ANGEL ™: avatar

by John Passarella

  Finally the chain rattled and the dead bolt clicked back. The doorknob rotated counterclockwise and the door swung inward. Smiling at him, as lovely as ever, was Buffy Summers. “Buffy . . .”

  A moment’s hesitation. But that was all the demon needed.

  Beyond Buffy’s shoulder, Angel glimpsed a pile of clothes and black sneakers that had been kicked under the sofa. Near them was the translucent sheath of human skin topped with dark, frizzy hair. But in that moment of uncertainty, the implications of those macabre details refused to register.

  “Hello, lover,” Buffy said and clasped Angel’s neck in both hands.

  With more raw strength than even the Slayer possessed, the impostor lifted Angel off the floor and hurled him into the room, where he slammed into the wall above the sofa. A remembered image flashed in his mind: The blond woman in the dance club beside Cordelia—I never saw her face!

  Angel rolled down the back of the sofa, striking a floor lamp with one outstretched arm. The demon, still masquerading as Buffy, strode forward and kicked him in the stomach with enough force to double him over. A second kick sailed toward his face. He recoiled, catching the foot at the heel and giving it a hard shove straight up. The demon fell on its back, arms slapping the floor to absorb the impact.

  Angel sprang to his feet, wielding the floor lamp like a quarterstaff. The demon was back on its feet a moment later. Angel feinted a thrust with the lamp, then swung low, clipping one of the demon’s knees. With a backward hop, the demon regained its balance, even as Angel charged, holding the lamp parallel to the floor and driving the demon back against the far wall a second after tugging the plug free of its socket.

  Buffy’s face stared back at him, displaying a rabid expression, equal parts anger and hate. Even when Angel had become the evil Angelus and Buffy had fought him in earnest, with everything she had, she’d never looked at him with that much venom. Determination, confidence, heartache, and regret, but never the mindless hatred the demon brought to the face of the woman Angel loved, perhaps always would love. But the illusion only worked while the victim believed in it.

  The demon swung a fist down, bending the lamp pole into a V shape, then reached for Angel’s throat, nails digging into his flesh. Angel’s face morphed into its vampire countenance—convoluted brow, fangs, and yellow eyes. He launched an overhand right, striking the Buffy face square in the nose. The hand around his throat loosened and he pulled away.

  “A vampire, then,” the demon said. “That explains your strength but not your involvement.” The voice was no longer Buffy’s and a moment later, as the demon dropped the illusion, its face and body morphed into a gray-skinned, three-fingered demon slightly taller than Angel with ridges down its spine, its outer forearms, and its shins. A leathery tail, lined with ridges, whipped to and fro. The demon strode forward. “Why would a vampire help poor little Elliot Grundy?”

  Angel tossed the battered lamp aside. “Moot point,” Angel replied with a nod toward the clothes and shed skin. “Since you’ve already killed him.”

  “That’s not Elliot.” The demon smiled, exposing a row of needle teeth. “After Elliot fled, his downstairs neighbor decided to aid my cause.” The demon swung an open left hand at Angel’s face. Angel leaned back, heard the thick claws whistle through the air, inches from his nose. He countered with a punch under the demon’s ribs.

  “Elliot thought he was your twelfth.”

  “I only needed his sign,” the demon replied. “His neighbor matched—same birth date. Quite a topic of conversation around here. And she served me well. It was glorious! As I sucked the last drop of life out of her, I achieved ritual completion. My borrowed form, the physical essence I had pulled from Elliot, became superfluous. The accumulated life force and bodily matter of a dozen humans transmuted into this re-spawned demonic body. I am only now beginning to feel my new power on this physical plane.”

  Angel sprang forward, and they exchanged a flurry of punches, but Angel took the first serious hit. Blood trickled down from his left eyebrow. They both jumped back, just out of reach of each other, circling. “If this is your re-spawned body, I have to say I’ve seen better.”

  “Do not be misled. My form is yet immature,” the demon replied. “I will continue to grow stronger in the coming day. And I am free to feed at will. Elliot will be my next meal, followed, I think, by your pretty little assistant.”

  He’s just trying to goad me into making a mistake, Angel realized, ignoring the tight feeling across his chest. The ritual cycle was complete. No longer a detached psyche, the demon had his re-spawned body. But the re-spawned body could be destroyed and banished forever. And this time he can’t vanish when the going gets tough. Angel needed a moment to reach for his boot sheath. Closing the distance between them, he waited for the demon to take advantage of his proximity.

  Lunging forward with both hands poised to seize Angel’s throat, the demon was caught off guard when Angel dropped to a crouch. He hurled the demon back, using his forward momentum to send him end over end across the room. The demon crashed into the kitchen table, smashing it and toppling a chair. A little farther and he would have been propelled right through the kitchen window.

  Knife in hand, Angel spun around and surged forward to press the attack. He paused as a crash sounded from below, followed by a rush of footfalls up the stairwell. Not expecting a regiment of the cavalry, Angel had a bad feeling about the new arrivals. The demon scrambled up from the debris of the kitchen table, hoisting a chair in both hands. He was about to toss it at Angel, but when he saw the black-cloaked figures rush through the door, brandishing ceremonial daggers, he turned and threw it at them.

  The two men in the middle raised their arms as the chair struck them. Others scattered, stepping around Angel and all but ignoring him as they stalked the demon. Yunk’sh’s yellow eyes grew wide as a seventh man entered the apartment—a bald man with hands extended, fingers glowing green. The cult’s resident sorcerer, Angel guessed. “Yunk’sh,” the bald man intoned, “I bind you to our will and to our purpose.”

  The demon turned away from the sorcerer and, with two long strides, flung himself through the kitchen window. Somehow Angel knew Yunk’sh would survive the three-story drop.

  The sorcerer, standing just behind and to one side of Angel, looked at him, noticing for the first time that Angel was a vampire. “You have interfered, vampire.”

  “Don’t look at me. I want to kill him, not bind him.”

  “If you would kill Yunk’sh,” the sorcerer replied simply, “then we must kill you.”

  Angel drove his elbow into the man’s face, breaking his nose and dropping him to the floor. “Think again.”

  “Kill him!” the sorcerer screamed, unintentionally smearing green ointment over his split and bleeding nose.

  Angel was outnumbered six to one—seven if he counted the sorcerer, who seemed more eager to bark orders than join the fray. All six men had knives and seemed comfortable handling them. They formed a circle around him. Meanwhile, Angel noticed, Yunk’sh, as they called the demon, was getting away.

  The sorcerer yelled, “Not with knives! A stake through the heart.”

  The oldest cult member pointed at the shattered remains of the kitchen table. “Willem, find a weapon there. Let’s end this now.”

  Angel could not have agreed more. He dropped to a crouch again and swept the legs out from under two cult members. Another jumped on his back, but Angel rolled with the attack, slamming the man to the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Angel came up on his feet, blocked a knife attack with his forearm, and punched the assailant in the stomach with his free hand. In a moment they were all down and groaning except Willem, who had found something wooden and reasonably pointy. With the others groggy or wobbling on hands and knees, Willem seemed less than eager to press the attack on his own.

  The oldest cult member shouted, “Kill him!”

  Obediently, Willem raised the stake and charged.

 
; Angel picked up the chair the demon had hurled across the apartment and slung it toward Willem, taking out his legs. Willem toppled over the chair, the stake sailing out of his hand.

  Minutes later, from a nearby pay phone, Angel made an anonymous call to the police, reporting a violent disturbance at Elliot’s address. As far as Kate was concerned, Angel was off the case. Depending on the speed of the police response, they might arrive in time to collect some cult members along with the remains of Elliot’s neighbor.

  If the demon was true to his word, he would attempt to kill Elliot next, followed by Cordelia. And if Cordelia had followed Angel’s instructions, she and Elliot would both be waiting for Angel at his office.

  Elliot was babbling and having trouble sitting still. He wanted to run but had nowhere to hide. “He’ll kill me to complete the ritual. I’m the last sign, the last one he needs. You gotta believe me.”

  “He found a replacement, Elliot,” Angel said, neglecting to inform Elliot that he was still next on the demon’s hit list. If Elliot had any useful information about the demon, Angel needed to hear it before the demon’s former human servant had another fit of hysterics.

  “What? How could he find another . . . so fast?”

  “Your downstairs neighbor.”

  Elliot’s jaw dropped and he sagged in his chair. “Shirley. Oh, God. We are—were—the same sign. And I even told him about it when I was complaining about her. Oh, Shirley . . . I always said she was a pest, but she didn’t mean any harm. Why’d he have to kill her?” With a heavy sigh, Elliot pressed his hand to his chest. “That explains it, then.”

  “What?”

  “Since I made the pact, I’ve felt pressure, in my chest, even when Yunk’sh wasn’t using me to manifest in physical form, like something tugging inside me. That feeling stopped on my way here. I just assumed it was relief at having gotten away, but it must have meant that he no longer needed to draw substance from me. That must have been when Shirley . . .” Elliot stared down at his hands—one human, the other demonic. “I’m responsible for this, for everything.”

  Angel crouched before him. “I need you to focus, Elliot. Yunk’sh said his re-spawned body was immature. Do you know what he meant?”

  Elliot looked at him, uncomprehending.

  Disgusted, Cordelia reached for the phone. “Detective Lockley’s on speed dial. I’m sure she’ll be happy to collect this piece of garbage.”

  Doyle stood beside her, placed his hand over hers. “Not yet,” he whispered.

  Cordelia frowned. “This goofball helped kill twelve people.”

  “We need him,” Doyle said, softly, but firmly.

  “I just want to be human again,” Elliot murmured.

  Angel grabbed Elliot’s jaw, forced him to look at his face. “Elliot, this isn’t helping.”

  “Okay,” he said dejectedly. “Look, I’ll cooperate. I’ll plead guilty, go to jail, and help you kill Yunk’sh . . . on one condition.”

  “Elliot,” Angel said, “you’re an accomplice in twelve premeditated murders. That’s not a real good bargaining position.”

  “I know,” Elliot said. “But all I want is to become human again.”

  “You gave up that right, Grundy,” Cordelia snapped.

  “Cordelia,” Angel chided, “you’re not helping.” And Yunk’sh had Cordelia on his hit list as well. If Elliot knew something that could help them fight the demon, Angel had to find out what it was while the information could still do some good. “Elliot, I’ll do what I can.”

  “Okay,” Elliot said. “Thanks. I’ll tell you everything I know.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “For twenty-four hours after he takes his new body, Yunk’sh is in a state of . . . flux or something. During that time he’s vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable to what?”

  “Binding.”

  “The cult has tried at least twice and failed.”

  “Not with the remnant corpse,” Elliot explained. “The corpse was useless to them before, but now that he inhabits his re-spawned body they have twenty-four hours to bind him by proxy, using the old corpse. That’s how long it will take his psychic energy to settle permanently into the re-spawned body. Apparently they have a magic ritual to trick the psyche into being bound through the old corpse.”

  “The cult has the demon’s old corpse? This remnant corpse?”

  “They found it last night, in San Francisco. It’s probably here in L.A. by now.”

  “Wait a minute!” Doyle called. He hurried to the file cabinet and brought back a large volume with worn edges. “When I was searching for a spell to help us find the demon, I came across a destruction spell, but I ignored it.”

  “Why?” Angel asked.

  “Because it only works with this remnant corpse he’s talking about.”

  The spell to destroy the Vishrak demon with the remnant corpse could only be performed during the twenty-four hours after the demon’s psychic energy inhabited his re-spawned form. Before they could perform the spell, they would need a mystical container similar to an Orb of Thesulah to capture the demon’s psychic energy and the remnant corpse itself.

  “I’ll meet with Dink again,” Doyle volunteered. “I asked him to keep his ear to the ground on this cult business. If we find their hideout, we can relieve them of the remnant corpse before they perform the binding spell.”

  Angel nodded. “Good. I’ll pick up the orb. Doyle, as soon as you learn the cult’s location, call my cell phone and we’ll rendezvous.”

  “What about us?” Cordelia asked, referring to Elliot and herself. “I’m not staying alone with him, no matter how sorry he is.”

  “Cordy, go with Doyle. Elliot, you come with me.”

  “I’ll just slow you down.”

  Angel no longer needed to mince words. “Yunk’sh threatened to make you the first meal for his new body.”

  “I’ll keep up.”

  “I thought you would.”

  Before they left on their separate errands, Angel pulled Doyle aside. “Don’t let Cordelia out of your sight.”

  “That won’t be a hardship,” Doyle said, with a wink. “Wait a minute . . . that’s your grim look. What don’t I know?”

  “Yunk’sh is not the forgiving type,” Angel said softly.

  “Oh,” Doyle replied. “I understand completely.”

  The white box in Elliot’s lap could have held a Christmas tree ornament. Instead it contained an unadorned glass sphere, handblown during a ritual incantation. While it would have appeared uninspired on a Christmas tree, it had the magical power to contain, for about two minutes, the psychic energy of a Vishrak demon settling into a re-spawned body. Fortunately the proprietor of Incense and Auguries had one of the orbs in stock, the first and only one she’d ever stocked.

  “Interesting place,” Elliot commented. “Do you shop there often?”

  “Now and again.” Angel’s cell phone chirped, and he answered. After a moment he reached into the glove compartment, grabbed a pen and tablet, and wrote with the pad propped against the dashboard. “Trinity United Methodist.” He scribbled down the address. “Got it. Tell Dink I owe him a jumbo carton of worms. Meet you there.”

  “Worms?” Elliot asked after Angel ended the call.

  “An acquired taste.”

  “It would have to be,” Elliot replied. “He found the cult’s hideout?”

  “Yes. You know, I could turn you over to the police,” Angel offered. “You’d be safer.”

  Elliot thought about it for a moment then said, “No. I gotta do at least this one thing for Shirley. She never should have been a part of this. It’s my fault. I didn’t mean to set her up, but I did.”

  “You set up a lot of people, Elliot.”

  “I know,” he said regretfully. “But Shirley actually liked me.”

  The scorched shell of the Trinity United Methodist Church was located in a depressed commercial district. To the left of the church was a muffler repair shop that had recently failed. To the
right, beyond the church’s weed-infested parking lot, was a carpet warehouse that had gone bankrupt two years earlier. The nearest viable business was a check-cashing store half a block away. Beyond that stood a pawnshop and a bodega. Several burned-out streetlights in the area had not been replaced.

  Angel, Doyle, Cordelia, and Elliot crouched behind the convertible across the street from the condemned church. A few minutes ago the cult’s sorcerer had arrived wearing a fresh bandage over his mashed nose and was now ready to perform the proxy binding spell. They were running out of time. Angel held a crowbar, straight end down, chipping at a fissure in the crumbling sidewalk. “Doyle, do you have everything?”

  Doyle hefted a canvas gym bag. “Everything but the orb.”

  Elliot handed the little white box to Doyle, who unzipped the bag enough to drop the box inside. “All set.”

  Angel turned to Cordelia. “Are you prepared to chant the spell?”

  “My Latin’s a little rusty.”

  Doyle gave a dry chuckle. “Whose isn’t?”

  “You’ll only have a few minutes to cast the spell,” Angel said. Knowing time would be critical once they had the demon’s remnant corpse, Angel had used the crowbar to pry loose the mounting plate of the padlock on what had been the employee entrance to the carpet warehouse. “I’ll give you two minutes to get into position.”

  “How will we know you’re in?” Elliot asked.

  “Trust me,” Angel replied, “you’ll know.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Two minutes later, trusting that Doyle, Cordelia, and Elliot were in position behind the church, Angel crossed the street, carrying the crowbar at his side like an unsheathed sword, almost invisible against his dark clothes. As he neared the double doors at the front of the church, he noticed the right one hung by a single rusty hinge. The door would squeal against the floor of the narthex when opened. Perfect, Angel thought.

  He paused on the wide top step before the double doors and raised his right leg in front of the damaged door. He kicked the door so hard it ripped free of its last hinge and slammed into the far wall of the narthex, then fell back toward Angel. He slapped it aside, creating yet another crash.