Part Three
The kid – Viho by name – had been so caught up in his task of retrieving Cordelia and Wesley that he’d been about to run all the way home. Wesley started up Angel’s car, though, and got the kid before we went very far. With Viho sitting in the front passenger seat, Wesley driving, and Cordelia sitting pensively in the back, they got to the demons’ home in record time. And without breaking any traffic laws, yet. Or, at least, not getting caught for any.
It wasn’t exactly a bad part of town that Viho’s extended family was living in, but it wasn’t a good part of town, either. The older apartment building was tired looking, rust stains marking the exterior walls and the once colorful outside faded and dull. There were drying clothes hanging out of upstairs windows. It was quiet, though, for an apparently full apartment building in the daytime. Cordelia could only guess that whoever these demons were, they weren’t into drawing attention.
Wesley pulled the black convertible up front. It had barely stopped when Viho jumped out, followed shortly by Cordelia. She followed him into the building, and the apparent peace was shattered. The vestibule was quiet, but occupied. Cordelia fought very hard not to stare at so many demon faces in once place. Strange colors, horns, scales, a bit of slime…she pitied the landlord of this place. She also definitely felt like the alien in here.
The boy turned around once they were inside only to wait for Wesley to catch up with them, then turned around saying, “He’s upstairs. Third floor. Come on!” Then he rushed ahead of them again.
Cordelia ran as well as she could up the stairs behind the young demon, but he had a couple of advantages on her – a demon’s strength, a child’s energy, and sensible shoes – and quickly widened the gap between them. She didn’t have any trouble following him, though, for once he reached the third floor he began calling out ahead of them. “Mom! Dad!” So Cordelia simply had to follow the sound of his voice to find his family…and, if what he’d said was true, Angel as well.
Both her and Wesley were out of breath by the time they reached the door in question, where Viho practically bounced in the hallway. He was speaking quickly to a woman – his mother, presumably – standing just inside the door. Neither of them could hear what the boy said, but they could see the woman’s obvious relief.
“Thank goodness,” the demoness said when they reached the doorway as well. “I’ve been at my wit’s end.” She ushered them both in the door and closed it firmly behind them.
Cordelia vaguely heard Wesley exchange pleasantries and introductions with the woman, but her attention was quickly elsewhere. Her attention had been caught by a scene barely glimpsed in the bedroom. She made her way almost in slow motion to the doorway, for once speechless.
A younger human (or human looking, at least) woman knelt beside the bed. On the floor beside her was a bag, plus rolls of bandages and a smile pile of bloody gauze. What really caught Cordelia’s eye, though, was on the bed. Curled up on his side, heavily bandaged with his back to the door, familiar tattoo just showing over the layers of tape, was Angel.
Cordelia moved into the room without even being aware she was doing so, and the young woman turned at her approach. “Are you a friend?” she asked, her voice thick with an unfamiliar accent.
“Yes,” Cordelia replied, in a detached way amazed at how calm her voice was. “I’m a friend. I work for him.”
The woman nodded, and looked relieved. “I’ve done what I can for him, but his injuries are worse than I’ve dealt with before,” she said. At Cordelia’s odd look she continued. “I work as a medic for this building. The people who live here have a tendency to get into some bad scrapes…but this is bad. He should be in a hospital. Plus…I’ve never treated a human before.”
Cordelia shook her head, not really paying attention. Just an hour ago she’d been mourning Angel’s death. Now… “He can’t go to the hospital,” she said. “And he’s not human. He’s a vampire.”
It was the medic’s turn to look shocked. “If he was a vampire, he wouldn’t need my treatment,” she explained.
This was all too unreal. Cordelia felt like…she’d just stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone. Or was having a very strange dream. Either way, this whole situation could not be real. Angel was dead; he’d burned to death in a jail cell. He wasn’t here in this house of horrors, injured and alive. That being alive in the breathing sense just proved matters. Almost without thinking Cordelia put out her hand to touch Angel lightly on his unbandaged shoulder. Even unconscious he flinched from her touch. Still, she felt his unusual warmth before he pulled away and curled up even tighter. He looked very small and pathetic like that for such a large man.
“He was found like this last night,” Viho’s mother was explaining to Wesley in the bedroom doorway. “A man living nearby says he was dumped from a nice, black car and left for dead.” She saw that Cordelia was listening too and came the rest of the way into the room to speak to both of them. “I don’t know if you remember my husband. He can pass for human, and someone was going to reveal his nature to his employer. Get him fired if he didn’t…” Wesley nodded briefly that he remembered. “Angel helped him. We couldn’t pay you much, or not as much as keeping that job is worth to this family. We just wanted to return the favor. I’m afraid we couldn’t do much for him, though.”
“What’s his condition?” Wesley asked both the woman and the medic.
It was the woman who answered first. “He’s been in and out ever since we picked him up off the street. He hasn’t said anything coherent the couple of times he’s been awake.”
“Except to make things difficult for me,” the medic muttered.
“That’s Angel for you,” Cordelia said with a hint of humor. It was all pointless if you couldn’t keep your sense of humor, right?
The medic continued with her more professional opinion of his condition. “Mostly he’s got some bad bumps and bruises, some scrapes, rope burns around his wrists probably from being restrained…. He may have a cracked rib or two, but I can’t tell. He was beaten pretty thoroughly. What worries me, though, is the large, ritualistic cut on his chest.”
“Ritualistic?” Wesley asked urgently.
“Someone carved what looks like a bird into his chest. He’d lost a good deal of blood from that by the time I saw him. I’m worried about infection, but if he manages to avoid that…. It’s definitely going to scar.”
“I see,” Wesley said. He looked at both of the women. “Thank you both very much for your care. We are willing to pay you whatever amount of money…”
“No need,” the demoness said hastily. “Consider this a balancing of accounts.”
Wesley nodded. “Then I suppose we will take him off your hands come nightfall.”
“Wesley, wait,” Cordelia said urgently. “You haven’t heard the rest of the news about his condition.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The ‘he’s breathing and has a heartbeat’ part.”
Wesley got this very odd look on his face like he’d choked on something. To his credit, he recovered well. “Then…I suppose we’ll be taking him with us as soon as it’s okay to move him.”
The medic nodded. “Whenever he wakes up, I suppose. You know him. You can probably care for him better than I can.”
Cordelia wasn’t so sure of that, but she sat next to Angel on the bed anyway. She laid a hand on his shoulder again. This time she did not pull away when he flinched, but instead held firm and said sternly, “Angel!”
He stirred slowly, finally rolling onto his back and blinking his eyes open. He shuddered under her touch, his eyes haunted. They held fear and pain, but no recognition.
“Time to get up,” she said softly, letting him go. “Wesley and I are taking you home.”
“Home?” Angel asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.
Cordelia was silent for a
moment, looking into his uncomprehending eyes. What did they do
to you? And who were they? She sighed. “Yeah, Angel.
Home.”
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