Angel stood in the alleyway behind the Forsythe Shelter for the Homeless, taking in the unearthly stillness surrounding him. Nothing moved here. No pedestrians, no cars. Not even the air. The strange calm would have been odd and unsettling no matter where it descended, but in Los Angeles on a summer night it approached the surreal. His companions, Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn, also appeared aware of the phenomena, but none seemed as unnerved by it as the young woman Angel was questioning because of Cordelia's guiding vision.
"It's been like this for months," the homeless woman whispered, pulling her tattered jacket tighter around her shoulders. She looked around, shuddering in apparent terror of this place. "It's s'posed to be a place where you can heal, y'know?" the woman said. "But me and the others here - it's like - it's like it just sucks the light in. Like it just eats it. And the... and the hope, too."
Angel gave the woman some money and pointed her toward an all night diner. Then he, Wesley, Gunn, and Cordelia crept into the Forsythe Shelter through its back entrance.
A digital clock outside the bank down the street read 12:42. If someone had been listening at that moment - standing outside the shelter, paying close attention - he or she would have heard the stillness tremble and begin to crack. From inside came a muffled crash, the sound of splintering wood, and something lower. Something almost recognizable as a growl...
The back door abruptly burst off its hinges, propelled across the alley by the weight of a creature not found in any encyclopaedia listing. More than seven feet long, it combined the least appealing characteristics of arachnid and reptilian life - and as its pursuers emerged from the building it turned to face them, rising up on four hind legs.
They stepped out one by one: Cordelia Chase, a stunning brunette in her early twenties; Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, in his thirties, slight with rumpled hair and eyeglasses; and Charles Gunn, a tall, lean young African-American man in his twenties.
Angel followed them, wrapped in shadows, little more than glimpses of pale skin above a billowing black coat. He raised his face to the harsh streetlight, revealing the demonic ridges, the yellow eyes, and the fangs of a vampire. As he stepped forward, armed with a gleaming broadsword, his three human companions fanned out behind him, brandishing their own weapons.
The spider-lizard - a Krinj demon, according to Wesley's earlier identification - gave a hissing shriek and feinted toward Angel. A blade flashed, and black ichor splattered onto the pavement.
"It's bleeding!" Wesley called out, a double-bladed light ax ready in his hands. "The vulnerability spell worked!"
Angel took a step forward, raising his broadsword. "I'll take the front legs," he said, his words slightly distorted by the fangs. Usually Angel looked as human as he had when he was alive - he had even once been called "the one with the angelic face," a description from which he'd taken his vampiric name - but in times of battle, he allowed his vampire nature to manifest itself in his features.
Angel watched as Cordelia and Gunn, each armed with scimitars, moved with Wesley to flank the creature and try to take out its back legs. He was confident that they understood his strategy: if it couldn't stand, it couldn't fight. Only Cordy didn't look too convinced of their chances.
"Don't worry," Gunn said to her. "We're 'bout to have one less demon round here."
"I'm glad someone's confident about this," Cordelia murmured.
Suddenly, the creature lunged forward, roaring, intent on ripping Angel apart.
Angel snarled and lunged with his sword.
***
Twenty minutes later, Angel's '67 Plymouth GTX convertible cruised down an L.A. boulevard. Angel drove, and in the front passenger seat next to him,
Cordelia allowed herself to finally relax. She glanced at her companions and smiled at the sight of Gunn clapping his hands in the back beside Wesley. "Now that's what I call ‘finesse,'" Gunn said. Each member of the group drank in the sights and sounds of the vital, living city.
"Yes indeed!" Wesley said as he and Gunn bumped fists, grinning. "‘The vorpal blade went snickersnack'!" Gunn lost his grin and cocked an eyebrow at Wesley. Wesley noticed - and then further noticed - Cordelia watching over her shoulder from the front passenger seat.
"What?" Wesley said, suddenly at his most defensively British. "It's Lewis Carroll! As in Through the Looking-Glass and Alice in Wonderland? Hello?"
"Oh, I recognise the quote," Gunn said. "Read ‘Jabberwocky' back in eighth grade. I just didn't ever expect to hear somebody quotin' it in real life." Wesley crossed his arms. "I'm never going to master American humour."
Without turning from the wheel, Angel said, "I'm laughing on the inside, Wesley."
Cordelia closed her eyes and let the cool, ocean-scented breeze wash over her. It felt almost good enough to take away the lingering, throbbing pain of the vision she'd had a couple of hours earlier.
Languidly she turned to Angel. "So it fed on despair? All the hopelessness of the homeless?"
"Not anymore," Angel answered. Wearing his human face again, Angel actually seemed to be enjoying a rare moment of peace of mind. "We did good."
"Better than good, I'd say," Wesley said. "Not a single life lost. Location, containment, extermination. Rather embodies the whole game, doesn't it?"
"Yo, fire up the radio," Gunn said. "Find us some demonslayin' music."
Angel voiced no objections, so Cordelia clicked the radio on and began surfing the stations. After a few moments Vernon Reid's raw guitar blasted from the speakers: Living Colour's "Cult of Personality."
"Sweet," Gunn said, settling back in his seat. Cordelia glanced around at Wesley again. To her surprise, he was bobbing his head in time with the music. Even Angel, she noticed, started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in accompaniment to the drums. She grinned, and relaxed even more.
For a few moments, maybe, Cordelia could pretend that they were simply four friends, cruising through Los Angeles on a Friday night like normal people. She could forget that Angel Investigations, the private detective agency Angel had founded, dealt almost exclusively with the vampiric and demonic underground flourishing in L.A. She could even gloss over her own connection to The Powers That Be - the mysterious otherworldly force responsible for her bursts of precognition, the visions that allowed Angel Investigations to pinpoint and neutralise the worst of L.A.'s demon-related threats in time to do some good, save some lives.
Tonight, after dispatching the spider-lizard monstrosity, she could melt back into what life should be.
Music's on. Top's down. Life is good, she thought.
Cordelia's reverie lasted maybe forty five seconds.
"Trouble ahead," Angel said, slowing the car and nodding at the flashing blue lights and chaos before them. His companions snapped to attention, and it was difficult at first to make sense of what they were seeing at the intersection ahead; what looked like a Jerry Bruckheimer action scene in mid-shoot had blocked both northbound lanes of the four lane divided highway.
"Damn," Gunn said softly. "What a pileup. There's gotta be at least two dozen cars in that."
Angel was the first to hear the distinctive sound of a helicopter reach them from overhead. Then Wesley pointed up, and the Gunn and Cordy followed his lead just in time to see a police helicopter buzz over the intersection. "Air support," Wesley said. "Was this a high speed chase, do you think?"
Cordy replied, "Dunno, but at least with the chopper already up there, you know the EMTs will be here soon."
"Maybe not soon enough." Angel pulled the big Plymouth onto the shoulder and opened his door. "Let's see if we can help."
A thick ring of bystanders surrounded what now appeared to be the aftermath of a police car chase and subsequent shoot-out.
"Five - no, six - patrol cars," Wesley murmured.
"And that overturned SUV over there." He pointed. "They must have been traveling at terrible speed... "
"Yeah, right into traffic." Cordelia shuddered as they got closer. "Oh my God, look at the driver... "
She gestured toward the SUV Wesley had mentioned, where it seemed a man had climbed up out of the passenger door, once the vehicle had flipped on its side, and opened fire with an automatic rifle. His body hung halfway out the passenger window, virtually torn apart by bullets, the rifle still dangling from one tattered hand. Through the shattered windshield she saw another body, also dead, its arms wrapped around the steering wheel, most of its head gone.
"Excuse me," Angel said forcefully, shouldering his way through the outer edge of the bystanders. Wesley, Gunn, and Cordelia followed close behind him, then almost bumped into him, he'd stopped so suddenly.
Cordelia moved up beside him. "Angel? What is it?"
He said nothing. He didn't have to. She flinched at the look of boiling outrage on his face.
The carnage was much worse than they had at first suspected; the damage caused by the multiple crashes and gunfire was so extensive, it looked as if a series of bombs had gone off. And while the criminals and the police were all dead, some of the innocents caught in the cross fire and the series of collisions still survived.
Gunshot victims moved feebly, some crawling slowly away from the wreckage, some clutching at their wounds.
A flaxen-haired teenage girl, her hands clamped over her belly, rocked slowly back and forth as blood ran out between her fingers. A middle-aged Hispanic woman tried to get to her feet, but couldn't maintain her balance; her face and head glittered with embedded shards and slivers of broken glass. A young boy finally found his voice and began crying for help, tucking his bulletmangled left hand under his right arm.
The boy's cries mingled with the screams and moans of the other victims, combining into a mass plea: Help us, help us, someone please help us.
Suddenly a loud voice barked in Angel's ear from behind.
"Hey, buddy, get the hell out of my way, will ya? You're blocking my shot!"
Angel turned and found himself staring into the lens of a digital camera - then looked past the camera to the man holding it. The man with the eager grin and wide, excited eyes. "I said get outta my way!"
Snarling, Angel took the camera out of the man's hands and smashed it to the ground. The cameraman sputtered wordlessly - then backed away and disappeared into the crowd when he saw the cold fury in the vampire's eyes.
Scanning the crowd, Angel realised that the cameraman's attitude was far from the exception; everywhere he looked, people gawked, pointed, many of them chatting on their cell phones.
Not one of them made a single move to help.
Angel nodded toward the wreckage. "Get some first aid going."
They sprang forward, Gunn and Wesley already ripping up their shirts to form bandages and tourniquets. Cordelia began clearing debris away from a patch on the pavement so the victims could lie down.
One of the injured, a man who had apparently been clipped by one of the moving vehicles, staggered into view. Angel saw that the injured man was trying to get to the clear space on the pavement, but a woman with a digital phone blocked his way, standing between two of the wrecked vehicles. Though she seemed to be aware of the injured man, she also showed no inclination to let him through. Angel went to her and touched her arm, indicating that she should move so the man could pass by. "Miss, that man - "
Suddenly indignant, the woman jerked away: "Hands off, creep!" Then she turned her back to him and said into the phone, "Jeez, this guy just grabbed me! Can you believe that?"
But at least she did move enough so that Angel could help guide the injured man, who seemed to be going rapidly into shock, over to where Gunn and Wes could offer him some first aid.
Angel turned back, tried to look and listen for approaching emergency vehicles, and it struck him again: No one in the crowd was doing anything to aid the wounded. Not one of the two or three dozen people there was even lifting a finger. They were too busy gawking, taking in the horror show like it was some Hollywood movie, not real life.
He didn't want to believe that these people could actually be enjoying themselves, so Angel looked to another cell phone user and said, "These people need help."
The man, a slick-haired yuppie in a polo shirt, kept talking and pretended not to hear him. Angel heard the man say, "No, never seen anything like it in real life. Wild stuff, man, really exciting!"
Angel spun, staring all around him. He yelled over the noise, "Are you all just going to stand there?"
But the only thing that accomplished was to make the crowd part and move away from him, ignoring him from a greater distance.
Turning back to the crash, he saw a middle-aged white man talking to Cordelia. The man suddenly turned and practically ran away from her; he jumped in a car at the edge of the turmoil and sped away, crossing the divider into the southbound lanes. As he went, Angel heard Cordelia shout after him, "But you're a doctor! No one's going to sue you! For God's sake, help these people!" But her words had no effect. The man's car disappeared into traffic.
Striving in his outrage to keep his face from changing, Angel joined the rest of the team in trying to help the victims of the horrible skirmish, ambulance sirens finally approaching from the distance. But as he bandaged wounds, carried people from wrecked cars, and carefully pulled a shard of glass from the corner of a young woman's eye, he couldn't help but think: I can destroy a thousand supernatural threats. We can track down and kill a thousand demons, but it's not enough. It'll never be enough.
Humans as a species seemed to be coded for self-destruction, for predation, for seeking out the basest, most animalistic impulses they could find and revelling in them. It had always been that way. Always. In the two hundred plus years of Angel's life, and for the countless millennia before that, humans had bitten and clawed and scraped the world and one another until blood covered the ground. He couldn't change the basic nature of humanity, no matter what he did.
But, oh, wouldn't he give anything...
Wouldn't he give anything at all if he could.
© 2002 Scott Ciencin and Dan Jolley. Taken from Angel: Vengeance, published in the UK by Pocket Books on September 2nd 2002. Reproduced with kind permission of Pocket Books.
