by Nancy Holder
More wounded poured into the desperately overcrowded hospital. Despite the torrential rains, the fires were spreading all over town. What with the additional burn victims, car accidents, and people injured during the quakes, the Sunnydale Medical Center was like a field hospital during a war.
Oz was getting himself some more coffee, and some tea for Willow’s mother, which was not the most pleasant thing to do. He had to walk down the corridor past the burn unit to the vending machines, and the burn unit was bad news.
Oz tried to keep his gaze centered straight ahead; there was always that ghoulish temptation to peek into one of the rooms, but he avoided that as best he could. The injuries were horrible; worse still was the amount of pain the burn patients endured.
Fishing in his pants for some change, he paused, just long enough to hear a man talking in the room off to his left.
The man said, “We’ve got the freakin’ thing at the station, Mark. I don’t know how it could have cut you, though. It was on the ground.”
There was murmuring, and groaning, and Oz couldn’t help but glance at the name on the room sign. CORVALIS, MARK.
The door was open. Despite his best intentions, his gaze ticked to the interior of the room. The opaque white curtain was pulled, concealing the person inside the bed, but Oz had a good view of the man’s visitor, who was seated in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed, his profile to the door. He was a fireman, still in his yellow coveralls, his face covered with soot.
“I’ll be back, buddy,” he said, and started to walk out. He saw Oz, and shook his head. He gestured for Oz to follow him back into the hall.
“Not looking good,” he told Oz. “He’s more upset about losing his hand than the burns. But the burns are what’re gonna kill him.”
Oz took that in. He realized the man assumed Oz knew Mark Corvalis, but Oz didn’t correct that impression. He just let the man talk.
“Way I figure it, someone stole it from the museum, something like that. Just Mark’s luck to fall on it. A freak thing, you know?” He ran his hand through his dirty hair. “We’re firefighters, we half-expect we’ll get burned someday. But falling on some weird-looking axe, cutting off your hand . . .” He started crying again.
“He fell on an axe?” Oz repeated, very puzzled.
“Satanic-looking thing. Very creepy. Looks valuable. We’ve got it down at the station. Captain wants to see it before we try to find the owner. Maybe give it to the police first.”
Oz nodded. He was not unsympathetic, but he was weary of hearing about accidents. It was all he’d heard about all day. The world had taken on a surrealistic tone for him; he’d been inside the hospital for so long, it was hard to believe there was anything more to the universe than Willow’s bed in the intensive care unit, the nurses’ station, the bathroom, and the vending machines.
“Tell him I had to go on home, will you?” the man continued. He shook his head. “I just can’t handle it.”
“Sure,” Oz told him.
The man hurried away. Oz continued on his way and got the drinks, then headed back for the waiting room. Willow’s mother had fallen asleep on the dark brown couch. Her cell phone was cradled in her hand like some people might hold a picture of a loved one. Mr. Rosenberg had left earlier to check on things at home.
Oz left Mrs. Rosenberg alone and looked in on Willow in her room. She was alone for the moment, because her roommate had died about three hours ago. They’d taken the body out, but no one had been brought in to take the extra bed.
They had partially shaved her head. Oz’s features softened as he gazed at her; he thought she looked rather elfin. There was an IV in the vein on the back of her hand and another in the crook of her elbow on her other arm. They said she was going to be okay, probably some back problems later in life, but that was it.
Oz put down the cups of hot liquid and pulled up a chair beside her bed. He cleared his throat and very softly sang.
“ ‘Wise men say, only fools rush in . . .’ ”
He couldn’t continue. His throat was dry. As he sat beside her, he swayed; he didn’t think he had ever been more stressed or drained in his entire life.
This is the one thing the Slayer can’t protect her from, he thought. And I can’t, either. But I’d give up more than my hand if I could be in that bed instead of her.
“Hey.” Faith was standing in the doorway, arms folded. She was sopping wet. She gestured to the styrofoam cups and he shrugged; she came in and took the tea and sipped it. “How’s she doing?”
He shrugged again. She nodded as if he’d said something profound and smoothed her hair away from her face.
“It’s wicked out there.” She grinned. “Dusted a couple of vamps, though. Weather doesn’t seem to bother ’em much.”
He wondered what she was doing at the hospital. He picked up his coffee and drank. Faith came farther into the room and stared down at Willow.
“Her hair will grow back,” she said, as if that would comfort Oz in the least.
“So anyway, I’m out there freezing my butt off and I went to the Fish Tank to see if I could find out what happened to my axe, and I got zip, so I screwed around for a while and then I came in here to get warm,” she said, holding the tea in both hands.
Oz thought a moment. “Axe. Some guy down the hall got cut by a strange-looking axe.”
Faith’s eyes widened. “Kidding, right? Axes are our big thing tonight. Wow. Where did it happen?”
He shook his head. “The axe is at the fire station.”
“Awesome!” she cried. “I’ll go get it.” She set down the tea and gave him a wave.
“Hey, be careful,” he warned her.
“Careful’s for wimps.”
“Wimps live to tell the tale.”
“Wimps never live.” She winked at him and left the room.
Chapter Nine
There were miles of tunnels beneath the surface of Sunnydale, for which there was no truly practical reason, but it made being a vampire less inconvenient than it otherwise would be in sunny Southern California. Traveling from one end of town in the middle of the day posed little difficulty to those for whom sunlight—like crosses, garlic, and holy water—was not a factor in living large.
Or living at all.
It also made reconnaisance a hell of a lot easier. In fact, there was actually an entry tunnel that led right into the basement of Willy’s Alibi Room. It had been used during Prohibition to smuggle liquor.
The joint had been a hangout for bikers, pikers, and demons for a long time. Willy’s Alibi, Sunnydale, was a pushpin on the maps of hellmouth habitues everywhere. Angel had actually once seen a tourist brochure for demons in Willy’s office, labeling Sunnydale “the anti-Sedona of the demon travel wonderland.”
The basement smelled of age, dirt, stone, and booze. In the days of Prohibition, when alcohol had been illegal, Sunnydale had been a major center for underground trade in bootleg liquor. Even now, the cavernous walls were lined with rum-soaked packing crates and bullet holes. Occasionally, Angel would kick an antique ammo casing out of his way with his boot tip.
He strode through the room and entered the pitch-black corridor. Anyone who had business in Willy’s basement knew the total absence of light lasted for only a couple seconds, as one moved swiftly from the bottom of the steps and into the first-floor storeroom, which was illuminated with not one, but two, incandescent forty-watt bulbs hanging naked from cords wound around a makeshift catwalk of sawhorses and ladders. When it came to obeying state safety regulations, Willy was not one to spare expense.
When it came to trying to sue Willy for injuries incurred on his property, one found out that Willy himself had declared bankruptcy, and the bar was listed as being owned by a nameless, faceless group called The Death Dealers. So, not much suing occurred.
In fact, none.
From the storeroom, where Willy kept what he optimistically liked to call “the good stuff;” Angel crept into Willy’s office. The side w
all of the office was shared by the bar.
Most of the time when Willy went to get the good stuff, it was to eavesdrop on a particularly interesting conversation. On that side wall, he had drilled a peephole, which was covered by his copy of the swimsuit calendar of Cable Sports International. He didn’t have cable in the bar and never would, but he got the calendar for free. His customers had never caught on that he spied on them, which was incredibly stupid of them, but Willy’s clientele did not reside anywhere near the high end of the bell curve.
On the other hand, Angel knew that as soon as he walked into Willy’s, everyone would zip up their mouths—those whose faces came equipped with mouths, anyway, and those who had faces—and throw away the keys. Demons suspected of selling information to the renegade vampire were generally found in the alley behind Willy’s, beaten to a pulp and left to ferment with the rest of the bar’s garbage.
Of course, many of the ones administering said beatings had provided Angel with information in the past, and would eagerly do so in the future, if the price was right. Usually, Angel could make the price right. It didn’t take much money to buy someone when they were low-rent to start with.
Angel removed the calendar—Willy didn’t know that he knew about the peephole—and scanned the bar.
Demons, demons, demons. And many of them were vampires Angel didn’t recognize.
Some good ol’ boy from a nether dimension was wearing a black cowboy hat and a duster. He was green and scaly, and Angel thought he looked like a cheesy monster from an old scary movie. Clint Eastwood from the lower forty of hell. The cowboy was holding forth over a glass of beer while several demons were grouped around, listening and drinking.
“. . . so the Ono-movi demon’s daughter pouts and says, ‘If you loved me, you’d buy me a nice diamond ring,” the good ol’ boy continued, mimicking the falsetto of a female. “And the Fungus demon says, “Baby, that’s all the money I got, and I hadda roll a Fyrall demon to get that. So she says to me, ‘Where’s the Fyrall? I hear they’ve got a cream filling in the middle.’ ”
The bar rippled with laughter. Angel found it in himself to pity Willy, surrounded by cretins day and night. Then Willy stepped into Angel’s field of vision in front of the peephole, and the man was laughing as hard as his customers. Angel withdrew his pity. Willy was in his right place and time, after all.
“I gotta get some more Old Reliable,” Willy announced, throwing down the rag he’d been running along the varnished wood bar and bustling out of Angel’s sight.
Angel put the calendar back, strolled to the threshold of the office, and waited for Willy there.
Willy’s nose came half an inch short of colliding with Angel’s chest. He stopped on a dime, looked up, and said, in an extremely loud voice, “Hey, Angel. What a surprise! How you doing?”
Angel stepped back into the office. Willy hesitated, obviously nervous. Around Angel, he was often nervous. Around Angel, he had cause to be.
“Come in,” Angel said, leaning up against Willy’s cheap old desk. It was littered with pieces of paper, receipts, phone numbers written on matchbooks, and a paperback called: Bliss: Writing to Find Your True Self, by Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.
“Why are you here? I ain’t got nothing,” Willy whispered, running his hands through his oily hair. Angel suppressed a shudder. Willy had never left the greasy look behind, and the cheeseball insisted that his barber had assured him it was back. That gave Willy a nice excuse to really grease up.
“Just thought I’d drop by,” Angel said. He and Buffy—and now Faith—did that on occasion. They’d shake the tree, see what kind of worm-infested apples dropped. “What’s with all the fangs?”
Willy blinked, incredulous. “Hey, man, have you been outside?” He laughed nervously. “Nobody wants to be out on a night like tonight. On account of Disasters Are Us.” He chuckled at his own feeble joke.
Angel just kept looking at him.
The barman closed his eyes and nodded. “Oh, of course. That’s why you’re here. Slayer sent you. Hey, nobody’s said squat about doing spells to mess with the weather. I swear that, man.”
“Who are all the vampires in your bar?” Angel asked impatiently.
“Them? Heh-heh. No idea.” He shrugged and moved his hands, went to rake his fingers through his hair, but must have seen something on Angel’s face—such as extreme revulsion—that stopped him. Willy was one of those guys who looked, acted, and, no doubt, felt guilty even when all he was doing was taking up space on the planet.
Pursing his lips, Angel narrowed his eyes and gave Willy the full-on stare treatment. “Don’t screw with me, Willy. I’m not in the mood.”
The smarmy barman took a couple of steps backward and lifted his hands, palms facing Angel. “I can see that, Angel. I certainly can. Please, no cause for anger, you know?”
Angel kept staring. He’d learned that it didn’t take all that much to make Willy cave.
A few more seconds ought to do it . . . .
“All right, all right,” Willy said, and hesitated. Without shirting his gaze from Willy’s face, Angel pulled a twenty-dollar bill from the wallet in his pocket. Willy’s theatrical surprise and pleasure at such an offering was almost comical. But not quite.
“I heard some demons talking, okay?” he said uneasily. His gaze kept fluttering to the bill in Angel’s hand like a bee about to pollinate a totally gorgeous rhododendron. “They were talking about some demon in Boston. Boston, you know.” He bobbed his head left and right. “I’m figuring he’s after the new Slayer.”
“Boston.” He stared Willy down. Willy’s soul—if he had one left—was easily purchased, or at least rented, by the highest bidder. But he was also a coward, and he hated to be hurt.
And Angel knew how to hurt people.
It was frightening how easy it had been to learn.
And awful at how impossible it was to forget.
“Um, well also, there were these two vamps came into town a couple of nights ago, said they were sent by this demon. Um, I think his name was Tervokian. Gonna take her out with some axe or something,” Willy said in a rush. He held out the twenty. “That information’s on the house, Angel. Keep your money.”
“And of course you weren’t going to mention that to Buffy, Faith, or me,” Angel said icily.
Willy frowned and touched his own chest. “You cut me to the quick, Angel. Ha-ha, get it? Axe? Of course I was gonna come tell you. I just ain’t had the opportunity to get away from this crowd.”
“You got a phone?” Angel asked.
“It’s out. On account of the storm. Honest. You can try it.” He gestured to his incredibly messy desk. Then he swiveled his head in its direction and caught his breath.
Angel followed his line of sight. He saw nothing out of the ordinary besides the extraordinary chaos of a man who truly had no sense of organization, and no ability to think past the present moment, which usually centered around making a quick, dishonest buck.
With a glance at Willy, who had quickly ticked his gaze back to Angel, he crossed to the desk. He stared down at the papers and matchbooks, pens, and a well-thumbed edition of What Color Is Your Parachute?
Willy hurried up beside him and said, “Ain’t nothin’ there, Angel. Honest.”
Angel looked over at Willy, who was staring directly at a strip of yellow-lined notebook paper near the center of the desk. Angel tentatively moved toward it. Willy visibly tensed. Angel snatched it up.
“Don’t be mad,” Willy blurted.
Angel ignored him. He was reading the scribbling on the piece of paper. It read: Carlos New Mexico, axe?
“Oh, that. See, nobody’s seen the vamps since but that crazy old man, he’s been talking about axes and stuff.” He looked nervous, and made with the hair again. Angel’s stomach churned. He was sincerely glad he had no need to eat anything in the near future. Willy’s grooming habits were ruining his appetite, even for fresh, warm blood.
“I was gonna let you know,” Wi
lly sniveled. “I figured you already knew everything, so—”
“Something wrong, Willy?” one of the demons called. Willy swallowed hard.
“Please, Angel. They find you in here with me, I am so dead.”
Angel gritted his fangs. He said under his voice, “If someone brings that axe in, you let me know.”
Willy’s dark Italian-style eyes got big and round. “Of course. Of course.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “All the demons in town come here. I hear a lot of things. You know I’ve told you about a lot of things.”
“You nearly got me killed, too,” Angel said, whirling back around, his patience completely gone. “The first time Kendra came to Sunnydale, you were going to let me fry in the sun.”
“That was a misunderstanding,” Willy prevaricated. He was looking a little pasty. “I didn’t realize how, um, vital you were to the community back then. C’mon, Angel. Give me a chance. I’m a good guy now.”
Angel shook his head. He might be a vampire cursed to endure centuries of remorse for all the evil he had brought into the world, but at least he wasn’t Willy. The fates had not been that cruel.
“All you have to do is prove it, Willy.”
“You got it, babe. I mean, Angel.” Willy smiled brightly. He had very bad teeth.
Disgusted, Angel left the office and headed for the tunnels.
Once below, he heard thunder rumbling. Almost immediately, the storm drains began sluicing foul water into the sewer tunnel in which he was traveling. The water flashed to ankle-height, and as he swore under his breath, he had a brief flash of the chase scene in the sewer from Les Miserables. He’d read it in the original French, and had wondered at the time about Victor Hugo’s accuracy at getting every single inch of French sewer correct. Some vampires claimed the writer had been one of them, but Angel figured that to be an urban legend.
He sloshed to the nearest ladder and climbed up to the semicircular deluge that indicated a manhole cover.
Not a problem.
For a normal human being, the cover would have been quite heavy. There was something on top of it that was weighing it down.
