Redemption

by Mel Odom

  The old man flicked his eyes over the two bills. “It’s not important enough to me.”

  Doyle added another twenty. “I know the guy out there talking to him.”

  “Ask him.”

  Another twenty joined the three others. “I kind of want it to be a surprise.”

  “You a cop?”

  “No.”

  “Planning on doing anything bad to those people?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Doyle added another bill. “A hundred dollars says I don’t have to answer that question.”

  The old man got up from his creaky chair, unable to maintain interest in the talk show. He gazed hungrily at the stack of bills.

  When Doyle spotted the off-track-betting form under the TV Guide, the half-demon knew he had the man. “Got a favorite horse?”

  The old man squinted up at him. “Maybe.”

  Doyle shrugged. “It’d be better if you could put some heavy cash down. If you’re really feeling lucky, that is.” And he knew there was no other way a seasoned gambler would feel. The job at the motel court didn’t look like it covered much in the way of off-track betting.

  “His name is Derek Gannon,” the old man said, after consulting a grease-stained register. He reached for the cash.

  Doyle kept his thumb heavily on the stack of bills. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He’s some kind of priest or something,” the old man said. “I’ve seen him with crosses, out in the courtyard praying with his friends.”

  “What friends?”

  The clerk’s eyes never left the money and his fingers pressed hard against the edges he could touch. “He’s got a lot of guys working with him. They got other rooms here.”

  “Know who the guy in the black Hummer is?”

  The old man shook his head. “I seen him in here a couple times. Comes and goes. Always acting guilty.”

  “The father and his friends from around here?”

  “No. They got accents. British or something.”

  “What business do they have?”

  The old man shrugged. “You want a lot for a hundred bucks.”

  Doyle smiled. “Makes us even, don’t you think? You want a hundred bucks a lot.”

  “I don’t know what they’re doing here. They’ve been here a week. Pay their bills in cash. Don’t bother nobody. They must have somebody in jail, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Gannon came in today and asked me where the county jail was.”

  “He could have taken a cab.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Doyle thought about that, remembering that the man who’d tried to run Whitney Tyler down at the diner two days ago had been taken to the county jail. “Thanks, old-timer.” He released the money and the clerk swept it away without looking up. He went back to Letterman for the Top Ten list.

  Doyle went back out to the cab, arriving about the same time Schend climbed back into the Hummer.

  “Want to keep following him?” the cab driver asked.

  Doyle watched Schend pull back out onto the street. “No.” He gave the man the address to Angel’s office. Before he made another move, the half-demon wanted to talk with Angel. With this many people on board and things starting to add up, like Schend wasn’t such a good guy where Whitney Tyler was concerned, he wanted to talk strategy.

  Angel pushed up the floor covering from the tunnels that ran beneath his office and home, then climbed into the dark room. He’d come along the hidden way even though it was night to lessen his chances of being spotted. He’d counted at least two men in surveillance positions out on the street. If it hadn’t been night they wouldn’t have stood out so much. The smell of fresh coffee struck him instantly and put him on guard.

  “Relax. It’s only me.” Doyle sat at the table near a carryout tray that had held four coffees in Styrofoam cups. “I called and left messages on the answering machine.”

  “Cordelia and I found a safehouse to put Whitney up in.” Angel left the trapdoor open as he walked over to the bookshelves. He turned on the light, flooding the room with illumination. Since there were no windows to allow the daylight in, the unbroken walls also served to keep the light inside from being seen outside now. “I figured the police would take her into protective custody at the very least.”

  “After they found her driver dead in the car.”

  “How did you know about that?” Angel asked.

  “News bulletin.” Doyle pointed at the television as Angel moved to the bookcase. “At the very least they would have done that. So what are you doing here? When you first put in an appearance, I thought maybe you were coming for me, but now that I see you going through all those books, I have to wonder.”

  Angel glanced at Doyle. “I came back for you.”

  “Okay, but what else?”

  “I wanted to look up a few things.”

  “I could help.”

  “Did you find out anything about that symbol?” Angel asked. His mind still raced, still determined to pursue the dark twisting path it had already started out on.

  “They’re part of the Blood Cadre,” Doyle said.

  “Dedicated demon hunters one and all.”

  “Do they wear the symbol on a silver ring?”

  Angel stopped flipping through the book on Irish folklore and myth. It dealt predominantly with the Tuatha Du’Dannan, the mystical race all faeries were thought to be descended from.

  Doyle pointed at the carryout tray. “Would you like a coffee?”

  Angel nodded but didn’t comment.

  “Have you ever met Mama Ntombi?” Doyle asked.

  “No.”

  “Interesting woman. You really should make time for it.”

  “The point, Doyle,” Angel growled irritably. Time and everything else was working against them.

  “And there is one, I assure you.” Doyle brought a coffee over. “Anyway, while I’m there, Mama Ntombi triggers a couple visions she lets me see, allowing me a closer look at things I’m generally only guessing at. I’m thinking maybe I should take lessons.”

  Angel waited.

  “In this vision,” Doyle went on, “I saw the woman aboard a sailing ship —”

  “It was called Handsome Jack, ” Angel said, smelling the salt in the air. “I was there. She was part of the guard surrounding a group of English nobles and wealthy that were coming to Galway back in 1758. The Scottish Rebellion was going on then, and things were going hard on the Catholics again.”

  “Never a fun time over there, is it?” Doyle flashed him a rueful smile. “Do you know who this woman was?”

  “They called her Moira,” Angel said evenly, not showing the raw guilt that twisted within him. “I killed her. At least, I thought I had. When she crossed blades with me aboard Handsome Jack, I knew I had to have her. I wanted to break her, taste her blood, and look into her eyes as she gave up.” The memory was strong within him, causing a confusion of emotions.

  “But you didn’t,” Doyle said. “In my vision I saw her again at a later time.”

  “No,” Angel said, “I didn’t. I even thought Darla killed her once, then I convinced myself that Darla had somehow missed her with the pistol or that a ball hadn’t been rammed down the barrel.”

  “And Darla is?”

  “My sire. I staked her when she tried to kill Buffy.”

  “Bad career move on her part,” Doyle stated dryly. “But one thing I did notice in this vision was how much that woman then looked like Whitney Tyler now.”

  A chill filled Angel. “There are differences.”

  “Right.” Doyle sounded totally unconvinced. “So what are you here researching?”

  “Ghosts, goblins, the usual.”

  “Ah, and you believe Whitney Tyler is one of those creatures?”

  “Actually, I’m starting to think she’s possessed,” Angel said. “Do you have that tape you and Cordelia got from the apartment bui
lding?”

  Doyle vanished upstairs and came back down a moment later with the tape in his hand. “I didn’t know you’d gotten a chance to look at it.”

  Angel took the tape and plugged it into the TV VCR in the bookshelves. Television wasn’t a hobby of his, but he’d found having the setup around was helpful. “I looked at the notes you and Cordelia made last night and noticed a discrepancy.”

  “In our notes?” Doyle shook his head. “We took very good notes. An attention to detail is the standard definition of a detective.”

  “Doyle,” Angel said patiently, “we’re not exactly private eyes. We’re here to save people, not figure out whodunit.”

  “Good,” Doyle said, “because that whodunit stuff can really make my head hurt. I mean, take Clue for instance. You can throw off a whole game by —”

  “You took good notes.” Angel started the VCR player. “Watch.” On the television, Whitney Tyler entered the building. “At one-seventeen A.M. Whitney arrives after the attack went down on the highway.”

  “Yeah, and she got back from shopping at two fifty-eight,” Doyle said.

  Angel fast-forwarded to the second entrance. Whitney Tyler walked through the foyer again.

  Doyle pointed at the time-date stamp. It was 2:58. “There’s your time.”

  “I know,” Angel said, reversing the tape in slow motion and watching the segments again. “I just want to know when she left.”

  Doyle stared at the screen, understanding dawning in his eyes. “She arrived there twice but never left.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe the security guy missed it.”

  “Maybe.” Angel shut the machine off. “Help me with these books.” He took an armload from the shelf, picking them by title and subject matter. All of them dealt with Irish legends.

  Doyle was staggered under the weight. “We’re going to carry all of this through the tunnels?”

  “It’s only about six blocks,” Angel replied. “An easy walk.”

  “But not a happy one,” Doyle promised.

  Angel put the stack of books he was carrying on the table and started up the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Doyle asked.

  “Check the answering machine. I’m expecting a call.”

  “From Detective Lockley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You also need to call Bascomb. I had him research the Blood Cadre. I might have been able to find something in your books, but I knew we were pressed for time.”

  Bascomb was an authority on legends, myths, and magical things in the L.A. area. Angel had heard of him even before he’d made the move to L.A.

  “They called,” Doyle said. “Wanted you to call back as soon as you could.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The phone rang three times before it was answered. “Bascomb.”

  Angel listened to the cultured tones of the man. “It’s Angel.”

  “Ah, Angel,” Bascomb said unctuously. “Your earlier call — combined with the brief fax — being so cryptic, actually, left me rather intrigued.”

  Angel held a cell phone as he drove past a twenty-four-hour convenience store a few blocks away from his office. Night filled the streets with shadows. He felt certain either the Blood Cadre or the LAPD — and perhaps both — were still watching his offices.

  “I caught the news earlier,” Bascomb said, “and noticed that a private investigator with the singular name of Angel was linked with a murder attempt against Whitney Tyler, the television star. I couldn’t imagine that there would be more than one.”

  Angel didn’t comment.

  “Of course, that’s probably your business.” Bascomb cleared his throat. “I was able to find some material on the Blood Cadre.”

  “A band of religious demon hunters and kind of obsessive about it.”

  “To say the least,” Bascomb commented. “They were very dedicated to their chosen vocation, and even the Watchers took note of their successes. Secret organizations tend only to be secret from everyone but each other. In the past, the Watchers and the Slayers have had occasional dealings with the Cadre. But I think I found the anomaly you were looking for.”

  Angel watched the traffic slide by on the other side of the street. Anomaly, he thought. There’s a word.

  “There was a young woman who was a member of the Blood Cadre back in 1758, as you suggested,” Bascomb went on. “And she was aboard a ship called Handsome Jack that was attacked by particularly vicious vampires.”

  The man’s words brought back all the guilt that was associated with Angelus’s actions back then. He saw the swordswoman’s face again, so like Whitney Tyler’s.

  “I’m sorry,” Bascomb said. “Perhaps I spoke out of turn. I didn’t stop to think that —”

  That I might have been one of those vicious vampires? “What about the woman?” Angel asked.

  “Reports indicated that the new arrivals under” — papers rustled again for a moment — “a man named O’Domhnallain were surprised to find her alive. The woman —”

  “Do you know her name?” Angel interrupted.

  He whizzed past an arcade. The harsh rattle of machine-gun fire and sizzling laser beams echoed out the open door.

  “Moira,” Bascomb said, “Moira O’Braonain.”

  “Sorrow,” Angel said softly, and the irony of it made him smile.

  “Pardon?” Bascomb said.

  “The name O’Braonain,” Angel said. “It translates to ‘sorrow.’”

  “I see. Well it’s a very fitting name as it turns out. Moira O’Braonain was thought killed in a tavern brawl in Clifden, Ireland, against a group of vampires only a few days later.”

  Angel remembered, seeing Darla point the long-barreled pistol at the swordswoman’s face and pull the trigger, the sudden sprawling fall the swordswoman had made as she dropped backward. “Only she wasn’t killed then, either.”

  “No. Later, she rode with O’Domhnallain when his group of warriors overtook the vampire band they’d been pursuing outside of the city and put them to death.”

  So Darius and his people had been killed. Angel considered the information.

  “It was only a few years later that the Blood Cadre officially banned her from their ranks,” Bascomb continued. “She’d become obsessed by one vampire she insisted had escaped their efforts in Galway. Forty years later, when one of the Blood Cadre ran into her somewhere in Europe — they’re not very precise with their data here because they were already trying to cover the story up — they realized that she was no longer among the living.”

  “What was she?”

  “I don’t know. I do believe she wasn’t a vampire, though, because she’s been seen in daylight. There’s something else I must tell you, Angel.”

  Chafing on the inside to get moving, remembering that he’d left Cordelia with Whitney, Angel waited.

  “That symbol Doyle drew and faxed to me,” Bascomb said, “has a history other than with the Blood Cadre. It has been found at the scene of several rather gruesome murders over the last two hundred years. All of the victims were male. The records in the Blood Cadre files indicate that whatever is inhabiting Moira O’Braonain has a real grudge against men.”

  “I’ll get the money I owe you for the research by the end of the week.” Angel hung up. He placed another call, dialing the number from memory. He passed through the police switchboard quickly, getting to the Homicide Division.

  “Lockley,” Kate Lockley answered in a tired voice.

  “It’s Angel.”

  Kate was quiet for a moment. “You’re calling from a cell phone?”

  The question caused Angel to pause. He marked the time in his mind. “With you asking me that, I assume someone is looking for me.”

  “They want to see your client,” Kate replied. “There are some questions the homicide detectives want to ask her.”

  “She’s not ready to be interviewed, and it wouldn’t be safe.”

  “The LAPD can make her safe.”
r />   “No,” Angel said quietly. “Did you run her background check?”

  Kate hesitated. “It’s all false,” Kate said. “Schend and his PR people reinvented Whitney Tyler to the point that most media people would never have penetrated the different layers of background, but we did. Once we got past it, tearing her last identity apart was even easier. The guys in Forgery say it’s some of the most detailed and best they’ve ever seen.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing.” Lockley hesitated.

  “What?” Angel asked.

  “We got a hit on the symbol that we found at Whitney Tyler’s apartment. It was in an FBI VICAP database. The symbol has been found at murder scenes for the last fifty years.”

  Angel didn’t say anything.

  “Doesn’t that surprise you?” Lockley asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, don’t you have something to say?”

  “If I did, I would.”

  “You need to bring her in, Angel.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re way over the line,” Kate pointed out. “You’re an unlicensed private investigator and now you’re harboring a murder suspect.”

  “A murder suspect? For murders committed over fifty years ago? C’mon.”

  “The homicide people want to talk to her.”

  “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “What if she kills you, Angel?”

  “That’s not going to happen. She’s not a killer.”

  “There are people who know her who don’t think that’s true.”

  “She’s innocent, Kate,” Angel said.

  “Whitney Tyler killed her driver.” Kate spoke with confidence. “I helped work that scene. Forensics found skin and blood under the dead man’s fingernails. He fought whoever tore his throat out. They’ll make the DNA match with the tissue and blood. Also, while we were taking statements from the television crew, several of them mentioned seeing scratches on Whitney.”

  “Whitney just avoided getting run down.”

  “He’d been dead for a couple hours before you found him,” Kate said.

  “She was with the television crew all afternoon and evening,” Angel argued.