by Various
The last one in line was a woman in what looked like a military dress uniform, except that it carried no insignia from any force Ash had ever seen. It was all white, with a crisp, tailored jacket trimmed in gold, a braid around the shoulder, epaulets, and shiny buttons. White-on-white stripes decorated her pant legs, and her shoes were patent leather and highly polished. This one’s going to be tricky, Ash thought. He knew they had some women standing by to take up her position, but none in a uniform even close to this one. Which would mean keeping hers clean enough to put on. Immaculate white clothes didn’t necessarily go well with slit throats.
And there was plenty of traffic passing by her—mostly on the street, but some foot traffic as well. He didn’t have a good feeling about this one as well.
“Maybe we should skip this one,” he suggested.
“Can’t,” R. C. replied simply.
“Why not?”
“She’s in exactly the right spot,” R. C. explained. “We’re at the point where we make a complete circle—where she is, the last one’s bell will just be audible, and so will the one we started with. Another block and we’ll lose it. But this one is right where we need her to be—if we skipped her we’d have to set up right next to her.”
“I can do it,” Georgie insisted from the back seat. “Let me do it.”
“How are you gonna do it, Georgie?” Ash asked him.
Georgie leaned over the seats and pointed toward the corner. “See that alley back there?” he asked. It was halfway up the block, and dark inside. “Just get her up in there and do it.”
“What about getting blood on her clothes?”
Georgie demonstrated with two hands around his own throat. “Strangle her first,” he said. “Then get her uniform, then cut her to get the blood to treat the bell.”
“Kid makes sense,” R. C. said.
“Anyway,” Georgie went on, “why do we have to always get the uniforms right? Couldn’t we just replace her with someone else anyway?”
“Sure we could,” Ash said. “And then in ten minutes when someone who passes by her five times a day passes by again, he’ll wonder what’s wrong.”
“But he would anyway, right?”
“Most people see the uniform, not the individual, in a situation like that. They see the right uniform, they won’t even look twice at the face. Even if they did they’d just think the organization replaced her for a while. But a different uniform in the same spot—that might raise alarms.”
“Okay,” Georgie said. “I gotcha. But I know I can do this.”
“Kid did okay last time,” R. C. pointed out.
Ash pulled the car into the dark alley and parked close to the wall. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t screw it up.”
The tear in space widened as the chorus of bells from the planet below grew, each bell joining its partners in mathematical precision. Behind it, the Devourer waited. The Devourer didn’t know impatience, or anticipation. The Devourer didn’t think about the billions of souls on the world it would consume as anything but energy, any more than cows think about the insects on the grass they eat or people do when they eat the cattle. The Devourer knew only hunger. And below, that which would satisfy its hunger, at least for a while. A planet teeming with life, with energy. It didn’t question the motivations of those who invited it, or even recognize their sentience. There had been no communication between them. A rift appeared which would let the Devourer feast, anywhere in space, and the Devourer knew of it and was there. The system was foolproof, elegant in its simplicity, and it had always worked this way, since both universe and Devourer were young.
And it always would.
“…anyway, I have this money I ought to invest—it’s enough to keep the Teen Center running for years, decades maybe if I play my cards right. But I can’t just keep it in the safe, you know? That seems dangerous, and it could be earning interest. The only trouble is I can’t actually account for where it came from. It was more or less an anonymous donation.”
David Nabbit, resplendent in a gold lamé top hat and tails, nodded seriously as Anne Steel spoke. “So these funds are liquid, I guess?”
“Any more liquid and they’d be running water,” Cordelia interjected. “She’s talking greenbacks, David.”
“If you’re talking about laundering cash, I’m not sure I’m the best one to talk to,” David protested. “I don’t exactly have a lot of experience in that arena.”
“Don’t think of it as laundering, then,” Cordelia offered. “The money’s plenty clean. The only people who might be looking for it are lawyers from Wolfram and Hart, and we all know what they’re like.”
“Like sharks circling a tour boat, hoping someone falls out,” Anne said. “They’re evil, like Angel told me.”
“Of course they are,” Cordelia said.
David fingered the brim of his sparkling hat. “I guess I could make some suggestions. You’ll probably want to go offshore, but not the Caymans. Wolfram and Hart will be tapped in down there, and it’s too obvious anyway. And Switzerland’s out, of course…”
Cordelia touched both of them on the shoulder. She could listen to money talk all night, but there were other guests who needed to be checked on too. “My work here is done. I should have thought to get you two together ages ago.”
Anne gave her a bright smile. “Thanks, Cordelia. I appreciate it.”
“You’ll be around later, won’t you?” David asked eagerly. “Of course you will, it’s your party.”
“I’ll be here,” she told the billionaire. If he wants to chat, or maybe fly me to Paris for a shopping spree, I’m always available.
She had barely made it five steps away before someone grabbed her arm, startling her out of a reverie in which she had unlimited use of David Nabbit’s personal credit cards. “Cordelia, you seen Angel?”
It was Tom Cribb, a green-skinned demon who had always appeared to Cordelia as if his parentage included members of the reptile family. His long, darting tongue only reinforced that impression. He had fought beside Angel when they’d both been part of a demonic gladiatorial game, and since then he’d been working hard on turning over a new leaf and becoming accepted into L.A.’s community of peaceful demons who lived in harmony, instead of conflict, with the human world.
“Sure,” she replied. “Tall, dark hair that kind of sticks up all over, broody. Hasn’t finished his holiday shopping, last I heard. Why?”
“I mean in the last couple minutes.” He didn’t look like he was in a joking mood.
She scanned the hotel’s lobby area quickly. “Maybe twenty minutes ago, I guess. He might have hidden out somewhere. Not exactly the kind of guy who puts a lampshade on his head and dances on the table, you know?”
“I gotta find him,” Cribb insisted. “There’s something goin’ on out there.” He inclined his head toward the doorway. “Something bad.”
Not tonight, Cordy thought. Any night but this one, yes. But this is party night.
And it’s also the Solstice, and it’s not like Angel didn’t warn us this could happen.
“Let’s find him.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, have you seen a little white puppy around here?”
Ash watched from the mouth of the alley as Georgie tried the puppy stunt again. It had worked once, and Ash figured that Georgie, not the sharpest tack in the box, was more comfortable going with the tried-and-true than improvising.
“Nope,” the woman said crisply. “Been no dogs around here. I love dogs; I always say hi to them and pet them if I can. If there had been a puppy around here, I’d have seen it.”
“But it just ran down this way,” Georgie pressed. “I think it went into that alley back there. If you could just help me surround him, I think we can catch him. He’s a Christmas present, you know. For my mom.”
“You better look somewhere else, then,” the woman answered. “He didn’t come past me.”
“I’m sure he did. Can you just come with me and check?”
&nb
sp; “I can’t leave my station, sorry.”
“Just for a second. I’ll go into the alley and flush him out toward you. You can still see everything going on down here.”
She shrugged and turned toward the alley. Ash ducked back around the corner so she wouldn’t spot him, and pressed himself up against the wall. He heard Georgie’s heavy footsteps and the lighter clicks of the woman’s dress boots as they approached. When they stopped, though, Ash could just see the tip of her shadow, cast into the alley by a street lamp outside. She wasn’t close enough to the mouth.
“I don’t see any dog.”
“He might be hiding. Let’s just get closer and look.”
But she held her ground. “I’ll wait here where I can watch my station too. You see him, holler.”
This isn’t working, Ash thought. Georgie’s got to get her into the alley before he makes his move, or he’ll be seen. And she’s not coming anywhere near this alley with him.
But this was the last one. They needed this one to get the rift open and the World Devourer through. If necessary, they’d just have to rush her, drag her in here, and hope it could all be done quickly and quietly enough to escape notice.
“Sorry you feel that way, lady,” Georgie said, and Ash knew it was all about to go terribly wrong.
“What are you—get away from me!”
Ash and R. C. broke from their hiding places just in time to see Georgie lunge at the woman, without waiting for their assistance. And the military look of her clothing maybe wasn’t just a costume after all, Ash thought, because she reacted to Georgie’s advance by dropping into a fighting stance. When Georgie wouldn’t back off, she released a snap kick that looked like it broke the young man’s kneecap. He let out a shriek and hit the sidewalk. The woman followed up with two more quick kicks to his ribs, and he doubled up in pain.
Ash and R. C. ran toward her, but she spotted them before they were close, and took off running herself. She sprinted straight into the street, dodging a couple of passing cars, and screamed into the quiet night.
Angel was glad for any excuse to leave the party, and Tom Cribb’s story was a good one. The demon had heard on the street that bodies were turning up all around the neighborhood with their throats slit. None of them had been identified yet, but it had only been a few minutes since they’d started being found. Chances were, it would be a police matter and not something along the lines that Angel usually concerned himself with. But it was the Solstice night, and a mass murderer loose on his own turf was troubling to Angel. He grabbed Wesley and Gunn and they went out into the streets to see what they could find.
And they hadn’t gone two blocks when they saw a woman in a white uniform running toward them, screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, and two guys chasing her with what looked like knives in their hands.
“Angel!” Gunn shouted.
“I see ’em,” Angel replied grimly, starting off.
“You take the men,” Wesley called. “I’ll see to the woman!”
Angel and Gunn dashed toward the woman, and past her, but as soon as they did, the two guys with the blades turned and ran off in the other direction. They had been well behind the woman to start with, so now they had a couple of blocks’ head start on Angel and Gunn. I could catch them, he thought. But maybe they’re not the ones causing all the trouble tonight. He let Gunn continue chasing the two of them and headed back to where Wesley was trying to calm the woman in white, and listening to her breathless tale.
“They…they just charged at me…out of nowhere,” she said between panting. “I thought…they wanted my collection pail, maybe. But they came after me instead of going for it.”
“Easy,” Wesley said, his voice level and soothing. “They’re gone now. Our friend will take care of them.”
“I could have taken them,” she said. She was catching her breath now, her words starting to come out faster. “If I’d known it was just two of them. But I didn’t know how many were in the alley, or what they wanted with me.”
“So you don’t know who they were?” Angel asked her.
“No idea,” she said. “There was a third one. I thought he was alone, a mugger or something. I took him down easy. But then when the others showed up, I thought running was a better idea.”
“Yo, Angel!” Gunn shouted from down the block. Angel glanced back over his shoulder to see the dapper-looking young man hauling someone in their direction, one hand on the guy’s collar. The man was disheveled, his face scraped and bloody.
“That the one you beat up?” Angel inquired.
“That’s him,” she confirmed. “I was working on the corner, ringing my bell for charity, right? This guy gave me some bogus story about wanting to go into the alley to look for his puppy. When I wouldn’t go in with him, he jumped me.”
Angel waited until Gunn reached them. The man he brought along, looking very much the worse for wear, had a defeated expression on his face. “I found this punk rolling around on the ground back there,” Gunn explained. “He was callin’ for those other two, but they didn’t even give him a second glance.”
“Looks like your friends deserted you,” Angel said. “You want to tell us what this is all about, or do you want us to turn her loose on you again?”
The guy began to shudder. “No, keep her offa me, man! Keep her away, I’ll tell you whatever!”
“Talk fast, then,” Angel warned. “I’ve been smiling all night; I’m just about out of patience.”
Gunn released the guy’s collar and he put his hands up as if to ward off any blows that might be aimed his way. Angel looked past them, toward a distant corner several blocks away. If that had been the woman’s station, she’d already been replaced. “Sure, no problem, man,” the battered punk said. “I’ll talk. Those guys shouldn’t have blown me off, you know? I’m happy to talk. You know all those Santa Clauses you see on street corners…”
The circle of bells complete, the rift opened wider and wider. The World Devourer wriggled more tentacles through, dozens of them, and pressed at the sides of the crack in space, pushing it wide enough to force its massive body through. Its appetite was enormous now; it fairly salivated at the proximity of its next meal.
“She’s not with you?” Angel asked, pointing down the street.
“No,” the woman said. Her name was Rose, it turned out, and she was a veteran of the Gulf War and a black belt to boot. “No way I could have been replaced that fast.”
“She’s with us, then,” the punk said. He had identified himself as Georgie, and described the basics of the operation.
“Is she the closest one, then?” Angel demanded. She was still several blocks away, and if Georgie was right, time was at a premium.
“No, I think there’s a Santa right around the corner,” Georgie said. “The one we started with. But it’s not gonna help you now. It’s too late. The bells are all in gear, and the rift is already open.”
“We’ll just see about that,” Angel said. “I think we’ll go have a chat with Santa.”
The chasm that opened at the chime of bells was now almost indescribably vast. But the Devourer, the size of the many solar systems it had consumed, still had to squeeze its way through, masses of tentacles writhing before it like a thousand snakes. It could smell the planet now, practically hear the billions of hearts beating below, promising fuel and continued life. It pressed on.
“Hasn’t Angel come back yet? And the others?” Fred’s expression was one of concern—brow furrowed, lips pursed. “I was hoping they wouldn’t have to miss much of the party.”
“Wes and Gunn probably agree with you,” Cordelia told her. She doesn’t know them well enough yet to understand how much Angel hates forced sociability, she thought. “But Angel probably wouldn’t mind not coming back until the last guest has gone home and all the dishes are done.”
The Host tugged at the lapels of his bright red dinner jacket. “I think I’m with Fred on this one,” he said. “I know Angel isn’t a p
arty machine, but I think he’d try to stay close to home tonight if he could. He knows how much this little soiree means to you, hostess with the mostest.”
Cordelia shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think Angel makes his decisions based on what he thinks I care about, Lorne. He’s his own man.”
“He is that,” the green-faced demon agreed. “And part of being his own man is that he cares about you, little lady. Angel likes it when you’re happy, and if it takes attending your party to do that, then he’d do what he could to make sure he was there.”
“I think Lorne’s right,” Fred put in. “Angel wouldn’t have been gone this long unless there was something important going on.”
“Well, if Mr. Cribb is correct, mass murder,” Lorne said. “Pretty important, by definition.”
“I’m going outside,” Fred said. “Just to see if they’re coming or anything.”
“I’ll join you,” Lorne offered. “I don’t think going out alone is the best idea, you know, given the mass murder thing.”
“That’s a good idea,” Cordelia said. “As much as I’d like to stay here, I think I’ll tag along to make sure our guests don’t catch any of the negative vibrations washing off the two of you.”Jeez, she thought as the three of them made their way to the door. How many ways can there be to spoil a party mood?
Outside, the city was remarkably quiet. Only a few cars moved along its streets, and there was none of the usual dull background roar. Fred stood still, head cocked. “Listen,” she said quietly.
“Kind of nice, isn’t it?” Cordelia said.
“No, shh…do you hear the bells?”
Cordelia strained to listen more closely, and then she could make out a distant chiming, like many bells ringing in concert. What about it, though? she wondered. Bells and the holidays kind of go together, don’t they? Maybe it’s reindeer.