Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 7 - LAKE OF FIRE

People cry, people moan.
Look for a dry place to call their home.
Try to find some place to rest their bones.
While the Angels and the Devils try to make THEM their own.

(Nirvana, Album - MTV Unplugged with thanks to Zanthinegirl for the suggestion)




Chapter 7.20
Friday, July 19th, 2002


Angel frowned as the phone rang, holding Cordelia just a little tighter as she stirred in her sleep as if his hold would delay the inevitable. She reached out anyway, not fully awake, but her response to the summons instinctive, pulling free of the vampire's arms as she picked up the receiver.

"Speak," she ordered, "and it better be good to wake me up at..." She wiped her eyes and peered at her alarm clock. "Half past four in the morning."

"Cordy, it's Fred. I think you and Angel had better get yourselves back to the hotel."

It wasn't so much the words Angel overheard, as the background noise. There was at least one child crying and another shouting. There were other voices as well, and such a variety of accents. He grabbed the phone from Cordy's hand.

"Manners much? It's still my apartment even if you think you live here... except when the rent's due." She pulled the phone back from his grasp. "Sounds like you've got a full house?" she asked the Texan.

"Not yet, but there are..." She paused as if waiting for information and Angel heard a cool female English voice supply the figure before Fred repeated it. "...twelve more minibuses coming."

"What the-?"

"They're from Sunnydale. Buffy's sent everyone who isn't fit to fight and some younger folk to keep an eye on all the kids. I don't know if we're going to have room for them all. Gunn's still on that stakeout at the Palisades. Connor's-. Well, he's got enough trouble trying to fend off all the hormone bombs. Most of them are kinda young for him, but there are a couple of injured ones near enough his age. Lorne's doin' what he can but some of the old guys are kinda hinky about the demon thing an'-."

"Enough already. We're on our way."

---

 

Cordy's first stop when she got to the hotel was the computer. To Angel and Fred's astonishment, she ignored the milling children and adults who were still waiting to be assigned rooms. She accessed their accounts package and went into the routine for issuing invoices.

"Cordy, don't you think maybe you should get them all settled before you start billing them for the rooms?" Angel asked, looking back and forward between the pair of young girls who were sliding down the hotel banisters and the old man who seemed to be giving Lorne a hard time as if he didn't know where to begin.

"I know that! I just figured that now would be the time to get them to pay up for all the damage their thugs did to the old offices when they were trying to assassinate Faith or abduct her or whatever it was they were doing that time. They ignored the first invoice I sent them with everything itemised, and our records got blown up with the old place, but three thousand should do it. Then , once we know how many we're doing room and board for and how long they're staying, I'll bill them for this time." With a flourish she pulled the sheet of paper from the printer almost as it finished printing. "Okay!" she called out loudly across the pandemonium of the hotel's reception area. "Which one of you watcher guys has a company Visa card?"

Lydia stepped forward, pulled a purse from her shoulder bag, and after extracting a rectangle of plastic, she tossed it onto the counter. "I can't guarantee the payment won't end up getting cancelled when Quentin finds out," she admitted, "but you're welcome as far as I'm concerned."

Angel abandoned his mission to protect the hotel's furnishings and turned sharply on his heel. "Quentin? As in Quentin Travers?" he asked, getting so close to the watcher in his unmistakable anger that the blonde had to tilt her head sharply back to meet his stare.

"Quentin as in Quentin Travers," she replied calmly, refusing to be intimidated. She had lived the greater part of her adult life in an organisation dominated by men who had often tried similar tactics of physical aggression. There were reasons other than her family connections that she had made it so far. "I assume that you must be Angel? Buffy sends her regards." She set her purse on the counter and removed an envelope from her bag.

Angel took the letter, pushing it into a coat pocket in an almost guilty manner. "You assume right." He picked up the card, reading it before Cordelia grabbed it from his hand and began processing the transaction. "Ms Lydia Chalmers. Are you telling me that Quentin Travers is here?"

"Not yet, but I imagine he would get here soon," she informed him, keeping her tone completely neutral. "His group had to make a stop at the hospital in Ventura but they were amongst the first to leave."

"Let me get this straight..." Angel glowered even more threateningly. "The man on whose authority my ex was poisoned and trapped in a building with a vampire who was a woman-hating multiple murderer before he was turned? The man who refused to even go so far as to provide us with information when I was dying? The one responsible for sending assassins after me and a woman under my protection and nearly destroying my apartment? The one who supplied more of that same poison so that it could be used on my grandchilde, not that there haven't been times when I'd have gladly staked Spike myself but that's my right... That Quentin Travers?"

The doors opened but neither Lydia nor Angel spared a glance for the new arrivals.

"I couldn't attest to all the incidents that you've brought up, but as the only other Quentin Travers I'm aware of is twelve years old, I would assume it's the same man."

"Lydia," Quentin's cool tones interrupted as the rest of the watchers he had travelled with seemed to disperse from around him. "I don't believe that your friend and I have met officially." He fixed the woman with a reproving glare. "I'm sure you and Rupert knew that if you had provided the name of our host or even the hotel name rather than just a number and street name that I would have foregone the pleasure, but since you declined to give me that opportunity I feel an introduction is the least I can expect."

Lydia showed she had as little intention of being bullied by Quentin as by the vampire who still towered over her. "We , and I believe you'll find there were rather more people than just Rupert and myself involved, decided it was for the best to avoid giving either of you advance warning. We thought the less time you both had available for pointless posturing, the better. Angel, meet Quentin Travers. It seems you already know him by reputation. Now, since the minibus should be on its way back to Sunnydale by now, and if you ," she said, turning her attention to Angel once more, "continue to make a fuss then Spike will win a rather large wager, I suggest the two of you declare a truce or Quentin calls himself a taxi. Of course, if he were to do that he might find himself rather out of the loop on what's happening."

Angel's lips pursed as he spent a couple of seconds considering her words, but as she turned her back on him to take the Visa slip from Cordelia and sign it, he obviously decided that discretion was not in this case the better part of valour. "As if I care whether Spike wins a bet," he pouted. "This guy did everything he could to ensure that I died-."

"I assure you, Angelus, had I done everything I could to ensure your death, then you would be so much dust."

"Yeah, right, 'cause you made such an efficient job of killing Spike?" the vamp retorted.

At the reception desk Cordelia rolled her eyes, passed Lydia her card and her copy of the visa slip and locked the others safely in the drawer beneath the counter until the banks opened. "So how much is Spike making out of some chump?"

"Well, I believe if Angel keeps arguing then Faith is going to owe him two hundred dollars." The blonde smiled as she felt the vampire's gaze return to her. "She said that if she could cope with having the guy who tried twice to have her 'bumped off' around, then so could Angel. Spike said he'd play the drama queen."

The vampire realised that his mouth was open. He closed it and headed for the stairs. "I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me."

Cordelia scowled, looking very much like she wanted to point out that they needed him right now, but she let him walk away nevertheless. She reached behind her, picked the key to a chamber well away from where Angel's own was situated, and handed it to Quentin. "I'm thinking you might want to stay in your room most of the time," she suggested.

She waited until Quentin had headed up the stairs before she turned back to Lydia. "Did Faith really bet Spike two hundred dollars that Angel wouldn't argue with Quentin?"

"Faith broke out of prison a few months ago and hasn't had paid employment since. What do you think?" Lydia asked.

"I think you're a very sneaky woman," the once-more-brunette answered, her voice holding a note of admiration.

---

 

Angel brushed past the dark-haired girl as he made his way to his room, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Already struggling to maintain his temper, it was all he could do not to growl. The girl stared at him as if she too had felt the instinct to attack. She looked old enough to be at the fight, but she smelled of old blood, some wound mostly healed but one that Buffy might have judged too likely to reopen in a fight.

Her companion turned back when she realised that she had stopped. "Shannon?"

"He's a vampire," the first girl whispered.

The second girl smiled placatingly at them both. "I guess that would make him Angel then. Someone said this was his hotel. I'm sorry." She tugged at her friend's sleeve, with her good arm, the other one being cradled in a sling against her chest. She kept talking but the words seemed to bypass Angel's brain. Like the distant background chatter in a pub or at a hockey game, he was aware of it as noise, but it had no meaning or significance. All that mattered was that there were, not one, but two slayers here, now, in this hotel.

The hand in his coat pocket crumpled the envelope from Buffy, the letter she must have written before she went out on whatever mission had claimed her life with less than two days to go before her wedding. And Faith, just yesterday or so it seemed, teasing him for wanting a hug, demanding a Big Mac and waltzing through reception in nothing but a towel on her way to ransack Cordelia's locker in the basement.

And now two slayers, both injured, both here rather than back in Sunnydale where the trouble was... Just Spike and the Scoobies, only this time no Willow, no big gun.

Things in Sunnydale must have gone to hell, possibly literally, and Spike, it seemed, was still there fighting. At least, Angel's demon hadn't felt the howling abyss that was the loss of family, true family, close family. Tonight when the sun set, he would head for Sunnydale to offer what help he could in Spike's search for vengeance. Today, he would mourn for his one-time love and for his friend.