The Darkening of the Light

By superninja

All characters belong to WB and Joss Wheedon.

Takes place in Season 2.

***

Wesley had decided to go down and tell him the "good" news.

Ha!

Knowing him, he'd just sulk and ignore him. She waited for Wesley to make his way back up the stairs. Gunn had already left several minutes ago, between the hangover they'd left with at the demon karaoke bar, and their arguing over who was going to go downstairs and tell Angel off, he said he needed to sleep, minus the ringing in his ears and was gone.

Wesley leaned out slowly from the shadows, as Cordelia caught his gaze from across the hotel lobby. Her eyes told him it was time to spill his guts, but he felt a stutter coming on and opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Well?! What did you say? I hope you told him off, and good."

"I…" he began. "I said that we would continue to fight the good fight, even if he would not." He paused.

"AND?!" she pressed. "What did he say?"

Wesley was tired. He was hungover and he was always the one who had to do the unpleasant things. The "talking" unpleasant things, anyway, that always had to do with seriousness and deciphering and...

Cordelia took it as a sign that yet again, Wesley had let him off light. Wes didn't have it in him to give Angel a good piece of mind. Thank God she was still here, or she'd have to go home angry and unheard! Angry was okay, but she was tired of going out of her way not to step on his undead toes. It was about time…

Cordelia brushed past him and began heading down the stairs in a huff as Wesley grabbed her arm.

"Don’t'…"

"Oh, and why not? Is Angel being all quiet and dark and mysterious again? Big deal. It's about time that he had a good confrontation, and not the 'I have to go and dwell on my beloved Darla' again sort!"

"He..he was practicing," Wesley started.

"Really?" Cordelia said with consternation. "I'm going to go practice my communication skills on him right now. If I'm going to be a demon killer for a living," she said maniacally. "It'll be good practice to do it on the unliving among us. I'm branching out these days…"

"With knives."

"What?"

"He was practicing with knives."

Cordelia sighed and moved back toward the desk.

"Too bad he wasn't practicing on Darla's head," she huffed, and planted herself in the chair.

"He's too unstable right now to reach," he replied, moving towards her and leaning over the desk. "My only hope…our only hope…is to show him the error of his ways through our own actions."

Cordelia's eyes widened and she put her head in her hands and began sobbing with exaggeration.

"I'm going to be an *example*? Wesley, I'm only twenty years old! I've got many, many more years before I'm supposed to set an example!"

Wesley rolled his eyes, but cornered the action and leaning forward, patted her on the shoulder.

"There, there, Cordelia. You've grown up quite a lot since you left Sunnydale. We all have."

She shot her head up and pulled away from him, sucking her tears in.

"Shut up, Wesley. You just shut up. I thought I'd found my place in things, and now it's all falling apart. We're going to get our ass kicked out there," she said, pointing towards the door. "This isn't a game! We don't have a Buffy or an Angel or even Faith anymore. It's just us against that horrible supernatural world. I can't even see a vampire movie now, because I'm analyzing how it's all wrong. How normal is that? And I like Tom Cruise!"

"Your attitude certainly seemed more positive when we defeated that demon earlier tonight."

"ONE DEMON, Wesley! Sure, I was all jazzed at the moment…someone had to inspire the troops, and keep you from fainting at the sight of your own blood…"

Wesley rolled his eyes again as she continued.

"Besides, I've got a major hangover now. A hangover filled with anger. That vision only kept it off for an hour or two. He's such a jerk! More than any of us he has something to lose. I mean, I guess we have our lives to lose, but he has a soul to lose. That's no laughing matter, but he's downstairs playing in the dirt so he can chase after Darla just like he's always done."

Wesley sighed and rubbed his temples. He knew they kept some asprin around here somewhere…He couldn't take her blathering all night. Justified blathering, but blathering coupled with a hangover nonetheless.

"Do you realize that, Wesley? Nothing has changed," she looked up at him and met his eyes as he shook his head. "Did the Angel we believed in ever really exist, or was it just a dream…you know, the Powers That Be are dead."

She was contemplating the creatures that she owed her current situation to.

" They left me with an eternal headache, but they certainly weren't eternal. How could creatures that could see into the future be killed so easily? Didn't they see it coming, or maybe they don't know so much after all. Maybe that Shanshu thing was all a bunch of Brady Bunch crap. A sweet, sappy story about a future that they hoped could be. Angel is the dad, and Gunn is Greg, and I'm Marsha, of course…"

"Now you're just being irrational," Wesley answered her. "You've seen plenty of examples of creatures that had powers that didn't always circumvent their deaths, or prevent those of others. The scroll is thousands of years old…how can you just disregard it after all you've seen?"

"What I see," Cordelia said seething, "Is a man that, according to Giles, was kind of an asshole before he was made a vamp, became an even *bigger* asshole AFTER he was vamped, got a soul, was good for awhile," she took a deep breath to continue. "Became an asshole, was good for awhile," she added quickly, "and STILL BECAME AN ASSHOLE!"

***

He could hear them yelling on the floor above.

It was a danger that could weaken him, catering to the needs of his friends. Someday, if they all survived this, he would explain to them why he'd one what he'd done.

Another knife flew from his hand, and landed on the outer edge of the target. The second time tonight. The first time had been when Wesley had disturbed his practice. He had to concentrate, to not let their emotions seep into his consciousness.

Dealing Darla and Dru a nasty blow tonight had been difficult for him. Part of him always would remember them in their human form. Drucilla as that frightened madwoman in the church…the horrors he had inflicted on her, and all too willing. He would never stop paying for it. The fact that Darla had been turned by Dru had proven that.

The past always came back to haunt him.

Darla. He had known her first as a vampire, as his siress. And then Wolfram & Hart had brought her back and he had finally known her in her true form, as a woman that had once lived and breathed as much as anyone. When he was done correcting his mistakes, he would come for Wolfram. Come hell or high water.

The others would never understand the deep-rooted need in him to free them both. For too long they had been prisoners to the curse of the vampire. His curse as well, but he still had a war to fight.

And now his mission was to rid the world of two vampires before they tore this city apart.

And to free the souls of two women who had lived in damnation for over a hundred years.

Darla would be free whether she liked it or not.

***

Cordelia woke up with a major headache, and to the sound of a ringing phone.

Looking at her alarm, she saw it was 10:00 AM in the morning.

She ignored it.

Dennis, the ghost that haunted her apartment, had been hesitant to communicate with her all night.

But now, she needed some Tylenol, and Dennis had the bottle ready at her bedstand.

She didn't really want to get up. Her thoughts were a jumble. Head to the hotel, or snatch the paper off the neighbor's stoop and look through the want ads?

"Dennis, what should I do now? I'm a mess," she pleaded to her invisible roommate. Taking the initiative from his silence, she slid out of the bed and went to her closet.

Putting on her workout clothes, she decided to go for a run.

But then she had to make it past the door. She'd heard that exercise always helped chase away a hangover, but then there was that door.

After giving herself the "Little Engine That Could" speech, she shoved the door open and jogged out onto the front lawn.

She'd made it only a few feet before she noticed the two robed figures standing at the end of her walkway.

"Um…I already have my subscription to 'Monks Today' so you guys can just stop at the next house."

Cordelia backed against the door scrambling for the knob as the two drew closer.

One hand shot out, covered in a brown leather glove as Cordelia gasped.

The hood of her captor turned up, and she saw Darla's smile peer from below its cowl.

"I can still snap your neck before you can scream."

Cordelia recoiled in shock, speechless as the other hooded figure spoke in a singsong voice.

"I've always wanted a sister."

***

Wesley stormed into the hotel, sliding on his initial run down the slippery tiles in the entrance.

It had taken him hours to decipher Dennis' erratic messages on the walls of Cordelia's apartment, but he'd finally understood.

What brought him over there in the first place was the fact that no one had answered the phone. Four hours later, he had decided to venture a visit, despite her agitated state the night before.

And now…Dear God! Cordelia was in the clutches of those two unholy terrors.

He prayed Angel was still below, honing his skills on the training equipment they had bought.

The knives. Angel had been practicing with knives the night before, and he was so unpredictable. His very words came back to him, talking him out of potential disaster.

NO! Who knows what they were doing to her… He had to find Angel. Cordelia's life, her very soul was at stake. He had to risk it.

He took step after step down the stairs, as solidly as he could, so Angel would know he was there.

The last step was here, and there were no lights. He stepped onto the basement floor and was plunged into darkness.

"Angel?"

He called him names a few times, but he wasn't there. Or wasn't answering.

Reaching for the switch, he turned on the light and scanned the room. Angel was nowhere to be found.

Scanning the room, he looked for a clue, a hint of where Angel had gone. And then his eyes settled on the grate on the floor of the room. It was unhinged, just a crack.

Angel had gone into the sewers.

Wesley swallowed. There were all kinds of demons and vampires in the sewers. They liked the darkness, as he did. But then there was Cordelia to think about.

Maybe he should call Gunn…

***

A series of demons were blocking his approach to the surface.

There was no way they had just happened upon this juncture. Darla knew the paths he took, or at least she could guess.

Regardless, they wouldn't be a match for him, not any more than the group who had last crossed his path.

Angel drew the sword out slowly and surely before them. He notice a few of them begin to cower. Good, he would kill them last.

Angel dove towards the eight foes, as the first took a direct approach, he sidled him, and turned to impale the vampire on his left.

The creature turned to ash as he ducked back towards the wall and thrust forward, splitting the demon's head that turned against him.

They were on him again, but he knew he had nothing to fear…he was more aware than he had ever been before in his life.

As one ducked beneath his swing, he dropped the sword, and shot a knife out of his wrist launcher and stabbed the demon deep in his skull.

Another vampire was trying to take a bite out of his shoulder, but he twisted and grabbed a stake from his belt, and thrust it into its heart.

He leapt forward as two others reached for him, and turned and twisted to grab the sword on the floor, charging upright and ended both a demon and a vampire at once.

Only four more to go.

Except, there were no more.

Angel looked around. The room was empty except for two humans.

Humans.

It was Wesley and Gunn. They stood in front of him, scratched with demon's talons, vampire marks, and stared him down gravely.

Hopefully, Wesley wasn't going to give him another lecture on the "good fight". Time was of essence to him.

"They have Cordelia."

Angel stood perfectly still, but he felt his blood pressure rise.

"What?" he asked. It was the first word he had murmured in days.

Gunn took the point and decided to bring it home to him, as realistically as possible.

"They have Cordelia -- Darla and her girl. We want her back and we need your help."

***

To be continued…