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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 of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET PULSE published by

Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-3285-1

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

For my sons, Matthew and Luke,

because all the time in the world

would still never be enough

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Angel glanced up from the newspaper he’d been examining for more information on the

bizarre murders.

Kate Lockley entered the office. Before Angel could even rise to greet her, she dropped a box of case

folders on his desk. “These are copies,” she declared, “but I’ll want them back. All of them. Don’t make

me regret this, Angel.”

“I won’t.”

“I forgot to mention one thing that puts us on the whole cult angle. One of the bodies was missing.” She

held up a hand to stop the obvious question. “We found a pile of clothes in an alley, along with personal

effects, white . . . bone powder, and a few patches of torn skin. For God only knows what sick purpose,

somebody wanted those remains.”

Wanted?Angel wondered.Or needed?

Angel™

City Of

Not Forgotten

Redemption

Close to the Ground

Shakedown

Hollywood Noir

Avatar

Available from POCKET PULSE

The Essential Angel Posterbook

Available from POCKET BOOKS

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avatar

John Passarella

An original novel based on the television series created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt

POCKET PULSE

New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

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Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Keya Khayatian for putting me on the map in Los Angeles as well as in Swedesboro. My

editor, Lisa Clancy, and her assistant, Micol Ostow, for making it fun. My agent, Gordon Kato, who is

as excited by stories as I am. Jean Wipf and Mary Moyer for their continued local support. Jeff Richards

for the virtual beer. Max Etchemendy for speaking in tongues—i.e., the Latin lessons. And Andrea for all

her love and that little push when I needed it.

Special thanks to Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for creatingAngel and to David Boreanaz,

Charisma Carpenter, and Glenn Quinn for breathing life into the characters.

PROLOGUE

Elliot Grundy’s demon was becoming impatient.

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Shouldn’t be too surprised,Elliot thought,patience being a virtue and all that. Even so, his

computer’s modem had barely stopped grumbling over its irritatingly slow connection, when the demon

demanded to know where she was. “Don’t worry,” Elliot assured him, although the “him” aspect was still

up for grabs. Elliot wasn’t really sure the demon had a sex, but referring to the demon as “him” rather

than “it” just seemed more natural. Well, once one got beyond the completelyunnatural concept of

dealing with a demon in the first place. “She’ll show.”

Elliot sat at his computer desk in the bedroom of his one-bedroom apartment wearing a sleeveless

T-shirt stretched over his considerable paunch and threadbare sweatpants. He’d settled in with a

party-size bag of cheese curls and a chilled two-liter bottle of Pepsi. In no time at all, the orange powder

from the cheese curls coated his entire keyboard. Nothing his minivac couldn’t clean up later.

He fired up the Internet chat software and connected to the chat room, one of many he’d book-marked.

Before actually logging in to the room, he started his text-to-speech utility program, which spared him the

eyestrain he’d experience from staring at text on the screen for long hours. He assigned a generic male

voice for room announcements. It was a singles chat room with no moderator. Come and go as you

please. No censorship, no rules. Anonymous. His favorite kind. Next he assigned a male voice to his

log-in name and a female voice to the woman’s.

Since this was a graphical chat room, he had to pick an avatar in addition to a log-in name. The available

avatars ran the gamut from cartoon animals to caricatures of classic movie stars like Bogart, Mae West,

and James Dean. All the avatars tended to have large heads over miniature and basically unmoving

bodies, as if part of some bizarre casting call for the television seriesSouth Park. Elliot selected his

avatar, the Frankenstein monster, and entered his screen name, FrankN9, to log in.

The chat room screen was a two-dimensional representation of a bar, with stools, tables, and booths.

All the depth of Colorforms. An animated bartender avatar, endlessly cleaning a beer mug with a white

cloth, served the nonhuman role of room announcer. “FrankN9 has entered the bar,” said generic male

voice number one through the computer speakers.

Several avatars bobbed aimlessly around the bar, including a cowboy, a red bulldog, a showgirl with a

high-kicking stick leg, and, demonstrating another annoying looped animation, a hula dancer. To avoid

any confusion that duplicate avatars might cause, each had a name tag underneath it. Comic book–style

word balloons appeared above the cowboy and the hula girl. “Hi, FrankN9.” Grundy hadn’t bothered to

assign them text-to-speech voices.

Behind Elliot, the demon spoke in a voice that would have made Barry White think he had a shot with

the Vienna Boys Choir. “Where is she?”

Elliot resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at the demon, whose neutral state he found a little

unsettling, especially on a diet of cheese curls and cola. By rights, it shouldn’t have disturbed him since,

as the demon had explained, he was only able to manifest on the physical plane with substance borrowed

from Elliot, a result of their pact. “She’ll show,” Elliot repeated, wiping the orange residue from his damp

palms onto his sweatpants. “She’s just . . . fashionably late, is all.”

Elliot typed a question for his avatar to speak in the digitized voice of generic male number two: “Anyone

seen L8Dvamp?”

A few quick replies. Bulldog: “Not tonight.” Cowboy, in character, no less: “Out of luck, pardner.” Then

the group resumed chatting among themselves, word balloons sprouting and popping like soap bubbles.

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Behind Elliot, the demon rumbled ominously. He wasn’t quite sure how the demon made that sound, but

it made his gut vibrate uncomfortably. Elliot cleared his throat, “Look, she’s probably just—”

“L8Dvamp has entered the bar,” said the voice of the announcer.

Elliot heaved a sigh of relief and began typing. His assigned computer voice came through the speakers:

“Hi, L8Dvamp. I’ve been waiting for you.”

L8Dvamp came as her usual avatar, a lady vampire with black hair piled high, red eyes, a drop of blood

dripping from each curlicue fang, wearing a shirred white dress with a plunging neckline. “Good evening,

FrankN9,” spoke generic female voice number one. “Were you afraid I’d get cold feet?”

Having recently faced that precise fear, Elliot took a long slug of Pepsi. After a resounding belch, he said

to the demon, “Annoying bitch. Deserves whatever happens to her.” But he typed, “Never entertained

the thought.”

A small window popped up in the middle of the screen. The message read, “L8Dvamp has invited you

into a private room.” Next to it were two buttons. “Accept” and “Decline.” Elliot uttered a sigh of relief.

Good, she’s skipping the preliminaries. He clicked on “Accept,” then said to the demon behind him,

“What I tell ya, big guy? She can’t resist our collective charms.”

“Proceed,” the demon instructed.

A new window overlaid the bar. This one had a two-dimensional love seat in one corner and a brass

bed in the other. Things could get kinky in here, if the chat turned into a computer sex session, but Elliot

had other plans. Besides, L8Dvamp’s avatar had already wobbled over to the love seat. He leaned

forward, his cheese curls all but forgotten, and typed his end of the conversation into the keyboard: “So .

. . ready to meet in the real world?”

“You really think we’d make a good couple?”

“Remember, my psychic told me I’d have a serious relationship with a Pisces, and you’re a Pisces.

Seems like fate.”

“Okay, but one favor first.”

“Crap! What now?” Elliot said. But he typed, “Anything. Name it.”

“Describe yourself again,” she said in the robotic approximation of human speech, “so I’ll recognize you

when we meet.”

When,he noted. Notif. “Just last night I asked you to describe your dream guy. You said it was amazing

how close I fit that description.”

“Yes. And that seemed like fate too.”

“Okay. Describe that dream guy again.”

“Mid-twenties. Athletic build. At least six feet tall, dark blond hair, blue eyes, natural tan.”

Elliot was five-eight with rust-colored hair and a few acne skirmishes around a pale, round face. His

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skinny arms bracketed a pear-shaped body. Elliot began typing: “I’m six-one . . .” Then he turned to face

the demon. He had to, so he could get the rest of the description right.

Standing less than an arm’s length behind Elliot’s chair, the demon looked like nothing more than a

man-shaped lump of yellow wax about six feet high. The demon had no facial features and only

spatula-shaped hands and feet, no fingers or toes. But now the waxy shape stretched up to a height of six

feet one inch. The head sprouted numerous spikes, that flopped over and became blond hair. Blue eyes

appeared and seemed to focus on Elliot. Nostrils and a gaping maw opened, then sculpted themselves

into a narrow nose and full-lipped mouth. The lumpy wax surface took on the consistency of skin over an

enviable musculature and finally deepened in color to a surfer’s tan. As the demon continued to resolve

into a human shape, complete with fingers, toes, and body hair, Elliot finished typing the demon’s physical

characteristics into the private room, followed by a question. “Well?”

“Picture’s worth a thousand words.”

“Meaning?”

“If we’re gonna meet, I need to be sure. Do you have a Web camera?”

“Great,” Elliot said to the demon. “She wants to see your mug.”

“Do it,” the demon said, his perfect teeth flashing.

Elliot sighed. “Think you should put on some clothes first?”

“Right,” the demon said, extending his arms. Elliot’s clothes would never fit, so the demon created his

own illusion: basic white shirt, jeans, and boots.

Elliot turned back to the computer and typed. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Hold on. I really want to meet you before it gets too late.”Yes, Elliot thought.I have a very impatient

demon breathing down my neck. The chat room had an option for cameras and video-conferencing,

which was too formal a term in this situation. Elliot lifted his spherical camera off the top of his monitor

and passed it to the demon, who held it before his face. Elliot turned the camera on through the software.

In moments, a postage stamp–size window appeared in the corner of his own monitor and he saw a

grainy, color image of L8Dvamp. She had dark hair and a plain-looking face, accentuated with dark red

lipstick.

“Thanks for being so understanding, FrankN9.”

He switched off the video link. “No problem, L8Dvamp. Where should we meet?”

“I’m at CyberJoe’s,” she told him. “How soon can you get here?”

CyberJoe’s was a new Internet coffee bar located in West Hollywood off Melrose. At one time it had

been a popular dance club, with an encircling upper tier that looked down upon an expansive dance

floor. Although the balcony level had probably once been at eye level with the obligatory spinning

mirrored ball, the tables and booths that had replaced the balcony now allowed for more intimate

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conversations. While the interior architecture hadn’t been overhauled extensively, the mirror ball was long

gone and the music—now piped through camouflaged speakers—was electronic, New Age, and

subdued. Booths and tables everywhere sported computers with sleek and expensive flat-panel displays.

The stairway and balcony railings were outlined in blue and yellow neon lights, perhaps to simulate

information coursing through the place and out into the world at the speed of light. Otherwise the lighting

was as muted as that of a posh restaurant late in the evening, but instead of candles casting a warm glow

on the faces of the customers, flat-screen monitors bathed the computer acolytes in a ghostly pale aura.

For a place that had once vibrated with dance music cranked up well beyond the hearing-impairment

threshold, CyberJoe’s became, on occasion, eerily quiet. The only sound emanating from the tables of

actual Internet researchers tended to be a steady clacking of keys. So the managers of CyberJoe’s, in

addition to supplying over thirty varieties of coffee and tea, had instituted in-house computer trivia

challenges and chat night topics to foster camaraderie among their clientele, having lost sight of the simple

fact that it was hard for patrons to interact while staring into a computer display.

Ginger Marks (a.k.a. L8Dvamp) agreed with Eddie (a.k.a. FrankN9) that the best way to interact with

each other would be to leave CyberJoe’s and go for an evening stroll. They walked for a while in

comfortable silence. Ginger couldn’t help glancing over at him every couple of moments, then smiling. “I

have to say,” she told him. “You’re exactly how I pictured you.”

Eddie smiled, taking the compliment in stride, almost as if he’d expected it.

Ginger thought he was simply too good to be true—exactly as she’d pictured her dream guy, in every

detail. Yet her first photographic impression of him as he walked through the door of CyberJoe’s and

greeted her was that his nose was a little too thin for her liking, his eyebrows a tad too bushy. Then,

within moments, those same features seemed just right. He still looked basically the same as he had a half

hour ago . . . only better.Was it a trick of the imagination? she wondered.Nobody’s appearance

changes just because you want it to. “So what about you?”

“What about me?”

She grinned, spread her hands expansively, causing her silver bracelets to clink together. She wore a

wine-colored blouse and black Capri pants. Around her neck was a pendant in the curvedH shape of the

Pisces glyph. “Am I exactly how you envisioned me?”

“Physical appearance isn’t nearly as important to me as what’s on the inside.” He flashed a dazzling

white smile, took her hand in his, and kissed it. “But I must say you are delightful in every way.”

She laughed. “Why, thank you, Eddie. It’s strange. I want to keep calling you FrankN9, or at least

Frank.”

“That’s better than plain old Frankenstein.”

Several teenage boys were walking down the street, intentionally banging into each other, perhaps

reminiscing about a mosh pit. One gave another a playful shove in the back and started to run away,

toward Ginger and Eddie. The others took off after him. Eddie grabbed Ginger and pulled her aside,

shielding her from the stampede of youth. “Hooligans,” he said.

“Just kids goofing off.”

Eddie glanced over her shoulder, down a narrow side street. Then he looked deep into her eyes in a

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way no other guy ever had. The intensity of his gaze actually gave her chills, made her a little weak in the

knees. He was incredibly attractive and athletic, and he seemed so passionate. She wasn’t sure exactly

what was coming over her, but she knew she had every intention of giving in to it.

He said softly into her ear, “Mind if we step off this expressway for a moment? I have something . . .

important to tell you.”

Lost in his deep blue eyes, she nodded once.

After he led her a few steps into the alley and placed both hands on her shoulders, she found her voice

again. “Okay. We’re alone now. I seriously hope the important thing you’re about to say is not that

you’re married.”

He chuckled. “No. Actually, it’s not something I want to say. It’s something I’ve wanted to do all night.

And I required a little . . . privacy.”

She tilted her head back as he leaned down for the kiss. “Oh . . . I understand completely.”

As his hands slid across her shoulders, their lips met. After only a moment, she felt the moist tip of his

tongue and parted her lips. “Ginger,” he whispered, “I’m afraid you don’t understand at all.”

That was when his hands, near her neck now, clamped down over her collarbone, pinching her flesh. His

fingers lengthened and hardened, and his nails extended, digging into her flesh, then piercing it, stabbing

into her chest, neck, and back. Ginger tried to scream but his tongue had elongated as well and was

probing down her throat impossibly far, scaly as a snake.

She tried to push him away, but her hands quickly became too heavy to lift. Her arms dropped to her

sides. One by one her silver bracelets slipped off her withering hands, clinking on the asphalt. Her body

convulsed, thrashing in his grip until, finally, she succumbed to the rising tide of darkness that swept over

her.

While they were joined, the demon convulsed as well, as if he were connected to a live wire. But far

from damaging him, each jolt of energy that flowed from her body to his, engorged him with the stuff of

her life essence, each pulse a dizzying thrill. Yet the euphoria only lasted for about thirty seconds. Then

she simply had nothing left to give. When he withdrew his fingers and tongue from what was left of

Ginger’s body, they whipped around like agitated eels. All eleven appendages had become segmented,

tapered to hollow points, still shiny with Ginger’s gore. While the erstwhile fingers and thumbs were long

enough to reach the ground, what had passed for his tongue was only eighteen inches long. The demon

threw back its head and retracted its tongue with a contented slurp. Then he held his arms up, palms

facing inward like a doctor who had just scrubbed for surgery, and willed his eel-like fingers back to

human dimensions.

With a parting glance at what had once been Ginger Marks, Eddie the demon strolled out of the alley

with a newfound spring in his step. Though fully charged, crackling with energy and vitality, he knew the

feeling wouldn’t last. Ginger’s essence was just one step in the fateful dance to complete him, to make

him whole.

What he left behind—inside the crumpled wine-colored blouse and black Capri pants—resembled a

shed snakeskin, but it was human-shaped with tufts of dark hair. All the internal organs, blood, and

viscera that had made it possible for Ginger to live and breathe were missing. Even her bones had been

reduced to a fine white powder.

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The same cool evening breeze that nudged an empty soda can down the deserted side street also

fluttered the delicate, translucent flaps of skin that had been the fingers of Ginger’s right hand.

CHAPTER ONE

“Everybody’s using the Web now,” Cordelia Chase explained to Doyle as if he were an inattentive child.

“Even people who have a life.”

The moment Angel stepped out of the office she’d begun her campaign to win Doyle over to her plan to

drum up some business. Namely, to create a Web site for Angel Investigations.

“So that’s it, then,” Doyle said with his pronounced Irish brogue. “Put up a Web page and all the poor

downtrodden masses will flock to our door.”

“Of course not,” Cordelia replied. “The poor don’t have computers. We need more paying clients.

Emphasis on the paying part.”

Cordelia was sitting at her desk in the reception area of Angel Investigations in a sleeveless red crop top,

black jeans, and stiletto heels. Doyle leaned on the corner of her desk, slouching in his old leather jacket

over a green shirt with a rumpled collar. Even though Cordelia complained about her inability to keep up

with the latest fashions on her meager receptionist’s salary, being around her always made Doyle feel as if

he’d slept in his clothes, out on the street, in the rain. Not that he was complaining. At the best of times,

Cordelia took his breath away. The rest of the time, she put a lump in his throat. And while he had yet to

work up the nerve to tell her he had feelings for her, well, hope sprang eternal.

Though Doyle imagined that Cordelia made most men feel unworthy of her company, he carried the

extra burden of having a father who was a Brachen demon. Sure, he was one hundred percent human on

his mother’s side, but how far would that get him with the former Sunnydale prom queen. Cordelia had

made it abundantly clear that she had relegated all demons to the enemy column. So it was no surprise

that he’d neglected to tell her about his Brachen side. Someday he would convince her that being a

half-demon didn’t necessarily make him one of the bad guys.Until then, he thought,no sense dashin’

the dream.

“We help the helpless,” Doyle countered. “It says so right there on our answering machine. In your very

own voice, I might add. And generally the helpless aren’t known for their stock portfolios.”

“We’ll still help the helpless,” Cordelia countered. “But would it kill us to find some helpless people with

disposable income?”

“I suppose not.”

“So are you with me? Can we present a united front?”

Doyle thought about uniting with Cordelia and had to clear his throat.Better get beyond thatvisual

image before you stuff your foot in your mouth, boyo. “Fine. I’ll play devil’s advocate. Though, for

the sake of this example, I suppose that’d make me Angel’s advocate. What about the expense?”

“We can do it on the cheap,” Cordelia assured him. “Lots of free stuff on the Internet I can use. It would

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