The Demon Detective

The Price

Chaos. The warehouse was full of screams, green light, and the terrible *thump-thump-thump* of the demon heart. The newly marked creatures—once men, once demons—were now twisted things. They had extra limbs, claws, glowing green eyes. They were in pain, and they wanted to share that pain.

“Fall back!” Gunn yelled, pulling Cordelia behind a stack of wooden crates. A blast of green energy from the heart shattered the crates next to them.

Wesley was trying to remember a spell from his books. “We need to contain the heart’s energy! A circle of containment!”

“No time for circles!” Lockley shouted. She fired her gun at a marked creature. The bullet hit it, but it just snarled and kept coming. “These things don’t go down easy!”

Angel fought his way toward the heart. He ducked under a swinging claw, staked a marked vampire that was reaching for Wesley, and kept moving. The green light from the heart felt wrong. It made his skin crawl. It made the demon inside him stir with interest.

*So much power,* the demon inside whispered. *You could take it. You could be stronger than all of them.*

**No.** Angel shut the voice down. He focused on the heart.

He was almost there. The heart floated in its open box, beating wildly. Ten feet away.

A marked creature, half-man, half-something with scales, jumped in front of him. It was huge. Angel didn’t stop. He ran straight at it, slid under its legs, and came up behind it. He grabbed a broken metal pipe from the floor and drove it into the creature’s back. It shrieked and fell.

Five feet away.

The heart seemed to sense him. A thick tendril of green light shot out from it, not to mark anyone, but to attack. It wrapped around Angel’s ankle like a whip. It burned. It felt like ice and fire at the same time. It pulled, trying to drag him toward the beating heart.

Angel grabbed onto a heavy chain hanging from the ceiling. He held on. The green tendril pulled harder. He could feel it trying to seep into him, to mark him, to own him.

“Angel!” Cordelia screamed.

He looked over. Another marked creature was about to attack Cordelia and Gunn. Lockley was out of bullets. Wesley was on the ground, his glasses broken.

He was stuck. If he let go, the heart would pull him in. If he didn’t let go, his friends would die.

Then, he had an idea. A terrible, crazy idea.

The heart wanted life force? It wanted to mark? Maybe it could be tricked.

He stopped fighting the pull. He let go of the chain.

The green tendril yanked him off his feet and dragged him across the floor, straight toward the open box, straight toward the beating heart.

“Angel, no!” he heard someone shout.

He slid right up to the box. The heart was right above him, pulsing, huge and alive. The sound was deafening. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

He could see every vile vein. He could feel its evil life.

The heart sent out more tendrils, wrapping around his arms, his chest. It was going to mark him, to turn him into its strongest soldier.

But Angel didn’t try to break free. Instead, he did the one thing the heart, and Wolfram & Hart, would never expect.

He reached up, and he *embraced* it.

He wrapped his arms around the slimy, beating demon heart.

And he pulled it down from the box.

The second the heart left its jelly and its container, the world exploded.

Green light went everywhere. It was blinding. The tendrils around Angel burst. The marked creatures in the room all screamed at once, a sound of pure agony. The green light was ripped out of them, snapping back to the heart in Angel’s arms.

But the heart was free now. And it was angry. It was also vulnerable.

It was also connected to Angel. He could feel its evil, its hunger, its endless rage. It was like holding pure demon. The darkness inside him roared in answer. For a second, Angel’s eyes flashed yellow.

“Now, Wesley!” Angel roared, his voice straining. “Do it now!”

Wesley understood. He pulled a small, silver dagger from his coat—a dagger blessed by three different faiths. He ran forward.

The heart was beating against Angel’s chest, trying to burrow into him. Angel held it tight, like wrestling a giant, slippery fish made of nightmares.

Wesley raised the dagger. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and plunged it deep into the center of the demon heart.

There was no sound. For one second, the green light just… stopped.

Then, the heart gave one last, giant **THUMP**.

And it shattered.

Not into pieces. Into energy. A wave of dark green force exploded outward in complete silence. It hit the walls, the ceiling, everyone.

Angel was thrown across the room. He hit the wall and slid down.

The silence ended. The warehouse was dark. The main lights were out. Only emergency lights glowed red.

The marked creatures were gone. Just gone. No dust. They had been unmade.

The box was empty. The heart was destroyed.

Slowly, Angel got to his feet. He felt strange. Hollow. Cold. Where the heart had touched him, his skin felt numb.

His team gathered around him. They were battered, but alive.

“Is it over?” Cordelia asked, her voice small in the sudden quiet.

“This part is,” Lockley said, looking around at the destruction.

Wesley looked at Angel with concern. “Angel… your chest.”

Angel looked down. Where the heart had beat against him, through his torn shirt, he could see a mark. Not the thorny knot. But a faint, greenish bruise in the shape of a handprint. Like the heart had left a ghost of itself on him.

He quickly pulled his shirt closed. “It’s nothing.”

But it wasn’t nothing. He could feel it. A cold spot. A piece of the heart’s echo, stuck to his soul.

Suddenly, the back door of the warehouse slammed open. Lilah Morgan stood there. She wasn’t running anymore. She looked furious, but also… impressed.

“You destroyed a priceless artifact,” she said, her voice cold. “Do you have any idea what that heart was worth?”

“It was worth your plan failing,” Angel said.

Lilah smiled a thin, nasty smile. “This plan? Maybe. But the game isn’t over, Angel. We have other plans. Bigger plans. And you…” she looked right at him, “…you just got our full attention. The Senior Partners are very interested in you now. A vampire with a soul who destroys our toys. You’re not a nuisance anymore. You’re a priority.”

She turned to leave. “We’ll be seeing you. And next time, we won’t send a heart. We’ll send something with teeth.”

She was gone.

The team stood in the wrecked warehouse. They had won. They had stopped the army. But it didn’t feel like a win.

Angel touched the cold, numb spot on his chest. He had paid a price to stop the heart. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

Lockley put a hand on his arm. “You need to get that looked at.”

“There’s no doctor for this,” Angel said.

“Then we find another way,” she said. She looked at the team. “All of you. You’re a mess. But… you did good tonight.”

It was the closest she would get to a thank you.

They walked out of the warehouse into the cool night air. The city was still there. Still dark. Still full of monsters.

But as they walked away, Angel felt different. The victory felt empty. The cold spot on his chest felt like a warning.

Wolfram & Hart was not done with him. And now, he had a piece of their evil stuck to him. A constant, cold reminder.

The war was changing. The fights were getting bigger. And Angel was starting to wonder how much of himself he would have to lose to win.