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gen_storytellerThe Touch of an Angel
Fandoms: Doctor Who/Angel crossover (sort of), specifically “Blink” and post-“Just Rewards.”
Summary: After Hainsley’s defeat, Angel sends a duo out to collect the dead bodies and return them to their rightful resting place. Only one of them comes back.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6500
Disclaimer: I want a t-shirt that says “I <3 Moffat.” Yes, even after Love & Monsters. Oh, and, um, I’d go for an “I <3 Joss” one, too.
Notes: Dialogue of the Doctor (the video) directly taken from “Blink." I wanted to focus more on the “seeing”/visual effect of the story than the reading aspect so the style's a bit different from my usual. I wanted it to be an "episode" of Angel. Not a fic. That work?
Prompted by and dedicated to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hesadevil
***
“Quit starin’ at it.” Richard scolded as he dragged the body bags up the stairs. “I’m not gonna be able to take two bodies down myself.”
Jake continued staring up at the stone statue in the front garden. “It looks . . . sad.”
“It’s crying, of course it looks sad.” Rick shoved the doubles doors open with his hip. “Now come on, or Angel’ll put us in buckets, too.”
“The buckets were the necromancer’s deal.” Jake still kept his eyes on the statue as he walked towards the house.
“That doesn’t mean Angel can’t take a hint.”
“He wouldn’t put us in buckets.”
“If we don’t get these bodies out of here he would! He made it quite clear he doesn’t want any defilement of any persons living or dead. Which means Hainsley’s vessels need to be buried.” Rick stopped in the main foyer, waiting for his wandering partner to catch up.
“I’m sure the big guy’s not expecting a five-star job, Rick. He sent us.”
“We do good work.”
“We do the work everyone else turns down. We’re like, the substitute lackeys. You know Angel’s been axing the employees left and right.” Jake smiled, turning a corner
“Jake? Oh for cryin’ out loud, where’re you going now?” Rick sighed, already exasperated.
“The art gallery!”
Rick followed the voice and ended up staring at a magnificent fireplace surrounded by dozens of posed, dead bodies. There were dancing bodies, sitting bodies, reading bodies, any sort of pose imaginable. “That’s sick.”
“That’s business.” Jake picked up a piece of the silver tea set the dead butler was holding. “It’s like a catalogue for his clients, only you’re not lookin’ at the clothes. It’s the young bodies you’re after. C’mon, we’ve seen worse. Kinda weird to stick in your living room, though.”
Rick nudged his partner, swallowing the rotten taste the display left in his mouth. “We’ll have to go back and get more body bags. Let’s clear out the workshop first.”
“Fine.” Jake shrugged and followed him out.
“So. How many do ya think?” Jake asked as they passed down corridor after corridor, one body bag each. They’d be walking slowly, their directions as to where this body farm was not having been clear. They’d received them from Angel’s secretary, after all, who’d been painting her nails at the time.
Rod shook his head. “Don’t know. Musta been some business, though. Now it’s gonna fund the Body Bag Department.”
“We have a Department for that?”
The two men finally came upon the right door. It was already busted open, so they went on through.
“We had an Internment Acquisitions Division. Why can’t we have a Body Bag Division?”
“Hey, the Grave Robbing folks got fired. That’s why we’re stuck pickin’ up the bodies.”
“And here I thought we’d got a promotion.” Rick smiled, knowing they were destined for the pits of the boiler room with its fold-out tables and crooked poker games. Fine enough, if they still got paid. “Looks like a bomb went off in here.”
“Yeah.” Jake cleared the broken ceramics pieces out of their path, poking his nose around the artifacts. “Heard the boss and the ghost got into it. Neat stuff around, though.”
“Don’t mess with it. Come on. I see the coolers over here.”
The first body uncovered was a middle-aged man. He was cool, covered in a white sheet, and didn’t smell at all of death. The job wasn’t going to be too difficult, then. Rick took the first one, and Jake took the hint to grab a second. Once their bags were loaded, they retraced their stepes in near silence. Not having brought in stretchers, they were forced to drag the bodies. Dead weight was surprisingly heavy when you didn’t expect it. The occasional groans of strain echoed down the long, empty yet highly-decorated halls of Hainsley’s home.
“Hey. Wasn’t that thing in the garden?” Rick paused, and pointed to the stone angel in the foyer.
“Nah.” Jake didn’t even blink at the pious company, “The one outside’s the sad one, remember? This one isn’t crying. It’s praying.”
He pushed past Rick, dragging his deceased twenty-year old blonde girl through the open doors. “Is the trunk open?”
He ignored the bouncing thwack of the girl’s head on the stairs, keeping his mind focused on his next step back so that he wouldn’t fall. They really should have brought stretchers. He hoped this girl didn’t mind being roughed up. The last thing he needed was to be haunted.
“Rick!” He called back when he reached the van. “Is the trunk open?”
There was still no answer. He left the body beside the van and walked back up the steps. Rick wasn’t in the foyer. “Now who’s slacking off?”
He stepped over the unattended body bag, and poked his head into the room with the posed bodies. “Having a second peek?”
But Rick wasn’t. The workshop proved to be empty, as did the bathroom (all three of them.) If curiosity didn’t get him, and nature didn’t call, where could he have been?
He stopped back in the foyer, shaking his head at the praying angel statue. “You haven’t converted him, have you, big fella? ‘Cause we’ve got us a bunch of sins in our résumés. Enough to drive any soul straight back to church. Mind you, we haven’t been since we were kids bein’ dragged by our Grandma’s but — Why am I talking to you?”
Of course, the angel didn’t answer, making the knowledge of Rick’s whereabouts hidden. Jake sighed. The job was taking its toll, at least, having a mission while on the job did. Both of them were used to hanging in the boiler room. Realizing that he shouldn’t have left that dead body outside by itself, he trekked back to the van.
For the heck of it, he tried the trunk. It was open, which lead him to think that maybe Rick had come back, but there was no other body in the back. Only a few more bags. So no Rick. Only a dangerously-open trunk. Jake placed his dead body in the back. He figured while he was at it, he might as well load Rick’s guy, too.
“Come on, man.” He called when he went to retrieve the other body. “Angel’ll be pissed if we don’t get it cleared out by today. It’ll be the buckets for us!”
Rick still wasn’t around. Jake tried his cell phone, but, as it usually was, the phone was off. That meant the GPS tracker wouldn’t work, either.
“Five more minutes, then I’m heading back to HQ. I’m not loading these other bodies by myself!” Five minutes went by uneventfully.
“I’m telling Angel it’s your fault we didn’t finish!” He called down the hall. The place really spooked him out, especially that body display.
“I’ll be back.” He called out to no-one.
Since the trunk was open, Jake figured the keys were stuffed in the driver’s side visor. They were. Rick may have been the smarter of the team, but he was downright dumb when it came to some other things. He muttered to himself, while turning the keys in the ignition.
He drove off, wondering if this meant they’d be fired. He really didn’t want to face down the Boss and that big desk. Really.
***
“Disappeared?” Angel folded his hands and leaned across his desk. “Are you sure?”
“I checked everywhere, sir.” Jake fidgeted nervously. “And he was gone. I would have loaded all the bodies — and I mean all of them, even that freak display — into the van, but man — sir, I mean, sir — that place was too spooky. I couldn’t stay there alone . . . sir.”
Angel had a very intimidating stare to go with an intimidating desk. “I don’t expect you to do a job like that on your own. There were a lot of bodies.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jake expressed his gratitude in such a manner as to suggest he was trying his hardest to be as respectful and proper as he could. There were empty buckets in the corner of the office, after all, and shiny weapons on the back wall.
“Maybe Rick quit.” Angel pushed back from his desk, putting a little less intimidation into Jake’s vision.
“No, sir. That’s not his style.”
“I think we should look into it. ” Wesley commented from his seat on the couch. Jake jumped visibly from the new voice in the conversation. “There might still be some residual energies in Hainsley’s home.”
“We can’t just track down the other guy?” Angel shrugged. “Don’t we have a Recovery Division or something?”
Wesley shook his head. “And if it is the house and something’s amiss, how would we know?”
“All right.” Angel nodded. “Wes, you go with . . .”
After the long pause and the long stare, Jake got the hint. “It’s Jake, sir.”
“Right, Jake.” Angel turned back to Wesley, who had gathered up his materials and was standing by the door, “You two go back to the house and have a look around. Call me if anything comes up.”
Angel went back to a stack of papers, and Wesley cleared his throat.
“Um, isn’t there a team for this sort of stuff?” Jake followed him out the door. “Sir.”
Wesley didn’t answer.
***
“So, tell me everything about the job, from the moment you stepped out of the vehicle.” They were in the van, on their way back to the necromancer’s house. Wesley sat in the passenger’s seat, notebook perched on his lap, pencil in hand.
“What? Am I being interrogated?”
“No, Jake. I only want the full picture of what happened. This could be potentially dangerous magic we’re dealing with here.”
“So this isn’t even a missing persons case?”
He caught Wesley’s look out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry. Just . . . should I be worried about him?”
“There isn’t any need for concern at the moment, no. As far as we can tell, Rick has wandered off. I’m not saying there isn’t a chance of foul play, but you shouldn’t concern yourself right now.”
Jake nodded, making the turn at the light. “Right. Well, we go and get the bodies, like Angel said for us to do —”
“So you magically got from the van to Hainsley’s workroom?”
Wesley’s sarcasm caught Jake off guard. “You want everything, huh?”
“When anything could have happened, yes. The details will help narrow this down.”
He thought about it for a bit, turning out of the busy city and onto the quieter, more secluded roads of the necromancer’s neighborhood. “I got out of the van to unlock the house. Rick got a couple of body bags for the haul. He opened the doors back up — funky hinges or something — and we went in. We took a detour by the body museum, went into the workshop, got a couple of stiffs, and worked our way back to the van.”
“Rick never made it back?”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “Stopped by the angel.”
“Angel?”
“Oh. Not the boss. This stone angel, like the one that was in the garden, only not. It wasn’t crying, you see. Was just some gothic architecture or something. Nothing really interesting. I liked the one outside better. Rick comments on it, I’m unimpressed, go out to the van. I go back in, no Rick.”
“An angel outside, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Crying?”
“Yeah. Like this.” Jake covered his face with his hands, shoulders hunched, then quickly grabbed hold of the steering wheel. “Nice lookin’. The one in the hall was kinda plain.”
Wes nodded, jotting down some notes.
“Almost there.” Jake tapped out a rhythm on the plastic steering wheel. “So, uh, do ya think something’s happened to him?”
“We can’t rule out anything, really.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m sure we’ll find out what we need. We’ll do our best.”
“No offense, uh, sir, but . . . that’s not too convincing.”
“Then you think something happened to Rick?”
Jake pulled onto the necromancer’s street. “You never been in that place, sir. It’s . . . pretty darn spooky. And Rick’s not one to goof off on the job. That’s my thing, you know?”
He smiled, but Wesley was being serious with his notebook.
When they pulled up close to the home, the former Watcher took to his notes once more. “You said there was an angel in the garden?”
Jake turned off the engine, and placed the keys in the driver’s side visor. Seemed right. “Yup. The sad one, not the pious one.”
“So where is this angel now?” Wesley was peering out his window, partiality blocking Jake’s view of the garden. He got out of the car and walked around to the other side of the vehicle. Wesley followed.
There were the trees, flowers, and small fountain had yet to be shadowed by the setting sun. There was the stone walkway that had the loose brick in it that Jake tripped on on his way up, which led him over to where the angel was. Or, for the time being, wasn’t.
“It was right there.” Jake pointed, brows knitting together in confusion. “I —”
Wesley was frowning.
“Oh man, I didn’t . . . you think I’m making this stuff up, don’t you?’ Jake shuffled back to Wesley’s position. “No. I swear! There was an angel statue right here in the garden.”
He pointed blindly behind him. “It was crying. And . . . do you think vandals? It was pretty. Maybe someone took it while I was gone. This place is pretty much up for grabs now that Hainsley’s dead. All the demon world knows it, right? So it’s a free-for-all.”
Jake shrugged. “Oh. I really hope noone took any bodies. No. I locked the door. Yes. I locked the door. I think.”
Wesley frowned deeper. “Let’s go in.”
The front door, as it turned out, hadn’t been locked. The two men walked in, and immediately,
Wesley whipped out the notebook.“Where did you last see him?”
“Right by that —” The spot where the praying angel had been was now empty. “Okay, that’s just not funny. I swear there was an angel statue right there, Wesley, really. Just like the other one.”
“Are you completely positive?”
“Yes!”
More notes went into the notebook. Wesley shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely that, out of all the merchandise available in this estate that someone would go after the statues. Retail values of the bodies are far higher.”
“We both saw them! Rick an’ I. We saw them both.”
“I’m not doubting you, Jake.”
“No?”
“No. I was merely thinking aloud.”
“Oh, good.”
Jake remained in the lobby, his hands on his hips, looking about but not really moving. Half of him wanted to pack up the rest of the bodies, the other wanted to run far away until he found where Rick was or he never had to come back. Wesley was being Wesley, investigating every corner with a fine-toothed comb.
“Ah. Your angel is over here.” Wesley pointed down the hall, where Jake couldn’t see. “You must’ve gotten the locations mixed up.”
“I don’t think so.” Jake wandered over to where Wesley was pointing. “I remember being in the foyer.”
A stone angel stood at the end of the hall, its arms by its sides, staring down.
Jake, having had his spirits lifted, sighed defeated. “No. That’s a different one. Didn’t look like that. That’s funny, though. I don’t think I saw that one before.”
“You didn’t?” Wesley made a quick note in his journal, then looked back up at the statue.
“Nah. Just the two I described.” Jake shrugged. “Maybe Rick’s playin’ some kinda joke. Things have been kinda boring in the boiler room.”
He wasn’t about to admit how creepy this whole thing was. Especially with those dead posed bodies visible from where he was standing. He should’ve packed them all in the van, body bags or not and just continued on with his job.
“Tell me, Jacob.” Wesley didn’t turn away from the angel down the hall. “Did you ever see both angels, at the same time?”
“Why would —?” Jake took another look at the angel down the hall. “There are three of them. That doesn’t constitute a ‘both’.”
“Don’t get smart, Jacob. This is very important.” The tone in Wesley’s voice could’ve told him that.
“I can’ t be in two rooms at once.”
“Oh dear.” Wesley put his notebook back into his jacket pocket. “Was the angel in the garden after you saw the one with Richard?”
“Why —?”
“Jacob!” Wesley quickly turned away, then, just as quick, turned back to stare down the hall.
“No! Yes! I don’t know! How could it —?”
“You’ve just moved dead bodies that a necromancer was using to place older clients in. Weird is possible, Jacob. Now listen to me, did you ever see more than one angel at the same time?”
Jake thought hard, biting his lower lip and glancing at the angel. “No.” He answered after a long pause.
Wesley paled. “If I am right in my suspicions,” his voice lowered, “we have to get out of here very quickly. Do you understand?”
“What about Rick?”
“I’ll explain later, but we have to run and fast.”
The tone in Wesley’s voice told Jake that this conversation was over. Jake nodded, then turned on his heel and sprinted to the van. Wesley wasn’t far behind. They scrambled into the car, Jake fumbling for the keys, then Wesley commented breathlessly, “The angel’s not in the garden.”
“We’ve established that!” The van started with a thick rumble. “Now what the hell was that?”
“Drive.” Jake didn’t need to be told twice. He drove as fast as he could back to Wolfram & Hart, listening to Wesley give short instructions on his cell phone. When things called for immediate meetings, things weren’t good.
***
“They’re called the Lonely Assassins.” Wesley stood at the front of the conference table, addressing the main core of W&H and, because he’d been involved, Jake.
“They’re among the oldest creatures in the universe, as old as time itself, and that is mostly all we know about them.”
“Oh this is gonna be good.” Spike came in through the wall, passing through the television Wesley had brought up for the meeting.
“Are you going to be of assistance, or are you going to make remarks?”
Spike smirked and stood in the corner near Jake.
“Like I was saying,” Wesley cleared his throat. “Not much is known about these demons. In fact, I didn’t even think they really existed.”
“So how do you know what we’re dealing with?” Gunn asked.
Wesley turned and motioned to the television screen behind him. “This video file was discovered not too long ago by an online group. It attracted Wolfram and Hart’s attention with the sophisticated embedding process for such a time in which it was created. It was suspicious. Either it could be used to control people, or it had a very important audience. It was for research, purely, I believe. Until the creatures it explains were cross-referenced with my department.
“I thought it was a joke. We all did. You must understand this file is hidden in seventeen different DVDs. It’s only half a conversation, as well, so its reliability . . . Then again, if it wasn’t for this joke, I never might have realized what we could’ve been dealing with. It’s amazing, really, what you can learn from the most seemingly insignificant of things.”
Angel cleared his throat from the opposite side of the table.
“Right. Yes. When Jake was explaining his situation with the angels, and seeing as how there was only ever one visible at the time, I made the unlikely connection to this puzzling video. If what this man is saying is true — we have no evidence either way — our situation is rather bleak.” Wesley pressed play and a man appeared on the screen and sat down. He dug out a pair of glass and began speaking.
“Yup, that’s me. Yes, I do. Yup. And this. Are you gonna —”
Wesley pressed fast-forward. “He mentions these angels . . . here.” He pressed play.
“ — quantum-locked. They don’t exist when they’re observed. The moment they are seen by any living creature they freeze into rock. No choice. It’s a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn into stone. And you can’t kill a stone. ‘Course a stone can’t kill you either, but then you turn your head away, and you blink, and oh yes it can.”
Wesley paused the video. “This man gives the only mention we can find of them. No history books, no other dimensions. Just him.”
“Who is he?” Gunn asked, “Wolfram and Hart?”
Wesley shook his head. “Noone knows. He never gives a name.”
“If you’ve got no other source for these things, just this guy, how can you be sure these angels are real?”
“There have been reports . . . disappearing children. Missing pets. Stories do mention stone angels. It had never been prevalent to be a demon race, until this file came along.”
“And Rick?” Jake piped up. “Did they kill him?”
“No. Well . . . not exactly. There’s nothing to prove that just yet.”
“So he’s just been kidnaped. You guys can get him back.” Jake pressed further.
“That’s not gonna be easy, I’m afraid” Fred pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The man said ‘quantum-locked.’ Now, amazing possibilities aside, this is serious scientific stuff. When something’s quantum-locked, that means that, when the object is observed, it enters a state of non-being. It doesn’t exist. It’s the whole basis of quantum physics, really. Schrödinger’s cat, anyone?” She was treated to blank faces. “Right. Basically what is says is that an experiment is ruined when it is observed. In your angel’s case, when anyone looks at it, it turns to stone. And you can’t kill stone. It’s not alive.”
“So we keep staring at it and smash it to pieces.” Spike smirked. “I’m always up for a good smash n’ grab.
Fred chewed her bottom lip. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean not exactly?”
“You blink about three to thirty times a minute. Under conditions of high stress that number is greatly increased. Granted, we only blink for three hundred milliseconds, but that’s more than enough time for these demons to be unlocked, it seems. You’ll be gone like that.” Fred snapped her fingers. “There’s no beating it.”
“Can we transport it to another dimension?” Wesley asked.
“Only if you’re sure it’s the only one. It would defeat the purpose if there was another one flying around.”
“Jake, you said you saw three different ones?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. three. A crying, a praying, and a . . . boring one. But you said these things move, right? When you don’t look at them?
“Yes.”
“So it could only be one, right?”
“If you’re not sure, I’m afraid that won’t work.” Fred shrugged, “I would need a specimen, too, to figure out what exactly makes these things tick.”
“So a smash n’ grab.” Spike smiled.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m afraid there’s more to this mystery, as well.” Wesley rewound the video.
— box it’s my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there they can feast on forever, but the damage they—
He pressed pause, and stepped in front of the television to speak. “The only things we’ve been able to gather from this is that they feast on time energy.”
“Wait, did he say time machine?” Spike raised his hand, albeit after he had spoken.
“Spike.” Angel ground his teeth. “Not now.”
“But a time machine. Bet you lot don’t have one of those.”
“That’s not the most important issue at —” Wesley was going to give Spike a lecture, but the ghost had the perfect timing of disappearing. “Oh. Well, time energy can be created in a number of ways. There is no knowledge thus far as to what method the angels use. Since there are so many possibilities, there is no feasible way just yet to attack.”
“So you can’t get Rick back?”
Wesley shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.”
Jake nodded. “That’s all right. It all comes with the job, right? I mean. He might not even have been taken.”
There was silence.
Angel cleared his throat. “So how do we kill it?”
“We can’t go in there blind.” Wesley held up the DVD. “This is all we’ve got. The Codex doesn’t even mention them past their name and that they are to be feared. They are as old as the Senior Partners, even older! We can’t meddled about with these sorts of creatures.”
“Wes, I have one man down already, and this thing is on the loose. In case any of you haven’t noticed there is noone back at Hainsley’s place to look at the statue except for dead bodies that weren’t cleared out! We need to do something.” Angel directed his gaze at Jake, who was sinking further into the corner.
“Angel!”
“What?”
Wesley frowned. “Jake had every right to leave that place. If he hadn’t we probably would not even have noticed there was such a threat in Los Angeles.”
“I’m just saying, I started out with one mess, now I have two, possibly three if this thing is loose, which is probably is. I’m not having a very good day.”
Gunn cleared his throat, shuffling papers. “I’ll see if I’ve got contacts.”
“I’ll get to the lab.” Fred followed behind him.
Wesley shook his head. “I’m sure there’s something useful I can be doing. Jake? You can have the day off.”
Angel frowned, staring at the empty conference table.
“What’d I miss?” Spike walked through from Angel’s office.
***
“All right. I think I got it.” Fred smiled standing next to a large object covered in a white sheet. She had assembled the group in the lab, having announced a big breakthrough in the Weeping Angel case. It had only taken four hours. Angel said this, leaning against one of the white counters.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Mary.” Spike mirrored Angel’s posture a few counters down. “She’s doin’ her best.”
“I was thinking about the quantum-locked thing, how it’s their greatest asset. Often greatest assets are often greatest weaknesses. It doesn’t matter what observes them. If these angels are seen by anyone, anything they will turn to stone. So I got to thinking. Do y’all remember when I said about experiments being ruined if they’re observed?”
There was some dumb nodding, so Fred continued. “Well, scientists have tried to get around that by taking pictures of the experiment. So long as their eyes never physically lay on the experiment, they thought it would be okay. So a computer took pictures.”
“So we snap a photo of the angel and it goes poof?”
“No. The photo option was ruled out.”
“So how does that help us?”
Fred smiled. “Ah. Now, how do you see something without being present in the room?”
“Camera.” Gunn shrugged.
“Think ancient.”
“Fred. We don’t have the time for this.”
She took a step back and slipped off the white sheet.
“S’a mirror.” Spike was less than impressed.
“And what are you doing in the mirror?” Fred shook her head. “Okay, not you or Angel ‘cause of the whole ‘vampire’ thing, but Gunn? You can see yourself, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re looking at yourself. Observing yourself.”
“Effectively,” Wes jumped in, “by placing the mirror in such a position in front of the angel its own gaze should betray its weakness.”
“Have we tested it?” Angel approached the mirror, skeptical.
“It’s not like we can bring in one of these angels for testing, Angel.” Fred said. “But from a purely scientific point of view, it’s still observation. It should work.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“So is everything else you do,” Spike walked through a couple of lab benches and approached Fred. “I say good work, ducks.”
“Thank you, Spike.”
“Well, let’s go.”
Angel frowned. “You’re not coming.”
“What’s Sticks ‘n’ Stones gonna do to a little ol’ ghostie like me?”
“Hopefully?” Angel spun on his heel, “The same thing he did to one of my employees.”
He left, Wesley and Gunn leading the large mirror into the elevator.
“I guess that’s settled. then. Good luck, guys.” Fred waved, then turned back to her other work.
***
“We don’t need to risk all of us.” Angel climbed in the driver’s seat of the van, the same one Jake and Rick had used, and addressed Gunn, Wes, and Spike who had followed him to the garage.
“I’ll not go.” Gunn immediately volunteered. “Got a meeting, anyway.”
“Spike’s not going to be much help to you carrying the mirror. I’m coming with you.” Wesley climbed in the passenger’s side.
“I can handle a mirror on my own, Wes.”
“And then it will become unbalanced and break. That’s the least we need right now.”
Angel was persuaded and Spike snuck in through the trunk. He had nothing better to do, he explained when Angel glared at his non-reflection in the rear view. Before an all-out war could begin, Wesley gave the directions.
Angel didn’t need them, but the human interaction helped.
***
“Nothin’ in the garden, then.” Spike stood on the pedestal that had been home to the first, crying angel.
“Foyer’s empty.” Angel had opened the doors to allowed for the mirror to get through.
“I’ll take a look around the place. You an’ Percy get the mirror in.” Spike walked through the doorway purely out of habit. He stopped to survey the foyer and, sure enough, there weren’t any angels. He stopped by the body farm, with all of its works on display in their various poses, and there weren’t any angels around, either. Too many prying eyes about, Spike thought to himself.
He heard the sounds of Wes and Angel clunking around the mirror in the hall. It was a chunky, old wooden thing. Fit the decor of the house well.
“Hey,” Spike walked back into the foyer. “How come we just didn’t grab one o’ the necromancer’s mirrors?”
“We needed a full-length one.” Wesley answered, rubbing his hands. “Could you be sure that Hainsley had one?”
“Woulda been easier.”
“We don’t do easy.” Angel snapped. “We do right. Now where is this thing?”
“Is he always this grumpy?” Spike stage-whispered to Wesley, who sighed and moved on. “Right then. A-huntin’ we go.”
***
“I don’t feel anything.”
“You’re a ghost. You’re not supposed to.”
“No. I mean, no ‘big bad’ vibe or anything. I don’t think this thing is around here.”
“We still haven’t checked out all the rooms yet.”
Spike and Angel were investigating the second-floor.
“But do you feel anything?”
“Annoyed.”
“Doesn’t mean the angel is here. Can I make a comment about that yet?”
“About what?”
“You, Angel , lookin’ for an angel.”
Angel sighed, moving further down the hall at a quicker pace, “No.”
Spike shrugged and followed.
***
As soon as Wesley opened the door, he knew he was in trouble “Bollocks.” he whispered to himself, his eyes widening.
There, arm raised out the window on the necromancer’s bedroom, was a stone angel.
He immediate acted on instinct and shut the door, pressing his back up against the wall. Realizing how stupid that was, he opened up the door again and stared hard. It was extremely difficult to not blink when thinking about blinking. Fred’s statistics immediately came to mind.
“Angel!” He called out. “Spike!”
He would not blink. He would not blink. He would not — he felt his eyes closing, even as his brain was screaming at him not to.
***
Spike flew through wall after wall, searching for the source of Wesley’s shouts. Angel was close behind, being forced to take the halls.
“I think he found something!” Spike was practically smiling with the almost-adrenaline rush he could just about feel.
“Just shut up and find him!”
Angel went up the other flight, while Spike fell through the stairs onto the first floor. He didn’t even noticed he’d run through the angel until the after image was processed in his brain two rooms later. He quickly backed up and called to Angel.
“I’d say the old boy cut it close.” Spike smiled, keeping his eyes peeled on the angel.
“That’s . . . not funny, Spike.” Wesley had his arms raised, touching the stone chest of the angel as its snarling, fanged face remained only inches in front of him.
“Told you not to blink.”
“Well you try it!”
“I currently am, in case you haven’t noticed.” Spike demonstrated this by peeling back his eyelids with his fingers.
“I suppose I should thank you.”
Angel rushed into the room, body visibly relaxing when he realized Spike was busy staring at the angel. “What happened?”
“Percy blinked.”
Wesley grumbled and walked out of the room. “I’ll go wheel in the mirror. Thankfully, the room is on the first floor.”
“Maybe they can’t walk up stairs. Another weakness.” Spike was still physically holding his eyes open.
“Go, Wes. Spike and I can stare at this thing.”
Wesley left.
“Got impressive fangs, don’tcha think? Looks a bit like you in the mornin’.”
Angel grimaced as he inspected the gruesome face of the stone statue.
“Hey, mate.” Spike sounded a bit uneasy.
“What?”
“Are you blinking?”
“Yeah. I thought you had the not blinking covered.”
“Well, yeah, but what if I —” And Spike was gone.
Immediately, Angel snapped his gaze back to the stone angel. “I love it when you do that, Spike.” For once, he was being sarcastic.
“A little warning would’ve been nice!” He yelled at nothing. After thirty seconds of staring into the open mouth, Angel widened his eyes. After a minute, he had to physically hold his eyes open like Spike had been doing. He felt really stupid.
“Come on, Wes!” He shouted, not being able to turn an direct his voice down the hall.
“I’m coming! It is a bit heavy.” Wesley’s voice still sounded a bit far off.
Angel winked. Slowly. One eye at a time. Carefully.
“I can see the bedroom from here.” Wesley called out. Angel could heard the rolling creek of the mirror. So close.
His eyes were getting tired, and he really didn’t want to —
“Sorry,” he watched himself step behind the angel. “You blink.”
And he did.
***
He was . . . in Hainsley’s house. And he had a headache. Also, he felt slightly nauseous, but not too much. He was in Hainsley’s house, but he wasn’t in the bedroom anymore. Well, he was, but the angel wasn’t there. So perhaps it was a different bedroom . . . with the same furniture.
Angel turned, scratching his head.
A ways down the house, a door opened. Minutes later, he heard Spike talking. Spike was saying things he’d already said before. Curious, Angel headed towards the voice.
***
“All right! You can blink now!” Wesley’s voice came from behind the mirror, which he was wheeling in first. Once he heard the thunk of the angel hitting the mirror, he backed out from under it.
“Too late,” Angel mumbled.
“I’m sorry?”
“I blinked.”
Wes’s brow furrowed. “But you’re still here.”
“Yeah. Long story. Can I stop looking at this thing now?” He pointed to the angel.
“Yes. I believe so. Well, the mirror should hold.”
“So . . . smash ‘n’ grab.” Angel plucked off a finger and handed it to Wes. “Keep an eye on that.”
The Englishman smiled. “I’m sure Fred wold appreciate it.”
Spike ran through the door, coat swirling behind him. “What’d I miss?”
***
“So you were transported back in time?” Wesley jotted down notes in his notebook as Angel drove back to the firm.
“I think so. I mean, it was only ten minutes or so. I almost bumped into myself. Well, I did there at the end, which is why I blinked, and come to think of it that was so stupid! Why did I do that?”
“Because you’re stupid.”
“No. No.” Wesley waved his hand for Spike to shut up. “I think . . . of course!”
“What?”
“Time energy! The angels feed on time energy!”
Angel shrugged. “And?”
“And if you get sent far back enough in time, far before you were born and you die before you were born — on a linear time line — then there is a whole host of leftover energy. Yes! That is what the angels feed on! Brilliant. The man did say something about linear, wobbly time. Or something to that effect.”
“But he only got sent back ten minutes.” Spike shouldered his way to the front, sitting between and inside Angel and Wes. “Gettin’ carsick.” He explained.
“Right. Well, the way I figure it. Angel is already dead, so they didn’t have a need for his energy. Or perhaps it was less filling, being that his body expended less energy. Perhaps even I was a bit of a rescue, coming in before the angel could inflict any real damage.”
“You just want to be the hero.” Spike scoffed.
“You did good, Wes.” Angel turned to glare at Spike.
“Thank you.”
“It was smart to come in mirror-first.”
“Always good to have a shield.”
Angel sighed. “I miss being able to use Spike as one.”
“Good times those. Especially when I ducked at the last second.”
“You were always so thoughtful.”
Wes smiled at the bickering as they pulled into the Wolfram & Hart garage. He pulled out the stone finger and carried it along with the journal. There was much more research to do.
***
Jake sat in the boiler room, a portable television on the fold out table, a notepad and pen in his lap. He was writing down everything. Every single thing he could.
And that's it, I'm afraid, there's no more from you on the transcript, that's the last I've got.
“Half a conversation. It shouldn’t be so hard to figure out the other half.” Jake’s voice was a whisper.
I don't know what stopped you talking but I can guess: they're coming.
‘Half a conversation for half a team.”
The angels are coming for you but listen: your life could depend on this.
Jake leaned in towards the screen.
Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead.
“Rick always won the staring contests, all the way from kindergarten through college.”
They are fast, faster than you could believe, don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck.
“They’re workin’ on somethin’.” Spike stood in the corner, glancing at the abandoned card game. “Hey. You woulda had a royal flush!”
But Jake wasn’t listening. He was reaching for the remote, and pressing pause at the very last second of the video. He sat and stared. He wasn’t going to blink, the man. Neither was Jake.
No matter how hard it was.
Fandoms: Doctor Who/Angel crossover (sort of), specifically “Blink” and post-“Just Rewards.”
Summary: After Hainsley’s defeat, Angel sends a duo out to collect the dead bodies and return them to their rightful resting place. Only one of them comes back.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~6500
Disclaimer: I want a t-shirt that says “I <3 Moffat.” Yes, even after Love & Monsters. Oh, and, um, I’d go for an “I <3 Joss” one, too.
Notes: Dialogue of the Doctor (the video) directly taken from “Blink." I wanted to focus more on the “seeing”/visual effect of the story than the reading aspect so the style's a bit different from my usual. I wanted it to be an "episode" of Angel. Not a fic. That work?
Prompted by and dedicated to
hesadevil “Quit starin’ at it.” Richard scolded as he dragged the body bags up the stairs. “I’m not gonna be able to take two bodies down myself.”
Jake continued staring up at the stone statue in the front garden. “It looks . . . sad.”
“It’s crying, of course it looks sad.” Rick shoved the doubles doors open with his hip. “Now come on, or Angel’ll put us in buckets, too.”
“The buckets were the necromancer’s deal.” Jake still kept his eyes on the statue as he walked towards the house.
“That doesn’t mean Angel can’t take a hint.”
“He wouldn’t put us in buckets.”
“If we don’t get these bodies out of here he would! He made it quite clear he doesn’t want any defilement of any persons living or dead. Which means Hainsley’s vessels need to be buried.” Rick stopped in the main foyer, waiting for his wandering partner to catch up.
“I’m sure the big guy’s not expecting a five-star job, Rick. He sent us.”
“We do good work.”
“We do the work everyone else turns down. We’re like, the substitute lackeys. You know Angel’s been axing the employees left and right.” Jake smiled, turning a corner
“Jake? Oh for cryin’ out loud, where’re you going now?” Rick sighed, already exasperated.
“The art gallery!”
Rick followed the voice and ended up staring at a magnificent fireplace surrounded by dozens of posed, dead bodies. There were dancing bodies, sitting bodies, reading bodies, any sort of pose imaginable. “That’s sick.”
“That’s business.” Jake picked up a piece of the silver tea set the dead butler was holding. “It’s like a catalogue for his clients, only you’re not lookin’ at the clothes. It’s the young bodies you’re after. C’mon, we’ve seen worse. Kinda weird to stick in your living room, though.”
Rick nudged his partner, swallowing the rotten taste the display left in his mouth. “We’ll have to go back and get more body bags. Let’s clear out the workshop first.”
“Fine.” Jake shrugged and followed him out.
“So. How many do ya think?” Jake asked as they passed down corridor after corridor, one body bag each. They’d be walking slowly, their directions as to where this body farm was not having been clear. They’d received them from Angel’s secretary, after all, who’d been painting her nails at the time.
Rod shook his head. “Don’t know. Musta been some business, though. Now it’s gonna fund the Body Bag Department.”
“We have a Department for that?”
The two men finally came upon the right door. It was already busted open, so they went on through.
“We had an Internment Acquisitions Division. Why can’t we have a Body Bag Division?”
“Hey, the Grave Robbing folks got fired. That’s why we’re stuck pickin’ up the bodies.”
“And here I thought we’d got a promotion.” Rick smiled, knowing they were destined for the pits of the boiler room with its fold-out tables and crooked poker games. Fine enough, if they still got paid. “Looks like a bomb went off in here.”
“Yeah.” Jake cleared the broken ceramics pieces out of their path, poking his nose around the artifacts. “Heard the boss and the ghost got into it. Neat stuff around, though.”
“Don’t mess with it. Come on. I see the coolers over here.”
The first body uncovered was a middle-aged man. He was cool, covered in a white sheet, and didn’t smell at all of death. The job wasn’t going to be too difficult, then. Rick took the first one, and Jake took the hint to grab a second. Once their bags were loaded, they retraced their stepes in near silence. Not having brought in stretchers, they were forced to drag the bodies. Dead weight was surprisingly heavy when you didn’t expect it. The occasional groans of strain echoed down the long, empty yet highly-decorated halls of Hainsley’s home.
“Hey. Wasn’t that thing in the garden?” Rick paused, and pointed to the stone angel in the foyer.
“Nah.” Jake didn’t even blink at the pious company, “The one outside’s the sad one, remember? This one isn’t crying. It’s praying.”
He pushed past Rick, dragging his deceased twenty-year old blonde girl through the open doors. “Is the trunk open?”
He ignored the bouncing thwack of the girl’s head on the stairs, keeping his mind focused on his next step back so that he wouldn’t fall. They really should have brought stretchers. He hoped this girl didn’t mind being roughed up. The last thing he needed was to be haunted.
“Rick!” He called back when he reached the van. “Is the trunk open?”
There was still no answer. He left the body beside the van and walked back up the steps. Rick wasn’t in the foyer. “Now who’s slacking off?”
He stepped over the unattended body bag, and poked his head into the room with the posed bodies. “Having a second peek?”
But Rick wasn’t. The workshop proved to be empty, as did the bathroom (all three of them.) If curiosity didn’t get him, and nature didn’t call, where could he have been?
He stopped back in the foyer, shaking his head at the praying angel statue. “You haven’t converted him, have you, big fella? ‘Cause we’ve got us a bunch of sins in our résumés. Enough to drive any soul straight back to church. Mind you, we haven’t been since we were kids bein’ dragged by our Grandma’s but — Why am I talking to you?”
Of course, the angel didn’t answer, making the knowledge of Rick’s whereabouts hidden. Jake sighed. The job was taking its toll, at least, having a mission while on the job did. Both of them were used to hanging in the boiler room. Realizing that he shouldn’t have left that dead body outside by itself, he trekked back to the van.
For the heck of it, he tried the trunk. It was open, which lead him to think that maybe Rick had come back, but there was no other body in the back. Only a few more bags. So no Rick. Only a dangerously-open trunk. Jake placed his dead body in the back. He figured while he was at it, he might as well load Rick’s guy, too.
“Come on, man.” He called when he went to retrieve the other body. “Angel’ll be pissed if we don’t get it cleared out by today. It’ll be the buckets for us!”
Rick still wasn’t around. Jake tried his cell phone, but, as it usually was, the phone was off. That meant the GPS tracker wouldn’t work, either.
“Five more minutes, then I’m heading back to HQ. I’m not loading these other bodies by myself!” Five minutes went by uneventfully.
“I’m telling Angel it’s your fault we didn’t finish!” He called down the hall. The place really spooked him out, especially that body display.
“I’ll be back.” He called out to no-one.
Since the trunk was open, Jake figured the keys were stuffed in the driver’s side visor. They were. Rick may have been the smarter of the team, but he was downright dumb when it came to some other things. He muttered to himself, while turning the keys in the ignition.
He drove off, wondering if this meant they’d be fired. He really didn’t want to face down the Boss and that big desk. Really.
“Disappeared?” Angel folded his hands and leaned across his desk. “Are you sure?”
“I checked everywhere, sir.” Jake fidgeted nervously. “And he was gone. I would have loaded all the bodies — and I mean all of them, even that freak display — into the van, but man — sir, I mean, sir — that place was too spooky. I couldn’t stay there alone . . . sir.”
Angel had a very intimidating stare to go with an intimidating desk. “I don’t expect you to do a job like that on your own. There were a lot of bodies.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jake expressed his gratitude in such a manner as to suggest he was trying his hardest to be as respectful and proper as he could. There were empty buckets in the corner of the office, after all, and shiny weapons on the back wall.
“Maybe Rick quit.” Angel pushed back from his desk, putting a little less intimidation into Jake’s vision.
“No, sir. That’s not his style.”
“I think we should look into it. ” Wesley commented from his seat on the couch. Jake jumped visibly from the new voice in the conversation. “There might still be some residual energies in Hainsley’s home.”
“We can’t just track down the other guy?” Angel shrugged. “Don’t we have a Recovery Division or something?”
Wesley shook his head. “And if it is the house and something’s amiss, how would we know?”
“All right.” Angel nodded. “Wes, you go with . . .”
After the long pause and the long stare, Jake got the hint. “It’s Jake, sir.”
“Right, Jake.” Angel turned back to Wesley, who had gathered up his materials and was standing by the door, “You two go back to the house and have a look around. Call me if anything comes up.”
Angel went back to a stack of papers, and Wesley cleared his throat.
“Um, isn’t there a team for this sort of stuff?” Jake followed him out the door. “Sir.”
Wesley didn’t answer.
“So, tell me everything about the job, from the moment you stepped out of the vehicle.” They were in the van, on their way back to the necromancer’s house. Wesley sat in the passenger’s seat, notebook perched on his lap, pencil in hand.
“What? Am I being interrogated?”
“No, Jake. I only want the full picture of what happened. This could be potentially dangerous magic we’re dealing with here.”
“So this isn’t even a missing persons case?”
He caught Wesley’s look out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry. Just . . . should I be worried about him?”
“There isn’t any need for concern at the moment, no. As far as we can tell, Rick has wandered off. I’m not saying there isn’t a chance of foul play, but you shouldn’t concern yourself right now.”
Jake nodded, making the turn at the light. “Right. Well, we go and get the bodies, like Angel said for us to do —”
“So you magically got from the van to Hainsley’s workroom?”
Wesley’s sarcasm caught Jake off guard. “You want everything, huh?”
“When anything could have happened, yes. The details will help narrow this down.”
He thought about it for a bit, turning out of the busy city and onto the quieter, more secluded roads of the necromancer’s neighborhood. “I got out of the van to unlock the house. Rick got a couple of body bags for the haul. He opened the doors back up — funky hinges or something — and we went in. We took a detour by the body museum, went into the workshop, got a couple of stiffs, and worked our way back to the van.”
“Rick never made it back?”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “Stopped by the angel.”
“Angel?”
“Oh. Not the boss. This stone angel, like the one that was in the garden, only not. It wasn’t crying, you see. Was just some gothic architecture or something. Nothing really interesting. I liked the one outside better. Rick comments on it, I’m unimpressed, go out to the van. I go back in, no Rick.”
“An angel outside, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Crying?”
“Yeah. Like this.” Jake covered his face with his hands, shoulders hunched, then quickly grabbed hold of the steering wheel. “Nice lookin’. The one in the hall was kinda plain.”
Wes nodded, jotting down some notes.
“Almost there.” Jake tapped out a rhythm on the plastic steering wheel. “So, uh, do ya think something’s happened to him?”
“We can’t rule out anything, really.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m sure we’ll find out what we need. We’ll do our best.”
“No offense, uh, sir, but . . . that’s not too convincing.”
“Then you think something happened to Rick?”
Jake pulled onto the necromancer’s street. “You never been in that place, sir. It’s . . . pretty darn spooky. And Rick’s not one to goof off on the job. That’s my thing, you know?”
He smiled, but Wesley was being serious with his notebook.
When they pulled up close to the home, the former Watcher took to his notes once more. “You said there was an angel in the garden?”
Jake turned off the engine, and placed the keys in the driver’s side visor. Seemed right. “Yup. The sad one, not the pious one.”
“So where is this angel now?” Wesley was peering out his window, partiality blocking Jake’s view of the garden. He got out of the car and walked around to the other side of the vehicle. Wesley followed.
There were the trees, flowers, and small fountain had yet to be shadowed by the setting sun. There was the stone walkway that had the loose brick in it that Jake tripped on on his way up, which led him over to where the angel was. Or, for the time being, wasn’t.
“It was right there.” Jake pointed, brows knitting together in confusion. “I —”
Wesley was frowning.
“Oh man, I didn’t . . . you think I’m making this stuff up, don’t you?’ Jake shuffled back to Wesley’s position. “No. I swear! There was an angel statue right here in the garden.”
He pointed blindly behind him. “It was crying. And . . . do you think vandals? It was pretty. Maybe someone took it while I was gone. This place is pretty much up for grabs now that Hainsley’s dead. All the demon world knows it, right? So it’s a free-for-all.”
Jake shrugged. “Oh. I really hope noone took any bodies. No. I locked the door. Yes. I locked the door. I think.”
Wesley frowned deeper. “Let’s go in.”
The front door, as it turned out, hadn’t been locked. The two men walked in, and immediately,
Wesley whipped out the notebook.“Where did you last see him?”
“Right by that —” The spot where the praying angel had been was now empty. “Okay, that’s just not funny. I swear there was an angel statue right there, Wesley, really. Just like the other one.”
“Are you completely positive?”
“Yes!”
More notes went into the notebook. Wesley shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely that, out of all the merchandise available in this estate that someone would go after the statues. Retail values of the bodies are far higher.”
“We both saw them! Rick an’ I. We saw them both.”
“I’m not doubting you, Jake.”
“No?”
“No. I was merely thinking aloud.”
“Oh, good.”
Jake remained in the lobby, his hands on his hips, looking about but not really moving. Half of him wanted to pack up the rest of the bodies, the other wanted to run far away until he found where Rick was or he never had to come back. Wesley was being Wesley, investigating every corner with a fine-toothed comb.
“Ah. Your angel is over here.” Wesley pointed down the hall, where Jake couldn’t see. “You must’ve gotten the locations mixed up.”
“I don’t think so.” Jake wandered over to where Wesley was pointing. “I remember being in the foyer.”
A stone angel stood at the end of the hall, its arms by its sides, staring down.
Jake, having had his spirits lifted, sighed defeated. “No. That’s a different one. Didn’t look like that. That’s funny, though. I don’t think I saw that one before.”
“You didn’t?” Wesley made a quick note in his journal, then looked back up at the statue.
“Nah. Just the two I described.” Jake shrugged. “Maybe Rick’s playin’ some kinda joke. Things have been kinda boring in the boiler room.”
He wasn’t about to admit how creepy this whole thing was. Especially with those dead posed bodies visible from where he was standing. He should’ve packed them all in the van, body bags or not and just continued on with his job.
“Tell me, Jacob.” Wesley didn’t turn away from the angel down the hall. “Did you ever see both angels, at the same time?”
“Why would —?” Jake took another look at the angel down the hall. “There are three of them. That doesn’t constitute a ‘both’.”
“Don’t get smart, Jacob. This is very important.” The tone in Wesley’s voice could’ve told him that.
“I can’ t be in two rooms at once.”
“Oh dear.” Wesley put his notebook back into his jacket pocket. “Was the angel in the garden after you saw the one with Richard?”
“Why —?”
“Jacob!” Wesley quickly turned away, then, just as quick, turned back to stare down the hall.
“No! Yes! I don’t know! How could it —?”
“You’ve just moved dead bodies that a necromancer was using to place older clients in. Weird is possible, Jacob. Now listen to me, did you ever see more than one angel at the same time?”
Jake thought hard, biting his lower lip and glancing at the angel. “No.” He answered after a long pause.
Wesley paled. “If I am right in my suspicions,” his voice lowered, “we have to get out of here very quickly. Do you understand?”
“What about Rick?”
“I’ll explain later, but we have to run and fast.”
The tone in Wesley’s voice told Jake that this conversation was over. Jake nodded, then turned on his heel and sprinted to the van. Wesley wasn’t far behind. They scrambled into the car, Jake fumbling for the keys, then Wesley commented breathlessly, “The angel’s not in the garden.”
“We’ve established that!” The van started with a thick rumble. “Now what the hell was that?”
“Drive.” Jake didn’t need to be told twice. He drove as fast as he could back to Wolfram & Hart, listening to Wesley give short instructions on his cell phone. When things called for immediate meetings, things weren’t good.
“They’re called the Lonely Assassins.” Wesley stood at the front of the conference table, addressing the main core of W&H and, because he’d been involved, Jake.
“They’re among the oldest creatures in the universe, as old as time itself, and that is mostly all we know about them.”
“Oh this is gonna be good.” Spike came in through the wall, passing through the television Wesley had brought up for the meeting.
“Are you going to be of assistance, or are you going to make remarks?”
Spike smirked and stood in the corner near Jake.
“Like I was saying,” Wesley cleared his throat. “Not much is known about these demons. In fact, I didn’t even think they really existed.”
“So how do you know what we’re dealing with?” Gunn asked.
Wesley turned and motioned to the television screen behind him. “This video file was discovered not too long ago by an online group. It attracted Wolfram and Hart’s attention with the sophisticated embedding process for such a time in which it was created. It was suspicious. Either it could be used to control people, or it had a very important audience. It was for research, purely, I believe. Until the creatures it explains were cross-referenced with my department.
“I thought it was a joke. We all did. You must understand this file is hidden in seventeen different DVDs. It’s only half a conversation, as well, so its reliability . . . Then again, if it wasn’t for this joke, I never might have realized what we could’ve been dealing with. It’s amazing, really, what you can learn from the most seemingly insignificant of things.”
Angel cleared his throat from the opposite side of the table.
“Right. Yes. When Jake was explaining his situation with the angels, and seeing as how there was only ever one visible at the time, I made the unlikely connection to this puzzling video. If what this man is saying is true — we have no evidence either way — our situation is rather bleak.” Wesley pressed play and a man appeared on the screen and sat down. He dug out a pair of glass and began speaking.
“Yup, that’s me. Yes, I do. Yup. And this. Are you gonna —”
Wesley pressed fast-forward. “He mentions these angels . . . here.” He pressed play.
“ — quantum-locked. They don’t exist when they’re observed. The moment they are seen by any living creature they freeze into rock. No choice. It’s a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn into stone. And you can’t kill a stone. ‘Course a stone can’t kill you either, but then you turn your head away, and you blink, and oh yes it can.”
Wesley paused the video. “This man gives the only mention we can find of them. No history books, no other dimensions. Just him.”
“Who is he?” Gunn asked, “Wolfram and Hart?”
Wesley shook his head. “Noone knows. He never gives a name.”
“If you’ve got no other source for these things, just this guy, how can you be sure these angels are real?”
“There have been reports . . . disappearing children. Missing pets. Stories do mention stone angels. It had never been prevalent to be a demon race, until this file came along.”
“And Rick?” Jake piped up. “Did they kill him?”
“No. Well . . . not exactly. There’s nothing to prove that just yet.”
“So he’s just been kidnaped. You guys can get him back.” Jake pressed further.
“That’s not gonna be easy, I’m afraid” Fred pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The man said ‘quantum-locked.’ Now, amazing possibilities aside, this is serious scientific stuff. When something’s quantum-locked, that means that, when the object is observed, it enters a state of non-being. It doesn’t exist. It’s the whole basis of quantum physics, really. Schrödinger’s cat, anyone?” She was treated to blank faces. “Right. Basically what is says is that an experiment is ruined when it is observed. In your angel’s case, when anyone looks at it, it turns to stone. And you can’t kill stone. It’s not alive.”
“So we keep staring at it and smash it to pieces.” Spike smirked. “I’m always up for a good smash n’ grab.
Fred chewed her bottom lip. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean not exactly?”
“You blink about three to thirty times a minute. Under conditions of high stress that number is greatly increased. Granted, we only blink for three hundred milliseconds, but that’s more than enough time for these demons to be unlocked, it seems. You’ll be gone like that.” Fred snapped her fingers. “There’s no beating it.”
“Can we transport it to another dimension?” Wesley asked.
“Only if you’re sure it’s the only one. It would defeat the purpose if there was another one flying around.”
“Jake, you said you saw three different ones?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. three. A crying, a praying, and a . . . boring one. But you said these things move, right? When you don’t look at them?
“Yes.”
“So it could only be one, right?”
“If you’re not sure, I’m afraid that won’t work.” Fred shrugged, “I would need a specimen, too, to figure out what exactly makes these things tick.”
“So a smash n’ grab.” Spike smiled.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m afraid there’s more to this mystery, as well.” Wesley rewound the video.
— box it’s my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there they can feast on forever, but the damage they—
He pressed pause, and stepped in front of the television to speak. “The only things we’ve been able to gather from this is that they feast on time energy.”
“Wait, did he say time machine?” Spike raised his hand, albeit after he had spoken.
“Spike.” Angel ground his teeth. “Not now.”
“But a time machine. Bet you lot don’t have one of those.”
“That’s not the most important issue at —” Wesley was going to give Spike a lecture, but the ghost had the perfect timing of disappearing. “Oh. Well, time energy can be created in a number of ways. There is no knowledge thus far as to what method the angels use. Since there are so many possibilities, there is no feasible way just yet to attack.”
“So you can’t get Rick back?”
Wesley shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.”
Jake nodded. “That’s all right. It all comes with the job, right? I mean. He might not even have been taken.”
There was silence.
Angel cleared his throat. “So how do we kill it?”
“We can’t go in there blind.” Wesley held up the DVD. “This is all we’ve got. The Codex doesn’t even mention them past their name and that they are to be feared. They are as old as the Senior Partners, even older! We can’t meddled about with these sorts of creatures.”
“Wes, I have one man down already, and this thing is on the loose. In case any of you haven’t noticed there is noone back at Hainsley’s place to look at the statue except for dead bodies that weren’t cleared out! We need to do something.” Angel directed his gaze at Jake, who was sinking further into the corner.
“Angel!”
“What?”
Wesley frowned. “Jake had every right to leave that place. If he hadn’t we probably would not even have noticed there was such a threat in Los Angeles.”
“I’m just saying, I started out with one mess, now I have two, possibly three if this thing is loose, which is probably is. I’m not having a very good day.”
Gunn cleared his throat, shuffling papers. “I’ll see if I’ve got contacts.”
“I’ll get to the lab.” Fred followed behind him.
Wesley shook his head. “I’m sure there’s something useful I can be doing. Jake? You can have the day off.”
Angel frowned, staring at the empty conference table.
“What’d I miss?” Spike walked through from Angel’s office.
“All right. I think I got it.” Fred smiled standing next to a large object covered in a white sheet. She had assembled the group in the lab, having announced a big breakthrough in the Weeping Angel case. It had only taken four hours. Angel said this, leaning against one of the white counters.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Mary.” Spike mirrored Angel’s posture a few counters down. “She’s doin’ her best.”
“I was thinking about the quantum-locked thing, how it’s their greatest asset. Often greatest assets are often greatest weaknesses. It doesn’t matter what observes them. If these angels are seen by anyone, anything they will turn to stone. So I got to thinking. Do y’all remember when I said about experiments being ruined if they’re observed?”
There was some dumb nodding, so Fred continued. “Well, scientists have tried to get around that by taking pictures of the experiment. So long as their eyes never physically lay on the experiment, they thought it would be okay. So a computer took pictures.”
“So we snap a photo of the angel and it goes poof?”
“No. The photo option was ruled out.”
“So how does that help us?”
Fred smiled. “Ah. Now, how do you see something without being present in the room?”
“Camera.” Gunn shrugged.
“Think ancient.”
“Fred. We don’t have the time for this.”
She took a step back and slipped off the white sheet.
“S’a mirror.” Spike was less than impressed.
“And what are you doing in the mirror?” Fred shook her head. “Okay, not you or Angel ‘cause of the whole ‘vampire’ thing, but Gunn? You can see yourself, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re looking at yourself. Observing yourself.”
“Effectively,” Wes jumped in, “by placing the mirror in such a position in front of the angel its own gaze should betray its weakness.”
“Have we tested it?” Angel approached the mirror, skeptical.
“It’s not like we can bring in one of these angels for testing, Angel.” Fred said. “But from a purely scientific point of view, it’s still observation. It should work.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“So is everything else you do,” Spike walked through a couple of lab benches and approached Fred. “I say good work, ducks.”
“Thank you, Spike.”
“Well, let’s go.”
Angel frowned. “You’re not coming.”
“What’s Sticks ‘n’ Stones gonna do to a little ol’ ghostie like me?”
“Hopefully?” Angel spun on his heel, “The same thing he did to one of my employees.”
He left, Wesley and Gunn leading the large mirror into the elevator.
“I guess that’s settled. then. Good luck, guys.” Fred waved, then turned back to her other work.
“We don’t need to risk all of us.” Angel climbed in the driver’s seat of the van, the same one Jake and Rick had used, and addressed Gunn, Wes, and Spike who had followed him to the garage.
“I’ll not go.” Gunn immediately volunteered. “Got a meeting, anyway.”
“Spike’s not going to be much help to you carrying the mirror. I’m coming with you.” Wesley climbed in the passenger’s side.
“I can handle a mirror on my own, Wes.”
“And then it will become unbalanced and break. That’s the least we need right now.”
Angel was persuaded and Spike snuck in through the trunk. He had nothing better to do, he explained when Angel glared at his non-reflection in the rear view. Before an all-out war could begin, Wesley gave the directions.
Angel didn’t need them, but the human interaction helped.
“Nothin’ in the garden, then.” Spike stood on the pedestal that had been home to the first, crying angel.
“Foyer’s empty.” Angel had opened the doors to allowed for the mirror to get through.
“I’ll take a look around the place. You an’ Percy get the mirror in.” Spike walked through the doorway purely out of habit. He stopped to survey the foyer and, sure enough, there weren’t any angels. He stopped by the body farm, with all of its works on display in their various poses, and there weren’t any angels around, either. Too many prying eyes about, Spike thought to himself.
He heard the sounds of Wes and Angel clunking around the mirror in the hall. It was a chunky, old wooden thing. Fit the decor of the house well.
“Hey,” Spike walked back into the foyer. “How come we just didn’t grab one o’ the necromancer’s mirrors?”
“We needed a full-length one.” Wesley answered, rubbing his hands. “Could you be sure that Hainsley had one?”
“Woulda been easier.”
“We don’t do easy.” Angel snapped. “We do right. Now where is this thing?”
“Is he always this grumpy?” Spike stage-whispered to Wesley, who sighed and moved on. “Right then. A-huntin’ we go.”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“You’re a ghost. You’re not supposed to.”
“No. I mean, no ‘big bad’ vibe or anything. I don’t think this thing is around here.”
“We still haven’t checked out all the rooms yet.”
Spike and Angel were investigating the second-floor.
“But do you feel anything?”
“Annoyed.”
“Doesn’t mean the angel is here. Can I make a comment about that yet?”
“About what?”
“You, Angel , lookin’ for an angel.”
Angel sighed, moving further down the hall at a quicker pace, “No.”
Spike shrugged and followed.
As soon as Wesley opened the door, he knew he was in trouble “Bollocks.” he whispered to himself, his eyes widening.
There, arm raised out the window on the necromancer’s bedroom, was a stone angel.
He immediate acted on instinct and shut the door, pressing his back up against the wall. Realizing how stupid that was, he opened up the door again and stared hard. It was extremely difficult to not blink when thinking about blinking. Fred’s statistics immediately came to mind.
“Angel!” He called out. “Spike!”
He would not blink. He would not blink. He would not — he felt his eyes closing, even as his brain was screaming at him not to.
Spike flew through wall after wall, searching for the source of Wesley’s shouts. Angel was close behind, being forced to take the halls.
“I think he found something!” Spike was practically smiling with the almost-adrenaline rush he could just about feel.
“Just shut up and find him!”
Angel went up the other flight, while Spike fell through the stairs onto the first floor. He didn’t even noticed he’d run through the angel until the after image was processed in his brain two rooms later. He quickly backed up and called to Angel.
“I’d say the old boy cut it close.” Spike smiled, keeping his eyes peeled on the angel.
“That’s . . . not funny, Spike.” Wesley had his arms raised, touching the stone chest of the angel as its snarling, fanged face remained only inches in front of him.
“Told you not to blink.”
“Well you try it!”
“I currently am, in case you haven’t noticed.” Spike demonstrated this by peeling back his eyelids with his fingers.
“I suppose I should thank you.”
Angel rushed into the room, body visibly relaxing when he realized Spike was busy staring at the angel. “What happened?”
“Percy blinked.”
Wesley grumbled and walked out of the room. “I’ll go wheel in the mirror. Thankfully, the room is on the first floor.”
“Maybe they can’t walk up stairs. Another weakness.” Spike was still physically holding his eyes open.
“Go, Wes. Spike and I can stare at this thing.”
Wesley left.
“Got impressive fangs, don’tcha think? Looks a bit like you in the mornin’.”
Angel grimaced as he inspected the gruesome face of the stone statue.
“Hey, mate.” Spike sounded a bit uneasy.
“What?”
“Are you blinking?”
“Yeah. I thought you had the not blinking covered.”
“Well, yeah, but what if I —” And Spike was gone.
Immediately, Angel snapped his gaze back to the stone angel. “I love it when you do that, Spike.” For once, he was being sarcastic.
“A little warning would’ve been nice!” He yelled at nothing. After thirty seconds of staring into the open mouth, Angel widened his eyes. After a minute, he had to physically hold his eyes open like Spike had been doing. He felt really stupid.
“Come on, Wes!” He shouted, not being able to turn an direct his voice down the hall.
“I’m coming! It is a bit heavy.” Wesley’s voice still sounded a bit far off.
Angel winked. Slowly. One eye at a time. Carefully.
“I can see the bedroom from here.” Wesley called out. Angel could heard the rolling creek of the mirror. So close.
His eyes were getting tired, and he really didn’t want to —
“Sorry,” he watched himself step behind the angel. “You blink.”
And he did.
He was . . . in Hainsley’s house. And he had a headache. Also, he felt slightly nauseous, but not too much. He was in Hainsley’s house, but he wasn’t in the bedroom anymore. Well, he was, but the angel wasn’t there. So perhaps it was a different bedroom . . . with the same furniture.
Angel turned, scratching his head.
A ways down the house, a door opened. Minutes later, he heard Spike talking. Spike was saying things he’d already said before. Curious, Angel headed towards the voice.
“All right! You can blink now!” Wesley’s voice came from behind the mirror, which he was wheeling in first. Once he heard the thunk of the angel hitting the mirror, he backed out from under it.
“Too late,” Angel mumbled.
“I’m sorry?”
“I blinked.”
Wes’s brow furrowed. “But you’re still here.”
“Yeah. Long story. Can I stop looking at this thing now?” He pointed to the angel.
“Yes. I believe so. Well, the mirror should hold.”
“So . . . smash ‘n’ grab.” Angel plucked off a finger and handed it to Wes. “Keep an eye on that.”
The Englishman smiled. “I’m sure Fred wold appreciate it.”
Spike ran through the door, coat swirling behind him. “What’d I miss?”
“So you were transported back in time?” Wesley jotted down notes in his notebook as Angel drove back to the firm.
“I think so. I mean, it was only ten minutes or so. I almost bumped into myself. Well, I did there at the end, which is why I blinked, and come to think of it that was so stupid! Why did I do that?”
“Because you’re stupid.”
“No. No.” Wesley waved his hand for Spike to shut up. “I think . . . of course!”
“What?”
“Time energy! The angels feed on time energy!”
Angel shrugged. “And?”
“And if you get sent far back enough in time, far before you were born and you die before you were born — on a linear time line — then there is a whole host of leftover energy. Yes! That is what the angels feed on! Brilliant. The man did say something about linear, wobbly time. Or something to that effect.”
“But he only got sent back ten minutes.” Spike shouldered his way to the front, sitting between and inside Angel and Wes. “Gettin’ carsick.” He explained.
“Right. Well, the way I figure it. Angel is already dead, so they didn’t have a need for his energy. Or perhaps it was less filling, being that his body expended less energy. Perhaps even I was a bit of a rescue, coming in before the angel could inflict any real damage.”
“You just want to be the hero.” Spike scoffed.
“You did good, Wes.” Angel turned to glare at Spike.
“Thank you.”
“It was smart to come in mirror-first.”
“Always good to have a shield.”
Angel sighed. “I miss being able to use Spike as one.”
“Good times those. Especially when I ducked at the last second.”
“You were always so thoughtful.”
Wes smiled at the bickering as they pulled into the Wolfram & Hart garage. He pulled out the stone finger and carried it along with the journal. There was much more research to do.
Jake sat in the boiler room, a portable television on the fold out table, a notepad and pen in his lap. He was writing down everything. Every single thing he could.
And that's it, I'm afraid, there's no more from you on the transcript, that's the last I've got.
“Half a conversation. It shouldn’t be so hard to figure out the other half.” Jake’s voice was a whisper.
I don't know what stopped you talking but I can guess: they're coming.
‘Half a conversation for half a team.”
The angels are coming for you but listen: your life could depend on this.
Jake leaned in towards the screen.
Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead.
“Rick always won the staring contests, all the way from kindergarten through college.”
They are fast, faster than you could believe, don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck.
“They’re workin’ on somethin’.” Spike stood in the corner, glancing at the abandoned card game. “Hey. You woulda had a royal flush!”
But Jake wasn’t listening. He was reaching for the remote, and pressing pause at the very last second of the video. He sat and stared. He wasn’t going to blink, the man. Neither was Jake.
No matter how hard it was.
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