*~*~*~*~*

Thunk.

Cordelia held her breath as she clutched the amulet to her chest, praying that he wouldn't find her there. She had to stay safe. She had to get this to Wesley. If he was still alive.

Thunk.

She was shaking like a leaf. She tried to tell herself that it would be over soon and that he would be back. He would. Not that creature that was getting closer. Oh God, he was right above her.

Thunk.

"Cordeeeeeeelia?" His voice was taunting. He smiled way too much and there was a chuckle behind his voice. "Here little piggy..."

Even though her lungs screamed, she held her breath. But he could probably smell her fear. That and the blood that was dripping from her neck where he had bitten her. Just a few more minutes till sunrise then she could crawl quickly into the light and be safe.

But those minutes could also bring her death.

Angelus took a few sniffs of the air and walked around the floor a little more. "I know you're in here, Cordy. I can smell that sweet perfume mixed with your blood."

She could hear his steps. They were much heavier now, carrying with them the urge to kill and the means to do so. She glanced at the opening from her hiding spot and released her breath as quietly as she could.

He heard her and smiled. "Guess there's no one here!" he yelled to the room. "Might as well give up!" he stomped his feet, exaggerating this point, but staying right above her.

She let out a small sob and bolted for the hatch to her side.

But he was faster. He punched through the floorboard and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her up through the floor, slicing her arm on the jagged boards in the process. She cried out but there was no one there to help her. The warm blood oozed down to her fingers and dripped onto the amulet.

Angelus smiled when she was all the way out. He stood her on her feet and looked her over. Her black pants were ripped at both of the knees, her halter-top was speckled with blood. Some hers. Some not. She was dirty and bloody and frightened.

Just the way he liked them.

"Cordelia, sweet Cordelia, now why were you running like that, princess?" He hissed the last word, making her falter in her thoughts as she thought of Doyle. "Haven't you learned not to run?"

She took a few breaths and then sobbed. "Let me go. Please let me go."

He held her hair with one hand and let the other trail to her hip, squeezing it. "Oh no, I think there's something else you and I would much rather be doing."

If there was an award for perfect timing then it would have to be given to Gunn. He crashed the metal chair down atop Angelus' head, sending him to the ground. Cordelia skidded back on her ass as he let her go. Gunn wasted no time and pulled the dart gun from his back, shooting it into Angelus' neck, subduing the vampire.

Cordelia's whimpers turned into tearful sobs as Gunn came near and lifted her into his arms. "It's okay," he assured her as he carried her to a couch. His eyes strayed to the blood protruding from her arm. "Shit." He rushed into the bathroom and came back with a wet washcloth and some gauze.

She took the washcloth and sniffled. "Get him chained up." She hissed in a breath as she washed her own wound.

Gunn nodded and dragged the unconscious vampire to his room. It took him an hour to get all the chains in place, but he wanted to make sure that bastard wasn't going to get up. When he snapped the last lock together he took the time to look at him. He still had some blood on his chin. Other than that it hardly looked like he'd done the things he did. He looked peaceful and like the Angel he'd begun to trust. Gunn wanted to stake this vampire while he had the chance but he knew that Cordelia had other plans.

Shit. Cordelia.

He jogged back out to the lobby to find her gone. "Yo Cordy!" he called.

"Kitchen!"

He followed her voice to the kitchen and found her in just her bra and pants. She was furiously washing her shirt in the sink. He walked up to her slowly and peered into the sink. The water was running clear down the drain but she was trying to get out the stains that ruined the shirt. He looked up to her face to see her tears drying to her face and her eyes locked on the stains.

"I have to get them out," she told him. "Have to. Angel liked this shirt. He said he brought out my eyes." She glanced up at Gunn. "Why can't I get it clean? Why can't I get clean?" She stopped scrubbing and her eyes watered again.

He took the shirt from her hands and set it down in the sink before taking the hand towel and drying her hands. "It's gon' be all right." He led her to a chair and sat her down. "Let me get you another shirt." He returned a couple of minutes later and handed her a shirt from a bag she kept here. "Put this on."

She looked at the blue shirt in his hands and nodded as she took it from him and slipped it over her head. At least she was wearing black pants that didn't show any stains. She looked at her hands. They were pale and wrinkled from the water. She had been washing for almost a half an hour.

Gunn reached into his pocket. "Here." He handed her the amulet. "You dropped this out there."

It was round, about three inches in diameter with what looked like a silver claw holding it from the top. Three blue jewels were set into it, representing the three eyes of a human. The third being that of a seer. Like her.

She took it from him. It was cold to the touch. "Thank you. We can use this to bring Angel back." She looked to him. "Wesley?"

He understood her question. "Yeah, English is still kickin' at the hospital. He'll be okay."

She smiled for the first time in hours. "Thank God." She clinched the amulet to her chest. "I'd like to see him."

Gunn stood. "A'ight. I'll drive you there."

She shook her head. "I mean Angelus. I want to talk to him."

He looked at her and furrowed his brow. "Are you serious?"

She stood and turned for the door. "Yeah." She strode out and straight to Angel's room where the vampire lay awake and smiling. She pulled a chair out and sat about five feet from his side. "Hi," she said flatly.

He smiled. "Hey there, Miss Priss. Came to see me all S&M like? You into kink now, Cordelia? I should have guessed."

She ignored his taunts. "I came to talk to you, Angelus."

He paused, his smile faltering some. "You what?"

She crossed one leg over the other. "About me. About what you see when you look at me. I've come to know you as the blunt honest type."

He looked at her quizzically. "I would have thought you'd know me as the murdering homicidal type."

She stayed silent and watched him.

He smiled. "You wanna hear it? Fine. When I look at you I see nothing. I see this empty shell of a little rich girl who's trying to be something she's not. You can't act. You can't get a date because no man in his right mind would want to sit and listen to you blab all night long about yourself. And you're really letting your looks go. I mean, let's face it, look at that hair. Blonde streaks? Are you slowly trying to try and be Buffy?"

She watched him when he finished talking as if searching his face. "So you really were falling in love with me."

He scoffed and then started laughing. "Are you fucking nuts? You stupid bitch! You annoy the hell out of me! I thought by killing you I'd be repaying back enough for all my old sins that I could start from scratch with some new ones!"

She held up the amulet. "You can't lie to me. I can see through what you're saying. Angel loves me. And you try to destroy that as much as you can. You're afraid of the power of his love for me bringing him back." She stood. "And you should be. Because that's how we're bringing him back."

Angelus had stopped laughing by now and was scowling at her. "Unless it involves poor fashion sense I don't think you'll be able to do anything." He smiled. "Except maybe get the ride of your life if you'll just unlock me."

She smiled and took a few steps closer to him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She grabbed his crotch roughly, making him growl. "Tuff shit." She spit on him and turned to leave the room.

He laughed. "You know you want me to fuck you. You've been dreaming about it. You fantasize about it while you shower and touch yourself pretending it's me." He jutted his hips up against the chains to reiterate the point.

She paused at the door but didn't look back at him. "No," she whispered loud enough for him to hear. "I think of Angel." With that she left the room and headed back to the lobby to find Gunn still there, sharpening a stake. She sat next to him on the couch and sighed. "This is going to be harder than I thought," she confessed.

He paused the sharpening to look to her. "I thought the spell didn't take long?"

She nodded. "But I need Wesley for it. And he's in the hospital. We can't do it there."

He pulled her close into a hug. "It's okay. You know old English, man. He's a fighter and he'll be back on his feet in no time." A hesitation. "What happened?"

She took in a shaky breath and looked at a point on the floor. "He was changed when Wesley and I got back from the store. But we didn't know. He hadn't changed into his trademark leather pants and he was brooding like Angel would. So we thought, no big deal. I went to put the groceries away and came to Angel's office..." She trailed off as she thought of the scene. When she had walked in, Angelus had Wesley hugged to him with his fangs buried deep into his neck. There was so much blood. It ran all the way down Wesley's crisp shirt to his slacks. Angelus wasn't even trying to catch it all. He wanted to make it known the Wes was marked to die. She had managed to distract him long enough to get Wesley away and to the door but she had thought it too late.

Gunn rocked her gently. "How did he change? I mean, what made him go all whacked?"

Cordelia looked at the amulet in her hand. "This." She ran her thumb over the jewels. "Another seer was hired by Wolfram and Hart. She used this to get Angelus back out into the site of others." She swallowed.

Gunn paused. "How did you know all that?"

Cordelia shuddered. "I saw it all in a vision. She seduced him. That's how you get the amulet to work. With heightened erotic whatchamacallits."

Gunn lifted her face to him. "You mean you have to have sex with him?"

She nodded. "I think so."

"You think? Cordy this is some heavy shit. You better be sure about it."

"That's why I need Wesley. I want to get this done right."

"And if you have to have sex with him?"

She hesitated. "Then I just have to remind myself that this is for Angel. Not Angelus. And that this it's him. Angel."

*~*~*

Four hours had passed since Cordelia had spoken with Angelus. She was still sitting in the lobby of the Hyperian but had taken a shower and cleaned up better with a new outfit and fresh bandages on her arm and neck. Gunn had gone to the hospital to check on Wesley and see if they could get out. She doubted the doctors would want Wesley to leave with that much blood loss and she really didn't want to take him away. But you see they had to get Angel back soon. They had to because she knew his was in that room. They had to because she knew he could smell her nearby.

They had to because she could still hear his voice and was tempted.

But it wasn't the temptation she thought she would have. She wasn't tempted to go in there and stake him. Cordelia would have thought that it would be her first inclination, to rid the world of Angelus' return forever. But the more she listened to his taunting words and insults, the more she become disgusted with herself.

Because the more she listened the more she wanted to go in there, untie him and let him fuck her into the bed.

She stood and began pacing again, wringing her hands together as she did and finally walked over to the counter, pulling out a small radio she had there. Flipping through the stations she settled on one quickly and raised the volume to drown out his voice as he explained how good he could make her feel.

She tried to get lost in the music but it was hard. The amulet had opened her mind more. "Lyrics, Cordelia. Focus on the words and you'll be fine," she told herself. So she did.

"If you could only see the way she loves me then maybe you would understand why I feel this way about our love and what I must do. If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says... When she says she loves me..."

Her breath quickened.

"Well you've got your reasons and you've got your lies and you've got your manipulations they cut me down to size. Sayin' you love but you don't. You give your love but you won't."

Too perfect. This song brought images of Angel flooding back to her. The way he could smile that small smile and have it light up her day or how he would catch her before she fell. She remembered when he would cook breakfast for her. She remembered when he would hold her as she cried. How his strong arms were like wings wrapped around her, keeping her safe.

"Seems the road less traveled shows happiness unraveled. And you gotta take a little dirt to keep what you love. That's what you've gotta do."

She slammed off the radio and stopped to try and catch her breath. "Can anything else happen?" she asked the empty room.

"Not too much, princess."

She closed her eyes. "But you're dead."

Doyle placed his hands on her shoulders. "Aye. That I am. But you need help with this. So the Powers That Be sent ya a little help." He gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze.

She opened her eyes to her old friend and let some tears fall as she wrapped her arms around him. "I missed you."

He held her close. "I'll always be watchin' ya. Don't you worry about that right now. You've got something a bit more troublin' here to face right now." He pulled back and tucked some hair behind her ear. "I think ya know what ya have to do, princess."

She swallowed. "I have to have sex with that monster."

He shook his head. "You hafta show the man you love him. Your Angel's in there, sweetie. You just have to bring him out."

"But Angelus..."

"Is just a shell. That's what the other seer brought out. You have to make Angel stronger than that beast and give him a reason to come back."

She nodded and paused. "The song that was just playing..."

"Was my idea."

She grinned a little. "I understand."

He kissed her forehead. "You've always been the strong one, Cordelia. And I loved ya for it." He smiled and smoothed out her hair. "Blonde streaks?"

She chuckled and nodded. "Something new."

He sighed. "Well you know what they say. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

She seemed to think about that. "Oh my God..."

"What?"

"That's exactly what all this is! Something old. That would be Angelus. Something new. That would be Angel's soul. Sorta. Something borrowed. The amulet. And something blue. The stones on it."

"Or your pain could be blue."

She rolled her eyes. "Pfft. Okay, so that's a little deeper. Big flippin' deal. You know what I meant."

He laughed softly and kissed her cheek. "I know, princess. I know." He sighed and took her hands, looking her over. "Been not too far over a year and you've grown so much." He held one of her hands over his heart. "You've grown inside, Cordelia. I know you can do this."

She smiled warmly. "Thank you." Flinging her arms around his neck, she held him close. "And thank you for giving me a chance to say goodbye."

He rubbed her back. "Tis no good-byes. I'll be around."

"Doyle..." Cordelia opened her eyes to find herself on the couch. She had dosed off. Even if it was sleep, the message was still clear.

*~*~*

Gunn wheeled Wesley into the lobby of the Hyperian about an hour before sunset. The lights were dimmed and the radio was playing softly. Just some simple piano music. Wesley's eyes scanned the area. "Cordelia?" he called.

Gunn pulled a stake from his jacket. "Yo! Anybody home?"

Both men gasped.

Cordelia emerged from Angel's office dressed in a pale lavender evening gown, her make-up done pale yet glamorous, her walk full of confidence and with the amulet hanging from her neck. "Evening boys," she smiled.

"Damn girl, you look fine!" Gunn gaped.

Wesley noted the amulet. "Are you sure about this, Cordelia?"

She nodded, still smiling. "It brings back Angel. That's what counts." She turned and headed into Angel's bedroom, lighting a few candles along the way.

Wesley rolled in behind her. "Do you know the incantation?"

She nodded. "It came to me. All I had to do was let it." She leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Wesley. You can Gunn give me strength." She turned his chair around. "Wait out there with him, okay? You pervs don't need to watch the porn." She chuckled the last sentence.

Once Wesley was out she closed the door to the bedroom and looked around the room. The lights were turned off, replaced by the cool glow of candles that gave off a warm vanilla smell. Angelus lay on the black silk sheets with most of the chains removed. Cordelia had given him another tranquilizer before she prepared the room. He looked very peaceful. His pale skin was a vast contrast to the black of the sheets and his boxers. Which was all the attire he had on.

She picked up a glass bottle and proceeded to pour the blue powder around the bed while she chanted in Latin. The words flowed effortlessly from her lips even though she hadn't read them before and she understood them. "Bring forth the light of love and let it be seen. Bury the face of evil and bring forth the angel. Let this act of love defeat the act of evil. That which is hidden now allow to be seen."

As she finished pouring he began to wake. His groggy state didn't give way to his shock though. "What the hell are you doing?" He looked at his state of undress and smiled. "Finally you decided to get a real ride?"

She stood up straight so he could see her. She was still chanting as she set the bottle aside and walked to the foot of the bed.

His look went from amused to confused. "What are you doing?" He looked over her attire and her make-up. "You didn't need to do the seduction bit, Cordelia. I already told you I'd fuck you."

She continued the chant, oblivious to his words as she unzipped the back of her dress slowly and let it fall to the floor, revealing her nude body to him.

He licked his lips and his manhood rose to attention. "I must admit, you do have a great body." His eyes locked on the amulet she wore around her neck. "What is that?"

She continued the chant as she crawled up the foot of the bed, letting her hands trail up the cool skin of his legs. When she reached the silk fabric of his boxers she smiled and gave a gentle tug to inch them down his hips.

He smiled back and lifted up a little to help her get them down. "Good girl. Stay on all fours like the bitch you are."

His erection exposed, she let her warm fingers grasp him run along his length. This received a growl, low and primal. She had always pictured that response from Angel. She wanted him to growl at her and let go. Hanging on to the image of this being Angel she leaned down and took him in her mouth. He moaned and tried the chains that bound his hands.

Cordelia's oral ministrations gave way after a few minutes and she continued to kiss up his body till she came to his face and looked into his eyes. He looked back into hers and smiled. "Fucking whore," he called her.

She closed her eyes and began the chant as she sheathed his manhood into her. Her breath caught at the feeling and he moaned her name. Slowly, cautiously she rocked back and forth on him. Her nails clawed down his chest and his growls urged her forward, faster, harder. The amulet on her chest began to feel heavy. Her eyes strayed down and she saw the blue gems glowing brightly. She chanted louder.

Angelus broke the chains that bound his hands and sat up, holding her flush against him as his hands guided her hips over him. The amulet crushed between their chests, its power pounding with Cordelia's heartbeat. He moved to bite her neck but stopped as he felt her orgasm clinch her muscles around him. This action alone sent him exploding with her. Then Angelus' world became black...

Cordelia opened her eyes at the exact moment Angel closed his and fell back on the bed. She took a few moments to catch her breath before moving off of him and slowly slipping her dress back on, her hands shaky. She looked down at him. He was taking unnecessary breaths and keeping his eyes closed. Her eyes drifted to his chest where she saw three scars on his chest. They were the exact shapes of the jewels on the amulet.

When he finally opened his eyes they were soft. "Cordelia?" His voice was weak and tortured. "A-a-are you okay?"

She smiled and nodded. "And you?"

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Yeah." He looked at her. "You saved me." He grabbed her quickly making her squeal but she calmed as he laid his head on her stomach and cried. "I'm so sorry..."

She stroked his hair. "It's okay. You're back now. You're back."

*~*~*

Gunn jumped up when the bedroom door opened. Wesley turned his chair in the general direction and they stayed on guard as Angel stepped out fully clothed.

Gunn raised his stake. "Where's Cordelia?"

Angel raised his hands. "She's blowing out the candles. She should be right out."

Wesley narrowed his eyes. "Angelus?"

Angel swallowed and shook his head. "Just call me Angel, Wes." He grinned a little. "It worked. I'm me."

Gunn wasn't convinced. "And how do we know that?"

Cordelia emerged from the bedroom. "By asking me." She smiled at her friends. "It worked." She walked right up to Angel and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I love you," she confessed.

He smiled. "I love you too."

Gunn rolled his eyes. "Now why can't I get possessed and use that sex magic shit to free me? It just ain't fair, I tell ya."

Wesley looked at him. "I sure as hell wouldn't be the one performing the ritual."