February 2003

    Wesley followed the dark-haired vampire with reddened, harried eyes.
    "Angel," he called, and he made no attempt to mask the stern warning in his tone.
    Angel stopped a few steps short of the Hyperion’s back door.  His shoulders slumped ever so slightly, betraying his mood.  If vampires had need of sighing, Angel would have.
    "Wesley, we’ve been through this and through this," he said without turning.  Then, there was a pause.  "…And through this."
    "Yes, I realize that, and each time, you have failed to convince me of why you must do this alone!" he said in a hoarse, almost desperate whisper.  As he spoke, he heaved himself up and out of the desk chair and limped toward Angel.  "Your foolish gallantry is going to be your very quick death, and I can’t comprehend why it is that you don’t see this!"
    Angel turned, and his countenance was like stone in its determinedness and intensity.
    "Wesley, look at yourself.  Look!" he exclaimed while pointing at the Englishman’s bandaged right leg.  "A Drellmor demon did that, right?  The Senior Partners are gonna be a hell of a lot more dangerous that a Drellmor.  I have to do this, Wesley.  I have to do it to save Cordelia."
    "But—"
    "The Senior Partners want me.  Not you, not Kate, not Fred.  Me.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll jump at the chance to fight a battle that doesn’t include my friends," Angel said darkly.  His eyes were hard as steel.  "So, unless you want me to hit you over your stubborn English head, stay out of my way.  And don’t go telling Cordelia about this.  I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out."
    Without a backward glance, Angel was gone, leaving Wesley speechless and defeated in the hotel lobby.  He couldn’t be sure how long he stood there, staring at an indiscriminate point on the floor.  He was still staring when a familiar boot blocked his view of the random spot.
    "Is he gone?" The voice was edged with ice, as usual.
    "Yes," Wesley managed.
    "Okay.  I thought I heard his car.  See you later, hopefully," she said, her mood heavy, yet calm.
    Wesley opened his mouth to protest, but he thought better of it as he watched the blonde woman march out the door.  Kate was even more difficult to deter than Angel was.
 

    Wolfram & Hart was in a serious, almost laughable, state of disrepair.  The towering building itself was, of course, immaculate and imposing as ever, but the infrastructure of the firm was in shambles.  Gavin Park’s death was probably the beginning of the end for Wolfram & Hart.
    His successes in the never-ending battle against Angel catapulted him to a position of weighty authority, much to Lilah’s chagrin.  He became deeply interwoven in the threads of power that supported the firm.  His cold yet intelligent brand of evil intrigued the Senior Partners.  Gavin’s previous failures were attributed to incompetent colleagues and extenuating circumstances.  He became the firm’s new favorite son, and his favor surpassed even that of Lindsey.
    Then, he decided to get even more personally involved with the Angel case.  Intoxicated with his newfound influence, he pulled a few very secret strings and devised a plot to kidnap Cordelia and hold her hostage.  Lilah had only touched on this idea previously, and her mere threats against Cordelia had pushed Angel as far as releasing Billy from his hell prison.  Gavin planned to capitalize on this, and he received the blessings of the Senior Partners.  Because it seemed that Gavin Park could do no wrong, every other powerful member of Wolfram & Hart contributed to this massive strike against Angel.  The act was planned and re-planned, and all in the span of about a month.  However, in his blind arrogance, Gavin made the mistake of paying Cordelia a visit.  He harbored a twisted attraction for her, and his confidence caused him to make a fatal error.  He decided to act on his secret, violent urges.
    Gavin never touched her.  He also never knew what hit him.  Angel beat him to a pulp before Cordelia had time to scream twice.  The enraged vampire wrung as much information out of the man as possible before depositing him, bloodied and humiliated, on Wolfram & Hart’s doorstep.  The punishment for the lawyer would be far worse than anything Angel could think of.  Practically the entire firm was invested in the Cordelia plot; it was a scheme that would have worked beautifully if Gavin hadn’t botched it before it even got off the ground.  The impressive plan had rapidly deteriorated into an expensive embarrassment.  With Angel angry and on his guard, there was no way to pull it off.
    Gavin was allowed to beg for his life.  It did him no good.
    Every employee of Wolfram & Hart, from the vice presidents down to every mailroom worker, received a gift from the Senior Partners: a piece of Gavin Park.  Lilah opened her box and found Gavin’s eyeball staring back at her.
    Lilah was promoted with a flurry of nervous congratulations.  Lilah brought her new Golden Boy, James Watson, along with her.  Together, they hoped to save Wolfram & Hart from the premature destruction it was heading for.
    Then, Lindsey returned just long enough to kill Wolfram & Hart’s last hopes.  With no prospects for the future, employees disappearing from the country right and left, and Angel still on the warpath, the Senior Partners took matters into their own hands.
    It was this sequence of events that caused Angel to be riding a Wolfram & Hart elevator up to the very top floor of the firm’s building.
 

    She pictured him in her mind: broken and vanquished, dozens of sneering lawyers close at hand, and the smiling Senior Partners overseeing it all.
    "Angel, you moron," she muttered under her breath.
    Kate floored the accelerator.
 

    "Through there," sputtered the beleaguered-looking secretary, and he pointed a fat, stubby finger at a pair of doors.
    Angel blinked at the entrance to the Senior Partners’ office.  He’d expected it to be ornate and overdone, or at least have some kind of inscription.  However, the door was completely bare but for the handles.
    The metal handle was warm, sickeningly warm.  Angel pulled down on it very gently.
 

    Kate slammed on the brakes, coming to a screeching halt in the back parking lot of the law firm building.  She barely remembered to set the parking brake, and she barely cared.  She began sprinting toward the glass entrance doors.
 

    The humidity in the top floor office was almost enough to knock Angel off his feet.  He felt the moisture cling to him almost immediately.  Plopping sounds echoed everywhere.  Angel glanced up to see that water was dripping off the light fixtures.  The lights looked as though they had never been used.  The whole office looked to have seen little use.  No furniture graced the smudgy, uncarpeted floor.
    The place was just muggy, and nothing more.  Angel wiped moisture from his forehead and waited patiently.

    Kate elbowed a stocky man in a bad suit out of her way.  The elevator door was closing.  At the last second, she slipped a hand in between the doors, tripping the obstruction sensors.  A crowd of irritated lawyers frowned at her from the fancy interior of the lift.
    "Get out."
    The lawyers and aides murmured in condescending amusement.  A tall, bald man picked up the receiver of the emergency telephone, presumably to call security.
    "Obviously, you didn’t hear me," she said more forcefully.  Reaching behind her, she pulled two semi-automatic revolvers from where they had been harnessed under her jacket and pointed one of them at the man on the telephone and the other at the rest of the lawyers in the elevator.  "Get out."
    They got out.  Kate smiled grimly.  She always believed the majority of Wolfram & Hart’s employees to be cowards.  Pushing the button for the top floor, she wondered if Angel had used force to get to the Senior Partners’ office.  Then, she thought better of it.  Angel was expected, invited even.  She was completely unwelcome.
 

    The vampire reached into one of the inner pockets of his coat.  He felt the cold design on the meditation talisman.  Angel knew there was no way to avoid having his mind invaded, but at least he could stop them from controlling him.  He’d practiced for weeks with this talisman.  To regain control of his will, all he had to do was touch it.
    Angel began to feel edgy.  This wasn’t right.
    "Where are they?" he murmured.
    "Haven’t you been wondering why the room was so humid?" said a beautiful young woman sitting in a leather armchair that was suddenly in front of Angel.
    Angel made no reply.  The moisture was gone.  In fact, the room as it had been now ceased to exist.  A ceiling fan spun lazily above his head.  The walls were a muted shade of gray, and tasteful pictures hung at random places on the walls.  Sunshine was cascading through a beautiful bay window to Angel’s left.
 

    Shut up, shut up, Kate thought.  Her heart was beating so loud and so fast that she wondered if the Senior Partners could hear her coming.  The elevator seemed to crawl.  Furious, she slammed a fist into the wall.
    "Come on!" she screamed at empty air.  The lift continued to move at the same agonizingly slow pace.
    Kate tried to force herself not to think of him, not to start creating worst-case scenarios, but she failed terribly.  She ran a hand through her tousled blonde hair, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.  An aching she knew all too well appeared in the pit of her stomach.  Kate tried to focus, tried to objectify.  Kate failed miserably.
 

    "Of course he wasn’t.  He assumed that, naturally, all horrible monsters are bound to have some rather bizarre environmental needs.  Didn’t he?" said a dignified man in a three-piece, pinstriped suit, who had seemed to suddenly appear, standing by the bay window.
    "He didn’t think a thing of it.  He cares for nothing but the mission." A short, thin man with absolutely no hair came scuffing into the center of the room, looking contemptuously at Angel.  "Not that it matters to you, but we are the moisture.  That is the only corporeal form we can muster.  Now, watch him recoil in disgust!"
    Still Angel said nothing.
    "Angel," said the man by the window thoughtfully.  "No doubt you have all manner of preconceptions about us.  It doesn’t matter.  You’ll die anyway."
    "He’s already dead," growled the little man.
    "That’s right," soothed the woman, patting the hairless man’s hand reassuringly.  "Dragem only means that Angel will cease to exist, once and for all.  We have but to kill him here, and he dies in the real world.  Here, in the recesses of his mind, he is mortal."
    "I know," the edgy man muttered through gritted teeth.
    "Angel," Dragem said again, coming toward the vampire.  He pulled a pipe out of a pocket and inspected it absently.  "You’re a real nuisance, you know that?"
    Dragem chuckled good-naturedly.
    "It’s not funny!" snapped the little man.  "Why don’t we just destroy him and get it over with?"
    "This is not a matter to be dealt with hastily, Saaril," said the woman in the same soothing tone she’d used before.  "Why destroy him when we could turn him?"
    "But I thought Dragem said we would kill him!"
    "We will, but we must try to determine if he can be of any use to us first," she said, much more stern now.
    "Look, are you guys gonna get to the point anytime soon?  I don’t have a lot of time to screw around," Angel interjected finally.  His expression was akin to stone.
 

    At very long last, the elevator chimed, and the doors opened.  Kate rushed into the front office and pointed a gun at the secretary.
    "Where is he?"
    "It’s too late.  He’s already with them," said the chubby, pockmarked man.  His face had a look of twisted pleasure.
    "I don’t care," she said, holding the gun steady.  "Now, which door?"
    "You can’t save him.  No one can save him, least of all you.  It doesn’t matter what special bond you think you have with him, it won’t be enough.  You go in there," he sneered, "and you’ll both die."
    Still holding the gun level with the man’s head, she came around the desk.  Pressing the barrel against his temple, she asked again.
    "Which door?"
    "You’re making a mistake—ah!" he yelped as she practically ground the weapon into his flesh.  "That one.  That big one over there."
 

    "We might as well admit it outright," said Dragem evenly.  "We’re dying."
    "And it’s your fault, vampire!"
    "Peace, Saaril.  You see, Angel, the little people we have working for us here are more than just pawns to do our bidding.  They are our source of life."
    "You feed off them," Angel said, brow furrowing.
    "Yes.  I know you can understand that," said the woman, smiling.  "All our work toward the Apocalypse is about one thing: power.  We draw from their feelings of power to sustain ourselves.  Humans feel most powerful when they stand in dominion over other humans and watch them suffer.  It’s the morbid truth, really."
    "Plus, we do enjoy the simple act of causing a bit of suffering here and there," mused Dragem, the pipe in his mouth and a smile on his lips.  "How could we not?  The squeals of agony are addictive."
    "So, it’s a survival issue when you come to the heart of it.  Because you insist on gallivanting about, ruining our plans and killing our lawyers, the feelings of power diminish.  We’re starving, Angel, and allowing you to continue with your disagreeable ways while we eke out a meager existence is simply out of the question," said the woman very matter-of-factly.
    "In other words, we have no real choice but to eliminate you.  With you out of the picture, our little attorneys can go back to winning, winning, and more winning, and we can put on a little weight," said Dragem, his tone darkening.
    The woman rose from her chair and began to take small steps toward Angel.
    "Remember, Aelon," Dragem said warningly.
    She glanced knowingly at him and continued her gradual advance.
    "There is one acceptable alternative, Angel," purred Aelon when she was close enough to touch him, and she lifted an arm.
    Angel’s lip curled in involuntary disgust.  He was prepared, almost eager, to fight and end the pointless intimidation tactics, but he was caught completely off guard when, as she brought her arm down to brush his cheek with her fingers, Aelon appeared in the form of his Seer.
    "You want to protect me, don’t you?" she said, and her voice was Cordelia’s.  "You can.  All you have to do is take a few orders once in a while.  That’s it."
    "No," he said almost inaudibly.  Angel averted his eyes, unwilling to allow Aelon to manipulate him.
    "But Angel," she said pitifully, turning his chin and forcing him to look at her.  "If you don’t, you’ll die.  Then what’s to stop them from doing this to me?"
    With the word "this," the false Cordelia’s face and body changed.  Gaping wounds appeared on every inch of her body, and her face was covered with scars, bruises, and gashes.  Angel glared at Dragem.
    "Believe it, vampire.  We will take her and keep her here, as our own personal plaything.  There is nothing we can’t do to her, and no torture we can’t utilize.  We will use her own mind against her." Dragem grinned wolfishly.  "I would say that it’s a pity we had to resort to this, but I fear I’m enjoying this far too much to do so."
    Angel looked back at Aelon.  She was his beautiful Cordelia again, and he felt his mind weakening.  She moved closer to him, backing him up until he hit the wall.
    "Aelon, no!  He’s got to do it willingly," hissed Saaril.
    "Oh, he will," murmured Aelon, eyes locked on Angel’s.
    She was so close to him now that the length of the false Cordelia’s body was pressed up against him.  He reached into his coat to touch the talisman, but she caught his arm before he could do more than barely brush the surface with a finger.  Her eyes were moist, pleading.  Angel could not get the image of Cordelia, bloody and suffering, out of his mind.  He wanted to fly at them in a rage, but he only felt fear, fear for Cordelia.  If he tried to fight them, he would surely die, as would Cordelia and so many more innocent people that would be victimized by the renewed strength of the law firm.
    What they asked was impossible.  He’d done something similar for Lilah, but on a much smaller scale, and it had backfired horribly.
    The false Cordelia leaned very close to Angel, lips mere inches away from his.
    "Save me," she whispered fearfully.  "Save me, Angel.  Please."
 

    Kate burst into the room, oblivious to the humidity.  She saw only the trembling form of Angel lying crumpled on the floor.  He was soaked from head to toe with the moisture from the room.  She threw herself down at his side and took his face in her hands.  His eyes had rolled back into his head, and his eyelids fluttered.
    Kate glanced quickly around the room, and finding nothing of importance, waited for the Senior Partners.  She had long since stopped caring that she could be of little or no help to him against evil of this magnitude.  She had to save him, or die trying.
 

    Dragem’s eyes darted about curiously.
    "Hmm, another plaything," he murmured devilishly.
    Saaril watched, seething, as Aelon worked on Angel.  She whispered to him over and over, and a stricken expression came over him.  He opened his mouth, a single word forming on his lips.  Saaril had had enough.  He stretched his arm out, and wicked-looking knife appeared in his hand.
    Marching up to Angel and Aelon, he roughly pushed her away.  With a cry of rage, he brought the knife up in preparation to stab Angel.  Disoriented, Angel could barely focus on the rigid form of Saaril before him, let alone the deadly knife aimed at him.  Saaril ignored the furious shouts of Dragem and Aelon, focusing only on slicing tissue with metal.  The blade began to fall, rushing swiftly at Angel’s vulnerable flesh.
    Angel regained control of himself just in time to see Saaril go flying as something barreled into him.  He was shocked to see Kate struggling with Saaril on the floor a few feet away.  She grabbed his wrist and tried to knock the knife out of his hand, but the slippery little man scuttled out from underneath her and flipped her over so he had her pinned to the ground.
    Angel was there in a second.  He grabbed Saaril by the collar and hoisted him high in the air.  He pulled his fist back to hit him when Saaril suddenly began to giggle and point at the floor.  Angel looked to where the revolting man was pointing.  There, on the carpet, was the knife, and it was covered in fresh blood.  Angel threw Saaril at the wall on the other end of the room.  Kate was writhing on the floor, hands clutching at her neck.  She was covered in blood.
    Angel wordlessly took her hands and inspected her neck.  Saaril had partially slashed her throat.
    Dragem and Aelon stood motionless.  This was bad, and yet good.  The death of this one might serve to convince Angel of the seriousness of the matter.  Saaril, however, was not finished.  He got himself another knife and advanced on Angel, whose back was turned.  Dragem saw, but was not fast enough.
    Kate was.  As Saaril launched himself at Angel, Kate grabbed the knife on the carpet and jammed it into Saaril’s midsection as he was about to kill Angel.  Stunned, the Senior Partner fell backwards, eyes wild and pleading.  Angel whirled around, prepared to take on Aelon and Dragem, but they were holding their midsections, trying to stop the flow of blood, just like Saaril.  The Senior Partners were apparently inescapably connected to each other.
    "This is not over, vampire," snarled Dragem.  "It will never be over."
    Then, the sunlit room was gone, and they were once again in the bare, humid room.  Angel sat up, ignoring the fact that he was soaked, and leaned over Kate’s motionless body.  Near frantic, he felt her pulse.  It was faint, and fading fast.
 

    The phone rang in the Hyperion lobby.  Wesley answered with the usual pleasantries, but abruptly he was silent.  His face dissolved into solemnity.  He said "yes" once or twice before hanging up.
    Cordelia watched him from her desk, and she knew.
    "Cordelia, get Fred.  We’re going to the hospital," Wesley said, his voice grave but shaky.  "It’s Angel.  Something—"
    "Something went wrong with the Senior Partners." Not surprisingly, her voice trembled with fear and anger so she could barely get the words out.  "He went and did it, the bastard."
    "Well, it’s not exactly Angel.  He’s there looking after…oh, God…looking after Kate."
 

    Angel sat, motionless, speechless, and devoid of any ideas about how to feel.  This had all gone wrong, very wrong.  She wasn’t supposed to be there.  No one was supposed to be there, but still she appeared.  She saved his life at the imminent expense of her own, and Angel couldn’t decide whether to feel angry or guilty.
    Kate’s skin was pale, even paler than a vampire’s.  Her breathing was nearly imperceptible, and her heart struggled through every beat.
    "Sir?"
    Angel looked at the tall, heavyset doctor, his dark eyes wide.
    "Yes?" he said, and his throat was dry and scratchy.
    "I’m sorry to bother you, but…" He waited until Angel had come closer.  "We can’t—there’s nothing…"
    Angel saw the helplessness in the man’s eyes.  He nodded in understanding to the physician and swallowed hard.
    "When?" Angel said softly.
    "It could be minutes…or it could be hours.  There’s really no way to tell," replied the doctor, matching Angel’s tone.  "Her heartbeat is extremely faint and getting fainter.  Brain activity is minimal and diminishing.  It’s as if the life is just…seeping out of her.  And you’re sure you don’t know why this is happening?"
    "Yes," Angel lied.
    Shaking his head in crestfallen confusion, the doctor laid a hand on Angel’s shoulder.
    "The best you can do now is to be with her." He gave Angel an empathetic pat and was gone.
    Angel stood next the bed, staring.  Mechanically, he pulled a chair over, close, and sat down heavily.  He took one of her hands and covered it with both of his.  Her skin was much colder than it should have been.  He leaned forward, studying her face.  Even in this state, she was beautiful.  He reached up and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.  Gently stroking her cheek, he inched closer.
    "Kate," he whispered with some difficulty.  "Kate, please.  Oh God, please don’t go.  I’m sorry, I’m so sorry..."
    Angel was forced to stop talking by the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.  He felt the stinging of tears welling up, and he squeezed her hand tighter.  After a few minutes of heart-rending silence, the pulse monitor broke its steady slow beeping and began to jump erratically.
    "Doctor!" Angel shouted, springing up from the chair.  He took Kate’s face in his hands, nearly frantic.  "Don’t do this, Kate.  Don’t go."
 

    Cordelia sprinted through the sterile hospital hallways, oblivious to Wesley and Fred’s beseeching cries that she slow down.  She focused on nothing but being with Angel.  She had to see for herself that he was all right, and besides, he needed her right now.
    As she spied the room with the number the nurse had given her, she also noticed a bevy of doctors and nurses crowding around the door.  She pushed through the various bodies, saying yes to anyone who asked her if she was family.  When she finally found the doorframe, she stopped dead.
    Angel was leaning over the bed, a look of anguish frozen on his face.  Kate, pale and weak, was awake and clinging to the vampire’s hand.  A doctor and two nurses were muttering amongst themselves, glancing despairingly at the readouts of the various monitoring systems in the room.  Angel didn’t notice Cordelia, Fred, and Wesley standing in the doorway.
    "Kate," Angel said, his voice breaking.
    "Angel," she whispered, smiling.  "Thank God you’re alive, you dumb-ass."
    "Thanks to you." A tear rolled down his nose and landed on the bedding.
    Her breathing became ragged and labored, and her eyes began to roll back into her head.  Angel shook his head weakly, more tears coursing down his ashen cheeks.
    "Angel," she managed, her heartbeat slowing with every passing second.  Her clear blue eyes penetrated to his soul as she struggled to hold onto life.  "Angel."
    "What?" he said, pressing her hand.
    "Irony of all ironies…isn’t it?" With her last few seconds’ strength, Kate pressed colorless lips to Angel’s cool ones.
    She was gone.  Angel, speechless, gently let go of her hand.
    Cordelia watched this unfold from where she had taken root in the doorway.  She barely noticed that she was crying much of her makeup away and that her nose was running a little.  She didn’t hear Fred sniffle behind her, and she didn’t feel Wesley’s hand on her shoulder.  She knew only Angel.
    Angel, and the fact that her heart was shattered in so many ways.  Cordelia’s face was contorted into an expression she couldn’t begin to identify.  She sighed, her breath tremulous.  Almost bitterly, she reminded everyone in the room of what they had all so easily forgotten.
    "Happy Valentine’s Day."