"So, wait a minute. You chopped off it's what?" Riley was getting his first taste of Angel Investigations' files, and he wasn't sure he was buying it.

Cordelia just laughed. "Oh god, it was disgusting. Angel was trying to yank it out, but it was stuck. So Wes got this huge ax from somewhere -"

"Fire station," he said. "I do hope they didn't need it any time soon."

"And we whomped for like an hour - getting goo everywhere I might add - and finally got it into small enough pieces to get rid of."

"I hadn't realized they grew so large," Giles said to Wesley.

"Neither did we. But there it was."

"It had been feeding off the sewer," Angel said. "We haven't had any problems down there since then - I suppose it did us a favor."

"Won't last. Things always find their way to the sewer. Kind of like Xander's brain."

"Hey!" Xander stirred enough from his position lying in Anya's lap to take offense at that.

"So you disposed of it - how?" Buffy asked to divert Anya from any defense of her boyfriend's honor.

"Dragged it to the local beach, figured the seagulls would take care of it. And anything that gets found, they'll just think it's part of a giant squid that washed up on shore."

"And then Angel wouldn't let us into the car," Wesley complained

"I just had it cleaned. And do you know what that stuff does to leather? Just be glad I let any of us back into the office without a hose-down."

Cordelia gave a dramatic sigh. "Some people have mud rooms. We have an ichor room."

"Hey, guys, it's almost nine." Willow's alert stirred them into cleaning up the last of the food debris. Plates and cups were dumped in the trash can, and bottles and cans were thrown into a plastic bag for recycling later. Then the blankets were rearranged so that everyone had space to sprawl out in order to watch the skies. Joyce, Willow and Tara took one blanket, while Buffy curled up next to Riley, and Xander sat with his back against the larger picnic basket, Anya nested between his legs. Wes, Giles, Angel and Cordelia sorted themselves out on the third blanket, preferring to sit up rather than lie down.

"I've never seen a fireworks display before," Wesley admitted. "I never seemed to be anywhere they were being held - or the weather was too bad to allow it."

"The Sunnydale display is always particularly good," Giles told him. "And we should have a spectacular view tonight - there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day."

"I can't believe I'm on a blanket of Brits -" Cordelia paused as Angel glared at her "Okay, fine, two Brits and an Irishman, watching the Fourth of July celebration. Of all the weirdness that is my life, this is one of the weirder things. But since it doesn't involve ichor or swords or anything trying to separate my flesh from my -"

Her voice cut off in mid-prattle, just as the first bang sounded and a blossom of sparks exploded overhead.

"Oh god!"

Her cry was too soft to carry over the sound of the fireworks, and the exclamations of those around them, but Angel felt her tense next to him, and they all saw her hands go to her face, to clench at her forehead.

"Damn," Wesley muttered, getting to her side faster than Giles thought possible. "Cordelia? Come on, sweetheart, hang in there, just ride it out..."

"Angel?" Giles turned to the vampire. He too looked worried, but not overly so. Certainly not the way one should be, confronted with a young girl practically convulsing in pain. "What's wrong with her?"

Angel's gaze flicked away from Cordelia to Giles only briefly, then returned to studying her form as she huddled in Wesley's arms. "It'll pass," he said tersely. "Go back to the fireworks, it's okay."

"The hell it is!" Giles' voice rose, attracting the attention of the others in their group. Some people on nearby blankets looked their direction as well, then averted their gazes. 'Don't Look, Don't Know' was the Sunnydale motto.

"Giles?" Buffy came over, looking at them in puzzlement. "What's wrong?"

Just then, Cordelia's stopped shaking, and Wesley let her move away slightly. Her hair was tangled, and her face wracked with pain, but she seemed over whatever had happened.

"Cordy?"

Angel's voice was soft, and she focused in on him immediately. "It's here. The old apartment buildings, across town. It looked like some kids were having their own party - it's happening now, Angel!" Her voice didn't rise at all, but the urgency was clear.

"I'm on it. Wes, stay with her."

"No!" Cordelia grabbed at him. "Way too many. Don't go alone." She looked up and saw Buffy. "Go with him. This is your town, damnit, you protect it."

Angel nodded, and stood to go, Buffy barely keeping up with him. As they left, Riley got off the blanket and followed, clearly unwilling to let the two of them go off on their own.

"And now," Giles said, in a tone that brooked no argument, "you're going to tell me what the hell is going on."

Cordelia reached for her bag, and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol, then downed four with a gulp of warm soda. Giles frowned at the number of tablets, but took his cue from Wesley's warning look and said nothing more. He'd get his answers before the night was through...

The next burst from the fireworks, however, showed that she was clearly in no condition to stay. They left Anya, Xander, Willow and Tara with Joyce at the park. "Minor detail, which Angel and Buffy are dealing with," Giles told them. "And Cordelia has developed a terrible headache. Enjoy yourselves, and we'll see you back at the apartment later." Willow looked concerned, but allowed herself to be persuaded to stay.

Rolling up their blanket, Giles and Wesley helped Cordelia to Giles' car. By now, the post-vision nausea had let up, leaving behind the usual pounding migraine. All she wanted to do was throw up, and lie down. Thankfully, the trip back to Giles' apartment was mercifully brief, and once inside the cool quiet did more than the painkillers to relieve the pain.

"Lie down," Wesley directed her. "I'll get a compress."

Giles watched them noting that they seemed to be following a well-established routine.

"How long has this been going on?" he asked quietly, helping her to remove her shoes. One brown eye opened to look at him, obviously deciding that prevarication wasn't go to go over well here.

"Almost a year now," she admitted.

"Since you started to work for Angel?"

She could see him starting to jump to the wrong conclusions, and reached out a hand. Her fingers closed on his knee, and she exerted enough pressure to make him look at her. "It's not like that. Well, it is, kinda, but it's not." She sighed as relief as Wesley appeared with the compress, placing it over her forehead. "Wes?" The appeal was unmistakable.

"Right. The long version takes quite some time, which we really don't have before the others return. Short version - Angel's decision to work towards redemption apparently brought him to the attention of the Powers that Be. They wish to aid that - or make use of it. Or perhaps both. It's quite -"

"Wes." Cordelia's voice was low with pain, but quite clear. "Short version."

"Yes. For some reason, they are unable to work directly with him. Thus, they require the aid of an intermediary, a messenger of sorts, to direct Angel to where he may do the most good."

"And Cordelia was chosen for this...job?"

"Actually, a former colleague of theirs, a fellow named Doyle was. He came to them because of the visions, in fact, having been granted them as repayment for some mischance of his own."

"And he died," Giles said, starting to put pieces together on his own.

Wesley's voice faltered. "Yes."

"And they chose Cordelia to follow, because she was already in place? Giles' voice had an odd flatness to it, the voice of a man who is accustomed to Fate and Destiny bollixing up mortal plans.

"Doyle gave it to me," Cordelia said, oddly possessive.

"The methods of the transference are...uncertain," Wesley admitted. "But yes, Cordelia became the new Messenger." He looked down at Cordelia, then moved Giles away from the sofa, speaking softly, but quickly. "I realize that we should have informed you of this development - the appearance of a Seer is certainly an occurrence of note - but there seemed no real point to it. Cordelia's visions were tied in solely to Angel, and Los Angeles. In fact, until --"

He stopped, but Giles continued. "Until she saw my heart attack - that's how you knew, isn't it? She saw me?"

"Yes."

Giles rubbed his eyes, as though exhausted all of a sudden. "Why? Not that I'm not thankful, of course, but..."

"We don't know. It may simply be that, since Sunnydale is her home, she is naturally attuned to what happens here. Or it may be that due to the nature of, ah, Angel's regret over the state of your relationship..."

"Or her abilities may be expanding."

"Yes." Wesley didn't look happy at this admission. "I really rather hope I'm wrong... according to all the literature on the subject, the life of a Seer is not a pleasant one. Already she has been subjected to... too much."

Giles looked back at the young woman stretched out full-length, cloth held to her forehead. "Yes," he said, starting to understand a little of what hadn't been said over the past six months. "Damn it! I swear... I wanted only to protect them..."

Wesley shrugged, not a careless movement, but that of a man aware of the weight balanced against his shoulders. "You can't. We can't. They - like we -- are the ones who protect others. That was their choice, the moment they opened their eyes." He paused, then continued on. "This life may have chosen her, Rupert. But she has chosen it as well. As much as any of us have. And now that they have seen the darkness, they will not look away."


#

The 'way too many' Cordelia had mentioned was an understatement. Angel took out another vamp, and longed for the good old days, when vamps went after their prey with old-fashioned claws and fangs. This - this was getting ridiculous.

"Angel! Behind you!"

He turned and caught the vampire on the downswing. Its' arm broke easily, and it dropped the syringe with a clatter on the pavement. He could feel his anger growing - they were clearly here not to kill for food, but to capture for later. It stank of planning, and forethought. And that meant there was someone behind these fledglings, pulling their strings.

"Save one," he yelled to Buffy. "We'll want to question it."

"Already there," she yelled back. "But they're not cooperating. Riley!"

The former soldier reacted well. Angel had to admit that, however grudgingly. He wasn't the fighter Buffy was - but then no-one except another Slayer could be. For a mortal, he did extremely well.

The kids they had rescued had scattered the moment the fighting began, showing a remarkable amount of common sense. Only three of them had gone down in the first assault - thanks to Cordelia's warning, they had arrived just in time.

A little more time would have been nice, he groused to himself as he staked a vampire, and pulled another off Riley's back, but I suppose we should just be thankful she Saw it at all. And we're going to have to have a talk about that, when this is all over. If I have to go to the Powers that be directly, I will. She can't be expected to take on the entire state...

And then, suddenly, there were no more vampires to fight. Angel watched the two mortals move towards each other in instinctive reassurance, the bloodlust of the fight still on him too much to relax.

Let it go, he told himself, fighting the demons moving with him, both vampiric and green-eyed. Let her go, you idiot. Haven't you learned a damn thing?

There was a shadow of movement in the darkness, something low to the ground and moving fast. Angel dropped into a crouch and went after it. His hands caught something scaly and unpleasant - it felt like a tail. A crocodile?

He had no sooner thought that than the creature was lunging forward on legs too long to belong to a crocodile or an alligator or anything animal or demonic he could think of.

"Buffy!"

The Slayer dodged out of the creature's attack with superhuman agility - which left Riley unprotected. Angel barely had time to recognize the fact before he was moving, grabbing at the creature's head and wresting its jaws away from Riley's face. Pain shot up his arm as a cold tongue lashed around his wrist, and razor-sharp teeth scored grooves down his arm.

"A little help would be appreciated," he said, or thought he said, just as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. Then Buffy's familiar strength was working with him, bringing the creature down to the ground, wrestling it into submission.

"Kill it!"

"How?"

A gunshot answered both of them. The body sagged and fell motionless. They looked up, jaws agape, to see Riley reholstering a small pistol under his jacket. "I have a permit," he said calmly. "It seemed a shame not to use it."

Angel looked at Buffy. "I still don't like him. But he does have his uses." She ignored him, taking his arm out of the creature's mouth and swearing under her breath at the damage. "Riley, help me get him to the car."

The drive back was a blur, as Buffy tried to wrap Angel's arm in an old towel, and Riley took corners at speeds that ground vehicles weren't meant to attempt. The pain went away, but his arm felt odd, as though something were shivering in his veins, from wrist to heart. Then the car stopped, and doors opened. He was moving, up stairs, through another door...

"Oh dear god."

That was Wesley's voice. Angel let his eyes fall shut, dropping into unconsciousness secure in the knowledge that Wes would take care of things until he healed up.


#

"What was it?"

Giles sighed, putting the most recent book aside. "I don't know," he admitted. "Reptilian demons are not as common as one might think. And ones with a poisoned tongue.. you're sure it was its tongue?"

"I'm sorry I didn't think to cut it off and bring it back for you!" she said, her patience clearly at an end.

"Yes, a pity," Wesley said from his end of the couch, hip-deep in research materials. "It would have been fascinating to see-"

"Oh god, don't get him started," Cordelia said. "He loves mucking about with demon bits. Totally disgusting. I refuse to go into his lab."

Giles could see that his Slayer was about to lose what self-restraint he had left.

"Buffy, why don't you go home, get some sleep? Angel is resting comfortably, and the injury doesn't seem to be festering in any way - no doubt he'll be fine tomorrow." He appealed to Riley to back him up.

"Giles is right," the ex-solder said, coming off his wall-lean and taking her by the arm. "Come on. Catch a few zzzzs and we can ask around town, see if anyone knows anything about the hostile."

A hostile whose body had disappeared when they went back to look for it.

"Go," Giles said, putting a hint of an order in his voice. Buffy looked as though she would protest, then capitulated. "You're right. But if anything happens... you'll call, right?"

'Right," Giles said, ushering them both out the door. He locked it behind them, and turned to look at his houseguests. Angel was upstairs in his bed, still unconscious. Cordelia had recovered enough by the time the picnickers had returned to sit up and trade barbs with Xander, but she still looked too frail to him. And Wesley - the overly-prim, baby-faced Watcher as gone, as though he'd never existed. Wesley was rumpled, unshaven, and looking every moment of his years. There had been no question of them returning to the mansion, even if Angel had been capable of moving.


#


next