As always, the vision came hard and fast, and barely allowed her enough air to breath. She closed her eyes, and pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead as the images painfully rocked and rolled inside her brain. Angel and Wesley watched somewhat anxiously. What, they both wondered, could the *Powers* possibly want of them *now*? It was not as if there was nothing at all going on in their lives. On the contrary, obvious chaos ruled.

Finally, the pain seemed to lessen. Cordelia heaved a deep sigh of relief as she removed her hands from her head. However, the look in her dark eyes was an anxious one as she turned her attention to Angel and Wesley.

"What?" Angel asked her, positive that he had absolutely no desire to know.

"Trouble," Cordelia answered as she gratefully let Angel lead her to one of the lobby chairs, and thankfully took the water and two Tylenol Wesley was offering her.

So, what else was new? Angel grimaced. "Where?"

"That's part of the problem," Cordelia said as soon as she had finished gulping water. "It's up the coast, near the California/Oregon border."

"Good Lord." Wesley frowned. "That is hours away from here."

"And it's isolated. Way remote." Cordelia nodded. "Out in the middle of some forest. Some kind of campsite." She shook her head helplessly. "I'll never be able to tell you how to get there. No way. I'll," she swallowed with sudden trepidation, "have to show you."

Which meant, of course, that, whatever the problem, she would have to go with him. "What did you see there?" Angel asked.

"People in trouble." The seer gave a helpless shrug that said, 'what else?'

"What kind of trouble?" Wesley wanted to know.

"The bloodsucking kind." Cordelia threw Angel a quick glance as she said this. He had, of course, killed hundreds of what could only be termed as 'his own kind', but she still could not help wondering exactly how he felt about that. After all, he was just a soul's breath away from being a hunted man himself.

"Vampires," Angel murmured.

"Yeah." Cordelia nodded. "Lots of them." She grimaced. "It looks like they lure people to this place, and then trap them in some kind of cavern or cave..." She stopped, obviously ill at ease.

"And?" Angel prompted her.

Cordelia shuddered. "They feed them just enough to keep them alive for a while, torture them to their nonbeating heart's content, then use them...as their food supply." She swallowed, the bile rising in her throat as she said softly, "Men, women...children."

"Lovely," Wesley muttered softly, his thoughts automatically going back to apartment 804, and what had transpired there.

Angel had no comment to make. After all, what else would they expect from a pack of vampires? What else *could* they expect? He looked at his seer. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." Cordelia nodded despairingly. "There's some kind of...funky code written on the entrance to the cave. I have a feeling that we're gonna need someone who'll be able to decipher it...or we'll never get in."

Angel and Wesley exchanged a concerned, knowing glance. "So," Angel said slowly, "it would seem that all three of us have to go on this trip."

"Yes, well," Wesley said softly, looking troubled. "The timing is somewhat odd...to say the least. Why would the *Powers* want to send all three of us out of town at the same time? Especially now?"

Angel shook his head. "I don't think it's a matter of them *wanting* to send us, Wesley," he told the ex-watcher. "We're still in the business of," he gave a frustrated shrug, "helping the hopeless. That doesn't stop just because *we* have problems."

Wesley nodded slowly. He understood what Angel was saying, but it wasn't *their* problems he was worried about; it was *Doyle's*. "Yes...I suppose that is true." He looked up at Angel, voiced his concern out loud. "What about Doyle?"

Angel's hesitation was not based on indecision...just on the fact that he wished he had another choice. The answer, however, was all too obvious. He shook his head. "It's too dangerous. We can't take him that far away from the hotel. He'd be a sitting duck just waiting for Saul's attack. He'll...have to stay here."

The last thing Cordelia wanted to do was to leave the man she loved behind. She too, however, knew the score. However... "Alone? We're gonna leave him here alone? That could be just as dangerous as taking him with us."

Angel agreed whole-heartedly. "No, I don't want to leave him here alone, but I don't..." He trailed off as he realized that what he had been about to say did them absolutely no good. Cordelia was right. They couldn't leave the half-demon oracle alone in the building. They simply couldn't. For a variety of reasons.

Wesley completely understood the vampire's conflicting feelings. On the one hand, there was the vision in which their mission was clear. On the other hand was the all too vulnerable, and much maligned Doyle. He looked at Cordelia. "Where is Doyle now?"

"Asleep, last time I checked," Cordelia answered. "Those pills you gave him really knocked him out."

Wesley smiled slightly, for that had, of course, been his intention. The Promised One had been through far too much of late...and had had too little rest. The pills were now giving him a much needed break. His gaze went to Angel. "The medication I gave him is very strong. Rousing him could prove to be difficult." He shrugged slightly. "He might very well sleep the clock round and then some."

Angel nodded slowly. He could see the benefit of that, but they still could not leave Doyle in the hotel alone. One of them would have to stay, and the other two would have to do the best they could. It was not a good plan; it could, in fact, be a deadly one, but he didn't know what else to do. He realized that time was of the essence for those strangers in trouble who were miles to their north, but he also knew that it was no less precious to his friend Doyle who slept in his apartment that lay just feet above his head. They both mattered. They both had to be protected. It was as simple--and as hellishly complicated--as that.

Angel opened his mouth to speak, was interrupted by a familiar voice coming from the entrance to the hotel. "Who the hell died?"

"Gunn." Angel all but hissed the name as he, along with Wesley and Cordelia, turned to face the vampire hunter who stood just inside the lobby door. Then he realized what the African American man had asked. "What?"

Gunn gave Angel a contemplative look as he let the hotel door shut behind him, and walked to the top of the lobby steps. "I said, who died? You all look like..." He stopped as he suddenly realized that Doyle was not in the room.

Angel decided not to answer his unanswered question. "What the hell are you doing here, Gunn?"

"Yeah." Cordelia's voice had a frosty edge to it. "What *are* you doing here?"

Gunn decided then and there that, whatever had happened to cause the group before him to look so morose, it was not the half-demon's demise that had done it. Besides, Cordelia would be in hysterics, not giving him a look that could melt an iceberg in an instant. He looked squarely at Angel. "Why, Boss? Did you fire me when I wasn't lookin'?" Angel didn't reply, and his gaze went to Wesley, smiled as the ex-watcher met his eyes head on. He saw the bandage on the Englishman's neck, wondered briefly about it, then looked back at Angel. "I came by to see what was going on, you know, after what happened yesterday at 'A hole in the wall'."

Yesterday at 'A hole in the wall'. So much had happened yesterday that Angel had almost forgotten about Gunn's part in it all. Had almost forgotten that the vampire hunter had probably saved Doyle's life at the demon bar...or had, at the very least, made life much less taxing for him.

"Cordelia just had a vision," Angel told him.

Gunn was unmoved by this revelation. After all, wasn't that her job for the good ole *Powers that Be*? "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Angel nodded, watched Gunn carefully. "A pack of vampires have taken over a campsite up in the northern part of the state, near the Oregon border. They're using it to lure people into a trap. They draw them in, capture them, torture them, and then kill them."

"Yeah." Gunn nodded as he walked down the steps to the lobby's main floor. "That's what vampires are best at, man. Torturing people. Killing them."

As if Angel didn't know that. The vampire with a soul chose to ignore the sarcastic note to Gunn's voice. "The campsite is in a really remote area. The *Powers* showed Cordy how to get there, but she says it would be all but impossible to tell us the route. She'll have to show us." He watched as Gunn nodded his understanding. "There's also a hidden cave or cavern where they are holding these people. Cordelia says there are some sort of hieroglyphics at the entrance that will need to be deciphered before we can get in."

Gunn suddenly got the point of Angel's rather lengthy synopsis. "So, all three of you have to go on this little... 'excursion' of theirs. How ...convenient."

"Not really, no," Wesley said, giving Gunn a sour look.

No kidding. Gunn smiled slightly. "Interesting, then?"

"Gunn." Angel's voice was deadly serious.

"What?" Gunn gave his boss a mildly amused look. "What do you want me to say, man? That I'm surprised that they sent Cordelia a vision that's gonna take you away from here? That I'm surprised that they've put you in a, er, bad situation? That I'm surprised that they'd try and leave their beloved oracle in the lurch? Well," he shrugged, "I'm not." He looked straight into Angel's eyes as he said, "They have their own agenda, man. As always."

Angel knew that there was no way he was going to change Gunn's hardened opinion of the *Powers that Be*, and he was honestly not interested in trying to do so. There was only one thing that concerned him. "So, what exactly was all that at a 'A hole in the wall', Gunn?"

Gunn looked genuinely puzzled by the question. "What you do you mean?"

Angel walked to stand in front of Gunn, looked him directly in the eyes. "I mean what was *your* agenda?"

A hint of a grin touched Gunn's lips. "I told him," he nodded in Wesley's direction, "what my 'agenda' was. I wasn't lyin', man."

"So, you still don't trust the *Powers that Be*," Angel reflected.

"I don't." Gunn nodded firmly, his eyes boring right into Angel's. "And I never will, Angel."

"But," Wesley suddenly interjected. "You don't wish *Doyle* any harm."

Gunn stared at Wesley for a long minute, then heaved a huge sigh. "No, I don't," he said flatly. "But that doesn't mean I want to be buddies with him, and it doesn't mean that I don't wish that he'd never come back here because it seems to me that all *that's* done is cause problems. *But*," he said loudly when both Angel and Cordelia would have interrupted in protest, "he's here. He is what--and who--he is. And he's the key to this world not being sucked into Saul's living hell." He shrugged slightly. "A guy's got to respect that."

Angel raised his eyebrows slightly at that last comment. "Does he?" he asked softly as he, once again, looked Gunn directly in the eyes.

Gunn's return gaze never wavered. "Yeah, man, he does. And I do."

Angel's look was deadly serious. "So, if Cordelia, Wesley and I go help these people up north... "

"Because the Powers tell you *that's* where the action's at. Right." There was a slightly scornful note to Gunn's voice. "Well, it's *your* funeral, man."

Angel chose to ignore the sarcastic remark. He understood where Gunn was coming from, didn't necessarily completely disagree with him. It might very well *be* his funeral, so to speak, but he had no choice. None. *This* was what he *did*. "Can I trust you to stay here...with Doyle? "

Gunn's small smile widened. "You mean you want me to *baby sit* the oracle to the almighty *Powers that Be*?"

"Gunn." Wesley hissed the word under his breath. Time was passing. Angel didn't need this kind of aggravation...and Gunn knew it.

Angel shook his head in response to Gunn's question, but didn't rise to the obvious bait. "No. I'm asking you to look out for a friend. To make sure he doesn't come to any harm. To protect him." He raised his eyebrows at the vampire hunter; the rest of his face was set in stone. "Can you do that, Gunn? Can I *trust* you to do that?"

Gunn stared directly into Angel's intense gaze for several elongated seconds. There, he could see a variety of emotions the vampire would never verbally admit to experiencing...at least not to him. Gunn gave an inward sigh as he reluctantly admitted to himself that he needed to cut the vampire with a soul some slack. After all, *he* wasn't the one who had the weight of the world resting on his shoulders day in and day out. Add Doyle and all *his* issues to the mix, and, well, it had to be daunting to say the least. The least he could do, he supposed, was to give Angel some peace of mind as he went out on this ill advised jaunt the *Powers* were now conveniently--or inconveniently, as the case might be--sending him on. "Yeah."

Angel's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yeah, what?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Gunn told him solemnly. "Yeah, you can *trust* me to do that. I'll stay here, and I'll look after your precious oracle, and," he suddenly flashed Cordelia a brilliant smile, "I'll try not to give him *too* hard a time."

Cordelia looked right at him, and she didn't smile back. "You'd better take care of him, Gunn. 'Cause if you don't, you'll answer to me." She got up from her chair, crossed the room to stand directly in front of him. "You got that?"

Gunn's smile faded as he nodded. "Yeah. I hear you. And I will. I'll take care of him to the best of my ability. But, you know..." he paused as he looked from Cordelia to Angel; they both had looks on their respective faces that told him that they really didn't want to hear what he had to say, but, he noted, they were listening nonetheless. As was Wesley, who had walked up to stand beside Angel. "Look, I know you all want to spare him any unnecessary grief and pain and misery, and that's great, but...Doyle's not a kid, you know? He's a big boy, he's...the freakin' Promised one...and he has one big, bad mission to fulfill. So, the truth here is that, as much as you want to, you can't protect him from everything. You can't." He lowered his voice to almost a whisper as he added, "And maybe y'all shouldn't try to. At least, not as hard as you have *been* trying, anyway. I mean, how's he ever gonna do what he's supposed to do if...you don't *let* him do it?"

Silence reigned for several seconds as Angel, Wesley and Cordelia exchanged glances, and contemplated his words of wisdom. There was, of course, no denying what he had said. However, "I suppose you have a point," Angel said at last. "But..."

Gunn stopped him with a slight shake of his head. "Don't worry, man. I'll be here. I'll stay with him. I'll...do my best to keep him safe. It's just that...well, you know as well as I do that we don't always have control over what happens...or who it happens to."

Angel stared at Gunn for a long minute. He supposed that if he were really honest with himself, then he'd have to admit that he didn't always give the vampire hunter credit where it was due. He'd always seen him as a street-smart brawler who knew a lot about vampires, could expertly brandish a variety of weapons, and was excellent in a fight. But he was more than that, Angel surmised. Much more. Whatever his problems with the *Powers that Be*, and, more importantly, whatever problems he had with their oracle, Angel now knew that those issues would not stop Charles Gunn from doing what he knew was right. He knew he could leave Doyle in Gunn's hands without trepidation. He nodded slowly. "Okay."

Gunn knew the vampire had understood what he had said, and he nodded in return. "Okay."

Angel gave Gunn a slight smile, then turned to Wesley and Cordelia. "The faster we get this done, the faster we get back. Let's pack up what we need, and get the hell out of here."

Wesley and an unusually quiet Cordelia nodded in response as they went to do as he had asked.