Impressions Page 9

  “You won’t impress any of us with that stuff.” Then he looked over Angel’s shoulder to where Gunn continued to argue pronunciation with Wesley while Lorne’s increasing impatience manifested itself in a wandering gaze. “Is that…”

  “Gunn,” Angel said, a little bemused. “Works with me. Why?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. You just hear stor—I mean, nothing. I’ll just come back when it’s not so crowded here.” And the man made an overly casual if speedy about-face.

  Huh. Not impressed by the vampire who was once Angelus, but one look at oblivious Gunn…

  Of course, Gunn was human. Not restricted by the spell that kept demon violence out of Caritas. That must be it.

  Definitely.

  Behind him, Lorne finally spoke up in response to Wesley’s and Gunn’s hacking and spitting and general mangling of the demon word. Exasperation came through clearly in his voice. “Busy here, my oblivious little mood meter,” he said. “In case you hadn’t noticed. You want to settle on one word or the other? Because one of them means ‘gimme’ and the other means ‘come light up my lair, perfume face,’ and they’re entirely different languages.”

  Angel turned to them, joining the conversation for the first time. “Gimme,” he said. “That makes sense.”

  “Unless it was a girl demon with a thing for vampires,” Gunn said, wincing a little at the notion. Or possibly at the music, for a new demon had taken the stage and was wobbling his way through “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.” “And anyway, gimme what?”

  Angel gave a quick shrug, a twitch-a-fly-off-the-shoulder movement. “I don’t know. But it wanted something.”

  “That seemed clear enough,” Wesley agreed. “Which language is it, Lorne?”

  “The ‘gimme’? Some Tuingas clan…maybe all of them.” He put the finishing touches on several drinks in quick succession, and distributed them to customers waiting along the bar. “It’s a widespread bunch. It’s not like I could tell you even if I did have the time to think about it.”

  “You running a special or something?” Gunn asked, looking around the room with new interest…the gleam he got sometimes when he thought he saw someone he knew from the streets…possibly someone he’d tried to kill there.

  “Keep your eyes to yourself,” Lorne snapped at him. “They come in here to get away from their troubles, not find new ones.”

  “Exactly,” Wesley said. “What’s driving them here?”

  “Same thing that keeps that little Slith fellow hanging around even now that I’ve turned him loose,” Lorne said, mixing another drink with economical skill. “I’d charge him rent if he were any bigger, but he sleeps on top of the stage spot. Keeps him warm, he says. It’s out of my way, so—”

  “Fear,” Angel said, his voice low. “Anger.”

  Baffled, Wesley said, “Whose?”

  “Now that,” said Lorne, “is the question. Isn’t it?”

  Angel looked at the puzzled expression on Wesley’s face and the suspicion on Gunn’s, and said simply, “It’s in the air. If you’re a demon, that is.” He didn’t elaborate on just what it felt like. Not yet. It wasn’t as though he actually had any answers for them…only more questions.

  Besides, he had things under control. Really.

  He turned to Lorne. “These Tuingas,” he said. “I’ve never heard of them as being one of the violent clans.”

  “Generally they’re not,” Lorne said, sprinkling flakes of something across the top of a murky drink and a huge martini glass and nodding with satisfaction when something came to the surface just long enough to suck the substance down. He handed the drink to his bar help; her catfish feelers quivered like Cordelia with an opportunity to schmooze with producers, but she put it on her tray and took it out to the floor customers. “But it’s a huge clan, and a secretive one—they spend a lot of time in pocket dimensions, avoiding humanity altogether. Who’s to say what would irritate them?”

  “I think we can safely say we know someone who has,” Wesley said. “If not just how he’s done it.”

  Gunn crossed his arms across his Mickey Mouse T-shirt. “My vote? Next time we see that fellow, we forget about whatever other demons crop up in the vicinity and latch on to him. I’ll bet we’d get some answers then.”

  Lorne paused in his work long enough to pin a sardonic red gaze on Gunn. “Well, Boy Wonder, while you’re at it, see if you can find out just what’s stirring up my customers. Not that I can’t use the business after that little remodeling job, but this just isn’t the sign of a happy community. And the seniors are going to get really cranky if tomorrow’s Golden Oldies night is crowded out.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Wesley said. “But we’ve got to figure out what’s up with this impersonator’s client, so I can’t promise much.”

  “That works out just fine,” Lorne said, quite acerbically. “I’m not expecting much.”

  • • •

  Gunn took a deep breath of the cool night air. He supposed most people would say it stank of exhaust and smog, especially on a fall night when the colder air sank into the city. Gunn himself found it refreshing.

  Not refreshing enough to revive him to alertness—not at the end of a long few days with the wavering notes of the latest off-key Caritas performer still stuck in his head. Wesley didn’t look any better off; he walked along with his glasses in his hands, frowning as he gently tried to bend them back into shape.

  Only Angel seemed to be alert—but to judge by his expression, his quick attentiveness to noises that Gunn couldn’t even hear, Angel was more than alert. He was on edge.

  No kidding. As if that hadn’t been obvious enough in the alley earlier this evening. And what was that casual comment in Caritas? It’s in the air. Just what did that mean? If Angel knew something and one of the self-confident—okay, overconfident—new demon watch kids was hurt because of his silence…

  Out loud, Gunn said, “What did you mean ‘it’s in the air’? What’s in the air?”

  “Quiet,” Angel said, sharp but low.

  Gunn gave him a mildly annoyed look. “Don’t be hushing me, Fang-boy. Just answer the question.”

  Wesley put his glasses on, wiggling them into place and not looking pleased with the results.

  “Lorne would have told us if he knew.” Implying, of course, that Angel didn’t really know either.

  Angel turned on them, fangs flashing, ugly-face in full bloom. “I said, be quie—” But he broke off to whirl back around again, crouching slightly.

  Pissed as he was, Gunn knew better than to ignore that—as did Wesley. They bumped up against each other, back-to-back, scanning the streets.

  With a great clamor of yipping and whooping, a small pack of mixed demons barreled out of the nearest side street, hitting a streetlight without hesitation and bearing down on Gunn, Wesley, and Angel. For an instant Gunn wondered if their best chance was break and run like hell, but in the next he realized that the gang charged at such speed that they couldn’t possibly stop in time for any true engagement. At his back, Wesley shifted uneasily and settled, as if racing through the same thoughts.

  But Angel snarled softly and stepped out to meet the charge head-on, exchanging a flurry of blows. A spiked baseball bat clattered to the ground; a demon grunted and staggered aside to collapse—and then the rest of them charged right on by, licking out with a few cheap blows and then disappearing into the darkness.

  “Ow, dammit,” Gunn said, flexing a numbed wrist and frowning into the night.

  “What was that—?” Wesley sounded dazed. Gunn twisted around to check, and found him with fingers pressed to a small cut in his forehead.

  Angel said grimly, “They’re coming back,” and stepped out to take point on the other side of the Gunn-Wesley formation. On that cue, the demon gang renewed their yippety battle cries and came rushing out of the darkness. Gunn scooped up the abandoned weapon and put it to his shoulder like a batter at the plate. He had an instant to watch as Angel clashed with the
leaders, exchanging brutal blows, and then it was his turn. “Keep your eye on the ball,” he muttered, and aimed appropriately.

  Something screamed.

  Then they were gone again—except this time there were bodies littered around the street, three of which lay at Angel’s feet. Gunn found himself panting with the intensity of the brief exchange, and this time he didn’t take his attention from Angel. Not when Angel was the one who could hear them coming.

  But Angel straightened, human-faced again. He nudged a demon with his foot. Just an ordinary demon mutt from a whole gang of demon mutts. “This was their leader,” he said. “I don’t think—” He stopped short, lifting his head slightly to listen.

  “Run?” Wesley suggested.

  “We can beat their butts—,” Gunn protested. They had half the gang’s weapons scattered around them, after all.

  Angel gave a sharp shake of his head. “Reinforcements,” he said shortly.

  They ran.

  They pelted down the streets, mere blocks from the hotel, running flat out—and if they lost the demons along the way, Gunn wasn’t about to stop just to make sure. Stumbling and wheezing, they burst into the hotel and slammed what was left of the doors behind them. Even Angel looked winded, leaning against the doors while Wesley bent over his knees and Gunn propped himself up on the stairwell.

  “Lost them?” Wesley gasped, looking over at Angel without straightening.

  “Not so much that as something else distracted them,” Angel said, nonetheless peeking out the door.

  Cordelia’s head popped up over the back of the couch, tousle-haired and sleepy-faced. “What’s going on?”

  Wesley immediately straightened, Gunn slumped behind the stair railing, and Angel quickly assumed his most nonchalant face—unfortunately, always a clear giveaway. Sleepy or not, Cordelia narrowed her eyes at them.

  “Nothing, why?” Angel said, and tried a little smile.

  “Certainly, nothing,” Wesley fumbled, not trying the smile.

  “We sure weren’t running our sissy little butts away from anything,” Gunn said, and sprawled back against the steps with his arms spread wide.

  “Whatever,” Cordelia said, and disappeared back into the couch. “Can you just not run a little more quietly?”

  But Gunn was no longer thinking of their close escape. He stared at the needs-paint ceiling and said, “How many people out there aren’t running fast enough?”

  Midday at the Hyperion, with the trusty Angel Investigations gang all…

  Recovering.

  Mostly recovering from the night before, when Wesley, Gunn, and Angel had gotten into the middle of a whatever it was on the way home from Caritas and then arrived at the Hyperion to find Cordelia sleeping in this very same couch, lost in the old K-O from a single vision.

  None of them were quite themselves today.

  Cordelia flipped a page in a magazine she wasn’t really seeing, not even if it did involve someone shirtless and muscled. Her head ached like something bruised…bruised and yet still open for business, vulnerable to another pounding series of visions.

  She very much dreaded there were more to come.

  Another page. Ah, Tom Cruise. She sank further into the comfy overstuffed lobby couch between the stairs and the front desk, and prepared herself to be interested. More about the way he helped that woman after her car accident, and kept those boys from being crushed…hero material, all right.

  Just like their Angel. At his good moments, anyway…and sometimes even when he struggled so hard with it that he made things difficult for all of them. She didn’t get the big deal about this guy who was imitating him. Well, okay, so the guy was drawing customers that should have been theirs. And he would give them a bad rep if he mishandled cases. But that wasn’t what had upset Angel…those were excuses. No, Angel just didn’t like the idea that someone might imitate him at all.

  That he might be worth imitating. The flattery part of it.

  Possibly a little tough for a guy who went around carrying his various guilts like some sort of brooding cloak.

  “Get over it, Angel,” she muttered to herself.

  Or perhaps not to herself after all.

  The man had only been able to come in unnoticed because of her vision-battered state—or so she quickly decided. And he looked familiar….

  She did a quick mental inventory of the others—Wesley, scowling over vague references to Tuingas demons in his office and idly tapping the desk with his new chopsticks until she wanted to run in and wrench them away from him; Angel off in his room for a midday nap; Fred wherever she was hiding; and Gunn taking care of something in the neighborhood.

  She and Wesley, basically, not that the man had noticed either of them yet.

  And then she recognized him.

  “Are you going to stick around this time?” she asked him, not bothering to hide the accusing tone in her voice. “Or are you just here to lure in another demon? Because let me tell you, it was so fun cleaning up after you the last time.”

  He whirled around, startled. But he recovered quickly enough, she had to give him that. He shifted his grip on that silly bowling ball bag and said, “That wasn’t intentional.”

  “Worked out pretty well for you, though, didn’t it?”

  “I couldn’t say,” the man told her. “At least, not yet.”

  “Hmm.” She closed the magazine, considering him from where she leaned comfortably into the corner of the couch. “Almost a conversation. That’s progress, I suppose.”

  Wesley came to the open doorway of his office, hesitating there, his gaze going from Cordelia to the new arrival, as if trying to intuit their conversation so far. From the look on his face, he probably had it pretty close. “Can we help you?”

  Cordelia was glad to hear him use his frosty Englishman’s voice…but in the end she knew, and she knew Wesley knew, that this could be a break for them. They couldn’t quite afford to drive the man away.

  “I’m looking for Angel,” the man said, adjusting his poorly tailored jacket. It looked like a refugee from a 70s cop show, though the shirt beneath it was more disco in nature. “That is…I thought I had Angel, but now I’m not so sure. Truth is, I don’t really care. I need protection. If you can give it to me, I’m yours.”

  “Something might be arranged,” Wesley said. “But first we need some information.”

  “All you need to know is that I require protection and that it’ll be over in a few days,” the man said. “You don’t need to know who I am or where I live or what I do.”

  “No,” Wesley agreed, clearly surprising the man. “We don’t. But we do need to know more about the man you’ve been with. The one who calls himself Angel…but isn’t.”

  “Hey, he puts on a good show,” said their possibly new client, totally unaware that a sleep-rumpled genuine Angel had come to the top of the stairs and was on his way down. Cordelia saw no reason to share. “He’s got fangs, and I’ve seen his coffin. And he won’t go out in daylight without that protective coat he’s got.”

  “Without the what?” Angel said from the stairs, startling the guy entirely. Aside from his general glowering I’m-awake-and-it’s-daytime demeanor, he’d come down barefooted and open-shirted and basically looked imposing enough to make any bowling ball guy think twice.

  This bowling ball guy looked sheepish and said, “His coat. He said it was special, that it protected him.”

  “You know, you can buy fangs just about anywhere,” Cordelia said, putting the magazine aside and pulling herself up to sit cross-legged on the couch. “This is Hollywood. Or, well, close enough.”

  On the stairs, Angel gave the slightest of grim smiles. Just enough to show his teeth…as fang-face morphed to the surface and disappeared again, leaving the bowling ball guy blinking and uncertain.

  Bemused, Wesley asked, “Did you say coffin?”

  “I woke up in one of those once,” Angel said. “Personally, I never saw any reason to go back.”

&nbs
p; “True,” Cordelia informed the man. “No coffins here. He doesn’t always make his bed, though.”

  “Hey,” Angel said, offended. “You’re messing with my impressive entrance.”

  The man glanced from one to another of them, his own expression beginning to grow a little desperate. “Look,” he said. “Are you willing to help me or not? It’s not that Ang—that the other fellow isn’t so much as I think the job is bigger than one man can handle.”

  “That would seem evident from the way we keep cleaning up after both of you,” Wesley said. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell us what you were doing near MacArthur Park last night. Or why you didn’t stick around after we saved your life. A simple thank-you at that point would have sufficed.”

  “Why do you think I didn’t stick around? I figured there were more on the way. If I could deal with these things I wouldn’t have hired help in the first place.”

  “And just why is it that they want you so bad?” Cordelia said, getting to her feet to walk up to him, then around him. She crossed her arms and stood hipshot before him. Waiting. “What’d you do to get their attention?”

  Angel said suddenly, “Gimme.”

  “That’s right,” Wesley said, straightening with suddenly focused interest.

  “Possibly the clothes,” Cordelia said, not sure what they were talking about with the whole gimme thing—for all she knew, they’d told her while she was in her fog. “That outfit would offend anyone with even the smallest amount of fashion sense.”

  One of the boarded-up hotel doors opened; the new arrival stood poised in the opening, not quite ready to commit himself to a complete entrance. The backlighting made him into a dark silhouette, discernable only as a long coat with a head at the top and legs sticking out the bottom.

  “By all means, come in,” Wesley said.

  “Yes,” Cordelia said, although she wasn’t nearly as blasé as she pretended. This faux Angel’s client had been in at least one of her visions…and it suddenly occurred to her that between them, maybe he and the client could help resolve whatever had been causing the recent agonizing run of the things. “Come right in out of that nasty daylight.”