Angel - Close To The Ground

Angel breathed a sigh of relief

and headed

back toward Sunset.

“Just playing it safe,” he explained. “That’s what we bodyguards do.”

“I think you bodyguards are all whack jobs,” Karinna suggested.

“That may be, but —”

The car blasted out of nowhere, no headlights on, and slammed into the GTX. There was a sound like

an explosion. The Plymouth went into a skid and stopped ninety degrees from the way it had been

headed.

Angel was reaching for the key to restart it when he saw nine men on the street, coming toward them

from every angle.

“We’re not here for you,” one of them said. He was tall, with steely gray eyes and black hair slicked

close to his scalp. “You could go. Take your car. We’ll take the girl.”

“No deal,” Angel said.

“Didn’t think so,” the guy said. “Thought I’d offer, though.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Kill him,” the guy instructed calmly.

Angel™

Angel: City Of

Angel: Not Forgotten

Angel: Redemption

Angel: Close to the Ground

Available from POCKET PULSE

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Historian’s Note: This story takes place during the first half ofAngel ’s first season.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or

dead, is entirely coincidental.

AnOriginal Publication ofPOCKET BOOKS

POCKET PULSEpublished by Pocket

Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

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POCKET PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

For Maryelizabeth Hart and Nancy Holder

My Angels.

Acknowledgments

For this one I have to thank Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for creating these characters, and David

Boreanaz, Charisma Carpenter, and Glenn Quinn for giving them life.

Thanks also to the publishing commandoes: Caroline Kallas, Debbie Olshan, Liz Shiflett, Micol Ostow,

and especially Lisa Clancy.

And the ground crew: Maryelizabeth, Nancy, Chris, Scott, Holly, Dave, and Belle. Couldn’t have done

it without you.

PROLOGUE

Ireland — four weeks ago

The island rose from the waters off the west coast of Ireland like a great beast thrusting its head up from

the surf. Waves had pounded the island’s sheer rock walls since time began, scouring them clean and

smooth. Thick tall grass carpeted the island’s interior, dotted by the stunted, twisting trees that were all

the strong winds and heavy mists would allow to grow.

No visitor but the winged ones had ever set foot on this island, and even those were soon driven off — if

not by the elements, then by the sense of foreboding that blanketed the place as surely as the

ever-present fog. Ireland, they said, had been rid of snakes by Saint Patrick, but that man was simply

redundant here. No natural creature thatcould leave the island would stay on it more than a night.

According to legend, a force of Celtic warriors had once tried to claim the island because where it sat,

off the end of Blacksod Bay, might have strategic significance to anyone invading that part of Ireland.

Climbing the rocky cliffs, they found in the center of the island a strange assortment of huge rocks,

standing at angles to the ground, as if they would fall down at any moment. In the middle of this

arrangement they discovered a broad, flat rock, and on that rock an old man’s severed head. As the

warriors approached, the eyes of the head opened and gazed upon them. The head then called each

warrior by name.

By morning all the warriors were dead, and each of the big, leaning rocks was topped by a fresh human

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skull. The island was left alone after that.

It was never given a name.

So when a castle was built on the island, no one saw its walls go up, its roofs covered over. It was

constructed of the same gray stone as the island itself, and from a distance — which was as close as

anyone came — it looked like simply another rock outcropping.

The castle belonged to Mordractus.

Mordractus sat in a chair made of massive antlers, with deerskin stretched between them, watching as

P’wrll shoved a tape into the VCR. The room was vast and dark, with the only light coming from small

electric sconces set high up on the cold stone walls, and the glow from the rear-projection TV.

“The quality ain’t great,” P’wrll said. His voice rasped like two rocks scraping together, and Mordractus

thought that his accent was a bizarre cross of Irish and Faerie. P’wrll was an odd-looking thing, too, his

body all bent and twisted, his skin chalk-white with narrow black lips and cavernous red eyes, strands of

long white hair that reached halfway to the floor from his patchy scalp, and limbs that seemed made from

random branches of different trees. It was a good thing he had masking spells which enabled him to pass

among humans. “It was all shot at night,” he went on, “mostly from a distance. And we couldn’t exactly

announce ourselves, you know, ’ad to shoot it all from ’idin’.”

Mordractus waved an impatient hand at the bogie. Goblins and fairies in general were typically bad with

modern machinery, and he’d half a mind to do it himself, or at least to summon one of his human minions

to operate the thing. “I’ve no interest in your excuses,” he said. “Just show it to me.”

P’wrll fiddled with the remote, his long, gnarled fingers finally locating the right button, and the

widescreen went blue. “I think I’ve got it,” he announced. Sure enough, the screen flickered and went

dark, and then Mordractus could make out a wide, urban street, at night, lit by streetlights.

“I dinna like it there,” P’wrll said. “Too many folks.” His word for humans.

Mordractus watched the screen for long moments. The street was empty. “This is useful,” Mordractus

commented. He was never sure if sarcasm was lost on fairies and bogeymen. “You didn’t edit?”

“We thought you’d want to see this as soon as you could,” P’wrll said.Another quality common to

bogies, Mordractus thought.Always with the “we,” as if to dilute any blame for anything that might

go wrong . They were mischievous, occasionally malevolent, but they dodged responsibility as efficiently

as the laziest human.

Mordractus surrounded himself with both. Humans had their uses, but for some jobs, a bogie or another

type of fairy or goblin was more effective. Sometimes he just had to laugh at the modern world’s

fascination with fairies, and the perception of them as innocent magical creatures fluttering gaily about the

woods and fields.

A fairy would as soon rip a human’s head off and have it for dinner as pose on the petals of a flower.

People had forgotten that — forgotten so much about magic and the old ways.

But Mordractus hadn’t. He’d lived it, for three centuries now.

Which is,he reflected,part of the problem .

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A skilled sorceror could extend his life for a long time. But no magician had ever lived as long as

Mordractus already had — not even the great ones of old, not Merlin, not Gilles de Rais, not Agrippa.

Mordractus had studied the works of the greats, had learned from each of them, and had, at last,

surpassed them in knowledge and skill.

And yet, in spite of all his efforts, even he was tiring. He had tried everything to rejuvenate himself, to

restore his strength, to ward off the effects of age. Spells and rituals that had worked in the past failed

him now. And there was the big one, the Summoning, which sapped more of his life force than anything

he’d ever attempted, at every stage.

Mordractus was dying, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it.

Still, he didn’t give up. He sent his followers far and wide, looking for anything he might have missed,

any sign or sigil, any clue to a new treatment, an untested technique. Most of them came back

empty-handed, unable to turn up anything he hadn’t already tried.

But P’wrll and two humans, Currie and Hitch, had returned with this tape, which they claimed revealed

something quite unexpected, and possibly helpful. They had gone to America; more specifically, to the

city of Los Angeles, in the United States. What they found there was, they claimed, remarkable.

On the screen a man walked out of a doorway and onto the sidewalk. At the curb he looked both ways,

as if checking to see if he was observed, and then opened the door of a car and climbed in. He was tall,

young, and handsome, with spiky dark hair and intense eyes that seemed to glare right into the camera.

He wore a black leather overcoat over dark clothes.

“There ’e is,” P’wrll said. “That’s ’im now, gettin’ in the car.”

“Amazing,” Mordractus said dryly. “A man gets in a car. Who’d have believed it?”

“There’s more,” P’wrll protested. “Just wait.”

The tape cut then, and started again someplace else. A different street, still outdoors, still in the city. The

same man filled the screen. This time he was closer to the camera, but he still didn’t seem to see it. His

attention was focused elsewhere.

And while Mordractus watched, the young man changed.

His forehead swelled, becoming thicker, almost plated. His eyes narrowed. His teeth grew and his lips

pulled back in a grimace.

He was definitely a vampire.

The camera swung around, following him as he went past it.

Two men had a woman pressed up against a concrete wall. Probably this vampire had chosen her as his

victim, and these men were interfering, Mordractus thought. The men were shadowed — it was possible

they were vampires as well. Hunting together? Unusual, but stranger things had happened.

The young man —young vampire, Mordractus corrected himself — waded into the men. His fists flew,

he lashed out with a mighty kick, and in a moment both men were running away at top speed. The

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vampire let them go.

Then he turned to the woman. Mordractus was expecting him to take her there, but he didn’t. In fact, in

the dim light, Mordractus could see that his face had taken on its human demeanor again. He looked at

her with concern in his eyes as he helped her to her feet. He picked up a fallen purse and handed it to

her, and then he escorted her to a nearby car.

She gave him a wave as she drove away.

“Is he a vampire or a Boy Scout?” Mordractus asked.

“That’s just it,” P’wrll replied. “According to the rumors, ’e’s a vampire, but ’e does good things. ’E

won’t feed on folks. And ’e’s got a soul.”

“A soul?” Mordractus echoed.

“’S’what they say,” P’wrll said. “Immortal, sure, but wi’ a soul.”

“Indeed,” Mordractus said, his mind already racing, considering the implications.

“There’s more tape.”

“Let it run,” Mordractus told him. “Did you happen to get the vampire’s name?”

“They call ’im Angel.”

Angel.

Angelus? Could it be?

“Warm up the helicopter. And book some flights,” Mordractus instructed. He watched the tape roll on,

a new optimism suddenly filling him.

“We’re going to California.”

CHAPTER ONE

Los Angeles — now

“Icould do this,” Cordelia Chase said. She walked into Angel’s office from his downstairs apartment,

waving a glossy magazine in her hand. Angel glanced away from the TV. She seemed to be showing him

a society section — dozens of small photos of L.A.’s social elite were flapping at him.

“I really could,” she went on. “I mean, what are the qualifications? To be pretty? Look at me.”

Angel did. Even wearing a casual tank top and track pants, the brunette was definitely pretty. Angel

thought she had, even in the short time since graduating from high school back in Sunnydale and moving

here to L.A., seemed to grow into herself more, becoming more elegant and lovely with each passing

week.

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“And I guess you have to be able to talk for hours about nothing in particular, but, hello. High school? If

they’d scored on meaningless conversation, I wouldn’t have that whole grade-point-average thing

hanging over my head. And I mean that in the best possible way — meaningless conversations are so

much more interesting, really, than the kind that are about deep psychological issues, aren’t they?”

“News is on, Cordy,” Doyle announced. A little more brusque than he usually was with her, which Angel

figured meant that he was so distracted by the tube he had forgotten he was still hoping to date her

someday. Angel thought he sometimes played the Irish brogue up more, too, as if hoping that the Irish

side of him would camouflage the demon side. She didn’t know yet that Doyle was half-demon, and

Doyle hoped she never did.

“See, that’s what I mean. What good ever comes from watching the news? I’m talking about more than

a career choice here — becoming a trophy wife is more of a lifestyle choice, with the added bonus that

then you don’t really need a career.”

“Right now,” Doyle said, “the good that’ll come from it is that I’ve got some money down on the

Padres, and I’m waitin’ to see if Tony Gwynn’s gonna come through for me again. It’s a sure thing, but I

wanna see just how sure.”

“Quiet a minute, both of you,” Angel said. “I want to hear this.” Cordelia and Doyle both shushed.

“. . . another daring overnight bank robbery,” the local news blow-dry said, “but this one resulted in the

deaths of three innocent bystanders who happened to be on the street in the early hours of the morning,

when the heavily armed robbers left the bank. A witness says the alleged robbers came out through the

front door, surprising Los Angeles residents Ford Gilmore and Tomm Coker, and a third, unnamed

minor. The bystanders were between the bank door and their getaway car, and when the alleged bank

robbers left the building, they opened fire with automatic rifles, killing the three instantly. . . .”

“Listen to that,” Doyle said. “ ‘Alleged robbers.’ Like it ain’t pretty clear when they come out of the

bank carryin’ stolen money, shootin’ people, that they really are robbers.”

“Kate told me about these guys,” Angel said. “They tunnel into banks overnight, load up their bags from

the vault, and then go out the front door into waiting cars. She was afraid things might escalate some day,

and someone would get hurt.”

“Looks like it has,” Cordelia said. “Does Police Woman have any clues?”

“She said she thinks so, but wouldn’t tell me what they were.”

“Guess she don’t want you goin’ Batman on them,” Doyle said.

“Something like that.”

“Hey, that reminds me, man. Those guys jumped you, a couple weeks back? I’ve been asking on the

street, see if anyone knows anything. No dice so far.”

“Well, thanks for trying, anyway,” Angel said. “It’s not a big deal.”

He’d been out late — when one is a vampire, it beats being out early — and four thugs had come out of

a car as he walked down the street, not far from his office/apartment. The car had pulled up at the curb,

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and the passenger door opened — letting someone out on the sidewalk, Angel assumed. No reason to

think differently.

Until the guy spoke to him. “Hey, pal,” he said. Angel glanced at him then. The man was dressed all in

dark clothes, like Angel himself — black jeans, a dark long-sleeved tee, and a Dodgers cap pulled low

on his brow.

“Hey,” Angel replied, not even breaking his stride.

Then the back doors opened and two more guys came out of the rear seat, dressed similarly. Angel saw

that they were carrying weapons — a black police-style billy club in one’s hand, and a baseball bat in the

other’s. He looked back toward the first guy, and saw a knife in his fist now.

“What’s going on?” Angel asked.

None of the men said anything. They spread out, surrounding Angel on the sidewalk. Angel heard

another car door open — the driver, he figured, but he didn’t lift his gaze from the guys nearest him.

“I think maybe you’ve got the wrong man,” Angel said.

Still no response.

The guy with the baseball bat swung it lazily through the air in Angel’s direction. It wasn’t a threat, so

Angel ignored it. Then the billy club came whipping toward him, fast and hard. Angel dodged the blow,

felt it whistle past him.

Knife guy lunged at him then. Angel caught the man’s wrist, tucked it up under his own arm, against his

ribs, and brought his arm in fast.

There was a snapping sound, and the guy let out a scream. The knife clattered to the walk.

And the baseball bat slammed into his kidney from behind.

He let go of the man with the broken wrist, turned to the bat wielder.

“There’s still time for you to get out of this without getting hurt,” Angel said.

“Don’t think that’ll be a problem,” said the fourth man, the driver. Angel saw him now. He was huge,

six-five easy, and well over two hundred and fifty pounds. A big gut spilled out of his black T-shirt and

over his belt buckle. Heavy motorcycle boots peeked from beneath his jeans. He had long dark hair,

streaked with gray, and a bushy beard.

In one massive hand he held a ball-peen hammer.

He advanced on Angel. Angel figured this one was the most dangerous, but couldn’t turn his attention

from the others, either. A bat and a billy club were still in play. He decided that a quick finish to this

whole encounter would be for the best.

When the billy club came swinging at him again, he caught it in the palm of his hand. He closed his fist

around it and yanked. The wielder lurched toward him, and Angel met him with a sudden kick to the

chest. The guy dropped back, winded. With the same motion, Angel spun, dropping beneath the arc of

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the swinging bat. He came up under the bat guy’s hands, driving the billy club into the man’s throat. The

man dropped the bat and fell to the ground, clutching at his neck.

Now it was just the big guy with the hammer. He looked at Angel with a half-smile on his face, as if

looking forward to the matchup with delighted anticipation.

Angel stood in a partial crouch, billy club still in his grip. He watched the hammer guy’s eyes, ready for

any signal that he was ready to charge.

Instead, he surprised Angel. “Okay,” he said. “You win.” The other guys piled back into the car, and the

driver, gaze locked with Angel’s the whole way, went back to the driver’s door. He got in, and they

drove away.

Angel made no attempt to follow, figuring they were just muggers who had mistaken him for an easy

target. They were human, that much was certain. And that fact made it not overly worrisome. He’d

practically forgotten the incident by now, but was strangely touched that Doyle hadn’t.

Sometimes Doyle acts like the only thing in the world he cares about is himself,Angel thought,but

then he surprises you with unexpected depth .

Since moving from Sunnydale — and away from Buffy — Angel had found that Doyle had proven to be

a big help in his activities. So, oddly, had Cordy, pushing him to “legitimize” his quest to help those in

need, in the form of a business that, once in a great while, paid real money.

Angel had been a vampire for a long while. But for the last hundred years or so, he’d been a vampire

with a soul, thanks to a Gypsy curse. Having a soul meant having a conscience, and having a conscience

was naturally followed by feelings of incredible guilt for the many lives he’d taken during his vampiric

days. Now he refused to feed on humans, restricting himself to pig’s blood from a butcher shop.

But no longer killing humans wasn’t good enough. He had many deaths for which to atone. He remained

immortal, which was a good thing, because he figured it would take him that long to make up for all the

misery he’d caused. And, if he wanted to get right down to it, he was still trying to make up for not

having been such a good guy before he became a vampire.

It took, he thought, Buffy to help him see that. She allowed him to understand that a person got to

choose between being good, and being something else. And to value the choice for good.

Unfortunately, some choices were harder to make than others. Such as Buffy. Being with her, and then

leaving her behind. Moving to Los Angeles. But they had to be made, and he made them and tried not to

look back.

Anyway, his apartment was cool, and had access to underground tunnels, which came in handy for

moving about in the daytime. And it came with the upstairs office space, which Angel didn’t want to let

go to waste. So the detective business seemed like a reasonable compromise.

“Bank robberies, killings, general meanness, that’s all the news is ever about,” Cordelia said, sinking into

Angel’s dark blue couch, next to Doyle. “If there’s so much bad stuff happening in L.A., what I want to

know is, why aren’t we profiting from it? I mean, how come business has been so slow lately? You’d

think some of these people in trouble would come to Angel Investigations to get help, right?” She looked

hard at Doyle, who turned away from the screen when he felt her gaze on him.

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“Maybe it’s you,” she went on. “Maybe that vision radar of yours is out of whack or something. Have

you had it tuned up lately?”

“I don’t need to —”

“Because if you’re supposed to be having visions of people who need help, you’re falling way behind,”

she interrupted.

“The Powers That Be don’t exactly explain how they work to the likes of me,” Doyle said. “All I know

is I get ’em when I get ’em, and if I don’t get ’em, then I don’t get the excruciatin’ headaches that go

along with ’em, and that’s just fine with me.”

“Well, maybe we should think about renting a billboard or something. Or those benches at bus stops.

Because if we’re relying on your visions to grow a business, and you’re not having visions, then we’re in

trouble.”

“Maybe that’ll be my next vision,” Doyle said. “Angel Investigations in fiscal crisis. But what do you

care, Cordy? You’ll be on the arm of some ninety-year-old discount store billionaire, escortin’ him from

the nursing home to the opening of a new location in Wichita Falls.”

“Eew,” Cordelia replied. “Old guys. I hadn’t thought of that. I can get a young, handsome, successful

rich husband.”

“It seems like the young, handsome, successful ones are seldom in need of trophy wives,” Angel pointed

out.

“You could be right,” Cordelia said, stifling a yawn. “Maybe there’s a flaw in my plan after all. This’ll

require some more thought.” With a flutter of pages she tossed the magazine onto a table. “It’s too late to

think tonight. Try to remind me to do it sometime tomorrow, okay?”

“Quiet,” Doyle snapped. “Sports’re on.”

“I don’t know why I’m so sleepy,” Cordelia continued. “It isn’t that late. Remember when I could stay

up until all hours and still look beautiful in school the next day? Well, of course you don’t, Doyle, you

didn’t know us then. And I guess staying up late is not an especially impressive skill, to a vampire. So

never mind.”

“Cord . . .”

“Okay, quieting here.”

“. . . Padres were swamped,” the sportcaster announced, “twenty to seven by the Kansas City . . .”

“Sorry, Doyle,” Cordelia said.

“No big,” Doyle replied. He looked crestfallen. “Just, if the phone rings, I ain’t here, all right?”

“You gave our phone number?” Angel asked.

“Hey, these guys aren’t the kind I want callin’ me at home, if you know what I mean.”

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Angel - Close To The Ground

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