R: "What do you want me to say?"
B: "Lie to me."
R: "Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats. We always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after."
B: "Liar."
(Rupert 'Ripper' Giles and Buffy Anne Summers, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)
"The truth is out there, Mulder. But so are lies."
(Dana Katherine Scully, X-FILES)
"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter WHICH side he's on."
(Alef Yossarian, CATCH-22)
A wise man once said, who you are can depend on who you meet.
For two men that were about to bump into each other that night, that was painfully correct. Both of them had met up with a number of different people, that had shaped them into who and what they currently were.
It was a curious coincidence that for both of them, the most important changes had been brought about by women.
In the case of the one currently calling himself Angel, it had all begun back in Galway, Ireland, in 1753. One night he'd gotten thrown out of a tavern more than a little drunk, and met a beautiful woman in an alley named Darla.
Only, she was a soulless demon and she killed him, turning him into the infamous vampire Angelus, who terrorized Europe for over 140 years.
One of his many victims was an innocent young London girl called Drusilla, whom he drove insane and made a vampire in 1860. Some years later they were joined by a fledgling British vamp known as William the Bloody, who loved Drusilla and earned the nickname 'Spike' for liking to torture his human victims with such railyard implements.
Then in 1898, Angelus met another woman, a girl really, the favorite daughter of the Kalderash, a tribe of gypsies in Rumania. After he murdered her, the gypsies took their revenge by cursing him with his human soul, so that he would exist in perpetual guilt and torment over all the crimes he had committed.
Now nearly 100 years later, the tall, dark-haired souled vampire was seriously contemplating suicide, not knowing that in less than 24 hours someone named Whistler would find him, and would eventually lead him to what would be the most important woman of his existence.
Someone he would love, someone that should have been his mortal enemy - Buffy Summers, the vampire Slayer.
On the other hand, in the case of the man known as Fox William Mulder it had begun one night in 1973, when he was just a 12-year-old boy. While his parents were away, someone or SOMETHING abducted his 8-year-old sister Samantha Ann Mulder from their house, while he watched and was somehow unable to move.
Forever filled with guilt, his life had never been the same and it had led him upon a never-ending quest to find her.
Then in 1993, as Special Agent in Charge of the X-files division of Violent Crimes Section of the FBI he too met a woman, a fellow FBI agent named Dana Scully, that would become his partner and the most important person in his life.
Although the dark-haired agent aimed to live by the motto 'Trust no one', they had gotten close enough that her abduction in 1994 had been one of the worst nightmares Mulder had ever experienced, and it had almost sent him over the edge into madness.
Now two years later he had learned many shocking things, both personally and professionally. Mulder had met a woman claiming to be his sister, who turned out to have green blood and might have been an alien-human hybrid clone.
The experience had only reinforced his suspicions that extraterrestrials had abducted his sister that night, and the government was guilty of complicity and ruthlessly covering up both illegal experiments and the abductions.
As Mulder was walking along the Manhattan street, a homeless man dressed in ragged and filthy clothes bumped into him. "Sorry," they both said automatically and started to move off.
Then Mulder paused, and something made him look more closely at this guy. He didn't know why, but something about him was...strange. Familiar. Yet he felt sure he had never laid eyes on him before today.
They made eye contact only for a moment before Angel left him behind, already dismissing the incident and brooding again about the numerous horrors he had committed in the past. But Mulder turned and stared at the departing figure, his Oxford-educated mind trying to figure out why he was suddenly so fascinated with a street bum.
Although he failed to find the answer, Mulder's eidetic memory stored away the incident in one of its many compartments, in case he ever met the man again.
Suddenly, with the kind of certainty that had earned him the nickname of "Spooky" Mulder in the Behavioral Sciences division of the FBI, he had the feeling that he WOULD meet this guy again...
The lawyer from the LA firm Wolfram and Hart was patiently waiting for his two companions to stop squabbling. "May I suggest..."
"Be silent!" one of them looked at him with disdain.
"I was merely going to say..."
"Lawyer double-talk." the other one sneered.
"Need I remind you that you were the ones who contacted us, and brought me here? You wanted someone to broker the acquisition of a certified specialist to uh, remove the souled vampire known as Angel..."
"We want an assassin! Lawyers. Do you have to use a thousand words when only one will do? We want the best, a true soldier of darkness. Get a Mohra demon for us to do the job!"
"Certainly, if that is what you want. However, may I ask if you have considered making any contingency plans?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's standard practice. For an extra sum, we can arrange that if the attempt fails, a backup assassin will strike again later. He's someone I know personally, a shapeshifter Mohra who's never failed yet. It's a form of insurance for a reasonable amount of money, if you will."
One of the customers was outraged. "You thieving..."
His companion silenced him with a look. "Money is no object. But Angel must die. The end of days has begun, and there must be no interference from the likes of him." He fixed the lawyer with a look, identical to the one his associate had received a moment ago. "Do whatever it takes, or you're the one who's going to end up dead."
Angel sat in his private office of his workplace, awaiting the arrival of two people from the town of Sunnydale, California. One was the 126-year-old vampire now known as Spike, and the other was a human by the name of Xander Harris.
He wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing either of them - Spike had physically tortured him a few months ago, and the memories were still fresh in his mind.
Xander on the other hand, had annoyed him from almost the moment they had laid eyes on each other some years ago. However, under the circumstances he needed their help, and so he was determined to at least be...civil.
As the human and the vampire came through the front door of the Angel Investigations detective agency, it was obvious that they were in the middle of one of their many arguments. Angel came out to listen...
Xander was yelling, "Where the hell did you learn to drive, Spike? You could have gotten me killed a dozen times over!"
"Stop complaining, you useless wanker," Spike answered in a bored voice. "We got here in one piece, didn't we?"
"Sure, if you don't count the fender bender you caused! Buffy's gonna kill me when she finds out what happened to her mom's new car!"
Spike grinned nastily, "Ooh, who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, you wuss?"
Xander gave him an equally nasty grin. "That sounds funny, coming from a vamp who got down on his knees and begged a Slayer to marry him!"
Spike grew furious in an instant. "So help me you bloody asshole, if I didn't have this damn thing in my head I'd drink all of your blood faster than..."
"Yeah, yeah," Xander replied in a bored voice. "Come on, tell it to someone who cares, O impotent one..."
"HEY!!!" Angel shouted, interrupting the bickering. "WILL YOU TWO KNOCK IT OFF?!!"
Both Xander and Spike shut up and looked at him in surprise. "Hey Deadboy," Xander grinned at him, "what's up?"
Angel groaned. "Will you STOP calling me that? Now both of you, listen to me. The Abbot and Costello routine ends right here, right now, understand?"
Xander and Spike looked at each other and shrugged. Angel sighed, even though as a vampire he didn't need to, and figured this was as good as it was going to get. "Thank you. Now, as to why you're here..."
"You said you knew Drusilla's whereabouts," Spike interrupted him. "Where is she? That's the only reason I'm here, mate."
"Yeah, and I have all the luck on account of I have to keep an eye on his useless British bum..."
"I SAID ENOUGH!" Angel yelled before the two of them started arguing again. "Spike, Xander, no more. Listen to me very carefully. I have a situation here, I'm involved in an undercover operation and I needed at least two people that aren't known in LA. That's why I arranged for both of you come here, to act as bodyguards. All you have to do is stand up straight and look mean - and after it's over Spike, that's when you get Dru's whereabouts."
"What if you get killed before you give it to me?" the younger vampire asked.
"Then you won't get the chance for her to take you back and dump you again?" replied Xander in an amused voice.
Spike just turned and snarled at him, then clutched his head in pain as the experimental implant to prevent him harming living things kicked in. "Harris, one day..."
Just then, the two employees of Angel Investigations walked in, Cordelia Chase and Wesley Wyndham-Price. Both were chatting and laughing away, till they saw the Sunnydale arrivals.
Cordelia went silent at the sight of her ex-boyfriend Xander - although they had parted on bad terms in high school, some of the bitterness had faded so that they could at least be in the same room again now, without trying to kill each other.
Angel sensed the discomfort and said quickly, "Wesley, Cordelia, stay here and keep an eye on things. Spike, Xander and I will be joining Kate soon, we have a meet and they need to get changed. Come on, you two."
Spike immediately followed Angel, eager to get this over with so he could find Drusilla again, but Xander lingered, his eyes locked with Cordelia's as they disappeared into the office.
"Are you all right?" Wesley asked his co-worker in his accented British voice.
"Yeah," Cordelia said, turning around to face him. "I'm fine."
Wesley just nodded, knowing it wasn't true.
FBI Agent Fox Mulder was driving his rented Ford sedan, alone in LA. The radio started playing the classic song 'Highway to Hell', but Mulder quickly switched it off with a grimace. He and Agent Dana Scully had been in the City of Angels for nearly a week, helping to solve a gruesome case with a devil-worshipping serial killer.
Eventually they had caught him just as he was about to sacrifice the latest victim to his personal vision of Satan, and now he and Scully were ready to go back to Washington.
Driving along the freeway, Mulder saw a vehicle ahead of him swerve into the emergency lane, the victim of a flat tire. The driver got out, kicked the offending tire in frustration, turned around and flagged down the closest car - which was his.
As he stopped, she shoved her ID at him and snapped, "Detective Kate Lockley, LAPD. I need to commandeer your car right now."
Mulder took out his own ID and said, "Fox Mulder, FBI. Hop in, tell me what I can do to help..."
Kate stared at the FBI man, and shrugged and decided to accept the professional courtesy. She supposed there was something about Mulder that made her trust him. "I have to get to an undercover meet set up by a local private detective. This law firm, Wolfram and Hart? Someone's offering to sell information that could close them down permanently, and I gotta be there."
Mulder stared at her, and decided to just follow her directions. Unbeknownst to him though, their every move was being watched by a killer named Alex Krycek, Mulder's former partner in the FBI...
The unofficial sting operation was underway, trading the information for cash. Angel and Kate were on one side, with Xander and Spike acting as bodyguards. Xander felt ridiculous; he and Spike were dressed in sunglasses and black suits that in his opinion, looked like something from out of the movie PULP FICTION or MEN IN BLACK.
He wouldn't have put it past Cordelia to have deliberately gotten these threads for exactly that purpose, just to make him feel self-conscious. Spike on the other hand, was completely and thoroughly bored, and wanted nothing more than to get out of there.
Mulder watched surreptitiously from the window, as the deal went down. Suddenly, he got a very bad feeling as one of the guys on the opposite side came forward, to deal with Angel. He edged towards the entrance, ready to offer help if need be...
Angel looked at the nondescript man in the dark suit as he broke ranks. When he was less than two feet away, he dropped the briefcase and his features changed into that of a green-skinned samurai demon, with a red jewel in his forehead. He drew a curved sword from behind his back, and started towards the vampire.
Angel knew at once he was dealing with another Mohra demon, like that one that had tried to kill him and Buffy Summers some time before. Thus he desperately got out of its way, as it tried to cut off his head. The three men on the enemy side pulled out guns and started to aim them at the good guys.
Kate pointed her own weapon at them and yelled, "POLICE! You're under arrest!"
A gunfight broke out, and as Mulder came in yelling he was from the FBI and that they should lower their weapons, the bullets started flying everywhere and he and Kate were up against the other three in a fight to the death.
A short distance away in the warehouse from the gun battle, the fight between Angel and the shapeshifter Mohra demon was not going well for the vampire. Angel was sliced on his left arm and Spike was loving it, he thought < Angelus is finally getting what he deserves! > Then he remembered that he needed Angel in one piece, at least for now.
Thus he grabbed the samurai's sword, and tried to stab the demon in the heart with it. He missed though, the fluorescent green blood staining the weapon. Then the assassin recovered and grabbing the weapon stabbed Spike, swatting him away.
Not thinking about what he was doing, Xander joined in the fight, attacking the demon from behind and rolling around with him on the floor, the sword being lost in the process.
The Mohra demon raked its razor-sharp nails down Xander's arm and hand, drawing red blood from the human. As their wrestling continued, their blood mixed and there was a brief flash of light around Xander, that went unseen underneath their rolling bodies.
Grabbing the sword, Angel drove it towards the jewel in the demon's forehead the moment he had a clear shot. The Mohra assassin tried to move out of the way, but its efforts were in vain, as the jewel was smashed and it disappeared with a scream in a burst of light.
Elsewhere the gun battle was coming to an end; hiding behind each other's cars, both sides had exchanged gunfire, but Kate and Mulder's superior marksmanship were winning the war.
Angel witnessed this and grabbed the unconscious Spike, saying to Xander, "I have to get Spike out of here, there'll be too many questions. I'll get in touch with you at the hospital, okay? Just don't say anything about the demon to that FBI agent!"
Xander just nodded, as the two vampires took off towards the rear of the warehouse and the sewer entrance. Suddenly, the remaining enemy man alive in the gunfight gave up and started running off out the door. Mulder wanted to chase him, but then he noticed Kate was injured and so was Xander, who by now had joined them.
"Don't worry," Xander lied, holding his arm, "the guys have gone after him, he won't get far!"
Mulder nodded, and went to radio for an ambulance. He wasn't looking forward to trying to explain this one to Scully or his superiors in the FBI...
Mulder was in the emergency room with Kate and Xander, talking to the uniformed cops and making a statement. Xander was waiting to be fixed up, and Kate was getting the gunshot wound in her shoulder attended to, which luckily wasn't much more than a flesh wound.
Finishing up, Mulder's attention was mostly focused on Xander right now. He hadn't realized in the heat of battle just how young this guy was, he was barely more than a kid in late teens or early twenties! < There must be something special about him to be in this line of work so young, > Mulder thought.
All of a sudden Xander collapsed, right in the middle of complaining to Kate how much he hated hospitals. The intern on duty told everybody to stand back, as he started to examine the teen.
"Probably shock," he said to the nurses, as the boy lay motionless before him. "Okay, let's move him out of the ER and check him out stat, full blood work-up, toxicology, the lot. Let's go, people!" he said as they hoisted Xander onto a gurney and wheeled him away.
A short time later Xander was unconscious in a hospital room with a nurse, as Mulder came in to check on him. Mulder's curiosity was still sky-high, as the nurse injected a needle into his arm and drew blood for analysis.
The shock and horror on the nurse's face had to be seen to be believed, as she noticed the ampoule filled up with a pale GREEN liquid. She dropped it, and the glass shattered all over the floor. She looked ready to scream, when Mulder clapped his hand over her mouth.
"It's okay," he said to her calmly, as she looked at him in fear and confusion. "I've seen this sort of thing before." < Well, not exactly, > he thought to himself, < otherwise that blood would be like acid and we'd both be dead. But she doesn't need to know that. > Anyway, there wasn't time to worry about that now. "I need you to take more blood samples. Can you do that?"
The nurse just nodded dumbly, as her brain was unable to process any of this and she just did as he asked, drawing out another two lots of the green blood. Mulder confiscated one of them and said to her, "I want you to set up a guard on this hospital room, understand? No one is to come in or out, not until I get to the bottom of this. Will you do that?"
The nurse just nodded again, and started to make her way out of the room. Alex Krycek, who had been watching the whole thing in disguise through the hospital room window, left before she could see him and went to make a phone call to his superiors.
A phone twittered in a dark room, and a middle-aged smoking man answered it. "Yes?" the Cigarette-Smoking Man asked.
He listened to the other end for a short time, and then said, "Very well, Alex. Keep them both under surveillance for now." He hung up and turned to face his shadowy colleagues. "We may have a situation," he said to them.
"What kind?" one of the men asked.
"A man with green blood in a hospital in Los Angeles has been identified by Agent Mulder," he replied.
"How is that possible?!" demanded another man in a raspy voice.
"I don't know," the Cigarette-Smoking Man said calmly, taking a long puff on his Morley. "But the situation will have to be taken care of."
None of his companions commented on that, but they all knew what he meant. Their green-blooded, massive-bodied, shape-changing assassin would soon be coming.
A short time later, Mulder was in a private area of the hospital, and took out his cell phone and dialed Washington long distance. The number was a highly secret one, known only to a select few - for it was the number for the Lone Gunmen, an organization of three men who were paranoid conspiracy theorists. They were otherwise known as John Fitzgerald Byers, Ringo Langly and Melvin Frohike.
"Hello?"
"It's Mulder. Frohike, turn the machine OFF," he snapped.
"It's off," the short, spectacled Frohike confirmed, switching off the recorder. "Good to hear from you, my friend. What's up?"
"Have you gotten that information I asked for on that Xander Harris kid yet?"
"Already?" Frohike was astounded. "Mulder, you called us less than an hour ago. We're good, but not that good. Just don't tell the beautiful Dr. Scully I said that, of course."
All of a sudden, the bearded man known as Byers came onto the line. "Mulder, it's me, Byers. I think we've got something."
"What?"
"Langly can tell you about it..."
The blonde man took up the conversation. "It's me, Mulder. Man, you won't believe some of the things I've come up with!"
"Spill it already, Langly."
"According to official records, Alexander Lavelle Harris was born January 3, 1981 in the town of Sunnydale, California. I did some digging - this town must be like a cosmic G-spot for paranormal phenomena, Mulder! People are constantly disappearing, and the police reports blame it on gangs high on PCP. But I managed to read some of the classified files, things that mention attacks by demons and vampires."
"Vampires?" Mulder echoed in astonishment.
"Yeah, and this kid seems to be associated with it somehow. Him and some friends of his, Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg, their names were at the head of a list kept by some detective named Stein, in the Sunnydale PD."
"Is this kid a member of the gangs then?"
"No, no I don't think so. There are reports there about him and his friends fighting them, in cemeteries and whatnot. And something else, Mulder; two years ago during Halloween, this kid was spotted in military uniform waving around an M-16, and fighting against some sort of monsters."
"Are you sure it was him? He's kinda young..."
"That's not all, Mulder," Byers interrupted him. "You remember last year, when a high school in California was blown up on graduation day for the class of '99, it was in all the papers?"
"Yeah?" Mulder asked in confusion.
"It was Sunnydale High, Mulder, this kid's school. And what the papers didn't say was that there was a giant snake or something that appeared out of nowhere, and killed some of the people in attendance. Guess who was spotted giving orders to an army of students who stopped this thing?"
Mulder looked around in the direction of Xander's room. "This just gets better and better. Anything else you can tell me?"
"Mulder, there's one other thing that we've found; lately he's been associating with some girl named Anya, she was in the same graduating class in high school that he was."
"So?"
"Mulder, this girl does not exist. All of her official records are fakes - damn good ones - it's like she fell out of the sky one day and just sorta settled into that town."
"You think she might be like him?"
"I don't know, but this is serious stuff, Mulder; we're talking heavy military involvement to set this sort of thing up. You better watch your back around this guy."
"Thanks for the warning. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
"Give my regards to Agent Scully!" Frohike's voice piped in. Mulder just smiled and disconnected the call, and replaced the cell in his pocket. "Alexander Harris, I have some questions for you..." he said to himself as he headed back to Xander's room.
The shape-changing assassin, who Mulder thought of as the Alien Bounty Hunter during their encounters in the past, was in perfect disguise as Detective Kate Lockley as he walked through the hospital. As the assassin came to Xander's room, 'she' stopped and flashed a badge to the uniformed guard. "Police business," the hitman said gruffly.
The guard examined the photo and the woman holding the ID, then nodded and stepped aside. The assassin went into the room, shutting the door firmly.
As the killer went up to the bed, 'she' withdrew an alien stiletto weapon and the long, thin needle-like blade clicked out. The shape-changer raised the weapon to strike at the back of Xander's neck, but all of a sudden just stopped, and stared at the teen in puzzlement.
Mulder came in through the door at that exact moment, and saw what was going on. He shouted, "Don't move!" withdrawing his gun and pointing it at the target.
The shape-changing assassin morphed back into his usual male self, shedding the Kate image like a coat. Mulder immediately recognized him. "You..."
The Alien Bounty Hunter said to Mulder emotionlessly, "Yes. I remember you. You're the troublemaker."
Mulder said firmly, "Drop your weapons and get your hands up! I have a lot of questions for you."
The shape-changer morphed back into Kate, saying, "Are you willing to die to get your answers?"
Mulder hesitated to pull the trigger, as the assassin came close and suddenly slugged him with inhuman strength. Mulder hit the wall and collapsed unconscious, as "Kate" walked out of the room and into the hospital corridor.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man and the alien assassin stood next to one another, in the shadows of an empty room. Both men had an unpleasant expression on their faces.
The Alien Bounty Hunter coldly told his companion, "Do not waste my time like that again."
The smoking man replied, "My apologies. However, on the information at hand it appeared that your services were required."
The shape-changer ignored that and said, "Your friend Mulder was also there. His interference is beginning to become annoying."
The Cigarette-Smoking Man hastily reassured him, "You know his importance to the project, and I will be keeping an eye on Agent Mulder personally. What is the situation, if I may ask?"
The assassin replied, "The boy to whom you sent me is a curiosity. My people will investigate him further." Giving the smoker a long look, he then strode off into the darkness.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man watched him depart, trying to think of how this latest move had affected the game. He disliked upheavals like this - it was enough to make him think that perhaps Fox Mulder's father Bill had been right after all, they should never have made an alliance with the shape-changer's people.
But it was far too late to worry about that now - survival was the only thing that mattered anymore, no matter who had to be sacrificed for it to happen.
Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully of the FBI was examining Fox Mulder's chart, exasperated that her partner had once AGAIN managed to somehow get himself hurt. The redheaded doctor and agent was thinking that almost every emergency room in the country must know the man on sight by now, when Mulder started to groan and wake up.
"Mulder? It's me, Scully. Just calm down, relax..." she tried to soothe him.
"We don't have time for that, Scully," and he dragged himself out of bed, explaining to her what had happened as he got dressed. "I have to talk to this kid, Scully. Right now, before the military get here and he conveniently disappears."
Scully was sceptical, as usual. "Mulder, you seem to be taking a lot on faith here...and besides, I thought you said you had a guard on him?"
Mulder finished getting dressed, and brought out the green blood sample he'd successfully hidden in his jacket. He grinned for a moment, then held it up in front of Scully's astonished face, and simply said, "We gotta hurry."
Mulder spoke more truly than he knew, for a short time previously Xander had woken up and blindly started pulling the wires out of his body, trying to get up. Outside, the guard noticed a man coming up to the room. "Can I help you?"
Alex Krycek didn't say anything, he simply killed the guard with a silenced pistol and went into the room. He saw Xander getting up, and calmly shot him twice. Examining the body and satisfied that the man was deceased, Alex quickly left the room.
But Xander was infected with an aspect of a Mohra demon, and like Lazarus he was soon resurrected from the dead. Once his body regenerated itself, he got up leaving green blood all over the floor, and without knowing where he was going he hurried out of the room and eventually out of the hospital.
A few minutes later Mulder and Scully arrived at his room, and saw the dead guard. Leaving Mulder alone for a few minutes, Scully went to alert the hospital authorities and organize a search for the missing patient.
Mulder examined the green blood, as Kate came into the room. "What's going on?" she asked him in confusion.
Mulder stared at her, but was almost immediately convinced she was the real thing. "We have a homicide," he said to her, "and possibly a missing witness. What can you tell me about this guy Alexander Harris?"
Kate simply shrugged. "I never saw him before today, to be honest with you. Angel could probably tell you more, I guess he's the guy who knows him, he brought him to the meet."
"Who's Angel?"
Kate was now definitely uncomfortable, she knew she couldn't say anything about vampires to a Fed if she wanted to keep her job. Of course, if she had known about the X-files and who Mulder really was she might have been more forthcoming, but she didn't. "He's a local private detective," she said carefully. "Maybe he hired him."
Mulder looked at her carefully, knowing she wasn't telling him everything. However, there was no time for long questions now. "And where do I find this guy?"
Xander burst in through the front door, eliciting exclaims of surprise from Wesley, Angel and Cordelia. Spike wasn't there, as he had gone off to find Drusilla, but the other three quickly rushed over to him.
"Xander Harris, where you have been?!" demanded Cordelia. "You had us all worried sick! Talk about self-centered..."
"Not now, Cordelia!" Angel ordered her. "Xander, what happened? The hospital staff wouldn't tell me anything, just that some guard had been killed outside your room..."
Xander held up his hand for quiet, and all three could see he was perspiring heavily. "Watch this," he said, and he took his palm and slashed against the side of the desk, and the green blood came seeping out. He held his hand up so they could see. "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?" he yelled.
Angel's mind was working faster than anybody else's, and he quickly figured it out. "Xander, you've been infected with the blood of a demon."
"WHAT?!" demanded Wesley and Cordelia.
Angel ignored that. "Cordelia, go get some salt water. Lots of it. Now!" As Cordelia hurried to obey, he said to Xander, "You better lie down," just as the teen collapsed.
Angel quickly swept everything off the desk, and told Wesley, "Grab his legs!" As Xander started to go into convulsions, the two men lifted him onto the desk and held him down.
Cordelia arrived with the salt water, and Angel quickly poured it down Xander's throat. As soon as he did the convulsions stopped, to everybody's relief. As Xander lay there Cordelia asked, "Could we have some explanations now?"
Angel said to Wesley, "Go get the Book of Kelsor," and he explained to both of them what he thought had happened. "Xander was bleeding, his blood and that of the Mohra demon must have mixed during the fight. The same thing that happened to me before when Buffy was here, it must have happened to him."
Wesley said studying the book, "Mohra demon...ah yes, 'needs vast amounts of salt to live.' And here, 'veins run with the blood of eternity.' Does that mean..."
"I don't know," confessed Angel. "The demon's blood made me human, it has regenerative properties but I have no idea what it'll do to someone who's already alive."
Cordelia asked, "Do you want to go talk to those, what was it again, Oracles?"
"I could, but I doubt they'll say anything that'll be helpful."
Cordelia began to look nervous. "So is Xander gonna be all right, or is he going to go all psycho-demony on us?"
Both men looked at her, but neither of them had any answers. Wesley suddenly asked, "Do you think he killed that hospital guard?"
Angel looked at him and frowned. "I doubt it," he finally said. "The man would have been armed, and Xander looks pretty weak. But either way, I think we're going to have company soon."
"What's your plan, boss?"
Angel looked at Wesley. "Personally, I'd prefer to keep him here on ice until you found the answer on how to cure him. But, we can't afford for him to be found on the premises by the police. You better take him back to Sunnydale, and let the others there help him."
Wesley nodded, when Cordelia suddenly spoke. "Wait. I should be the one to take him."
Angel and Wesley looked at her, surprised at how she was acting around her ex-boyfriend. She looked annoyed and said, "Puh-leaze. Lay off the funny ideas, okay? I'm not going soft on him or anything, it's just that he's never liked Wesley and I don't think he'll attack me or something if he wakes up during the trip."
Angel didn't like it, but he had to agree her plan was less risky. Thus the arrangements were made and soon, Cordelia and Xander were on their way.
Fox Mulder pulled up in front of the detective agency, and went up and knocked on the front door. A man with a British accent answered it, and let him in.
"I'm looking for someone named Angel," Mulder said to the people in the room. By this time Spike had returned, and he, Wesley and Angel looked at the FBI agent.
Angel stepped forward. "That would be me," he said quietly. "How can I help you?"
Mulder stared at him, and his internal radar system suddenly sounded screaming a warning at him. He narrowed his eyes and displaying his ID he said, "Fox Mulder, FBI. Have we met before?"
Angel began to get uneasy. "I don't think so..."
"Yeah, we have...I just can't place where -" Then his mind made the connection. "Manhattan, 1996. You were dressed as a bum, right?"
Angel was astounded. He didn't know that anyone in law enforcement had known him from those days, and his concern about this FBI agent was suddenly triple what it had previously been. "That was a long time ago, and I don't like to think about that."
Mulder stared at him and shrugged, it was probably irrelevant now anyway. "I want to talk to you about Alexander Harris."
Angel said simply, "What do you want to know about Xander?"
"First off, where did you meet him?"
"A few years ago, when he was in high school."
"Does he work for you?"
"No. He was in town, and able to fill in a role for someone to play a bodyguard at the meet you came to. That's all."
"Where is he now?"
"At the hospital."
"Don't give me that," Mulder said impatiently. "We all know he left there over an hour ago."
"I didn't," Spike said sarcastically.
Mulder ignored him. "A man was killed there shortly before he left. There were large amounts of green blood on the floor, which makes me think someone wants him dead. If it's the people I think it is, your friend is in big trouble."
"What sort of trouble?" asked Wesley.
"The kind where you inherit the earth, or rather a plot of it about six feet by three, understand? I don't want this kid to die, Mr. Angel, but that's what'll happen if he's not protected."
Angel said slowly, "Xander will be safe. Giles and the others will take care of him."
"Giles?" asked Mulder in astonishment.
"Rupert Giles," said Wesley.
"Otherwise known as the Ripper, from Oxford?"
The three looked at Mulder in astonishment. "You know him?" asked Angel for all of them.
"Not well, he was finishing at Oxford when I started. We had a few beer nights though, and I remember the name."
"Terrific," sneered Spike, "another bloody foreign-educated Yank!"
"Look who's talking," quipped Mulder, "a Piccadilly punk?"
Both Angel and Wesley averted their faces to keep from openly grinning, but Spike snarled, putting on his game face and lunging forward. He immediately stopped though, holding his head and yelling in pain as the implant kicked in again.
Mulder got his gun out. "What's going on?" Then examining the fangs and everything, it suddenly dawned on him. "He's a vampire?"
Angel was amazed at how calmly Mulder seemed to be taking it. < I wonder why he seems so unsurprised? > he thought. He then voiced the same question.
Mulder did not answer, as he was unwilling to talk about a woman called Kristen he had met in 1994, who had almost turned him into a vampire. Besides, this was neither the time nor the place. He simply said, "I suggest we get back on track here - you sent Harris back home, right?"
Angel simply nodded. "It seemed the logical thing to do. One of my assistants took him in my car."
"I suggest we go after them, right now. I have to collect my partner, we'll meet you back here soon." He went to leave, but then suddenly turned around and said, "Just for the record - is your friend an alien hybrid clone?"
Angel's jaw nearly fell to the floor. "What? No!"
Spike said, "Have you gone bloody nuts or what? There's no such thing as aliens!"
Mulder was getting philosophical in his old age. He said to himself, shaking his head, "I can't believe a vampire just tried to Scully me."
"What are you talking about?" Wesley asked.
"Never mind." So saying, he left the office and as soon as he went outside, he smelled cigarette smoke. Mulder knew instantly who was in the shadows.
Sure enough, the Cigarette-Smoking Man stepped out to greet him. "Good evening, Mr. Mulder."
"Hello to you too, you black-lung son of a bitch."
"Language, please, Fox. What would your mother think?"
"What do you want?"
"I received a phone call from Wolfram and Hart, a law firm here in Los Angeles. I didn't know you had taken up annoying lawyers."
"Why do I think you get along real well with them?"
The Cigarette-Smoking Man simply chuckled. "Some friendly advice, Agent Mulder. Forget about this one. It's not one of the more important episodes of the game."
Mulder stared at his nemesis and said calmly, "Now you've really gotten me interested." Without looking at him any further or saying another word, Mulder got into his car and drove off to find Dana Scully.
Xander and Cordelia were driving along the highway, as they passed the Palmdale turnoff. Xander had woken up and as long as he had lots of salt, he seemed fine.
Cordelia had told him everything Angel had told her, and it had not gone down very well. Xander's range of emotional responses had ranged from disbelief to anger, then denial, then despair and finally acceptance, mainly because despite everything he still trusted her.
The conversation after that had been strained and sporadic, and Cordelia racked her brain for something to say. "So, Xander," she eventually came up with, "got any plans now?"
Xander just stared at her. "Jeez, Cordy..."
Cordelia simply shrugged. "All right, so it was pretty lame. But it's not like you're working with me here! You haven't once asked what my life has been like since I left Sunnydale."
"Sorry. So tell me, what has it been like?"
"You really want to know? I live with a ghost. I work for a vampire. I get bone-crushing, head-wrenching, mind-numbing visions from some jokers calling themselves the Powers-That-Be. I mean, my life is just peachy!"
Xander couldn't help himself, he started laughing. When Cordelia glared at him, he said, "I'm sorry, Cor, really. It's just..."
"What?"
"Who would have figured that this is how our lives were gonna work out? When we were in high school, y'know, everybody thought you'd be married to some rich guy, and I'd be working delivering pizza or something by now. Instead, we both ended up getting stuck with these powers from demons! I mean, our lives just suck!"
Cordelia began to laugh, softly at first and then harder. Xander joined her, and for the first time in ages they seemed genuinely pleased to be in each other's company.
All of a sudden, the car stopped working. Cordelia guided it onto the side of the road and tried to start it up again, but the engine wouldn't catch.
"What's the up with the Angelmobile?" Xander asked.
"I don't know," Cordelia replied. "But I bet..."
Suddenly the electrical system went dead, and they were plunged into the darkness of the night. Then something appeared overhead, shining down an incredibly bright light upon them.
They tried to look up, but the light was too bright. Cordelia refused to even think of the term UFO, but Xander had no such inhibitions. All of a sudden Xander clutched his head in agony, and started to scream in pain.
Cordelia tried to grab him before the pain hit her too, and as they got out of the car she had only a vague impression of Xander beginning to float up into the air, before she fell to the ground completely unconscious.
A short time later Angel, Wesley and Spike arrived and found her there on the side of the road, followed by Mulder and Scully. They tried to wake her up, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts; Scully eventually told them to cease and desist, and they decided to take her to the nearest hospital.
Before they left though, Mulder examined her and noticed that Cordelia's watch was slow, approximately nine minutes behind his. He knew that missing time was one of the characteristic indicators of alien abductions, along with slight traces of radiation.
Mulder looked around the area one last time, but had the sinking feeling that it was now too late for anyone to help Xander Harris.
It had been three weeks since he had met Angel and his friends in LA, and Mulder was going home to good old Apartment 42 after yet another grueling day at the office. He'd had a long conversation with the souled vampire before coming back to DC with Scully, and the two of them had told each other almost everything, becoming fast friends.
In fact, it was days like this when he seriously contemplated leaving it all behind, and accepting the job offering at Angel's detective agency to search for his sister Samantha.
The official story was that Xander was now a murderer and a kidnapper, and wanted by the police nationwide. With the guard dead and Cordelia unable to remember what had happened, the shadowy forces within the government had been able to put an official stamp on the lie and call it the truth, and basically do whatever they wanted.
Unfortunately, Angel was unable to risk too much public exposure to deny it and as usual, nobody was interested in Fox Mulder's theories.
Mulder thought briefly about the blood sample, and the conversation he'd had with Scully about it. "Scully, you've done the tests at least three times. Gimme the bottom line, here - is the blood human or not?"
Scully had sighed and told him, "Mulder, that blood does have some human components in it. But there's no way you'll ever convince anyone it's of human origin."
"Why not?"
"You mean, apart from the fact that it's green? Mulder, human blood is based on iron; it's the base metal that gives it that characteristic red color. But this blood is based on copper, it's a totally different physiology."
"But..."
"Yes, there is life on earth with a copper-base chemistry, like the ocean squid - but Mulder, there is no way that this blood comes from an animal like that. If I showed this to any of my old professors, they'd just laugh and congratulate me on an excellent practical joke."
"What about the nurse? She can corroborate everything I..."
Scully looked pained. "Mulder, the LAPD found her body, they said she was the victim of a random hit-and-run. I'm sorry, but without any witnesses nobody's gonna believe any of this."
Mulder wanted to deny it, but too many things like this had happened before, and he knew that Scully was right. Suddenly he stiffened. He was alone in the FBI underground carpark, when he spied the Cigarette-Smoking Man coming out of the shadows. "You again," he hissed.
"Hello to you too, Mr. Mulder."
"Where's Alexander Harris?"
"You tell me," he said with a reptilian smile.
Mulder started forward when he heard a distinct CLICK! and he turned around to see Alex Krycek pointing a gun at him. "Don't do anything stupid Mulder," he warned his one-time partner.
Mulder settled down, and watched as Krycek moved around into his frontal field of vision. He asked, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't try to kill both of you right now."
"I've warned you before about these homicidal tendencies of yours, Fox," the smoker said, mildly rebuking him.
"What's going to happen to that kid?" When the Cigarette-Smoking Man just smiled and made no reply, Mulder reached his own conclusions. "You went out of your way to let him get taken, didn't you? You probably made up some story that he's the next step in human evolution or something, so that his kidnappers would have to study him and delay their plans. And there's no way he's coming back with one of those alien implant chips in his neck. Am I wrong?"
Krycek broke into the tirade. "There's a war going on here, Mulder. One in which we'll be goddamn lucky just to survive! Get your head out of the sand - a sacrifice for the cause, occasionally it has to be made. One life for billions, you do the math. And now we don't have much time!"
Mulder frowned. "What are you talking about?"
The Cigarette-Smoking Man said pensively, "Our plans have had to be changed dramatically, Agent Mulder. This situation was...unanticipated." He gave Mulder a slow, lazy smile, as he smoked his cigarette. "We'll be in touch, Fox. In the meantime, please, leave this one alone. I'm sure you and Agent Scully can keep yourselves busy with other X-files."
Mulder watched them both disappear, like a pair of evil ghosts. All he knew right now was that Xander Harris was not going to be sacrificed like a pawn, in one of the smoking bastard's games. He was going to find the boy and help clear his name, even if took him the rest of his life...