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Author's Chapter Notes:
Characters die in this chapter. But no one really dies in the Buffyverse. Even if they do, we can resurrect them in fanfic.
Once the rain cleared, and demon bodies sufficiently blocked the alley entrance, Angel took a moment to assess the situation.

It was grim.

Gunn was gone. Dead, most certainly, but Angel had lost him. His body was probably somewhere beneath the pile of demon bodies that blocked the alley. Opposite him, probably a hundred yards ahead, Spike was using said pile of carnage as a barricade. Illyria was further ahead. He couldn’t see her, but knew from the constant grinding sound of bone against bone that she was still fighting the fight. Angel was hurting, oozing blood from two dozen not-so-superficial wounds. He couldn’t tell how Spike fared. There was a ruddy gash on Spike’s temple, but any other scrapes he had were hidden under his long leather coat.

So, as far as he could see, there were two very important things they had to face. One was the Khurasch dragon, which Angel had fought already, but it had turned and wheeled out above them like a big, great scaly chicken. No telling when it would return, but no doubt that it would be back. The second, more imminent danger was the rapidly approaching sunrise. Illyria would be fine; but he and Spike would be nice and roasty if they couldn’t find shelter, and fast.

“Angel!” Spike called. “I think we’ve got them scared.”

Angel climbed over a hill of slaughtered imps and made his way toward Spike. His boots squished in ankle deep pools of coagulating demon blood.

“I wouldn’t count on that, Spike,” he said, in a cautioning tone. “They’re regrouping, and we’re running out of time.”

Spike scanned the sky. “We can hide under corpses. No heartbeat. They’ll figure us for dead.”

“That’s great, Spike, except for when the demonic clean-up crew comes to forage on this flesh buffet, leaving us completely exposed.”

“We’ve beat back Legions, Angel. You telling me we’re gonna let the sun finish us off?” Spike climbed up the makeshift barricade to have a look. As he did so, a Bulwacki demon fired a crossbow, narrowly missing his left eye. Spike slid back down, cursing.

“Not so clear as I thought,” he said.

“Ya think?” Angel said.

Illyria came toward them. They heard her purposeful strides over the din of demons just outside the mouth of the alley.

“I can sense your concerns,” she told them. “You fear the dawning sun.”

“Well, yeah, Blue,” Spike said. “Vampires.”

Illyria leapt to the top of the demon-body barricade. Another crossbow bolt sailed by. She caught it without turning and snapped it in her fist.

“There is a grated opening into the ground at the front of this ravine. I can pry it open, if you can fight your way to it,” she said.

“A sewer grate,” Angel said. “We can do that. Live to fight another day.”

“Bloody right, we can. Blue, you’re brilliant!” Spike said.

Illyria cocked her head, half-smiling down at Spike. A second later, the smile faded. “You must hurry, half-breed. They are coming.”

Spike didn’t waste any time. He climbed over the deadfall wall, with Angel beside him. They could hear the sixteenth (or was it seventeenth?) wave gathering force. It was a baleful, groaning sound, like that of a gargantuan metal beast slowly collapsing beneath its own weight. Under that sound, there was an unnerving clicking, insectile and alien. It set Angel’s fangs on edge.

As soon as they cleared their barrier, a volley of bolts sailed at them. Illyria took point, with Spike and Angel flanking. She stretched her arms and the bolts incinerated mid-air.

“Nice trick, luv,” Spike whispered.

“Are you ready to run?” she asked.

Angel dug in. The blurred faces of demons filled the end of the alley. All they needed was to charge through, get underground and get out.

“Ready,” Spike said.

“Let’s go,” Angel said.

They plunged into the fray, closing the distance between them and the demon horde. Illyria struck the first thirty or so, driving them back under a wall of heat. Angel and Spike shielded their eyes, skirting the bodies that crumpled beneath their feet. But as they ran, the next wave swept in with pure demonic force. Hundreds, maybe thousands waited for them. Illyria charged, but they drove her back. Angel leapt in, slashing at what seemed like a wall of living flesh. Above him, a swarm some breed of bug-like demon scaled the alley walls, mandibles clacking like mad castanets.

Dimly, he heard Spike scream as he dived in. After that, the demons’ collective war cries drowned all other sound. Angel fought for every inch, snapping necks, tearing flesh, scraping, hitting, hell - biting, but still they pushed him back.

“Illyria!” he yelled. “I’m losing ground!”

Four demons, each twelve-footers, closed a tight circle around him. They wielded long halberds with black, barbed hooks on one end.

Angel took one, used it to sweep the legs out from beneath another, and climbed over the shoulders of the third. He leapt forward, flying over the heads of demons. In their surprise, they missed him as he fell. He rolled, then bounded up again, using his handy new weapon as a demon skewer.

Angel saw then how clearly out-matched they really were. The Circle of the Black Thorn had meant business. Beyond the alley lay the open gate to a dimension of hell that spilled out demons in droves. Tens of thousands of them, armed to their many, many rows of teeth.

Angel had known they couldn’t win. But they had lasted so long he had begun to think...

The Khurasch descended, this time for a face-to-face. The strafing maneuvers from their earlier scuffle had been a fly-by, just to test them out. Now, it was full of teeth and claws and mystical fire. Behind it, yet another Legion awaited. The Khurasch opened its dripping, gaping jaws to draw in breath.

Illyria stepped forward, palm stretched out to strike.

“No,” Angel yelled. “This one’s mine.”

“Get down,” she ordered.

Spike stumbled through the demons that now retreated from the Khurasch behind them. He dropped to his knees.

“The passageway is there,” Illyria said, pointing beyond Angel to the sewer grate. Her voice sounded thin and strained. Angel heard the clang of ripping metal. “Go. Now,” she said.

“Spike!” Angel called out. “Get inside!”

“What?” he answered. “And let you have all the glory?” Blood dripped in black pools from a wound in his shoulder.

The Khurasch dragon’s breath transformed from ragged moan to an ear-shredding keen.

“You must go. Now!” Illyria said. A shimmer of heat rippled the air before her.

Angel would later recall fragments and flashes. He would remember Spike standing to make a last charge. Angel would recall the hatchet that struck him down from behind. Fragments, like scales of glass. Blinding, searing whiteness, followed by dust. All around him, dust.

Somehow, by some means beyond him, Angel managed to crawl into the sewer grate. He was burned and broken, but alive. A day later, he emerged from a sewer tunnel and made his way to Connor.

But for days after that, all he could see when he closed his eyes, was dust.





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