Angel strode through the entrance of Caritas, walking so fast that—with his longer legs—Buffy was nearly forced to run to keep up.
Caritas was not yet very crowded, and Lorne was leaning on the bar with a drink in his hand, watching something that looked like a minotaur, except that the ‘bull’ parts of its body came from an American bison, bellowing that it was too sexy for its shirt.
"Well, hey," he greeted them. "Glad to see you. How did that rescue mission go last night?"
"Not good," Angel answered.
Lorne nodded sadly. "I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. Are you here for some more help?" He grinned at Buffy. "Is our little ingenue here ready to sing?"
"We need help, but it’s not the kind you sing for," Buffy said.
"Oh? What can I do for you, then?" He asked.
"LA has become Poland, and you’re about to get blitzkrieged," She said. "We’ve already spotted the Nazis on the border."
"Beg pardon?" Lorne asked.
"You *did* pay attention in history class," Angel said, impressed.
Buffy shrugged modestly. "It was a good day. Patrol had been easy the night before, so I slept well, and I was more awake than usual in class."
"But what did she *say*?" Lorne asked. His specialty was obscure musical references, not historical.
"The Scourge are in LA," Angel clarified. "Angelus is using them for an army." Lorne gasped, but Angel continued on relentlessly. "He’s planning to destroy the world. Last time he tried, it almost worked, and he was a lot less powerful then than he is now. They may even know that, but they hate humanity so much that they don’t care. They’ll destroy the world and themselves, as long as every drop of human ‘taint’ is destroyed, too."
Then Lorne’s face did something that Angel had never seen it do: it hardened. Angel realized that, for the first time since he had met Lorne, the singing demon was furious.
Without a word, Lorne turned, stalked up to the stage, turned off the music and took the microphone from the minotaur. "Sorry, Mowl," he said. "Something’s come up. You can stop worrying—your cow’s being one hundred percent faithful to you. In fact, congratulations—you have a calf on the way." With that, he hustled Mowl off the stage and turned to the audience. "Ladies, gentlemen, and others," he announced. "I regret to inform you that Caritas will be closed for the next few days, but an emergency has arisen." Disgruntled murmurs rose from the crowd, but Lorne silenced them with his next statement: "The Scourge has entered LA." The murmurs turned to gasps of horror. "Those of you who aren’t very good fighters, I recommend you return to your homes and lock up. Better yet, take a vacation for a few days. In Vegas or Hawaii. Those of you who *are* good at busting heads—" He pointed at the floor. "Spread the word: The resistance meets *here*."
Then there were cheers—a sound familiar to Caritas, but they weren’t usually this angry.
*
Obeying a summoning wave, Buffy and Angel followed Lorne into his private apartment behind the bar.
"Some of us like this world," Lorne was saying as he unlocked a trunk at the foot of his bed. "She’s been good to me, and I’m not about to let a bunch stupid, racist philistines hurt her." He reached in and pulled out a sword. Its hilt was finely tooled, though neither Angel nor Buffy recognized the symbols engraved into it. Its scabbard was some sort of green leather. "A souvenir from my homeworld," Lorne explained. "I was hoping I’d never have to use it." He drew the sword, and the blade was some kind of black metal.
"Give us a day to gather the troops," Lorne said. "Then call us whenever you find these bastards. We’ll be ready."
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