Chapter 9

Shadow stared down at her, his eyes locked on the sweet misty gray of her eyes taking in the uncertainness he could see there. "You wanted to give it to me?" he asked slowly as if his mind couldn't grasp the concept. "Why?"

Her flushed face flamed as she tried to find the words to express how she felt. "I-I lo..."

Just outside the truck a low wailing siren sounded, startling both of them. "I left Stephie alone," Callie gasped, rolling out of his lap and down onto the floor to grab her clothes. Quickly pulling them on, she opened the door seconds before Shadow was getting out the other side. They sprinted toward the doors, yanking them open and rushing down and into the main lobby.

"What's going on?" Shadow shouted at the officer sitting at the desk.

"All I know is that we got a red light on the women's bathroom on level two. We got emergency personnel headed there right now."

Callie didn't wait for him to say more. She took off at a run, climbing the stairs up to the level they used for their team. The bathroom was to the right at the end of the hall and she could see a crowd milling around the area already. Pushing her way through, she felt Shadow behind her, his arm coming out to block her from being hit when another agent turned too suddenly.

"God dammit! Get me off this fucking stretcher before you need one! Wings, you fuckwad, get these straps off of me now!"

"Angel? Wha..." Callie began, hearing her friend's voice as she turned the corner. She could see Marcus's head above everyone else's and she zoomed in on him, pushing through the looky-loos.

"What's going on here?" Shadow growled.

Callie smiled, watching as the crowd dispersed until it was just the four of them as well as the emergency team. "Why the hell didn't you do that earlier?" she asked.

"Angel passed out on me," Marcus said, grabbing Callie's arm as if he had to have something to hold on to. "She started saying weird things and then she screamed and went down."

"Callie," Angel yelled, seeing her now that everyone was gone. "Tell this fuck waffle to let me go. I'm not going down to see Dr. Chanteuse, not after you hit her with the bedpan. Callie!"

Callie ducked the question she saw in Shadow's eyes and went to her friend. "What the hell happened? Marcus said you passed out."

"I didn't pass out pass out. I just, you know, passed out." Angel grabbed her hand. "You gotta get me out of here. I know what's happening now. My dad's in danger," she whispered, unwilling to let the techs working on her hear what she was saying.

"Are you just saying that so I'll get them to let you go?"

Angel shook her head. "You know me, babe. I might try pulling something like that on Wings but not you. Girl power, remember?" she added, reminding Callie of one of their many nights off spent training and carousing together. She held up her fist, waiting until Callie knocked it with her own. "Now get me off of here. We've got to go. I know who's doing all of this."

Callie glanced over at Shadow. "She's fine," she said. "Will you tell them she's fine?"

"What, no bedpans around to use?" he teased before taking one of the techs aside. Callie started to unstrap Angel, Marcus coming over to help as well as complain.

"You shouldn't be getting up."

Angel sighed, sitting on the edge of the gurney and leaning her head against Marcus's wide chest. "I'm fine, Wings. I know who we're up against. I know who the Old One is."

"Dorian?" he asked, lifting her chin to look down into her eyes.

"How'd you know?"

"You were screaming about him coming after you right before you passed out on me. You aren't getting within five feet of him." Marcus leaned down, not caring who was watching and kissed her. When he lifted his head, he narrowed his eyes at her. "Next time I have you alone, I'm taking you over my knee for putting me through that. You scared ten years off my life."

"You're immortal, you asshole. Don't kiss me at work," she hissed, smacking him across one of his huge biceps.

"I'm going to need to be immortal with all the bull shit you get into." He kissed her again, ignoring her screech of indignation. "When we have a chance, you're also going to have to tell me what a fuck waffle is," he told her seriously.

"I hate to interrupt this love fest," Shadow said, coming up behind Callie. "If you're all right, Angel, we need to be briefed on what you know and how you know it."

Angel dropped down off the gurney, stumbling a bit before regaining her footing. "I'm fine," she said gritting her teeth.

"I can see that," Shadow said, his eyes watching her with concern. "Go sit down in the briefing room. Marcus..."

"I'm going with her," he said, grabbing her around the waist even as she tried to smack him away.

"Get off of me, butterfly. I'm not going to let you paw me at work!"

"Does that mean outside of work I get to paw you all I want?" Marcus asked her, steadying her as they walked off.

"You're the south end of a fucking horse headed north, you know that?"

Callie couldn't help but grin. "Where the hell does she come up with this stuff?" she said, mostly to herself.

"A wicked imagination, I would say," Shadow said, watching as the techs cleaned up the rest of the mess they'd made before nodding at him and leaving.

Callie stared after them, feeling a bit uncomfortable now that they were alone again. She glanced at him and then quickly away when she saw him watching her. "I ah guess we should get to the briefing room." She turned without waiting for him to answer, only stopping when he grabbed her arm.

"Callie, we need to talk," he said, dipping his head until he was close to her ear. "I can still smell you on me."

A rush of blood flooded her cheeks even as heat swam through her system, arousing her passions that were never far from the surface around him. "Y-you shouldn't talk like that here," she whispered.

"Why not? It's true. If you were being honest with me, you'd admit it." His fingers caressed her cheek, quickly dropping to his side when he heard a shuffle of feet coming behind them. "You wanted to check on little Stephie?"

"I thought I would ask Nancy down in the child care center to keep her eye on her." The child care center was a fairly new program in ASP. Even supernatural beings had failed marriages and could be single parents. Child care was even more difficult to come by if your child had fangs or had a tendency to howl at the moon.

"Nancy is a great idea." He tugged on a lock of her hair, unable to stop from touching her in some way.

"I'll, uh, go call her then meet you in the briefing room. Hello sir," she said to Daniels as he walked up behind Shadow. She turned and left, glancing back once to see that he was watching her. She flashed him a quick smile and kept going, unable to stop smiling. The problems weren't over yet, but things looked a hell of a lot better now than they did at the beginning of shift.

The call to Nancy went well. She told the gorgeous redheaded empath where she'd left little Stephie sleeping and what the poor little girl had been through since her mother's change. Nancy had made sympathetic noises but she knew the cheerful woman would win Stephie over easily enough.

She sighed, one thing down another ten to twelve to go before she could get her life back on track.

Shadow walked into the briefing room whistling.

"Well boss, you sure are chipper. You get that burr out of your butt?"

"You are starting to sound like your girlfriend," Shadow said, laughing when Angel bared her fangs at him. "Where's Callie?"

"Right here," she said, skipping into the briefing room and closing the door behind her. "I've got Stephie set up with Nancy. She's going to take the girl home with her today. She's got kids of her own at home that Stephie can play with. She's also going to take her to see Dr. Chanteuse and make sure she wasn't hurt any worse by what those vamps have been doing to her."

"Yeah, you'd better stay off of Dr. Chanteuse's radar until I can smooth things over with her," Shadow said. "May I ask why you hit her with a bedpan?"

"Because I didn't have a stake handy?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I told you that the woman was evil. You won't listen to me."

"Angel?" Shadow turned to the blonde Vampire. "You're involved in this somewhere, do you want to translate for me?"

"I told the demoness that I didn't want her to cut in to me. Callie was saving my skin. She had a syringe this big." She held her hands about a foot and a half apart.

"Callie did?"

"No, the doctor did. Callie only hit her a couple of times."

"You aren't helping here, Angel." Callie shrugged. "I couldn't let one of the team down, now could I?"

Shadow closed his eyes, slowly shaking his head. "I don't think I want to know more. Let's hope I can smooth this over before she wants your badges." He sighed. "We haven't got much time until sun up. Angel, we need to know what you know of this Dorian Amante."

"Too much," Angel said seriously. "I met him in Prague. I was at the age to rebel against anything my parents wanted. They wanted me in college, I wanted to spend time anywhere but in the United States. I traveled all over." She was silent for a few seconds. "I made a huge mistake. I gave Dorian everything I had. I trusted him. I believed in him even though he was everything my father was against."

"What happened?"

"He tried to share me with some human that he planned to drain afterward. I let him lying in a pool of his own vomit after I gouged his groin with my knee." Angel stood slowly, walking around the room as she talked. "He killed two young boys that he tried to give to me. He'd already killed their mother. We argued constantly about leaving humans alive after biting them. I believe as my father always had that draining humans to the point of death does nothing more than show them what and who we are. If they know, then we are the ones in danger, not them. Dorian never believed he had a weakness that could be exploited like that."

"What happened in the bathroom?" Callie asked, getting up to sit on one of the tables that was behind her friend, just in case.

"I'd gone in there to wind down. That bitch Kendra had really pissed me off, spouting her bullshit about my father. When she mentioned Dorian, it was like every wall, gate, door I had ever put up between myself and him came crumbling down with a single blow. I needed to regroup." She turned, seeming startled to see Callie so close then she gave her a grateful smile.

"I started thinking about the last day, the hotel room in New York City and all he'd said. I knew he was doing this because of me. I'd brought him low that day. He didn't like it. Dorian is nothing if not patient. He's here for his revenge and he's already started with my father. H-he merged his mind with mine in the bathroom. He sent images of everything he's done, of every horror he's perpetrated since that day. When I screamed, he laughed," Angel said bitterly, reaching out to Marcus.

The winged warrior was there in a minute, wrapping his arm around her. He steadied her, he gave her what she needed to continue without asking anything of her in return. "Do you know how amazing you are?" she whispered.

"Oh yeah," he whispered back, making her laugh.

That helped even more, making this night seem normal after so much strangeness. If Wings could be his usual conceited self, than the world hadn't changed that much after all.

"Did you see your father?" Callie asked. "You told me that he was in danger."

"Dorian has him. He's alive for now, but only so Dorian can use him against me." She turned to Shadow. "We have to get invited to a council meeting of the Old Ones."

"No one in ASP has ever been invited to the council, Angel. The Old Ones are almost religiously determined to keep to the ways of life they've been following for years. I don't think even Callan Wolfe has been invited." Shadow sat down, his brow crinkling as he thought. "But I also don't think they've ever had a threat like this before. We can get the occasional rogue that needs put down, but it's never been one of their own."