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Doyle set his mug on the counter with a contented sigh. "Ah, that went down proper." He indicated Angel's untouched drink. "What's wrong? Not thirsty? Or were you hankering for something thicker?"
"No." Angel took a token sip. The beer was nearly tasteless, as all human food was to him. He wondered how Doyle had talked him out of a nice quiet evening of sitting alone in the dark.
"You ought to get out more often," Doyle commented, as if reading his mind. "Get a taste of the world, remember why it's worth saving."
Angel looked around at all of the people drowning their sorrows in alcohol, only to wake up with hangovers on top of their troubles the next morning. "And this is supposed to remind me?"
"Folks relaxing after a hard day's work, friends getting together for a round of beer, guys meeting girls." Doyle downed another swallow of scotch, grimacing appreciatively. "It's all in how you look at it, what you know how to see. Take death, for example." Doyle shifted in his chair, and a green amulet slid out from under his jacket. "You've been dead so long you don't know how to see it for what it is. I, on the other hand, am just beginning to appreciate it."
"And how am I supposed to see it?"
Doyle lifted the chain with the amulet over his neck and laid it on the counter between them. "You think you've got a problem, dealt to you by those nasty scheming lawyers. But what you really have here is an opportunity."
"An opportunity for what?"
"Penance. Atonement. Redemption. That's the name of the game for folks like us."
"What do you mean?"
"How many do you think you killed? Over a thousand, right? Well, maybe a thousand deaths will help even the score a little."
Angel froze, stunned by this possibility. "You mean . . . this was sent by the Powers?"
"Everything happens for a reason, don't you know."
Doyle finished his drink, then picked up the stake lying on the counter next to the amulet. His eyes bored into Angel, intense with compassion. "You ready?"
Time stretched. Finally Angel nodded. Without breaking eye contact, Doyle shoved the stake into his heart. The world dissolved around a pair of kind blue eyes.
"I don't buy it." Wesley stared across the kitchen table at Angel, who looked back at him just as intently. His face was hollow with exhaustion, but a new serenity shone in his eyes.
"It doesn't matter if you buy it," Angel answered. "This is my problem, and now that I understand, I'm not going to fight it."
"You're saying you think that the Powers That Be sent this amulet to be some form of punishment, of expiation? That some good will come of enduring these nightmares?"
"Yes."
"But how can you be sure? What makes this illusion any more reliable than the others?"
"This one was different. It made sense. Doyle was my link to the Powers. He would be the one to explain how this works."
"And what if this thing is just playing games with your mind? Using what you fear, what you love . . . and what you want most."
Angel looked away. "Did you know that death is the punishment for murder in nearly every culture? It makes sense that this is how I should pay for what I did."
"All right," Wesley conceded. "Maybe you do deserve to die. Maybe you even deserve a thousand deaths. But how will that help anyone? It won't bring back the ones you killed."
"No." Angel stared at the table, then finally looked up. "But maybe I can earn forgiveness."
No, no, no. It felt wrong, he knew it was wrong, but in the short time he had known Angel, Wesley had begun to get an inkling of just how deep his hunger for forgiveness ran.
"Angel, the fates didn't do this. Those sniveling lawyers at Wolfram and Hart did, and I find it difficult to believe that the Powers That Be should choose them as a tool." He took a deep breath and played his ace. "But I think I may know why they did it."
Cordelia picked at Wesley's offering of Chinese take-out. She had opened the windows and pushed back the curtains of every room in her apartment, letting the evening breeze flow through. It was a refreshing change from the confined spaces in which Angel lived.
"Are you saying that it's not really an evil sea dragon, it's just snacking on people because it's trapped here?" she asked.
"Yes. We may not have to kill it. If we can break the spell that's binding it here, set it free, it will probably head back out to the deep Pacific as fast as its fins can take it. Problem solved."
"Won't it attack ships or stir up storms or something?"
"Unlikely. If none of the National Geographic teams have ever found it, it's probably very good at hiding."
"Which begs the question of how Wolfram and Hart found it."
"And what on earth they are planning to do with it." Wesley speared a steamed pork dumpling with his chopsticks and took a bite. "Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much help Angel is going to be. He's become convinced the amulet was sent by the Powers That Be as some sort of punishment, and that going along with it will help him earn forgiveness for his evil vampire days."
She shrugged. "Well, maybe it will. It makes sense in a twisted, Puritan kind of way. In case you haven't noticed, our Angel wrote the book on how to beat yourself up with guilt."
"That's the problem. I'm afraid he's being deceived."
"By who?"
"By the magic of the amulet. By his own desire for redemption."
"Well, have you found out anything else about it?"
"No. Only the one reference so far."
"Well, then, let him have a few nightmares. Maybe it'll take the edge off that eternal guilt complex, and we'll end up with a boss who's a little easier to live with."
Wesley gave up in exasperation. He ate the last spring roll in two bites, then said, "Tell me about Doyle."
Cordelia sighed. "He was an extremely annoying alcoholic little Irish half-demon that Angel and I cared about very much."
"He was the one who had the visions."
"Yeah. And I much preferred it when he had them rather than me."
"So he was the one who first brought Angel real hope that the Powers That Be were aware of him and willing to use him in their cause."
She nodded. "I guess so. It hit him pretty hard when Doyle died. He felt responsible, though of course there wasn't really anything he could have done. The Oracles said Doyle's sacrifice redeemed him, from what exactly I'm still a little unclear on. But it didn't seem to make Angel feel much better."
Wesley set down his chopsticks. "No wonder he's taken this dream to heart." He began stacking the empty containers. "Still, I think I'm going to stay the night at the office. I have a bad feeling we haven't seen the worst of this yet."
The office was eerily dark. Wesley looked up from The Collected Writings of the Warlock of Morgraig and stared tiredly at the odd, flickering shadows the candles made on the walls, the filing cabinet, the refrigerator, the coffee maker. One would think that in this line of work he would have long since grown accustomed to the strange magic of the predawn hours, but he still felt it. It sometimes made Angel, who was at home in them, seem quite alien as well.
Then again, perhaps his tired brain was simply playing tricks on him. After all, everything about the present situation felt odd. A deep sea dragon in the harbor, Angel subjecting himself to a merciless magic of dubious origins, even Cordelia's successful audition. What was the world coming to anyway?
Wesley yawned and couldn't help thinking how lovely it would be to lay back and nap for a bit on the couch. Instead he got up and stretched, then checked the time. With any luck the cold suppressant had taken would last through the rest of the night, though he was beginning to wonder if his resolve would. Perhaps he should go and look in on Angel again.
He tiptoed down the stairs, hesitant to intrude where he was not wanted but spurred on by his profound distrust of the amulet. Angel lay curled on the day bed with his back to the stairs, his shape outlined by an unmistakable green glow. This was the first time tonight that Wesley had actually seen him asleep, but it didn't look as if it would last long. Tiny aborted movements shadowed whatever fierce struggle was going on as he dreamed. Finally he awoke with a cry and overbalanced, falling to the floor.
He lay stunned for a moment before slowly sitting up, hugging himself with remembered pain. A small, private sigh of misery escaped him, loud in the silence of the room. At length he looked up and saw Wesley watching quietly from the stairs.
Their eyes met in silence. Finally Angel turned and picked up the amulet. He climbed back onto the bed and lay down on his back. He took a long, deep breath and deliberately closed his eyes.
Wesley bowed his head and walked quietly back up the stairs.
The sun was coming up over the horizon like a deadly fireball.
Angel could smell the light getting stronger, see the shadows beginning to appear. He cringed at the brightness, trying to shield his eyes with his hand, stumbling desperately in search of shelter. But no matter where he went, Drusilla was always there in her habit with green amulet and a wooden cross, forcing him back into the open. "No, no," she scolded in her sing song voice. "You must do your penance, or God will never, never forgive you."
Finally he found another door and threw himself against it. It was locked. The first rays spilled over the horizon as he forced it open and fell through. Sunlight burned his face, made his clothes tinder-hot. He crawled forward, trying to escape the light. His back was on fire. It burned through him, consuming his undead flesh, turning him into dust.
Then a shadow fell over him. Something beat at the flames and tried to drag him back through the doorway. He struggled incoherently.
"Angel! Hold still! You've got to let me help you!" The desperate words made no sense. But astonishing pain assaulted him, and he was too weak to resist. Through agony he felt himself dragged into welcome darkness. Then pain was eclipsed by nothingness.
Somehow Wesley maneuvered Angel's limp body through the doorway and heaved the door closed with his shoulder, shutting out the lethal morning sunlight. Angel slipped from his grasp and hit the floor with a thump – a vastly gratifying sound after seeing him so nearly reduced to dust. Wesley slid down to the floor beside him and sat for a moment, waiting for his heart to quit pounding so madly.
He reached instinctively to feel for a pulse at Angel's throat, then checked himself. Angel wasn't breathing either, but since he didn't really have to, that shouldn't be a concern. As long as he was physically intact, he should recover.
But Wesley couldn't help realizing that as a vampire, Angel was technically dead, and while he didn't usually give it a second thought, sitting in a dark hallway with a burned, still body suddenly gave him the willies.
It took him rather longer than he had expected to drag Angel through his apartment and heave him onto the bed. Unfortunately, the odor of scorched vampire wasn't a whole lot more pleasant than that of scorched human. He was sweating, breathless, and slightly nauseous by the time he finished his task. He pulled up a chair and collapsed into it, wishing for a sip of cool water.
The amulet lay on the floor just beyond the bedroom. It glowed eerily in the darkness, the interweaving lines more suggestive of entrapment than beauty. Wesley stared at it, then back at Angel. If this thing was the cause of Angel's nearly fatal encounter with the dawn, there was more to it than any of them had realized. And if it had happened once, it could happen again. He dragged himself out of the chair and began hunting for chains.
Cordelia arrived nearly twenty minutes late and was surprised to find the office empty. Where was Wesley? Hesitantly she tiptoed down the first few stairs into a darkness that seemed much more bat cave-ish than normal. But at least it was a little cooler, and flickers of light suggested that someone was home.
"Angel?"
Wesley's voice came back. "Down here, Cordelia."
She hurried down the steps but stopped cold when she saw Wesley sitting in a chair by Angel's bed. Candlelight cast odd shadows over a dark, Angel-sized form and gleamed off of the chains holding it eagle-spread across the sheets.
"Oh no. He didn't – "
"No. I don't think he's turned."
She stepped closer. "Then why . . ." She stopped again and stared. Angel was lying face down, unconscious. His back and arms were badly burned, and his hair and remaining clothing looked charred. An odor horribly reminiscent of burned flesh assailed her nostrils.
"What happened?" she asked, putting her fingertips to her nose.
"I found him lying in the doorway to the street, just after sunrise. Luckily, I managed to smother the flames and get him inside. A few seconds more and there might not have been much left to find."
Her heart jumped. This was not supposed to be happening. She spied the amulet glowing evilly on the table beside Angel's bed. "Wait a minute. That thing is just supposed to give him nightmares, not make him turn himself into demon barbeque."
"I imagine that whoever made the amulet wasn't satisfied with merely torturing demons with nightmares of death. It must drive them to destroy themselves." His voice was calm, but it suddenly occurred to her that Wesley must have been sitting here in the dark for hours, alone with the knowledge of what had almost happened.
She looked again at the charred form of the vampire she had come to care so much about. "Is he going to be all right?"
"I think so. This may be hard to believe, but he looked much worse a few hours ago. I expect he'll be regaining consciousness soon."
And then they'd know for sure if he still had his marbles, and his soul. She sat down with Wesley to wait.
Fire. Everywhere. He writhed in it, disintegrating endlessly. He had no voice to scream with, and his tears turned to steam in the flames. His father shook his head with disgust and threw another shovelful of dirt over his grave. Kathy's trusting face crumpled as he drained the life from her. Demons clawed at him, ripping him to shreds. A hundred familiar faces paraded past his view, screaming or fainting or staring with horror as he leaned down to drink their blood. Darla kissed his cheek, then pressed a tiny, ornate cross against his face with a gloved hand, burning it into his skin. His heart beat once, a single, lonely contraction in his chest. An arrow flew from Giles' crossbow and silenced it. He tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't budge. The gypsies' chanting rang in his ears. Drusilla draped herself seductively against him and toyed with the arrow, whispering words into his ear that he couldn't understand. Decades of hunger gnawed at his bones like rats. He fell on his face in the street, gasping as his soul slipped away like water between his fingers. Candlelight flickered off of Buffy‘s face, and she smiled at him before she changed to vampire form and bit his neck. Blood ran in hot drops down his back. The Oracles shook their heads sadly and turned and walked away from him. Then the portal to hell swallowed him whole, and there was nothing but fire and pain and darkness . . . .
Cordelia switched the notepad she was using as a fan from one tired hand to the other and sighed, realizing she was going to need a bathroom break soon. And it wasn't too many hours now until she was due on set. She could only go over her four lines so many times in her head, imagining every possible inflection a director might ask for. She was about to call to Wesley to take his turn at Angel-watching when the subject of the vigil finally stirred.
She stared for a moment, making sure what she thought she had seen was real, then called to the study in a tone that brought Wesley scurrying to her side, open book in hand, surreptitiously rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"He moved," she said, pointing.
Wesley grabbed a candle and held it closer. Angel twitched again, a jerky movement as if he were fighting his way to consciousness. A shudder ran through him. Then his lungs drew breath for the first time in hours and his eyes popped open, unseeing and tormented. He jerked at the chains binding him hand and foot – Cordelia prayed they would hold. He moaned in pain and tried to get up, thwarted again by the chains. Finally he lay panting until his eyes cleared and focused on Cordelia.
"What happened?" he whispered. It seemed a lucid question, at least.
"You tried to get a suntan," she said, a touch of remembered fear sharpening her voice. "If Wesley hadn't been there, we'd be sweeping what was left of you into a small urn for me to keep on my mantel."
Wesley threw her an odd look, but Angel's eyes slid shut again before he could answer. They stood staring at him in rather anxious suspense until he opened them again a minute later. His back was nearly healed now, bright red like an ordinary sunburn. He shifted, wincing. The chains did not allow him much movement. He looked up at Wesley.
"Let me go."
Wesley shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. There's very little chance Cordelia and I could stop you from harming yourself if something like this should happen again."
Angel stared at the amulet on the table, then looked back at Wesley. "If this is my fate, you can't stop it."
"I can certainly try. Angel, we're obviously dealing with more than just nightmares now. Whatever atonement you think the Powers want from you, you can make it right there."
"The Powers can't want you dead," Cordelia chimed in. "You're on their side!"
Angel stared at her. "Doyle died."
She could not think about that. "Yeah, but Doyle died saving a bunch of half demons, not to mention you and me. If you had died in the street this morning, who would that have helped?"
"I don't know. It doesn't have to make sense. I just have to know it's right."
"And do you?"
"No," he confessed reluctantly. "Not yet. But it'll be a little hard for me to figure it out while I'm chained to this bed."
Wesley held out his book. "We'll help. There are still dozens of sources where we might find more information."
Angel jerked at his bonds with frustration. "Look . . . I'll go crazy like this. We can work something out. You can barricade the doors, get rid of all the stakes. Just let me go."
Wesley swallowed, but stood firm. "No."
"Cordelia?"
"Sorry, Angel, but I think Wesley's right. I like you much better as not a pile of dust."
Exasperation flickered across Angel's face. He turned his head away from them.
Cordelia let out a covert sigh of relief. Holding Angel against his will might be a bit of a tricky proposition. She turned to Wesley to ask him what their next move should be, but suddenly she heard a distinctive clink and looked back. Angel had taken hold of one of the chains. He pulled down on it, muscles shaking, until a link popped open and the chain broke.
Wesley jumped. "So much for shopping sales," he mumbled. Cordelia decided she would definitely have to have a talk with him about what kinds of purchases were suitable for bargain hunting. In no time Angel had freed himself and slowly stood, towering over Wesley with his vampire face on. He held out his wrists.
"Give me the key."
Wesley dropped the book and dug quickly into his pocket.
Cordelia suppressed a smile in spite of her concern. So much for Plan A. Angel's face melted back to its less daunting form and he swayed unsteadily on his feet. She took his arm and pulled him back down to the bed while Wesley produced the key and unlocked the now useless shackles. Angel's hands fell into his lap. He looked as if he might faint.
He glanced toward the kitchen and then back to Cordelia. "I need blood," he murmured.
She hurried to the ice chest he had set by the refrigerator and pulled out a bag. "You want a glass?"
The familiar self-consciousness sprang into his eyes. "No." She handed it to him. He avoided looking at either of them as he switched momentarily back to fangs and sank them into the bag, draining it without losing a drop. She and Wesley stared in covert fascination. He did look better afterwards. Despite the heat he reached for a t-shirt and gingerly pulled it on.
"What about the sea dragon?" he asked.
"There were no deaths last night – at least none that the news services are aware of," Wesley reported. "Maybe we really did harm it."
"Or maybe the lawyer-boys started dumping sides of beef overboard to keep it quiet," Cordelia added.
"Any luck on figuring out how to free it?" Angel asked.
"As a matter of fact,
I may be on to
something," Wesley said slowly. "The bad news is,
we're going to need
about thirty pounds of powdered fish eyes."