The Demon Detective

The Light That Came Back

The tiny cold spot inside Angel was new. It was not from the heart. It was from his choice. His shame. But helping Chloe had warmed it. For a few days, things were quiet. The team helped a woman find her lost dog (it was hiding from a poltergeist). They stopped a ghost from haunting a taco truck. Small jobs. Good jobs.

Angel started to think maybe the worst was over.

He was wrong.

One night, a light appeared in the office. It wasn't from a lamp. It was a soft, gold glow that floated in through the window. It formed into the shape of the celestial being. The one Angel had freed from Gr’k’thal’s cage.

She was even brighter now. But she looked worried.

“You,” Angel said, surprised.

“I have been flying free,” she chimed. “I have seen much. I came to thank you again. And to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“When you broke my cage, you broke a contract,” she said. Her light dimmed a little. “Gr’k’thal had a deal with Wolfram & Hart. They gave me to him. You took me away. Now, the contract is broken. The lawyers… they are allowed to collect.”

“Collect what?” Wesley asked, stepping closer.

“A prize of equal value,” the being said. “The contract says if the ‘asset’ is lost, they can take another. Something precious from the one who broke the deal.” She looked right at Angel. “They are coming for something precious of yours.”

Angel’s blood went cold. “I don’t have anything precious.”

The celestial being smiled, a sad, knowing shimmer. “You do. You just keep it locked away. They will find it.” She began to fade. “Watch your memories. They are a door.”

She vanished.

The office was quiet and dark again.

“What does that mean?” Cordelia asked. “Watch your memories?”

Angel knew. Deep down, he knew. The one precious thing he had left was his past. Not the bad parts. The good parts. The few, bright moments of love and happiness in over two centuries of darkness. His memory of his human family, long dead. His memory of Buffy, laughing.

Wolfram & Hart wasn’t going to steal a thing. They were going to steal a *feeling*.

That night, Angel dreamed. But it wasn’t a bad dream. He was in a sunny field in Ireland, over two hundred years ago. He was human. His name was Liam. His little sister, Kathy, was running toward him, her red hair flying, laughing. He felt a warmth in his chest. Pure, simple joy.

Then the sky in the dream turned green. A cold wind blew. Kathy’s smiling face froze. Then it cracked, like glass, and fell away into nothing.

Angel woke up gasping. The memory was still there, but it felt… flat. Like a picture in a book. It didn’t make him warm anymore. The feeling was gone.

It had been stolen.

He sat up in his dark room. He was furious. And scared. They couldn’t take this from him. His few good memories were what made the guilt bearable. They were the reason he kept fighting.

He went to the office early. “They’ve started,” he told the team. “They’re taking my memories. The good ones.”

Wesley looked horrified. “Psychic theft. It’s a deep violation.”

“How do we stop it?” Gunn demanded.

“We need to find the psychics,” Wesley said. “Wolfram & Hart must be using a team of them, hooked into some machine, focused on Angel.”

“The celestial being said to watch my memories,” Angel said. “They’re a door. Maybe I can use them to fight back.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Cordelia said. “If you go walking around in your own head, you could get lost. Or they could trap you in there.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Angel said. “If I lose those memories… I lose the reason to be Angel.”

Angel lay on the couch in the office. Wesley had mixed a potion to help him sleep deeply and focus his mind. Cordelia and Gunn would watch over his body. It was risky. If something happened to his body, or if his mind didn’t come back…

“Ready?” Wesley asked, holding the bitter drink.

“Do it,” Angel said.

He drank. The world faded.

He was standing in his own mind. It wasn’t a blank space. It was a city. A dark, rainy city made of memories. Dark alleys were full of the bad times—screams, blood. Tall, beautiful buildings were the good memories, shining with light. But as he watched, a green, fog-like smoke was creeping through the memory-city. Where it touched the bright buildings, their lights went out. The buildings turned gray and hollow.

The green fog was coming from a tall, black tower in the center of the city. A tower that didn’t belong. Wolfram & Hart’s door.

Angel ran toward it. As he ran, shadows reached for him from the dark alleys—memories of the people he’d killed. He pushed through them. “I remember you,” he said to each one. “And I’m sorry.” Saying it made the shadows weaker.

He reached the black tower. There was a door. He went inside.

The inside of the tower was a machine room. Wires and tubes ran into the walls, sucking the light out of his memories. In the center of the room, three people sat in chairs. They wore plain clothes. Their eyes were closed. They were the psychics. They weren’t evil. They looked tired and sad. They were being forced to do this.

Behind them stood a man in a Wolfram & Hart suit. He was holding a device that glowed green.

“Stop,” Angel said.

The man smiled. “Angel. Welcome to the engine room. We’re just taking the fuel. The love. The joy. You don’t need it. It only makes you weak.”

“It makes me strong,” Angel said. He walked toward the psychics.

“Don’t touch them!” the man yelled. He pressed a button on his device.

The three psychics opened their eyes. Their eyes were glowing green. They raised their hands. Pain exploded in Angel’s head. They were attacking him with his own worst memories—the feeling of his first kill, the taste of blood, the sound of Darla’s laugh.

Angel fell to his knees. It was too much. He was drowning in his own past.

Then, he heard a new sound. A voice. Not in his head. In the room.

“Angel! Fight it!”

Cordelia’s voice. From the real world. A lifeline.

He grabbed onto her voice. He used it to pull himself up. He wasn’t just a collection of bad memories. He was more. He had friends. He had a purpose.

“I help the helpless,” he growled, getting to his feet. The psychic attack cracked.

He ran to the first psychic and put his hands on their head. He didn’t attack. He showed them a memory. A *good* one. Not his own. The memory of Chloe, smiling, slamming the door on the shadows. The feeling of helping her.

The psychic gasped. The green glow left their eyes. They looked at Angel, truly seeing him. “I’m sorry,” they whispered.

Angel moved to the next one, and the next. He showed them memories of Gunn’s loyalty, Wesley’s bravery, Cordelia’s heart. He showed them the warm feeling of doing good.

One by one, the psychics broke free. They pulled the wires from their heads.

The Wolfram & Hart man looked scared now. “You can’t! The Senior Partners will—”

Angel didn’t let him finish. He grabbed the green device and crushed it in his hand.

The black tower began to shake. The green fog started to clear.

“Get out!” Angel told the psychics. “Wake up!”

He turned and ran out of the tower, back into the memory-city. The lights in the bright buildings were coming back on, stronger than before. The good memories were safe.

Angel opened his eyes. He was back on the couch. He was sweating. Cordelia, Gunn, and Wesley were looking down at him, worried.

“Did it work?” Cordelia asked.

Angel thought of his sister Kathy’s laugh. The warmth filled his chest again, bright and clear. He smiled. A real smile. “It worked.”

But the fight wasn’t over. In the real world, Wolfram & Hart had failed. They would be angry. And when they were angry, they didn’t send psychics.

They sent something worse.