The Door in the Hedge
Chapter 5 - A Matter of Names (Go to Chapter 6)
"He tossed this to me. I don't think the demons saw, or they would have taken it back." Cordelia produced a silver egg.
"What is it?" Wesley asked.
"I don't know," Cordelia said. "Other than silver and impossible to open."
"Let me see," Angel said. Cordelia handed him the egg. It was nearly two centimeters thick at the edges, increasing to four centimeters in the center, and about ten centimeters long in its greatest length, with a curved front and back, almost as if a chicken egg had been flattened and silver plated. It had an ornate ring at the smaller end.
Gripping this, he was able to swing the center part out, like extracting a flat oyster from a shell. The center was a crystal oval, banded in silver. He held it up and looked at the room through it. It seemed clear, but he couldn't see through it, exactly the way he could see nothing through the phone Ann had given him.
"A magnifying glass?" Cordelia asked.
"Quiet," Angel said, and closed it. For lack of anywhere better, he walked over to the refrigerator and placed the locket on a mostly empty shelf and closed the door. "We should get a safe," he said.
"Do you know what it is?" Wesley asked.
"I think it's some kind of phone," Angel said. "And I don't know who's on the other end or how sensitive it is, but I know someone to ask."
Tara and Willow popped into the living room, stumbling to regain their balance.
"We should practice that," Willow said.
"We're better," Tara said. "We got here, I mean both of us, and all our stuff."
"Hi," Willow said, looking around. "Ann took Spike to the doctor, but we decided we could help. So what are we supposed to look at?"
Tara eyed the egg and drew back slightly. Willow reached for it and Tara pushed her hand flat on the table. "Not yet," she said. "So w-where did you get this?"
Briefly, Angel told her about the new portal, the Greens, their capture, and the need to rescue them.
"Let me try this," Tara said, taking a pair of glasses out of her backpack. "It is a phone, and it's off. If this is his, does she have one, too?" She turned to Angel as she spoke, started, and hurriedly took off the glasses.
"Why not? They were dressed a lot alike, maybe they have the same accessories too,"
"What is her name?"
"Filis."
"Her real name, I mean."
"That's all she told us."
"This is like guessing a password. People aren't very inventive about passwords, Willow says. Ann had a lot to say on the subject of use names, when I was I picking mine, but I bet Filis never had such good advice. I think, if I 'm right about what they are, she would be limited in her choice of languages," Tara said. "What was her attitude like?"
"Annoying," Cordelia said..
"Cocky," Angel said.
"Smug," Wesley said.
"OK. A simple translation and substitution. If everyone but Angel would move back, please. Say this--" she wrote a woman's name on a piece of paper and underlined the last syllable "--to the phone and don't tell it to anyone else."
"Turn it on, first," Angel said.
"Here."
"Cole," Angel told the phone. "Hey. It chimed."
Tara put her hand over the name; it vanished. She burned the paper with a whispered word and relaxed. The flat crystal brightened, then filled with Filis's image
"Filis?" Angel asked.
"How did you reach me?" she asked after a startled silence.
"Where are you?"
"Give me that," Ivo said. The image in the crystal spun around then settled on Ivo's face. "Hi. I'm glad you finally managed to turn it on. I don't know where we are. It's the opening demons, though. Tell my phone: S,T,A,R and T,R,A,C,E. It will lead you to me. There are a lot of them, so be careful." He rang off.
"Great," Angel said.
"Not very helpful.," Wesley agreed.
"His phone will lead us to him?" Cordelia asked.
"Like Lassie?" Willow asked.
"We'll find out. Why is she so different, so unsure of herself?" Angel asked Tara.
"She thinks you know her real name. That gives you a lot of power over her; you can probably make her do anything you want."
"Like going home?"
"Yes."
"Good. Can you figure out what Ivo's real name might be?"
"He's pretty cocky, too, isn't he? Probably. I guess it's one of two names, and probably the opposite this time. A sort of Goth thing."
"Whatever. Get it ready. It may come in handy."
"Tara," Willow said. "We have a map of LA. Can we use the phone with the map and the locator spell, not as a phone, just as a
possession, so we have a general idea of where they are?"
"Oh, yeah. Easy."
"And quick?" Angel asked.
"This time, yes. Ann took me shopping at a professional level magic shop tucked away in Pike Place Market after Claire checked my curse titer spell and approved me to use more already prepared apparatus."
"The things they have," Willow said, clearing off the table. "Even more interesting than shoes."
"Really?" Cordelia asked.
"Well, if you're a witch," Willow allowed.
Tara spread a map open on the table, took out a foil packet, about the size of a flavoring packet, and a plastic bag. She put the phone in the bag, opened the packet and shook a small amount of powder into the bag over the phone. She closed the bag, whispered to it, shook it, then dumped the powder over the map, where it piled up in a tidy four sided pyramid. "There," she said. "That block. We could refine the locus, but it would take a while. Qu-quick enough?"
"Fine," Angel said. "It's late enough. Wesley and I go, you three stay here: compare what you know about portals, when, how and where they can be opened. We'll be back with the Greens."
"Sure of that, are you?" Wesley asked, heading for the door.
"If we don't get back, we won't worry about it," Angel said, putting Ivo's phone in his pocket next to the one Ann had given him to call Claire.
"Quite true."
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"Only one building, which simplifies matters considerably."
"I don't know why demons bother to come here, if they're going to live in warehouses," Angel said.
"It depends, I suppose, on what they live in at home," Wesley said. "The ancient Spartans would feel quite at home in a warehouse or a barracks."
"There may be only one building, but there are a lot of doors."
"Try the phone?"
"Cole," Angel said.
"Hi," Ivo whispered.
"We're outside. Where are you in the building?"
"Judging from the sunset, we're in the east-north corner, in a cage."
"OK. Which floor?"
"Ground."
"Wait," Angel said, then to Wesley: "Let's go around."
"If we had a Range Rover," Wesley said, "we could just batter down a door, use a grappling hook on the cage and drag it out."
"If we had a grappling hook."
"And didn't care about the contents of the cage," Wesley admitted. "Don't turn, go straight!"
"What?" Angel asked, driving on to the next block.
"A car is coming out. No, cars," Wesley said.
Angel pulled over where he could watch the intersection in the mirrors. He counted four gray Infinitis traveling in caravan, then a fifth hurrying to catch up.
"Four to six in a car, twenty to thirty gone. Do you think there are any left inside?"
"Twenty or so fewer, at any rate," Wesley said. "Unless there was only the driver in each, in which case, only five fewer."
"I saw people front and back, at least ten fewer. Let's go in."
"The same door they came out of?"
"Why not? It's the closest."
Angel turned the car around and entered the warehouse through the large door in the center of the south side. The space inside was
divided into quarters by aisles leading to the large doors in each side. In the south-east and south-west quarters were more cars, some trucks and a school bus or two. The north-west corner was piled with packing crates, while the north-east corner was mostly bare, except for a cluster of demons and a metal cage. He accelerated towards it.
Running over three demons encouraged the rest to leave. Angel didn't bother pursuing them. He left the car and approached the cage.
Ivo and Filis were inside, sitting on a packing crate, which sat on the solid metal floor. Angel inspected the door and didn't see a lock.
"You're not locked in?"
"We can't touch the metal," Ivo said. "They put us in and pulled out the boards we walked in on."
"So what type of metal is this?" Wesley asked.
"Silver," Filis said.
"Did they make this especially for you?" Angel asked, "Or did they just have it sitting around?"
"They didn't say. The boards are over there." Ivo said. Angel brought them over to the cage.
"If you can't touch silver," Wesley said, "what is the metal on your phone?"
"Platinum," Filis said.
Angel walked in and dropped the boards in a rough line from the crate to the door. Ivo and Filis warily edged through the door.
"The literature on the subject says you can't touch steel," Wesley said.
"We can touch steel. What do you think our swords are made of?" Filis asked.
"Actually, I have always wondered."
"My phone," Ivo said. "Where's my phone?"
"Here," Angel said.
Ivo grabbed it out of his hand. He was about to speak, then glanced up at Wesley and Angel. "Excuse me, this is private."
"Make the damn call as we go," Angel growled, losing patience at last.
"Oh, all right," Ivo said, getting into the back seat of the car.
"If it is that urgent," Wesley said, "why didn't you use Filis's phone?"
"Hers can't reach through the gates to home, her battery is run down," Ivo said. "And she brought no spares."
"This is the phone that goes with this outfit," Filis said. "You didn't tell me you wanted me to pack extra batteries.
"I did too."
"Stop that," Angel said.
After a very prickly silence, Ivo said quietly, "I do need to call."
"Call, then."
Ivo spoke briefly, and unintelligibly as far as Wesley and Angel were concerned. As he closed the phone, he said to his sister: "They're on it."
"What happened since we saw you last?" Angel asked.
"Well, we found out the opening is tonight."
"That's where everybody went?"
"Yes. We pointed out to them how dangerous what they were doing is, and they laughed. They seemed to think they would be immune
to the destruction."
"Arrogant and supercilious," Filis muttered.
"Well, they are semi-aquatic demons," Ivo allowed. "If worse come to worst, they won't be that troubled by emerging in mid ocean."
"They're not semi-aquatic," Filis objected. "They just use boats a lot."
"And in any case," Ivo started, then he and Filis screamed.
"What?" Angel said.
"We have to get out of here," Ivo said.
"Where?" Filis asked.
"We can't!" Ivo said. "I can't--can you?"
Ping! The crystal phone ripped out of his pocket and hovered in front of Angel's eyes.
"Angel!" Ann's face appeared in the crystal and her voice snapped out. "What is going on and what just happened?"
"Ann, I'm driving and I can't see where I'm going with the phone in my face."
"Park. Do it now, Liam." The ball floated over to his right shoulder and rested there.
Angel was startled to hear his given name. He hadn't used it in over two hundred years. How did Ann know it?
Ivo and Filis were staring at the ball. "Uh, Angel?" Ivo asked. "Where did you get that, if I may ask, I mean?"
"A woman named Ann Grove gave it to me."
"I think you're wrong on both counts," Filis said.
He pulled the car over and turned to the ball on his shoulder. "OK. We're parked." And the four of them were out of the car and
standing in Angel's living room.
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