This time, though, the problem was entirely the opposite. She had so little to start with that she had found herself deluged with data, virtually submerged under an ocean of info. Basically, her starting point had been demons who had some association with fire. Well, she learned, that’s kind of like trying to figure out which birds have something to do with the air. There were demons who shied away from fire—although of course they came up in the search too, specifically because they did—but there were lots and lots of demons who had close kinship with fire. It was practically, she discovered, a hallmark of the demonic, or subterrestrial, world. Even demons who lived thoroughly modern lifestyles, with electricity and modern appliances, tended to prefer fire for heat and cooking. Something about it just suited their nature. Like that whole ducks and water thing. Or attractive people and great wealth…although, since wealth is no longer mine or even on the horizon, it’d probably be best not to go there.
She turned back to the mass of data before her. Trying to find what kind of demons might start a fire was akin to the cliché about the needle and the haystack. Her database returned more demonic types than she had known existed. What she needed was a way to narrow the field, to weed out the ones who couldn’t be involved. Demons who only lived in Eastern Europe, for instance, could pretty much be written off. But there weren’t enough easy calls like that one to make much difference in her masses of information.
If only Fred were here with one of her handy-dandy math formulas, she thought. She could juggle some numbers in the air and make two-thirds of these things go away.
Of course, if Fred were here, then we wouldn’t be searching for Fred and I’d probably still be at Caritas, looking fabulous. Or else at home sleeping, which also has its advantages.
Sometimes Cordelia found herself envying Angel, Wesley, and Gunn—although Wes not so much, she knew, because often he was sucked into the research-boy role, going through his old dusty books to find this spell or that antidote or a picture of some particularly heinous breed of night thing. But the guys got to have the comparatively simple job of going out and knocking heads around until they got the answers they wanted. Not particularly sociable, but sometimes the frustration of trying to do everything by computer makes a person want to knock some heads, and there aren’t any around to knock.
“If you had a head,” she said to the computer, “you’d be in some serious trouble right about now. Of course, I guess one could say you’re all head, or all brain, at least, so watch out.”
And talking to inanimate objects, she thought, catching herself. There’s a sure sign of mental stability.
She considered taking a break, trying to go away from the screen and coming back to it a little later with a fresh eye. It works for jigsaw puzzles, she thought. But jigsaw puzzles tended not to have deadlines, especially deadlines that involved actual dead-ness. And that’s what they were facing, she feared, if they couldn’t locate Fred. So she gave up on that idea, took a couple of deep breaths, screwed her eyes shut, and then opened them again. There you go. Fresh eyes.
I wonder if the others are making any headway, Angel thought as he steered his GTX through L.A.’s dark streets. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and pushed the button that would scroll through his saved phone numbers. Cordelia first, then Wesley and Gunn, and Lorne last. Too much time had elapsed since he’d talked to them all—time that couldn’t be spared, if Fred was to be saved.
But all he got from the phone was a weak beep and a LOW BATTERY display. He tried the glove compartment, looking for the car cable, but couldn’t find it. He switched off the useless thing and shoved it back into his pocket. Pay phone, then. He started to watch the sides of the road for one.
He’d been shaking a lot of trees tonight, hoping some rotten fruit would fall out. He needed something to go on—anything would be more than he had so far, which was effectively nothing. Fred had been there, then she’d been gone. A complex combination of diversions, which had obviously taken considerable planning and split-second timing. Schemes like that didn’t happen in a vacuum. Somebody knew something. It’s just that L.A.’s such a big place, with so many people—and non-people. Finding the right ones with no clues to go on is a huge job.
The sidewalks were empty, and only the occasional car shared the streets with his. Block after block rolled by, and no pay phone came into sight. The neighborhood he was cruising was a mixed one, mostly retail and commercial on the ground floors, residential upstairs. Everyone who frequents the area either uses a phone in a place of business, or in their apartment, he guessed. For a brief moment he wondered if the proliferation of cell phones meant that there were fewer pay phones around, but then figured that the number of truly inane pay phone commercials on TV, whenever he made time to watch, suggested otherwise.
The glow of a twenty-four-hour convenience store on a parallel block caught his eye, though. Those places usually have phones, he thought, performing a sharp right turn from the left lane. His tires squealed, but there was no one else on the street at the moment, so no danger to other drivers or pedestrians. He gunned the powerful engine, swallowing the block in seconds, and turned into the convenience store’s parking lot. A clerk inside sat behind his sales counter, seemingly engrossed in a tabloid, and didn’t even glance his way. But there was a pay phone underneath the store’s overhang. Angel climbed out of the convertible without opening the door and went to the phone. He stuck his hand in his pants pocket, looking for change.
And he came up empty. He checked his coat, also fruitlessly. He returned to the car, looked around the dash, the instrument panel, tugged open the ashtray he never used. Zip.
He went into the store. As he crossed the threshold, an electronic chime rang. The clerk didn’t put down the tabloid. Angel saw that the cover story was about a baby born with two heads, one of which was that of a fish. It looked like a salmon, but he wasn’t entirely sure about that from this distance.
“Can I get change for the phone?” Angel asked with forced casualness.
“I can’t open the drawer unless you buy something.”
Angel snatched a pack of gum off the candy rack. “Okay, pack of gum,” he snapped.
The clerk slowly put down the paper, folding it carefully, as if it were something precious. Probably hasn’t paid for it, Angel suspected, and wants to be able to sell it as new.
“Sixty cents,” the clerk said. He was a young guy, under twenty, Angel guessed, with bad skin and greasy hair. He rang in the sale and the cash drawer chinged open.
Angel handed him a five. “Couple dollars in quarters,” he said. “As long as your drawer’s open.”
The kid laboriously counted out Angel’s change, and then eight quarters and two singles, and handed it all to Angel. “Phone outside’s busted,” he said. “So don’t try using that one. It’ll just eat your money.”
“You couldn’t have told me that before?” Angel asked, on the verge of losing his patience.
“You’d still need change if you went to a different phone,” the kid said. Which was true. “And I still couldn’t give it to you without ringing up a sale. Besides”—he opened his lips and showed Angel an enormous wad of green gum between his teeth—“everybody needs gum.”
“It’s kind of an emergency,” Angel said. “Is there a store phone I could use?”
“Employees only,” the kid said. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded amused. There were brief moments, on extremely rare occasions, when Angel wished he were still evil. This was becoming one of those moments. “You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?”
Angel almost told the kid that he’d rather see him lose his head, but he managed to restrain himself. He also realized that even if he succeeded in gaining the use of the store’s phone for his calls, the kid would surely listen in, and he didn’t want that, either. He just turned away and went back out the door. As he left, he could hear the kid settling back into his chair, and the rustling as he unfolded the tabloid again.
<
br /> Pocket jingling with change, Angel climbed back into his car.
“No human could have taken her right out from under us,” Wesley insisted. “Therefore, by talking only to human sources, we’re wasting precious time.”
Gunn shook his head. The argument had been dragging on for a while now. “You’re most likely right that she wasn’t snatched by humans,” he admitted. “But that don’t mean that humans don’t keep track of what goes on in the demon world. Look at us—we’re both human, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“And we know from demons, don’t we?”
“I think it’s safe to say that we’re somewhat rare cases, Gunn.”
“Yeah,” Gunn acknowledged. “Rare, but not unique. My old crew keeps pretty close tabs on vamps, right? I didn’t train ’em all—lots of us just found one another, because we had that thing in common. But we already knew about the vamps, for one reason or another.” He stopped for a moment, listening. They were walking along a quiet, dark street in a neighborhood where most people who went out at night didn’t have human kindness on their minds. But Gunn knew it was those streets, most often, where information changed hands. The mean streets were the first Internet, where word of any lawless activity passed from mouth to ear faster than the electrical impulses raced down wires and onto computer screens.
I wonder if we should look up the guys, he thought. See if they’ve heard anything. The idea had crossed his mind several times, and he’d dismissed it each time. Since he had chosen to go to Pylea with Angel, Wesley, and Lorne, he hadn’t exactly been Mr. Popularity with the crew of vampire hunters he’d once led. Maybe as a very last resort, he decided. Maybe.
“I’ve learned a lot more about what’s out there, hangin’ with y’all,” he continued. “But there’s nothing to say that other people with different experiences from mine don’t know about other types of demons or whatever.”
“People have always known,” Wesley agreed softly. “Those ancient books I have—they were obviously written by people, for the most part. Fairy stories, legends, tales of monsters and supermen and gremlins—they show up in every human culture, every race, in every country on Earth. They try—we try—to claim that we don’t believe, that we really do consider it just a lot of fanciful nonsense. But we do believe. In the darkest hours of the night, if you ask any one of us, I think you’ll get the honest answer. There’s more to the world than we acknowledge in the daylight, and the things that move through the night scare us.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Gunn shot back. “People know, and the kind of people we’re lookin’ for tonight, ones who stay out when they shouldn’t, they’re the ones who might have some clue, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Wesley replied. He didn’t sound at all convinced. “Someone—a demonic someone, I’m positive—targeted Fred. That means they targeted Angel, because certainly they knew that to touch Fred would bring down Angel’s wrath. No demon would take such a step lightly, and they’d be very sure that their venture, whatever its goal, wasn’t compromised by interference from humans. They’d take pains to make sure they weren’t observed. I mean, look at how they got in and out with Fred so easily. They must be teleporters, matter shifters, dimension hoppers, or something along those lines. Couldn’t they guarantee that some vampire hunter didn’t spot them taking her into a hiding place?”
This is so frustrating, Gunn thought. Wesley’s right, and I’m right too. But we can’t both be right, and we can’t take the chance that either one of us is wrong. “What it comes down to is, we have to do whatever we can do,” he offered.
“That sounds right,” Wesley agreed.
“Because it’s Fred.”
Wesley almost smiled, Gunn thought. But then, it was dark out, so he couldn’t be positive. “Because it’s Fred,” the ex-Watcher agreed.
They had covered three more blocks, walking together in silent agreement and purpose, when they spotted him. He waited in the shadows, far outside the glow of any streetlamp, no doubt for a hapless victim to come along. But Gunn was used to looking at shadows, and he saw the form, a black shape in the blackness of night. He nudged Wesley. “Up ahead, on the right.”
Wes peered into the darkness for a moment. “I see him,” he said. “Human? Perhaps a mugger?”
“Can’t tell yet. Let’s get a little closer, see if he tries to take us.”
“He won’t,” Wesley speculated. “Two against one? The way he’s hiding in the shadows, he doesn’t appear to be particularly courageous. I imagine he’ll let us pass and wait for someone a bit less threatening.”
“Then we’ll have to force his hand,” Gunn said with a grin. The prospect wasn’t at all unpleasant. At least it was action—doing nothing was what really killed him.
The figure kept its position in the shadows, apparently secure in its belief that it couldn’t be seen, as they approached it. It was pressed up against the wall of a building on their right. When they were dead even with it and it still hadn’t shown itself, Gunn and Wes both decided as one that it was time to act. They had fought together often enough that they didn’t even need to strategize—they simply turned and charged to the right, slamming the figure up against the wall.
In response, the person—a male, they could see now—responded by vamping out and slamming them with powerful arms, knocking them both back across the sidewalk.
Gunn picked himself up and gave a low chuckle. “Dog,” he said, a friendly tone in his voice. “I didn’t know you was a vamp. Wouldn’t ever have tried a move like that on y’all if I did.”
Wesley sounded shocked. “Gunn, have you lost your mind?” he whispered.
“Look, man, he ain’t lookin’ to eat us, because if he wanted to, he would’ve already. But maybe he can help us out with our little problem. What do you think?” he said, addressing the vampire who held his position by the wall. “Can you answer a couple questions?”
Wesley was already advancing on the vamp with a stake clenched in his fist, though. Even in the dim light Gunn could see Wesley’s knuckles, white because of the tension with which he gripped the wood. “I don’t see any particular advantage to politeness,” he said angrily. “You will answer our questions, vampire, or you will be dust.”
“Chill, Wes,” Gunn pleaded. “There ain’t no call for this.”
“There’s every call,” Wesley countered. “Time is of the essence. What will it be, bloodsucker?”
Gunn was now close enough to the vamp to make out his expression, which had shifted from one of rage to something that looked, beneath the ridged forehead, beady eyes, and fanged mouth, like concern. His gaze ticked from Wesley to Gunn and back again, as if he were watching a tennis match.
Maybe the good cop/bad cop routine will work on him, Gunn thought. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind, at the beginning. And the brutality of Wesley’s immediate response had surprised him—sure, the guy’s a vamp, and we dust vamps. But not until after we get the information out of them.
The ex-Watcher, he figured, was just so stressed about Fred that it was making him act in ways he ordinarily wouldn’t. But that was okay—Gunn could be the good cop for a change, play against type, as long as the routine ended with a vamp getting dusted. We gotta keep this one intact for a minute, though, vamp or no, just because I don’t want us to lose Fred.
Because I don’t want to lose Fred.
He decided to play his role to the hilt, though. “Ease off, Wes,” he said. “I think this vamp’ll cooperate when he sees we’re not out to hurt him.”
The vampire didn’t look especially comforted, and Wesley continued to advance cautiously, stake held out before him.
“You—your name is Wesley?” the vampire asked.
“That’s right,” Gunn answered quickly, picking up on the real source of the vamp’s concern. “That’s Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I’m called Gunn. Heard of us?”
The vamp nodded—a little fearfully, Gunn observed, with a degree of satisfaction. “Ye
ah, that’s what I figured,” he continued. “We work with a guy named Angel. You know who that is, right?”
The vampire nodded again. He’s definitely realizing this has all the makings of a bad night, Gunn thought.
“So you know Wes there won’t mind dustin’ you if you give him half a reason, right? I mean, that’s kinda what we’re all about. But, your lucky night, you might’ve caught a break. Because tonight we’re really looking more for talk than action, if you catch my drift.”
The vampire nodded one more time. His gaze darted right and left, as if looking for an escape route, but Gunn and Wes had him boxed in. “Wh-what do you wanna talk about?” he asked in a quavering voice. Gunn speculated that he was relatively new at the whole vamp thing—most vampires who had been around a while knew never to show fear, even if they felt it. And most vamps didn’t seem to feel it, as if all the human victims they took gave them the confidence to believe that they could always win, even up against humans, like Gunn and Wes, who’d been down this road dozens of times.
“If you know who Angel is, then maybe you’ve heard about something that happened tonight to one of his people.”
“I don’t know what you mean, man,” the vampire said. “I don’t really pay attention to talk, you know?”
“So there is talk?” Wesley demanded.
“Hey, there’s always talk,” the vamp said dismissively. “Most times it don’t mean anything.”
“But maybe this time it does,” Gunn pointed out. He moved a step closer and put a hand out toward Wesley, trying to look as if he was reaching to stop him, but really closing the web around the vamp, making sure there was no place for him to run. “Don’t stake him yet, man, let him talk.”
“He’s got nothing for us,” Wesley said with a snarl. He pushed past Gunn’s hand, pressing the stake right up against the vampire’s chest. Gunn wasn’t certain that Wes was playing a part—he looked like he really wanted to dust this one. “Let’s just finish him and move on.”
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