Crave

by Rheanna

Summary: When magic intended to help a recovering drug addict goes wrong, Angel is left unable to control his craving for human blood -- and Wesley and Cordelia face the hardest choice they'll ever have to make.
Author Notes: I'm fascinated by beginnings: how relationships start off on a right foot or a wrong one, how people discover ways of dealing with each other, so Doyle's death and the arrival of Wesley was always going to interest me. I was also getting slightly miffed at the way Angel, the series, never really addressed its main character's fundamental nature: not the curse thing, but rather his hunger for blood. Crave is an attempt to address both those themes: Angel gives in to his addiction, and Cordelia and Wesley forge a tentative alliance to help him. Big thanks to Tammy, LJC, Yahtzee, and everyone else at the egroups angelfic list for feedback, moral support and weeding out the Britspeak.
Story Notes: Set AtS season 1, shortly after Parting Gifts.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: "Angel" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are trademarks of Mutant Enemy; all characters and situations are used without intent of infringement or expectation of profit.
Author's Website: http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/ruthhanna/

One

He felt hungry when he woke up. He always did.

Angel rolled over in the bed and blinked fuzzily at the clock on the bedside table, in time to see the glowing red digits change from 18:59 to 19:00. When they winked again and changed to 19:01, he threw off the covers and got up.

Hungry. He was hungry. His stomach yawned emptily; his first conscious desire was to fill it. That never changed.

He shrugged on a robe and padded into the kitchen, where he hesitated in front of the refrigerator door for long seconds before opening it. The bottom three shelves were filled with round plastic tubs whose dark liquid contents were just visible through frosted lids. Each one was sealed inside a baggie and neatly labelled with a date.

He shut the door, with more force than was strictly necessary. There were rules. Not feeding as soon as he woke was one of them.

He found a glass and went to the sink, waiting for the water to run warm before holding the tumbler under the stream. He drank, refilled it, and drank again. It wasn't what he wanted, but it was hot and liquid, and would take the edge of the craving for a few minutes. Long enough.

He put down the glass and went into the apartment's main room, where the furniture had been arranged to maximise the available floor space. He took a second to assume the starting position, and began.

Slowly, deliberately, he moved through the sequence of T'ai Chi forms, each one more challenging than the last, losing himself to the demands of the movements.

Balance. Focus. Concentration. Discipline.

By the time he had reached the final exercise, the hunger had receded, not entirely, but to a point where he could control it.

Angel opened his eyes, and relaxed.

He returned to the kitchen and put his hand on the refrigerator door. Then he stopped. Something was different.

A box of take-out Chinese food was sitting in the middle of the table. He was confident it hadn't been there ten minutes earlier.

"Do you have plates? I can't find any plates."

Cordelia walked into the kitchen from the hallway, and began to open and close cupboards at random. "Up there," said Angel. "I think. I didn't hear you come in."

She opened a high cupboard and, rising on to tip toes, pulled down a dusty ceramic plate. Taking a damp cloth, she wiped it clean. "Well, maybe next time you'll be a little more considerate when you sneak up on people. I would have said hi, except you looked busy. What was that, anyhow?" She pulled open the first box of Chinese food, and began to arrange pieces of glazed chicken artfully on the plate. "Hey, are you, like, secretly into ballet? Because that would be--disturbing."

"It's called T'ai Chi. It aids concentration and, uhh..." Angel watched as Cordelia spooned rice from the second box, shaping it into a tidy mound beside the chicken. "What are you doing?"

She shrugged. "Having dinner."

"Yes, I see that. I was just wondering... why?" Angel ran a hand through his hair, then attempted to re-phrase the question with tact. "I mean, it's Saturday night. Don't you usually go out on Saturday nights with, uhhh..."

"Laura," supplied Cordelia. "We were gonna go to a party, but I told her some other time. I've decided: you and I don't spend enough time together."

Angel blinked. "All day every day being not enough time together in what sense exactly?"

Cordelia raised her fork and waved it for emphasis. "Yes, but that's demon-hunting, saving-people time. Not personal, one-on-one bonding time. If this is going to be a real partnership--me with the visions, you with the, well, fangs--then we're gonna have to hang out more. Get to know each other better. I mean, what do I know about you, really? You're a vampire. You're cursed. Now I know that you like to balance on one leg in your free time. Who saw that one coming?"

Angel pulled the opposite chair out from under the table and sat down. "Cordelia..."

"Look," said Cordelia: "It's like this. I thought I had Doyle down. And I didn't. I didn't find out the really important stuff until it was way too late to do anything about it. Well, I'm not gonna screw up like that again."

Doyle. Angel said nothing for a moment, as Cordelia's unexpected visit began to make more sense. She hadn't been talking about him as much lately, and in the absence of other evidence, Angel had decided to interpret that as a good sign. But a month wasn't a long time when you were nineteen. And not when you were two centuries and then some, either.

Her hand, the one not holding the fork, rested on the table, and he patted it, awkwardly. "You didn't screw up."

"I didn't listen, either," said Cordelia. "And of the three dead guys in my life, you're the only one who can talk back to me. So tonight we're bonding, and you don't get to say no."

"What exactly did you have in mind?"

Cordelia reached down into her bag and pulled out a video tape. "I rented a movie."

Angel took the tape and looked at the front cover. "The Sixth Sense. With Bruce Willis."

"I think you'll like it," said Cordelia, nodding. "It's clever. And it has a lot of dead people in it."

"Did someone say dead people?" Angel looked up, and saw Wesley standing in the kitchen doorway. "Apologies for barging in," he went on, "but I heard voices from upstairs. Oooh, Chinese." He lifted a spare piece of chicken from the cardboard container on the table.

"Hey!" said Cordelia with irritation. "If you didn't pay for it, you don't eat it. Wesley, what are you doing here?"

Wesley swallowed the chicken. "Well, I thought I'd drop by and see how the forces for good were getting on. And I find that the forces for good..." He scanned the room, taking in the boxes of food on the table, the rental tape and Angel's bathrobe: "...Seem to be taking the night off."

"We've had a rough few weeks," said Cordelia defensively. "You know, if you came round here to harangue us, you can just go again. `Cause I've heard Giles when he gets into `sacred duty' mode, and I am so not up for hearing that right now."

"Cordelia," said Angel.

Wesley wasn't giving up. "I distinctly heard someone say something about dead people."

Cordelia lifted the videotape and waved it at him. "In the movie, dummy."

"Oh." He took the tape from her and looked at it. "The Sixth Sense. I've seen this. It's very good. I never guessed Bruce Willis was really a ghost--"

"Wesley!" Cordelia interrupted a second too late to cut him off. "Angel hasn't seen it. Now you've spoiled the ending!"

Cordelia and Wesley were facing off across the table, leaving Angel feeling oddly superfluous. "I'll cope with the disappointment," he said. "Somehow. Wesley--"

But Wesley was waving a hand and retreating. "No, no, I can see I've come by at a bad time. What with the... food and relaxing and suchlike. I shall just be on my way. Rogue demon hunters tread a lonely path."

He was halfway to the door when Angel heard Cordelia start to say something. She didn't finish it. Instead she gasped and slid off her chair, knocking her plate on to the floor. Lumps of chicken and flecks of sticky rice bounced across the linoleum.

Angel pushed back the table and knelt beside her while she shook. After a minute, her glazed eyes began to focus again. "Vision," she announced faintly.

"Do you want anything?"

"Yeah--a lifestyle that doesn't involve losing motor functions and dribbling at least once a day," said Cordelia testily, then tried to swallow. "While I'm waiting, water."

Angel couldn't move without removing his support from her back. He looked to Wesley. "There are cups over there."

"Right," said Wesley. He stepped over the fallen plate on his way to the sink. "I didn't realise the visions were quite so--distressing."

"Well now you know," said Cordelia thickly. She accepted the water Wesley brought her and sipped it, before allowing Angel to help her to her feet. When he was sure she could stand unaided, he stood back and let her brush off the grains of rice which had stuck to her clothing.

"What did you get?" he asked.

"An address. A street over in Inglewood, behind the racetrack. And a guy walking down it. A really scared, tired guy."

Angel lifted his car keys from one of the kitchen shelves. "I need to get dressed. Cordelia--"

"And I need five minutes to pick the rice out of my hair. Eww."

Angel threw the keys to Wesley, who fumbled before catching them. "My car's in the parking garage. Bring it round and we'll meet you out front in ten minutes."

Wesley looked at the keys in his hand, then at Angel. "I'm coming? I mean, I'm coming. Right. Ten minutes."

When he had gone, Angel looked at Cordelia. She was combing her fingers through her long dark hair and scowling at the empty doorway. "Does he have to come with us?"

"Wesley wants to help," said Angel. "And we largely have him to thank for the fact that your eyes are still in your head."

"Like I needed reminding. But does one little piece of life-saving mean I have to let him hang round and eat my food when he feels like it?"

"Cordelia..." Angel hesitated. "Is there something between you and Wesley I should know about?"

She fingered her hair back into shape and stared at him. "You mean, apart from the world's most ill-advised romantic interlude?"

Angel looked at her. "You and... Wesley?"

"We did go to the Prom together. Or didn't you notice?"

"I was--preoccupied."

"Yeah, with the slayer in the red dress. I remember. Well, for those viewers who weren't paying attention, here's the `previously on Cordelia'. I was rebounding from Xander Harris like rubber off a brick wall. Then Wesley turns up, all suave English sophistication and elegant vowel sounds. He was the anti-Xander. He was perfect. Just one small problem: no chemistry. Less than none. It was just embarrassing." She sighed. "I thought I was getting a fresh start in L.A. How am I gonna do that if bits of my old life keep inviting themselves to dinner?"

"Things you regret," said Angel, "have a tendency to come back at you."

"So what do I do?"

"Deal with it."

"Easy for you to say. I kissed Wesley. Twice. All you have to regret is several hundred years' worth of killing and maiming and..." Cordelia stopped. "Okay. Comparison looking shaky."

Angel started to leave the kitchen for the bedroom. As he went, a thought struck him. "If it makes you feel better, I doubt it was the world's most ill-advised romantic interlude." He opened the bedroom door: "After all, nobody died."

The neighbourhood had seen better days.

Every other store front was dark and boarded over, filthy and defaced by graffiti. Drifts of garbage obscured doorways, and the few windows which were lit were also heavily barred. The street was three-o'clock-in-the-morning quiet, no cars, no pedestrians. It might look like a through road, but Angel guessed in reality it was a dead end. If a person turned down here by mistake, odds were they weren't leaving.

Turning around in the passenger seat of the convertible, Wesley said, "Cordelia, do you have any idea what kind of danger this fellow you saw in your vision might be in?"

Cordelia, sitting in the back, shrugged irritably. "I already went through this about a dozen times. No."

"I was simply thinking there might be some clue you had perhaps overlooked--"

"Well, yeah," she said, cutting him off. "The visions didn't come instructions included. I call it like I see it, and this time all I saw was one guy walking down this street. Most of the rest of it was feelings."

"You share their feelings?" Wesley sounded intrigued. "My word. That's exceptional."

"If you mean exceptionally intrusive and unpleasant, then yes."

Angel said, "Cordelia, it might help if you could analyse what kinds of emotions you were getting."

She looked uncomfortable, but nodded and, after a second, started to list them off. "Well, he was scared--I mean, really, really, terrified. But also kind of excited, which didn't make sense. Oh, and he was hungry."

"Hungry?"

She frowned. "Well, not hungry, exactly. But kind of empty, and needing to be filled up. Really intense. There's not a word for it."

"Craving," said Angel.

"Okay, maybe there is a word for it. I'm gonna need to buy a thesaurus, aren't I?"

"Anything else? Any demonic visages? Supernatural manifestations?" asked Wesley hopefully.

Cordelia thought. "He had a headache."

"But there must have been something--"

"Wesley, I am not crystal ball girl. Quit asking already because I don't know."

Her tone was sharper than her habitual forthrightness; there was an edge of real annoyance in Cordelia's voice. Stepping in before the argument could escalate, Angel said firmly, "The fact Cordelia had a vision means it's one for us. We'll figure out why later." He held up a hand. "Someone's coming."

Wesley and Cordelia looked at him blankly--neither of them, he could tell, had heard anything. Angel had. Footsteps on the sidewalk, echoing faintly against the sides of buildings. Irregular, shuffling one moment, rapid the next, as if the walker was by turns reluctant then desperate to get where he was going.

The man appeared under the pool of jaundiced light thrown out by one of the few working street-lamps. Head lowered, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, he was now moving purposefully along the sidewalk, oblivious to everything except the next place he needed to put his foot down. He was accelerating by the moment, the last vestiges of hesitation draining from him as Angel watched. Whatever battle he had been fighting, he had lost, and was surrendering willingly.

"That's him," said Cordelia with certainty.

Angel nodded. "Did you get what he's called?"

"Samuel. There wasn't a last name."

"That's enough."

"Should we all go over there?"

Something in the man's demeanour made Angel suspect he wasn't psychologically in a good place to be accosted by three complete strangers. "No, he might bolt. Stay here for now, but be ready to move fast if you need to. We don't know what this is about yet."

He waited while they acknowledged that, then made his way across the empty street, trying to make the inevitable interception appear as casual as possible. He was less than a dozen paces away when he realised he need not have made the effort--the man still gave no signs of noticing his presence.

Angel stepped in front of him. "Excuse me."

The man drew up short and blinked rapidly. "What--?"

"Are you all right?"

The man stared blankly at him for a moment. "What is this, a polite mugging?"

"I'm not trying to rob you."

"Oh good," said the man vaguely. There was an odd, remote look in his eyes that told Angel he was only half-involved with the conversation. He made a weak attempt to side-step Angel, stopping again when Angel moved with him, continuing to block his path.

"Samuel," said Angel.

Samuel looked up, and for an instant there was a clarity in his expression that told Angel he had made contact. "Who are you?"

"I've been--sent. To make sure you're all right."

Samuel's complexion, Angel noticed, was sallow and gaunt underneath his stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot and nervous. Transferring his weight rapidly from one foot to the other, he pulled his left hand from his pocket and tugged nervously at his collar. The plain gold ring on his third finger glinted faintly in the streetlights' glow.

"I'm fine. And you know what?" Suddenly aggressive, Samuel pushed past him. "You can take a hike."

Angel glanced across the street, to where Cordelia and Wesley watched silently from the parked Plymouth convertible. He turned and saw the back of Samuel's jacket as he started to walk away. It was a good jacket, he noted, as were the shoes, but the rest of his clothes were cheap and shabby, as if he had taken more pride in his appearance in the past than recently. Angel looked again at the wedding ring on his left hand and decided to make an educated guess. "Your family--they're worried about you."

Samuel stopped. Slowly, he looked back at Angel, his expression at once doubting and painfully hopeful. "Did Joanna--ask you to--?"

"Not exactly," said Angel, "But--"

Samuel shook his head. "No. I guess she wouldn't. Man, I don't know who you are but I need to go. I really--need--to go. I'm just--sick and tired--of fighting all the time. Okay?"

He looked at Angel, expression pleading. The fingers of his left hand twitched and fidgeted, out of control.

"It's tough," said Angel at last. "Needing. All the time. I know."

"Man," said Samuel. He was shaking his head, and had closed his eyes. "Oh, man."

"Giving in will only make it worse later. It'll come back, and it'll own another piece of you."

"I know," said Samuel. He had opened his eyes again, and was smiling sadly at Angel. "But you know what? I don't care any more."

Abruptly, he turned and started to run down the street. Angel followed, but Samuel had a head start and was surprisingly swift. Even as he began to build speed Angel could see the other man pulling away from him.

He heard the dull roar of an accelerating car from the street behind him. A second later, the convertible roared past, before executing a near perfect handbrake turn. Wheels screeched in protest as the car rotated ninety degrees then came to a halt, blocking the road completely. Samuel, moving too fast to stop, slammed into the side and was unceremoniously hauled into the back seat by Cordelia.

Angel hopped over the passenger side door and landed with a solid thump beside Wesley, who was patting the steering wheel appreciatively. "Handles well, doesn't she?"

Angel looked at him. "That's bad for the tyres."

In the back of the car, Cordelia was supporting a dazed-looking Samuel. "So what's his story?" she asked, nodding at him. "Demon trouble?"

"I think he has one or two to deal with," said Angel. "Let's get him out of here."

In the main room of Angel's basement apartment, Samuel sat on the edge of an easy chair, his posture and clenched, trembling hands suggesting anything but ease. Cordelia set a tray of hot drinks down on the low table in front of him; when he made no effort to take a mug, she lifted one of the two black coffees and guided his hands around it.

"It's decaf," she told him. "Nothing even remotely druggie in there, no sir."

Wesley, stirring sugar into a white coffee, looked up sharply. "Cordelia."

Samuel shook his head, and almost smiled. "It's okay. Tell the truth, it's--almost a relief not to have to pretend. I spent a lot of time--pretending to everyone--that everything was fine. My friends, my wife, my kids..."

"Where were you going tonight?" asked Angel.

"To see a guy I know."

"A dealer."

"A dealer." Samuel looked down. "I used to be--someone else. Someone different. I have a--I used to have a business, over in Whittier. Sporting goods. I had a wife and a family and--I don't know how it got like this. How it got so bad so fast."

Wesley asked, "Have you tried getting help?"

Samuel gave a low, humourless chuckle. "Oh yeah. I have been. I've been clean for-- it's been three months. I thought I was starting to come out of it. But then, these past weeks, it's been getting worse again. Every minute of every day, I can't think, I can't breathe, it just hurts so bad and I need, I need..." He shut his eyes and his face twisted, as if in pain. "Oh God. Listen to me. No wonder Jo left."

"But you still care about her," said Angel quietly. "Or you wouldn't be wearing that ring."

Cordelia glanced at Angel, then at Samuel's left hand, curled around the coffee mug. "How old are your kids?"

"Ten. Eight. Eighteen months. I got--I got a picture." He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and offered Cordelia a dog-eared, faded snapshot. She took it from him and examined it. The woman in the foreground of the picture was holding a baby in one arm, while her other hand rested on the shoulder of a chubby, laughing boy. His sister sat next to him, nursing a doll and smiling for the camera with sweet, shy innocence.

"They're beautiful," she told him.

"Yeah," said Samuel. "And I want them back, and I don't think I can make it to Friday--" He broke off, unable to continue. His hands shook so much that coffee slopped over the edges of the mug and on to the floor. Carefully, Cordelia relieved him of it and put her hand on his shoulder.

Angel asked, "What happens on Friday?"

Samuel took several minutes to compose himself. When he could speak again, he said, "I got a meeting. With the social services people. If it goes well, they said--I could see my kids. A couple of afternoons a month. I want that. I want it a lot."

Cordelia shook her head, puzzled. "If you've made it this far, Friday's less than a week away. I mean, you've cracked it, right?" She grimaced. "Okay, regretting that phrasing already."

"It's not like that," said Angel. He was speaking to Cordelia, but looking at Samuel.

"Then what is it like?" she asked, puzzled.

Samuel reached out and took the photograph from her. He held it up. "However much I want this, there's something else I want more. And I am so tired--of fighting-- alone."

Angel put down his cup and leaned forward in his chair. "You're not alone. We're going to help."

"Yeah, and I've heard that before." Samuel put his fingertips to the sides of his head and rubbed wearily at his temples. "Look, you people appeared out of nowhere and stopped me doing--something stupid, and I'm grateful. But I don't think there's much else you can do. I don't think there's anything anyone can do."

"Well, that's where you're wrong," Cordelia told him. "We help the hopeless. It's kind of our mission statement. And--don't take this the wrong way--but you're right in our target market."

Angel was looking at Samuel, expression oddly intense. "Do you want to change?"

"Oh God yes," said Samuel. He stopped. "But I don't trust myself."

"Then trust us," said Angel simply.

"I'm back. All change for the afternoon shift."

Cordelia's voice was accompanied by the clack-clack of high heels on the basement stairs. Wesley looked to where Samuel was sleeping in Angel's bed, and saw him stir and murmur. He waited for several anxious seconds while Samuel writhed and twisted under the sheets. When at last he settled again, Wesley exhaled in relief. He got up and left the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.

He followed the noises of cupboards opening and closing and of running water to the kitchen. As he entered, Cordelia was standing with her back to him, pouring boiling water from the kettle into a small pan on the stove.

"Please try to be a little quieter," he told her as she turned around. "It took hours to get Samuel to sleep."

Leaving the pan on the heat, she opened the refrigerator and took out one of the plastic-wrapped tubs. Removing the covering and the lid, she lowered it carefully into the steaming water. This done, she lifted a thermometer from the shelf behind the sink and popped it into the tub. "Asking how he is would be kind of a redundant question, then."

"Angel told me the night passed uneventfully, but he's been getting worse all morning. In the end I had to give him a couple of those." Wesley pointed at the small screw-top jar sitting on the counter beside the stove. Cordelia lifted it and read the label.

"Seditol?"

"Tranquillisers. Strong ones." She was looking at him oddly, and Wesley felt some kind of explanation was required. "I always keep a small supply. For some reason, that brand happens to make a very effective substitute for lungwort in divining magic. And they're not as difficult to get."

"Whatever," said Cordelia, rolling her eyes. She glanced towards the bedroom and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Samuel's gonna need more than emotional support to make it to the end of the week, isn't he?"

Wesley said, "He needs something we're entirely ill-equipped to give him: professional help." He pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down. "Cordelia, your vision--"

"Don't start again, Wesley." She pulled a face: "I already told you--no demons, no magic."

Absently, he drummed the fingers of his right hand against the tabletop. "Then why us? There are a lot of people in this city with Samuel's problem. Your vision didn't lead us to any of them--and, equally, I fail to see what we can do for him that other people can't do better."

Cordelia shrugged. "Not wanting to play the dramatic irony card too heavily, but Samuel isn't the only person currently in the building with an intimate knowledge of the whole addiction thing." She pointed meaningfully at the ceiling.

"You think that's why Angel wants to help him?"

"Angel's Angel. He wants to help everybody." Cordelia wiped the bloodied end of the thermometer clean with a paper towel and inspected the reading. "Ninety eight degrees. Close enough." She lifted the plastic tub clear of the water and poured the contents carefully into a mug. "But he's got that look of his over this one."

"What look?"

Cordelia shrugged. "He gets this weird look. The I'm-invested-with-this-but-I'm-notgoing -to-admit-it look." She put down the mug and wrinkled her brow while staring into the middle distance with an expression that somehow managed to be simultaneously intense and vague. Wesley had to admit it was a good impression. She went on, "He's upstairs now going through the books. Which, since it's two in the afternoon, counts as a vampire all-nighter."

"Oh. I didn't know. I'll--just go up and see if he needs any help." Wesley glanced back towards the apartment bedroom. Because, he added silently, it's not as if there's anything useful I can do here.

Cordelia gave a small, suit-yourself shrug and handed him the cup of blood. "Then you can take this. And, between us, I think he's looking peaky, so make sure he drinks it."

Wesley looked at her. "He might not?"

"He's got a thing about drinking in front of people. Like he's afraid they'll be grossed out. Although I've watched Xander Harris trying to eat spaghetti Bolognese, and after that, what horrors remain?" She shut her eyes and shuddered at the memory. "By the way, you owe me five bucks."

"For what?"

"The ham and pineapple pizza that I so generously picked up for us on the way here."

"Ham and pineapple? Oh good, that's my favourite." The vapours rising off the hot pig's blood wafted into his nostrils and Wesley almost gagged. He held the cup away from himself. "Or it will be, when I recover my appetite."

Every set of blinds was drawn tightly in the office upstairs, and the limited amount of ambient light seeping in from the bright day outside blanketed the rooms with syrupy dimness. There was a strong smell of greasy, cooling pizza hanging in the air, and after a few seconds Wesley tracked it to the half-open cardboard tray sitting on Cordelia's desk.

He was about to lift the lid when the faint rustle of old pages turning caught his attention. "Angel?"

The reply was a wordless grunt of acknowledgement. Wesley followed it to the doorway of the inner office, and found Angel sitting at the desk, almost obscured behind several high piles of reference works. As Wesley entered he looked up, and winced. Raising a hand, he massaged the muscles between his neck and shoulder.

"It's a good idea to get up and walk around at least once an hour," said Wesley, sitting down.

Angel looked at him, still rubbing his shoulder. "Did they tell you that in Watcher training?"

"That, and how to avoid repetitive strain injury when typing. Let it never be said the Council doesn't move with the times."

"Perish the thought."

"I brought you--lunch."

Wesley put the mug of hot blood down on top of a closed, leather-bound volume on the desk between himself and Angel. After a moment, Angel picked it up. He looked down at the cup, then at Wesley; then, with deliberation, he set it to one side. "Thanks. How's our guest?"

"Not good," Wesley told him honestly. "Samuel is going through the full effects of withdrawal, and we have nothing to offer him except tea and sympathy."

"And a place to ride it out," said Angel. "And people who understand."

Angel's voice was calm, but his face was closed and set. Wesley fought down the desire to sigh. Invested, indeed. "Angel, what if Cordelia's vision was only meant to lead us to Samuel so someone else could help him? I mean, we can take shifts to watch him, we can get him to Friday and go with him to this assessment, but what then? His problems aren't magically going to go away even if he gets access to his children."

"But it might give him something to care about more than his next fix," said Angel. "We're in the right place at the right time to change something. And I think I know why he was brought to us."

He lifted the book he had been consulting and turned it around on the desk. Wesley scanned the open pages for a moment, perplexed. He looked up. "Xenophon? My, my. I haven't heard of his magic being used for a long time. Fell very out of favour with the European courts in the twelfth century, just about the time of that nasty business with the King of Spain's daughter ..."

"He specialised in bindings," said Angel. "Specifically, the binding of souls."

Wesley nodded. "Came up with some very effective love charms, as I recall. Which was unfortunate for the King of Spain's daughter. And the horse, now I think about it. But I'm not sure I see how this is pertinent to..." He stopped, and looked at Angel. "The binding of two souls. Oh, no. Don't tell me you're even considering what I think you're considering."

"He said he's tired of fighting alone. Maybe it's time he didn't have to."

Wesley ran his finger down the text of the spell, translating the Latin as he went, hoping to find some clause that would preclude its use. "It requires an Abyssan crystal amulet."

"Not impossible to get."

"It also requires the participants to be human."

"No," corrected Angel. "The wording requires the participants to have souls. There's a difference."

Wesley took off his glasses and rubbed at them harshly with the corner of a handkerchief. Stonily, he said, "Well, that answers my next question, which was going to be directed at finding out who you propose takes part in this lunacy."

"I wouldn't ask you or Cordelia to..."

"No," interrupted Wesley sharply: "But of course it's perfectly all right to take the risk yourself." He stood up and paced quickly up and down the room; when he spoke, the words tumbled out in fast succession, in time with the tapping of his shoes on the wooden floor. "Angel, there are very good reasons why this kind of magic is rarely practised. The dangers are--overwhelming. The soul is a strange and precious commodity, and not to be tampered with lightly. I would have thought you of all people would have understood that."

Angel held up a hand. "There's no danger this magic might break the curse. I'm certain."

But Wesley was just warming up, and had no intention of stopping now. "And what about the other dangers? When you draw two people that closely together you expose each of them to every aspect of the other. Every aspect. My God, that's perilous enough even when both personalities are balanced and strong. But when one is an addict and the other is--"

"Just another kind of addict," said Angel. He spoke quietly, but somehow his voice still managed to override Wesley's.

Wesley blinked once, and stopped pacing. He gave a small, thin smile.

"What?" asked Angel.

"Cordelia reads you well. Better than me. I thought you had more sense." He turned around and stood against the bookshelf, facing Angel. "It's not the same thing at all. You feed to survive--an addict who doesn't get his drug won't die."

"Samuel might disagree with you, right now." Angel looked away for a moment, then stood up. Wesley saw him cast a glance towards the still-steaming mug beside the table. Then he walked out of the room, brushing past Wesley on his way to the outer office. Determined not to let Angel walk out on the argument, Wesley followed.

What he saw in the next room surprised him. Angel was standing at Cordelia's desk, holding the lid of the pizza tray open and looking wistfully at the congealing slab of ham and pineapple deep pan inside the box. He allowed the tray lid to fall shut. "What do they tell Watchers about a vampire's appetite?"

"That it's acute. And insatiable."

"Insatiable," echoed Angel. He was looking at the top of the pizza box, apparently finding something absorbing in the red-and-white logo printed on its surface. Softly, he said, "Sometimes, I can almost remember what hunger felt like. And how food satisfied it. It isn't like that for--us."

Wesley said nothing for a moment, caught between his natural curiosity and a deep sense of embarrassment at Angel's obvious discomfort. He suspected Angel would have been an intensely private man no matter what his true nature. As it was, the self loathing Wesley knew he felt, coupled with his shame of what he was, must make these kinds of revelations a form of torture. He would not put himself through such horror unless he wanted desperately to make his motivations clear.

"What is it like?" asked Wesley finally.

Angel looked at him. "I could kill and drink every waking minute and still want more."

Wesley met his gaze, unflinching. "But you don't. And you want to share that control with Samuel."

"Yes."

"Have you thought that contact with him might put cracks in your restraint?"

"Yes." Angel walked away from Cordelia's desk and back into the small office. Wesley sensed he had not finished speaking and this time did not follow him. When Angel returned, he was carrying the cup of warm animal blood in his hand. "But I've had a lot of practice at developing my self-control. A couple of lifetimes' worth. If I can use that to help someone else, it makes the craving a little easier to tolerate."

As Angel finished speaking, he raised the cup to his lips and drank, slowly and deliberately. There was no flicker of change in his features as he swallowed, no indication of whatever impact taking his own brand of drug had on him. He looked, thought Wesley suddenly, as indifferent as if he was drinking a cup of coffee, and he wondered how long it had taken Angel to reach this point.

And how much of it was a pretence for his benefit.

Angel lowered the cup and put it down on the edge of the desk. "I'll need your help."

"It's a bad idea."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

Wesley was silent.

"Guys? Hey, guys?" Wesley looked over his shoulder and to where Cordelia had appeared in the office doorway. She looked at himself, then Angel, then back. "Whoah. Getting some serious atmosphere in here."

"We were just--talking," said Wesley.

Angel asked, "What is it?"

"Samuel's looking rough. I mean, really rough. He's having a fit of the screaming heebie jeebies down there--practically climbing the walls. You know that out-ofyour -depth feeling? Well, the water's lapping round my eyebrows."

Angel looked at Wesley. "We've found a way to help him."

Cordelia put her hands on her hips. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's move, people."

"Wesley?" said Angel.

Wesley hesitated. "I--" He stopped, then looked first at Angel, then Cordelia. "Yes. Very well."

Angel nodded once. "We'll need an Abyssan amulet: Cordelia, get on the web and see if you can find where we can get one in L.A. at short notice. Wesley, you'll want to get familiar with the ritual. I'll watch Samuel. He might get violent."

He left. Beside Wesley, Cordelia watched him go, then turned to Wesley with an interested expression. "So what's the game plan? And why do we need a Medusan Medallion, anyway?"

"Abyssan Amulet," corrected Wesley automatically: "I'll explain while we work."

"Can't wait to hear this one." Cordelia made to go, then noticed the empty mug sitting at the side of the desk for the first time. "Oh, look, Angel had some lunch. Good for him."

"Did you get it?" asked Wesley as the elevator doors opened and Cordelia came into the basement apartment.

Instead of replying immediately, she opened her bag and held up the amulet so he could see it. It twisted slowly on the end of its chain, the semi-transparent gemstone refracting the light in myriad shades of blue. Cordelia examined it critically for a second, then shook her head.

"One hundred and forty dollars for something Liberace would have turned down for being too gaudy. And they wouldn't take Visa. I mean, what is that about? Just because your stock dates from the tenth century doesn't mean your credit policy has to as well." She frowned and looked across the room to where Angel was lighting the last in a long line of evenly spaced candles: "I can claim this on expenses, right?"

Angel seemed intent on the task at hand and merely nodded. Wesley, in the meantime, had taken the amulet and was studying it carefully. "What it looks like is hardly the issue, Cordelia. It's not costume jewellery."

Peering over his shoulder, she saw something she hadn't noticed in the in the dim and musty interior of the magic shop. "It's cracked. I paid a hundred and forty dollars for that and it's cracked! What a rip off!"

Wesley was frowning at the stone. "Hmmm. Yes, the join is fashioned slightly more crudely than I would have liked. Probably not the highest quality stone. Still, it should suffice." As he spoke, he gripped the amulet in both hands and grunted as he exerted pressure on it.

"Wesley! You'll break it."

"I'm trying to--umpphh--break it. There we go," he announced triumphantly, as the amulet split cleanly down the middle. Cordelia opened her mouth to tell Wesley exactly what she thought of people who deliberately broke things that other people had spent a whole afternoon finding and most of their currently available disposable income buying. She stopped after the first word, and stared. Instead of one amulet, Wesley was holding two, each clear blue stone a perfect mirror image of its partner.

Wesley was carefully separating what Cordelia had at first taken to be the amulet's single gold chain. In fact, she realised as his fingers tugged and pulled at the separate strings of links, it was comprised of two distinct strands. With another few seconds' concentrated effort, they fell apart, and Wesley held up each half of the amulet in a different hand. "Angel, you and Samuel should put these on now. The crystal needs a few minutes to align itself with the wearer's energy."

Angel lit the final candle and put down the box of matches. He crossed the room and took the twin amulets from Wesley, who somehow managed to radiate extreme disapproval without significantly altering his facial expression. Cordelia wondered where anyone had ever gotten the idea that the English were good at keeping the lid on their emotions.

"Wait," said Wesley as Angel began to lift the chain of the first amulet over his head: "It'll work better if both of you put on your halves at the same time."

Angel nodded. "All right." He lowered the amulet and went to the closed bedroom door. "Cordelia."

Taking the other half of the amulet from Wesley, she followed Angel into the bedroom. The lights were out and it was almost entirely dark inside. When her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, she looked to the bed and saw it was empty. From somewhere in the shadows, low to the floor, she heard ragged, uneven breathing.

"Samuel." Angel spoke quietly into the darkness. "How are you doing?"

When the reply finally came, it was little more than a whisper, breathy and exhausted. "I'm--not so good, man. It--hurts--"

"We're going to do something about that. Make it easier. But you have to help."

This time the silence extended even longer. Then: "What do I--need to do?"

Angel nodded. "Cordelia, get the lights."

She flipped the switch next to the door and in an instant the room was brightly illuminated. Samuel, crouched in the corner, covered his face with his hands and cringed further back. Cordelia knelt opposite him and held up the amulet. "You need to put this on."

He looked at her through bloodshot, spent eyes. "What?"

"Just think of it as an alternative therapy. A really, really alternative therapy."

"Trust me," said Angel. He was holding his half of the amulet, ready to put it on.

Samuel hesitated, then rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Okay."

"On three," Angel said to Cordelia. "One, two--three."

On the last word, Cordelia slipped the chain around Samuel's neck. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw Angel adjusting the half he now wore.

Samuel looked down at the heavy blue stone resting against his shirt. "I gotta tell ya, the whole healing-crystals-aura thing is..."

"A pile of bull," completed Cordelia cheerfully. "This is the real deal. Come on." She took him by the hand and, standing up, pulled him to his feet with her.

In the main room, Wesley was fussing over the position of the one piece of furniture, a plain high backed chair, which had not been pushed up against the walls. As Cordelia and Angel entered, supporting Samuel between them, he moved it half an inch towards the stairs, then nodded in apparent satisfaction. "Ready."

"Good," said Angel. "What do we do?"

Wesley lifted a sheaf of loose pages covered in dense hand-written notes and consulted a particular section. "Samuel stands there," he said, pointing to a spot near the chair. "Angel, opposite him. Cordelia, I need you to hold that."

He indicated a small bronze burner which was sitting on the floor throwing puffs of fragrant smoke upwards at irregular intervals. Cordelia picked it up reluctantly. "Why do I always have to be Herb Girl?"

"Cordelia."

"Yeah, yeah. On it already."

Swinging the burner in a slow arc, she began to pace around the outside of the room. Wesley sat down on the wooden chair, placing his notes on his knees, while Angel guided Samuel into place before taking up his assigned position.

Wesley cleared his throat and began to speak quietly in Latin, initially referring frequently to his notes, but gaining confidence as he continued. As he spoke, the rising and falling cadence of his voice created a kind of rhythm, and Cordelia found herself matching her paces to it. Once she had established a pattern--step, swing, step--she turned her attention to the centre of the room. It looked, she thought, like a movie scene before the director called action: everyone waiting for something to happen, no one sure what to expect.

Suddenly, she felt the hair on her arms and neck rising. The air was heavy with an excess of--electricity? Something else?--and Cordelia could feel it trying to coalesce around her, like water splashing over the edge of a brimming bucket.

The smell wafting upwards from the burner was suddenly pungently suffocating. She kept pacing, but now it was difficult--the atmosphere was somehow solid around her, and it felt as if she was wading through Jell-O. The air crawled and sparkled with raw energy. "Guys? Uhh, guys? Is this--?"

"Amas et untos," said Wesley. He was concentrating entirely on the incantation, and hadn't heard her. "Asytos enthros. Hest enthros. Naras!"

On the last word, the twin amulets began to glow with a bright blue light. Cordelia watched, forgetting to hold up the burner or even to keep walking.

The light grew brighter until the candles' faint flickering was entirely swamped. Then, just as Cordelia was about to look away, unable to stand the searing brightness, something happened.

A bridge of lightning seared the air, joining the two halves of the amulet and linking Samuel and Angel. The stream of light was so compact and distinct that it seemed almost tangible. Random sparks flowed along its length, giving an impression of movement, as if something was being transferred, although in what direction Cordelia couldn't tell. It was eerily beautiful, and despite her watering, hurting eyes, she didn't want to look away.

Then she saw something else.

It was black and oily, a dark shapeless mass oozing along the bridge of blue light, extending thin, grasping tendrils as it went. It was the kind of thing that had no right existing outside of the worst kind of three-in-the-morning nightmare. No right to be real. But it was real; Cordelia could see it and the sight filled her with horrified, instinctive revulsion. And the thing was dragging itself towards--

"Angel!"

The bridge of light vanished, and with it the black jellyfish-thing. Wesley turned to her angrily just as Samuel staggered and fell.

"Cordelia, do you know how dangerous it is to disturb a magical process?"

The brass burner had gone out. She dumped it unceremoniously and glared at him. "Well, pardon me for interrupting the floor show. I saw something--" There was a dull thud from the other side of the room. Cordelia looked around and saw Angel had sunk awkwardly to his knees. He was holding one hand to his head, and was using the other to brace himself against the floor. Momentarily forgetting her irritation at Wesley, Cordelia went to him. "Angel? You okay?"

"I--will be. I need a second." He raised his head and looked across the room. Cordelia had the distinct impression he was having trouble focusing. "Help him."

He pushed Cordelia away and, after a moment, she reluctantly broke contact. Wesley was already helping Samuel up, and by the time she had arrived at his side he had recovered sufficiently to stand unaided. He was still pale, but the cold sheen of sweat had gone from his face, and his gaze no longer flitted fearfully around the room. Samuel was looking at Angel, his expression puzzled but calm.

Wesley lifted the amulet away from Samuel and frowned. It was shattered, a spider's web of tiny cracks radiating outwards from the centre. "Well, we won't be trying that again in a hurry."

Cordelia looked at Samuel, then Wesley. "Did it work?"

He shook his head. "Best ask them, I think. Samuel, how do you feel?"

Samuel shook his head, as if to clear it. "What was that? I feel... I feel fine."

"Angel?"

Cordelia turned in time to see Angel getting to his feet.

"I'm fine now." He spread his hands for emphasis. "Fine."

"Good," said Cordelia. "You're fine, he's fine, we're all fine...Everything's gonna be just fine."

Two

Concentrate. Focus.

An arm, moving through space. A foot, raised and lowered. The purity of movement.

Control.

Hunger--

Concentrate. Focus.

A hand, extended so. Balanced, weight on back heel. Find the form. Hold it.

Concentrate. Hunger--No. Focus. Focus.

Drink. Feed. Kill--

Focus, damn it--hunger--

Angel opened his eyes, lost his balance, and fell.

He toppled backwards, not quite putting his raised foot down fast enough to prevent the fall, and landed heavily on his back. For a second he lay still, staring up at the apartment ceiling.

Hunger. Need.

He got up, grabbing his shirt from where it hung over the back of a chair, and pulled it on as he walked to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents.

He reached for the nearest container, lifted it out and tore off the outer plastic wrapping. He held it up and drank in the scent.

It didn't smell right. Animal blood, several days old, sealed inside plastic. It smelled stale and flat. The scent was just an echo of something else, something he craved from instinct and experience. Human blood, gushing from an open vein, life made liquid, pouring from mortal flesh, sweet and satisfying and--

The telephone in the hall started to ring.

Angel dropped the container. It hit the hard kitchen floor with a dull thud, followed by a thick, wet splash as the lid came off on impact. Blood, thick with age and cold, pooled at his feet. Tiny flecks of red stained the bottom of the refrigerator door, his shirt, his hands.

A single bead of blood, fat and glossy, had landed on the back of his right hand. He resisted for a moment, then licked it off.

And then he was on the floor, on hands and knees, licking up the spilt blood, disgusted, horrified, unable to stop.

Concentrate. Focus. Control--control--

With a gasp, he pushed himself up and back, away from the blood and towards the kitchen's back wall. For several long minutes he sat still, his bloodied, sticky hands covering his face. The smell was overpowering.

The telephone stopped ringing.

When he could trust himself to move without succumbing again, he got up and went to the bathroom, stripping off layers of stained clothing as he went. He turned on the shower and stood under the stream, not feeling whether the water was hot or cold. Resting his head against the tiled wall, he saw streaks of red draining away in the swirling water around his feet.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

The water drummed against the sides of the shower, and he couldn't hear himself.

Carefully, Cordelia removed the brush from the pot of nail polish and allowed the excess fluid to drain from it. Then she drew the tip over her thumbnail, lips pursed in concentration. Two more swipes, and the nail was covered in a glossy coat of deep purple. She flexed her fingers, admiring the results of her handiwork, then turned her attention back to the Cosmo quiz. The title at the top of the page read Working Relationships: You and Your Boss. Cordelia scanned down the page until she found her place.

5. I am most likely to complain that my boss: (a) ...doesn't delegate sufficient responsibility to me (5 points) (b) ...doesn't listen to my suggestions (4 points) (c) ...makes unrealistic demands (3 points)

Cordelia read the question several times, holding her hands awkwardly out to her sides in order to avoid smudging her still-tacky nails. After a moment she lifted a pen, still mindful of her nails, and wrote on the glossy page:

(d) may unexpectedly turn into a murderous sadistic psychopath

She thought for a moment, then added:

(one million points)

She dropped the pen and rested her elbows on top of the magazine. She looked up so she could see the clock over the door of the smaller office.

Well, that killed ten minutes. I really need to talk to Angel about flexing my hours.

The phone on her desk rang unexpectedly. Cordelia made to lift it, remembered her drying nails, blew on her hands frantically, to no effect. Switching tactics, she lifted the receiver between the heels of her hands, transferring it to her neck then sandwiching it between her ear and shoulder. After less than a second, her earring began to cut into her skin, causing her to yelp in pain and drop the phone. It landed on the desk, on top of the magazine. Cordelia pushed back her chair and leaned down so her head rested against an advertisement for Calvin Klein perfume. With her face pressed against the page, she said, "Uhh, hello, uhh, Angel Investigations. We help the hopeless."

"Oh, Cordelia. Good afternoon."

Recognising the plummy vowel sounds and overly-precise diction, Cordelia made a short, irritated sound. "Wesley. It's you."

He sounded mildly aggrieved as he said, "There's no need to sound quite so ecstatic to hear from me."

"Well, I'm--" Cordelia raised her head and swiftly lifted the phone in the palm of her right hand. She sat up and went on, "I'm pretty busy here, y'know? Clients and research and, uhh, more clients and--what do you want, anyway?"

"To let you know the outcome of Samuel's assessment. I thought Angel would want to know how it went, seeing as he couldn't attend, what with it being so--sunny." His voice took on a reprimanding tone. "You do remember it was today?"

"Of course I remembered," lied Cordelia. "Did it go okay?"

"Swimmingly."

"They made him swim? Weird assessment."

"No, I meant--" Wesley stopped. "It went very well. Samuel was in excellent shape. He was calm, focused: he spoke very movingly about his desire to see his family again. The panel only took ten minutes to decide. They've granted him supervised access to his children two afternoons a month, to increase if there are no problems."

"That's good news."

"He was overjoyed. I believe we really helped him."

"I'll tell Angel. You never know, it might lift his mood. From `clinically depressed' all the way up the scale to `slightly morose'."

From the basement below the office, Cordelia heard a thud. A moment later she felt the resulting vibrations echo through the soles of her shoes. On the other end of the line, Wesley said, "What was that?"

"Oh, probably nothing. Just--more new clients trying to batter down our door. Like I said, we're busy. I gotta go now. Talk to you sometime."

She put down the phone and, pressing the buttons carefully to avoid chipping the fresh varnish, dialled the downstairs extension. When there was no answer by the tenth ring, she started to feel mildly anxious. Of course, no one answering the phone could just mean Angel was in the shower. Or it could mean he was in the middle of a fight to the death with a horde of demonic slime-beasts. The fun thing about this job, she reflected as she opened her desk's bottom drawer and pulled out a twelve-inch dagger, was that both possibilities were equally likely.

The elevator chimed softly, indicating that the car was coming up from the basement. Armed with the dagger, Cordelia got up from her desk and waited for it to ascend.

She relaxed when the door was pulled back from within and she saw Angel. "Oh, it's you." She dropped the dagger absently back on to her desk. "What was that crash I heard?"

Angel said nothing. He went to the percolator and poured himself a coffee. His hair, Cordelia noticed, was flat and wet, lending weight to the shower theory over the demonic attack theory. His shirt wasn't hanging right, and it took her a second to work out why: it was fastened out of sequence, leaving an extra button at the collar and an extra buttonhole at the bottom. The overall effect was one of scruffiness, and very unAngel -like.

He drained the coffee in two gulps, and poured another cup, which he drank just as quickly.

"Angel?" prompted Cordelia.

He finished his third cup of coffee. "I was practising T'ai Chi. I fell."

"Oh. So we're not going to get to see you representing Team Vampire in the Undead Olympics Martial Arts competition any time soon." Angel lifted the coffee pot again, and Cordelia stepped in and firmly relieved him of it. "I really think a fourth cup is a bad idea. All it does is raise your heart rate. Well, not your heart rate, but--"

Angel looked at her. His voice oddly flat, he said, "I'm thirsty."

"So drink water. You'll be hydrated and not caffeine-cranky. I've got a bottle in my drawer." Without waiting for a reply, Cordelia went back to her desk and found a twothirds full bottle of mineral water. She filled a clean cup and handed it to Angel. He stared at it, then set it down without drinking. She looked at him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he told her, still oddly expressionless. Then he blinked, and seemed to check himself. In a more normal tone, he said, "I really am fine. I just--didn't sleep well."

"I know what's wrong with you." Cordelia held up her hands. "Addiction."

Angel looked at her. "What?"

Cordelia waggled her fingers at him, showing off the glossy nails. "My new nail polish. It's called Addiction. You like?"

"Oh." He stared at her for a moment. "It's very--purple."

Allowing her hands to drop, she frowned at him. "Boy, you need to work on your complimenting skills. Anyhow, I was saying: I know your problem. You're concerned about Samuel. Well, I have good news on that front. Wesley called to say he aced his assessment." She shrugged. "He didn't actually say that, he used some weird Britspeak, but I think that's what he meant. Samuel gets to see his kids again--plus, he's been better by a factor of thousands since we did that spell. Magic as therapy--this could be a whole new side to the business. We could run ads: `Sort it with sorcery.' What d'you think?"

"I think, uhh..." Angel stopped. "Any messages?"

Which was, thought Cordelia with disappointment, Angel's way of saying, not a hope. Well, she wasn't going to give up that easily. This was just going to take a little work. Absently, she began to hunt through the layers of loose paper and old magazines which perpetually hid her desktop. "Yeah, a couple. Kate called just after I got in. I think she has something for you on that missing kid case. I got the details--owww!"

She winced as her fingertips made contact with the sharp blade of the dagger, still lying where she had discarded it. When she lifted her hand, there was a white-edged slit along the top of her thumb. After a second the cut started to well with blood. "Ouch. Ouch, damn. Now I'm gonna have to put a plaster on this, and I just spent half the day getting my nails right. Talk about tragic irony. I mean, look..."

She held up her hand for Angel to see, then stopped. He was already looking at the cut. More accurately, he was looking at nothing but the cut on her thumb, was focusing on the pinprick of blood on her skin as if everything else had temporarily ceased to exist. He seemed almost mesmerised, and when Cordelia moved her hand to one side, she saw his eyes track it.

She lowered her hand and quickly put it behind her back, out of sight. "Okay. Maybe don't look."

Angel opened his mouth as if to speak, but the only sound to emerge was a low, wordless growl. Cordelia took a step backwards. Before she could retreat further, Angel had grabbed her forearm, gripping her with so much force she could feel her skin bruising. He pulled her hand from behind her back and held it up between them.

Cordelia looked at her thumb, where a thin line of blood stretched from the cut to her knuckle. When she looked back to Angel's face, it had changed.

"All right," she said quickly: "My bad. That was tactless. Yep, Tactless Cordelia, that's me. New office rule--I promise not to bleed copiously around you again and you can promise--not to--really, really freak me out like this."

She realised she was babbling, and she clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else. It hardly mattered, since Angel didn't seem to be capable of processing anything he was hearing, anyway. He pulled her hand closer to him and stared at it, fascinated. The bony ridges around his eyes only served to accentuate the naked hunger they displayed. Cordelia stared into the twin dilated pupils, and with a sickening, falling sensation inside recognised nothing of the Angel she knew.

"Angel," she said, keeping her voice steady and firm. "Snap out of it. Now."

Unheeding, he drew her hand closer to his mouth. His lips parted, and she saw the rows of razor teeth behind them. Uneven. Pointed.

What sharp teeth you have, she thought suddenly. All the better to--

With a single fast tug, she pulled her arm back towards herself, bringing his hand with it. At the same time, she craned her neck forward and bit down hard on his wrist. He cried out, and staggered backwards. Cordelia took the opportunity to launch herself across the office towards the filing cabinet.

Bottom drawer, she thought, frantically sifting through the junk. Emergency supplies. Come on, come on, come--"Aha!"

Triumphantly, she pulled out the crucifix and spun around, raising it as she turned. Now she was on the floor, crouching with her back braced against the side of the filing cabinet. At the other side of the room, Angel was nursing his hand. He recoiled from the sight of the cross, and shut his eyes. He was still vamped out, and gave no signs of shifting back. Cordelia sat perfectly still, not sure what to do next.

"Get out of here," said Angel. His voice was guttural, and the words slurred into each other.

She stayed where she was, still holding up the crucifix. Slowly, she began to lower it. "What just happened?"

"Get out," repeated Angel.

Still she hesitated. "The spell went wrong, didn't it."

"No, it worked. Too well. It hasn't been--this difficult--for a long time. It's hard--to keep control."

"Okay," said Cordelia. "So, there's a way of dealing with this, right? Meditation, deep breathing exercises--well, maybe not that, but still, something?" She clambered to her feet and took a step towards him.

"Get away from me."

"Angel, you need help. Now, listen--"

His deformed face twisted with the effort of maintaining some degree of control. "You're still bleeding. I can smell it--" The sentence ended in a kind of strangled grunt.

Cordelia looked at her thumb, and the tiny cut already crusting over. She buried it in her palm and wrapped her fingers around it, balling her hand into a fist. "Got it. Going now. Angel, I'm going to get help. God knows where from, but I'll find it. You're gonna be okay. Do you understand? Angel?"

But Angel didn't reply. His eyes were shut again, and his features were so far from human it was impossible to read any meaning into his expression.

"...So I got out of there and came to get you."

Cordelia concluded her summary of events and made a sharp left turn on to Central Avenue. Beside her in the passenger seat, Wesley braced himself against the centrifugal force pushing him into the door, still marvelling at how, in the space of a few short hours, Cordelia appeared to have upgraded him from the status of dull and unwelcome intrusion to vital ally and confidant. This new-found respect, he guessed, would last only as long as the current crisis. In the meantime, it was good to feel needed again, despite the circumstances.

"You did the right thing," he said, hoping to calm her. He saw her rub the edge of her bloodied thumb along the steering wheel and added, "Are you hurt?"

"Just my pride. I can't believe I freaked like that. Jeez, it's not as if I've never seen a vampire before." A light ahead turned red. Cordelia accelerated. "It's not even as if I've never seen Angel wearing his game face before."

"But this was different," guessed Wesley.

"Yeah," agreed Cordelia. "It was like he--couldn't switch it off. It was weird. More than weird."

Somewhere close by a car horn beeped angrily. Wesley removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. "I was afraid this might happen."

Cordelia took her attention off the road long enough to stare accusingly at him. "You knew? And you didn't think to mention this, oh, say, before my boss nearly ate me?"

"I only said I thought it might happen. I knew it was a risk and I told Angel as much. But he seemed confident he could handle it." Wesley shook his head. "Apparently not."

"So if the spell was a bust, why did Angel say it worked?"

"Because it did. Joining magic is very powerful, but very difficult to predict. The spell we used, amplified by the amulets, was designed to encourage the transference of psychic energy. Two participants, two kinds of energy. But there's no way to tell in advance whose will be dominant."

"So Angel thought he could lend Samuel some self-control, but instead he got swamped." They had reached the office. Cordelia brought the car to a halt outside the front door, braking so hard that Wesley felt his seatbelt tighten across his chest. "See, I don't get that. This is Angel we're talking about. Mr Total Self Control Guy."

"Well--yes."

Cordelia pulled the key from the ignition and twisted round in her seat until she faced him. "For a `yes', that came out sounding waaay too much like `no'. What gives?"

Wesley shook his head, reluctant to voice the thoughts which had been growing steadily more insistent in recent days. "It's nothing. Probably nothing. Just a few things that struck me, that's all--"

"Such as?"

"Such as..." Wesley stopped and exhaled. "Well, for a start: how much would you estimate Angel drinks?"

"A couple of glasses a couple of times a night," replied Cordelia instantly. "I'm surprised he's not wasting away. I keep telling him to eat more."

"But he doesn't," said Wesley. "Have you ever wondered why?"

Cordelia scrunched up her face, thoughtful. "I just assumed he was worried about putting on weight."

Wesley shook his head. "Vampires don't, regardless of how much they consume. But it is generally accepted that the more a vampire drinks, the more it craves blood. Human blood."

"Aha." Cordelia held up a finger triumphantly. "But Angel only drinks animal blood. Pig, I think."

Wesley looked at her. "Because he likes the taste of the human variety too much."

Cordelia was nonplussed. "Of course he likes blood. He's a vampire, not chairman of the L.A. Kosher Cuisine Society. But he's always been able to control it. I mean, the only time he ever drank human blood when he wasn't, you know, evil, was Buffy's, right before graduation day. And that was only because he was sick. And it's not as if the first thing he did afterwards was get as far away from her as possible--" She stopped, her expression changing.

"He's always been able to control it up to now," said Wesley quietly, placing extra emphasis on the last three words. "My point is, the evidence indicates that control has not been achieved easily or without a cost. And perhaps he grossly underestimated the strength of his addiction."

"He just wanted to help Samuel." Cordelia was uncharacteristically subdued. "We all did." Scowling suddenly, she hit Wesley in the arm.

"Oww! What was that for?"

"For helping him cast the dumb spell!"

"You were there too!" responded Wesley, feeling suddenly like a five-year-old in a school-yard fight.

"Well, maybe I was, but I didn't know--and--and--" Cordelia opened the car door and got out. Standing on the street and leaning in through the open door, she finished, "I can't think of a really good comeback right now, so we're going to finish this argument later, when I'm feeling more scathing. And after Angel's back to normal."

Wesley got out of the car and joined Cordelia on the sidewalk. They stood side by side in the evening sunlight for several long minutes, looking at the office's street entrance.

"So," she said at last: "What are we gonna do when we get in there?"

Wesley hesitated. "That, ahh, very much depends on what kind of shape Angel is in."

Cordelia looked at him over the frames of her sunglasses. "You have no idea either, huh?"

"No," admitted Wesley.

"Oh good," said Cordelia. "'Cause I'd hate to think we were going in there to face an out-of-control vampire with anything as cumbersome as a plan."

"That's not a plan," said Cordelia in disbelief.

"Yes, it is."

"Sure, if we had a joint death wish!"

Wesley folded his arms across his chest. "Do you have any better ideas?"

Cordelia sighed and looked around the darkened ground floor office, which was still littered with the debris that had resulted from her struggle with Angel. She bent down and picked up the splayed copy of Cosmopolitan which had fallen off her desk. "I guess not."

"Well then." Wesley motioned towards the elevator: "Shall we?"

"Wait one second." The bottom drawer of the filing cabinet was still hanging open. Cordelia rummaged in it until she found what she was looking for. "Perfume atomiser," she said, throwing the bulbous silver object across the room.

The atomiser sailed through the air. Wesley cupped his hands in preparation for the catch, almost missed it, then fumbled for a moment before gaining a firm grip. Oh God, he couldn't even catch properly. Doyle would have been able to catch it. Doyle would have been able to come up with a better plan. Cordelia frowned, and retrieved the crucifix from where she had dropped it on the floor. Well, okay, maybe he wouldn't, but at least he would have made a couple of lame jokes. Taken her mind off the sheer awfulness of the situation for half a second. Made her feel as if there was a slim possibility things would work out.

Sometimes things didn't work out okay. She knew that now. Thank you, Doyle.

Wesley scrutinised the atomiser. "Holy water?"

"You got it."

"Ingenious," he said sounding, for a moment, genuinely impressed. He pulled back the elevator cage door and stood to one side to allow Cordelia to step in. They waited in silence while the mechanism clanked and whirred into action, and the car jolted into downwards motion.

When it came to a jarring halt on the basement level, Cordelia held up the crucifix and looked sideways at Wesley. She cleared her throat and, without opening the grille covering the door, called loudly: "Angel? Hey, Angel? It's just us. Good old Cordy and Wes. I want you to concentrate on thinking calm, happy thoughts." She glared at Wesley and said in a low whisper: "I still can't believe your plan was `think happy thoughts'." Then she slid the door open and stepped cautiously into the apartment. Raising her voice again, she went on, "We're coming out now, so no need to go psycho, right? ...Too late."

The basement apartment, usually neat to the point of fastidiousness, was a wreck. Books pulled off the shelves in the main living room were scattered over the floor. A chair lay on its side, one leg broken half-off. Items of clothing were strewn randomly about the room. There was no sign of Angel.

Cordelia bent down and picked up a black shirt. "Ewww," she said, pulling a face.

"What is it?"

She stood up and showed it to him. "It's all wet and..." She pressed her hand against the dark stain. Her fingers came away red. "...Wet and bloody. This is blood. Gross!"

"Let me see." Wesley took the shirt from her and examined it . After a moment he let it fall again and began to move around the apartment, checking each room in turn. Near where he had dropped the shirt, Cordelia saw an empty plastic tub, a black crust of solidified blood already forming around its lip. The lid was nearby, twisted and cracked as if it had been removed with desperate force. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. When she looked up, she saw Wesley returning from the kitchen.

"The refrigerator is empty."

"That's because Angel used the contents to redecorate." A sudden idea gave her hope: "Hey, d'you think somebody came in here and attacked him? Because that would mean..." she stopped, unwilling to complete the sentence.

Wesley finished it for her. "Because that would mean he didn't do this. But I think we both know he did."

Cordelia dropped the bloody, sticky plastic lid back on to the floor. "Why?"

"Blood lust," said Wesley. "Uncontrolled blood lust. He drank everything here before he left. Trying to sate it." He shook his head. "Stale, cold animal blood won't work. We have to find him. Before he kills someone."

She shook her head defiantly. "No. Angel wouldn't give in like that."

"Cordelia," said Wesley, a harsh edge in his voice: "Look around you. He already has."

"Robyn? Could you come out here a second?"

In the diner's tiny kitchen, Robyn Murray banged the dishwasher door shut and twisted the knob until she heard the machine rumble into action. As she straightened up, she glanced over her shoulder and saw one of the student part timers hovering nervously in the doorway. "What's up, A.J.?"

A.J. shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "There's a guy who won't move. I can't close up."

"I'll be right out."

A.J. nodded in relief, and disappeared. Robyn took a moment to dry her hands on a fresh paper towel before taking off her apron and hanging it up on the hook behind the door. As she did so, she checked her watch, and sighed. It was after eleven, and all she wanted to do was close up without hassle and get home. Strictly speaking, the kitchen was her domain and what happened out front wasn't her responsibility, but she had more years' experience than all the student help put together. Sometimes that counted for a lot more than a fancy college scroll.

Robyn pulled off her hat and hair-net and walked out to the main part of the diner, yawning as she went. A.J. was standing behind the counter, casting nervous glances towards the man sitting by himself in the last booth in the row, his back to them. "That him?" said Robyn.

A.J. nodded. "I told him we close at ten thirty, but he won't move."

"Did he look like he might get violent?"

"I don't think so. He just... didn't hear me. I might as well have been talking to the table." A.J. looked at Robyn uncomfortably. "I think he's on something. He's got that out-of-it look."

Robyn scowled to herself. "I'm gonna put a sign on the door--`No kids, dogs or users'. Make my life a hell of a lot easier." She sighed. "You go on. I'll deal with him."

A.J. nodded with evident relief, and disappeared into the back of the diner. Robyn made her way slowly along the length of the diner. At the far booth, she sat down on the edge of the green-upholstered bench and slid along it until she was directly opposite the man.

She saw immediately why A.J. thought he was an addict. His skin was sallow, his hair unkempt. The hand not wrapped around his empty coffee mug shook and quaked under its own volition. And his eyes were unfocused. Dead.

"Hey there," said Robyn. "Y'hearin' me?"

The man blinked, but otherwise gave no indication that he was aware of her presence.

"I'm Robyn. I run the kitchen. And it's late, and I have a home I'd like to get back to. Maybe you do too." She paused. "Do you?"

The man blinked again. His hand was now shaking so hard he was drumming out an irregular rhythm on the metallic table top. He watched it curiously, as if trying to remember to whom it belonged.

The noise was getting on Robyn's nerves. She reached out and placed her own hand over his, pinning it down firmly. His skin was unhealthily cold to the touch.

She tried again. "This is a restaurant, not a hotel. You can't stay here all night. Now, I am sympathetic, but I am also tired. If you don't move real soon, I'm calling the cops. Are you getting any of this?"

The man was still looking down at her hand on his. Suddenly uncomfortable, Robyn removed it. He looked up at her, and she felt he was seeing her for the first time. "I'm hungry."

"Kitchen's closed," said Robyn firmly. "Come back in the morning and you can order breakfast."

"I'm--so hungry," he repeated. "All the time. It never goes away. Never stops. It's always there. I'm tired--and I can't fight--I can't--"

He dropped his head into his hand and gave a small gasp. He didn't, Robyn noted, have the look of a derelict: his clothes were creased but relatively new and, aside from his pallid complexion, he appeared to be in good health. She felt a sudden stab of sympathy for him. He looked like he had something to lose.

"You're falling," she said softly. "I can see that. But it looks to me like you've still got a way to go before you hit the ground. I'm thinking there might be someone around who wants to catch you. Is there someone you can call?"

The man didn't respond. He had started to rock backwards and forwards.

"Is there someone you can call?" repeated Robyn. The man continued to rock; whatever brief connection she had made with him was gone again. She sighed and, reaching into her pocket, pulled out a handful of loose change. She put the collection of dimes and quarters down on the table between them. "I'm gonna go out back and finish cleaning the kitchen. It'll take maybe ten minutes. While I'm gone, you can use that pay-phone over there to call someone who can come and get you. If you're still sitting here when I come back, I'm calling the cops. Your choice."

She rose and started to slide out of the booth.

"I'm sorry," said the man. His voice was soft but clear, and he sounded genuinely remorseful. Robyn found herself feeling a measure of sympathy towards him.

"It's okay. You've been less trouble than most of our regulars. As long as you don't break anything, we're cool."

"You're kind," he said, and shut his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry."

He was calmer now, as if he had reached some kind of decision. His hand, she noticed, was no longer shaking. Feeling unnerved, Robyn went back to the kitchen.

When she looked out ten minutes later, the bottom booth was empty, and the pay phone in the corner was swinging at the end of its cord.

"Hi, umm, Kate?"

"Yes, this is Detective Lockley. Who is this, please?" The voice on the other end of the phone was efficient and more than a little abrupt.

"Cordelia Chase."

"Oh, hi, Cordelia." Kate's voice took on a warmer tone. "Is Angel looking for me?"

"Not exactly. I'm kind of looking for him."

"Say again?"

"It's nothing major," said Cordelia quickly. "He went out today without leaving a note and I need to contact him to tell him something. I wondered if maybe he'd gone to see you about that information you got for him."

"Sorry, can't help."

"Okay," said Cordelia. "Sorry to bother you." She didn't hang up.

"Was there something else?"

Cordelia paused. "No. Well, yes. Maybe. I was just wondering - and don't take this the wrong way or anything - have you ever seen Angel at home? I mean, your home?"

"What? No, I haven't. And even if I had, I don't think that's--"

"--Any of my business. Right. But if he does turn up, and if he happens, say, to seem a little off--"

"--What do you mean, `off'?"

Cordelia ignored her and finished, "Just don't invite him in, okay? Trust me on this." She put the phone down and frowned. "Well, that was in no way toe-curlingly awkward."

Wesley, sitting at Angel's desk and studying an old book, looked up. "She had to be warned."

"Yeah," said Cordelia, sitting back in her chair and rubbing her temples: "And if someone I barely knew called me up and started telling me who I could and couldn't let in my home, I'd totally take it on board."

Wesley said, "It's just a precaution. It's more likely he'll take care to avoid everyone he knows."

"That's probably why he skipped out of here in the first place," agreed Cordelia. She closed her eyes and willed the blackness behind her eyelids to resolve itself into something more meaningful. "Where are the visions when I need them? I mean, we need to know where Angel is now. You'd think the Powers That Be would appreciate the urgency."

Wesley set down the book. "Cordelia, I know you can't summon them at will. It's all right."

Angrily, she said, "It is not all right. Doyle left me this stupid vision thing and I don't know what to do with it and I can't use it to find Angel and there's no one to tell me how to control it--"

Wesley hesitated. Then he said, "Watchers are trained in a variety of meditative disciplines. I'd be more than willing to show you..."

"Right," said Cordelia, "And I'd be crazy to pass on that opportunity, because you were such a big hit as a Watcher."

Wesley looked back at his book, his expression tight. "A simple `no thank you' would have been more than adequate."

She'd touched a nerve. Maybe that had been a little harsh. Not quite able to bring herself to apologise, she gestured at the book Wesley was poring over. "You getting anything from that? Any clues as to what went wrong?"

He looked up and shook his head. "Not yet. But the magic didn't work as it should have, I can tell you that."

"How do you mean?"

"When I was with Samuel today, he was doing well. Better than well. While Angel, judging by the shape of things downstairs, is in a very bad way indeed. But if Samuel's addiction was enough to overcome Angel's control, he shouldn't have been able to benefit from that control. The magic simply doesn't work like that."

"You're saying it should have been a both-or-neither deal," said Cordelia. "Swapsies wasn't in the game plan."

Wesley removed his glasses and rubbed them clean. "That's a prosaic way of putting it, but essentially, yes. It's very puzzling."

"The number one priority right now is finding Angel. He didn't take the car, he can't have gone too far--" The phone rang, cutting her off. She picked it up. "Hello, Angel Investigations, we help--"

"Cordelia."

"Angel!" Wesley dropped the book, and had crossed the office in a second to stand beside her. Cordelia flipped the phone on to the `speaker' setting so he could hear both sides of the conversation. "Angel, where are you?"

"I--uhh--I'm in a--a diner." Cordelia looked up, and saw her own anxiety mirrored in Wesley's expression. Angel's voice was ragged; he sounded confused, disoriented.

"Angel," she said: "This is important. Where exactly are you?"

"Near--near the university." His voice faded away, then returned, sounding more confident. "Jefferson Boulevard. There's a big building, it has domes, a colonnade -"

Cordelia nodded, recognising the description of one of the city's more bizarre pieces of architecture. "That's the Shrine Auditorium. Okay, I know where you are. Angel, stay right there. We're gonna come and pick you up. We'll be half an hour, max."

"I need you to do something--" He broke off.

"It's okay," said Cordelia soothingly, as if talking to a child. "We're coming to get you. We'll do whatever you want then."

"Now," said Angel. His voice was cracking. "Now. Hurry. I need you to--"

He broke off so suddenly that for a moment Cordelia thought the line had gone dead. Only the faint howl of an ambulance siren, filtered through the telephone wires from halfway across the city, told her the connection was still there.

"To do what?" she prompted him.

"Stop me," said Angel. "Please stop me."

Once he'd given in, it was easy.

The old instincts were there, guiding him, showing him each step before he took it. He didn't need to think, didn't need to fight. There was only the hunger, and the hunt. It was simple and clean, and he'd missed it.

He waited in the shadow of a doorway across from the diner entrance. Cars went by regularly, pedestrians less often. Some stopped talking as they passed, looked at him strangely. He barely registered them. They were irrelevant.

The lights in the diner went out, and the prey emerged. The light breeze bore her scent to him across the street: the stale odour of fried food mixed with sweat and cheap floral perfume. If he closed his eyes, he could hear her heart beating. He knew its rhythm, had felt it when she had touched him. That had been the moment at which he had surrendered. To be so close and not to taste was unbearable. It would feel so good, not to crave. So sweet, to drink--

And afterwards--

He pushed that thought away.

She started to walk away from him, along the street. He stepped out of the alcove and followed her. He could no more have stopped than if he was chained to her. The pull she exerted was irresistible.

Half way down the street, she seemed to sense something was wrong. He saw her stop, and look quickly behind her. Her scent changed, the sharp tang of new sweat and fear appearing in the mix.

He ducked into another doorway and stood still until she began to move again. Then he resumed the hunt, quickening his silent steps until he started to gain on her.

Concentration. Focus.

The craving. The feeding. There was nothing else, nothing mattered, except to drink and feel that warmth become part of him, to share that vitality, to know life again, if only for the briefest moment--

And after, to know what he had done and to remember--

Stop me. Please stop me.

She knew she was being followed now. She turned around, too late.

There was just the craving and the feeding.

Nothing else.

"Stop here."

Cordelia tugged at Wesley's sleeve for emphasis, and he pulled the car over to the side of the street at the first opportunity. "Do you see something?"

"No, but this is the place." Cordelia got out of the passenger side door and stood on the sidewalk. She indicated the closed diner in front of her, then the gaudy, domed building some distance along the street. "There's the Shrine Auditorium, so I'm betting this is where he called from."

"Looks like they've shut up and gone home," remarked Wesley, joining her.

Cordelia nodded and looked up and down the block. There were more pedestrians than was usual in Los Angeles at this late hour; possibly, she thought, because Jefferson bordered the university campus. She saw several couples walking together, as well as a few student-types carrying files and wearing backpacks, making their way home after a night in the library. The district had a small town feel, and reminded Cordelia of Sunnydale after dark.

The perfect place for a hungry vampire to pick up a victim.

"Maybe Angel's gone back to the office," she said, aware of how unconvincing she sounded. "We'll get back and he'll be waiting--"

A scream, high pitched and unwavering, shattered the street's calm. More than one walker looked around in alarm, then picked up his pace.

"I think he's still around here," said Wesley grimly. "Come on."

He set off down the street at a run. After a moment, Cordelia followed.

The screams sounded twice more before fading to a wavering, uncertain end. It was long enough to trace their source. Cordelia ran beside Wesley two blocks along the boulevard, then left into a side alley. She skidded to a halt and looked up and down the gloomy passageway, half-obstructed by loose garbage and full dumpsters.

"There's nothing here," she began. "I don't see--"

"Over there," said Wesley. "On the ground."

Cordelia looked.

The body of an woman lay still in the centre of the alley. A second figure was hunched over her, his hands grasping her around the head and neck so intimately that had Cordelia not known better, she might have mistaken them for lovers.

"Angel!" she shouted. "Stop!"

He either wouldn't or couldn't. She sensed Wesley moving beside her, and when she looked around, she saw he was holding a long, wooden stake. Cordelia gaped. "What are you doing?"

"What has to be done," said Wesley.

He started to move forward, and Cordelia grabbed his arm to hold him back. "That's Angel! You can't kill him!"

Harshly, Wesley said, "And what precisely do you think he's doing to that woman?"

"He's all I've got!" yelled Cordelia, surprising herself.

Wesley stared at her for a second. She stared back. At last he put his hand on her shoulder and said, "We have to stop this. Now."

Half a broken plank poked out from underneath the lid of the nearest dumpster. It was long, wooden and very sharp. Cordelia levered it out and hefted it. "I know."

She raised the plank and marched along the alley, making no effort to approach quietly. Angel's victim was no longer struggling, while he continued to kneel next to her, engrossed in feeding and apparently oblivious to everything else. Including Cordelia.

She stopped when she was directly behind him, and lifted the plank.

Then she saw it again.

The black jellyfish thing hovered in the air above Angel, like the bastard offspring of an acid rain cloud and the Goodyear blimp. She wasn't sure, but it seemed bigger now. It pulsed and bulged, bloated and rippling. After a moment, Cordelia understood why.

A host of thread-like tentacles hung from the obscene mass. Each one ended in a sharp, three-pronged hook. Each hook was attached to Angel.

The air shimmered, and it was gone.

"Angel," said Cordelia: "I'm really sorry."

Then she hit him over the head.

Three

The bowl of sand was almost empty. Wesley tipped it up and caught the last of it in one cupped hand. He bent down and funnelled it carefully into a heaped line on the floor. Then he stood up and examined his handiwork.

The circle wasn't perfect, but the charm didn't require a very high degree of geometric accuracy. It was perhaps four yards across, encompassing most of Angel's apartment's main room. For the second time in recent days, most of the furniture had been pushed up against walls to make sufficient space available, and the only movable items inside the ring were a pillow and blanket. And, of course, Angel.

Wesley studied him closely for some time, but his eyes, half-hidden under the bony ridges of his true face, remained firmly shut. Satisfied he was still unconscious, Wesley paced the perimeter of the ring twice, making certain the curved heap of white sand was at no point interrupted.

"Wesley? I'm back."

He turned around as Cordelia's feet appeared at the top of the basement stairs. "How is she?"

"I rode all the way to the hospital in the ambulance. They wouldn't let me stay after that, `cause I'm not a relative, but I think she's gonna be okay. She lost a lot of blood. A lot." There was little room to move in the apartment outside the sand circle, so Cordelia sat down on the last step, resting her arms on her knees. "She was carrying ID. Her name is Robyn Murray."

"What did you tell them happened?"

"That she got mugged and he ran off when he saw me." Cordelia shrugged. "We used to use that story all the time in Sunnydale."

Concerned, Wesley glanced back at Angel's sleeping form. "Did they ask you for a description?"

For a brief second, Cordelia's bright, broad smile reappeared: "Oh yeah. Right now, the cops are looking for a seven foot limping albino with dyed orange hair. And a German accent." She looked at Angel, and frowned. "Is he still out? I didn't think I hit him that hard."

"It's true a blow to the head won't knock a vampire out for too long. However, a cup of blood laced with enough tranquilliser to take out the Welsh rugby team..." He halfsmiled, then added, "It's not a permanent solution, but it should give us a little breathing space while we decide what to do next."

Cordelia eyed the circle dubiously. "So shouldn't we, like, tie him up while he's under?"

"I'm hoping that won't be necessary. This is a simple charm, but very effective. It's threshold magic--he won't be able to cross the sand line any more than he could enter an occupied home without an invitation." Cordelia leaned down and extended a hand to touch the white markings on the floor, but Wesley stopped her: "Just be careful not to break the circle. The line must be continuous or the magic collapses entirely."

Cordelia nodded, taking this in. Straightening up, she said quietly, "He's still Angel, isn't he? I mean, there's no reason to think the spell we cast broke the curse."

"The fact he asked for help would seem to indicate he still possesses his soul."

"So, he's gonna be okay, right?" asked Cordelia hopefully. "All we have to do is wait until he gets a handle on this. He's done it before, he can do it again."

"I'm not sure about that." Wesley took off his glasses and polished them. "It may be that the magic we cast has diminished his capacity for self-control permanently. And if he can't control his craving any more, whether or not he has a soul hardly matters. He's a danger to others."

Cordelia said, "You think we should stake him."

"I took vows when I became a Watcher. What you refer to as `the whole sacred duty thing'--well, it is sacred, and it is a duty. An awful lot of it revolves around not letting vampires kill people."

"You're not a Watcher any more," she pointed out.

"No, but--" he stopped. "No, I suppose not. Cordelia, I'm very sorry for this."

She gave a resigned shrug. "I'm not planning to throw a celebration party myself."

"No, I mean--I'm sorry. This is my fault." Once the words were out, it was surprisingly easy to keep talking. "I knew the spell was risky, but I wanted--to be useful. I didn't try hard enough to dissuade Angel from trying it."

Cordelia got up from the bottom step and came to stand beside him. "Probably wouldn't have done much good anyhow," she conceded. "He can be pretty stubborn. Especially when he gets an idea he's meant to do something--fate, Powers That Be, the whole deal. You know what he's like."

"Actually, I don't. Not really." He looked sideways at her. "You seem to, though."

Cordelia looked sharply at him. "Meaning what exactly?."

"Nothing," said Wesley quickly. "I mean, not that kind of nothing. Another kind of nothing. I meant--I simply meant you seem quite close. In a platonic, non-romantic, completely fraternal sense," he added.

"You'd better believe it. Because this girl is not Buffy Mark Two." She looked from Wesley to Angel, lying on the floor, and her face softened. "We've been getting to know each other. We had a friend who died just a while back and Angel was--he was there. Not in a let's-share-our-feelings way, he was just there, listening, every time I wanted to talk about Doyle." She shook her head and added, matter-of-factly: "I don't want to kill him. But I will if I have to."

Abruptly, she walked out of the living room. After a second, Wesley followed her. As he entered the kitchen behind her, she was filling the kettle with water from the tap. Two cups sat on the table.

"Cordelia," said Wesley again. "When we found Angel tonight, you said--"

She interrupted, "I know what I said. I wasn't thinking straight." Cordelia switched on the kettle and, turning to face Wesley, jabbed a finger in the direction of the doorway. "When Angel turned into post-coital-bliss homicidal stalker guy on us, the first time, Buffy didn't slay him right away. She could have, but she didn't. Instead she got all-- " She tilted her head to one side and said in a high-pitched, simpering tone, "`But I love him, I need time.' " Dropping the performance, she scowled. "And while Buffy was working through her issues, Evil Angel just got on with killing people. Like Miss Calendar. I'm not gonna make the same mistake."

The kettle was boiling, gasping clouds of steam into the air. Wesley watched in silence as Cordelia spooned coffee from a jar into two cups with short, sharp movements. He would have preferred tea, but somehow he didn't think he was going to be offered a choice.

Cordelia poured hot water into the mugs, then lifted the one closest to her and wrapped her hands around it, lacing her fingers together. "Back there in the alleyway, did you--see anything?"

He frowned, not sure what she was getting at. "I saw what you saw. Angel attacking that woman."

"Yes, but--apart from that?" She looked at him hopefully, and Wesley sensed she wanted him to confirm something. He couldn't begin to think what.

"Such as?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter." She sipped her drink. "He was going to kill her. Robyn Murray."

Wesley sat down beside her and claimed the second cup of coffee. "Yes."

Cordelia was silent for several seconds. At last she said, "Let's make a deal. If he doesn't come out of this, if we have to stake him, we do it. No recriminations or guilt trips afterwards. We just get it over with. Angel would want it that way. The real Angel."

As she finished speaking, Wesley heard noises, a disturbing mixture of grunts and whimpers, from the direction of the living room. Angel was waking up.

"Agreed," he said. The noises coming from the next room became louder, and started to include an increasingly violent series of thumps and bangs.

Cordelia glanced anxiously towards the door. "There's nothing breakable within arm's reach in there, right?"

"I made sure of that. He shouldn't be left alone. We're going to have to stay with him in shifts. As we did with Samuel."

"Oh God," said Cordelia, putting down her coffee: "If I thought I was out of my depth before, this time I'm going down with the Titanic."

"Well, I'm on board too, if that's of any reassurance." Smiling slightly, he added, "And I believe the last life boat left without either of us."

Cordelia was looking at him. "You don't have to stay," she said. "I mean, I'm Vision Girl now. I'm kinda committed. But if you don't want to hang around for Angel Goes Crazy: The Sequel, I'll understand." A roar of animalistic anger and need drowned almost out the last word. She flinched, covered it well. Not quite well enough.

"Cordelia, when you said Angel was all you had now--well, he isn't." Wesley began, and stopped. He wished fervently he was better at this kind of thing. "I mean, I helped create this problem. I'm not going to walk away from it. Or you." He winced: "Not wishing to imply that you are, in any sense, a problem--"

She smiled faintly, and put her hand on his arm. "I know what you mean. Thanks, Wesley."

He smiled back, and almost relaxed. "Besides, I wouldn't dream of leaving a young lady of good breeding alone to cope with a crazed vampire. It would be rude."

Another cry of incoherent rage and need issued from the next room. Cordelia stood up, visibly steeled herself. "I'll take the first shift."

"I tell you what," said Wesley quickly, moving to intercept her before she got to the door: "It occurs to me that one of us should check up on Samuel. Make sure his apparent recovery wasn't just short term. If you go, I'll stay with Angel."

"I couldn't possibly--okay," amended Cordelia as the cries became louder. Wesley could see the relief suffusing through her as she shouldered her bag and pulled on her jacket, and he knew he had at least done one thing right. Samuel, he was certain, would be fine.

Angel was another matter altogether.

"That's Tim," said Samuel, pointing across the sunny playground towards the apparatus where a group of children were climbing and swinging. "The little blonde girl right in front of him, that's Casey. Nina's at home with her Mom. She hasn't quite got the walking thing down yet, but as soon as she does..." He gave Cordelia a relaxed smile. He was, she thought, the picture of proud fatherhood, no different to any of the other parents keeping watch over their playing offspring.

"They look like they're having fun," she remarked.

"I think they are. I mean, I'm not sure, but I think they are." Samuel looked at her. "I want to give them something--normal. I'm not even sure how yet."

Cordelia thought. "You could do whatever your Dad did with you."

He looked at her, with a wry, humourless smile. "I don't think they'd appreciate being beaten to within an inch of their lives on a regular basis."

She winced. "Or you could take them to a baseball game."

He gave a small laugh, and she was relieved to hear an element of genuine humour in it. "It's okay. It's funny, y'know. My old man drank. I mean, he drank the way other people breathed. And he'd get rough, and he'd beat up on us, and when I got old enough I thought, there's no way I am ever gonna do that." He leaned forward on the park bench. "And I didn't. Maybe a beer now and again. Thought I was doing so well. Weird thing is, I was leaning so hard not to fall in one direction, I overbalanced another way. Everyone's got his own Crave."

"His own what?"

He sat back again. "Once, I asked my Mom why Dad did it. She said, he's got a crave. I was pretty young, so I thought she meant a Crave--something alive, like a parasite. I imagined it squatting on his shoulder, whispering in his ear, telling him to have another drink. Even when I figured what she did mean, I hung on to that picture. It was easier to blame the bad stuff on the Crave than it was to accept it was just who he was."

Samuel sounded, thought Cordelia, calm, rational, in control. Everything Angel currently wasn't. Well, he'd been right about one thing: the magic had worked. And it looked like the change was shaping up to be permanent.

There was nothing more Samuel needed them to do for him. And nothing more they could do for Angel.

She stood up and pulled the strap of her bag on to her shoulder. "You're gonna be okay."

"You sound pretty sure."

"Call it a hunch. I'm sorry for cutting into your time with your kids."

Samuel shook his head. "No, it gave me a chance to polish up my proud father routine. It was getting rusty. Plus, you've given a chance to say thank you." He looked uncomfortable: "And also to apologise. To be honest, my memories of the past couple of weeks are pretty hazy, but I know I was having some pretty wild hallucinations, so I'm guessing I wasn't the easiest person to be around."

"Believe me," Cordelia said, "when I tell you there are worse."

"Thanks," he said, and chuckled. "I haven't felt this--clear in a long time. I mean, it's still there--the needing--but I'm on top of it. It's a good feeling. And it started with what you people did, whatever it was. You know, I actually thought I saw it leave me?"

She looked at him. "I don't understand."

"I was having this freaky hallucination--there was chanting, and blue lightning, and all kinds of weird stuff--and right then I saw it leaving me. The craving. It looked just like I thought it did when I was a kid: black, and oily--"

"Like a jellyfish," finished Cordelia, very quietly. "With tentacles."

His smile vanished, replaced by a disconcerted expression. "Yeah. Hey, have you been hanging out in my imagination?"

But Cordelia was already half way across the playground, and picking up speed.

There was a pattern, Wesley discovered. After a couple of complete cycles he found he could anticipate each stage.

It started with begging.

"Please."

"No."

"Please."

"Not yet."

"Soon?"

Wesley checked his watch, then held up his arm so Angel could see its face. "Five minutes."

Inside the circle, Angel stood up, swaying slightly, vamped, manic. Wesley was beginning to regret the decision to use magic to restrain him instead of something tangible, like chains. The ring of white sand on the floor was effective, but there was something more than a little unsettling about seeing Angel prowling freely within it.

"Can't wait. Now."

Without warning, Angel launched himself at the edge of the circle. There was a flash of blue-green fire as he hit the air at the circumference, and he yelped in pain and fell back. Landing on the floor, he picked himself up and criss-crossed the ring, spinning in another direction each time he reached the line of sand defining it.

He approached the edge of the circle closest to Wesley, started to turn, then apparently changed his mind. Standing quietly, he said, "Please. I'm--starving. You don't know--can't know--what it's like. Please." He held up a hand, pleading. It was shaking so hard he could barely control it. "Come here. I want--to tell you-- something--"

The ruse was so obvious that under other circumstances Wesley might have found it amusing. Here and now, it was pitiful. "No."

Beneath the heavy ridges on his brow, Angel's eyes narrowed. "You're afraid of me."

The pleading stage was over. Wesley fought down a tired sigh. Now the threats.

"I'm afraid for you," he corrected. "Because I know how this will end if you can't relearn your control. You know as well."

"I could snap you neck so fast you'd be dead before you felt it. I could drain you while your heart was still beating. I could slit you open right down the middle and warm my hands on the steam rising off your insides. I could--"

Wesley turned to the table behind him and lifted the cross sitting on it. When he held it up, the reaction was immediate and extreme: Angel hissed and half-fell, halfstumbled backwards. He moaned and hid his face, and after a moment Wesley tucked the cross into his belt, out of sight.

"Angel," he said, "You're not an animal. Remember how you used to be able to contain the hunger? Tap into that. Find it again."

"Can't. All gone. Gave it away." He lowered his hand and sank to the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest and rocking back and forth.

Wesley noted the foetal position and the shortened, half-formed sentences that heralded the most desperate point of the cycle: need so intense it stripped away everything except the most basic ability to reason and communicate.

"Your fault," said Angel.

Wesley didn't reply immediately. He took off his glasses and polished them. Finally he said, "The decision was yours."

"Should have stopped me." The rocking grew more pronounced. "Oh God, stop me. Please stop me. Someone stop me..."

Angel closed his eyes and buried his head in his knees, his voice becoming more and more distorted until it was only a faint moan.

Wesley checked his watch, then went to the kitchen. Taking a tub from the newlyreplenished supply in the refrigerator, he opened it and poured a third of the contents into a plastic beaker. He returned the tub, and carried the beaker back into the main room.

Angel stopped rocking. He raised his head.

"It's time," said Wesley. He pulled the cross from his belt and held it up, watched Angel twist and scrabble away from it until he was at the far side of the chalk circle. Only then did Wesley approach the nearest edge. Quietly but clearly, he said, "When I set this down, we're going to count to ten. I want you to wait until we're finished before you take it. You have to learn how to make yourself wait to feed again. Can you try to do that?"

Staring at the cup in Wesley's hands, Angel nodded.

"All right." He leaned forward and put the beaker down just inside the line of heaped chalk. "Now, with me: one, two--"

Wesley jumped back as Angel launched himself across the circle and snatched the cup. He downed the contents in a single gulp, then ran his fingers around the inside of the beaker and licked them.

Wesley sat down and exhaled heavily. "Well, perhaps next time we'll make it all the way to two and a half."

Inside the circle, Angel placed the empty cup close to the curved chalk line and retreated. He sat down at the centre of the circle and said clearly, "You can take it away now."

He sounded calm, rational--briefly in control again now that the craving had been temporarily eased. The last stage. Wesley got up and retrieved the beaker. It was spotless.

"The woman," said Angel. "From the diner--"

"We got to you in time. She'll be all right."

Angel shut his eyes, and nodded. He lowered his head for a moment; Wesley saw one hand ball into a fist and heard him grunt with some kind of effort, and when he looked up again, his face was human. "Thank you."

"To be frank," Wesley told him, "you owe more gratitude to Cordelia than me."

"Cordelia..." His eyes clouded, as if he was sorting through recent memories with difficulty. "There was blood... Did I--harm her?"

Wesley shook his head. "No. But you did frighten her."

"She's strong."

"Perhaps not as strong as you think." Wesley stood up. "You have a responsibility towards her."

"The visions..."

"Yes," agreed Wesley. He took off his glasses and gestured with them. "But it's more than that. Angel, Cordelia is nineteen and barely out of school. Now she has the gifts of a seer--an exceptionally powerful seer--and she's grieving for this fellow Doyle. You're the only person in this whole city she can turn to, and your response is to decide unilaterally to risk your sanity by indulging in some of the most unsafe magic to come out of Mediaeval Spain."

"I wanted to help him," said Angel. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

"To make Samuel feel better, or yourself?" asked Wesley. He let the question hang for a moment, then went on: "You have someone else depending on you now. You don't have the luxury of being selfish. And if it makes any difference now, you're right: I should have stopped you. I've been selfish too."

But Angel was staring fixedly at a spot on the floor next to his feet, and Wesley could tell he wasn't getting through to him. He began to rock backwards and forwards again.

"Angel," said Wesley. He repeated it, more sharply: "Angel."

"I'm hungry."

Wesley held up his watch. "Twenty minutes. You can make yourself wait."

Angel moaned and put his hands to his face. The flesh crawled beneath his fingers, and when he lowered them he had changed. "I want--I want--"

"Angel," said Wesley firmly: "Fight. Come on."

"I want to sleep."

"You want--?" Wesley blinked, surprised. Then he understood. "You mean another dose of tranquilliser?"

"Please. Make it--go away."

Wesley thought of the bottle of Seditol sitting open on the kitchen table. The idea was tempting. An hour's respite for both Angel and himself.

But when the effects wore off, nothing would be different.

Regretfully, he shook his head. "You know it wouldn't help. You can't stay permanently sedated. You have to control it when you're awake."

"I can't."

The words were spoken with a simple resignation that filled Wesley with a deeper sense of dismay than anything he had heard so far.

Evenly, he said, "If you can't regain control, then we'll have to--" He stopped. "We won't have any choice. We'll give you as long as we can, but sooner or later we'll have to do it. Sooner or later."

"I know."

"Doesn't that make any difference? Don't you want to live?"

"Not like this." Angel leaned forward on his hands, his head hanging down between his shoulders. "Please. I'm hungry."

Full circle, thought Wesley. "You have to wait."

"Please," repeated Angel.

"No."

"Please."

"Not yet."

"Soon?"

"Soon," said Wesley soberly. He wasn't talking about the next feed.

"Wesley, wake up."

The voice was female and insistent. He was comfortable and warm, and he wanted it to go away.

"Wesley."

"Don't want to go to school--" He opened his eyes and gazed blearily at the darkhaired fuzzy shape looming above him: "Mummy? Umm. No. Cordelia. I mean -" He sat up in the easy chair, hooking his glasses on over his ears. Cordelia sighed.

"Believe me, being mistaken for a tea-and-scones vision of English matronhood is the least horrible thing that's happened to me recently. And keep your voice down--he's asleep."

She stepped back and waved a hand, indicating the chalk circle, at the centre of which Angel sprawled, insensible. Wesley gave a relieved sigh and said, more softly, "Thank God for that. I thought he was past the point of being able to rest."

Cordelia looked at him. "That bad, huh?"

"Well, I--" He stopped, then nodded. "Yes. And getting worse."

But Cordelia was no longer listening to him. Instead, she had turned back to the circle, and was staring at the empty space between Angel and the ceiling. "I can't see it," she mused. "But it's there."

"See what?"

Cordelia didn't reply. She made her way around the outside of the sand circle and began to climb the stairs leading up to the offices above. Wesley waited long enough to make sure Angel was still sleeping soundly, then followed her.

He found her upstairs, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a massive tome which looked to Wesley suspiciously like volume thirteen of the Black Chronicles open in front of her. Piles of similarly ancient books surrounded her on all sides. "Grab one," she instructed.

"Which one? And what am I looking for?"

"Any one," said Cordelia: "And this."

She reached behind her and produced a rough pencil sketch, which she held out to him. Wesley took it and lifted it to the light. It appeared to be a crude drawing of an amorphous black blob with numerous thread-like tentacles sprouting from its top.

"You're holding it upside down."

"Oh. Sorry." He righted the paper. Now he was looking at an amorphous black blob with numerous thread-like tentacles sprouting from its base. "And this is--what, exactly?"

"You're Watcher Demon Expert Guy. You tell me."

"Umm. Is it perhaps an interesting re-interpretation of the symbol they use for `rain' on the weather forecast? Oh no, wait--I see it now. It's a mutant sheep, am I right?"

Cordelia looked up from her book. "It's the thing that's feeding on Angel."

"It's feeding on--" Wesley broke off. "How do you know?"

"Because I saw it."

He looked at Cordelia, the drawing, then back at Cordelia. She was staring at him boldly, daring him to contradict her. After a second, he sat down next to her, and placed the drawing on the floor between them. "When?"

She took a short breath. "Twice. The first time was during the spell. But nobody else saw anything, and I thought it was part of the magic. Then I saw it when Angel was attacking that woman last night. It was hooked right into him, like it was feeding on him at the same time he was feeding on her."

Wesley paused, taking this in. Finally he said, "That's what you were looking for downstairs just now, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. But I didn't see it. It must know I'm on to it. It's hiding."

"So--you think this is some kind of parasite."

Cordelia nodded and started to talk rapidly. "I went to see Samuel. He was talking about addiction like it was a thing. And then it hit me: it is a thing. He called it a Crave. It's a nasty, black, squiddy, slimy Crave, and when we did the spell we made it jump from him to Angel. You couldn't figure out why the spell went wrong--you said the magic just didn't work like that. Well, it doesn't. There was never anything wrong with the magic, Wesley. It was the Crave doing this to Angel all the time."

"Cordelia--" Wesley looked at the drawing in front of him, and then at Cordelia. Her eyes were wide open, and everything in her face seemed to be willing him to believe her. Very gently, he put his hand on her shoulder. "Cordelia, I know how much easier it would be to think that something external is responsible for what's happened to Angel. But we're not going to help him by trying to hang the blame elsewhere. As distasteful as it is, his craving for blood is part of what he is."

"Do you know how much these eyes are worth?" interrupted Cordelia.

Wesley stopped, taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"Thirty thousand dollars. That's how much that skanky lady lawyer was going to pay for these seer's eyes. Because that's what I am now--a seer. I didn't want it--God knows I hung out with enough freaks at high school to make me not want to join the supernatural club--but I got it. These eyes see things, and I know what I saw." She held up the drawing: "This thing is killing Angel. It's real. So if you're not going to help me work out what it is and how to get rid of it, you can just leave now. And don't bother coming back."

She lowered the drawing and stared at Wesley defiantly. After a moment, he reached across her and shut the book in front of her. "You don't need that."

Cordelia stared at him. Coldly, she began, "If that's how it is, then--"

He held up a hand to indicate he hadn't finished. "What I mean to say is, the Black Chronicles aren't particularly useful with respect to parasitical entities. I can think of better places to start looking."

"So... you believe me?"

He smiled. "I think thirty thousand dollars would have been a steal."

"If I ever decide to be an attendant at the zoo, after tonight I think I have reasonable grounds to claim relevant experience on the application form." Cordelia flopped down in the chair opposite Angel's desk. Wesley looked up from his book.

"How is he?"

"I wasn't getting much in the way of coherent sentences. Or even recognition."

Wesley said, "I think I've found something."

Cordelia pushed herself out of the chair and hopped on to the edge of the desk, so she could look over his shoulder. "And you waited a whole thirty seconds to tell me this? Give it up. Now."

He lifted a magnifying glass and held it over a section of the text. "That's it."

"That page?"

"Umm, no."

"That paragraph?"

"Actually," said Wesley regretfully: "That sentence."

"Yay," said Cordelia sourly. "The body of knowledge increases by a whole twelve words. I hope they're doozies."

He indicated the page as a whole: "This chapter is about the sub-demonic class of entities. Beings which exist on the cusp of reality: not intelligent, but more than just random pulses of magical energy and--you're not in the least interested in this, are you?"

"I'm wandering. Summarise."

"They're the demonic equivalent of viruses. This sentence refers to a type which is attracted to certain dark psychological states. Lunacy, hatred, lust--and addiction."

Cordelia nodded slowly. "Remember when we first talked to Samuel? He said he'd been doing pretty well for a couple of months--then suddenly he couldn't deal any more. I'm betting he only picked up the Crave recently. It hopped on to him from somewhere else."

"Yes," agreed Wesley. "The parasite is probably attracted to individuals who are already susceptible. Then it erodes any ability they have to resist the addiction. Once they've given in once, it pushes them harder and harder, until..." He didn't like where the reasoning was going, so he stopped.

Quietly, Cordelia concluded for him: "Until they OD. Except Angel can't do that. He can only get hungrier."

"That's why it jumped during the spell," realised Wesley. "It sensed the possibility of symbiosis. Endless craving."

"So how do we get rid of it?"

Wesley scanned the page once with the magnifying glass before setting it to one side. "There are no clues in here. But there's a standard way of dealing with non-corporeal entities. You have to force them into physical manifestation. That's when they're vulnerable."

"That's gonna be tough," said Cordelia. "I mean sure, when Angel was getting necky with that woman from the diner, I saw this thing, but it was like a--a shadow of what it really was. It wasn't touch-me-feel-me there."

Wesley thought for a few seconds. At last he said, "Perhaps it didn't get enough of what it wanted. Or, more specifically, what Angel wanted. We arrived before he could complete the kill. He wasn't anywhere near satiation."

"So the suggestion on the table is to let Angel drink himself into oblivion then cut this thing off him?"

"Yes."

Cordelia held up her hands and rested one on top of the other at right angles, forming a T shape in the air. "Okay, time out. My extra-curricular activities at school were cheerleading and fighting evil, remember. I know something about this. Vampires are stronger right after they feed. And the way he is right now, Angel isn't gonna be able to stay on top of that."

"He's already almost beyond reason. By the time the Crave manifests itself, he'll be at peak strength as well. He'll be extremely dangerous."

Cordelia swallowed. "Just wanted to clarify."

"I don't suppose those extra-curricular activities included swordfighting, by any chance?"

"You know, I wanted to, but the class was full." She put her head on one side: "Wesley, what are you talking about?"

"If our theory is right, you'll be able to see the Crave before me. Even a few seconds could be vital. It would be better if you were the one to attack it when it does appear. So--how are your sword skills?"

Cordelia thought. "On a scale of one to ten, four."

Wesley felt buoyed. "Good. That's much better than I was--"

"Let me finish. That's a scale where ten is `abysmal' and one is `let's not bother with the fight, just stab me now'."

"Oh."

"You can be Sword Boy. I'll shout directions. Angel will try to kill us both." Cordelia smiled a bright, false smile: "See? Everyone has something to contribute."

Four

"Remind me why we can't just use the last of the Seditol to knock Angel out for the duration."

Wesley drew the whetstone along the edge of the sword he was holding for a final time. He looked up to see Cordelia take off a bulging backpack and dump it unceremoniously on the other side of the kitchen table. "Because the parasite must be feeding on Angel's craving, and he can't experience that if he's unconscious." He turned the blade on its side, and examined the way the light glinted along its length. Satisfied it could not be made sharper, he put it down.

"We could at least chain him up," said Cordelia, opening the bag and beginning to unload the contents. A large collection of irregularly shaped tubs and containers started rapidly to accumulate on the tabletop.

"It's an option," he conceded. "Although by the time he's consumed the feed we're going to give him, he'll be exceptionally strong. He might be able to break out of chains--he can't cross the boundary of the circle."

She eyed him sceptically. "You're absolutely, one hundred per cent sure on that? Cause, y'know, they told us in biology class that blood moves through the body in a closed system, and I'd really like mine to stay that way."

"I'm sure." Wesley sat down, the sword in front of him. "Just remember--"

"--Not to break the sand line," finished Cordelia. She glared at him: "You don't have to tell me twice. I have a brain."

"I wasn't implying you didn't. But this could get--frantic. It won't be easy to watch where you're stepping all the time."

Her hostile expression faded. "Sorry. Just--getting a little jumpy over here. I'll be glad when this is over."

"So will I." He gestured at the stacks of tubs in front of her: "Did you have difficulty getting that much?"

Cordelia shrugged and replied, "No. I said I was a science major and I needed it for a research project. Good thing they didn't ask what kind of research needs twenty pints of animal blood." She looked at the collection of containers: "It's a lot, isn't it? "

"I only hope it's enough." Cordelia didn't reply, and there was a pensiveness in her face which Wesley didn't know how to interpret. Gently, he said, "This is necessary, you know."

"I know. It's just--" She stopped. "Angel doesn't like drinking in front of people."

"We've already seen him feeding on Robyn Murray," he reminded her. "He didn't seem to mind then."

"If we get rid of the Crave, he'll be okay, right?" asked Cordelia hopefully. "Selfcontrol back, everything copacetic again?"

Wesley didn't answer for a moment. Finally, he said, "I don't know. All I can say for certain is that with the parasite gone, he'll have the opportunity to regain control. Whether he can or not is up to him."

Cordelia looked at him. "Note for future reference: when I ask questions like that, I expect to be told what I want to hear."

In spite of the situation, Wesley found himself smiling. "So noted. From now on, I undertake to lie to you in emotional stressful situations."

"We never got to this point before, did we?"

"What point?"

"The actually-having-a-conversation point. We kind of bypassed it and went straight to the kissing stage. Not," she added too quickly, "that I'm saying anything negative about the kissing part, because it was great--"

"--Very enjoyable, no argument about that--"

"--It's just that it's good you're here in a researching-things, sword-wielding capacity instead of a kissing capacity. Because that's what I need right now. What with Doyle--and--" Cordelia broke off. "In case it's not obvious, I'm working up to a `thank you'."

"That's funny, because I was going to thank you."

She stared at him, apparently genuinely perplexed. "For what?"

"For letting me help."

"Oh." Cordelia nodded slowly, then smiled widely. "So, that makes us even, doesn't it? Clean slate, new leaf and every clich in between?"

"I suppose so."

Leaning over the table, Cordelia lifted the sword and thrust it towards Wesley, hilt first: "Let's do it."

"...It's a parasite. We're going to remove it. Angel, do you understand what I'm telling you?"

At the centre of the circle, Angel stopped rocking backwards and forwards long enough to look up at Wesley with predatory intensity. "Hungry."

Wesley sighed and stood up. He turned to Cordelia, who was opening the last of the plastic containers. She shrugged resignedly and said, "Guess that's a `no'. Ready?"

He nodded. "Ready."

She handed him a polystyrene foam tub. It brimmed with blood, black and viscous. Wesley took it, then assumed a position across the circle from her, Angel between them.

He bent down and very quickly deposited the open container inside the boundary of the ring. Within a second, Angel had pounced on it, and was gulping it down. He tilted the tub faster than he could swallow, and soon trails of blood were visible trickling down from his mouth, towards his neck. He didn't seem to notice or care.

Wesley watched him, making sure Angel was fully occupied with the act of feeding. He nodded at Cordelia. "Go now."

At the far side of the ring, she darted forward and placed the second tub on the floor where Angel could reach it. Just as she began to retreat, Angel dropped the first container, now empty, and spun around. He was across the circle and on to the second serving faster than was humanly possible.

Cordelia yelped in surprise and stepped backwards just in time to avoid coming within Angel's reach.

"Are you all right?" asked Wesley.

She was breathing quickly. "Yeah. Just didn't know we were going for the speed record, that's all."

"He can't help himself. If it's there, he'll drink. Do you see anything yet?"

She looked towards the ceiling, and her face screwed up in concentration. "Not yet."

"Keep looking up," he instructed, lifting a third container from the supply on the table.

Cordelia was watching Angel feeding with distaste. "No arguments on that one. It's more fun than looking down."

Wesley couldn't help but agree with her. Angel finished the third measure of blood, ripping the carton open to get at the last drops. There seemed to be blood everywhere now--on his clothes, his face, his hands, the floor. Feeding time at the zoo, thought Wesley, and felt a sudden sense of pity mixed with sadness. Watching this seemed somehow prurient, intrusive.

By the fifth dose, they had fallen into a routine: distract, deposit, feed, repeat. At the ninth or tenth, Wesley removed the newly-sharpened sword from its scabbard. When, by the twelfth feeding--or thereabouts, he was losing track--Cordelia had still seen nothing, he was beginning to wonder if the plan was going to work at all.

Cordelia was apparently having similar thoughts. She gestured at the dwindling row of cartons on the table at the side of the room and said, "Supplies running low."

"I see that. Cordelia--"

"I know, I know." She scanned the room, and shook her head. "Still nothing. Wait a second--"

Her gaze had fixed on a spot above and to the left of Angel. Wesley stared, but couldn't see anything. "Is it there?"

"I'm not sure, I thought I saw a flicker--" She broke off, then said with more certainty: "It's there. I can see it."

Wesley gripped the hilt of the sword with both hands and raised it in front of himself. "Where exactly?"

"Up. Now left. Forward--there."

Standing at the edge of the circle, Wesley sliced the blade through the empty air as she directed. Angel, still intent on feeding, ignored him.

"Did I get it?"

"No. You're too far away. You need to move closer."

Inside the circle, Angel dropped the empty carton and looked around hungrily. Wesley watched him. "I think I see the inherent flaw in that plan."

"No kidding." Cordelia lifted a container of blood. "One distraction coming up."

She dropped the carton on to the floor inside the circle. Angel fell on it without hesitation. While he knelt on the ground, head lowered, Wesley stepped quickly inside the circle and made another pass with the sword. "That time?"

"No, it moved with him." She pointed. "It's over there now."

"All right, I'll--"

"Wesley!"

At Cordelia's warning shout, Wesley turned and saw Angel rising drunkenly to his feet. He jumped backwards just in time.

"Where is it?"

"Up there, in the corner."

She was indicating an inaccessible crevice in the alcove next to the apartment stairs. As far as Wesley could tell, there was no way to reach it except by crossing the area of the floor marked by the sand circle. "We need another distraction."

"No can do." Cordelia gestured regretfully at the empty table: "That was the last of it. We'll have to try again later."

Inside the ring, Angel was moving about with manic, uncontrolled energy. The only sound he made was a low growling, and there was no trace of humanity in his face, voice or behaviour. Wesley realised what he was seeing was pure vampire, a creature driven by insatiable, uncontrollable hunger, without intellect or emotion.

But with a soul. A soul which, no matter how deeply it was buried, still existed; a soul which must now be experiencing a degree of self-loathing Wesley could not begin to conceive.

Firmly, he said, "No. We're going to put a stop to this right now." He looked at Cordelia: "Can you see it?"

She nodded. "Yes."

Wesley thought for a moment. He felt oddly calm. "Very well. We do have one more distraction to use."

He removed his left hand from the sword's hilt and drew it along the blade. The pain in his palm made him wince, and when he removed his hand the sword's edge was stained red. "Catch."

He threw the sword to her. She caught it automatically, then looked at him in confusion. "Wesley, what are you--?"

Before she could complete the question, he had bent down and was reaching towards the circle's white sand outline. With one deliberate movement, he drew his uninjured hand through the line, breaking it. He held up his right hand, palm out. "Angel. Over here."

At the other side of the circle, Angel stopped. He sniffed the air. He turned.

Wesley said, "Cordelia. Be ready to--"

He didn't get any further.

The bite didn't hurt as much as Wesley had thought it would. Yes, there was a stab of intense pain in the first second, as two rows of sharp teeth punctured the skin on his neck, but it faded quickly. Soon the overriding sensation was a numbing cold that swiftly began to creep through him.

He could feel the blood being drawn from him swallow by swallow, in time with the beat of his slowing pulse. The edges of his vision started to cloud to grey, then black.

It wasn't, he decided, entirely unpleasant. Like going to sleep, except more permanent. Now he understood why vampires' victims tended not to struggle more, or harder.

Someone screamed.

Then everything stopped.

Wesley lay still for what might have been seconds, or minutes. When his breathing had normalised, he tried to sit up, accomplishing the action with difficulty. He felt light-headed, dizzy. He put a hand to his neck, and his fingertips came away bloodied.

Angel was sitting against the base of the bookcase at the other side of the room. His eyes were closed and he was shaking. Cordelia was nowhere to be seen.

"Angel?" hazarded Wesley. He tried again: "Angel?"

There was no response. Wesley put down a hand and tried to push himself to his feet. Half-way up, he ran out of strength and gave up. He allowed himself to slip back down on to the floor.

"Well," he remarked to no one in particular: "That was a new experience."

"Wesley? Are you okay?"

Cordelia's voice came from the stairs behind him. He looked around, with difficulty. "Considering I just lost half my blood supply, I'm feeling surprisingly chipper."

She jumped off the last stair and ran into the apartment's main room, still carrying the sword. Dropping it, she crossed to where Wesley sat and helped him to his feet. He found he could stand, but only by leaning heavily on Cordelia.

"It wasn't that much," she said. "He was on you for maybe half a second before I managed to cut the thing off him. That was a really--brave thing you did."

Wesley attempted to draw himself up straighter. "Well, one does try to rise to the occasion--umphh," he finished as Cordelia hit him.

"And also really, really stupid! Don't you ever try anything like that again!"

He rubbed his bruised arm. "I sincerely hope I don't have to. I heard a scream--"

"That was Angel."

Wesley nodded to himself, a suspicion confirmed. "We were just in time--if he felt its pain, then the symbiosis must have been almost complete." He looked around the basement apartment. "Where is it? If it manifested, and you killed it, it should be here--"

But Cordelia was shaking her head. "I didn't. Kill it, I mean. I just sliced those tentacle things to get it off Angel. As soon as it was separated, it went upstairs and outside. I chased it into the street, but I lost it." She pointed at the sword: "And can I take this opportunity to add that running down a city street late at night waving a blood-stained sword gets a person some really, really strange looks."

"We should try to find it."

"Jeez, Wesley, haven't we had enough excitement for one night?"

"If we don't, the Crave will simply find another host. This will start all over again for some other poor devil."

Cordelia looked to where Angel still crouched, shivering. "I don't want anyone else to have to go through that. But, Wesley--it's gone. You should have seen how fast that thing moved once it was outside. I can see it, but I can't track it."

With Cordelia's support, Wesley moved to one of the easy chairs and sank into it gratefully. She sat down next to him on the armrest.

Angel said, "I can."

The elevator shuddered to a halt. Cordelia's hands were full holding a tray laden with tea, coffee, milk and half a packet of stale cookies she had found at the back of a kitchen cupboard, so she used her elbow to push back the cage door.

They had relocated, at her suggestion, to the office upstairs. The basement apartment was going to require yet another major cleaning in the not-too-distant future, this time probably involving bleach, and Cordelia had decided that could wait until the next day. In the meantime, she felt it was important that Angel spend as little time as possible in edible surroundings.

She carried the tray into the smaller office and put it down on the desk. Wesley looked up and nodded his thanks, tugging absently at the fresh white bandage on his cut hand. Angel, leaning his arms on the desktop and touching his fingertips to his temples, didn't move. He had showered and changed, and his face was back to normal, a small detail which Cordelia opted to interpret as a good sign.

She poured a cup of tea for Wesley and added milk and sugar. And more sugar. And then some more sugar.

"Steady on there."

Stirring the drink, she told him, "We need to get your blood glucose levels up. Eat a cookie." She lifted the cup of black coffee and set it hesitantly in front of Angel. "This is yours."

He opened his eyes and looked at the cup for a moment. Then he lifted it and took a drink. To Wesley, he said very quietly, "I'm sorry."

"I knew exactly what I was doing. So let's not hear another word about it." Wesley sipped his tea and made a face: "Ughh. There must be half a sugar cane plantation in this."

"Quit complaining and drink," said Cordelia amicably.

"Angel, what did you mean, you can track it?"

Angel put the coffee cup down on the desk, but kept his hand wrapped around it. "I can--sense it. It's getting weaker, but it's there."

Wesley nodded. "It must be the residual effects of the link. If you can tell us where to go, we can--"

Angel was shaking his head. "I won't know until I start following it."

Cordelia exchanged a look with Wesley. To Angel, she said, "You sure you're up for that?"

"I'm fine."

"Oooh, and when did I hear that recently?" Cordelia rolled her eyes and feigned deep concentration. "Oh yeah, I remember--right before you went for my throat."

"You drank a lot tonight," observed Wesley. Angel made no reply, and after a moment he went on, "More than you have for a long time, I imagine."

"It's been a while."

"You must be feeling a little--"

"I'm fine," said Angel, looking up. At the same time, Cordelia saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped the coffee cup harder. And harder. There was a sudden crack, and the cup shattered in his fist, sending coffee and shards of white china across the desk in equal parts. Angel looked at his wet, steaming hand, his expression close to shock. "I'm--sorry."

Cordelia lifted a paper towel and started to soak up the spill. "Enough with the apologies already. Just be straight with us. You're not okay. Nowhere near."

After a moment Angel said, "I can--think clearly again. The Crave is gone. But what's left is--" He stopped.

"What?"

"Me. What I am."

"Can you control that?" asked Wesley.

"Yes," said Angel. He swallowed and looked down. "Maybe. I... I'm not sure."

"Well, I say we up the certainty level." Cordelia balled the sodden towel she had been using and threw it into the office wastepaper basket. Then she went to the freestanding cupboard in the corner of the room and opened the doors.

Wesley watched her with curiosity. "What are you looking for?"

"Something no self-respecting S&M club or undead detective agency should be without," Cordelia told him: "Handcuffs."

She held them up so he could see, then walked around the desk until she was standing behind Angel. He had already positioned his arms behind his back, wrists together. Cordelia slipped the bracelets over his hands and snapped them shut. This done, she lifted his jacket down from the peg behind the door and draped it over his shoulders. Then she stood back to assess the overall effect. "It's a little eighties, but I think you can carry it off."

Wesley got up, looking, Cordelia was relieved to note, steadier on his feet. "We'll need to bring weapons."

She indicated the still-open cabinet at the side of the office. "Take your pick. There are a couple of axes, a choice of swords, a mace or two--oh, and that scary thing with the spikes. I can never remember what that's called. Should we take anything else?"

"Yes." Angel rose to his feet, his arms pinned awkwardly behind him. "A stake."

"It's close."

The convertible slowed as Cordelia eased off the accelerator. From the back seat, Wesley asked, "How close?"

"Close enough to follow on foot." There was no way to sit comfortably with his hands secured behind his back, and Angel could feel his arms beginning to cramp, the muscles twisting. He tried to ignore the pain and concentrate instead on the buzzing itch swinging like a compass needle somewhere in the back of his head. It had been getting stronger for the last several blocks, and was now so intense he could feel a thudding echo pounding in his inner ear. "Pull over."

Cordelia stopped the car by the side of the street, then got out and opened Angel's door for him. Wesley lifted a bag from the trunk, and winced under its weight. "At least we're not under-equipped. We must have brought everything bar the kitchen sink."

"Are kitchen sinks useful for demon-slaying purposes?" asked Cordelia. "Because if so, I want one of those babies with us next time."

Wesley said something in reply, but Angel was no longer paying attention. He shut his eyes, turned around on the spot, tried to isolate in which direction the pull felt strongest.

Concentrate, focus--

Hunger--

Drink. Feed. Kill--

He felt warmth next to him, heard the soft beat of a pulse, scented something living. Prey.

He opened his eyes. "Don't touch me!"

Cordelia stepped backwards quickly, taking her hand off his shoulder. "Your coat was slipping off. Take it easy."

He turned around again. The compass needle spun, then settled. "This way."

"Uhhh, Angel?"

"What?"

Cordelia and Wesley were standing side by side behind him. Cordelia waggled her fingers in front of her eyebrows. "Face?"

He hadn't realised. He concentrated, found the control he needed, struggled, held it somehow. He started walking.

In truth, he wasn't sure the Crave was close enough to find on foot, but he needed to move, to work off some of the excess energy the night's exceptional feed had given him. His answer to Wesley's question hadn't been completely straight: it had been more than a while since he had drunk so much at once. It had been decades. Longer. Even when hunting and killing had been a nightly pleasure, he hadn't indulged himself to that extent. It was dangerous. A gorged vampire was an irrational, crazed vampire, craving more, and more, until--

The buzzing in his head reached a crescendo. Angel stopped, heard the rapid clatter of footsteps as Cordelia and Wesley drew up behind him at a run. "Break out the weapons. It's here."

"You can have the sword," Cordelia said to Wesley as she took the holdall from him and unzipped it. "I call scary spiky nameless thing. So where is it?"

Pointing wasn't an option, so Angel nodded. "In that building."

"In that building?" repeated Wesley. "Ah. Oh dear."

Cordelia said, "Angel. That's a hospital."

"It's there," he said with conviction.

"Well, yes, maybe, but--" Wesley paused. "We don't doubt your instincts, Angel. However, in your current condition, do you think it's possible you might have been drawn here by, umm--"

An ambulance pulled up in front of them. Its doors opened, and the smell of fresh blood hit Angel. He stared as the paramedics lifted a man out of the back of the vehicle on a stretcher, the blankets covering him stained red.

Even when they had disappeared through the swing doors and into the ER, the scent of blood persisted. Angel looked around, suddenly unsure. "I--was certain."

Cordelia put her hands on his shoulders and began to turn him around. "Maybe this wasn't the best idea ever. Let's just get you home, huh?"

The smell of blood. Overpowering, whispering sweet, tempting invitations that reached into him, caressed the heart of his desire.

Angel's head buzzed. It was the parasite. He knew it must be able to feel him, if he could still feel it. It must be feeding even now, on his need, his weakness--

He tugged away from Cordelia. "It's the Crave," he said. "It is here. It's--influencing me more, the closer I get."

"You mean--" She stared at him for a moment, then her expression cleared: "It's like it knew you'd come after it."

Wesley completed the thought: "So it came to a hospital. The worst possible place Angel could be right now. That's--worryingly intelligent."

"I can find it," said Angel. "You can kill it." He started towards the hospital entrance.

"Wait." Cordelia was pointing at the metal archway positioned just inside the doors. "That's a metal detector. We'll have to leave the weapons outside."

"We'll improvise."

She looked at him and added pointedly, "And the handcuffs."

Angel moved his hands behind his back, feeling the metal binding his wrists chafing his skin.

Wesley said, "You should know that Cordelia and I agreed that--well--" He hesitated, then met Angel's gaze and finished clearly: "If we so much as suspect you may be about to lose control in there, we'll kill you."

"So what we're saying is," said Cordelia, "if you're gonna do this, could you please take a little time out beforehand to make a realistic self-assessment? Emphasis on `realistic'."

Angel said nothing for a moment. The taste of fresh blood was a sweet recent memory. The air around him hung heavy with its scent. And in his head, the Crave and the pure, dark heart of his nature told him to give in.

"I don't know if I can do this," he said shortly. "I do know I have to try."

Wesley looked at Cordelia. She hesitated, shrugged, then reached into the pocket of her jeans and produced the keys to the handcuffs. She sighed as she released Angel.

"Y'know, I was really hoping for something a little more concrete in the line of reassurance."

There was a junction ahead. Signs overhead pointed towards the hospital's various departments. "Where now?" asked Wesley.

"Right," said Angel.

Wesley squinted upwards. "Taking us towards... surgery."

"Home of open wounds and buckets o'blood. It just keeps getting better," said Cordelia in a low voice. "Angel, are you completely sure you're not just--"

But Angel had already started to move off down the corridor. They made to follow him, Cordelia running ahead to catch up while Wesley, still feeling slightly lightheaded, took a moment longer. He tried to walk faster, slipping a hand into his jacket pocket and fingering the tapered wooden stake nestling in between the folds of fabric. That, at least, had been invisible to the metal detectors on the main entrance.

Cordelia was at Angel's left hand side; Wesley fell into step at his right. It was difficult to keep pace with him: his movements were jerky and irregular. The huge quantity of blood he had drunk earlier was still affecting him. Angel, he realised with a deep sense of unease, was high.

"Move aside there! Coming through!"

Wesley moved automatically to the edge of the hallway, taking Angel with him. Cordelia went to the corridor's far side, as a trauma team headed by a surgeon in scrubs and an attending team of doctors and nurses pushed a gurney past them. The man on it was unconscious, ashen faced. A significant portion of his stomach seemed to be missing.

There was a lot of blood.

The trauma team vanished into the surgery unit, the last nurse staying outside in the hallway. She turned and started to walk quickly back up the corridor towards them.

"Wesley," said Cordelia quietly, pointing at Angel: "Problem."

Wesley heard a low growl from beside him. He turned around, knowing already what he would see.

Urgently, he said, "Angel. Listen to me. It's the Crave doing this to you. It must be very close now. But you're in control here. You don't have to give in."

The nurse began to pass them, then hesitated. "Excuse me. Can I help you--"

"No," said Wesley.

The nurse put her hand on Angel's arm. "I think your friend is distressed--" Angel turned. The nurse's expression froze. "My God. Your face--"

There was a second's horrified silence before Cordelia stepped in. Grabbing the nurse by the shoulders, she propelled the woman away from them. "Tragic, isn't it? We're suing the plastic surgeon. Look, there's a sick person! Go help!"

Wesley turned back to Angel, who was leaning against the wall. He was shaking, and mumbling something to himself, almost too quietly to make out. It sounded like the same short phrase repeated over and over, like a mantra. Wesley leaned closer, struggled to make sense of the sounds.

Angel was saying, "I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't--"

Wesley felt suddenly cold. The stake was still in his pocket; he put his hand on it, made ready to take it out.

Before he could, Angel bolted.

He was halfway down the hallway before Wesley had completely registered what was happening. A second later Cordelia ran past him, in pursuit. "Wesley, come on!"

He started after her, pushing past a random assortment of surprised patients and staff. "Excuse me. Coming through. Sorry there. Pardon me--" Ahead of him first Angel, then Cordelia, vanished around a sharp bend in the corridor. Before following them, Wesley looked back the way they had come, and saw a group of burly-looking, blueuniformed men emerging from the far elevators.

He skidded around the corner, and almost knocked Cordelia down. "He went that way."

Breathlessly, Wesley said, "Cordelia--security's coming."

She grimaced. "My lucky night. I get to kill my boss and earn a criminal record."

"You lead them off. I'll find Angel."

Cordelia nodded once. Then she ran back the way they had come, towards the pursuing security guards.

Wesley set off in the other direction. He wasn't moving as quickly as he needed to: he couldn't catch his breath, and he felt light-headed and vaguely nauseous. He stopped for a second and, leaning on the back of a stationary wheelchair, breathed deeply. His neck hurt, and when he touched the skin, he found the bite wound had re-opened.

He blinked, shook his head, and moved on.

A notice on the wall instructed him to be quiet out of consideration for patients recovering from surgery. The hallway was long and straight, the plain cream walls interrupted at intervals by the doors of private rooms. The corridor was empty, except for a lone sanitary worker mopping the floor at the far end. Wesley guessed that if the man had seen a vampire running towards him in the recent past, he wouldn't be going about his job with such assiduousness. If Angel had come this way, he was in one of the rooms.

He took out the stake and opened the first door on his left. The room was unoccupied, the bed neatly made.

The second room was empty too.

When he looked into the third room, a man with his left leg suspended in traction asked politely for a glass of water.

He opened the door of the fourth room and looked in. The woman sitting up in the bed, her arm attached to a drip, looked at him.

"Umm, hello," said Wesley. "I wonder if you happen to have seen a tall, dark-haired man pass through here? Possibly with, ahhh, teeth? "

The woman didn't respond. She wasn't, Wesley realised, really looking at him. Her face just happened to be tilted in his direction. Her right hand was cupped around something she gripped tightly. Her fingers twitched regularly, but otherwise she made no movement and her open eyes were glazed over, inexpressive.

"Oh," he said. "Right. I'll just be moving along then..." He stopped.

A shadow moved across the shaft of light being thrown into the room through the open door.

"Angel," said Wesley. "Angel. I know you're there."

He stepped into the room. Held up the stake.

Angel stood in the shadows in the corner beside the bed. His face was a study in raw hunger. He was focused entirely on the bed and the woman in it.

Wesley said, "Angel. Listen to my voice. You don't have to do this--"

Angel leaped on to the bed, straddling the woman. His back was to Wesley, exposed.

One chance. There would only be one chance. If he didn't get it right--

Wesley moved towards the bed. Made ready to strike.

There was a tray sitting on the table beside the bed, holding the remains of a hospital meal and an empty glass. With a fast, smooth movement Angel reached down and scooped up something from it. He held it up.

The blade glinted in the faint light from the hallway. It was a knife.

Wesley hesitated, suddenly unsure. Vampires killed with fangs, not weapons. But they still killed, so did it matter how--

The woman's hand twitched again. She was pushing something with her thumb. A panic button? wondered Wesley. No, because surely security would have come by now if--

Something else?

Angel was lifting the knife. Wesley held up the stake.

Last chance.

Suddenly he understood what was happening.

He dropped the stake on to the floor. It landed with a dull wooden clatter.

At the same time, Angel stood up on the bed, wrapped his fist around the knife, and stabbed it towards the wall above the woman's head. Wesley heard a high-pitched wavering noise, and saw a trail of black liquid suddenly appear on the previously spotless wall. Angel stabbed the blade at the wall again, and this time met with resistance as something began to solidify out of the air. It was black and soft and glistened wetly. A cluster of tentacles dangled in the air beneath it; most were halfsevered and trailed uselessly, but the remaining few were firmly rooted in the flesh of the woman in the bed.

Wesley stared, and realised he was seeing the Crave.

The wailing reached a pitch, then abruptly stopped. Angel stabbed the oily mass again, and Wesley watched it slide down the wall and sink into a glutinous heap on the floor next to the bed. A thick trail of rancid-smelling fluid marked the path of its descent. It quivered for a moment longer, and was still.

Wesley said, "Angel. It's dead."

Angel hopped down from the bed and raised the knife again. Wesley grabbed hold of his wrist, and with his other hand took the blade from him. "That's enough. It's dead. Enough."

"Wesley?" The voice came from the doorway. When Wesley looked around, Cordelia was standing just inside the room, breathing hard. She looked at Wesley, then Angel, then woman in the bed and finally at the thing on the floor.

The woman's hand was still convulsing spasmodically. Wesley left Angel and went to her. Gently, he unwrapped her fingers from around the device she held and set it out of reach.

"What is that?" asked Cordelia.

"She's on a morphine drip," explained Wesley. "It's not uncommon after surgery to let patients control their own medication. But morphine has addictive properties. That must have been what drew the Crave to her."

"And Angel killed it." She touched his arm, but Angel didn't respond. "Is he okay?"

Wesley nodded. "I think he will be, now."

Angel watched Wesley place the glass on the table between them, made himself wait while he filled it.

"I'm going to count to ten," said Wesley: "One. Two. "

Concentration. Focus.

"Three. Four. Five."

Hunger. Need.

"Six--"

Angel snatched the glass from where it sat on the kitchen table and drained its contents. He pushed it away from himself, disgusted.

Reassuringly, Wesley said, "That was a marked improvement. You should be pleased."

Traces of blood clung to the sides of the empty glass. Angel shut his eyes. "How long before--"

"Two hours. I think that's a reasonable target." Wesley looked at him: "Can you wait that long?"

Two hours. Eternity felt shorter. "I can try."

"Okay. The living room is now officially liveable again." Cordelia was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a scrubbing brush in one hand and a bucket in the other. She smelt overpoweringly of disinfectant. She went to the sink and tipped the contents of the bucket down it. "If this ever--and I think I speak for all of us when I say please, God, no--happens again, I am absolutely insisting we hire professionals for the cleanup job. Did you tell him yet?" she added, stripping off her rubber gloves and addressing herself to Wesley.

He shook his head. "Not yet."

Angel looked at their faces in turn. "Tell me what?"

Cordelia folded her arms resolutely. "What happens next."

"And that is...?"

Wesley said, "You stay here. One of us will be here all the time. We'll control how much you drink and how often, until you can do it yourself again."

Approaching the table, Cordelia continued: "You get to work through this whatever way is best for you. You want to talk, we'll listen. You want to hit something or balance on one leg, that's cool too. What you don't get is to be Mr I-Can-Deal-WithAll -My-Problems-By-Myself. You don't get to be alone." She rolled her eyes. "I'd like to say you don't get to brood either, but I don't want to be unrealistic."

They made, thought Angel suddenly, an effective team. He wondered when that had happened.

Cordelia leaned across the table, and put her hand on Angel's arm. "You're gonna be okay," she said. "We're gonna do this. No quick fixes and no magic. Just the three of us and as much time as it takes to get you back to where you were."

"Now, how do you feel?" asked Wesley.

Cordelia added, "Be aware any answer including the word `fine' will be immediately disregarded."

He felt hungry. That wasn't going to change, or go away. But something was different.

Angel said, "I was falling. And there were people there to catch me. I feel--grateful."

"Good start," said Cordelia. She smiled. "Hey, this isn't all bad, y'know. Didn't I say we needed to hang out more?" Her bag was sitting on the floor beside the table. She reached into it and held up a video cassette: "The Sixth Sense. C'mon, Angel. It'll kill the next two hours, and then some."

"I--" He stopped. "I hear the twist is that Bruce Willis is a ghost."

Wesley looked innocently at the ceiling. "Can't think where you got that from."

"Then it's settled," said Cordelia, getting up. "And after that, we can start on my E.R. collection. I have the first three years on tape."

Wesley got up and began to follow her, leaving Angel sitting at the kitchen table. "Really? I haven't seen all of those."

"You like E.R.? How did I miss finding out this stuff about you back in Sunnydale?"

"I have hidden depths."

Angel listened to the conversation as it receded into the next room. He looked at the empty, stained glass still sitting on the table in front of him. A single congealing dark red trail tapered down its smooth curved side.

He reached a finger towards it, and stopped. Several seconds passed. Then he curled the extended hand into a fist and brought it back towards himself.

Not a monumental victory, but enough for now.

He got up and followed Cordelia and Wesley.

End

Better Buffy Fiction Archive Entry

Crave