Impressions Read Free

waited and stalked and…
    Waited.
    And the collector had known. The young Tuingas could see by his actions, how he carefully and quickly packed the stone up in its odd, oversized bag. But the man’s admiration for the stone had nothing to do with its intangible value to the Tuingas…the lingering presence of a hero and loved one. There was no respect in his face. There was only greed. To judge by the man’s other such transactions, he would keep the stone only long enough to find a wealthy buyer, either not knowing or not caring about the consequences. Or figuring, as many humans seem to, that somehow he would be the exception to the rule.
    The young Tuingas grew frustrated. Limited to hiding in shadows and waiting for opportunity, he followed the man to a temporary cluster of dwellings…and there he ran into real trouble. Where the unfamiliar nature of L.A. had not deterred him, where his lack of sophistication had not discouraged him, the man’s wise precautions—including no doubt a newly minted amulet of his own—stopped the Tuingas short.
    The young demon couldn’t enter the building. Not from the roof or the windows or the so obvious door. He tried and he tried again, and found himself inexorably repelled. The man had visitors…people bearing food and messages and then another man, younger, all dressed in black and awkwardly keeping to shadows. But for the Tuingas there was no entry, so he waited. He watched. He wondered what the priests had said when they found his crudely scrawled note of intent to reclaim the deathstone, and he wondered what would happen to him when he finally returned. He’d already lost weight. His long-nose hung limp and unhappy.
    But eventually the man had emerged.
    The young Tuingas had followed him.
     
    “I need to find Angel,” the man blurted.
    He’s crazy, Cordelia decided at once, and applied her politely-interested-but-really-not face for him.
    “I know I’m not supposed to come here, that he likes to keep his street people under cover. But he’s not at the main office address he gave me and I need to see him —”
    “Calm yourself,” Wesley said, glancing at Angel with wry bemusement as he set aside his take-out carton. “We’ll try to help you, but—”
    Angel looked at the man who had so decisively and unexpectedly dismissed him, and then down at himself. He straightened his sweater, surreptitiously tugging his jeans up to fasten the snap.
    I knew it. But Cordelia savored the private triumph only for an instant. She gestured at Angel. “But this is Ange—”
    The man waved a hand in vehement denial. A bowling bag weighed the other hand down, a battered old thing with handles that barely seemed to be attached. It seemed heavy in his hand, but its slack sides looked empty. “I know all about the look-alike he sends out on the street to confuse those who might be following him,” he said. “Don’t try that charade on me. I need the real Angel, and I need him—”
    The doors crashed open. Really crashed, as in right off the hinges. Even Angel blinked at that, and at the distinctly inhuman creature that bounded through them, heading straight for the desperate man and his bowling ball.
    “—right now! ” cried the man, his voice raising an octave. Maybe two.
    “I’ll fake it,” Angel muttered, and put himself between man and demon as the man dove for one of the lobby columns, clinging to it from behind. The creature hesitated, long enough to offer a brief impression of alligator skin, a flexible fifth appendage swung neatly over its shoulder, and beady black eyes focused entirely on his prey.
    “Hey,” Angel said, annoyed. “I’m right here in front of you. And I gotta tell you, it bothers me when demons forget to knock.”
    It saw him then. It reached for him with every apparent intent of tossing him aside, and Angel responded with every apparent intent of holding ground. The demon used its weight to shove Angel back and back again, up against the