Crave
by R. Ellen Hanna

One

He felt hungry when he woke up. He always did.

Angel rolled over in the bed and blinked fuzzily at the clock on the bedside table, in
time to see the glowing red digits change from 18:59 to 19:00. When they winked
again and changed to 19:01, he threw off the covers and got up.

Hungry. He was hungry. His stomach yawned emptily; his first conscious desire was
to fill it. That never changed.

He shrugged on a robe and padded into the kitchen, where he hesitated in front of the
refrigerator door for long seconds before opening it. The bottom three shelves were
filled with round plastic tubs whose dark liquid contents were just visible through
frosted lids. Each one was sealed inside a baggie and neatly labelled with a date.

He shut the door, with more force than was strictly necessary. There were rules. Not
feeding as soon as he woke was one of them.

He found a glass and went to the sink, waiting for the water to run warm before
holding the tumbler under the stream. He drank, refilled it, and drank again. It wasn’t
what he wanted, but it was hot and liquid, and would take the edge of the craving for a
few minutes. Long enough.

He put down the glass and went into the apartment’s main room, where the furniture
had been arranged to maximise the available floor space. He took a second to assume
the starting position, and began.

Slowly, deliberately, he moved through the sequence of T’ai Chi forms, each one
more challenging than the last, losing himself to the demands of the movements.

Balance. Focus. Concentration. Discipline.

By the time he had reached the final exercise, the hunger had receded, not entirely, but
to a point where he could control it.

Angel opened his eyes, and relaxed.

He returned to the kitchen and put his hand on the refrigerator door. Then he stopped.
Something was different.

A box of take-out Chinese food was sitting in the middle of the table. He was
confident it hadn’t been there ten minutes earlier.

“Do you have plates? I can’t find any plates.”

Cordelia walked into the kitchen from the hallway, and began to open and close
cupboards at random. “Up there,” said Angel. “I think. I didn’t hear you come in.”

She opened a high cupboard and, rising on to tip toes, pulled down a dusty ceramic
plate. Taking a damp cloth, she wiped it clean. “Well, maybe next time you’ll be a
little more considerate when you sneak up on people. I would have said hi, except you
looked busy. What was that, anyhow?” She pulled open the first box of Chinese food,
and began to arrange pieces of glazed chicken artfully on the plate. “Hey, are you,
like, secretly into ballet? Because that would be—disturbing.”

“It’s called T’ai Chi. It aids concentration and, uhh…” Angel watched as Cordelia
spooned rice from the second box, shaping it into a tidy mound beside the chicken.
“What are you doing?”

She shrugged. “Having dinner.”

“Yes, I see that. I was just wondering… why?” Angel ran a hand through his hair, then
attempted to re-phrase the question with tact. “I mean, it’s Saturday night. Don’t you
usually go out on Saturday nights with, uhhh…”

“Laura,” supplied Cordelia. “We were gonna go to a party, but I told her some other
time. I’ve decided: you and I don’t spend enough time together.”

Angel blinked. “All day every day being not enough time together in what sense
exactly?”

Cordelia raised her fork and waved it for emphasis. “Yes, but that’s demon-hunting,
saving-people time. Not personal, one-on-one bonding time. If this is going to be a
real partnership—me with the visions, you with the, well, fangs—then we’re gonna
have to hang out more. Get to know each other better. I mean, what do I know about
you, really? You’re a vampire. You’re cursed. Now I know that you like to balance on
one leg in your free time. Who saw that one coming?”

Angel pulled the opposite chair out from under the table and sat down. “Cordelia…”

“Look,” said Cordelia: “It’s like this. I thought I had Doyle down. And I didn’t. I
didn’t find out the really important stuff until it was way too late to do anything about
it. Well, I’m not gonna screw up like that again.”

Doyle. Angel said nothing for a moment, as Cordelia’s unexpected visit began to
make more sense. She hadn’t been talking about him as much lately, and in the
absence of other evidence, Angel had decided to interpret that as a good sign. But a
month wasn’t a long time when you were nineteen. And not when you were two
centuries and then some, either.

Her hand, the one not holding the fork, rested on the table, and he patted it,
awkwardly. “You didn’t screw up.”

“I didn’t listen, either,” said Cordelia. “And of the three dead guys in my life, you’re
the only one who can talk back to me. So tonight we’re bonding, and you don’t get to
say no.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?”

Cordelia reached down into her bag and pulled out a video tape. “I rented a movie.”

Angel took the tape and looked at the front cover. “The Sixth Sense. With Bruce
Willis.”

“I think you’ll like it,” said Cordelia, nodding. “It’s clever. And it has a lot of dead
people in it.”

“Did someone say dead people?” Angel looked up, and saw Wesley standing in the
kitchen doorway. “Apologies for barging in,” he went on, “but I heard voices from
upstairs. Oooh, Chinese.” He lifted a spare piece of chicken from the cardboard
container on the table.

“Hey!” said Cordelia with irritation. “If you didn’t pay for it, you don’t eat it. Wesley,
what are you doing here?”

Wesley swallowed the chicken. “Well, I thought I’d drop by and see how the forces
for good were getting on. And I find that the forces for good…” He scanned the room,
taking in the boxes of food on the table, the rental tape and Angel’s bathrobe:
“…Seem to be taking the night off.”

“We’ve had a rough few weeks,” said Cordelia defensively. “You know, if you came
round here to harangue us, you can just go again. ‘Cause I’ve heard Giles when he
gets into ‘sacred duty’ mode, and I am so not up for hearing that right now.”

“Cordelia,” said Angel.

Wesley wasn’t giving up. “I distinctly heard someone say something about dead
people.”

Cordelia lifted the videotape and waved it at him. “In the movie, dummy.”

“Oh.” He took the tape from her and looked at it. “The Sixth Sense. I’ve seen this. It’s
very good. I never guessed Bruce Willis was really a ghost—“

“Wesley!” Cordelia interrupted a second too late to cut him off. “Angel hasn’t seen it.
Now you’ve spoiled the ending!”

Cordelia and Wesley were facing off across the table, leaving Angel feeling oddly
superfluous. “I’ll cope with the disappointment,” he said. “Somehow. Wesley—“

But Wesley was waving a hand and retreating. “No, no, I can see I’ve come by at a
bad time. What with the… food and relaxing and suchlike. I shall just be on my way.
Rogue demon hunters tread a lonely path.”

He was halfway to the door when Angel heard Cordelia start to say something. She
didn’t finish it. Instead she gasped and slid off her chair, knocking her plate on to the
floor. Lumps of chicken and flecks of sticky rice bounced across the linoleum.

Angel pushed back the table and knelt beside her while she shook. After a minute, her
glazed eyes began to focus again. “Vision,” she announced faintly.

“Do you want anything?”

“Yeah—a lifestyle that doesn’t involve losing motor functions and dribbling at least
once a day,” said Cordelia testily, then tried to swallow. “While I’m waiting, water.”

Angel couldn’t move without removing his support from her back. He looked to
Wesley. “There are cups over there.”

“Right,” said Wesley. He stepped over the fallen plate on his way to the sink. “I didn’t
realise the visions were quite so—distressing.”

“Well now you know,” said Cordelia thickly. She accepted the water Wesley brought
her and sipped it, before allowing Angel to help her to her feet. When he was sure she
could stand unaided, he stood back and let her brush off the grains of rice which had
stuck to her clothing.

“What did you get?” he asked.

“An address. A street over in Inglewood, behind the racetrack. And a guy walking
down it. A really scared, tired guy.”

Angel lifted his car keys from one of the kitchen shelves. “I need to get dressed.
Cordelia—“

“And I need five minutes to pick the rice out of my hair. Eww.”

Angel threw the keys to Wesley, who fumbled before catching them. “My car’s in the
parking garage. Bring it round and we’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”

Wesley looked at the keys in his hand, then at Angel. “I’m coming? I mean, I’m
coming. Right. Ten minutes.”

When he had gone, Angel looked at Cordelia. She was combing her fingers through
her long dark hair and scowling at the empty doorway. “Does he have to come with
us?”

“Wesley wants to help,” said Angel. “And we largely have him to thank for the fact
that your eyes are still in your head.”

“Like I needed reminding. But does one little piece of life-saving mean I have to let
him hang round and eat my food when he feels like it?”

“Cordelia…” Angel hesitated. “Is there something between you and Wesley I should
know about?”

She fingered her hair back into shape and stared at him. “You mean, apart from the
world’s most ill-advised romantic interlude?”

Angel looked at her. “You and… Wesley?”

“We did go to the Prom together. Or didn’t you notice?”

“I was—preoccupied.”

“Yeah, with the slayer in the red dress. I remember. Well, for those viewers who
weren’t paying attention, here’s the ‘previously on Cordelia’. I was rebounding from
Xander Harris like rubber off a brick wall. Then Wesley turns up, all suave English
sophistication and elegant vowel sounds. He was the anti-Xander. He was perfect. Just
one small problem: no chemistry. Less than none. It was just embarrassing.” She
sighed. “I thought I was getting a fresh start in L.A. How am I gonna do that if bits of
my old life keep inviting themselves to dinner?”

“Things you regret,” said Angel, “have a tendency to come back at you.”

“So what do I do?”

“Deal with it.”

“Easy for you to say. I kissed Wesley. Twice. All you have to regret is several hundred
years’ worth of killing and maiming and…” Cordelia stopped. “Okay. Comparison
looking shaky.”

Angel started to leave the kitchen for the bedroom. As he went, a thought struck him.
“If it makes you feel better, I doubt it was the world’s most ill-advised romantic
interlude.” He opened the bedroom door: “After all, nobody died.”

The neighbourhood had seen better days.

Every other store front was dark and boarded over, filthy and defaced by graffiti.
Drifts of garbage obscured doorways, and the few windows which were lit were also
heavily barred. The street was three-o’clock-in-the-morning quiet, no cars, no
pedestrians. It might look like a through road, but Angel guessed in reality it was a
dead end. If a person turned down here by mistake, odds were they weren’t leaving.

Turning around in the passenger seat of the convertible, Wesley said, “Cordelia, do
you have any idea what kind of danger this fellow you saw in your vision might be
in?“

Cordelia, sitting in the back, shrugged irritably. “I already went through this about a
dozen times. No.”

“I was simply thinking there might be some clue you had perhaps overlooked—“

“Well, yeah,” she said, cutting him off. “The visions didn’t come instructions
included. I call it like I see it, and this time all I saw was one guy walking down this
street. Most of the rest of it was feelings.”

“You share their feelings?” Wesley sounded intrigued. “My word. That’s
exceptional.”

“If you mean exceptionally intrusive and unpleasant, then yes.”

Angel said, “Cordelia, it might help if you could analyse what kinds of emotions you
were getting.”

She looked uncomfortable, but nodded and, after a second, started to list them off.
“Well, he was scared—I mean, really, really, terrified. But also kind of excited, which
didn’t make sense. Oh, and he was hungry.”

“Hungry?”

She frowned. “Well, not hungry, exactly. But kind of empty, and needing to be filled
up. Really intense. There’s not a word for it.”

“Craving,” said Angel.

“Okay, maybe there is a word for it. I’m gonna need to buy a thesaurus, aren’t I?”

“Anything else? Any demonic visages? Supernatural manifestations?” asked Wesley
hopefully.

Cordelia thought. “He had a headache.”

“But there must have been something—“

“Wesley, I am not crystal ball girl. Quit asking already because I don’t know.”

Her tone was sharper than her habitual forthrightness; there was an edge of real
annoyance in Cordelia’s voice. Stepping in before the argument could escalate, Angel
said firmly, “The fact Cordelia had a vision means it’s one for us. We’ll figure out
why later.” He held up a hand. “Someone’s coming.”

Wesley and Cordelia looked at him blankly—neither of them, he could tell, had heard
anything. Angel had. Footsteps on the sidewalk, echoing faintly against the sides of
buildings. Irregular, shuffling one moment, rapid the next, as if the walker was by
turns reluctant then desperate to get where he was going.

The man appeared under the pool of jaundiced light thrown out by one of the few
working street-lamps. Head lowered, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, he was
now moving purposefully along the sidewalk, oblivious to everything except the next
place he needed to put his foot down. He was accelerating by the moment, the last
vestiges of hesitation draining from him as Angel watched. Whatever battle he had
been fighting, he had lost, and was surrendering willingly.

“That’s him,” said Cordelia with certainty.

Angel nodded. “Did you get what he’s called?”

“Samuel. There wasn’t a last name.”

“That’s enough.”

“Should we all go over there?”

Something in the man’s demeanour made Angel suspect he wasn’t psychologically in
a good place to be accosted by three complete strangers. “No, he might bolt. Stay here
for now, but be ready to move fast if you need to. We don’t know what this is about
yet.”

He waited while they acknowledged that, then made his way across the empty street,
trying to make the inevitable interception appear as casual as possible. He was less
than a dozen paces away when he realised he need not have made the effort—the man
still gave no signs of noticing his presence.

Angel stepped in front of him. “Excuse me.”

The man drew up short and blinked rapidly. “What—?”

“Are you all right?”

The man stared blankly at him for a moment. “What is this, a polite mugging?”

“I’m not trying to rob you.”

“Oh good,” said the man vaguely. There was an odd, remote look in his eyes that told
Angel he was only half-involved with the conversation. He made a weak attempt to
side-step Angel, stopping again when Angel moved with him, continuing to block his
path.

“Samuel,” said Angel.

Samuel looked up, and for an instant there was a clarity in his expression that told
Angel he had made contact. “Who are you?”

“I’ve been—sent. To make sure you’re all right.”

Samuel’s complexion, Angel noticed, was sallow and gaunt underneath his stubble,
and his eyes were bloodshot and nervous. Transferring his weight rapidly from one
foot to the other, he pulled his left hand from his pocket and tugged nervously at his
collar. The plain gold ring on his third finger glinted faintly in the streetlights’ glow.

“I’m fine. And you know what?” Suddenly aggressive, Samuel pushed past him. “You
can take a hike.”

Angel glanced across the street, to where Cordelia and Wesley watched silently from
the parked Plymouth convertible. He turned and saw the back of Samuel’s jacket as he
started to walk away. It was a good jacket, he noted, as were the shoes, but the rest of
his clothes were cheap and shabby, as if he had taken more pride in his appearance in
the past than recently. Angel looked again at the wedding ring on his left hand and
decided to make an educated guess. “Your family—they’re worried about you.”

Samuel stopped. Slowly, he looked back at Angel, his expression at once doubting
and painfully hopeful. “Did Joanna—ask you to—?”

“Not exactly,” said Angel, “But—“

Samuel shook his head. “No. I guess she wouldn’t. Man, I don’t know who you are
but I need to go. I really—need—to go. I’m just—sick and tired—of fighting all the
time. Okay?”

He looked at Angel, expression pleading. The fingers of his left hand twitched and
fidgeted, out of control.

“It’s tough,” said Angel at last. “Needing. All the time. I know.”

“Man,” said Samuel. He was shaking his head, and had closed his eyes. “Oh, man.”

“Giving in will only make it worse later. It’ll come back, and it’ll own another piece
of you.”

“I know,” said Samuel. He had opened his eyes again, and was smiling sadly at Angel.
“But you know what? I don’t care any more.”

Abruptly, he turned and started to run down the street. Angel followed, but Samuel
had a head start and was surprisingly swift. Even as he began to build speed Angel
could see the other man pulling away from him.

He heard the dull roar of an accelerating car from the street behind him. A second
later, the convertible roared past, before executing a near perfect handbrake turn.
Wheels screeched in protest as the car rotated ninety degrees then came to a halt,
blocking the road completely. Samuel, moving too fast to stop, slammed into the side
and was unceremoniously hauled into the back seat by Cordelia.

Angel hopped over the passenger side door and landed with a solid thump beside
Wesley, who was patting the steering wheel appreciatively. “Handles well, doesn’t
she?”

Angel looked at him. “That’s bad for the tyres.”

In the back of the car, Cordelia was supporting a dazed-looking Samuel. “So what’s
his story?” she asked, nodding at him. “Demon trouble?”

“I think he has one or two to deal with,” said Angel. “Let’s get him out of here.”

In the main room of Angel’s basement apartment, Samuel sat on the edge of an easy
chair, his posture and clenched, trembling hands suggesting anything but ease.
Cordelia set a tray of hot drinks down on the low table in front of him; when he made
no effort to take a mug, she lifted one of the two black coffees and guided his hands
around it.

“It’s decaf,” she told him. “Nothing even remotely druggie in there, no sir.”

Wesley, stirring sugar into a white coffee, looked up sharply. “Cordelia.”

Samuel shook his head, and almost smiled. “It’s okay. Tell the truth, it’s—almost a
relief not to have to pretend. I spent a lot of time—pretending to everyone—that
everything was fine. My friends, my wife, my kids…”

“Where were you going tonight?” asked Angel.

“To see a guy I know.”

“A dealer.”

“A dealer.” Samuel looked down. “I used to be—someone else. Someone different. I
have a—I used to have a business, over in Whittier. Sporting goods. I had a wife and a
family and—I don’t know how it got like this. How it got so bad so fast.”

Wesley asked, “Have you tried getting help?”

Samuel gave a low, humourless chuckle. “Oh yeah. I have been. I’ve been clean for—
it’s been three months. I thought I was starting to come out of it. But then, these past
weeks, it’s been getting worse again. Every minute of every day, I can’t think, I can’t
breathe, it just hurts so bad and I need, I need…” He shut his eyes and his face
twisted, as if in pain. “Oh God. Listen to me. No wonder Jo left.”

“But you still care about her,” said Angel quietly. “Or you wouldn’t be wearing that
ring.”

Cordelia glanced at Angel, then at Samuel’s left hand, curled around the coffee mug.
“How old are your kids?”

“Ten. Eight. Eighteen months. I got—I got a picture.” He reached into the inside
pocket of his jacket and offered Cordelia a dog-eared, faded snapshot. She took it
from him and examined it. The woman in the foreground of the picture was holding a
baby in one arm, while her other hand rested on the shoulder of a chubby, laughing
boy. His sister sat next to him, nursing a doll and smiling for the camera with sweet,
shy innocence.

“They’re beautiful,” she told him.

“Yeah,” said Samuel. “And I want them back, and I don’t think I can make it to
Friday—“ He broke off, unable to continue. His hands shook so much that coffee
slopped over the edges of the mug and on to the floor. Carefully, Cordelia relieved
him of it and put her hand on his shoulder.

Angel asked, “What happens on Friday?”

Samuel took several minutes to compose himself. When he could speak again, he
said, “I got a meeting. With the social services people. If it goes well, they said—I
could see my kids. A couple of afternoons a month. I want that. I want it a lot.”

Cordelia shook her head, puzzled. “If you’ve made it this far, Friday’s less than a
week away. I mean, you’ve cracked it, right?” She grimaced. “Okay, regretting that
phrasing already.”

“It’s not like that,” said Angel. He was speaking to Cordelia, but looking at Samuel.

“Then what is it like?” she asked, puzzled.

Samuel reached out and took the photograph from her. He held it up. “However much
I want this, there’s something else I want more. And I am so tired—of fighting—
alone.”

Angel put down his cup and leaned forward in his chair. “You’re not alone. We’re
going to help.”

“Yeah, and I’ve heard that before.“ Samuel put his fingertips to the sides of his head
and rubbed wearily at his temples. “Look, you people appeared out of nowhere and
stopped me doing—something stupid, and I’m grateful. But I don’t think there’s much
else you can do. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Cordelia told him. “We help the hopeless. It’s
kind of our mission statement. And—don’t take this the wrong way—but you’re right
in our target market.”

Angel was looking at Samuel, expression oddly intense. “Do you want to change?”

“Oh God yes,” said Samuel. He stopped. “But I don’t trust myself.”

“Then trust us,” said Angel simply.

“I’m back. All change for the afternoon shift.”

Cordelia’s voice was accompanied by the clack-clack of high heels on the basement
stairs. Wesley looked to where Samuel was sleeping in Angel’s bed, and saw him stir
and murmur. He waited for several anxious seconds while Samuel writhed and twisted
under the sheets. When at last he settled again, Wesley exhaled in relief. He got up
and left the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

He followed the noises of cupboards opening and closing and of running water to the
kitchen. As he entered, Cordelia was standing with her back to him, pouring boiling
water from the kettle into a small pan on the stove.

“Please try to be a little quieter,” he told her as she turned around. “It took hours to get
Samuel to sleep.”

Leaving the pan on the heat, she opened the refrigerator and took out one of the
plastic-wrapped tubs. Removing the covering and the lid, she lowered it carefully into
the steaming water. This done, she lifted a thermometer from the shelf behind the sink
and popped it into the tub. “Asking how he is would be kind of a redundant question,
then.”

“Angel told me the night passed uneventfully, but he’s been getting worse all
morning. In the end I had to give him a couple of those.” Wesley pointed at the small
screw-top jar sitting on the counter beside the stove. Cordelia lifted it and read the
label.

“Seditol?”

“Tranquillisers. Strong ones.” She was looking at him oddly, and Wesley felt some
kind of explanation was required. “I always keep a small supply. For some reason, that
brand happens to make a very effective substitute for lungwort in divining magic. And
they’re not as difficult to get.”

“Whatever,” said Cordelia, rolling her eyes. She glanced towards the bedroom and
pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Samuel’s gonna need more than emotional support to
make it to the end of the week, isn’t he?”

Wesley said, “He needs something we’re entirely ill-equipped to give him:
professional help.” He pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down.
“Cordelia, your vision—“

“Don’t start again, Wesley.” She pulled a face: “I already told you—no demons, no
magic.”

Absently, he drummed the fingers of his right hand against the tabletop. “Then why
us? There are a lot of people in this city with Samuel’s problem. Your vision didn’t
lead us to any of them—and, equally, I fail to see what we can do for him that other
people can’t do better.”

Cordelia shrugged. “Not wanting to play the dramatic irony card too heavily, but
Samuel isn’t the only person currently in the building with an intimate knowledge of
the whole addiction thing.” She pointed meaningfully at the ceiling.

“You think that’s why Angel wants to help him?”

“Angel’s Angel. He wants to help everybody.” Cordelia wiped the bloodied end of the
thermometer clean with a paper towel and inspected the reading. “Ninety eight
degrees. Close enough.” She lifted the plastic tub clear of the water and poured the
contents carefully into a mug. “But he’s got that look of his over this one.”

“What look?”

Cordelia shrugged. “He gets this weird look. The I’m-invested-with-this-but-I’m-not-
going-to-admit-it look.” She put down the mug and wrinkled her brow while staring
into the middle distance with an expression that somehow managed to be
simultaneously intense and vague. Wesley had to admit it was a good impression. She
went on, “He’s upstairs now going through the books. Which, since it’s two in the
afternoon, counts as a vampire all-nighter.”

“Oh. I didn’t know. I’ll—just go up and see if he needs any help.” Wesley glanced
back towards the apartment bedroom. Because, he added silently, it’s not as if there’s
anything useful I can do here.

Cordelia gave a small, suit-yourself shrug and handed him the cup of blood. “Then
you can take this. And, between us, I think he’s looking peaky, so make sure he drinks
it.”

Wesley looked at her. “He might not?”

“He’s got a thing about drinking in front of people. Like he’s afraid they’ll be grossed
out. Although I’ve watched Xander Harris trying to eat spaghetti Bolognese, and after
that, what horrors remain?” She shut her eyes and shuddered at the memory. “By the
way, you owe me five bucks.”

“For what?”

“The ham and pineapple pizza that I so generously picked up for us on the way here.”

“Ham and pineapple? Oh good, that’s my favourite.” The vapours rising off the hot
pig’s blood wafted into his nostrils and Wesley almost gagged. He held the cup away
from himself. “Or it will be, when I recover my appetite.”

Every set of blinds was drawn tightly in the office upstairs, and the limited amount of
ambient light seeping in from the bright day outside blanketed the rooms with syrupy
dimness. There was a strong smell of greasy, cooling pizza hanging in the air, and
after a few seconds Wesley tracked it to the half-open cardboard tray sitting on
Cordelia’s desk.

He was about to lift the lid when the faint rustle of old pages turning caught his
attention. “Angel?”

The reply was a wordless grunt of acknowledgement. Wesley followed it to the
doorway of the inner office, and found Angel sitting at the desk, almost obscured
behind several high piles of reference works. As Wesley entered he looked up, and
winced. Raising a hand, he massaged the muscles between his neck and shoulder.

“It’s a good idea to get up and walk around at least once an hour,” said Wesley, sitting
down.

Angel looked at him, still rubbing his shoulder. “Did they tell you that in Watcher
training?”

“That, and how to avoid repetitive strain injury when typing. Let it never be said the
Council doesn’t move with the times.”

“Perish the thought.”

“I brought you—lunch.”

Wesley put the mug of hot blood down on top of a closed, leather-bound volume on
the desk between himself and Angel. After a moment, Angel picked it up. He looked
down at the cup, then at Wesley; then, with deliberation, he set it to one side.
“Thanks. How’s our guest?”

“Not good,” Wesley told him honestly. “Samuel is going through the full effects of
withdrawal, and we have nothing to offer him except tea and sympathy.”

“And a place to ride it out,” said Angel. “And people who understand.”

Angel’s voice was calm, but his face was closed and set. Wesley fought down the
desire to sigh. Invested, indeed. “Angel, what if Cordelia’s vision was only meant to
lead us to Samuel so someone else could help him? I mean, we can take shifts to
watch him, we can get him to Friday and go with him to this assessment, but what
then? His problems aren’t magically going to go away even if he gets access to his
children.”

“But it might give him something to care about more than his next fix,” said Angel.
“We’re in the right place at the right time to change something. And I think I know
why he was brought to us.”

He lifted the book he had been consulting and turned it around on the desk. Wesley
scanned the open pages for a moment, perplexed. He looked up. “Xenophon? My, my.
I haven’t heard of his magic being used for a long time. Fell very out of favour with
the European courts in the twelfth century, just about the time of that nasty business
with the King of Spain’s daughter …”

“He specialised in bindings,” said Angel. “Specifically, the binding of souls.”

Wesley nodded. “Came up with some very effective love charms, as I recall. Which
was unfortunate for the King of Spain’s daughter. And the horse, now I think about it.
But I’m not sure I see how this is pertinent to…” He stopped, and looked at Angel.
“The binding of two souls. Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re even considering what I think
you’re considering.”

“He said he’s tired of fighting alone. Maybe it’s time he didn’t have to.”

Wesley ran his finger down the text of the spell, translating the Latin as he went,
hoping to find some clause that would preclude its use. “It requires an Abyssan crystal
amulet.”

“Not impossible to get.”

“It also requires the participants to be human.”

“No,” corrected Angel. “The wording requires the participants to have souls. There’s a
difference.”

Wesley took off his glasses and rubbed at them harshly with the corner of a
handkerchief. Stonily, he said, “Well, that answers my next question, which was going
to be directed at finding out who you propose takes part in this lunacy.”

“I wouldn’t ask you or Cordelia to…”

“No,” interrupted Wesley sharply: “But of course it’s perfectly all right to take the risk
yourself.” He stood up and paced quickly up and down the room; when he spoke, the
words tumbled out in fast succession, in time with the tapping of his shoes on the
wooden floor. “Angel, there are very good reasons why this kind of magic is rarely
practised. The dangers are—overwhelming. The soul is a strange and precious
commodity, and not to be tampered with lightly. I would have thought you of all
people would have understood that.”

Angel held up a hand. “There’s no danger this magic might break the curse. I’m
certain.”

But Wesley was just warming up, and had no intention of stopping now. “And what
about the other dangers? When you draw two people that closely together you expose
each of them to every aspect of the other. Every aspect. My God, that’s perilous
enough even when both personalities are balanced and strong. But when one is an
addict and the other is—“

“Just another kind of addict,” said Angel. He spoke quietly, but somehow his voice
still managed to override Wesley’s.

Wesley blinked once, and stopped pacing. He gave a small, thin smile.

“What?” asked Angel.

“Cordelia reads you well. Better than me. I thought you had more sense.” He turned
around and stood against the bookshelf, facing Angel. “It’s not the same thing at all.
You feed to survive—an addict who doesn’t get his drug won’t die.”

“Samuel might disagree with you, right now.” Angel looked away for a moment, then
stood up. Wesley saw him cast a glance towards the still-steaming mug beside the
table. Then he walked out of the room, brushing past Wesley on his way to the outer
office. Determined not to let Angel walk out on the argument, Wesley followed.

What he saw in the next room surprised him. Angel was standing at Cordelia’s desk,
holding the lid of the pizza tray open and looking wistfully at the congealing slab of
ham and pineapple deep pan inside the box. He allowed the tray lid to fall shut. “What
do they tell Watchers about a vampire’s appetite?”

“That it’s acute. And insatiable.”

“Insatiable,” echoed Angel. He was looking at the top of the pizza box, apparently
finding something absorbing in the red-and-white logo printed on its surface. Softly,
he said, “Sometimes, I can almost remember what hunger felt like. And how food
satisfied it. It isn’t like that for—us.”

Wesley said nothing for a moment, caught between his natural curiosity and a deep
sense of embarrassment at Angel’s obvious discomfort. He suspected Angel would
have been an intensely private man no matter what his true nature. As it was, the self
loathing Wesley knew he felt, coupled with his shame of what he was, must make
these kinds of revelations a form of torture. He would not put himself through such
horror unless he wanted desperately to make his motivations clear.

“What is it like?” asked Wesley finally.

Angel looked at him. “I could kill and drink every waking minute and still want
more.”

Wesley met his gaze, unflinching. “But you don’t. And you want to share that control
with Samuel.”

“Yes.”

“Have you thought that contact with him might put cracks in your restraint?”

“Yes.” Angel walked away from Cordelia’s desk and back into the small office.
Wesley sensed he had not finished speaking and this time did not follow him. When
Angel returned, he was carrying the cup of warm animal blood in his hand. “But I’ve
had a lot of practice at developing my self-control. A couple of lifetimes’ worth. If I
can use that to help someone else, it makes the craving a little easier to tolerate.”

As Angel finished speaking, he raised the cup to his lips and drank, slowly and
deliberately. There was no flicker of change in his features as he swallowed, no
indication of whatever impact taking his own brand of drug had on him. He looked,
thought Wesley suddenly, as indifferent as if he was drinking a cup of coffee, and he
wondered how long it had taken Angel to reach this point.

And how much of it was a pretence for his benefit.

Angel lowered the cup and put it down on the edge of the desk. “I’ll need your help.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“Was that a yes or a no?”

Wesley was silent.

“Guys? Hey, guys?” Wesley looked over his shoulder and to where Cordelia had
appeared in the office doorway. She looked at himself, then Angel, then back.
“Whoah. Getting some serious atmosphere in here.”

“We were just—talking,” said Wesley.

Angel asked, “What is it?”

“Samuel’s looking rough. I mean, really rough. He’s having a fit of the screaming
heebie jeebies down there—practically climbing the walls. You know that out-of-
your-depth feeling? Well, the water’s lapping round my eyebrows.”

Angel looked at Wesley. “We’ve found a way to help him.”

Cordelia put her hands on her hips. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s move,
people.”

“Wesley?” said Angel.

Wesley hesitated. “I—“ He stopped, then looked first at Angel, then Cordelia. “Yes.
Very well.”

Angel nodded once. “We’ll need an Abyssan amulet: Cordelia, get on the web and see
if you can find where we can get one in L.A. at short notice. Wesley, you’ll want to
get familiar with the ritual. I’ll watch Samuel. He might get violent.”

He left. Beside Wesley, Cordelia watched him go, then turned to Wesley with an
interested expression. “So what’s the game plan? And why do we need a Medusan
Medallion, anyway?”

“Abyssan Amulet,” corrected Wesley automatically: “I’ll explain while we work.”

“Can’t wait to hear this one.” Cordelia made to go, then noticed the empty mug sitting
at the side of the desk for the first time. “Oh, look, Angel had some lunch. Good for
him.”

“Did you get it?” asked Wesley as the elevator doors opened and Cordelia came into
the basement apartment.

Instead of replying immediately, she opened her bag and held up the amulet so he
could see it. It twisted slowly on the end of its chain, the semi-transparent gemstone
refracting the light in myriad shades of blue. Cordelia examined it critically for a
second, then shook her head.

“One hundred and forty dollars for something Liberace would have turned down for
being too gaudy. And they wouldn’t take Visa. I mean, what is that about? Just
because your stock dates from the tenth century doesn’t mean your credit policy has to
as well.” She frowned and looked across the room to where Angel was lighting the
last in a long line of evenly spaced candles: “I can claim this on expenses, right?”

Angel seemed intent on the task at hand and merely nodded. Wesley, in the meantime,
had taken the amulet and was studying it carefully. “What it looks like is hardly the
issue, Cordelia. It’s not costume jewellery.”

Peering over his shoulder, she saw something she hadn’t noticed in the in the dim and
musty interior of the magic shop. “It’s cracked. I paid a hundred and forty dollars for
that and it’s cracked! What a rip off!”

Wesley was frowning at the stone. “Hmmm. Yes, the join is fashioned slightly more
crudely than I would have liked. Probably not the highest quality stone. Still, it should
suffice.” As he spoke, he gripped the amulet in both hands and grunted as he exerted
pressure on it.

“Wesley! You’ll break it.”

“I’m trying to—umpphh—break it. There we go,” he announced triumphantly, as the
amulet split cleanly down the middle. Cordelia opened her mouth to tell Wesley
exactly what she thought of people who deliberately broke things that other people
had spent a whole afternoon finding and most of their currently available disposable
income buying. She stopped after the first word, and stared. Instead of one amulet,
Wesley was holding two, each clear blue stone a perfect mirror image of its partner.

Wesley was carefully separating what Cordelia had at first taken to be the amulet’s
single gold chain. In fact, she realised as his fingers tugged and pulled at the separate
strings of links, it was comprised of two distinct strands. With another few seconds’
concentrated effort, they fell apart, and Wesley held up each half of the amulet in a
different hand. “Angel, you and Samuel should put these on now. The crystal needs a
few minutes to align itself with the wearer’s energy.”

Angel lit the final candle and put down the box of matches. He crossed the room and
took the twin amulets from Wesley, who somehow managed to radiate extreme
disapproval without significantly altering his facial expression. Cordelia wondered
where anyone had ever gotten the idea that the English were good at keeping the lid
on their emotions.

“Wait,” said Wesley as Angel began to lift the chain of the first amulet over his head:
“It’ll work better if both of you put on your halves at the same time.”

Angel nodded. “All right.” He lowered the amulet and went to the closed bedroom
door. “Cordelia.”

Taking the other half of the amulet from Wesley, she followed Angel into the
bedroom. The lights were out and it was almost entirely dark inside. When her eyes
had adjusted to the dimness, she looked to the bed and saw it was empty. From
somewhere in the shadows, low to the floor, she heard ragged, uneven breathing.

“Samuel.” Angel spoke quietly into the darkness. “How are you doing?”

When the reply finally came, it was little more than a whisper, breathy and exhausted.
“I’m—not so good, man. It—hurts—“

“We’re going to do something about that. Make it easier. But you have to help.”

This time the silence extended even longer. Then: “What do I—need to do?”

Angel nodded. “Cordelia, get the lights.”

She flipped the switch next to the door and in an instant the room was brightly
illuminated. Samuel, crouched in the corner, covered his face with his hands and
cringed further back. Cordelia knelt opposite him and held up the amulet. “You need
to put this on.”

He looked at her through bloodshot, spent eyes. “What?”

“Just think of it as an alternative therapy. A really, really alternative therapy.”

“Trust me,” said Angel. He was holding his half of the amulet, ready to put it on.

Samuel hesitated, then rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Okay.”

“On three,” Angel said to Cordelia. “One, two—three.”

On the last word, Cordelia slipped the chain around Samuel’s neck. When she looked
over her shoulder, she saw Angel adjusting the half he now wore.

Samuel looked down at the heavy blue stone resting against his shirt. “I gotta tell ya,
the whole healing-crystals-aura thing is…”

“A pile of bull,” completed Cordelia cheerfully. “This is the real deal. Come on.” She
took him by the hand and, standing up, pulled him to his feet with her.

In the main room, Wesley was fussing over the position of the one piece of furniture, a
plain high backed chair, which had not been pushed up against the walls. As Cordelia
and Angel entered, supporting Samuel between them, he moved it half an inch
towards the stairs, then nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Ready.”

“Good,” said Angel. “What do we do?”

Wesley lifted a sheaf of loose pages covered in dense hand-written notes and
consulted a particular section. “Samuel stands there,” he said, pointing to a spot near
the chair. “Angel, opposite him. Cordelia, I need you to hold that.”

He indicated a small bronze burner which was sitting on the floor throwing puffs of
fragrant smoke upwards at irregular intervals. Cordelia picked it up reluctantly. “Why
do I always have to be Herb Girl?”

“Cordelia.”

“Yeah, yeah. On it already.”

Swinging the burner in a slow arc, she began to pace around the outside of the room.
Wesley sat down on the wooden chair, placing his notes on his knees, while Angel
guided Samuel into place before taking up his assigned position.

Wesley cleared his throat and began to speak quietly in Latin, initially referring
frequently to his notes, but gaining confidence as he continued. As he spoke, the rising
and falling cadence of his voice created a kind of rhythm, and Cordelia found herself
matching her paces to it. Once she had established a pattern—step, swing, step—she
turned her attention to the centre of the room. It looked, she thought, like a movie
scene before the director called action: everyone waiting for something to happen, no
one sure what to expect.

Suddenly, she felt the hair on her arms and neck rising. The air was heavy with an
excess of—electricity? Something else?—and Cordelia could feel it trying to coalesce
around her, like water splashing over the edge of a brimming bucket.

The smell wafting upwards from the burner was suddenly pungently suffocating. She
kept pacing, but now it was difficult—the atmosphere was somehow solid around her,
and it felt as if she was wading through Jell-O. The air crawled and sparkled with raw
energy. “Guys? Uhh, guys? Is this--?”

“Amas et untos,” said Wesley. He was concentrating entirely on the incantation, and
hadn’t heard her. “Asytos enthros. Hest enthros. Naras!”

On the last word, the twin amulets began to glow with a bright blue light. Cordelia
watched, forgetting to hold up the burner or even to keep walking.

The light grew brighter until the candles’ faint flickering was entirely swamped. Then,
just as Cordelia was about to look away, unable to stand the searing brightness,
something happened.

A bridge of lightning seared the air, joining the two halves of the amulet and linking
Samuel and Angel. The stream of light was so compact and distinct that it seemed
almost tangible. Random sparks flowed along its length, giving an impression of
movement, as if something was being transferred, although in what direction Cordelia
couldn’t tell. It was eerily beautiful, and despite her watering, hurting eyes, she didn’t
want to look away.

Then she saw something else.

It was black and oily, a dark shapeless mass oozing along the bridge of blue light,
extending thin, grasping tendrils as it went. It was the kind of thing that had no right
existing outside of the worst kind of three-in-the-morning nightmare. No right to be
real. But it was real; Cordelia could see it and the sight filled her with horrified,
instinctive revulsion. And the thing was dragging itself towards—

“Angel!”

The bridge of light vanished, and with it the black jellyfish-thing. Wesley turned to
her angrily just as Samuel staggered and fell.

“Cordelia, do you know how dangerous it is to disturb a magical process?”

The brass burner had gone out. She dumped it unceremoniously and glared at him.
“Well, pardon me for interrupting the floor show. I saw something—“ There was a
dull thud from the other side of the room. Cordelia looked around and saw Angel had
sunk awkwardly to his knees. He was holding one hand to his head, and was using the
other to brace himself against the floor. Momentarily forgetting her irritation at
Wesley, Cordelia went to him. “Angel? You okay?”

“I—will be. I need a second.” He raised his head and looked across the room. Cordelia
had the distinct impression he was having trouble focusing. “Help him.”

He pushed Cordelia away and, after a moment, she reluctantly broke contact. Wesley
was already helping Samuel up, and by the time she had arrived at his side he had
recovered sufficiently to stand unaided. He was still pale, but the cold sheen of sweat
had gone from his face, and his gaze no longer flitted fearfully around the room.
Samuel was looking at Angel, his expression puzzled but calm.

Wesley lifted the amulet away from Samuel and frowned. It was shattered, a spider’s
web of tiny cracks radiating outwards from the centre. “Well, we won’t be trying that
again in a hurry.”

Cordelia looked at Samuel, then Wesley. “Did it work?”

He shook his head. “Best ask them, I think. Samuel, how do you feel?”

Samuel shook his head, as if to clear it. “What was that? I feel… I feel fine.”

“Angel?”

Cordelia turned in time to see Angel getting to his feet.

“I’m fine now.” He spread his hands for emphasis. “Fine.”

“Good,” said Cordelia. “You’re fine, he’s fine, we’re all fine…Everything’s gonna be
just fine.”

Two

Concentrate. Focus.

An arm, moving through space. A foot, raised and lowered. The purity of movement.

Control.

Hunger—

Concentrate. Focus.

A hand, extended so. Balanced, weight on back heel. Find the form. Hold it.

Concentrate. Hunger—No. Focus. Focus.

Drink. Feed. Kill—

Focus, damn it—hunger—

Angel opened his eyes, lost his balance, and fell.

He toppled backwards, not quite putting his raised foot down fast enough to prevent
the fall, and landed heavily on his back. For a second he lay still, staring up at the
apartment ceiling.

Hunger. Need.

He got up, grabbing his shirt from where it hung over the back of a chair, and pulled it
on as he walked to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents.

He reached for the nearest container, lifted it out and tore off the outer plastic
wrapping. He held it up and drank in the scent.

It didn’t smell right. Animal blood, several days old, sealed inside plastic. It smelled
stale and flat. The scent was just an echo of something else, something he craved from
instinct and experience. Human blood, gushing from an open vein, life made liquid,
pouring from mortal flesh, sweet and satisfying and—

The telephone in the hall started to ring.

Angel dropped the container. It hit the hard kitchen floor with a dull thud, followed by
a thick, wet splash as the lid came off on impact. Blood, thick with age and cold,
pooled at his feet. Tiny flecks of red stained the bottom of the refrigerator door, his
shirt, his hands.

A single bead of blood, fat and glossy, had landed on the back of his right hand. He
resisted for a moment, then licked it off.

And then he was on the floor, on hands and knees, licking up the spilt blood,
disgusted, horrified, unable to stop.

Concentrate. Focus. Control—control—

With a gasp, he pushed himself up and back, away from the blood and towards the
kitchen’s back wall. For several long minutes he sat still, his bloodied, sticky hands
covering his face. The smell was overpowering.

The telephone stopped ringing.

When he could trust himself to move without succumbing again, he got up and went
to the bathroom, stripping off layers of stained clothing as he went. He turned on the
shower and stood under the stream, not feeling whether the water was hot or cold.
Resting his head against the tiled wall, he saw streaks of red draining away in the
swirling water around his feet.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

The water drummed against the sides of the shower, and he couldn’t hear himself.

Carefully, Cordelia removed the brush from the pot of nail polish and allowed the
excess fluid to drain from it. Then she drew the tip over her thumbnail, lips pursed in
concentration. Two more swipes, and the nail was covered in a glossy coat of deep
purple. She flexed her fingers, admiring the results of her handiwork, then turned her
attention back to the Cosmo quiz. The title at the top of the page read Working
Relationships: You and Your Boss. Cordelia scanned down the page until she found
her place.

5. I am most likely to complain that my boss:
(a) …doesn’t delegate sufficient responsibility to me (5 points)
(b) …doesn’t listen to my suggestions (4 points)
(c) …makes unrealistic demands (3 points)

Cordelia read the question several times, holding her hands awkwardly out to her
sides in order to avoid smudging her still-tacky nails. After a moment she lifted a pen,
still mindful of her nails, and wrote on the glossy page:

(d) may unexpectedly turn into a murderous sadistic psychopath

She thought for a moment, then added:

(one million points)

She dropped the pen and rested her elbows on top of the magazine. She looked up so
she could see the clock over the door of the smaller office.

Well, that killed ten minutes. I really need to talk to Angel about flexing my hours.

The phone on her desk rang unexpectedly. Cordelia made to lift it, remembered her
drying nails, blew on her hands frantically, to no effect. Switching tactics, she lifted
the receiver between the heels of her hands, transferring it to her neck then
sandwiching it between her ear and shoulder. After less than a second, her earring
began to cut into her skin, causing her to yelp in pain and drop the phone. It landed on
the desk, on top of the magazine. Cordelia pushed back her chair and leaned down so
her head rested against an advertisement for Calvin Klein perfume. With her face
pressed against the page, she said, “Uhh, hello, uhh, Angel Investigations. We help the
hopeless.”

“Oh, Cordelia. Good afternoon.”

Recognising the plummy vowel sounds and overly-precise diction, Cordelia made a
short, irritated sound. “Wesley. It’s you.”

He sounded mildly aggrieved as he said, “There’s no need to sound quite so ecstatic to
hear from me.”

“Well, I’m—“ Cordelia raised her head and swiftly lifted the phone in the palm of her
right hand. She sat up and went on, “I’m pretty busy here, y’know? Clients and
research and, uhh, more clients and—what do you want, anyway?”

“To let you know the outcome of Samuel’s assessment. I thought Angel would want
to know how it went, seeing as he couldn’t attend, what with it being so—sunny.” His
voice took on a reprimanding tone. “You do remember it was today?”

“Of course I remembered,” lied Cordelia. “Did it go okay?”

“Swimmingly.”

“They made him swim? Weird assessment.”

“No, I meant—“ Wesley stopped. “It went very well. Samuel was in excellent shape.
He was calm, focused: he spoke very movingly about his desire to see his family
again. The panel only took ten minutes to decide. They’ve granted him supervised
access to his children two afternoons a month, to increase if there are no problems.”

“That’s good news.”

“He was overjoyed. I believe we really helped him.”

“I’ll tell Angel. You never know, it might lift his mood. From ‘clinically depressed’
all the way up the scale to ‘slightly morose’.”

From the basement below the office, Cordelia heard a thud. A moment later she felt
the resulting vibrations echo through the soles of her shoes. On the other end of the
line, Wesley said, “What was that?”

“Oh, probably nothing. Just—more new clients trying to batter down our door. Like I
said, we’re busy. I gotta go now. Talk to you sometime.”

She put down the phone and, pressing the buttons carefully to avoid chipping the fresh
varnish, dialled the downstairs extension. When there was no answer by the tenth ring,
she started to feel mildly anxious. Of course, no one answering the phone could just
mean Angel was in the shower. Or it could mean he was in the middle of a fight to the
death with a horde of demonic slime-beasts. The fun thing about this job, she reflected
as she opened her desk’s bottom drawer and pulled out a twelve-inch dagger, was that
both possibilities were equally likely.

The elevator chimed softly, indicating that the car was coming up from the basement.
Armed with the dagger, Cordelia got up from her desk and waited for it to ascend.

She relaxed when the door was pulled back from within and she saw Angel. “Oh, it’s
you.” She dropped the dagger absently back on to her desk. “What was that crash I
heard?”

Angel said nothing. He went to the percolator and poured himself a coffee. His hair,
Cordelia noticed, was flat and wet, lending weight to the shower theory over the
demonic attack theory. His shirt wasn’t hanging right, and it took her a second to work
out why: it was fastened out of sequence, leaving an extra button at the collar and an
extra buttonhole at the bottom. The overall effect was one of scruffiness, and very un-
Angel-like.

He drained the coffee in two gulps, and poured another cup, which he drank just as
quickly.

“Angel?” prompted Cordelia.

He finished his third cup of coffee. “I was practising T’ai Chi. I fell.”

“Oh. So we’re not going to get to see you representing Team Vampire in the Undead
Olympics Martial Arts competition any time soon.” Angel lifted the coffee pot again,
and Cordelia stepped in and firmly relieved him of it. “I really think a fourth cup is a
bad idea. All it does is raise your heart rate. Well, not your heart rate, but—“

Angel looked at her. His voice oddly flat, he said, “I’m thirsty.”

“So drink water. You’ll be hydrated and not caffeine-cranky. I’ve got a bottle in my
drawer.” Without waiting for a reply, Cordelia went back to her desk and found a two-
thirds full bottle of mineral water. She filled a clean cup and handed it to Angel. He
stared at it, then set it down without drinking. She looked at him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he told her, still oddly expressionless. Then he blinked, and seemed to
check himself. In a more normal tone, he said, “I really am fine. I just—didn’t sleep
well.”

“I know what’s wrong with you.” Cordelia held up her hands. “Addiction.”

Angel looked at her. “What?“

Cordelia waggled her fingers at him, showing off the glossy nails. “My new nail
polish. It’s called Addiction. You like?”

“Oh.” He stared at her for a moment. “It’s very—purple.”

Allowing her hands to drop, she frowned at him. “Boy, you need to work on your
complimenting skills. Anyhow, I was saying: I know your problem. You’re concerned
about Samuel. Well, I have good news on that front. Wesley called to say he aced his
assessment.” She shrugged. “He didn’t actually say that, he used some weird Brit-
speak, but I think that’s what he meant. Samuel gets to see his kids again—plus, he’s
been better by a factor of thousands since we did that spell. Magic as therapy—this
could be a whole new side to the business. We could run ads: ‘Sort it with sorcery.’
What d’you think?”

“I think, uhh…” Angel stopped. “Any messages?”

Which was, thought Cordelia with disappointment, Angel’s way of saying, not a hope.
Well, she wasn’t going to give up that easily. This was just going to take a little work.
Absently, she began to hunt through the layers of loose paper and old magazines
which perpetually hid her desktop. “Yeah, a couple. Kate called just after I got in. I
think she has something for you on that missing kid case. I got the details—owww!”

She winced as her fingertips made contact with the sharp blade of the dagger, still
lying where she had discarded it. When she lifted her hand, there was a white-edged
slit along the top of her thumb. After a second the cut started to well with blood.
“Ouch. Ouch, damn. Now I’m gonna have to put a plaster on this, and I just spent half
the day getting my nails right. Talk about tragic irony. I mean, look…“

She held up her hand for Angel to see, then stopped. He was already looking at the
cut. More accurately, he was looking at nothing but the cut on her thumb, was
focusing on the pinprick of blood on her skin as if everything else had temporarily
ceased to exist. He seemed almost mesmerised, and when Cordelia moved her hand to
one side, she saw his eyes track it.

She lowered her hand and quickly put it behind her back, out of sight. “Okay. Maybe
don’t look.”

Angel opened his mouth as if to speak, but the only sound to emerge was a low,
wordless growl. Cordelia took a step backwards. Before she could retreat further,
Angel had grabbed her forearm, gripping her with so much force she could feel her
skin bruising. He pulled her hand from behind her back and held it up between them.

Cordelia looked at her thumb, where a thin line of blood stretched from the cut to her
knuckle. When she looked back to Angel’s face, it had changed.

“All right,” she said quickly: “My bad. That was tactless. Yep, Tactless Cordelia,
that’s me. New office rule—I promise not to bleed copiously around you again and
you can promise—not to—really, really freak me out like this.”

She realised she was babbling, and she clamped her mouth shut before she could say
anything else. It hardly mattered, since Angel didn’t seem to be capable of processing
anything he was hearing, anyway. He pulled her hand closer to him and stared at it,
fascinated. The bony ridges around his eyes only served to accentuate the naked
hunger they displayed. Cordelia stared into the twin dilated pupils, and with a
sickening, falling sensation inside recognised nothing of the Angel she knew.

“Angel,” she said, keeping her voice steady and firm. “Snap out of it. Now.”

Unheeding, he drew her hand closer to his mouth. His lips parted, and she saw the
rows of razor teeth behind them. Uneven. Pointed.

What sharp teeth you have, she thought suddenly. All the better to—

With a single fast tug, she pulled her arm back towards herself, bringing his hand with
it. At the same time, she craned her neck forward and bit down hard on his wrist. He
cried out, and staggered backwards. Cordelia took the opportunity to launch herself
across the office towards the filing cabinet.

Bottom drawer, she thought, frantically sifting through the junk. Emergency supplies.
Come on, come on, come—“Aha!”

Triumphantly, she pulled out the crucifix and spun around, raising it as she turned.
Now she was on the floor, crouching with her back braced against the side of the
filing cabinet. At the other side of the room, Angel was nursing his hand. He recoiled
from the sight of the cross, and shut his eyes. He was still vamped out, and gave no
signs of shifting back. Cordelia sat perfectly still, not sure what to do next.

“Get out of here,” said Angel. His voice was guttural, and the words slurred into each
other.

She stayed where she was, still holding up the crucifix. Slowly, she began to lower it.
“What just happened?”

“Get out,” repeated Angel.

Still she hesitated. “The spell went wrong, didn’t it.”

“No, it worked. Too well. It hasn’t been—this difficult—for a long time. It’s hard—to
keep control.”

“Okay,” said Cordelia. “So, there’s a way of dealing with this, right? Meditation,
deep breathing exercises—well, maybe not that, but still, something?” She clambered
to her feet and took a step towards him.

“Get away from me.”

“Angel, you need help. Now, listen—“

His deformed face twisted with the effort of maintaining some degree of control.
“You’re still bleeding. I can smell it—“ The sentence ended in a kind of strangled
grunt.

Cordelia looked at her thumb, and the tiny cut already crusting over. She buried it in
her palm and wrapped her fingers around it, balling her hand into a fist. “Got it. Going
now. Angel, I’m going to get help. God knows where from, but I’ll find it. You’re
gonna be okay. Do you understand? Angel?”

But Angel didn’t reply. His eyes were shut again, and his features were so far from
human it was impossible to read any meaning into his expression.

“…So I got out of there and came to get you.”

Cordelia concluded her summary of events and made a sharp left turn on to Central
Avenue. Beside her in the passenger seat, Wesley braced himself against the
centrifugal force pushing him into the door, still marvelling at how, in the space of a
few short hours, Cordelia appeared to have upgraded him from the status of dull and
unwelcome intrusion to vital ally and confidant. This new-found respect, he guessed,
would last only as long as the current crisis. In the meantime, it was good to feel
needed again, despite the circumstances.

“You did the right thing,” he said, hoping to calm her. He saw her rub the edge of her
bloodied thumb along the steering wheel and added, “Are you hurt?”

“Just my pride. I can’t believe I freaked like that. Jeez, it’s not as if I’ve never seen a
vampire before.” A light ahead turned red. Cordelia accelerated. “It’s not even as if
I’ve never seen Angel wearing his game face before.”

“But this was different,” guessed Wesley.

“Yeah,” agreed Cordelia. “It was like he—couldn’t switch it off. It was weird. More
than weird.”

Somewhere close by a car horn beeped angrily. Wesley removed his glasses and
pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “I was afraid this
might happen.”

Cordelia took her attention off the road long enough to stare accusingly at him. “You
knew? And you didn’t think to mention this, oh, say, before my boss nearly ate me?”

“I only said I thought it might happen. I knew it was a risk and I told Angel as much.
But he seemed confident he could handle it.” Wesley shook his head. “Apparently
not.”

“So if the spell was a bust, why did Angel say it worked?”

“Because it did. Joining magic is very powerful, but very difficult to predict. The spell
we used, amplified by the amulets, was designed to encourage the transference of
psychic energy. Two participants, two kinds of energy. But there’s no way to tell in
advance whose will be dominant.”

“So Angel thought he could lend Samuel some self-control, but instead he got
swamped.” They had reached the office. Cordelia brought the car to a halt outside the
front door, braking so hard that Wesley felt his seatbelt tighten across his chest. “See,
I don’t get that. This is Angel we’re talking about. Mr Total Self Control Guy.”

“Well—yes.”

Cordelia pulled the key from the ignition and twisted round in her seat until she faced
him. “For a ‘yes’, that came out sounding waaay too much like ‘no’. What gives?”

Wesley shook his head, reluctant to voice the thoughts which had been growing
steadily more insistent in recent days. “It’s nothing. Probably nothing. Just a few
things that struck me, that’s all—“

“Such as?”

“Such as…” Wesley stopped and exhaled. “Well, for a start: how much would you
estimate Angel drinks?”

“A couple of glasses a couple of times a night,” replied Cordelia instantly. “I’m
surprised he’s not wasting away. I keep telling him to eat more.”

“But he doesn’t,” said Wesley. “Have you ever wondered why?”

Cordelia scrunched up her face, thoughtful. “I just assumed he was worried about
putting on weight.”

Wesley shook his head. “Vampires don’t, regardless of how much they consume. But
it is generally accepted that the more a vampire drinks, the more it craves blood.
Human blood.”

“Aha.” Cordelia held up a finger triumphantly. “But Angel only drinks animal blood.
Pig, I think.”

Wesley looked at her. “Because he likes the taste of the human variety too much.”

Cordelia was nonplussed. “Of course he likes blood. He’s a vampire, not chairman of
the L.A. Kosher Cuisine Society. But he’s always been able to control it. I mean, the
only time he ever drank human blood when he wasn’t, you know, evil, was Buffy’s,
right before graduation day. And that was only because he was sick. And it’s not as if
the first thing he did afterwards was get as far away from her as possible—“ She
stopped, her expression changing.

“He’s always been able to control it up to now,” said Wesley quietly, placing extra
emphasis on the last three words. “My point is, the evidence indicates that control has
not been achieved easily or without a cost. And perhaps he grossly underestimated the
strength of his addiction.”

“He just wanted to help Samuel.” Cordelia was uncharacteristically subdued. “We all
did.” Scowling suddenly, she hit Wesley in the arm.

“Oww! What was that for?”

“For helping him cast the dumb spell!”

“You were there too!” responded Wesley, feeling suddenly like a five-year-old in a
school-yard fight.

“Well, maybe I was, but I didn’t know—and—and—“ Cordelia opened the car door
and got out. Standing on the street and leaning in through the open door, she finished,
“I can’t think of a really good comeback right now, so we’re going to finish this
argument later, when I’m feeling more scathing. And after Angel’s back to normal.”

Wesley got out of the car and joined Cordelia on the sidewalk. They stood side by side
in the evening sunlight for several long minutes, looking at the office’s street entrance.

“So,” she said at last: “What are we gonna do when we get in there?”

Wesley hesitated. “That, ahh, very much depends on what kind of shape Angel is in.”

Cordelia looked at him over the frames of her sunglasses. “You have no idea either,
huh?”

“No,” admitted Wesley.

“Oh good,” said Cordelia. “’Cause I’d hate to think we were going in there to face an
out-of-control vampire with anything as cumbersome as a plan.”

“That’s not a plan,” said Cordelia in disbelief.

“Yes, it is.”

“Sure, if we had a joint death wish!”

Wesley folded his arms across his chest. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Cordelia sighed and looked around the darkened ground floor office, which was still
littered with the debris that had resulted from her struggle with Angel. She bent down
and picked up the splayed copy of Cosmopolitan which had fallen off her desk. “I
guess not.”

“Well then.” Wesley motioned towards the elevator: “Shall we?”

“Wait one second.” The bottom drawer of the filing cabinet was still hanging open.
Cordelia rummaged in it until she found what she was looking for. “Perfume
atomiser,” she said, throwing the bulbous silver object across the room.

The atomiser sailed through the air. Wesley cupped his hands in preparation for the
catch, almost missed it, then fumbled for a moment before gaining a firm grip. Oh
God, he couldn’t even catch properly. Doyle would have been able to catch it. Doyle
would have been able to come up with a better plan. Cordelia frowned, and retrieved
the crucifix from where she had dropped it on the floor. Well, okay, maybe he
wouldn’t, but at least he would have made a couple of lame jokes. Taken her mind off
the sheer awfulness of the situation for half a second. Made her feel as if there was a
slim possibility things would work out.

Sometimes things didn’t work out okay. She knew that now. Thank you, Doyle.

Wesley scrutinised the atomiser. “Holy water?”

“You got it.”

“Ingenious,” he said sounding, for a moment, genuinely impressed. He pulled back the
elevator cage door and stood to one side to allow Cordelia to step in. They waited in
silence while the mechanism clanked and whirred into action, and the car jolted into
downwards motion.

When it came to a jarring halt on the basement level, Cordelia held up the crucifix and
looked sideways at Wesley. She cleared her throat and, without opening the grille
covering the door, called loudly: “Angel? Hey, Angel? It’s just us. Good old Cordy
and Wes. I want you to concentrate on thinking calm, happy thoughts.” She glared at
Wesley and said in a low whisper: “I still can’t believe your plan was ‘think happy
thoughts’.” Then she slid the door open and stepped cautiously into the apartment.
Raising her voice again, she went on, “We’re coming out now, so no need to go
psycho, right? …Too late.”

The basement apartment, usually neat to the point of fastidiousness, was a wreck.
Books pulled off the shelves in the main living room were scattered over the floor. A
chair lay on its side, one leg broken half-off. Items of clothing were strewn randomly
about the room. There was no sign of Angel.

Cordelia bent down and picked up a black shirt. “Ewww,” she said, pulling a face.

“What is it?”

She stood up and showed it to him. “It’s all wet and…” She pressed her hand against
the dark stain. Her fingers came away red. “…Wet and bloody. This is blood. Gross!”

“Let me see.” Wesley took the shirt from her and examined it . After a moment he let
it fall again and began to move around the apartment, checking each room in turn.
Near where he had dropped the shirt, Cordelia saw an empty plastic tub, a black crust
of solidified blood already forming around its lip. The lid was nearby, twisted and
cracked as if it had been removed with desperate force. She picked it up and turned it
over in her hands. When she looked up, she saw Wesley returning from the kitchen.

“The refrigerator is empty.”

“That’s because Angel used the contents to redecorate.” A sudden idea gave her hope:
“Hey, d’you think somebody came in here and attacked him? Because that would
mean…” she stopped, unwilling to complete the sentence.

Wesley finished it for her. “Because that would mean he didn’t do this. But I think we
both know he did.”

Cordelia dropped the bloody, sticky plastic lid back on to the floor. “Why?”

“Blood lust,” said Wesley. “Uncontrolled blood lust. He drank everything here before
he left. Trying to sate it.” He shook his head. “Stale, cold animal blood won’t work.
We have to find him. Before he kills someone.”

She shook her head defiantly. “No. Angel wouldn’t give in like that.”

“Cordelia,” said Wesley, a harsh edge in his voice: “Look around you. He already
has.”

“Robyn? Could you come out here a second?”

In the diner’s tiny kitchen, Robyn Murray banged the dishwasher door shut and
twisted the knob until she heard the machine rumble into action. As she straightened
up, she glanced over her shoulder and saw one of the student part timers hovering
nervously in the doorway. “What’s up, A.J.?”

A.J. shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “There’s a guy who won’t move. I
can’t close up.”

“I’ll be right out.”

A.J. nodded in relief, and disappeared. Robyn took a moment to dry her hands on a
fresh paper towel before taking off her apron and hanging it up on the hook behind the
door. As she did so, she checked her watch, and sighed. It was after eleven, and all she
wanted to do was close up without hassle and get home. Strictly speaking, the kitchen
was her domain and what happened out front wasn’t her responsibility, but she had
more years’ experience than all the student help put together. Sometimes that counted
for a lot more than a fancy college scroll.

Robyn pulled off her hat and hair-net and walked out to the main part of the diner,
yawning as she went. A.J. was standing behind the counter, casting nervous glances
towards the man sitting by himself in the last booth in the row, his back to them.
“That him?” said Robyn.

A.J. nodded. “I told him we close at ten thirty, but he won’t move.”

“Did he look like he might get violent?”

“I don’t think so. He just… didn’t hear me. I might as well have been talking to the
table.” A.J. looked at Robyn uncomfortably. “I think he’s on something. He’s got that
out-of-it look.”

Robyn scowled to herself. “I’m gonna put a sign on the door—‘No kids, dogs or
users’. Make my life a hell of a lot easier.” She sighed. “You go on. I’ll deal with
him.”

A.J. nodded with evident relief, and disappeared into the back of the diner. Robyn
made her way slowly along the length of the diner. At the far booth, she sat down on
the edge of the green-upholstered bench and slid along it until she was directly
opposite the man.

She saw immediately why A.J. thought he was an addict. His skin was sallow, his hair
unkempt. The hand not wrapped around his empty coffee mug shook and quaked
under its own volition. And his eyes were unfocused. Dead.

“Hey there,” said Robyn. “Y’hearin’ me?”

The man blinked, but otherwise gave no indication that he was aware of her presence.

“I’m Robyn. I run the kitchen. And it’s late, and I have a home I’d like to get back to.
Maybe you do too.” She paused. “Do you?”

The man blinked again. His hand was now shaking so hard he was drumming out an
irregular rhythm on the metallic table top. He watched it curiously, as if trying to
remember to whom it belonged.

The noise was getting on Robyn’s nerves. She reached out and placed her own hand
over his, pinning it down firmly. His skin was unhealthily cold to the touch.

She tried again. “This is a restaurant, not a hotel. You can’t stay here all night. Now, I
am sympathetic, but I am also tired. If you don’t move real soon, I’m calling the cops.
Are you getting any of this?”

The man was still looking down at her hand on his. Suddenly uncomfortable, Robyn
removed it. He looked up at her, and she felt he was seeing her for the first time. “I’m
hungry.”

“Kitchen’s closed,” said Robyn firmly. “Come back in the morning and you can order
breakfast.”

“I’m—so hungry,” he repeated. “All the time. It never goes away. Never stops. It’s
always there. I’m tired—and I can’t fight—I can’t—“

He dropped his head into his hand and gave a small gasp. He didn’t, Robyn noted,
have the look of a derelict: his clothes were creased but relatively new and, aside from
his pallid complexion, he appeared to be in good health. She felt a sudden stab of
sympathy for him. He looked like he had something to lose.

“You’re falling,” she said softly. “I can see that. But it looks to me like you’ve still got
a way to go before you hit the ground. I’m thinking there might be someone around
who wants to catch you. Is there someone you can call?”

The man didn’t respond. He had started to rock backwards and forwards.

“Is there someone you can call?” repeated Robyn. The man continued to rock;
whatever brief connection she had made with him was gone again. She sighed and,
reaching into her pocket, pulled out a handful of loose change. She put the collection
of dimes and quarters down on the table between them. “I’m gonna go out back and
finish cleaning the kitchen. It’ll take maybe ten minutes. While I’m gone, you can use
that pay-phone over there to call someone who can come and get you. If you’re still
sitting here when I come back, I’m calling the cops. Your choice.”

She rose and started to slide out of the booth.

“I’m sorry,” said the man. His voice was soft but clear, and he sounded genuinely
remorseful. Robyn found herself feeling a measure of sympathy towards him.

“It’s okay. You’ve been less trouble than most of our regulars. As long as you don’t
break anything, we’re cool.”

“You’re kind,” he said, and shut his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

He was calmer now, as if he had reached some kind of decision. His hand, she
noticed, was no longer shaking. Feeling unnerved, Robyn went back to the kitchen.

When she looked out ten minutes later, the bottom booth was empty, and the pay
phone in the corner was swinging at the end of its cord.

“Hi, umm, Kate?”

“Yes, this is Detective Lockley. Who is this, please?” The voice on the other end of
the phone was efficient and more than a little abrupt.

“Cordelia Chase.”

“Oh, hi, Cordelia.” Kate’s voice took on a warmer tone. “Is Angel looking for me?”

“Not exactly. I’m kind of looking for him.”

“Say again?”

“It’s nothing major,” said Cordelia quickly. “He went out today without leaving a note
and I need to contact him to tell him something. I wondered if maybe he’d gone to see
you about that information you got for him.”

“Sorry, can’t help.”

“Okay,” said Cordelia. “Sorry to bother you.” She didn’t hang up.

“Was there something else?”

Cordelia paused. “No. Well, yes. Maybe. I was just wondering - and don’t take this
the wrong way or anything - have you ever seen Angel at home? I mean, your home?”

“What? No, I haven’t. And even if I had, I don’t think that’s—“

“—Any of my business. Right. But if he does turn up, and if he happens, say, to seem
a little off—“

“—What do you mean, ‘off’?”

Cordelia ignored her and finished, “Just don’t invite him in, okay? Trust me on this.”
She put the phone down and frowned. “Well, that was in no way toe-curlingly
awkward.”

Wesley, sitting at Angel’s desk and studying an old book, looked up. “She had to be
warned.”

“Yeah,” said Cordelia, sitting back in her chair and rubbing her temples: “And if
someone I barely knew called me up and started telling me who I could and couldn’t
let in my home, I’d totally take it on board.”

Wesley said, “It’s just a precaution. It’s more likely he’ll take care to avoid everyone
he knows.”

“That’s probably why he skipped out of here in the first place,” agreed Cordelia. She
closed her eyes and willed the blackness behind her eyelids to resolve itself into
something more meaningful. “Where are the visions when I need them? I mean, we
need to know where Angel is now. You’d think the Powers That Be would appreciate
the urgency.”

Wesley set down the book. “Cordelia, I know you can’t summon them at will. It’s all
right.”

Angrily, she said, “It is not all right. Doyle left me this stupid vision thing and I don’t
know what to do with it and I can’t use it to find Angel and there’s no one to tell me
how to control it—“

Wesley hesitated. Then he said, “Watchers are trained in a variety of meditative
disciplines. I’d be more than willing to show you…”

“Right,” said Cordelia, “And I’d be crazy to pass on that opportunity, because you
were such a big hit as a Watcher.”

Wesley looked back at his book, his expression tight. “A simple ‘no thank you’ would
have been more than adequate.”

She’d touched a nerve. Maybe that had been a little harsh. Not quite able to bring
herself to apologise, she gestured at the book Wesley was poring over. “You getting
anything from that? Any clues as to what went wrong?”

He looked up and shook his head. “Not yet. But the magic didn’t work as it should
have, I can tell you that.”

“How do you mean?”

“When I was with Samuel today, he was doing well. Better than well. While Angel,
judging by the shape of things downstairs, is in a very bad way indeed. But if
Samuel’s addiction was enough to overcome Angel’s control, he shouldn’t have been
able to benefit from that control. The magic simply doesn’t work like that.”

“You’re saying it should have been a both-or-neither deal,” said Cordelia. “Swapsies
wasn’t in the game plan.”

Wesley removed his glasses and rubbed them clean. “That’s a prosaic way of putting
it, but essentially, yes. It’s very puzzling.”

“The number one priority right now is finding Angel. He didn’t take the car, he can’t
have gone too far—” The phone rang, cutting her off. She picked it up. “Hello, Angel
Investigations, we help—“

“Cordelia.”

“Angel!” Wesley dropped the book, and had crossed the office in a second to stand
beside her. Cordelia flipped the phone on to the ‘speaker’ setting so he could hear
both sides of the conversation. “Angel, where are you?”

“I—uhh—I’m in a—a diner.” Cordelia looked up, and saw her own anxiety mirrored
in Wesley’s expression. Angel’s voice was ragged; he sounded confused, disoriented.

“Angel,” she said: “This is important. Where exactly are you?”

“Near—near the university.” His voice faded away, then returned, sounding more
confident. “Jefferson Boulevard. There’s a big building, it has domes, a colonnade -“

Cordelia nodded, recognising the description of one of the city’s more bizarre pieces
of architecture. “That’s the Shrine Auditorium. Okay, I know where you are. Angel,
stay right there. We’re gonna come and pick you up. We’ll be half an hour, max.”

“I need you to do something—“ He broke off.

“It’s okay,” said Cordelia soothingly, as if talking to a child. “We’re coming to get
you. We’ll do whatever you want then.”

“Now,” said Angel. His voice was cracking. “Now. Hurry. I need you to—“

He broke off so suddenly that for a moment Cordelia thought the line had gone dead.
Only the faint howl of an ambulance siren, filtered through the telephone wires from
halfway across the city, told her the connection was still there.

“To do what?” she prompted him.

“Stop me,” said Angel. “Please stop me.”

Once he’d given in, it was easy.

The old instincts were there, guiding him, showing him each step before he took it. He
didn’t need to think, didn’t need to fight. There was only the hunger, and the hunt. It
was simple and clean, and he’d missed it.

He waited in the shadow of a doorway across from the diner entrance. Cars went by
regularly, pedestrians less often. Some stopped talking as they passed, looked at him
strangely. He barely registered them. They were irrelevant.

The lights in the diner went out, and the prey emerged. The light breeze bore her scent
to him across the street: the stale odour of fried food mixed with sweat and cheap
floral perfume. If he closed his eyes, he could hear her heart beating. He knew its
rhythm, had felt it when she had touched him. That had been the moment at which he
had surrendered. To be so close and not to taste was unbearable. It would feel so good,
not to crave. So sweet, to drink—

And afterwards—

He pushed that thought away.

She started to walk away from him, along the street. He stepped out of the alcove and
followed her. He could no more have stopped than if he was chained to her. The pull
she exerted was irresistible.

Half way down the street, she seemed to sense something was wrong. He saw her
stop, and look quickly behind her. Her scent changed, the sharp tang of new sweat and
fear appearing in the mix.

He ducked into another doorway and stood still until she began to move again. Then
he resumed the hunt, quickening his silent steps until he started to gain on her.

Concentration. Focus.

The craving. The feeding. There was nothing else, nothing mattered, except to drink
and feel that warmth become part of him, to share that vitality, to know life again, if
only for the briefest moment—

And after, to know what he had done and to remember—

Stop me. Please stop me.

She knew she was being followed now. She turned around, too late.

There was just the craving and the feeding.

Nothing else.

“Stop here.”

Cordelia tugged at Wesley’s sleeve for emphasis, and he pulled the car over to the side
of the street at the first opportunity. “Do you see something?”

“No, but this is the place.” Cordelia got out of the passenger side door and stood on
the sidewalk. She indicated the closed diner in front of her, then the gaudy, domed
building some distance along the street. “There’s the Shrine Auditorium, so I’m
betting this is where he called from.”

“Looks like they’ve shut up and gone home,” remarked Wesley, joining her.

Cordelia nodded and looked up and down the block. There were more pedestrians
than was usual in Los Angeles at this late hour; possibly, she thought, because
Jefferson bordered the university campus. She saw several couples walking together,
as well as a few student-types carrying files and wearing backpacks, making their way
home after a night in the library. The district had a small town feel, and reminded
Cordelia of Sunnydale after dark.

The perfect place for a hungry vampire to pick up a victim.

“Maybe Angel’s gone back to the office,” she said, aware of how unconvincing she
sounded. “We’ll get back and he’ll be waiting—“

A scream, high pitched and unwavering, shattered the street’s calm. More than one
walker looked around in alarm, then picked up his pace.

“I think he’s still around here,” said Wesley grimly. “Come on.”

He set off down the street at a run. After a moment, Cordelia followed.

The screams sounded twice more before fading to a wavering, uncertain end. It was
long enough to trace their source. Cordelia ran beside Wesley two blocks along the
boulevard, then left into a side alley. She skidded to a halt and looked up and down
the gloomy passageway, half-obstructed by loose garbage and full dumpsters.

“There’s nothing here,” she began. “I don’t see—“

“Over there,” said Wesley. “On the ground.”

Cordelia looked.

The body of an woman lay still in the centre of the alley. A second figure was hunched
over her, his hands grasping her around the head and neck so intimately that had
Cordelia not known better, she might have mistaken them for lovers.

“Angel!” she shouted. “Stop!”

He either wouldn’t or couldn’t. She sensed Wesley moving beside her, and when she
looked around, she saw he was holding a long, wooden stake. Cordelia gaped. “What
are you doing?”

“What has to be done,” said Wesley.

He started to move forward, and Cordelia grabbed his arm to hold him back. “That’s
Angel! You can’t kill him!”

Harshly, Wesley said, “And what precisely do you think he’s doing to that woman?”

“He’s all I’ve got!” yelled Cordelia, surprising herself.

Wesley stared at her for a second. She stared back. At last he put his hand on her
shoulder and said, “We have to stop this. Now.”

Half a broken plank poked out from underneath the lid of the nearest dumpster. It was
long, wooden and very sharp. Cordelia levered it out and hefted it. “I know.”

She raised the plank and marched along the alley, making no effort to approach
quietly. Angel’s victim was no longer struggling, while he continued to kneel next to
her, engrossed in feeding and apparently oblivious to everything else. Including
Cordelia.

She stopped when she was directly behind him, and lifted the plank.

Then she saw it again.

The black jellyfish thing hovered in the air above Angel, like the bastard offspring of
an acid rain cloud and the Goodyear blimp. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed bigger
now. It pulsed and bulged, bloated and rippling. After a moment, Cordelia understood
why.

A host of thread-like tentacles hung from the obscene mass. Each one ended in a
sharp, three-pronged hook. Each hook was attached to Angel.

The air shimmered, and it was gone.

“Angel,” said Cordelia: “I’m really sorry.”

Then she hit him over the head.

Three

The bowl of sand was almost empty. Wesley tipped it up and caught the last of it in
one cupped hand. He bent down and funnelled it carefully into a heaped line on the
floor. Then he stood up and examined his handiwork.

The circle wasn’t perfect, but the charm didn’t require a very high degree of geometric
accuracy. It was perhaps four yards across, encompassing most of Angel’s apartment’s
main room. For the second time in recent days, most of the furniture had been pushed
up against walls to make sufficient space available, and the only movable items inside
the ring were a pillow and blanket. And, of course, Angel.

Wesley studied him closely for some time, but his eyes, half-hidden under the bony
ridges of his true face, remained firmly shut. Satisfied he was still unconscious,
Wesley paced the perimeter of the ring twice, making certain the curved heap of white
sand was at no point interrupted.

“Wesley? I’m back.”

He turned around as Cordelia’s feet appeared at the top of the basement stairs. “How
is she?”

“I rode all the way to the hospital in the ambulance. They wouldn’t let me stay after
that, ‘cause I’m not a relative, but I think she’s gonna be okay. She lost a lot of blood.
A lot.” There was little room to move in the apartment outside the sand circle, so
Cordelia sat down on the last step, resting her arms on her knees. “She was carrying
ID. Her name is Robyn Murray.”

“What did you tell them happened?”

“That she got mugged and he ran off when he saw me.” Cordelia shrugged. “We used
to use that story all the time in Sunnydale.”

Concerned, Wesley glanced back at Angel’s sleeping form. “Did they ask you for a
description?”

For a brief second, Cordelia’s bright, broad smile reappeared: “Oh yeah. Right now,
the cops are looking for a seven foot limping albino with dyed orange hair. And a
German accent.” She looked at Angel, and frowned. “Is he still out? I didn’t think I hit
him that hard.”

“It’s true a blow to the head won’t knock a vampire out for too long. However, a cup
of blood laced with enough tranquilliser to take out the Welsh rugby team…” He half-
smiled, then added, “It’s not a permanent solution, but it should give us a little
breathing space while we decide what to do next.”

Cordelia eyed the circle dubiously. “So shouldn’t we, like, tie him up while he’s
under?”

“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. This is a simple charm, but very effective. It’s
threshold magic—he won’t be able to cross the sand line any more than he could enter
an occupied home without an invitation.” Cordelia leaned down and extended a hand
to touch the white markings on the floor, but Wesley stopped her: “Just be careful not
to break the circle. The line must be continuous or the magic collapses entirely.”

Cordelia nodded, taking this in. Straightening up, she said quietly, “He’s still Angel,
isn’t he? I mean, there’s no reason to think the spell we cast broke the curse.”

“The fact he asked for help would seem to indicate he still possesses his soul.”

“So, he’s gonna be okay, right?” asked Cordelia hopefully. “All we have to do is wait
until he gets a handle on this. He’s done it before, he can do it again.”

“I’m not sure about that.” Wesley took off his glasses and polished them. “It may be
that the magic we cast has diminished his capacity for self-control permanently. And
if he can’t control his craving any more, whether or not he has a soul hardly matters.
He’s a danger to others.”

Cordelia said, “You think we should stake him.”

“I took vows when I became a Watcher. What you refer to as ‘the whole sacred duty
thing’—well, it is sacred, and it is a duty. An awful lot of it revolves around not
letting vampires kill people.”

“You’re not a Watcher any more,” she pointed out.

“No, but—“ he stopped. “No, I suppose not. Cordelia, I’m very sorry for this.”

She gave a resigned shrug. “I’m not planning to throw a celebration party myself.”

“No, I mean—I’m sorry. This is my fault.” Once the words were out, it was
surprisingly easy to keep talking. “I knew the spell was risky, but I wanted—to be
useful. I didn’t try hard enough to dissuade Angel from trying it.”

Cordelia got up from the bottom step and came to stand beside him. “Probably
wouldn’t have done much good anyhow,” she conceded. “He can be pretty stubborn.
Especially when he gets an idea he’s meant to do something—fate, Powers That Be,
the whole deal. You know what he’s like.”

“Actually, I don’t. Not really.” He looked sideways at her. “You seem to, though.”

Cordelia looked sharply at him. “Meaning what exactly?.”

“Nothing,” said Wesley quickly. “I mean, not that kind of nothing. Another kind of
nothing. I meant—I simply meant you seem quite close. In a platonic, non-romantic,
completely fraternal sense,” he added.

“You’d better believe it. Because this girl is not Buffy Mark Two.” She looked from
Wesley to Angel, lying on the floor, and her face softened. “We’ve been getting to
know each other. We had a friend who died just a while back and Angel was—he was
there. Not in a let’s-share-our-feelings way, he was just there, listening, every time I
wanted to talk about Doyle.” She shook her head and added, matter-of-factly: “I don’t
want to kill him. But I will if I have to.”

Abruptly, she walked out of the living room. After a second, Wesley followed her. As
he entered the kitchen behind her, she was filling the kettle with water from the tap.
Two cups sat on the table.

“Cordelia,” said Wesley again. “When we found Angel tonight, you said—“

She interrupted, “I know what I said. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Cordelia switched on
the kettle and, turning to face Wesley, jabbed a finger in the direction of the doorway.
“When Angel turned into post-coital-bliss homicidal stalker guy on us, the first time,
Buffy didn’t slay him right away. She could have, but she didn’t. Instead she got all—
“ She tilted her head to one side and said in a high-pitched, simpering tone, “‘But I
love him, I need time.’ “ Dropping the performance, she scowled. “And while Buffy
was working through her issues, Evil Angel just got on with killing people. Like Miss
Calendar. I’m not gonna make the same mistake.”

The kettle was boiling, gasping clouds of steam into the air. Wesley watched in
silence as Cordelia spooned coffee from a jar into two cups with short, sharp
movements. He would have preferred tea, but somehow he didn’t think he was going
to be offered a choice.

Cordelia poured hot water into the mugs, then lifted the one closest to her and
wrapped her hands around it, lacing her fingers together. “Back there in the alleyway,
did you—see anything?”

He frowned, not sure what she was getting at. “I saw what you saw. Angel attacking
that woman.”

“Yes, but—apart from that?” She looked at him hopefully, and Wesley sensed she
wanted him to confirm something. He couldn’t begin to think what.

“Such as?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She sipped her drink. “He was going to kill her. Robyn
Murray.”

Wesley sat down beside her and claimed the second cup of coffee. “Yes.”

Cordelia was silent for several seconds. At last she said, “Let’s make a deal. If he
doesn’t come out of this, if we have to stake him, we do it. No recriminations or guilt
trips afterwards. We just get it over with. Angel would want it that way. The real
Angel.”

As she finished speaking, Wesley heard noises, a disturbing mixture of grunts and
whimpers, from the direction of the living room. Angel was waking up.

“Agreed,” he said. The noises coming from the next room became louder, and started
to include an increasingly violent series of thumps and bangs.

Cordelia glanced anxiously towards the door. “There’s nothing breakable within arm’s
reach in there, right?”

“I made sure of that. He shouldn’t be left alone. We’re going to have to stay with him
in shifts. As we did with Samuel.”

“Oh God,” said Cordelia, putting down her coffee: “If I thought I was out of my depth
before, this time I’m going down with the Titanic.”

“Well, I’m on board too, if that’s of any reassurance.” Smiling slightly, he added,
“And I believe the last life boat left without either of us.”

Cordelia was looking at him. “You don’t have to stay,” she said. “I mean, I’m Vision
Girl now. I’m kinda committed. But if you don’t want to hang around for Angel Goes
Crazy: The Sequel, I’ll understand.” A roar of animalistic anger and need drowned
almost out the last word. She flinched, covered it well. Not quite well enough.

“Cordelia, when you said Angel was all you had now—well, he isn’t.“ Wesley began,
and stopped. He wished fervently he was better at this kind of thing. “I mean, I helped
create this problem. I’m not going to walk away from it. Or you.” He winced: “Not
wishing to imply that you are, in any sense, a problem—“

She smiled faintly, and put her hand on his arm. “I know what you mean. Thanks,
Wesley.”

He smiled back, and almost relaxed. “Besides, I wouldn’t dream of leaving a young
lady of good breeding alone to cope with a crazed vampire. It would be rude.”

Another cry of incoherent rage and need issued from the next room. Cordelia stood
up, visibly steeled herself. “I’ll take the first shift.”

“I tell you what,” said Wesley quickly, moving to intercept her before she got to the
door: “It occurs to me that one of us should check up on Samuel. Make sure his
apparent recovery wasn’t just short term. If you go, I’ll stay with Angel.”

“I couldn’t possibly—okay,“ amended Cordelia as the cries became louder. Wesley
could see the relief suffusing through her as she shouldered her bag and pulled on her
jacket, and he knew he had at least done one thing right. Samuel, he was certain,
would be fine.

Angel was another matter altogether.

“That’s Tim,” said Samuel, pointing across the sunny playground towards the
apparatus where a group of children were climbing and swinging. “The little blonde
girl right in front of him, that’s Casey. Nina’s at home with her Mom. She hasn’t quite
got the walking thing down yet, but as soon as she does…” He gave Cordelia a
relaxed smile. He was, she thought, the picture of proud fatherhood, no different to
any of the other parents keeping watch over their playing offspring.

“They look like they’re having fun,” she remarked.

“I think they are. I mean, I’m not sure, but I think they are.” Samuel looked at her. “I
want to give them something—normal. I’m not even sure how yet.”

Cordelia thought. “You could do whatever your Dad did with you.”

He looked at her, with a wry, humourless smile. “I don’t think they’d appreciate being
beaten to within an inch of their lives on a regular basis.”

She winced. “Or you could take them to a baseball game.”

He gave a small laugh, and she was relieved to hear an element of genuine humour in
it. “It’s okay. It’s funny, y’know. My old man drank. I mean, he drank the way other
people breathed. And he’d get rough, and he’d beat up on us, and when I got old
enough I thought, there’s no way I am ever gonna do that.” He leaned forward on the
park bench. “And I didn’t. Maybe a beer now and again. Thought I was doing so well.
Weird thing is, I was leaning so hard not to fall in one direction, I overbalanced
another way. Everyone’s got his own Crave.”

“His own what?”

He sat back again. “Once, I asked my Mom why Dad did it. She said, he’s got a crave.
I was pretty young, so I thought she meant a Crave—something alive, like a parasite. I
imagined it squatting on his shoulder, whispering in his ear, telling him to have
another drink. Even when I figured what she did mean, I hung on to that picture. It
was easier to blame the bad stuff on the Crave than it was to accept it was just who he
was.”

Samuel sounded, thought Cordelia, calm, rational, in control. Everything Angel
currently wasn’t. Well, he’d been right about one thing: the magic had worked. And it
looked like the change was shaping up to be permanent.

There was nothing more Samuel needed them to do for him. And nothing more they
could do for Angel.

She stood up and pulled the strap of her bag on to her shoulder. “You’re gonna be
okay.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

“Call it a hunch. I’m sorry for cutting into your time with your kids.”

Samuel shook his head. “No, it gave me a chance to polish up my proud father
routine. It was getting rusty. Plus, you’ve given a chance to say thank you.” He looked
uncomfortable: “And also to apologise. To be honest, my memories of the past couple
of weeks are pretty hazy, but I know I was having some pretty wild hallucinations, so
I’m guessing I wasn’t the easiest person to be around.”

“Believe me,” Cordelia said, “when I tell you there are worse.”

“Thanks,” he said, and chuckled. “I haven’t felt this—clear in a long time. I mean, it’s
still there—the needing—but I’m on top of it. It’s a good feeling. And it started with
what you people did, whatever it was. You know, I actually thought I saw it leave
me?”

She looked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“I was having this freaky hallucination—there was chanting, and blue lightning, and
all kinds of weird stuff—and right then I saw it leaving me. The craving. It looked just
like I thought it did when I was a kid: black, and oily—“

“Like a jellyfish,” finished Cordelia, very quietly. “With tentacles.”

His smile vanished, replaced by a disconcerted expression. “Yeah. Hey, have you been
hanging out in my imagination?”

But Cordelia was already half way across the playground, and picking up speed.

There was a pattern, Wesley discovered. After a couple of complete cycles he found
he could anticipate each stage.

It started with begging.

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“Not yet.”

“Soon?”

Wesley checked his watch, then held up his arm so Angel could see its face. “Five
minutes.”

Inside the circle, Angel stood up, swaying slightly, vamped, manic. Wesley was
beginning to regret the decision to use magic to restrain him instead of something
tangible, like chains. The ring of white sand on the floor was effective, but there was
something more than a little unsettling about seeing Angel prowling freely within it.

“Can’t wait. Now.”

Without warning, Angel launched himself at the edge of the circle. There was a flash
of blue-green fire as he hit the air at the circumference, and he yelped in pain and fell
back. Landing on the floor, he picked himself up and criss-crossed the ring, spinning
in another direction each time he reached the line of sand defining it.

He approached the edge of the circle closest to Wesley, started to turn, then apparently
changed his mind. Standing quietly, he said, “Please. I’m—starving. You don’t
know—can’t know—what it’s like. Please.” He held up a hand, pleading. It was
shaking so hard he could barely control it. “Come here. I want—to tell you—
something—“

The ruse was so obvious that under other circumstances Wesley might have found it
amusing. Here and now, it was pitiful. “No.”

Beneath the heavy ridges on his brow, Angel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re afraid of me.”

The pleading stage was over. Wesley fought down a tired sigh. Now the threats.

“I’m afraid for you,” he corrected. “Because I know how this will end if you can’t re-
learn your control. You know as well.”

“I could snap you neck so fast you’d be dead before you felt it. I could drain you while
your heart was still beating. I could slit you open right down the middle and warm my
hands on the steam rising off your insides. I could—“

Wesley turned to the table behind him and lifted the cross sitting on it. When he held
it up, the reaction was immediate and extreme: Angel hissed and half-fell, half-
stumbled backwards. He moaned and hid his face, and after a moment Wesley tucked
the cross into his belt, out of sight.

“Angel,” he said, “You’re not an animal. Remember how you used to be able to
contain the hunger? Tap into that. Find it again.”

“Can’t. All gone. Gave it away.” He lowered his hand and sank to the floor, drawing
his knees up to his chest and rocking back and forth.

Wesley noted the foetal position and the shortened, half-formed sentences that
heralded the most desperate point of the cycle: need so intense it stripped away
everything except the most basic ability to reason and communicate.

“Your fault,” said Angel.

Wesley didn’t reply immediately. He took off his glasses and polished them. Finally
he said, “The decision was yours.”

“Should have stopped me.” The rocking grew more pronounced. “Oh God, stop me.
Please stop me. Someone stop me…”

Angel closed his eyes and buried his head in his knees, his voice becoming more and
more distorted until it was only a faint moan.

Wesley checked his watch, then went to the kitchen. Taking a tub from the newly-
replenished supply in the refrigerator, he opened it and poured a third of the contents
into a plastic beaker. He returned the tub, and carried the beaker back into the main
room.

Angel stopped rocking. He raised his head.

“It’s time,” said Wesley. He pulled the cross from his belt and held it up, watched
Angel twist and scrabble away from it until he was at the far side of the chalk circle.
Only then did Wesley approach the nearest edge. Quietly but clearly, he said, “When I
set this down, we’re going to count to ten. I want you to wait until we’re finished
before you take it. You have to learn how to make yourself wait to feed again. Can
you try to do that?”

Staring at the cup in Wesley’s hands, Angel nodded.

“All right.” He leaned forward and put the beaker down just inside the line of heaped
chalk. “Now, with me: one, two—“

Wesley jumped back as Angel launched himself across the circle and snatched the
cup. He downed the contents in a single gulp, then ran his fingers around the inside of
the beaker and licked them.

Wesley sat down and exhaled heavily. “Well, perhaps next time we’ll make it all the
way to two and a half.”

Inside the circle, Angel placed the empty cup close to the curved chalk line and
retreated. He sat down at the centre of the circle and said clearly, “You can take it
away now.”

He sounded calm, rational—briefly in control again now that the craving had been
temporarily eased. The last stage. Wesley got up and retrieved the beaker. It was
spotless.

“The woman,” said Angel. “From the diner—“

“We got to you in time. She’ll be all right.”

Angel shut his eyes, and nodded. He lowered his head for a moment; Wesley saw one
hand ball into a fist and heard him grunt with some kind of effort, and when he looked
up again, his face was human. “Thank you.”

“To be frank,” Wesley told him, “you owe more gratitude to Cordelia than me.”

“Cordelia…” His eyes clouded, as if he was sorting through recent memories with
difficulty. “There was blood… Did I—harm her?”

Wesley shook his head. “No. But you did frighten her.”

“She’s strong.”

“Perhaps not as strong as you think.” Wesley stood up. “You have a responsibility
towards her.”

“The visions…”

“Yes,” agreed Wesley. He took off his glasses and gestured with them. “But it’s more
than that. Angel, Cordelia is nineteen and barely out of school. Now she has the gifts
of a seer—an exceptionally powerful seer—and she’s grieving for this fellow Doyle.
You’re the only person in this whole city she can turn to, and your response is to
decide unilaterally to risk your sanity by indulging in some of the most unsafe magic
to come out of Mediaeval Spain.”

“I wanted to help him,” said Angel. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

“To make Samuel feel better, or yourself?” asked Wesley. He let the question hang for
a moment, then went on: “You have someone else depending on you now. You don’t
have the luxury of being selfish. And if it makes any difference now, you’re right: I
should have stopped you. I’ve been selfish too.”

But Angel was staring fixedly at a spot on the floor next to his feet, and Wesley could
tell he wasn’t getting through to him. He began to rock backwards and forwards again.

“Angel,” said Wesley. He repeated it, more sharply: “Angel.”

“I’m hungry.”

Wesley held up his watch. “Twenty minutes. You can make yourself wait.”

Angel moaned and put his hands to his face. The flesh crawled beneath his fingers,
and when he lowered them he had changed. “I want—I want—“

“Angel,” said Wesley firmly: “Fight. Come on.”

“I want to sleep.”

“You want—?” Wesley blinked, surprised. Then he understood. “You mean another
dose of tranquilliser?”

“Please. Make it—go away.”

Wesley thought of the bottle of Seditol sitting open on the kitchen table. The idea was
tempting. An hour’s respite for both Angel and himself.

But when the effects wore off, nothing would be different.

Regretfully, he shook his head. “You know it wouldn’t help. You can’t stay
permanently sedated. You have to control it when you’re awake.”

“I can’t.”

The words were spoken with a simple resignation that filled Wesley with a deeper
sense of dismay than anything he had heard so far.

Evenly, he said, “If you can’t regain control, then we’ll have to—“ He stopped. “We
won’t have any choice. We’ll give you as long as we can, but sooner or later we’ll
have to do it. Sooner or later.”

“I know.”

“Doesn’t that make any difference? Don’t you want to live?”

“Not like this.” Angel leaned forward on his hands, his head hanging down between
his shoulders. “Please. I’m hungry.”

Full circle, thought Wesley. “You have to wait.”

“Please,” repeated Angel.

“No.”

“Please.”

“Not yet.”

“Soon?”

“Soon,” said Wesley soberly. He wasn’t talking about the next feed.

“Wesley, wake up.”

The voice was female and insistent. He was comfortable and warm, and he wanted it
to go away.

“Wesley.”

“Don’t want to go to school—“ He opened his eyes and gazed blearily at the dark-
haired fuzzy shape looming above him: “Mummy? Umm. No. Cordelia. I mean -“ He
sat up in the easy chair, hooking his glasses on over his ears. Cordelia sighed.

“Believe me, being mistaken for a tea-and-scones vision of English matronhood is the
least horrible thing that’s happened to me recently. And keep your voice down—he’s
asleep.”

She stepped back and waved a hand, indicating the chalk circle, at the centre of which
Angel sprawled, insensible. Wesley gave a relieved sigh and said, more softly, “Thank
God for that. I thought he was past the point of being able to rest.”

Cordelia looked at him. “That bad, huh?”

“Well, I—“ He stopped, then nodded. “Yes. And getting worse.”

But Cordelia was no longer listening to him. Instead, she had turned back to the
circle, and was staring at the empty space between Angel and the ceiling. “I can’t see
it,” she mused. “But it’s there.”

“See what?”

Cordelia didn’t reply. She made her way around the outside of the sand circle and
began to climb the stairs leading up to the offices above. Wesley waited long enough
to make sure Angel was still sleeping soundly, then followed her.

He found her upstairs, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a massive tome
which looked to Wesley suspiciously like volume thirteen of the Black Chronicles
open in front of her. Piles of similarly ancient books surrounded her on all sides.
“Grab one,” she instructed.

“Which one? And what am I looking for?”

“Any one,” said Cordelia: “And this.”

She reached behind her and produced a rough pencil sketch, which she held out to
him. Wesley took it and lifted it to the light. It appeared to be a crude drawing of an
amorphous black blob with numerous thread-like tentacles sprouting from its top.

“You’re holding it upside down.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He righted the paper. Now he was looking at an amorphous black blob
with numerous thread-like tentacles sprouting from its base. “And this is—what,
exactly?”

“You’re Watcher Demon Expert Guy. You tell me.”

“Umm. Is it perhaps an interesting re-interpretation of the symbol they use for ‘rain’
on the weather forecast? Oh no, wait—I see it now. It’s a mutant sheep, am I right?”

Cordelia looked up from her book. “It’s the thing that’s feeding on Angel.”

“It’s feeding on—“ Wesley broke off. “How do you know?”

“Because I saw it.”

He looked at Cordelia, the drawing, then back at Cordelia. She was staring at him
boldly, daring him to contradict her. After a second, he sat down next to her, and
placed the drawing on the floor between them. “When?”

She took a short breath. “Twice. The first time was during the spell. But nobody else
saw anything, and I thought it was part of the magic. Then I saw it when Angel was
attacking that woman last night. It was hooked right into him, like it was feeding on
him at the same time he was feeding on her.”

Wesley paused, taking this in. Finally he said, “That’s what you were looking for
downstairs just now, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. But I didn’t see it. It must know I’m on to it. It’s hiding.”

“So—you think this is some kind of parasite.”

Cordelia nodded and started to talk rapidly. “I went to see Samuel. He was talking
about addiction like it was a thing. And then it hit me: it is a thing. He called it a
Crave. It’s a nasty, black, squiddy, slimy Crave, and when we did the spell we made it
jump from him to Angel. You couldn’t figure out why the spell went wrong—you said
the magic just didn’t work like that. Well, it doesn’t. There was never anything wrong
with the magic, Wesley. It was the Crave doing this to Angel all the time.”

“Cordelia—“ Wesley looked at the drawing in front of him, and then at Cordelia. Her
eyes were wide open, and everyt