It wasn't until nearly dawn that Angel finally returned empty-handed to the mansion. He hurried down the stairs leading to the garden…and froze. A man stood waiting in the doorway of the house. A red helmet concealed his face.

"Hi," the Red Hood said. "I heard you were looking for me."

Angel eyed the Red Hood warily. He could feel the sun's rays just starting to peek over the horizon. In a few more minutes, they would flood the garden. If Angel weren't under cover by then, he would start to burn.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"You're the one who was looking for me," the Red Hood pointed out. He spread his hands out from his sides, bearing careless and relaxed. "Here I am." The sun crept a little higher in the sky.

Angel's mind raced. If he went back up the stairs, he'd be in full sunlight. Even with his coat over his head, he'd never be able to reach another building or pry up a heavy manhole cover in time. His only chance was to get inside.

The sunlight brushed the top of the garden stairs.

"Yeah," Angel forced himself to answer calmly. "I want to talk. Come in and have a drink?"

"Thanks," the Red Hood said, reaching casually behind his back. "But I'm not really a fan of blood."

Angel had just enough time to see the miniature crossbow in the Red Hood's hand, the tip of the bolt aiming for his heart, before he flung himself to the left. "That's not what I heard," he said, but a second bolt from a second bow was already winging its way through the air. Angel dove forward under the missile's path, leapt to his feet again, and charged.

The sunlight was halfway down the stairs.

Angel had to hand it to the Red Hood: the man was cool under pressure. Dropping both the useless bows, he took a measured step back and drew something made of gleaming metal from his vest. Angel poured on the speed. He was five steps away. Four steps. Three.

Suddenly, a high-pitched whine filled his ears. Pain exploded in his head. Angel staggered aside, clutching his skull, dimly aware of the pulsing device in the Red Hood's hand. Sometimes super-hearing sucked. An instant later, the Red Hood's roundhouse kick struck Angel in the chest. Angel staggered back again. He flung out a hand to stop his fall…and felt it begin to burn.

The sunlight had arrived.

Desperation overbore the pain in his head. He blocked the punch headed for his face, grabbed the Red Hood's collar and hurled him away. The Red Hood landed hard between Angel and the house, and Angel lunged forward, away from the crippling sunlight. Every moment he spent outside, he could feel himself growing weaker, and the cursed device kept sending out its high-pitched whine.

"You're pretty fast for a dead guy," the Red Hood said. Muddled but already rising, he drew a wicked-looking knife. "Me, I mostly just lay around. Know where I can file a complaint?"

Angel ignored the knife, catching his opponent bodily around the middle. A line of pain erupted in his shoulder, but together they crashed through the front doors of the mansion. Something crunched under Angel's weight. The shrill whining stopped. Then his own momentum flipped him over the Red Hood into the darkness of the house, out of the shaft of sunlight spilling through the doors. Head aching, he rolled to his feet and turned.

He smelled the accelerant too late.

The Red Hood staggered up again. The helmet hid what was undoubtably a smirk as he threw something over Angel's head. There was a flash of light.

And a whoomph! as the mansion went up in flames.

"Sir?"

The Mayor looked up to see Gavin, the new Deputy Mayor, standing nervously in the doorway.

"Come in, come in," the Mayor said genially. "What can I do for you?"

"I…I just thought you should know, sir, that there's been a fire over on Crawford St. The mansion there burned completely to the ground."

The Mayor shook his head sadly. "Kids these days. Cigarettes are dangerous, you know."

Gavin blinked at this apparent non sequitor. "Cigarettes, sir?"

"Yes," the Mayor said patiently. "Big group of kids who insist on ruining their health like that, accidents are bound to happen. Thank God no one got hurt!"

The man finally caught on. "Ah, yes sir. Kids with cigarettes. The police will keep an eye out for them, sir."

"That's swell." The Mayor beamed at Gavin. "I knew I could count on you."

Gavin smiled nervously, gave a little bob, then stepped out, closing the door behind him.

"See, Faith?" the Mayor said, smiling at her and picking up his pen again. "I told you the Red Hood wasn't the type to let grass grow under his feet." He paused. to consider this. "Though you'd have to be pretty slow for grass to actually grow."

"Do you think Angel's really dead?" Faith asked. The thought sent an odd…pang through her. Then she shoved it away. Angel'd been nice and all, in a creepy dead guy kinda way. But all he'd ever wanted to was Buffy. Stupid Buffy with her stupid, perfect life.

As though he read her mind, the Mayor set aside his work and looked at her. With anyone else, the attention would have made Faith feel uncomfortable. Here, it just made her feel safe, wanted.

"Maybe not," he said . "But if he isn't, we can be darn sure that he's not too happy."

"And that doesn't worry you?" Faith couldn't help but ask.

He beamed at her. "Of course not. I've got the best young lady in the world at my side." He went back to his paperwork.

Dick's eyes narrowed as he gazed up at the Sunnydale Police Station. As screwed up as this town was, there was no way the cops here didn't know about it. Walking in and introducing himself could put him on their radar in a potentially dangerous way. But Dick was an officer in Bludhaven; he had plenty of experience with dirty cops, and sometimes, their reaction to scrutiny was the best way to gain information.

Putting on a friendly smile, he pushed open the doors.

"Dick Grayson, BPD," he said, holding out his badge to the cop at the front desk. "The chief in?"

"Nope," the cop said, glancing up briefly before returning to his newspaper.

Dick dialed up the charm, but before he could unleash it on the unsuspecting officer, another cop came in.

"Mansion burned down on Crawford Street," he said, not looking at Dick. "You and I are supposed to check it out. Stupid kids and their cigarettes."

Dick frowned. In his (fairly extensive) experience, a whole mansion burning down would require some sort of accelerant. One or two cigarettes alone was not likely to do the trick.

He didn't bother talking to the desk cop any further, just slipped quietly out the door.

"Good Lord." Giles stared at the vampire leaning against his doorframe. Angel's skin was crispy and black; his hair had all but burned away. When he spoke, his voice sounded similarly scorched.

"Giles. Can I come in?"

Giles stared at him. You want my help? But after a moment, he said finally, "Come in," and stepped back from the door. "What happened?"

"The Red Hood." Angel collapsed into a wooden chair and let out a hiss of pain. "Set fire to the mansion."

"When was this?" Giles retrieved his medical kit from its cabinet in the kitchen and set about smearing burn cream on the worse of Angel's injuries. The vampire hissed again but didn't pull away.

"This morning. Waited until the sun was coming up."

Giles paused in his ministrations. "He knows what you are."

Angel nodded. The movement made him wince.

"How did you escape?"

Angel's mind raced. Instantly he understood the Red Hood's plan. The mansion was a death trap, a dead end soaked in gasoline. But to escape it, Angel would have to head back towards the open doors. The direct sunlight would kill him as surely as the mansion fire, if the Red Hood didn't finish him first.

So Angel took the only option left to him. He turned and ran. He heard the Red Hood shout, but he ignored it, concentrating instead on the well-worn path to the back of the mansion. Smoke obscured his vision. Heat blazed along his arms, legs, face, neck. He forged blindly on, trusting to muscle memory to get him to the hidden trapdoor with access to the sewers.

His coat caught fire. He couldn't stop to put it out. Beneath it, the skin blistered and flaked. Stumbling, he fell, fingers reaching blindly for the metal of the trapdoor's catch. Even without breathing, he could feel the heat scorching his lungs. A human would have already succumbed.

There! The trapdoor. He wrenched at it. The thought that the Red Hood might have discovered it, that another trap might be waiting on the other side, only gave Angel a moment's pause. A trap he might survive. The fire he would not.

Finally, the door fell open. He struck the floor of the sewer face-first; steam rose up from his coat as the water put it out. With what felt like the last ounce of strength, Angel stumbled to his feet and slammed the trapdoor shut.

Silent, cool, and still, the tunnels stretched out around him. Angel tensed, but there was no explosion or crossbow bolts flying out of the darkness. The Red Hood hadn't found the trapdoor after all.

But he would guess what had happened soon enough. Wearily, Angel headed away from the ladder that led out into the street in front of the mansion and prepared to lose any pursuit.

"Hid in the sewers until the sun went down," Angel finished. "Pretty sure I wasn't followed."

"Forgive me if I don't find that particularly comforting," Giles retorted, crossing his arms. Angel winced.

"I know. But I couldn't go to Buffy for help. If she saw me like this…"He gestured at the oozing burns.

Giles paused to picture Buffy's reaction if she saw Angel so badly hurt and winced as well. There would be no way to hold her back. "So you intend to avoid her completely?"

Angel hesitated. "A couple of days. I can heal, and if…if the Red Hood is after me…I don't want to lead him right to her."

"If the Red Hood is indeed after you," Giles pointed out bluntly, "Buffy may be safer if you leave Sunnydale entirely."

Angel was silent for a long moment. Although Giles knew the man in front of him was literally hundreds of years old, Angel didn't look like it right now. He looked like a young man who had just had a blade stuck into his heart. Finally, the vampire bowed his head.

"I know."

According to the scanner he held, there were no cameras or listening devices nearby, but Dick still adjusted his sunglasses carefully as he got out of his rental car and approached the burned-out building. Large portions of it had been gutted by the fire. He got out his cellphone and made gawky tourist motions with it, as though he'd just spotted the destruction and wanted a few selfies. But he used the cover to examine the burned out building surreptitiously.

One thing was for sure. No way kids with cigarettes had done this. Jason had been here.

The question is, Dick thought as he finished acting like an idiot with a camera and headed back to his car. What did Red Hood want with some old mansion?