“Angel, it’s me,” she heard Wes say. Like that’s not the lamest greeting, because how many people could legitimately identify themselves as “me”? “We might have something here. I’ll spare you all the details, but we’re following some Roshon demons who believe that Kedigris demons are responsible for the drive-by shooting. They know where there’s a Kedigris lair, in a building right by Caritas, so that’s where we’re headed.” He listened a moment. “No, I’m not sure. We’re just following their car. All right, yes, I’ll let you know when we get there.”
He put the phone away. “Angel’s drawn a blank,” he told them. “He’s on his way back to Caritas. He says because that’s where it all happened, that’s got to be the place to start. He’s going to cover everything there until he finds her. We’re supposed to call him when we find out precisely where this Kedigris lair is.”
“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” Gunn said.
“Sounds like as good a plan as none,” Cordelia corrected. “Which is pretty much what we’ve been working with all night.”
“Sometimes plans are overrated,” Gunn said.
“Especially when you can’t think of one,” Cordy shot back.
“Yeah,” Gunn admitted. “Especially then.”
Her legs almost failed her, at first. She caught herself on the radiator and supported herself there while her blood remembered how to find its way around her body. Getting free of the handcuffs was only step one, Fred knew. Now she had to get out of this room, if possible, and then out of whatever building she was in, and then find a way to get in touch with Angel, to tell him that she had escaped before he had to face the possibility of sacrificing himself to save her. Any or all of those additional steps might involve running, which would be hard to do on legs that felt, as they did at this moment, like dry, brittle twigs. Her ankle and arm throbbed where John had cut her, and there was blood all over her from her various wounds.
And what if Angel just laughs at me and says, “I was never going to sacrifice myself for you, Fred?” Because that’s the right answer, that’s what he should say. But would he? She shook her head, hoping to clear away such counterproductive thoughts. She had made good progress; now she just had to work on the rest of it, and thinking along those lines wasn’t going to help in the least.
When her legs started to feel a little more functional, she went to the window and pressed her face against the cool glass. No help there. She could tell only that she was a few floors up, too high to jump safely, but beyond that all she could see was a dark alley and a plain brick wall across the way. Nothing to identify where she was. She realized she couldn’t even open the thing, because it had been painted shut so many times, it was jammed.
She gave up on that and crossed the hardwood floor to the door, moving on tiptoe, staying as quiet as she could. At the door, she stopped and listened. When she heard nothing, she pressed her ear cautiously against it. Still nothing. For all she could tell, it opened onto some kind of galactic void, and when she passed through she’d be sucked into the vacuum of space, never to return. But at least there I wouldn’t put Angel in danger, she thought.
Apparently whoever had left her here hadn’t expected her to get out of the handcuffs, because the door’s only lock, on this side, was set into the doorknob. A key was needed on the outside, but not here. Fred turned the lock with two fingers and then wrapped her hand around the knob.
This was the scary part. She was a prisoner, in here, but as far as she could determine, she was in no immediate danger. But when she went through that door, she might find herself in the middle of her captors. There might be an armed guard with orders to kill her if she tried to escape.
On the other hand, there might be no remaining obstacles between herself and freedom. She had to try.
She turned the knob and opened the door less than an inch, just enough to see through the crack. Looking out, she saw that the door opened onto a stairway. Some kind of apartment building, maybe, or an old office building? The stairs had a smooth wooden banister on white-painted balustrades running alongside them. From here, she could tell that she was on some middle floor—stairs ran up and down from this point. A faded and worn carpet runner was tacked to the middle of the stairs, a couple of inches of wood showing at each side. The walls were covered with a natural wood wainscoting to a height of about five feet, and whitewashed plaster above that. Sconces set into the walls held electric bulbs, illuminating the stairway.
Best of all, there was no one in sight.
She swung the door open all the way and stepped through.
There were three other doors on this level, all closed, all with brass letters on them. The door she had come out had the letter H on it. This wasn’t telling her anything useful, she knew. She just had to go down the stairs and out, hoping against hope that there was no one waiting at the bottom for just such an eventuality.
She swallowed and stepped onto the first stair. The runner kept her footstep almost silent. She tried the next one. A little creak, but not too bad. She knew she couldn’t take them all so slowly, though—she had to move.
She was about to do just that when she heard a door open and shut, and footsteps sound on the stairs below. Several sets of them. Then voices, more than one. “…getting pretty late. I think we’re golden,” one of them said.
That person—the voice sounded male—was answered by another, saying, “Yeah, but we can’t take any chances now.”
Fred had heard that voice before. It was John, the guy who had been in the room with her for a while, the one with the remarkable green eyes that had reminded her of Jack’s. Which means they’re coming for me. Coming to slice me up some more, no doubt.
Covered by the noise they made as they tromped up the stairs, Fred spun around. She couldn’t go down, and she certainly wasn’t going back into the room in which she’d spent the last several, miserable hours of her life. That left only one direction.
She bypassed the floor she’d been on and continued heading up.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re kidding me, right?” Lorne demanded as the imposter tried to commandeer his stage. “I mean, the suit’s mine, so you’ve been into my office. But the rest of it…well, it’s a good look for you, whoever you are. Unfortunately, it’s a look I’m already using!”
“Can you believe this guy?” the phony Lorne demanded of the audience. “What kind of nerve must it take to pretend to be me in my own place? In front of my dearest friends and customers, no less?”
I’ve got to admit, Lorne thought, he sounds just like me, and he looks just like me. If I didn’t know I was me, I’d have a hard time telling us apart. Which has got to make it hard for everyone else, since they don’t have that advantage.
The fake Host crisscrossed the stage as he talked, probably relying on the old shell game trick of making the rubes forget where the pea was by swapping out the shells faster than the eye could follow. “Now, I’ve asked you people to put up with a lot tonight,” he said. “But this—this goes beyond the ridiculous. For this faker to represent himself as me, to try to pass himself off to you folks, is just reprehensible.”
“News flash, tall, handsome, and fraudulent,” Lorne cut in angrily. “You’re the one trying to pass.”
The fake one raised his hands as if giving up. “Can you believe it?” he asked the crowd. “Not only does he have the temerity to claim he’s me, but then he accuses me of not being myself. Who else would I be?” He suddenly whirled and pointed a finger at Lorne. “You, sir, are surely a shape-shifter in disguise!”
There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd. Given the mood they were in, Lorne knew, it wouldn’t take much to set them off. And if they get too involved in trying to undo a nonexistent disguise, they could do some serious damage to my real face. Which I’m kind of attached to.
“Don’t listen to that phony,” Lorne urged the onlookers. “I’ve been talking to you all night, wearing these same clothes. You’ve got to
see that.”
“Which just proves my point,” the other one said. “How many times have you seen me spend that many hours in one outfit? I mean, come on. They’d revoke my clotheshorse license for an infraction like that.”
“Give me a break,” Lorne said in disgust. “When would I have had time to change?”
“Like I can’t do it during a number,” the other pointed out. “You’ve all seen me intro an act in one ensemble, and then greet the next in something totally other. Now he’s even casting aspersions on my quick-change capabilities, just to cover for his own inadequacy.”
Lorne realized that the imposter was speaking with more eloquence than he was. Flustered by the appearance of the sham Lorne, he could barely stammer out responses to the phony one’s charges, while the other one had at least the momentary advantage of surprise. So upset and taken aback was Lorne that he could barely form a complete thought, much less phrase one with any elegance at all. “Now listen,” he said furiously. “Get off my stage and take off my face, you fake.”
The other Lorne virtually ignored him, concentrating instead on playing to the crowd. “Would the real me ever take to talking like some Sopranos extra?” he asked. “If there ever was any doubt as to which one of us was legit, I think it’s gone, don’t you?”
“Yeah!” someone in the audience answered. “It’s gotta be the Skander! Let’s get him!”
Well, he’s right about one thing, Lorne thought. The phony me is undoubtedly the Skander. He knew he was exposed, so he decided to go for this stunt. If he can persuade them to try to tackle me, he can escape in the commotion when the protective spell knocks them on their various behinds.
So I can’t let him get away with it.
“It is the Skander,” Lorne agreed. “But it’s him, not me. He’s the imposter here.”
The audience reacted, but Lorne didn’t like the way they sounded. “How do we know that?” someone asked. “Prove it!” another yelled.
Prove it, Lorne thought. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? But something had to be done before the crowd took it upon themselves to work things out.
“I think it’s already proven,” the false Host said. “I look like me, I sound like me, and I think you know that.”
The crowd surged toward the stage, agreement evident in their angry voices. Lorne guessed that he was only seconds away from raw anarchy and rage, mostly directed at him. He’d lost control of the audience, and he was about to suffer their wrath if he didn’t do something quick.
“Okay, wait,” Lorne shouted, holding his hands up toward them. “Just hold on. I can prove it.”
The other one put his hands on his hips and glared at Lorne with mocking distaste. “Oh, you can, can you? I’d love to see how you prove something that isn’t true.”
“Watch and learn, fraudulent one,” Lorne said. He scanned the audience and located Visssclorf, the Shrenli demon. “You, Visssclorf,” he said. “I talked to you for a while. I didn’t get a chance to read you, but promised to later. I know you have a personal issue facing you—I won’t go into what it is, hence the use of the word personal. But you know what I mean. And I’d be willing to bet this joker, this counterfeit, over here”—he indicated the alternate Lorne, standing by watching with an expression of disbelief—“has no idea what your issue is, or even that you have an issue. Or what your name is, for that matter, since Skanders and Shrenlis don’t tend to socialize.”
“Of course I know Visssclorf,” the fake Lorne insisted. “How could I not?”
Lorne ignored him, instead picking out Misty from the crowd. “I know your name, which I’m willing to wager this forgery over here doesn’t. And I know what you think of Angel’s friend Doyle—what did you call him, a hero? He doesn’t know any of that, because he spent the night in his true, Skander form instead of talking to each of you like I did.”
The other Lorne looked at him, a crestfallen expression washing across his face. The audience fell silent, but Lorne could still sense the barely checked fury that gripped the room. He couldn’t blame them—on top of everything else they’d been through, to have someone try to fool them this way would be infuriating. “You didn’t really think you could pull off the old bait-and-switch, did you?” he asked. But he knew the Skander almost had, and even though the crowd seemed to be on his side again, their loyalty was tenuous. It wouldn’t take much to lose them again.
Pressing his temporary advantage, Lorne raised an accusatory finger toward his opponent, much the same way the other one had pointed at him just a few minutes before. “You don’t know that Urf’dil and Mif’tal think Angel is as close to a savior as you’ll find in this city! You don’t know what Virg blames Angel for! All you know is that you’re a fraud and a fake and you’re wearing a form that isn’t yours. Caritas is a sanctuary, Quort, but not for those who use its safety to hide from their crimes. By hiding, by pretending to be me, you’ve proven to us that you’re involved with Fred’s kidnapping.” The big finish! Those Perry Mason reruns were paying off after all.
The sham Lorne backed away from the real one, ruby eyes wide with fear. “Just hold on,” he said. “You haven’t proved anything.”
“You’re a fake!” someone called from the floor.
Another voice rang out. “Get the phony!” Then the shouts came all at once, with one thing in common: They wanted blood. Lorne was starting to wonder if there was a way to take the Skander into custody and learn the truth about Fred, or if the mob would simply force him to go outside where they could tear him apart. He’d stirred them up, and now he needed to quiet them or he still wouldn’t be any closer to finding her.
“Let’s all just calm down, and—,” he started to say, but then he stopped in the middle of his sentence. The fake him was undulating, kind of like a still pool of water after a stone has been tossed in. He was changing again, Lorne realized, giving up his handsome, though stolen, form, for something else. Something nasty.
When the shape-shifter stopped shifting, he was hideous and frightening looking. He was big and powerful looking, with muscular arms that ended in sharp, steely blades instead of hands or claws. His head was domed and massive, like half a basketball further split by a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth and a flicking, pointed tongue. Short legs gave him a low center of gravity, and a spiked, swishing tail promised danger for anyone who got too close. His yellow suit changed, too, and Lorne realized with some relief that he hadn’t actually stolen the backup suit he had in his office but had merely duplicated it. It became a metallic-looking garment that draped across the demon’s chest and hung down between his legs like a loincloth.
But the whole thing threw him for a loop, because this guy had actually shape-shifted, which Skanders can’t do. This wasn’t a glamour, this was a sea change.
The crowd, which had been edging toward the stage, shrank back. This thing couldn’t attack him, or anyone else, inside Caritas. But it could do a lot of property damage if it wanted to, and there would be no way to stop it.
“Listen,” he tried, “we don’t need to have a problem here. A bigger problem than we already do, I mean. I just want to know where Fred is and how to get her back. You are obviously involved, which means you can help us rescue her. If you don’t, there’s no way you’re getting through this crowd in one piece.”
“You don’t think so?” Quort said. His voice no longer sounded like Lorne’s, or even his own, Skander voice. As he changed shape, Lorne speculated, even his vocal cords must have altered. Now his voice was all clear, booming bass, dripping with menace. Darth Vader with ’roid rage. “You want to try me?”
Lorne definitely didn’t. He was no coward, but neither was he suicidal. He couldn’t really back down, though, and just let the Skander walk away.
“I’ll try you,” someone called from the floor. Lorne saw Virg, the Kailiff, break away from the crowd and step up onto the stage. Virg, who owed nothing to Angel and, in fact, hated the vampire detective because of his own brother’s death. Kaili
ffs were tough, no doubt about that. But could this one go up against the Skander alone? Lorne doubted it. And I have to stop thinking of it as a Skander. Virg seemed fine with the idea, though, and no one else from the crowd appeared willing to back him up.
“Be my guest, Kailiff,” the shape-shifter said. His tail swished twice, fast and terrible with the long spikes at its tip. “Let’s go.”
“You tried to pin this on me,” Virg growled. He closed on Quort, hands closed into gigantic fists, head down so his own spikes would come into play. Lorne backed to the edge of the stage, not wanting to be in the way when these two titans met. “That doesn’t fly,” Virg continued. “I can take the heat for things I do, but I won’t have things I’m not part of put on me. Anyway, I think I know—”
Quort made the first move, cutting off the Kailiff in mid-sentence. He rushed the Kailiff with his sharp-edged arms outthrust and slashing. As soon as they neared each other, the sanctuary spell kicked in. There was a bright flash and a loud boom and a ripple in the air, like a stone cast into a pool. Both Virg and Quort were hurled to the ground by the spell’s power, and bystanders scrambled to avoid Quort’s vicious arms and tail.
“Oww,” Virg complained, rising to his feet and clapping a hand over his haunches. “That hurt.”
The not-Skander rose up and circled Virg menacingly. “Not half as much as I’m going to hurt you when we get outside,” he warned. “You’re not protected by any spell out there, and you’re going down.”
“No one’s taking this outside,” Lorne insisted. “Just calm down and let’s figure this out like grown-ups.”
But instead of giving up, Quort turned on Lorne, teeth snapping, spittle flying from his open maw, bladed arms clanging together like cymbals.
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