| Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Chapter 12: Still Life "This is the place," said Cloud, pointing. "Stop here." Wesley pulled Angel's convertible off the main road and turned through the open gates of an industrial estate. As he parked the car, he could see the rest of Gunn's gang following him on a mixed assortment of motor bikes and one ancient but heavily armored pick-up truck. He got out of the Plymouth and looked around. A large, peeling sign by the main gates said, 'Welcome to Hawthorne Business Park - Our Business is Working!' Beside Wesley, Gunn eyed the sign then gazed skeptically around the vacant buildings. "Not from where I'm standing, it ain't." "The place is rather deserted for a weekday afternoon, isn't it?" agreed Wesley. At his other side, Cloud shrugged. "I think the buildings got damaged in one of the big quakes a few years back. Everyone moved out." "Empty buildings, lots of cover, probably a good network of underground electricity and water pipes..." Wesley nodded. "It's an ideal location for a nest. All we have to do is work out which building our tattooed friend is hiding out in." Gunn had wandered over to the side of the road and was studying a plastic laminated map of the estate. "Could be a problem." Wesley went to join him. "Why?" Gunn tapped a finger against the map, where separate businesses, now long departed, were identified by a number on a key. The list ran well into three figures. Gunn looked at Wesley. "There's sixteen of us, including you. How many weeks do you want to spend on this?" * * * Kate Lockley stood at the edge of Los Angeles' Long Valley Reservoir, squinting against the glare of sunlight reflected off the water, even through her sunglasses. In front of her, several hundred million gallons of water rippled in the warm breeze. Almost half the city's water supply. She worked her toe forward in the gravel and watched the tiny wavelets at the shore line soak into her pumps. "Detective Lockley!" She turned and looked upwards and behind her, to where a man wearing an L.A. Department of Water and Power boiler-suit stood on the steps of the reservoir's monitoring station. She waved to him, acknowledging that she had heard, and began to make her way up the shore towards the concrete steps which led to the station. At the top of the steps, she pushed open the door to the LADWP station and re-joined the group inside. "What have you got?" "Nothing," the station manager told her. "Just like I said you'd find: nothing." His name was Martinez; he seemed to Kate to be reasonably competent, if more than a little riled at her for muscling in on his turf. "All clear?" she asked. He nodded. "All clear. We took samples from the main reservoir, and from each of the out flowing aqueducts. They're all A-1, completely normal. You can check 'em yourself." Kate leaned past Martinez and placed a photocopy of Lauren Tanner's toxicology report next to the data on the reservoir's water. "Any traces of silver nitrate? I mean, even a couple of parts per million?" "Detective," said Martinez, rolling the title in his mouth as if it were a term of abuse, "If there was one part per billion silver nitrate in that reservoir, there'd be alarms going off from here to City Hall. And I might add, I don't see how one sick kid justifies pointing the finger at the whole city's water supply." *Neither do I, Mr. Martinez.* Kate shut her eyes tiredly. *I just took the word of someone I should have known better than to trust, and I got my fingers burnt. Again.* Martinez was still talking. With an effort, she made herself tune back into the grating voice. "I want you to know, Detective, I consider this whole afternoon to have been a complete waste of my time and my staff's time. First thing tomorrow, there will be a letter on your superior's desk from the LADWP, asking why the police department..." Kate held up a hand to silence him. Suddenly even being polite just didn't seem worth it. "Yeah. Whatever. I'm going." Ignoring the stream of abuse this provoked, she left the monitoring station and walked back through the afternoon heat to her car. As she opened the door, her cell-phone rang, and she sat on the edge of the driver's seat, feet on the gravel outside the car, to answer it. The liquid crystal display told her who the caller was. "Sheehan. What have you got for me?" "Hey, Lockley. Maybe something useful. I ran those plates you were looking for." "And?" "The van appears to be legally registered to a business called the Still Life Company. Mean anything to you?" Kate thought. "No, I don't think so. Did you follow it up?" "As always. I didn't get much, though. The only slightly weird thing is that Still Life was only set up six weeks ago, which may or may not mean anything. The address is in a business park down in Hawthorne. You want it?" Kate leaned across the car and opened the glove compartment. She dug around in the mess until she found a pad of paper and a pen. "Yeah, why not. It's either that or go back to the office and get chewed for pissing off the Water Department." On the other end of the line, Sheehan chuckled. "I think there's a joke in there somewhere struggling to get out." "You wanna hear my stand-up routine. Okay, I'm ready." "Unit 318, Hawthorne Business Park." He gave her directions, and Kate copied them down. Then she thanked him and began to drive back towards the city. * * * A turf fire; the bedroom curtains pulled together; his sister, holding a Bible. Angel blinked, and concentrated. Los Angeles summer heat; the living room blinds drawn; Cordelia, reading a book. Reality. If he could just hold on to it, and keep holding. "Cordelia?" His own voice, dry and rasping, sounded strange in his ears. He blinked again, opened his eyes and managed to keep them open. It was an effort, but he was rewarded by the sight of Cordelia's beaming smile. "Hey, look who's back." Faint light diffused the apartment through closed blinds, scouring his skin and battering his eyes. "How long was I out of it?" "A couple of hours." "Did I miss anything?" Cordelia opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to change her mind. "Nothing but me getting intimate with some of the dullest books ever written. You know, if this is what college is like, I'm glad I'm taking Life 101." She lifted an open volume from the table and showed it to him. "Anyhow, I hit paydirt. Wanna hear the low-down on this Brethren thing?" Keeping his eyes open hurt too much, so Angel closed them. "I'm listening." "Okay. Vampire cult, sixteenth century Italy, yadda yadda fishcakes..." Cordelia's voice trailed off. "Oh yeah, here we go. The Brethren were not nice to be around, even by vampire standards. They were heavily into the whole 'vampires as a master race' concept, except that as far as they were concerned, no one else was up to the whole ruling the world gig except them. Think Nazi Germany with fangs and you're getting there." "They saw themselves as superior... Not just to humans, but to other vampires as well." "Is about the size of it," agreed Cordelia. "Okay, this is the interesting part. The Brethren vampires were tougher than your average vamp - one of the slayers who came up against them and lived reported immunity to the normal vampire-bothering things, crosses, garlic, holy water." She paused. "I don't get the cross thing, personally. I mean, it's two bits of wood. Get over it already." "The tattooed vampire who attacked me was able to withstand more exposure to sunlight than he should have been able to take." "Which is another thing - tattoos. The Brethren were big on tattoos. If they found a bit of prophecy they liked, they tended to etch it on to a body part. Guess it made it easier to remember." "So we're sure that's what we're dealing with. What does it say about the winnowing?" "That was the Brethren take on ethnic cleansing. When they moved into an area, the first thing they did was kill off all the resident vampires. They *really* didn't like to share." "The strong will prevail and the weak will be scoured from the earth." "Well, if you want to put it like that..." "Not me. The tattooed vampire." Angel tried to think, refusing to acknowledge the dull ache creeping through his limbs and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Vampires with an immunity to - or at least a high tolerance for - the traditional protective talismans were a disturbing prospect. He tried to recall if he had ever heard rumors of magic which could heighten a demon's powers to that extent, and drew a blank. But if it wasn't magic that made the Brethren vampires invulnerable, what else was there? "...Angel? Were you listening to *any* of what I just said?" With an effort, he opened his eyes and focused on Cordelia. "I... No. I drifted." "Maybe you should just sleep for a while." The idea of sleeping was seductive, the possibility of dreaming less so. "No. It's better... to try to stay... awake." He was slurring the words, and had to speak slowly and deliberately to make himself clear. She looked unconvinced, but nodded. "Can I get you something? Nice warm cup of frothy blood with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, anything?" His mouth was dry, but for once the thought of feeding made his stomach turn. "Water. Just water." He watched Cordelia go to the kitchen, side-stepping the dark stain at the doorway. "I'm sorry about your floor." "It's okay. Martha Stewart's 'Living' says that a splatter pattern in regurgitated pig's blood is the latest thing in interior design." She returned from the kitchen, pouring mineral water from a bottle into a glass as she walked. Setting the half-empty bottle on the table, she held the glass for him and waited while he drank. When he had finished, she lifted it away. "I called Buffy." He looked at her, not sure what he wanted to hear next. "I couldn't get through. I tried all of them, Giles, Willow, everybody, but all I got was a whole load of busy signal. So I rang customer services, and they told me there's a problem with Sunnydale's exchange." She shrugged. "They also mentioned something about a wall of fire surrounding the whole town, but I'd kinda tuned out by then." The water had temporarily made talking easier. "It's safe to assume they're busy dealing with their own crisis." He tried to raise himself up and as he did so he saw the back of his unbandaged hand. The flesh was an ugly latticework of purple and black bruising. His skin looked as if the slightest pressure might cause it to split open and slough off his bones. His face must have betrayed more than he intended, because Cordelia said, "Believe me, right now the whole not being able to see yourself in the mirror thing is a definite good." With his bandaged hand, Angel indicated the book she had been reading from. "You said the Brethren M.O. was to clean out the competition when they moved into an area. Any description of how?" Cordelia lifted the volume and searched through it. "The usual. Stakes, fire, a truly disturbing penchant for scythes." "Nothing about plagues or poisoning." "No." A sensation of fuzziness was descending on him, and Angel realized he could not depend on being lucid for much longer. Already it was getting harder to concentrate. Something someone had said nagged at the back of his thoughts. More than one person. Something Gunn had said, and Wesley had echoed... "Rat poison." "We're fresh out. Sure you won't take some blood?" "No. We've been thinking of this in the wrong way. We assumed that to get coverage of all LA's vampires, you'd have to dose the entire population with the poison through the water supply." She nodded, confused. "Yeah, and we were wrong." "But there's another way. You said it: maximum coverage with minimum effort. Choose a selection of locations and lay concentrated doses. Rat poison." She frowned, thinking that through. "Okay. Say that's the game-plan. Glendale we know about - there's location one." "And Gunn said his gang were finding most of the sick vampires around downtown." "The restaurant where I staked the vamp was in Bunker Hill. That's pretty much downtown too." Angel tried to think. It was difficult. "There's a connection, Kathleen. If we could just see what the connection was..." "Cordelia," she said quietly. "I'm Cordelia. There's no one called Kathleen here. Angel, you've gotta stay with me. I need you here, not off in la-la land." The air was heavy with the smell of a turf fire. He struggled to ignore it. "We need a connection." "The vamps around downtown must have been feeding off people leaving work late at night. It's quiet round there after office hours: if I was a vamp looking for an easy meal, that's where I'd go." "Offices," said Angel. "The school. What do offices and schools have in common?" "Jeez, Angel, where do I start? Desks, chairs, paper, books, computers... We could guess forever and not come close." "The children are sick because of something they ate or drank. The vampires are sick because of something their victims ate or drank. We just have to figure out what." "Angel, you don't come under either of those categories, and you've got it too. The only thing that connects everybody is the tap water, and we already know from Maggie Scott it's not that. So where does that leave us?" He was about to reply, but a sudden twist of pain and nausea in his stomach made him gasp and double over. He felt Cordelia's hands on his shoulders as he shuddered and heaved, and heard the ugly splashing noise of bile and water hitting the basin. Eventually, the spasms ceased, but now he lacked the strength to sit up again, and even speaking seemed too much effort. "Easy," said Cordelia. "Easy now. Here, rinse your mouth out." She handed him the glass of mineral water, and he took it. The bottle she had poured it from had fallen over on the table, and the label was facing towards him. Still Life Spring Water. Angel had seen the brand logo somewhere before. Recently. The water cooler he had drunk from in the hospital while he eavesdropped on the doctors. Still Life Spring Water. What did every office have? A water cooler. Angel was willing to bet Glendale School had a couple too. "Blood and water," he whispered. The glass he held fell through his hands and hit the floor, shattering on impact. Title: Blood and Water Author: Ruth Hanna Chapter 13: My Soul To Thee Gunn pushed open the sliding corrugated iron door and checked inside cautiously. He relaxed and announced, "Oh look. It's another big ol' empty warehouse. Not that this is getting old or anything." Behind him, Wesley looked up the narrow alley which ran in between two rows of deserted storage units, the back entrances of the outwards facing warehouses only a few yards apart. They had checked twenty of the buildings, and he estimated there were perhaps forty more to go. And that was just in this section of the business park. With Gunn's gang split into teams and in touch by radio, they were covering ground faster than Wesley could have otherwise hoped, but so far the search had yielded nothing. In the distance, the sun scraped the top of the skyline, its light channeled straight down the east-west alleyway. "It's gonna be dark soon," said Gunn. "We'll give it another hour, then come back tomorrow. If there's a nest here, I don't want us stumbling around in the dark looking for it while they pick us off one by one." Something scratched into the paint work of the dull metal door had caught Wesley's attention. He leaned closer to examine the symbol, freshly scratched into the old emulsion. "Oh, they're here all right. Look at this." Gunn joined him, and looked critically to the spot Wesley indicated. "Graffiti. Yeah, what about it?" "It's not graffiti. See those loops? That line? That's the symbol of Charybdis." He nodded triumphantly at Gunn, who stared back blankly. "The symbol of Charybdis," repeated Wesley. "Yeah, I got that already. You want to quit with the dramatic revelation stuff and tell me what it means?" "It's a very ancient code used by vampires to mark out their territory. Essentially it means, feed here at your own risk." Gunn gave a disinterested 'whatever' shrug, and Wesley frowned at him. "If you're serious about hunting vampires, you must know the lore. It's simply essential." "I know the lore. Vamps bad, stakes good. What else do I need, a certificate in demon studies?" He gave a short snort of derision. "I guess now you're gonna tell me you're a professional." Wesley drew himself up to his full height. "As a matter of fact, yes. I'm a Watcher." "A Watcher," repeated Gunn. "As opposed to, say, a Do-er. Or a Get-Involved-er." Hotly, Wesley said, "Watchers have existed for almost as long as there have been vampire slayers. We find potential slayers, then we guide them, train them, support them. It's an ancient calling, and I happen to be very proud of it." He stopped, aware that he had become a little more worked up than he had intended. Gunn was grinning. "Don't lose it, Wes, I hear ya. So what's a Watcher doing working for a vamp? Not enough slayers to go round or something?" "Well, it's... a long story. Essentially, I'm freelance these days." "You mean you quit?" Wesley shifted uncomfortably. "Oh man," said Gunn. "You got fired?" "Technically, I resigned before..." Wesley's cell-phone rang, and he answered it with a deep sense of relief. "Hello?" "Wesley, it's me." Cordelia's voice was tight, and she sounded as tense as he had ever heard her. "We know what we're looking for." "Go on." "We were right all along, Wesley. It was the water. But not tap water - mineral water. Still Life Spring Water." "Are you sure?" "It all fits. There was a Still Life water cooler at Glendale - I remember walking past it. And Angel says he drank from a Still Life cooler at the hospital. That's the connection." "Still Life," echoed Wesley. "The Brethren are using the water to poison L.A.'s vamps. Find the Still Life Spring Water company and you've found them." "Then we're close. Cordelia, I'm with Gunn. We're at Hawthorne Industrial estate. The Brethren nest is somewhere here." There was a note of alarm in her voice. "Wesley, listen, you have to be careful. These Brethren vamps are bad news. The books say crosses won't frighten them; holy water and garlic might not do much good either. These vamps are the demonic marine corps." "Well that's... useful to know." It was useful, insofar as 'useful' was a synonym for 'terrifying'. "Do the books give any indication of why that is?" "One of them said something about 'time and trial'." Time and trial. A suspicion began to form in Wesley's mind, and he felt suddenly cold. "What did Angel have to say about that?" "Not much, apart from getting my name wrong. One minute he's here and the next it's like there's a little 'the vampire is out' sign up." She hesitated, then said with an almost imperceptible catch in her voice: "Wesley, he hasn't got long." "Cordelia..." Wesley stopped, wanting to say something, anything to comfort her. He couldn't; he didn't have the words. The comforting lie, the blithe platitude: other people seemed to employ them with ease at the appropriate moment. Wesley, somehow, had never picked up the knack, and now he felt his inadequacy more than ever. Finally, he said, "Do your best. I know you will." It felt insufficient, but it was the best he could offer. The pause before the response was even longer in coming, but when it did, her voice was steadier. "Thanks. Wesley, go kick Brethren ass and don't do anything stupid. I'd majorly prefer it if Angel Investigations still had more than one employee this time tomorrow." That sounded more like Cordelia. Wesley smiled. "I find that scenario rather attractive myself. Cordelia, I'm going to turn my phone off now. I'd prefer not to risk sneaking up on an invulnerable vampire only to start ringing loudly." "Okay." She sounded reluctant. "Call me when it's over. Good luck." Wesley ended the call and switched off the cell-phone. He turned to Gunn. "Better round up your people. We're going to need a plan of attack." * * * Cordelia wasn't with Angel when he died. *Do your best,* Wesley said before he hung up. *I know you will.* The words didn't matter: he had said it with such conviction she knew he believed it. Believed in her. Knowing that made it easier to be strong. Making the final connection between the sickness, the Brethren and Still Life seemed to use up the last vestiges of Angel's strength. Afterwards, he slipped out of consciousness and lucidity with increasing frequency. As afternoon became early evening, Cordelia watched him deteriorate with inexorable, terrifying speed. Often he mumbled quietly and unintelligibly, carrying on one-sided, nonsensical conversations with people who existed only in his head. Then, just as she was beginning to believe he wouldn't regain consciousness again, he woke up. Looking straight at Cordelia, he smiled, a radiant, joyful smile she had never seen on his face before. It lit his features, and for a moment all traces of the vampire vanished, and all she saw was a young man. "I'm glad you're here," he told her. She wondered who he thought he was talking to: Buffy, most likely. "Yeah, I'm here. It's okay." "I've missed you. I'm sorry I left... I didn't want to go." Cordelia swallowed, not knowing how to respond, or even if it made a difference if she replied or not. At last she managed, "It's okay. I know." "Sweet Kathleen," he whispered, still smiling. He shivered. "I'm cold." "I'll get another blanket." She got up and went to her bedroom, where she found the last spare blanket pushed to the back of the closet shelf. She carried it back to the main room and began to unfold it over Angel. Half way through the action, she stopped. He lay motionless on the couch, his bandaged hand resting on his unmoving chest. The faintest echo of the smile remained on his features, and his eyes were open. Open and empty. The soul which had lit them from within was gone. The blanket slipped from Cordelia's fingers, and crumpled across her feet. She stood perfectly still for several long minutes. The tap in the kitchen dripped; the refrigerator hummed as it turned itself on and off; the clock above the door ticked softly, marking off the seconds that somehow kept passing. Outside the apartment, a car door slammed somewhere and a dog barked. "Angel?" There was a lump in her chest, a huge, cold lump that wanted to force its way up her throat and into her head. She could feel it, blocking up her insides, choking her. She felt her chest begin to ache with the pain of holding it in, and a sob escaped her. Of course he was dead, the rational Cordelia, the one who could be relied upon to step in and take charge in a crisis, said firmly. *What, you thought there was some kind of magical get out of jail free card? You thought you had a divine right to a happy ending?* Crisis-Cordelia made her stop crying, by forcing her knuckles into her mouth and biting down so hard all she could feel was the physical pain. Then Crisis-Cordelia knelt beside the couch and brushed the flat of her hand over Angel's face, closing his eyes. The worst over with, Crisis-Cordelia retreated back to wherever she went between times, and left just Cordelia, sitting on the floor beside Angel's body on the couch. "Angel," she said at last. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. "I don't know what happens to a soul after... well, after. I know Dennis stuck around, so I guess there must be something... anyhow, if you're listening... You can't do this to me. It's not fair. I'm not a good person. I'm selfish, and shallow, because all I can think about is how much losing you is going to hurt me, and how guilty I'm going to feel forever because of all the things I never really said. Like, how I was really scared and alone when I came to LA. And how grateful I was that there was someone to look out for me. I never said thank you, because I figured you knew, and now I'm not sure you did and I wish I'd said something and this isn't fair because you were supposed to live forever, you were never going to leave me alone and..." She broke off, aware she was very close to curling up and sobbing on the floor. She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rocked back and forth, trying to think what to do next. The half-folded blanket slowly lifted itself off the floor and unfurled itself until it covered Angel completely. Dennis, helping. After a moment, Cordelia got up and went to the kitchen. She lifted the phone and tried Wesley first, but got only a recorded message telling her his cell was currently unavailable. Next she rang several numbers in Sunnydale, and found them all still disconnected. This done, she put the phone down, all out of options. There wasn't anyone else who could tell her what to do next. There wasn't even anyone else who cared. "There's a get out of jail free card," she said aloud, apropos of nothing. "There's always a get out of jail free card." She filled the kettle and switched it on, spooned instant coffee granules into a cup and waited for the water to boil. She didn't want coffee, but lifting, pouring and stirring kept her hands busy and her mind occupied. The television in the corner of the kitchen turned itself on. Cordelia lifted the remote and killed it. "Not now, Dennis." *There's always an escape clause.* The television came on again. "I said no already!" Angrily, she reached over the breakfast bar to pull out the TV's power cable at the wall. Her hand gripped the plug, and froze. She stared at the screen. The station name in the corner of the picture told her she was watching the Channel 5 evening news. In the picture, a pretty, anodyne reporter stood outside one of LA's theatres and chatted glibly about whatever event she was covering. Cordelia wasn't listening. She was looking at the guests filing past the camera behind the reporter. At one of the guests in particular. Favard. The vampire Favard. Alive, so to speak, and well. Cordelia set down the coffee cup and went back to the living room. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted away the blanket which had become Angel's shroud. She examined his corpse. He was cold - but he was always cold. He wasn't breathing, but then, he didn't have to do that either. How did you kill a vampire? Stakes, sunlight, fire, beheading. Anything else was nothing more than an inconvenience. "Get out of jail free," she whispered, and stood up. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, before examining herself critically in the mirror. Her lipstick had rubbed off and her mascara was running. She used the corner of a tissue to wipe the excess from under her eyes. "Cordelia Chase gets what she wants," she told the mirror. The reflection regarded her with a mixture of uncertainty and fear, so she repeated it, over and over, like a mantra. When at last the face in the mirror appeared half-way convinced, Cordelia nodded, satisfied, and left. In the kitchen, she lifted the lid off the trash and began to search through it. Lindsey MacDonald's business card was near the top of the garbage, and she found it without difficulty. The card was stamped with Wolfram and Hart's logo, and Lindsey's email address and direct line were printed clearly just beneath his name. The phone rang eight times before he answered. "Hello?" "Hello, Lindsey." "Cordelia, it's good to hear from you. I guess you tuned in after all." "How did you do it, Lindsey? What's the cure?" At the other end of the line, she heard him chuckle. "You'd be surprised how many problems go away if you just throw enough money at them." She took a deep breath. "I have something you want." He stopped laughing. "I really doubt that." "Come on, Lindsey. You didn't leave me your card for nothing. If you want to cut a deal, here I am. Let's cut." "You know, the junior partners here have a standing arrangement to go out for dinner when Angel... ceases to be an obstruction." Lindsey spoke slowly, and she could tell he was choosing his words carefully. "So if you're asking for what I think you're asking for, this had better be one hell of a pitch, Cordelia." "Don't worry," she told him. "It is." |