•••

“Come on, Wil! Let’s go!” Cordelia shouted. The vampire rushed down the stairs to join the others. She and Xander had both had particularly gruesome, and related, visions. A group of demons the investigators known to be working for Wolfram & Hart were about to harvest people from one of UCLA’s dormitories. It was going to be a nasty battle, and they needed all the help they could get.

As a result, Lorne was joining in. The demon didn’t like to fight and usually confined his help to suggestions and readings, but this time he took up a sword and went along. It hadn’t taken very much effort to convince the stylish demon to borrow some of Gunn’s more sturdy clothing, even though Lorne complained loudly at being so out of style. Other than Cordelia, everybody ignored him.

The gang crowded into Wesley’s SUV and took off. It was a bit stuffy in the automobile, since there were eight people and all their weapons shoved into it. No one complained, though, because they were all focused on the impending battle.

Wesley had, with Wil’s assistance, confirmed the identity of the demons as Hauk, a breed of particularly vile, magic-wielding creatures. Although no one mentioned it, they all wished that Angel was with them. He was their best fighter and had experience against this particular enemy, having run into this nest a couple of years ago. But the brooding vampire hadn’t responded when Cordelia had tried to coax him out of his room, so they left without him.

•••

When they got to the dormitory, Wesley took charge. It was a bit difficult to take him seriously since he had a floppy tam-o-shanter on his head and oversized boots on his feet. His transformation had been smooth and he’d been fully mobile for almost a month now. However, he, like Lorne, had to do something to minimize his…unique appearance while out and about. It had been Oz who’d gifted him with the garish hat.

“Wil, you take Cordelia, Gunn and Oz to the front entrance. Start a sweep there and meet us in the basement. Xander, Fred, Lorne and I will start down there from the side door,” Wesley barked out.

Wil’s group wasted no time getting into the dorm. As soon as they did, however, they adopted casual postures, masquerading as college students. They were youthful enough to pull it off and no one questioned why they were methodically searching the halls.

“I’m getting nothing,” Wil said quietly.

“Me neither,” Oz confirmed. Cordelia also shook her head.

“Me, I am,” Gunn replied.

“What?” Wil asked.

Gunn pointed at a flyer on the wall. “There’s supposed to be a dorm-wide pizza party going on right now, on the first floor—here. Where is everybody? No college kid in their right mind would turn down free food, but there’s nobody here.”

Oz and Cordelia looked at each other. “Pizza?” They’d been smelling pizza all around the dorm, but hadn’t thought anything of it. Turning, they began to track the smell.

Wil, too, started to follow the increasingly strong odor. It was concentrated near the stairwell. As he’d expected, it led to the basement. “Wonder if the party got moved down a floor?”

Cordelia peered down the stairs. “It’s probably lounges and study areas down there. Where are we supposed to meet up with Wesley?”

Wil shook his head. “He didn’t say. We should head down, though.”

The group descended the stairs as quietly as they could. When they reached the door, though, they couldn’t get it open. Even Wil, Oz and Cordelia working together couldn’t get the door to budge.

“Guys, I don’t think you’re ever going to get it open,” Gunn remarked.

“Why not?” Cordelia huffed.

“Because it’s been welded shut,” Gunn replied, pointing at the just-visible bead of solder between the door and the frame. “It’s been sealed tight. Nothing’s getting out of there, or in for that matter.”

“Is there another entrance?” Cordelia asked.

“The others used a side stairwell,” Oz reminded them.

“Let’s go,” Wil said as they ran up the stairs.

The second stairwell didn’t smell like pizza at all. Instead, the rich aroma of fresh blood tantalized Wil and the werewolves’ noses. Cordelia cocked her head to one side, sniffing.

“Delia, I love you, but don’t do that,” Gunn said, unnerved.

She just shrugged. “It’s fresh, just a few minutes old.”

“And human,” Wil added. That meant that unless it was Fred, whoever had been injured wasn’t from their group.

“Not Fred,” Oz said. “A guy.”

Wil nodded. They descended the stairs, trying to pick up clues. The place was clean, though, other than the scent of blood, which was getting stronger.

“At least this one isn’t welded shut,” Gunn said, gesturing toward the open door. He couldn’t see a thing inside. “Shouldn’t there be a light or something in there?”

“Busted out,” Oz said, crouching down. A few feet in front of them was a pile of glass from a shattered light bulb.

“Oookay. Well, if they were here, then they went in there,” Gunn said.

“They were,” Cordelia confirmed. “Not too long ago.”

Wil led them into the basement, making sure that Gunn had his flashlight. The others could see better and didn’t need the extra light. The basement was as eerie as they came; puddles of water here and there, the silence broken by clanking and hissing.

The gang stopped to check out a scrape on one wall. Gunn leaned over toward it, peering closely. When he stepped back, he noticed something sticky on his foot.

“Don’t,” Oz said, looking at Gunn’s shoe.

“What?”

Wil squatted next to Gunn. “Gore.”

They looked down the hallway, seeing a trail of blood and gore all the way to where it ended. “Can I wipe my shoe off, please?” Gunn pleaded.

“Yeah,” Wil said, worried. This was not good.

They crept down the hallway, jumping at every sound. Wil was concerned by the lack of human-like noises. He should have been able to hear Wesley and the others by now.

Just after they turned the corner, the hallway dead-ended at a door. “Shall we?” Wil muttered as he pulled it open.

Fortunately, Gunn was right behind Cordelia when she fainted.

A wall of blood poured out of the small broom closet. Wil closed his eyes and endured the feeling of still-warm blood swirling around his knees as the room emptied. After a few seconds, the flood had dissipated, leaving an inch-deep puddle of fluids most of the way down the hall.

Oz stepped forward to peer into the closet. “How?”

Wil opened his eyes and looked around. Above the door was an air vent. “That, maybe.”

Gunn steadied Cordelia as she came to. “Can we get out of here?” She whimpered. Bathing in blood wasn’t high on her priority list and that closet had just freaked her out.

Wil led them back down the hallway. This didn’t make any sense. Where was everybody? There didn’t seem to be any other doors in the basement, so it looked like a dead end.

Cordelia was rushing down the hall, eager to get away from the basement, when she slipped on the blood she was running through. Sliding right, she bumped hard into the wall, trying to stay upright. “Ow!”

The others reached her as she was rubbing her side gingerly. “What happened?” Gunn asked, concerned.

“I must have hit something, because whatever it was it jabbed me good,” Cordelia replied, still favoring her side.

“I don’t see anything,” Oz said, feeling along the wall. “Wait.”

He reached over for Wil’s hand. “Feel this.”

Wil ran his hands over the wall. After a moment, he felt what Oz was referring to. The wall looked like cinderblock, but one part felt like…steel. He went along the metal until it ended and ran his hand down. Sure enough, there was a doorknob. He could feel the thing, but not see it. “Magic?” He asked.

“Probably,” Oz replied.

Wil opened the door and looked inside. “I think we found what we’re looking for,” He said.

The room was filled with people. They were all over the place, some piled up in corners either dead or unconscious, while others stood or sat around the rest of the place. None of them looked good, like they’d been drugged.

“Oh, gods,” Wil murmured. He moved aside so that the others could come into the room. They did so, jumping when the door slammed shut behind them and locked.

“Shit!” Gunn swore. There wasn’t a doorknob on this side of the door. They were trapped.

Wil walked into the room proper, looking around. The people were all college kids, about 19 or so. There must have been a hundred or more packed into the room, which looked like some sort of study area. Pizzas, most of them partially eaten, lay scattered here and there. A familiar smell caught his attention. He followed it to a distant corner of the room.

He found Fred under a table, holding an unconscious Wesley. Xander and Lorne were with them, also looking pretty bad off. “What happened?” Wil whispered.

“Wil!” Fred cried. “How did you get in here?”

“The door, but it’s closed now,” Wil said in a whisper. “Who did all this?”

Fred handed Wesley off to Xander and crawled out. She was in the best shape of all of them. “It’s the Hauk. They were waiting for us when we got downstairs. They beat up the guys and threw us in here with the kids.”

“For what?” Wil asked.

Fred shook her head. “I don’t know, but they’ve been coming in regularly and hauling one off to that room over there. We can’t get in it or out of this one or the other one over there, though.” That made sense, considering the welded-shut door on the other stairwell. The third door Fred had pointed to was in the right place to be the one they'd found earlier.

Wil signaled to the others. They joined their friends near the protective surface of the table. “So what are we going to do?” Cordelia asked. “These kids are worthless. The ones that aren’t passed out are too scared to move.”

Just then the second door opened. A tall Hauk stepped into the room, followed by three others. They looked around a little before reaching for a girl lying nearby. The guy next to her roused when they picked her up.

“NO! Susan! Don’t hurt her!” The boy yelled. The Hauk grinned snapped the girl’s neck, and then picked him up as well. Then they were gone back through the door. Wil jumped up and ran to the door, catching it before it shut completely. He reached in his pocket and found the grocery list he’d put there earlier, using it to jam the lock.

“Well?” He said as the able-bodied members of the gang came up to him.

“We have to stop them,” Fred pleaded.

“How?” Wil asked. The Hauk were much better organized than they’d thought.

Gunn frowned. “Why don’t we just go in and kick ass?”

Wil looked at the others. Although crude, that tactic did work occasionally. “All right.”

They pulled open the door and walked inside. The Hauk had the place set up as an altar room, with sputtering candles and black silk everywhere. The investigators moved around the edge of the sacrificial area, where the demons were preparing the boy they’d carted off. The girl was in small pieces in one corner.

Wil signaled and they attacked. The demons were taller and bulkier than any of them, but the investigators weren’t completely helpless. Wesley, Xander and Lorne had been taken down because the demons had surprised them. This time, though, the element of surprise was working against the Hauk. Still, though, the gang was outnumbered and facing strong magic users.

The Hauk were caught off-guard, but only for a moment. Wil managed to slide his iron dagger underneath one demon’s ribcage, puncturing the heart. It was the only way to kill this particular type of demon, and it wasn’t easy.

Oz and Gunn had similar success at first. Between the two of them, Cordelia and Fred took down another demon as well. But by that time, the demons had recovered from their surprise and went on the offensive. Wil felt huge, scaly hands grab him as he was thrown high into the air.

Gunn saw Wil disappear and began to fight in that direction. The demons weren’t expecting a human to fight back, since they’d poisoned all of the ones in the other room. They also underestimated Gunn’s abilities, so he managed to down several before they caught on.

Wil hit the concrete floor with a resounding thud, feeling a couple of vertebrae crack, as well as one hip. He struggled to stand, knowing that staying down would get him killed. The Hauk kept coming, and he managed to fend off a couple before they brought him down again.

Oz joined Gunn in trying to get to Wil when he noticed that the demons were ganging up on the vampire. They’d just about gotten to him when he disappeared again, this time underneath a pile of demons. Oz jumped into the fray, hoping to find Wil while he was still in one piece.

“Gunn!”

Gunn spun around when he heard Cordelia’s cry. She and Fred were surrounded by demons. He left Oz to find Wil and went to help them. The demons were preoccupied with taunting the girls and didn’t notice him until he’d killed two of them. Cordelia helped with the third and Fred got the fourth. They wasted no time, however, in returning to where Wil was.

Oz had managed to kill all but four of Wil’s attackers. Gunn and the others faced off with them, finishing the Hauk quickly. Oz protected Wil, who was lying motionless on the floor.

“Is he ok?” Gunn asked, staring down at the broken vampire.

Oz shook his head. “No. We need to get him back to the hotel.”

Gunn looked around for something to carry the vampire on. He wasn’t sure how you treated spinal injuries in the undead, but he didn’t want to be responsible for paralyzing the vampire. Eventually they found that the top of the altar was just a piece of silk covered plywood, so they used that to carry him out.

Once they got to the main room, Fred and Cordelia went over to check on the others. Wesley was still pretty much unconscious, and Xander and Lorne weren’t much better. Xander was awake and able enough to hobble out on his own, and Cordelia and Fred helped the others out.

“What about the kids?” Fred asked as they loaded the injured into Wes’s SUV.

“Call the hospital and tell them there’s a massive case of food poisoning in the dorm?” Gunn offered.

Oz thought for a moment. “No, they’d wonder about the bodies. I think I know somebody who can help, though.”

“Who?” Cordelia asked.

The werewolf shrugged. “Just an old friend.” After borrowing Cordelia’s cell phone and making a brief call, he climbed in the back to steady Xander, who was listing to one side. His old music buddy knew all about magical drugs and could probably get the kids cleaned up and straightened out, and might even convince them it was all a bad trip.

“We’re not all going to fit in here on the way back,” Gunn said finally. “Cordelia, you and Fred take a taxi to the hotel. Oz and I will drive the wounded, walking and otherwise.”

Gunn waited until Cordelia’s taxi arrived before leaving. The drive back to the hotel was tense; Oz was concerned because Xander wasn’t responding well, and Lorne looked, well, less green than usual, which didn’t seem right. Wil was the worst, though. He resembled a rag doll that a pit bull had torn to bits.

•••

Cordelia and Fred were waiting when they got to the hotel. Oz helped Gunn carry in Wil, carefully maneuvering the vampire upstairs to the second floor. The other injured weren’t as difficult and were safely inside by the time they were finished placing Wil.

“What are we going to do with them?” Cordelia asked. “I’m no demon paramedic, and there aren’t any human wounded.”

“Yeah, and Lorne’s our usual contact for that kind of stuff,” Gunn added.

“What about Angel?” Fred asked. “He would know.”

Oz looked skeptical. “He hasn’t spoken to us in a while. Would he now?”

“Maybe if he knew that four of his friends might be dying, yeah,” Gunn said.

“I’ll ask him,” Cordelia decided. “After all, the worst he can say is no.”

The seer traipsed up to Angel’s apartment. She tried the door, but it was locked. “Angel?” She yelled to the door. “I know you’re in there.”

Silence was the only response she got. “We’ve got a problem down here. A big one.” Still nothing.

She tried banging on the door. “We’ve got hurt people here, Angel, and we don’t know what to do about it.” She thought she heard something rustling in the room, so she continued.

“Wesley’s unconscious, Xander and Lorne aren’t much better, and I think Wil’s dying,” She said.

A moment later the door unlocked and cracked open. “What?” Angel whispered.

Cordelia tried to peer in. “Angel? Look, Wil’s back, and gods know what else, got broken in a fight. We don’t know what to do.”

Angel opened the door and stepped out. “How?”

“Hauk demons, a lot of them,” Cordelia said.

Angel swore and started down the hall. “He knows better than to go up against them without any…”

“Backup? He had lots of it, Angel,” Cordelia said. /Just not you./

Gunn was checking Xander’s pupils when Angel reached the office. The dark vampire looked around, taking in all the wounded. It was a mess.

“Do you know anyone who can help?” Gunn asked Angel.

“Yeah. I’ll call,” Angel said. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. A few seconds later he began talking in a hoarse, demonic language. It only took a few minutes.

“Well?” Cordelia asked.

“There’s a doctor on the way,” Angel said. He went over and sat down next to Wil. The blonde’s injuries were worse than anything Angel had seen on him. Besides the broken spine, Wil’s arms were fractured, his legs were bent at odd angles, and huge bruises were rising all over his face, head and every other bit of exposed flesh. Knowing just how difficult it was to make a vampire bruise, Angel knew the wounds were serious.

The doctor arrived a few minutes later. Gunn looked warily as the short, purple demon sat down a traditional doctor’s bag and pulled out a stethoscope.

The first patient, of course, was Wil. The doctor poked and prodded, listening with his stethoscope. "He’s got six broken vertebrae, both of his hips are fractured, five ribs are cracked, his knees are damaged, both arms are broken, and he’s got a concussion. And, of course, significant bruising and a bit of internal bleeding.” After a few more minutes of poking around, he set the broken bones, using Angel to help pull them into place. Then he rummaged through his bag and pulled out four small bottles. Handing them to Angel, he said, “Follow the directions on the bottles, put him in bed, and leave him there for at least a week, preferably longer.”

Angel nodded and took the bottles. The doctor turned next to Wesley. His diagnosis took less time.

“Ah, a faun! Not many of those around here. He’ll be fine. It’s just a concussion,” The doctor said. Fred looked immensely relieved.

Xander, likewise, had a concussion, along with some cuts and scrapes. He, like Wesley, was prescribed bed rest and time.

Lorne was already recovering when the doctor got to him. “You don’t need anything!” The doctor accused.

“I would have an hour ago, but I’m fine now, Manny,” Lorne said, holding his head. “I just need some sleep.”