He refused to call Connor. Angel needed answers, and chances were good they might be a long time coming. It wasn’t fair to drag his son into it. The kid had a life.
He knew of only one place in the city that might possibly lead him to the answers he needed. But with the Oracles dead, it was an outside long-shot. An effort in futility, but the only place left.
The ingredients for the incantation came to less than ten bucks.
He entered the sewers from the basement of the crumbling Hyperion. The old hotel took a fatal blow during the battle Angel had wrought. Climbing through the wreckage was both stupid and dangerous, but he didn’t know of any other way to access the chamber beneath the Post Office.
It amazed him that he remembered the old, Latin chant to gain access. It felt like a lifetime since he’d last used it.
It still worked. He poured a handful of powder into the concave pedestal with the final words of the incantation, and a moment later he was spinning helplessly through dimensions.
Then he was standing in the gold-marbled chamber, alone. He turned slowly in a circle, hoping to see someone. Anyone. “Hello?”
“I was wondering when you’d finally show up. Took you long enough. Now I owe Wesley twenty bucks. You suck.”
Angel spun around to face the voice behind him. “Cordelia?”
“That’d be me.”
Her hair was longer, but otherwise, she looked exactly the same as she had when he’d last seen her. No golden skin. No blue veins. No silly toga. Just the same Cordelia, dressed in khaki’s and a blue cashmere sweater.
“You’re an Oracle?’
“Well, yeah. Duh. You’re a little slower than you used to be, aren’t ya?” She held out her arms.
He rushed to her, scooping her up and hugging her fiercely. “God, it’s so good to see you.”
“Not God. Oracle. Say it with me. Or-ac-le. And it’s good to see you too. Slowpoke.”
Angel stepped back and held her at arm’s length, taking her in. “You look fantastic.”
“Much more than I can say for you. What in the hell have you been doing, Angel? Hiding in the shadows, cutting yourself off from everyone you love, constantly looking over your shoulder? I’m starting to wonder why I bothered bringing you back.”
Angel’s mind spun. “You? You brought me back?”
Cordelia grinned and nodded.
“Why?” he asked, letting her go and backing away. “What do you want?”
“Well, right now I want to make you an appointment with a good shrink, ‘cause, man, can you say paranoid? Geez.”
Angel looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just, since Spike got the Shanshu, I just figured . . .”
“It was never meant for him, Angel. But then you went and got yourself killed, and he was the only vampire with a soul left standing. He won it by default. Don’t know about you, but I thought that sucked, so I pulled some strings and made it right. I’m Paying for it, too,” Cordelia added, wrinkling her nose. “I have to spend the at least the next thousand years working with Wesley ‘I’m a British know-it-all’ Windham-Price. I’m telling you, this gig has puffed up his head. And it was pretty big to begin with.”
Angel smiled. “You know you love him.”
Cordelia feigned a scoff, and then grinned. “Yeah. I do. He’s family. Like you. Gotta look out for each other.”
“So where is he?”
“Out running an errand, and taking his sweet time about it,” she said, just as Wesley entered the chamber.
“A thousand pardons, your Highness,” Wesley cracked. “I’m back. Hello, Angel.” He gave Angel a brief hug, and then handed him a manila folder.
“What’s this?” Angel asked, staring at Wesley, who looked fifteen years younger and about five hundred years wiser. “Wow.”
Wesley grinned. “Say it. I look smashing, don’t I?”
“Yeah . . .how . . .?”
“Long story short, the Powers needed Oracles, they recruited from the home team’s recently dead, and a sixteen page application later, here we are,” Cordelia answered.
“It was a three page application. She exaggerates, like always,” Wes said. “Take a look inside the folder.”
Inside, Angel found a birth certificate, a driver’s valid license, a passport, and several other documents that proved he was an actual, living person, and a legal resident of the state of California. A well educated resident. According to the folders Angel Summers held a PHD in international studies.
“Angel Summers?” Angel asked.
“Her brain-child, not mine,” Wes said, thumbing a point at Cordy.
“You need a last name,” Cordelia defended. “You didn’t have one, so I figured I’d just make it easy, and give you hers. You’re going to end up together anyway.”
“Cordy, enough. You don’t know that for certain,” Wesley admonished.
“Please! It’s a no brainer.”
“Proving, yet again, the very point I’ve always suspected. You have no brain.”
“Bite me, Wesley.”
“Angel Summers,” Angel whispered. “I don’t know. . .”
“Well I do,” Cordy said, exasperated. “But if you don’t like it, I’ll have Wesley run out and get it changed.”
“Bite me, princess,” Wes dead-panned.
“She’s with Spike now,” Angel said, not bothering to hide the hurt in his voice. “Or The Immortal. Or both. I can’t just show up on her doorstep and claim her. Besides, she’s probably not done baking yet.”
Cordelia sighed heavily. “You really are thick, you know it? You don’t have to claim her, Angel. She’s yours. She always has been. Now go get her before her grief makes her do something stupid. Like letting Spike knock her up, or something.”
The thought of Buffy having Spike’s baby made Angel feel like puking.
“He looks a little green,” Wesley whispered to Cordelia.
“Plane. Go. Now.” Cordelia said, pointing at a door, which materialized behind him.
“Thank you,” Angel said, hugging her again. He turned to Wes and did the same. “Thank you both.”
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