Cordy's a DEMON?! . . . COOL!!
Angel was pacing back and forth, wearing a trench in the floor where every body, particularly Angel usually paced. At the desk in the office of the hotel where they were based, sat Wesley Wyndham-Price, ex-Watcher and the more or less "brain" of the operations, who was busy reading through every single book they had on demons and all of their chronicled traits.
"Well?" Angel snapped at the hunched over man.
Wesley, feigning exasperation at Angel's impatience, looked up from the tome before him and stared the souled vampire in the eyes. "Angel, if you don't mind," he said, waving his hand a little indicating for him to back up.
Angel, sighing with as much exasperation that Wesley was pretending to express, stood back and began his pacing route once more. "I'm sorry Wesley. It's just…just…" Angel stopped as he tried to organize his thoughts and feelings into words. "It's Cordy, you know?" he finally said raising his arms for emphasis. Wesley silently nodded, understanding, possibly better than Angel himself, his feelings over the only other original Sunnydale survivor that had been apart of the first "Scooby Gang".
"I understand Angel, better than you might think," Wesley said as much. "But even the Powers That Be didn't know what Cordelia would be like after her "coma". Skip, according to Cordelia, said as much before she accepted to become part-demon. He didn't know what the consequences or the results of such a merging would be, or how much it would affect Cordelia's life. He told her as much. He even told you when you used the key to go and see him again. By the way, how's the eye?"
Angel absently rubbed the skin under his left eye. "Healed," he said shortly beginning his pacing once again. "Well?" he asked again after less than a minute of the short walk. In answer, Wesley just handed him the next book in the stack before him. Angel immediately took it and sat down in the seat before the desk.
After several more minutes of contemplative silence, Wesley looked up at Angel and asked a question that he had already asked all of three times so far. "What is it that were are looking for exactly?"
"What type of demon that Cordy is, or that part of her is now." Angel answered stoically, as he had, as he leafed through the book in his hands.
"Well, yes, but even for full demons that we have to end up killing, we require some kind of description of it so that we know its weaknesses, its strengths, its patterns, habits, how it thinks, whatever rituals would be involved with it, in either summoning or . . ."
"Wesley!" Angel snapped. Wesley stopped and nodded his head apologetically. "Well, you-you know what I mean," he stuttered.
Angel sighed and nodded his head, his eyes closed as he recalled all he could.
"From what we've seen so far, Cordy's been floating and for whatever reason the Visions don't hurt her anymore. They're also a great deal clearer, but both of you have said that's because the pain is less." Angel repeated. "Other than that…well there was that stretching thing when she woke up…"
"More limber?" Wesley asked objectively.
Angel looked up sharply and corrected, "Uh…no. More energy, I…think…"
Wesley got that thoughtful look that Giles, and Angel thought all Watchers must get when struck with an epiphany. Then he grabbed a different volume and started leafing through it very quickly. He started fingering the page and soon came to whatever he was looking for. "Well?" Angel asked, his full attention on the man.
"I think I may have found something. A type of demon that has the ability to levitate, has an unusually high tolerance of pain, and according to this, they are really quite peaceful." Wesley continued to read. "They are called the Alpanites. They have a relation, or rather there's a reference to the Sirens of Mythology…"
"Weren't those the women that drove men to their deaths with their voices that made them fall in love with them and caused them to run their ships into the rocks?" Angel asked, suddenly worried.
"Well, yes" Wesley hesitated. "But it's only a reference. The Alpanites aren't the actual Syrens, who are drawn to sexual energies and need…"
"Wesley!" Angel snapped angrily.
"Sorry," he apologized. "But the reference is actually that Alpanites are often found near the ocean and usually beautiful women. They tend to avoid human contact most often and live near wilderness. Besides being able to levitate, it says here that they have another unique ability. Something it describes as…being transparent? I'm not sure what that's referring to, and it might just be a bad translation."
"What else does it say?" Angel asked, impatient. "You know, weaknesses, patterns, rituals, feeding habits."
Wesley looked up at the vampire. "Is that what this is about?" Angel ignored him and stared pointedly at the book. Wesley decided to drop it and read on, finding what Angel had asked for. "Yes, here it is. Alpanite females need to feed once every ten years as part of their mating cycle. They feast on infant…"
"What!?" Angel near shrieked.
"If you'd allow me to finish," Wesley chastised, knowing exactly what Angel was thinking. "Alpanite females feed on infant Gorgonites. Gorgonites are the mortal enemies of the Alpanites and are more or less the exact opposite of the Alpanites. Where Alpanites have a high tolerance to pain and are mostly female and humanish looking, the only difference is this transparency it mentions, Gorgonites have a very low tolerance of pain and are rather resembling of trolls or goblins. There's also a mention of unusual dexterity among the female Alpanites. The males tend to be far more skittish around humans, so no true accounts have been made about them. However there is something here…"
"Well?"
Wesley sighed and barely bit his tongue on the retort that was there. "Of the very few human/Alpanite pairings that have actually taken place, there have been even fewer successful half-breeds resulting. All four of them female. And no Angel, none, other than Cordelia apparently, have taken place in this century. Alpanites have a lifespan approximately twice as long as humans normally do, but the halflings only lived about the normal age of a human. It also mentions that the offspring did not display the levitation abilities, but they did this continuously mention transparency. I wonder what it is?"
"What do we tell Cordy?" Angel asked after several minutes complete silence.
"Tell me what?" Cordelia's voice sounded from the door.
Startled, both men jumped at the sound and turned to see Cordelia. Well, that's what they turned to see. That's not really what they saw. They did see Cordelia's clothes, as they would fit around her body, walk over to the coffee machine and pick up one of the donuts on the tray there. The donut seemed to float about four to five inches from the hole of Cordy's sleeve as the sleeve brought it up to where Cordy's mouth would be, if it were visible. She paused, taking in the men's stares before asking again, "Tell me what?"
Thinking fast, Angel stuttered with the answer, "Uh-uh…uh what we found! In-in-in, in our research! Its-its-uh, really gross and we were wondering how to tell it to you without you going all, well, you know. 'Eewww!' about it."
"Oh," Cordy's clothes seemed to say before a bite was taken out of the donut.
Wesley and Angel watched in morbid disgust as they watched the contents of the donut being chewed apart and mixed around, to them, in mid-air. "Uh, Cordy, I hate to sound like a prude or something, but…" the food stopped moving, "Could you eat with your mouth closed?" Angel begged quickly.
"UH!" Cordy made an annoyed sound. The food was quickly swallowed and as they watched, Cordelia seemed to be appearing out of the thin air, slowly, making her look transparent for several moment. "I'll have you know that whatever my eating habits are, YOURS are ten times worse! UH! Men!" She left in a huff. Fully visible by the time she was out the office door.
Angel turned back to Wesley, who shared a look with him before lowering his eyes back to the desk and the books laid on them. Angel followed his gaze and stared too. After two minutes or more of silence, Angel asked, "So, what do we tell Cordy?"
"Do you think she'd forgive us if we told her nothing?" Wesley proposed.
Angel silently nodded his head. "Yeah. Give or take a few months, but I guess it depends on when or if she finds out for herself." Wesley reluctantly agreed to that, nodding his head.
"Do you think she'd forgive us if we actually told her?"
"Not in a million years," Angel answered immediately.
"So, we don't tell her?" Wesley prompted.
"I don't think we should. Do you?" Angel looked up. Wesley looked up at the same time.
"Right," they both said at the same time and started to clean up the books on the desk and the rest scattered about the room.
FINISDisclaimer: "Angel" is owned and produced by Joss Whedon. Spoilers for the episode "Birthday". All characters herein belong to the WB and the various production companies.