April 2002

    "Is that it?  Aren’t you going to snarl and tell me I will ‘die like the abomination I am?’" inquired an amused Angel, shaking his head.  "You know, for an enlightened demon religious cult, you’re not very clever."
    The leader of the pack of blue-robed Breel demons sucked air in through one of its sets of front teeth and threw its head back.
    "Everybody down!" shouted Angel as he fell flat on the dingy warehouse floor.  Wesley, Gunn, and Kate followed suit.
    As the Breel straightened, it blew a colorless, foamy liquid out of one of its mouths and into the air.  The substance seemed to hang motionless in the air.  Angel opened his mouth in an attempt to warn the others to roll out of the way, but the stuff fell on them before he could utter a sound.  Angel had only been able to roll a few feet, and the liquid enveloped his left leg from the knee down.  He ignored his leg and urgently looked for the others.
    Wesley and Kate had had the presence of mind to anticipate what was going to happen and were safely out of the liquid’s range.  Gunn was in much the same predicament as Angel.  The stuff was all over him from the waist up.
    "Gunn, shut your eyes!" Angel called above the noise of the Breel’s roaring.  Angel grabbed the young black man and roughly deposited him in a corner away from the fighting.  Angel wiped the goo off his hands as much as he could, but he could feel his skin start to tingle and burn.  His left pant leg was beginning to dissolve.
    Kate jabbed her billy club into the neck of a Breel, screams and choking sounds emanating from its many mouths.  She took a half a second to gauge the position of the others.  Angel was pummeling one of the bigger ones near the slab of stone where the ritual sacrifice was to take place.  Gunn was writhing about in the corner, and Wesley was dodging the vicious snap of jaws.  A quick backhand and a kick to the midsection, and Kate’s Breel was knocked completely off balance.  She raised the club and brought it soundly down on the creature’s head, breaking its skull.
    Angel had wedged his hands inside one of the jaws of a Breel.  With one swift motion, he ripped the lower half of the jaw from the Breel’s head and immediately jabbed a sword into the gaping and unprotected maw of the beast.  The next moment, he was splattered with the same foaming liquid, as Wesley had chopped a Breel head off and burst a venom sac in the process.
    "And I just had this shirt cleaned," Angel muttered to himself, grunting under the weight of another advancing Breel.
    After much hacking and splattering, seven Breel monks lay dead on the warehouse floor.  The intended sacrifice, a hysterical young man, had long since run to safety.
    Wesley wasted no time in seeing that Gunn and Angel got back to the Hyperion.  Gunn had sustained what appeared to be second-degree burns all over his skin from the waist up, and Angel’s left leg and right arm were also showing the same signs of damage.  Even his quickened vampire healing ability did not relieve him of the pain of the burns.
    "Angel, you can’t drive," declared Kate, hands on hips.
    "Why, because you say so?" he said through gritted teeth.  He opened the driver’s side door, but Wesley blocked his path.
    "No, because you are in too much pain to see straight, that’s why!  Now, give me the keys, and we’ll get you home where there’s aloe vera lotion and bandages," Wesley reasoned.
    "Wesley, get out of my way and let me drive," said the vampire in a dark tone.
    "Really, Angel, I am not in the mood to put up with your stubbornness or your intimidation tactics." Wesley shook his head impatiently and held out his hand for the keys, as though Angel was a headstrong child.
    "Wesley, if you don’t get—"
    "Would one of you just drive the damn car before my face falls off?" screamed a previously silent Gunn, and his eyes were still shut tightly.
    Angel hammered the keys into Wesley’s outstretched hand and sat in the backseat with Kate.  Wesley made a noise of approval and started the car.
    "One scratch, Wesley, and I swear…" Angel murmured, itching at the burns on his arm.
    "Do you need to be sedated?" said Kate, half-jokingly holding up her billy club.
    "It might be nice," replied the very uncomfortable vampire.
 

    "Ick, this stuff really doesn’t wear off," said Kate softly, concentrating on wrapping bandages around Angel’s bare right arm.  There was a pile of partly dissolved bandages on the floor.
    "Wes and Fred have been gone a long time," remarked Angel worriedly.  "I hate to think—"
    "Gunn will be fine," she interrupted flatly.  She held a safety pin in her mouth.  "You know how long it takes to get anywhere in the emergency room these days."
    Angel nodded.  He hadn’t wanted to send Gunn to a hospital, but the Gunn’s burns were so bad that it was too much for the Angel Investigations staff to handle.
    "There, that should do it." She clasped the last safety pin and gave Angel’s arm a soft pat.
    "Thanks," he said, following her with his eyes as she wandered over to the round couch in the middle of the lobby.
    "No problem.  What are employees for, right?" She smiled and leaned back on the cushions.
    "You know you’re more than an employee." Angel stood up, taking care not to upset the bandages on his leg.
    "Am I?" she asked, incredulously arching an eyebrow.
    "Yes," he replied, sitting next to her.  "You’re a friend.  A trusted one."
    Kate laughed quietly.
    "Why is that funny?"
    "I have a hard time believing that you trust me after all this time." She stared at the ceiling and crossed her arms over her chest.  "After you saved my life the last time, I didn’t say word one to you for almost a year.  Then, a month ago, I run into you again.  I honestly didn’t think you would let Wesley hire me, even though I had been training and practicing to go into the demon-killing line of work.  I expected you to assume I was a flake and send me packing."
    "And he didn’t," said Cordelia as she came down the stairs.
    "You’re awake," said Angel, smiling at her.  "Did you sleep well?"
    "Um, not at first.  The whole pain thing kinda prevents any actual sleeping, but after an hour or so, I passed out and slept like a very uncomfortable baby." Seeing Angel’s pained look, she smiled reassuringly.  "It wasn’t actually that bad this time.  My nose didn’t bleed as much as it did yesterday.  That’s good, right?"
    "Smashing," said Kate as she retreated to Wesley’s office.
    "She’s not very happy right now," said Angel in an attempt to explain.
    "So I gathered."
    "I think I’m gonna go talk to her."
    "You know what?  I think I’m gonna field this one," said Cordy, and she sounded almost as surprised as Angel looked.  "Yeah, you know, she’s been having fewer and fewer emotional baubles lately, so I figure I ought to leap at every chance I can get to be part of the cheering up process."
    "Cordy…" warned Angel.
    "Trust me, Angel.  I’ll be nice.  Honest, but nice."
    "You can do that?" Angel put a hand to his chest in mock surprise.
    Cordelia hit his bandage-free arm and went to Wesley’s office.
    When Cordelia opened the door, Kate was sitting on one of the chairs in the corner, eyes closed, hands on her temples.
    "Why don’t you sit in the big chair?" Cordelia suggested conspiratorially.
    "Because Wesley would find out," she replied, eyes still closed.  "He always finds out.  He’d be able to smell it.  And then he would throw one of his hissy fits."
    "Oh, let him!  What can he possibly do to you except fire you?  And even then, it’s not so bad." Kate looked up at Cordelia, eyebrows raised questioningly.
    "Aren’t you the one who’s always guilt-tripping Angel for firing you all last year?"
    Cordelia dismissed her with a wave of her hand.
    "I’m never really serious about it," Cordelia lied.
    "Hmm."
    "You know, Kate, you’re fitting in around here much better than I thought you would," Cordelia suddenly mused thoughtfully.
    "Really?" Kate’s expression was one of mild amusement, but her voice was edged with interest.
    "Yeah.  I mean, when I first saw you walk in the door with Wesley and Angel last month, I didn’t remember who you were at first.  Then I did, and I started to not like you again." Despite the sensitive nature of the subject, Cordelia proudly congratulated herself on how tactful she was being.
    "Again?"
    "You know no one liked you before, right?  No one except Angel, of course."
    "Well, I had a feeling, but—"
    "I mean, we hated that you were after Angel so much.  It was never personal."
    "I see.  And Angel still liked me?" Kate seemed confused more than offended.
    "Yes, but that’s beside the point.  The point is that we like you now.  We’re glad to have you with us.  I’m glad there’s another woman around besides Fred.  She’s great and everything, but she’s one sweater short of a sweater set, if you know what I mean." Cordelia smiled, and it was a genuine smile.
    "Absolutely." Kate smiled, too.  It was a small smile, but it was there just the same.