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Angels and Demons by TalesofSpike
 
Chapter 1.13
 
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Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 1 - HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

((Jim Steinman wrote it, I think, even though the site where I found the lyrics says it's Bonnie Tyler) - Bonnie Tyler




Chapter 1.13
Sunday, May 26th, 2002


"Angel, bu-." Skip coughed and spluttered once more. "Okay, not my buddy, but can't you see you already lost this fight? Coming back from a higher plane's like a diver coming up from the bottom of the ocean. If you don't take the time to do it right... well, what you get back won't necessarily be what went up there in the first place...

And if you do take your time and do it properly, then you're definitely going to get more than you bargained for."

Bee looked up from the notebook she had resting open on the counter between her and Wesley. Even at six in the morning after a sleepless night and a two hour drive, she still wasn't about to be seen in public without her black eyeliner and red lipstick, but the eyes the kohl outlined looked slightly redder than usual and her weariness showed in her posture. Rupert walked back and forth on the counter in front of the pair as if he were reading upside down and supervising as Bee coached Wes through the ritual. "Tell us something we don't know, one horn, or shut up." She pointed at a word in the notebook, the script looking like a cross between Cyrillic and Arabic. "Shuhnahean," she enunciated before waiting for Wesley to repeat it.

"Shinaheen."

"Nearly. More guttural on the first syllable and more drawn out on the last, like skean dubh. Try again."

"Shuhnahean."

Bee nodded and moved her finger back to the beginning of the passage, making Wes read all the way through to the point they had just reached before she moved on to the next word.




 




 

"Wes, the containment spell's ready." Fred called from the hotel's garden. "Are you sure you can get this Jacob's ladder hoosit to put her down where we want?"

"Never having used the spell before, I can't make any guarantees, but I think it's better that we try it this way rather than wait any longer or take the chance on releasing some grave evil. I'm sure, under the circumstances, if we give Cordy a few years, she might forgive us for keeping her captive until we can determine whether it really is just her that we got back.

Angel, it's decision time."

Angel's expression, even grimmer than usual, betrayed the difficulty of his choice. Wes and Fred had come to the same logical conclusion when they discovered the intricacies of the process to bring Cordy back. Angel had grudgingly concurred, but had put off any final decision until they were ready to put their plan in motion.

"Call through to their rooms and wake the others. I guess in the end it's my choice, but, considering the stakes, I don't want anyone saying they didn't get a chance to argue their point of view, and if we go ahead we better have some manpower available in case things go wrong."

 




 

"So you plan to free me from my captivity on a higher plane so that you can stick me in a cage down there?" Cordy sounded unimpressed. "And can I just say how much I don't like your little plan? Not that I'm particularly keen on the alternative, either, so I suppose I'm going to have to let you off, but you could at least have put one of the sofas in your little cell."

 




 

"So I guess in this little analogy, there's no equivalent of a depressurisation cylinder?" Spike asked.

"No," Angel confirmed. "We have one chance at this, no second guessing and no safety net. We're- ...or I should say Cordy's caught between a rock and a hard place, but she can't make this choice. We have to make it for her."

"So Brain Trust, over there, wants to go with the option where we could end up with brain-damaged, crippled, possessed Cordy rather than just possessed Cordy?" Gunn asked, having left his room for the first time since Wes's arrival.

Wes's tone was cool and level as he responded to the younger man's attack. "That is the case. There are risks inherent to each possible course of action, but on balance I think a possibly possessed Cordy whatever her physical or mental condition is preferable to an almost certainly possessed Cordy."

"And if some of us don't appreciate the idea of our friend ending up like some sort of Star-Trek transporter accident?"

"Then your opinion will be duly noted," Angel interrupted. "Lorne?"

The large, green demon gave a twist of one side of his mouth and tilted his head on one side in a sort of shrug. "I'm having a tough time thinking of anything worse than being trapped in my own body while someone else does the sort of driving that means I'm making not so sweet love with the kid I played mama for. I gotta think she'd rather we got three quarters of her back, than all of her and that hitchhiker. I'm with Wes."

Angel's gaze travelled to Spike and Buffy, but the blond shook his head. "S'your bird, all bar the shouting. We're just the tourists. If we can help, fine, but it's not our choice to make."

"Connor?"

"What if we just wait? There must be something we can do that doesn't involve all this magic, and we only have his word that this is true..." The teenager glared at Skip, still trapped inside his prison, though apparently untroubled enough to doze off leaning against the mystical force field that held him.

"His word under a truth spell," Spike gently reminded him. "Believe me, those things work. I know ."

"If we wait, whatever comes back, it won't be Cordelia," the other vampire argued. "It'll look like her. It might seem to act like her. It'll probably even smell like her, but it won't be her. Cordy will be trapped in her body with it, helpless to do anything, and the only help we'll be able to give her is to put her out of her misery. Waiting isn't an option."

Angel's gaze moved to Fred. "I know what you think." He spared her the burden of publicly siding with Wes against her boyfriend. He looked around the room again, meeting each person's gaze as he did so. "Wes, Fred, do what you need to get her back... and do it quick."

 




 

Angel, Wes, Lorne, Connor, Fred and Gunn waited just outside the bounds of the cylindrical containment spell that Fred had set up in the Hyperion's garden, while Spike, Buffy and Bee remained in the reception with the animals just in case Skip decided to take advantage of the others' distraction and make a break for freedom. The column of light that descended from the sky was barely distinguishable in the early morning sunshine, but, as Cordy came nearer, her own incandescence was clearly visible. The group held swords and axes and, in Lorne's case a tranquiliser pistol, reluctant as they all were to make use of them.

They all held their breath as the woman alighted on the ground next to the fountain at the centre of the garden. Brown eyes swept Angel from head to toe before returning to the broadsword he held in his hand.

"I know I stood you up, but isn't that just a bit on the extreme side?"

 




 

Cordy's reedy off-key rendition of 'The Greatest Love of All' ground to a halt as she watched Lorne's pained expression.

Everyone stared at the green demon, waiting for him to pronounce judgement. He simply shook his head. "What say Wes, here, gets back to learning Tarakeen? I'm going to go see if I can catch up on all that sleeping and all those seabreezes I missed last night."

As he turned to go, Cordy rushed after him. "Lorne?"

A dozen things happened at once as everyone reacted to the fact that the magical barrier had failed to contain the seer, but it was Connor's actions that made his father freeze in terror and brought a scream to Fred's lips. The teenager knew that the anagogic demon was simply stalling, that his gift had confirmed their worst fears and, if this thing could so easily circumvent what to all of them was an impenetrable force field, then it could not be allowed to roam free. Before anyone could intervene, the heavy double-headed axe that he carried was swinging with unerring accuracy for the slender column of Cordelia's neck.
 
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