Redemption

by Mel Odom

  “That wasn’t you,” Angel said. “That was something else, something that wasn’t you.”

  “No!” the human voice cried out.

  “Yes,” Angel insisted. “Yes, it was something else. Not you.” He held the quivering old woman’s body, feeling it shift beneath him, becoming firmer, more rounded, younger.

  “I don’t deserve to live.” Tears streaked Moira’s face. Her red-gold hair warred with the banshee’s gray, flickering like a strobe light as the two personalities within her clashed.

  “You do,” Angel told her. “You’ve lived nothing of a life. You died too young to find out what you were put here to do. No one comes into this world without a plan.”

  “He’s lying!” the banshee screamed. Her claws sawed into Angel’s arms, attacking desperately. They submerged under the water for a moment. “Men lie! You know they lie!”

  “Words, Angel,” Moira said, gasping, spitting out water. “Those are just words. I’ve been tricked so many times before.”

  “It’s no trick,” Angel told her. “It’s the truth. All you have to do is be brave enough to believe.”

  Moira twisted in his grasp, striving to elude his hold. Angel held her fiercely, aware of the police helicopter shining its lights across the dark, turbulent water. The Blood Cadre warriors powered a boat through the water toward them that they’d evidently taken from the pier. When they reached them, Angel was sure they’d show no mercy.

  “I can’t believe,” she told him.

  “Did you ever think that the man who first took your life would try to save it?” Angel demanded.

  She shook her head, shaking in fear. She was staying in possession of her body longer than the banshee now. The iron prybar didn’t burn her when she was Moira.

  “Then believe in me,” he told her in a choked voice. “For the moment believe in me, and I’ll help you believe in the rest.”

  The banshee tried to assert itself once more, but Angel held on and clamped the iron bar tight. Moira reached up for him. There was a blinding explosion of green light, then the withered arm of the banshee became a young woman’s arm that curled around the back of Angel’s neck.

  Angel dropped the prybar into the sea and wrapped both hands around her, pulling her close. He felt her shoulders shake as she cried. “It’s okay,” he told her. “I’ve got you.”

  “I hate to be the one to break up this little Kodak moment,” Cordelia said, “but we’re about to be invaded by the LAPD and the Cadre kooks.”

  Angel glanced up at Gannon, who stood in the bow of the powerboat. The warriors behind him all held weapons at the ready.

  “It’s over, Gannon,” Angel said. “The banshee’s gone.”

  Gannon peered intently at Moira in Angel’s arms, then waved his men to put down their arms. He reached down and helped Angel pull her aboard.

  “I didn’t think you could do it,” Gannon said honestly.

  On board the powerboat Angel peeled off his coat and wrapped it around Moira. Even drenched, it blocked some of the chill wind that stirred restlessly over the sea.

  “I had to,” Angel said. “There was no other way.” He glanced up at the sky and saw the police helicopter coming back around for another pass. “Time to go.”

  EPILOGUE

  “I’m going to plead guilty, Angel.”

  Angel stared through the glass partition separating him from Moira O’Braonain in the visitor’s cubicle in the women’s section of the city jail. “I don’t under-stand. I thought your lawyer was talking about basing a defense on temporary insanity. Gannon said his organization was going to pay the attorney’s costs.”

  Moira was dressed in the orange jumpsuit all prisoners wore. Her red-gold hair was pulled back, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her natural beauty shone through, but she didn’t look like the actress Whitney Tyler anymore. This woman was kinder and gentler.

  The low rumble of other conversations around them was an undercurrent. The big jail guards were a reminder that there was no real freedom in this room.

  “Do you know what options I have, Angel, even with a temporary insanity plea?” she asked.

  “No.” After Moira had insisted on turning herself in to the LAPD after they’d made their escape one step ahead of arriving police at the warehouse, Angel had felt completely lost. The justice system was so fickle.

  “I can spend the rest of my life behind bars as a convicted murderess,” Moira said, “or I can spend the rest of my life in a psychiatric ward in a padded cell.”

  “But if you fight this thing —”

  “There’s a penance to be paid, Angel,” she told him. “You of all people should understand that.”

  “But you weren’t yourself.”

  “And were you after you’d been sired?”

  Angel looked into those gray-green eyes and knew he didn’t have an answer.

  “No,” she told him. “I feel better about this. I couldn’t survive in a psychiatric ward after everything I’ve been through. At least in prison, maybe I can help women who aren’t going to be in all their lives, women who just need a little under-standing and guidance to make it in the world the next time they get out. I can be that someone.”

  “I know, but it’s so hard to think of you ending up this way. When I first realized that Whitney Tyler was really you, I didn’t know how things were going to end up, but I never imagined this.”

  She smiled, and he found he enjoyed the softness and contentment in her face. “You mean after you’d saved me?”

  “I wouldn’t call this saving someone.” Angel tried to keep his voice light, but it was hard.

  “But you did. Living the way I was with the banshee was intolerable. Even in here I feel freer than I can ever remember.”

  He nodded, and wished he believed that.

  “This will be a good life for me,” Moira said. “I can make it that way. Before I was accepted into the Blood Cadre, I was going to be a nun. This won’t be so very different than what I was planning.”

  “Back then,” Angel said, with a small smile, “seeing you with a sword in your hand, I didn’t get the nun possibility.”

  “I didn’t see you as a protector, either. But here we are. In the middle of our redemption. I believe in an afterlife, Angel, and with the banshee gone, I can grow old again. I’ll be free then.”

  One of the prison guards stepped forward. “It’s time.”

  Moira nodded and turned back to face Angel. She pressed her palm against the glass.

  Angel mirrored the movement, placing his palm out toward hers.

  “When they send me away,” Moira said, “I don’t want to see you unless you’re okay with this.”

  “All right.”

  “I mean it, Angel. Being in here, knowing you’re out there helping the helpless, as Cordelia puts it, and being content serving your own penance, that’ll help me be strong.”

  “I will come see you,” Angel promised.

  Her gray-green eyes sparkled, then she took her hand away and left through the door on the back wall.

  Angel waited till she was gone. Then he took his hand from the glass and made his way back out into the dark evening that lay over his city. He found comfort in the shadows.

  Despite how things had turned out, Moira was right in one regard. In trying to atone for all the things he’d done, he’d never expected a chance to help one of the victims he’d taken. He decided to feel good about that and let the rest of it take care of itself.

  Doyle pulled up in Angel’s convertible. “I was watching for you to come out. Thought maybe I’d save you a few steps.”

  Cordelia sat in the backseat, looking at him expectantly. “Well, are we talking about the groundhog-sees-his-shadow of major brooding sessions here?”

  “Actually,” Angel said, “I was thinking we’d hit a club I heard about this morning.”

  “Clubbing is good,” Cordelia said brightly.

  Angel slipped into the passenger seat and let Doyle dri
ve. Doyle looked surprised. Letting Doyle drive wasn’t always the safest of strategies. “I heard the place is being run by a couple demons who are kidnapping college students to sell as slaves.”

  “Oh, work, ” Cordelia said, sounding less perky.

  “Well,” Angel said, “there’ll still be clubbing. And I tossed a couple axes and crossbows in the trunk.”

  Doyle pulled into the traffic, setting off a string of explosive honking and cursing. He tossed a hand up and waved. “I’ll need you to go with me to see Yuan later this morning.”

  “I thought you took care of that,” Angel said.

  Doyle grimaced. “I did. There’s just a couple wrinkles that need to be worked out.”

  “Do me a favor and tell me later,” Angel said. “Right now, I need to get in a fight.”

  About the Author

  Mel Odom lives in Moore, Oklahoma, with his wife, Sherry, and five children (Matt L., Matt D., Montana, Shiloh, and Chandler). He coaches football, baseball, and basketball, and spends every spare moment he has with his children. He’s a big fan of the Angel show and doesn’t miss a night! In addition to the Angel book, he’s also written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Young Hercules, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and The Journey of Allen Strange. He’s also done novelizations of Sabrina Goes to Rome and Snowday. If you like fantasy stories, he just completed the Threat from the Sea trilogy for TSR. When not with his children or writing, he can often be found on the Internet and can be reached at denimbyte@aol.com.