Redemption

by Mel Odom

  “No,” Cordelia insisted. “We’re a team. We think as a team, act as a team, and slay as a team.”

  “Kind of a Musketeers thing,” Doyle agreed.

  “Meaning that neither of you have anything else to do tonight except hang out with me and wait to see if the vampires show up.”

  Doyle nodded and spun the bottle on the table. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “I’m here to soak up the atmosphere,” Cordelia objected. “Rumor has it Tarantino may be trying to put a noir anthology together for HBO. Only with aliens. Kind of a Pulp Fiction meets Star Wars thing. I’m going to try to do a reading. It all takes place in this space bar called Rick’s.”

  Doyle put on a gruff accent. “Play it, Sam. You played it for her, so you can play it for me.”

  Cordelia looked at him. “Hello? Like, from what planet did you just drop in from?”

  “Rick Blaine,” Doyle explained. “The owner of Rick’s? From Casablanca?”

  “Casablanca was okay,” Cordelia said. “But we’re talking a futuristic Cheers concept. Only with guns and mayhem added. I’m reading for a hostess role.”

  “Like Carla was at Cheers, ” Doyle said.

  “I’m thinking more along the lines of Jessica Rabbit. They’ve got to let her sing, right?”

  Angel and Doyle swapped looks. Sometimes Cordelia’s leaps of logic defied gravity.

  “Of course,” Doyle answered, switching subjects. “The lame reference I was making was to this place’s selection of viewing media.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Wally.”

  The mountain of a man tending bar looked at Doyle. The dim light shone from his shaved head.

  “What?”

  “I thought this was a sports pub,” Doyle replied. “Shouldn’t there be a game on? I come in here thinking maybe I might get to see some sports on TV. Kind of what drew me to the place. That, and its rustic charm, of course. You know, the Kings and the Lakers are still playing.”

  “You got money on a game?” Wally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  Doyle hesitated. “Both.”

  “For or against?”

  “For.”

  “On both?”

  Doyle nodded.

  “They’ll never beat the point spread, Doyle,” Wally replied, opening a couple bottles and handing them to a hostess. “You’re going to lose your shirt.”

  “To the Chinese laundry?” Cordelia asked with a smile. “How charming.”

  “So what about the TV, man?” Doyle called back to the bartender.

  Wally shook his head. “Not on Tuesday nights at this time. Tuesday nights belong to Honor Blaze.”

  “Where is she?” Doyle asked. “Maybe a small wager might open the whole sports world up to her.”

  Wally pointed. “On the screen, mate. And if you don’t keep your yap shut, I’m going to have to throw you out again.”

  Angel had to smile at the sudden discomfiture Doyle showed. Watching the half-demon in a social scramble was a true spectator sport.

  Two young men clad in jeans and Gap shirts entered the bar. Angel watched them, quickly deciding that they neither acted nor smelled like vampires.

  “Honor Blaze,” Cordelia repeated, flipping through the Variety issue. “There was an article in here about her. Ah, here it is.” She marked her place with her finger, making sure the title still showed. “‘In this reviewer’s opinion Dark Midnight is absolutely the sleekest and most stylistic series of the new television season.”

  “Dark Midnight,” Doyle echoed. “Like there’s ever any other kind?”

  Cordelia kept reading. “With cutting-edge stories laced with human drama and tragedy, a pace that zips along with the unforgiving staccato blasts of a terrorist’s machine pistol —”

  Doyle groaned.

  “ — Dark Midnight starring Whitney Tyler brings a whole new verve and flair to her role as Honor Blaze, vampire shock jock of the L.A. radio scene.”

  That caught Doyle’s attention. “Did you say vampire?”

  Cordelia leafed through the trade paper again. “I wonder if she has a grr face. And where does she get off acting like a vampire? Of all the actresses in Hollywood, I’ve got more experience with bloodsuckers than any of them.” Catching herself, she looked up at Angel. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Angel replied. “No offense taken.” Suddenly aware of the silence that had descended over the bar, amazed that it could get any quieter, he looked around, noticing that everyone’s attention was on the three television sets.

  The show opened up with a scene in a radio booth. The camera panned up from stylish pumps, along slender calves and up to rounded thighs before a miniskirt’s hem cut off the view. The woman’s voice was soft, smoky, and sexy, the kind Angel knew had an effect on most men. And a few vampires.

  “Wow,” Doyle said. “Now, that’s my kind of DJ.”

  “Quiet!” someone ordered.

  The camera continued to move around the radio booth, giving the viewer a glimpse of the sound engineer working with the DJ. The guy was in his early twenties and obviously enraptured by the woman he watched through the plate-glass window.

  Despite the mission he was on, Angel found his attention wandering, trying to peer through the shadows in the radio booth to get a look at the woman. Still, the camera held back, offering only hints at what she looked like. Low lights sparked fire from her red hair.

  “Tonight,” the DJ said, “we’re talking about fringe religious groups and how much latitude they have here in America. Several listeners have called in, wanting to discuss the topic, and I have some views myself I’d like to share.”

  “Hi, Honor,” an elderly woman’s voice said. “I just had to call in and tell you that some religions that society seems to shun these days can be really supportive. After my husband died, I was terribly alone. I tried new hobbies, new friends, the whole smorgasbord of self-help concepts that are floating around out there now. But none of them worked for me. Then I met someone who invited me into their coven.”

  “A witch’s coven?” the DJ asked. The camera panned in on her smile just above the radio mike. It was full-lipped and attractive.

  “Yes, a witch’s coven,” the elderly caller went on. “I’ve found it so fascinating. There’s so much to learn, so much to understand. And I’m feeling better than I have in years. However, my children have disowned me.”

  “Because you’re a witch?”

  The elderly caller laughed. “Oh, they called me that for years, back when their father was alive. I was the authority figure, you see, since their father was gone so often.”

  “So their leaving you alone was no real surprise.”

  “They never really cared about anything other than their father’s money anyway. I just wanted you to know where I stood on the subject. People just need to be a little more tolerant of things they don’t understand. It seems like the faster we’re headed for the next millennium, the more society’s attitudes shift hard to the right. And I’m talking about the actual millennium, not the year 2000 that most folks made such a big hullabaloo about because of that Y2K thing.”

  “Thanks for sharing that with us, caller,” the DJ said.

  The second caller’s voice belonged to a teen. He whispered frantically. “Help me!”

  The camera panned to gray-green eyes that narrowed in consternation. “What’s wrong?”

  “They’ve got me.”

  “Who has you?” the DJ asked.

  “The clinic.” The boy at the other end cried in shuddering breaths. “I don’t know the name of it. My parents put me in here for deprogramming because of some of the websites I was cruising on the Internet. Two guys I know — I’m not even really friends with them — were busted for beating up a few kids at school. They put two of them in the hospital. But I didn’t have anything to do with that. They said I did, but I didn’t.”

  “Take a deep breath,” the DJ instructed calmly. “How can I help you?”
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  “I need to get out of here,” the boy said. “My parents overreacted. They signed me in here, but they don’t know what the clinic is really doing. They don’t —”

  A garbled scream, like someone yelling with a hand over the speaker’s mouth, ripped across the phone line into the sound booth.

  The DJ’s eyes cut to the sound engineer. “Do you know where that call is coming from?”

  “Yeah. Caller ID picked it up.”

  Blubbering, wheezing breath filled the phone connection again. “Damn kid bit me,” a man’s gruff voice announced.

  “Help me, Honor!” the boy yelled.

  Then the phone connection broke.

  “Okay,” Cordelia said. “Well, that was intense.”

  Doyle nodded in agreement.

  Angel stared at the screen as the teaser ended and the show switched to the opening montage. Techno-pop provided a driving backbeat behind the images of Honor Blaze.

  Exploding cars, buildings, and a helicopter showed between flashes of Honor Blaze battling guys with guns, knives, swords, and even a bazooka. The guys were dressed in Italian suits, military uniforms, gangbanger colors, and even what looked like nothing at all.

  The techno-pop soundtrack hammered to a final crescendo as the camera panned in on Honor Blaze. She stood on a rooftop, turned away from the camera, dressed in tight-fitting dark gray Capri pants, stiletto heels, an electric blue turtleneck, and a charcoal gray leather jacket. Something ignited in the background, sending up a spray of colorful fireworks. She turned as the fireworks died away, a daring look in her eyes and a self-confident smile on her lips.

  “What?” Cordelia exclaimed when the show cut to commercial. “No grr face? No hint even of fangs? What kind of show is this? It’s obvious these people need someone with some real insight into the vampire mind.” She crossed her arms. “Someone like me.”

  Angel stared through the television screen, chilled even past the temperature his body usually stayed at. He felt as if someone had walked over his grave — again. He didn’t know what the commercial was, barely registered Doyle’s plaintive cry to the bartender for a little mercy and a quick glimpse at ESPN for the game scores.

  “Angel?” Cordelia reached for him.

  But Angel was drawn back into memory, following the face that had lighted up the television screen. The last time he’d thought he’d seen it had been more than two hundred years ago.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Galway Bay, Ireland, 1758

  “Please, gentle sir, please let me up. I beg you. I know not how to swim.”

  Angelus held the old man by the ankle in one hand, leaning far out over the ship’s railing so his victim’s long hair dragged through the moon-kissed waves of the incoming tide. With his vampiric strength, holding the old man this way for long moments had proven no problem. And Angelus was strong, fresh drunk from the kegs of Irish whiskey below and from the blood of one of the women passengers aboard ship.

  “You made a mistake,” Angelus crowed proudly. “Two, in actuality. I am neither a gentle sir, nor do I care about your welfare, old man.” He dunked the old man into the water, submerging him nearly to mid-chest even when the ship crested each wave. Sailcloth from the twin masts of the rumrunner’s racing boat cracked overhead, filled by the easterly breeze that rolled in from the North Atlantic Ocean and into Galway Bay.

  Cries for mercy came from the other passengers who had been taken prisoner. They stood huddled together in front of the forecastle, the light from the pair of whale-oil lanterns hanging in the rigging turning their despairing faces waxy yellow.

  Angelus ignored them all, holding the flailing old man under water for a long ten-count.

  “You monster!” Running footsteps, too light to be those of a man full-grown, slapped against the wooden deck.

  Further amused, Angelus turned with the uncanny speed he possessed after having drunk his fill, keeping the old man hanging over the ship’s side.

  The dark-haired girl rushing at him was the old man’s daughter. Although she was fair where her father was severe, the resemblance between them remained undeniable. She raked at him with her nails, trying to score his face. Angelus dodged out of the way easily, then backhanded her, breaking her nose and sending her flying from her feet.

  “Child,” a woman’s voice called out, “you won’t touch this man unless he allows it.”

  Darla stood near the railing above the forecastle, her blond hair swirling in the wind. She looked as if she’d stepped off the king’s ballroom in a red, off-the-shoulder dress. Though she was petite, the hostages drew back in horror. They’d already seen her at work and feared her.

  “Let my father go,” the girl ordered, her lower face a mask of blood. “He has nothing to do with the Scottish or the rebellion they are fomenting against the English crown.”

  “Of course.” Angelus released the hold he had on the old man’s ankle, dropping him at once into the deep, natural harbor of Galway Bay. He smiled good-naturedly.

  The old man screamed, but it was short-lived, ending as soon as he submerged.

  “Father!” The girl staggered to the railing, crying out in sorrow and horror.

  “Don’t fret, girl.” Angelus grinned. “It’s a long way to Galway shore or even the coast of Ireland. Maybe he’ll learn to swim. And tonight, the tide does favor him.”

  Her shoulders shook as she cried out helplessly, and before Angelus could stop her even with his great speed, she hurled herself overboard.

  Angelus stared down into the dark water. For a moment he saw the girl, limned in the white blouse she wore, the water so black the material looked as blue as coal dust. Then she disappeared.

  The women among the hostages began crying and wailing.

  It became readily apparent that the girl couldn’t swim, either, because she never came up. The absurdity of her decision to die with her father appeared as ridiculous to Angelus as a nightshirt on a milk cow. High on blood and alcohol, the vampire threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  Angelus bounded up the stairs leading to the forecastle deck. Lightning flashed again, setting the black sky afire for a moment, and a hard rain fell in a torrent. The storm had been threatening all day.

  “Having fun?” Darla asked.

  “More than is humanly possible,” he assured her.

  “I understand about playing with your food,” Darla said. “Any vampire would. Blood is just so much more intoxicating with adrenaline flooding it. But I was talking about your adventure here, getting to play pirate.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be a pirate.” Angelus sheathed the cutlass through the wide crimson sash at his waist. Except for the sash, all his other clothing was black, including the knee-high boots. “Looting and pillaging has been agreeable. All that’s missing is a mysterious map that leads to buried treasure.”

  Darla pouted and touched his face. “Is this a more enjoyable time than any of those I’ve shown you?”

  Angelus took her into his arms and swung her about. “Never, never have I ever felt more alive than when I’m with you.”

  “Life,” Darla said knowingly, “is such a dreary existence. It’s much better to be undead.”

  “Yes,” Angelus agreed. He was still new enough to the vampiric life that his references tended to the mortal rather than the immortal mindset.

  The sleek cargo ship was called Lugh’s Fancy, named after her owner, a smuggler who ran between England and Ireland on a regular basis. Darius, the vampire sea captain they’d only recently had the occasion to meet, had come to Angelus with the plan to overtake the vessel and use it for transport to their main target tonight. Angelus hadn’t been as exuberant as Darius, but his ties to Ireland weren’t the same as those of Darius.

  Lugh Kirevane’s current run to Galway had been to drop a shipment of muskets to the Galway militias that were being formed to suppress the remnants of the Scottish Rebellion. The unrest had also served to stir up the old grievances against the Catholics. />
  Under Darius’s cunning leadership, the band of vampires had taken Fancy when the vessel had put in at a hidden harbor only a few miles south of Galway. Darius had led the brief but furious battle that had left the shore teams dead, then orchestrated the ship’s capture when Kirevane dropped anchor.

  Now they were after far larger prey.

  “There she is!” a man called from the rigging above.

  Angelus looked up, spotting the man high in the rigging. He was a vampire, an ex-sailor as was all of Darius’s crew.

  “Where away, Mr. Roberts?” Darius roared from the ship’s stern, where he handled the big wheel himself.

  “North by northwest, Cap’n,” Roberts called back from the rigging. “We’re a-headed right for her.”

  Excitement flared anew through Angelus. He took Darla by the hand. “C’mon.”

  “Where?” she asked, following reluctantly.

  “To Darius. I want to watch him steer the ship.” Angelus scampered down the steps in spite of the rain sluicing across the deck. His coat billowed around him, catching the wind as he sprinted up the steps to the stern forecastle.

  Darius Lynch was big, topping six feet by a handful of inches and carrying over two hundred and fifty pounds spread across a broad frame made heavy with muscle from working as a shipwright and blacksmith when he’d been human. He gripped the handles on the great wheel, legs spread as he used his body weight to steer Fancy as the wind sent her racing across the choppy water. He wore a great beard filled with iron-gray hair, matching the unruly locks that fell from under the kerchief wrapped around his head. He’d been sired late in his mortal life.

  An oil lantern hung from the navigator’s table next to the ship’s wheel. As it swung, the lantern sent crazy shadows leaping across the deck and railing. “Ah, Angelus, me fine young friend. And be ye having a great time of it, laddie?”

  “The best,” Angelus replied enthusiastically as he peered into the darkness, striving to see the other ship they’d been searching for. Lightning seared the sky again, and he spotted a dark, triangular shape upon the sea. “How can you tell one ship from another so far away in the darkness?”