Impressions (10 page)

“And I’ll—” Angel glanced at the open doorway and the sunlight streaming into the hotel. He’d done the sewer circuit already.
Time to hit the Internet?
“I’ll hang around inside doing something very important until I can hit the streets.”

“Maybe seeing about getting those doors fixed,” Cordelia said, and went over to practice the words Wesley had written down until she thought she could do a half-decent job of pronouncing them.

But Lorne didn’t want to talk about Tuingas words that had been spat in anger. “Honeychild,” he said to her in his perfect mix of air-kissing and actual sincerity, “to judge by the last phrase your rogue demon hunter muttered at me, I haven’t a chance in whatever hell you want me to swear by of figuring it out. I’m more interested in what you people have been up to. Do you know I couldn’t even close last night? I could lose my license, not to mention too much sleep. Speaking of which, that’s what’s happening here now. They stayed awake all night, and now they’re draped all over the club, snoring away. It’s a real mess. You tell your boys that I’m
this close
to heading for that pitcher.”

“But…,” Cordelia said, trying to imagine wall-to-wall club patrons, slumped in chairs, leaning on one another, faces on the tables. She sat at her desk, idly scrolling through the Dailynews.com Web site’s headline page.
“Why?”

“That’s the sixty-four-zillion-dollar question, isn’t it? That’s what
you’re
supposed to find out, doll. Whatever’s going on out there has gotten them seeking safe haven in here. Not too many of those around this city.” In the background, she heard water running. Significant water, splashing into a significant container.

She very much suspected he was running a bubble bath.

“Can’t
you
tell what’s got them scared?” she asked. “You’re Mister Empathy Demon and all.”

“Cordelia, sweetie,” he said, then briefly hesitated, a moment during which she heard water splashing. “That’s only if they’re singing. As it happens, I’ve cut the power to the stage equipment. There’s only so much one fella can take—you know what I mean? Even now I can feel them out there. Most of them are having bad dreams. They’re all angry at something…and I’m not sure any of them know why. Brrr!” he made an exaggerated shuddering noise.

“What?” she said intently, taking her hand off the computer mouse. “Did you feel something clueful—?”

“Need more hot water,” he said, distracted. “Tell you what. Give me a little music. If
you’ve
got any clues lurking around in there, maybe they’ll jump out at me.”

“Since I’m Vision Girl and all, you mean,” Cordelia said, not quite bitter. As much as they tore her up, they served a purpose. And usually that was okay; usually there was a balance. Usually they didn’t come in batches that left her such a mess that she’d even cancelled a reading.

“Cordelia…
music,
honey.” He must have shifted impatiently; she heard the gentle lap of water.

Music. Cordelia glanced at Angel—lurking by Wesley, his shirt buttoned, his breakfast blood in hand, clearly driving Wesley mad—and gave Lorne the wordless theme to the old Batman TV series. “
Da
-na-
na
-na-na-na—”

“Stop!” Lorne shouted, literally shouted. “Hang up!”

Cordelia removed the phone from her ear, giving it a frown. “But—”

She heard the distinct click as he broke the connection.

And then another kind of connection clicked in, the kind that ripped through her head and left scant clues in its wake. “No!” she said. “Nonononono
no!
” Enough already!

It came on, anyway.

“A
whole flock of Slith?”

Angel stood by the front desk, behind which Fred was ministering to Cordelia, offering her water and…left-over sushi?

No doubt the only things in the fridge right now. Other than blood, of course.

“I don’t think they’re called flocks,” Wesley said.

“In fact, they gather in numbers so rarely, I’m not sure anyone
has
a name for what they form.” He glanced at his watch and then out the office doors, where the sunlight had paled. “We should call Gunn. It sounded like it would go down in MacArthur—busy place lately, isn’t it? And isn’t he training a neighborhood watch group this evening?”

“Something like that,” Angel said, feeling unhappier about it by the moment. “Never mind calling. Let’s go. We’ll call on the way.”

“It’s still—”

“I’ll ride in the back, under the blanket,” Angel interrupted him. “Let’s
go.
”

So close!

And yet not nearly close enough.

Kaalesh was dead, for nothing. Killed in a narrow L.A. alley as Khundarr’s team attempt to retrieve the warrior’s stone.

At least his deathstone was where it belonged, in a pocket dimension shrine.

Not here in the human world, ripping into the minds of demons benign and not so benign, building power into a feedback loop that not even the most mild of creatures could ignore. Stone to demons and back to stone again, which absorbed the amplified feelings and broadcast them yet again….

Eventually the stone would lose stability. Eventually, so would the demons.

Khundarr, too, could feel it beat against him…but his priestly protections let him feel it from afar, feel it without taking it into himself.

Unlike the wound the vampire had dealt him the night before. Holy Rhinitis, that still stung.

The disposition of the people based in the old Hyperion Hotel still eluded Khundarr. They’d killed his fellow priests…and yet tonight, upon recognizing him and upon seeing his own intent to quit the fight, they had not pressed him. They protected he who possessed the stone…with no apparent awareness of its existence. They’d never glanced toward it or made any special move to save it…they merely reacted the way any Tuingas demon might react were his home invaded and his fellow clan members threatened.

And yet they of anyone in this city seemed to have the wherewithal to figure things out. They had artifacts that suggested a certain scholarship of demon life. They had a vampire among them, one who should be able to feel the effects of the warrior’s stone—and to judge by his behavior the night before, certainly had not gone untouched by the stone’s emanations, as much as he seemed to fight the results. Odd. Most vampires embraced such experiences.

If only those humans would listen to him…he’d told them quite plainly what he wanted. If only they’d
question
this man they protected. If only they’d see that the city was in a dangerous turmoil, and that soon…there would be no saving any of the humans here.

So close.

And not nearly close enough.

Angel hated riding in the back.

The blanket never felt like enough protection, but it nonetheless kept him from seeing where they were, and when he should brace for a red light—or, more often, for a careless driver switching lanes in front of them.

“Is it dusk yet?” he asked.

“Not in the sixty seconds since you last asked that question, no,” Wesley said through obviously gritted teeth as the car idled in traffic.

It was stifling under the blanket even if he didn’t need to do the breathing thing, and thick wool was the only thing he’d found that would really block the light but it was scratchy; made him itch. Surely it would be safe enough just to peer out as the car accelerated into an intersection and turned.
Surely…

“Is it dus—”

“Yes!” Wesley snapped. “Yes, it’s totally and completely safe even though only moments have passed. By all means, throw the blanket off and turn your face to the sky!”

A long silence filled the space between them.

“That’s not fair,” Angel told him, giving the blanket a baleful stare at the spot beyond which Wesley sat. “I don’t think it would have been so funny if I’d burst into flame, now, do you?”

A very heavy sigh came in response. The car made a few more turns, cornering gently; the smell of newly mown grass filtered in through the blanket while Angel contemplated the significance of failing to raise Gunn on his cell phone. As Cordelia would have quickly pointed out, it could mean only that Angel hadn’t dialed it correctly. Hard enough to use the things under normal conditions…even harder, huddled under a blanket in a moving car. Finally Wesley said, “It’s safe. And we’re almost there.”

Angel hesitated only a moment—
no, he’s not kidding this time
—and threw the blanket back as Wesley pulled in against the curb. As Wesley yanked the keys from the ignition and reached across the front seat to gather his gear—all crinkly in his rain suit—Angel put a hand out, a silencing gesture. The only way to be silent was to be still…so Wesley froze.

In the distance they heard what could have been the noise generated by a late soccer game.

Or not.

“Let’s go,” Angel said, and leaped out of the car. He’d brought the main gauche—handy as it had been—but in light of what had happened at Terminal Market, also a crossbow with plenty of bolts.

Wesley was armed likewise, and covered from ankle to neck with an outdoorsman’s rain suit, his motorcycle helmet under his arm. “Gore-Tex,” he’d said. “It breathes.”

“Breathing is overrated,” Angel had observed. But now he thought the rain suit looked easier to move in than his duster, which, zipped for protection, suddenly seemed a little restrictive.

Better than a hidden spitball in his clothes.
They’d have to do a spitball inspection after this one regardless. Maybe they could even have a party.

It was a dark thought, matching the sudden change of his mood, the emotions that seemed to build with the night.
Not again…

They ran into the park and followed the curves of Wilshire Boulevard, which split the park more or less in two—the lake on one side, pavilions and open space on the other, trees scattered all around.

“Of
course,
” Wesley said, panting and gesturing at the park with his crossbow. “Slith like the water. But still, it makes no sense—”

“There!” Angel interrupted, pointing toward the northeast area of the park. A white-pillared pavilion, a flurry of activity. Dark blobs, running back and forth, crouching…cringing. Human in movement, if not in shape. The Slith were harder to spot in the growing dusk.

They angled in from the side, hunting for a crossfire position—but the pavilion faced a triangle full of trees, giving widespread and copious cover to the Slith. As Angel and Wes grew closer they heard Gunn urging the teens to take cover, and it was then that Angel understood the dark blobby nature of their appearance.

They all wore black plastic garbage bags.

Gunn was the biggest, tallest garbage bag among them, and the first to spot Angel and Wesley. “It’s about time!” he called, grabbing the arm of a young man who seemed determined to charge off into the trees to stomp some Slith. Half of the teens seemed to be of the same mind, and the other half cowered against the pavilion. One of them jumped up, shouting in alarm and flapping his garbage bag to dislodge what must have been a spitball.

So much for sneaking in unseen. Not that they’d had much chance of that in the first place. They hesitated just to the side of the pavilion, with one good tree between themselves and the as of yet unseen Slith—although there was plenty of evidence that they were here. Spitballs on the ground, the repeated
poot
of another blowgun in use, scuffling movement back the trees.

“What did you
do?
” Wesley said with some exasperation, hesitating at the edge of the field of fire. By then, all the teens were watching them; some waited for them to save the day, but most seemed barely under Gunn’s control, ready to do their own fighting in spite of the odds.

“Do?” Gunn repeated, offended. “
Do?
I thought fast, that’s what I did! There we were, the neighborhood watch, out cleaning up the park—you know, good deeds, bonding, getting a clean park out of it on top of that?—and these things came down on us. I got ’em gathered and covered up, that’s what I
did.
”

“What did you do to the
Slith,
that’s what I want to know,” Wesley said, persisting. “This just isn’t like them.”

“You’d better check your reality meter, English, because as far as I can see, this
is
like them. You gonna help us or not?”

Behind him, another of the teens jumped up, panicked, hitting at her garbage bag poncho while her friend tried to stop her. “Don’t, you’ll
touch
it!” the second girl said, grabbing at the hands of the first. “Just stay low!”

“Do as she says,” Gunn snapped. “We’ll deal with this.”

Anytime now.
Angel moved restlessly in the faltering light, cocking and loading his crossbow…and aware that whatever had driven the Slith to such fervor was also driving at his own senses.

“This just isn’t right.” Wesley declared, looking at the trees that hid the enraged Slith. He jammed his motorcycle helmet on, his face covered by the visor and his hands jammed in his pockets. With the rain suit zipped up tight against his throat, he was spitball-proof from head to toe. He stepped out between the trees and the pavilion and said more loudly,
“This isn’t right.”

Not right that the whole park should reek of anger, emotions none of the humans seemed the least bit aware of. Emotions that Angel would begin to believe came from within if he hadn’t had the evidence of the Slith before him. Meek Slith, retiring Slith, never-gather-in-a-group Slith…

Emotions that left him torn enough, uncertain enough, that he couldn’t bring himself to confess them to the others. Not when they’d already had quite enough of that.

Wesley called, “We know something’s bothering you—driving you to behave this way. We don’t want to see you hurt. Please, leave these people alone and go back to your, er…homes.”

No response.

Or was there? Hard to tell in this light, even for a vampire’s eyes…but had the spitballs stopped?

Some deep part of Angel didn’t want it to be so. Some deep part of him wanted to wade into those Slith demons and take them apart at the seams. Never mind the crossbow—just straight to the source. Bashing Slith against trees, against one another, their little stick legs breaking—

Stop it
. He closed his eyes, took what would have been a deep breath.

“There, you see?” Gunn was telling the kids.

“No big deal. Wesley’s gonna talk them to death. And if anyone can do it…”

Wesley said to the silent trees, “We don’t know what’s going on, but I promise you, we’re trying to find out. We’re trying to make it better. If you’ll only go back to your homes and stay there until we have a chance…”

For a long moment, no one moved. No one said anything. It was just Wesley, standing out in the open in his rain suit and motorcycle helmet. No scuffing, no flying spitballs, no puff of a blowgun in use. The Slith, decisively retiring in nature, probably knew as well as Wesley that this group melee was far from the norm.

Gunn said decisively, “Sinthea, Tyree—you two are in charge. The rest of you
aren’t,
so don’t try to be. It’s time for a good strategic retreat, and you’re gonna take it.”

“Naw, Gunn, we want to take
care
of these things,” one of the young men said.

“They don’t need taking care of. They’re angry, we’re on their turf, and it’s time to leave. Unless you got some nice armpit poison of your own to pass around?”

“He’s got
that,
all right,” one of the girls mumbled, and they all gave a nervous laugh.

Wesley pulled off his helmet and faced the pavilion, taking a few steps closer to it. From the trees, mostly silence. A little rustle. Maybe they’d actually been shocked into halting their barrage. As Wesley kept saying, it wasn’t in their nature.

But then, only Angel knew just what they’d been feeling.

“Is everyone all right?” Wesley asked. “No one got hit in all the confusion?” He glanced at the ground, which was littered with little slimy paper balls. “It’s a good thing that poison degrades so quickly, or we’d be here all night picking these things up.”

“The little Muppets weren’t really close enough to hit anything except by chance,” Gunn said. “I think most of it landed right about where you’re standing.”

“What if it hadn’t?” The girl named Sinthea stood in front of the others, armed with a sort of sullen bravery. “What if one of those things had hit us? And I don’t even wanna
know
if they’re living in the reservoir.”

Wesley said dryly to Gunn, “I take it you’ve been training them for another sort of neighborhood watch than is usually meant.”

Gunn gave a one-shouldered shrug. “What do you think?”

“Only in L.A., that’s what I think,” Wesley said. He turned to Sinthea. “The poison is a neurotoxin, and it acts quickly. It interferes with the body’s functions and causes convulsions, a disruption of breathing and heartbeat, and can in some cases cause death.” He tipped his head to regard her a moment, and then admitted, “In most cases, actually.”

Sinthea said to Gunn, “He’s the one who reads, right?”

More gently than Angel expected, Gunn said, “We
all
read. But Wesley does most of the research. I wouldn’t have known we needed protection from the spitballs without it.”

Althea looked back at the bushes as if considering the Slith and the danger they’d been, and then gave a decisive nod. “I’ll think about it,” she said, and turned back to the other teens, gathering them up like a shepherd.

“What—?” Wesley asked.

“Been trying to convince them to take all the advantages we can get. That means reading up on some of these things instead of just coming out and being tough.”