced Wesley triumphantly. He held up the book, tapping a page for emphasis. "I knew I could rely on good old Lucius Temple. The Winnowing refers to some kind of rite undertaken by a vampire cult in sixteenth century Italy." "People worshipped vampires? Did they have no upwards mobility back then?" Wesley shook his head. "It was a cult composed of vampires. They called themselves the Brethren. Lucius appears to have had a sneaking admiration for them: the Brethren represented one of the very few instances of vampires creating and maintaining a social order based around a creed of beliefs rather than a single dominant individual." He read the text. "The cult was small, but by all accounts it managed to endure for a long time, several hundred years. And the Winnowing was..." he frowned. "Oh bother." Cordelia sat down on the arm of the couch. "Don't keep us in suspense." Wesley looked up apologetically. "He starts talking about his winter roses. Intellectual brilliance and a fanaticism about gardening make for poor prose style. I'm afraid this is going to take a little extended research and cross referencing." He didn't, noted Cordelia, sound very disappointed at the prospect. "Get on it," said Angel. He started to stand up, using the couch for leverage. "I'm going to go after our tattooed lead. Cordelia, you can..." "...Catch you when you fall over," finished Cordelia, getting up and grabbing Angel around the torso as he sagged forwards. She staggered under his weight, but managed to help him back to the couch before his strength failed completely. Realizing how weak he had become, and how quickly, only fuelled her anxiety. "Angel, you're not up to going anywhere. Not to mention you seem to have forgotten it's the middle of the day. Look, we can do the book work and Wesley can be action man for once." She looked meaningfully at Wesley. "Right?" Wesley closed the book he was holding uncertainly. "I'm really not sure that's..." "Right?" repeated Cordelia. "Right," said Wesley faintly. For a moment, Cordelia thought Angel was going to argue, but then he shut his eyes and she saw just how exhausted he was. He gave a slow nod. "Find the tattooed vampire. He got away in a van - Kate got the plates. Start by calling her." Cordelia picked up the note Wesley had found and showed it to Angel. "I don't know how well you two were getting on this morning, but I think the whole throwing-up-pig's-blood thing might have put the chill back on your relationship. She's really not wanting to get involved right now." "Gunn, then. His group know the city. Take my car. It's..." He broke off, and seemed to be having difficulty concentrating. "I can't remember where I..." "It's okay," said Cordelia reassuringly. "It's all in Kate's note. Angel, I'm going to take Wesley to get your car, then come back here. Will you be all right until I get back?" His eyes were still closed, and he made no reply. "Angel?" "He's asleep," said Wesley. He opened the apartment door and stood in it, waiting. Angel had stopped breathing again. He lay perfectly still, the half-light seeping through the closed blinds making his already sallow skin look even greyer. There was little to distinguish him from a corpse. Cordelia lifted her car keys from the table, but instead of going, she hesitated. "I don't want to leave him." She felt a hand on her shoulder and gave a start; she hadn't heard Wesley coming back into the apartment. Gently, he said, "You'll be back before long. And he's going to need you here more later. I'm very much afraid this is just the start of it." Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Chapter 11: House Call Turf. The smell of turf burning. The thick, sweet aroma of the earth itself being consumed by fire. He hadn't smelt it for a long time, but he remembered. He opened his eyes, wincing against the brightness. The curtains had been pulled tightly shut, but light still leaked into the room from the bright day outside. It hurt. He hated the light. It frightened him, and he didn't know why. The fire warming the bedroom flickered and rose in the grate. He raised a hand towards it, and felt the flames lick his palm and outstretched fingers. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly stiflingly hot. He tried to turn away from the heat, and could not. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, hear my prayers, I entreat thee." He looked up. "Mother?" "Hush, sweet angel of mine. Rest now." "Forgive me." "Whatever for, angel?" He shut his eyes, trying to remember why he needed forgiveness. "Don't call me that..." He twisted in the bed, trapped inside a knot of sweat-soaked sheets. The light wounded him. He pressed his hands to his face, trying to protect himself, and failing. His sister's voice rang out from the far side of the room, high-pitched but unwavering. "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood." He was afraid to look. He had to look. Slowly, he lifted his hands from his face. "Kathy? Kathleen?" Her skin was waxy and pale, her eyes sunken. She ignored him, and continued to read from the heavy, leather-bound Bible she held in front of her with both hands. It was open at the book of Revelations. "Then I heard the angel of the waters say, 'You are just in these judgments, for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets'." He shook his head, feeling the sobs rising in his chest. "No. It wasn't me. I promise..." Implacably, she read on: "...And you have given them blood to drink. As they deserve." "Drink this," said his mother, and lifted a cup of blood to his lips. He could smell it, salty and sweet at once. He wanted to gag but he drank and kept drinking until he had drained it all. When she rose and turned away from him, he saw the wounds on her neck, weeping and staining the collar of her dress. "Forgive me," he said. "I beg you." A noise made him start, and he struggled to see who else was in the room. His father stood in the doorway, shaking his head. "No. I don't think so." His father smiled and walked towards the bed, extending before him the hook which ended his right arm where his hand should have been. * * * "There must be hundreds of vamps in LA. What makes this one special?" Wesley followed Gunn through the dank concrete hallways of his gang's basement hideout. He passed a teenage girl using a Swiss Army knife to whittle stakes, her face a study in concentration, and two younger boys peeling potatoes over a large blackened pot balanced precariously on a gas stove. "He has a rather distinctive tattoo over one side of his face. It looks like writing of some kind." Gunn made a gesture of impatience. "I meant, why the sudden need to track him down? This some kinda weird scavenger hunt?" "We think he has something to do with the sick vampires." "Again I ask: so?" "Also sick people," said Wesley. "Specifically, sick children. I don't know if they're going to recover or not. I do know that if we don't put a stop to this, people will start dying." They had arrived at the hideout's main room. Wesley estimated there were some ten or twelve youngsters ranged about it, some engaged in tasks, some talking quietly, some sleeping hunched under scraps of blanket. The oldest, he guessed, was sixteen or seventeen. He didn't want to think how young the smallest might be. Although the children were mixed by age, sex and ethnic background, each individual gaze shared with the others a flinty determination. Wesley looked into pair after pair of eyes which were much older than the faces out of which they stared. "Sick kids, huh," said Gunn. "Yes." "Where's Angel?" "He's sick too." Gunn nodded, as if not surprised. "You'll want to get to this tattooed vamp for him as well, then." "Very much." Gunn nodded again. "Hey, Cloud. Theo. Get over here." The girl Wesley remembered from his visit with Angel the previous night joined them, followed by a boy he didn't recognize. Wesley waited while Gunn outlined the situation to them, then repeated his description of the vampire for their benefit. "Yeah," said Cloud after a moment's thought. "I think I've seen him." For the first time since finding Angel at Cordelia's apartment, Wesley felt a flash of optimism. "You have?" "Or one like him. How many tattoo-faced vamps can there be?" "Where?" asked Gunn. "We were patrolling along the freeway heading into Hawthorne. I saw him going into one of the industrial estates they have along there. We followed, but we lost him." Wesley asked, "How long ago was this?" "Not long. Couple of weeks ago, maybe." "You could find the place again?" "Yes, no problem." Gunn grinned. "Then let's go find ourselves a vamp, Wes." "Wesley. It's Wes-ley, two syllables..." But Gunn was already heading for the armory. * * * Lindsey MacDonald's day had started badly, but it was improving rapidly. At the hospital, it had seemed for a while as if his first new client as junior partner was going to die before Lindsey had a chance to get his signature on a contract. More seriously, there had been a few minutes while he argued with the officious, busy-body nurse when there had been a possibility of difficult questions being asked about Francis Favard's unusual physiology. That would have been worse than an inconvenient death: at Wolfram and Hart, nothing stalled a career faster than attracting the wrong type of publicity. But arrangements could be made. Lindsey smiled to himself. People could be persuaded by one means... or another. He had not contacted Holland until Favard was safely on his way to the private clinic on the outskirts of the city which catered to Wolfram and Hart's clients' specialized needs. Strictly speaking Favard, not yet on the books, should not have been accepted as a patient, but Lindsey figured what the hell - if Favard made it, his money was as good as in the firm's bank account. Or in Lindsey's bank account, for that matter, since junior partners qualified for the lower echelons of the profit-sharing scheme. Holland, surprisingly, was not taken aback by news of Favard's unexpected illness. Apparently he wasn't the only one of the firm's vampire clients to have fallen suddenly and inexplicably ill. In fact, Holland seemed pleased with Lindsey's quick thinking: some of the other lawyers had not responded so swiftly to the crisis, and as a result the Media Relations department was going to have a busy couple of days. All in all, decided Lindsey as he rang the doorbell of Cordelia Chase's apartment, he had acquitted himself very well. At this rate, his next annual performance review was going to be a breeze. As Lindsey had expected, no one answered the door. He searched around the porch for a moment, lifting plant pots and the corner of the doormat. There was a spare key under the third pot he checked. Cordelia was so used to dealing with enemies who couldn't come in without an invitation, she had forgotten that not all unwanted visitors needed to be asked inside. He let himself into the apartment. The blinds were drawn, which meant he had guessed correctly. With his office and home destroyed, Angel had to be staying somewhere. There was a foul smell hanging in the warm air, a mixture of acid and decay. Lindsey wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Don't call me that..." The voice was faint, but Lindsey was easily able to locate its source as the couch facing away from him. He set down his briefcase at the door and, using his left hand awkwardly, he removed the stake he had tucked into his belt, and approached cautiously. "Kathy," whispered Angel. He was dreaming, or delirious: Lindsey couldn't tell which. "No. It wasn't me." A dark purple-red rash had broken out on Angel's neck and was fast claiming territory on his face. In some places his skin was a mess of black, malignant bruising, as if his flesh was decaying from the inside out. Lindsey waved a hand experimentally in front of Angel's open, staring eyes. When there was no reaction, he nodded in satisfaction and put the stake down on the floor. He fetched the briefcase and opened it, one side at a time, taking out the already-assembled hypodermic. "You know," he said conversationally as he rolled up Angel's sleeve, "I assumed that whatever this was, it was spreading through a contaminated blood supply. But if you're sick too, I guess that rules out that theory. The doctors at the clinic will be very interested to find out a vampire who doesn't feed on human blood has got this too." Playfully, he tapped his hook against Angel's shoulder. "Unless you've been leading us on all this time." Using the hypodermic was difficult with only one hand, but Lindsey had practiced with the needle until he was proficient. He pushed the point into Angel's upper arm and filled it. "Vampiric blood. Has some very unusual properties, but then you probably knew that. I'm told you can cast some really impressive spells with it." He gave a small shrug. "It's not, unfortunately, uninfected by this disease, which is what I was hoping for, but I'll take a sample anyway." He lifted a sealed tube from the briefcase and injected the contents of the syringe into it. Then he replaced both items very carefully in the case and closed it. "Forgive me," said Angel. "I beg you." Lindsey considered this briefly, then shrugged. "No, I don't think so. I was very attached to my hand. Literally." He lifted the stake, stood up and looked down at Angel's rash-blotched face. "Now, I know what you're thinking. Here's you, pretty much helpless, and here's me with a stake and a grudge... but you know what, Angel? I'm a bigger man than that. I don't need to exact petty revenge to feel better about myself." He lowered the stake, and smiled benevolently. Then he raised it again. "I don't need to. I just want to. And it's not as if I'll have to worry about getting rid of a body." * * * Cordelia dropped Wesley off outside the parking lot on Central Avenue, then drove back to the apartment, breaking the speed limit more or less continuously on the way. She didn't know if her hunch was Powers- That-Be inspired or simply a good old fashioned case of paranoia, but she couldn't shake the feeling that bad things were going to happen. Although with Angel dying on her couch, bad things were already happening. Her worst fears were confirmed when she turned into her street. A silver Lexus which she was sure belonged to none of her neighbors was parked right outside her building. The personalized number plate read LMD 1. This time she didn't hesitate at the door. She walked into the apartment and without deviating her gaze from the man standing over the couch holding a stake, picked up the long ceremonial dagger she knew was sitting on top of one of the boxes of Angel's belongings. "Drop it," she commanded. Lindsey looked at her, startled. He quickly regained his composure. "Cordelia. Hi. Nice place you've got here. Shame about the smell." "Put the stake down," said Cordelia, "or I will hack off your other hand. And then some." For a moment, she considered the possibility of throwing the knife at him, but rejected it. With more than a shade of regret, she realized that was the kind of move Slayers could pull off, and just about no one else. If she threw the dagger, she would only leave herself defenseless. Lindsey was watching her, and she guessed he was doing some evaluating of his own. "I'm much closer than you are. He'd be dust before you could get over here." Without warning, a vase flew off the low table beside the television and hit Lindsey square in the back, knocking the stake from his hand. Cordelia smiled. "I don't have to be close. Look, Lindsey. No hands." She gestured with the dagger. "Now get out of here before I decide to call the police and scream murder." "It's not murder if he's already dead. He's a *vampire*, Cordelia." Lindsey held up his hooked right arm. "Your boss did this to me. Is that the kind of company you want to keep? You let a blood-sucking demon in your home?" "I only see one soulless bloodsucker in here," Cordelia told him icily: "And he isn't on the couch." Lindsey smiled and walked slowly to the door, taking his time. Cordelia circled as he walked past her, facing him with the dagger pointed towards his chest until he stood in the doorway and she was positioned between him and Angel. "It'd be kinder to put a stake in his chest now. He's going to die and he's going to suffer a lot before it happens." "Not if I have anything to do with it." Lindsey turned to go, then looked back. "You mean that, Cordelia? Because if you do, start asking yourself, how far will you go? What are you prepared to do?" He reached into a pocket with his left hand and smoothly withdrew his business card. He held it up, inviting Cordelia to take it and when she didn't, he let it slip from his fingers and on to the floor. "Channel five. Six thirty tonight. While you're watching it, you can start drafting Angel's obituary." Lindsey's smile widened. "It's going to be tough to cover two and a half centuries in under a hundred words." |