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Angel walked into Gunn’s home base, and then stopped and stared. The old warehouse resembled an ant’s hill that had just been kicked. People were rushing around, shouting and tossing weapons to one another.
“You’re just in time!” Gunn greeted Angel as he waded through the chaos. “Derrick spotted a demon nest.”
“What kind?” Angel asked.
Gunn shrugged. “He said they were metallic looking things, scaly but human shaped.”
Angel frowned the description sounded familiar but given the amount of time he spent digging through tomes of demon lore that was hardly surprising, especially when one added in over two centuries of knocking around the demon world.
“So you in or out?” Gunn asked.
“I’m in,” Angel said pushing aside the almost memory. “It’s about time I got back in the fight.”
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Angel hung back with the main group of Gunn’s demon hunters as Gunn himself drove his modified truck through the warehouse’s loading dock door.
As soon the nest was breached Angel and the others hurried in, spreading out around the truck.
The demons, gleaming like polished brass even in the dim lighting, quickly moved to meet them.
Angel aimed a blow at his first opponent only to watch his sword glaze harmlessly off the demon’s scaly armor. From the dismayed cries around him, Angel knew he wasn’t the only one having problems.
Gunn’s people were forced back toward the truck and surrounded.
A sudden, triumphant cry from a human throat caught everyone’s attention. Angel saw one of the demons go down with a crossbow bolt protruding from its chest.
“Their armor’s no better than plate,” Angel realized.
In the moment’s distraction the man to Angel’s left fell. The former vampire moved to aid him, but not quickly enough. Before Angel could reach his side the downed man was pulled deeper into the warehouse, away from his fellow demon hunters.
Angrily Angel turned his attention back to the fight at hand. The next time he managed to gain enough respite to go proactive he lunged forward using his sword like a spear, putting his whole weight behind it, hoping to pierce the demon’s armor. The sword sank deep into the demon’s body, but before Angel could free his sword another demon was on him, tearing the sword from his grasp, hitting him with heavy metallic fists. Angel went down under the assault and received a viscous kick to the head. Sparks shot though his vision than everything went dark.
Angel woke to a throbbing skull and the nauseating sensation of being carried slung over someone’s shoulder. From the uncomfortable feel of hard metal scales digging into his abdomen it wasn’t hard for Angel to deduce he’d been captured by one of the demons.
Before he could gather his wits to struggle he was unceremoniously dumped to the floor and the demon turned and left.
Angel blacked out again as his head hit the floor. When his vision cleared for the second time Angel found himself staring at the rocky ceiling of a cave. “Below the warehouse?” he wondered.
Angel could feel warm blood trickling down the side of his face and back through his hair. He raised a hand to wipe it away and was shocked to feel a painful gash along his temple under the blood. For several minutes he puzzled over the warmth of his blood before remembering he was human now.
Out of the corner of his eye Angel noticed movement and turned toward it. Soft, unfinished looking humanoids approached from the shadows, they were roughly the size of a five-year-old and the color and texture of maggots.
One of the disgusting things leaned over a body lying on the ground and, for the first time, Angel realized he wasn’t the only captive here. Several dozen other humans, some of them Gunn’s people lay scattered about the cavern. The white things crawled on to the first body they encountered and pressed their featureless faces to the unconscious captives in a parody of a kiss.
The almost memory that had been dancing on the edges of Angel’s mind solidified into knowledge as he watched one of the things disappear into the body of one of the other captives.
Then Angel felt a slight weight drop on to his chest. Small, nailless fingers tangled in his hair and pulled his head back to face one of the maggot things. Angel raised an arm to push it away, ineffectually. It was either much stronger than it looked or he was hurt worse than he realized.
At the last moment Angel remember the spring-loaded stakes hidden beneath his coat sleeves. He raised his hand to the side of the creature’s head and triggered the stake. It sunk into the thing’s skull with a dull crunching sound then the creature collapsed into death becoming a thick viscous mass of liquid.
Angel rolled to his hands and knees, unsteadily he pushed himself to his feet and staggered deeper into the caverns, toward the darkness where the maggot things had come from.
Eventually he saw a glowing, pulsating mass in the dark before him.
Behind Angel one of the other captives, eyes glowing with an inhuman light, scales sprouting from its skin rolled to its feet and stalked toward the ex-vampire.
Angel dropped to his knees by the glowing mass searching the ground for a stone or any other sort of makeshift weapon.
The transforming former captive yanked Angel away from the fleshy mass; hauling him to his feet and wrapping it’s hands around his throat.
Angel dug into a pouch on his belt; he pulled out one of the throwing stars he regularly carried now since becoming human hadn’t altered their effectiveness. He shoved the sharp edged piece of metal between the growing scales on his opponent’s throat and was rewarded with a gush of blood. They fell together and Angel ended up pinned beneath the other man’s body. He couldn’t seem to find either the strength or coordination to push the dead weight off of him.
After several futile attempts to free himself, Angel stretched his arm back behind his head until he felt the warm slimy mass that was the demon’s center. He triggered his remaining wrist-stake, hoping it would do enough damage as unconsciousness reclaimed him.
The mass lost its glow, becoming an unremarkable gray lump. The remaining small demon things dissolved into puddles as the infested captives began vomiting up the remains of the creatures that had merged with them.
Back in the warehouse above, Gunn and his few remaining people watched in amazed relief as the bronze warriors staggered off to collapse, vomiting and coughing violently as their scales fell away to reveal the human hosts beneath them.
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Wesley was too deeply engrossed in his research to even notice something so mundane as a phone ringing but long practice as a teenage girl ensured that Cordelia reached it by the second ring, despite having been in the Hyperion’s kitchen when the first ring sounded.
“Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless,” she chimed in her receptionist voice.
“It’s Gunn,” the caller replied.
“Gunn?” Cordelia echoed, his tone sent ice through her veins.
“I’m at the hospital,” he said. “A third of my people are dead, three-fourths of the remainder are hurting. I figure all of us would have died if Angel hadn’t been there.”
“He’s not?” Cordelia asked choking on fear.
“He’s hurt,” Gunn said. “The doctors are looking at him now. He was out when we found him, hasn’t woken since, but he’s still got a pulse.”
“Which hospital?” Cordelia asked, then waited while Gunn relayed the question to someone on his side of the line.
“St. Francis’ on 12th and Market,” he answered.
“We’ll be right there,” Cordelia replied hanging up.
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The hospital emergency room was crowded and hectic. Cordelia and Wesley joined Gunn in one corner.
“Angel’s got a fractured skull along with a bad concussion,” Gunn told them. “Doc said it was one of those wait and see if he wakes up situations. He’s still better off than the people that got used as hosts by the demons. Almost an hour and they’re still gagging on demon remains. Three people died so far, and it’s showing no signs of being over. The stuff gets in their lungs and they suffocate.”
“I’ll look into it,” Wesley offered.
Gunn waved over one of his remaining people. “Take English here to see Jamill, he may be able to help.”
“I’d like to see Angel first,” Wesley objected.
“Angel’s stable, plus what are you going to do about a cracked head? The others are dying because of some demon thing,” Gunn argued.
“All right,” Wesley agreed, turning to follow his guide.
“Where’s Angel?” Cordelia asked.
“They moved him to one of the rooms upstairs,” Gunn said. “217, I think.”
“I hope Wesley can help with your friends,” Cordy offered before heading for the elevator.
She found Angel’s room without incident. He was almost as pale as she had been used to seeing him up until a few weeks ago except for the dark ring of bruises around his neck. There was a bandage wrapped around his head and his eyes looked sunken.
Cordy took his hand and sat silently beside him for a while. “I guess I’d better call Buffy and LaCroix,” she said after a long while. “You couldn’t wake up and save me from that could you Angel?”
She waited for several minutes, hoping against all odds that he’d respond to her request.
“So which is going to be worse?” she asked. “Well, I’ll call Buffy first, she’s got the longer trip and she can’t fly. I hope she’ll bring Giles or someone calming with her. I so don’t look forward to refereeing between her and LaCroix. You know how they both are, but I still have to call them, in their own ways they both love you. So do Wes and I so you better wake up, okay?”
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Buffy and Giles arrived to find Cordelia and LaCroix with Angel.
As soon as they walked into the room LaCroix was at Buffy’s side, his hand wrapped around her arm in a bruising grip dragging her toward Angel.
“This is your doing,” he said, shaking her roughly. “If not for you he would be a vampire again and healed by now.”
“Let me go,” Buffy said pulling away from LaCroix. “Angel promised he would give himself time.”
“He did,” Cordelia objected. “He was training with Gunn and he was with Gunn’s team when it happened. Gunn’s great at the fighting, but not so good on the research end of things. They didn’t have a clue as to what they were walking into. Angel should have know better, but that has nothing to do with him being human.”
“It was too soon. He shouldn’t have been there,” Buffy said.
“He had to be there,” LaCroix replied. “It’s his nature, nothing can change that, but I can give him the ability to survive it.”
“No,” Buffy protested.
“I can make all of this,” LaCroix’s gesture took in the entire hospital. “Go away.”
“No! He’ll get better. I won’t let him get hurt again,” Buffy said.
“How will you stop it?” LaCroix demanded.
“I will!” Buffy shouted.
“Okay, not the place,” Cordelia said. “Giles, Wes is downstairs dealing with a bunch of people who are dying from the after-effects of demonic possession. Go help him fix them. As for you two, I think one of you visiting Angel at a time is all he can handle.”
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“We actually make a good team when we’re not trying to show up the other,” Wesley said watching the last of the demon’s victims relax as the potion the two ex-Watchers had concocted disintegrated the last of the residue.
“That we do,” Giles agreed. “It seems it is well past time we set aside our earlier difficulties.”
“It shouldn’t be hard. The Council fired both of us after all, and we aren’t vying for the same job anymore,” Wesley pointed out. “And there’s more than enough work to keep both of us busy. In fact, I could use your help looking into a problem with Cordelia’s visions…”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Cordelia trudged tiredly through the hospital halls to their new home away from home, or at least that’s what Angel’s room felt like, especially since Wesley had moved a number of his books there so he could continue researching her condition while they sat with Angel. Cordelia couldn’t help but think how sick she was of hospitals. If the doctors weren’t running a new barrage of tests on her she was sitting beside Angel waiting for him to wake up. She hadn’t been to the Hyperion except to pick up more books and her apartment was just a place to take a shower and change clothes.
“Look what they did to my hair,” an unexpected and familiar voice complained.
Cordelia broke into a wide smile ad darted around the doorway to see Angel sitting up in bed, running his fingers over the shaved spot on the side of his head.
“It’ll grow back,” Wesley assured him. “Now will you leave it alone, you’re going to pull out the stitches.”
“Angel!” Cordy squealed happily giving the former vampire a hug. “You’re up and talking and yeah! So there’s no brain damage or anything right?”
“He can count fingers without difficulty, knew his first name and it only took him two guesses to figure out which last name we’d given him.”
“Wes could have told me I was your brother before he called the doctor,” Angel said.
“Yes, well I didn’t realize they would ask that,” Wesley replied. “He doesn’t have a clue as to who the president is, but knows the dates and names of every major war since he was turned. Finally he broke out laughing upon being asked the date of his birth. The doctors are fairly concerned, but I’m satisfied that he’s fine.”
“That sounds like our Angel,” Cordy said smiling and kissing him on the cheek.
“They should have a different set of questions for ex-vampires,” Angel sighed.
“We’ll be sure to explain that to the medical board,” Cordelia said. “Why didn’t you call me Wes?”
“Because I knew this would be your first stop after your tests,” Wesley replied. “Buffy should arrive momentarily and LaCroix will arrive at sunset.”
“Speaking of Buffy,” Angel said grinning at the blond slayer standing in the doorway.
“Guys, could I talk to Angel alone for a few minutes?” Buffy asked.
As Wesley and Cordelia left they heard Buffy exclaim, “You scared me half to death Angel! What the hell were you thinking!”
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