Unseen Book 2: Door to Alternity (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel Crossover Series)

Book Description
In Los Angeles, Angel and Buffy compare notes and realize that both are dealing with cases of missing teenagers -- most of them children of the rich and powerful. Coincidence? They don't think so. But when Buffy checks in with Giles, she learns that prime-time doomsday has hit Sunnydale, taking precedence over the gang warfare in L.A. Back in her hometown, Buffy finds the doorway through which the monsters are gaining all-access passes to our universe. Renegade scientists have discovered how to open the portals from one reality to the next, which could explain where the teens are hidden. But when you're operating near a hellmouth, opening dimensional portals is tricky business: you never know who -- or what -- you're going to attract. With the lives of the kidnapped teens and one dangerously talented young woman at stake, Buffy and Angel join forces to do battle in the uncharted dimension....


About the Author
Nancy Holder is a writer and a mom. She and Jeff Mariotte have written seven book-length projects together, including two (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide, Vol. 2, and the upcoming guide to Angel) with Jeff's wife, Maryelizabeth Hart. They are all still speaking to each other.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Los Angeles Police officers at either end of the short alley held guns aimed at Buffy, Riley, and Angel. Headlights and floodlights from their cars washed the alley with stark white light. Riley was the first to put his hands in the air, and he turned to the nearest pair of cops with a friendly smile on his face. "It's cool, officers," he said. "No one's here to give you any trouble." Speak for yourself, Angel thought. Having recognized the voice of Bo Peterson, crooked cop, he was perfectly happy to make some trouble if he had to. A quick glance revealed that the other cops were Luis Castaneda, standing near Bo, and Doug Manley and Richard Fischer at the other end of the alley. Peterson's comrades in corruption. If Angel had been alone, he'd already have been on them, or past them and on his way home. But Buffy couldn't survive a hail of bullets -- she was Slayer-tough, but not immortal. So he tried a different tactic. "On the ground, now!" one of the cops called. "Bellies down, arms out!" "Just do what they say," Riley instructed. His Initiative experience had, Angel supposed, given him an affinity for law enforcement. It was not something Angel shared. Not only did he not want to take a chance that any of them would end up in jail, he didn't trust Peterson for a second. The guy and his buddies had killed one person that Angel knew about, framing an innocent man for their crime -- and Peterson was aware that Angel knew it, which made him dangerous. Chances were good that if they were put into a police car now, their only destination would be someplace quiet where they could get bullets pumped into their heads. Which again, not that big a deal for me, but bad news for Buffy and Riley. He turned toward Peterson, who was already walking toward them, in front of the lights, his weapon clutched in both hands, motioning to the ground with it. "You heard him!" Peterson shouted. "Get down!" Angel gave him a wide smile, as if recognizing an old friend. "Bo!" he called. He spread his arms wide and started toward the big cop. "What's shakin', pal?" Peterson paused, caught off guard by Angel's approach. To cement the deal, Angel let his vamp face flash for a fraction of a second -- so briefly that anyone who saw it would think it a trick of the light. Anyone except Bo Peterson, who was already terrified of it. Bo froze. Angel moved superhumanly fast, but casually, to cover the ground between them in an instant. When he reached Peterson, he caught the man's beefy arm in a steel grip, paralyzing it from the forearm down. He moved the arm carefully, making sure Peterson's gun no longer pointed toward anyone. "It's been too long, man," Angel said loudly. With his body, he blocked his grip on the cop's arm from the sight of the others. Peterson started to say something, but Angel just increased the pressure of his grip and the man's face reddened. He blew out a sharp breath. "Tell your friends to put their weapons away," Angel snarled under his breath. "Unless you want me to snap your arm off. You know I can do it. You know I will, too." Peterson's face broke into a sweaty sheen as he struggled against Angel's grip. He was a strong man, a lifter, probably not used to being easily overpowered. "Are you nuts?" he asked. "What do you think?" Angel replied. He spoke softly, so only Peterson could hear. "Have you told the guys about our conversation yet? You want me to? Let 'em know you've turned over already?" Peterson shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "This guy's okay," he called to the other cops. "It's cool. Holster your weapons." The other three cops just looked at each other. "Bo?" Castaneda said. "What's going on?" "Those two are friends of mine," Angel said softly, to Peterson. "They come with me." "I don't know if I can do that," Peterson muttered with a whimper. "You can. You will." "But -- " "This isn't a negotiation," Angel said. Peterson's eyes filled with tears as Angel kept up the pressure on his arm. The slightest additional force and the big man's forearm would shatter. As it was, he'd be wearing long sleeves for a while to cover the bruises. "Okay, okay," he said finally. "And you might want to talk to those guys about confessing," Angel added. "They'll never do that," Peterson told him. "They'd kill me if I even suggested that I would." "We all take chances in life." "Not that kind." Angel kept the pressure on. "Nothing happened here. We were chasing the guy who broke that store window. We'd have had him if you hadn't shown up and blocked the alley. If you need to file a report, that's what you can say." Peterson looked at his fellow officers. "These other two, they're friends of my friend here. He says this is all a misunderstanding. They can skate." "You sure about that?" Manley asked him. He scowled at Angel, who smiled pleasantly back. Angel knew guys like these had all kinds of side deals going, made friends with a motley variety of the semi-legit and the occasional real innocent. You never knew if somebody's "friend" was his drug connection or his kid's soccer coach. "That's the way it's going to be," Peterson confirmed. "You okay there, Bo?" Castaneda chimed in. "Fine. Just do it." Peterson's arm was just about to go and his voice was getting shaky. "Okay, you two," Castaneda called to Buffy and Riley. He motioned them toward him with one hand. "You can go." Buffy and Riley came toward the police cars, out of the glare of the spotlights. They stopped in front of Angel, Riley giving him a "what the hell was that?" look. Angel ignored it and released Peterson's arm. "Let's go," Angel said.
"So, how illegal was that?" Buffy asked cheerily. "What you did back there. You know, the interfering with the police part, combined maybe with the assaulting an officer part." They sat on truly hideous orange Naugahyde booth benches in a twenty-four-hour coffee shop about a mile from the Boyle Heights location where they'd lost Sleepy Ramos. Dozens of cigarette burns, from the days that cigarettes had been legal in southern California restaurants, scarred the edges of the wood veneer table. "Moderately, I guess," Angel replied. "What were you doing there?" "Looking for a gang meeting that Salma's brother Nicky was supposed to be attending." Buffy answered. Riley quietly sipped his coffee, letting the other two carry the conversation. Which wasn't really Angel's strong point, so pretty much letting Buffy carry it, which was fine with her. "Which, once the police cars and everything showed up, you have to figure was most likely rescheduled for some other time and place." She paused to take a breath. "What about you?" "Sleepy Ramos, the guy we were chasing, was supposed to fill me in on some details of collusion between gang members and corrupt police officers. The four cops we ran into, by the way." Riley let out a whistle and put his cup down on the table. "So chances are, if we hadn't been there when we were, Ramos would still be sitting there in his car." "That's the way I figure it," Angel said. "Only he'd have a bullet in his skull and he wouldn't be waking up this time." "We saved his life," Buffy said. "But..." "But then he disappeared through that...that whatever that was," Angel continued for her. "What was that? Why'd you stop me from going in?" "I have no idea," Buffy said, remembering the shimmery golden circle Ramos had disappeared into. "It just felt like going through it was a spectacularly bad impulse. I mean, there's so much going on, here in L.A. and in Sunnydale. Anything freakish like that should, I think, be investigated, not just charged into." "You're probably right," Angel admitted. "Thanks." Buffy had already given Angel the short version of her last few days, but this seemed like the time to bring him up to speed in more detail. She and Riley had gone to Boyle Heights looking for Nicky de la Natividad. The brother of Willow's friend Salma had been missing for a week now, and seemed to be mixed up in an oil field explosion that had taken out a Sunnydale oil patch belonging to a billionaire named Del DeSola. Since Nicky's disappearance now seemed to be linked to various types of woo-woo stuff (she imagined Giles's grimace if he heard her calling it that), finding him suddenly seemed all the more urgent. Sleepy Ramos would, they'd been told -- after some not so gentle persuasion of the type both Buffy and Riley could be good at when they needed to be -- be able to point out precisely where the gang meeting was taking place. But then, before they got a chance to talk to him, Angel had materialized out of nowhere in that billowy-coat way he had and Sleepy had done his fastest forty-yard dash into nowhere. As she sat in the coffee shop and watched him drinking a cup of actual coffee, no blood added, Buffy realized she'd been half-hoping that the phone call they'd shared would be the extent of their contact, that she wouldn't run into him while they were here in Los Angeles. And two-thirds hoping she would. It didn't add up, but not much about her feelings for Angel added up anyway. They'd been in love, once. Deeply, passionately. That love had survived even her killing him. Ultimately, though, it hadn't survived him surviving. A moment of true happiness would turn him evil again, and true happiness seemed a strange thing for a couple of young lovers to have to avoid. Or, one young and one very old lover, she mentally corrected. It definitely put a damper on the relationship. Angel had moved to L.A. and taken up fighting crime, trying to atone for the wrongs he'd committed in his evil-vampire days, and Buffy had remained in Sunnydale, where eventually she had hooked up with Riley. Who was, if not entirely human -- military test-chip removed, drugs out of his system, but who knew? -- at least more so than Angel. She caught Angel looking at Riley over the rim of his coffee mug. "I don't like him," Angel had once said of Riley. From the appraising look he gave her new boyfriend, she figured that sentiment hadn't changed over the last few months. "I'm not too worried about those cops," Angel said when she got to the end of her story. "They're crooked anyway. I just can't prove it yet." "Nothing worse than dirty cops," Riley offered. "Except maybe treacherous government agents," Buffy suggested. Riley's wrinkled brow showed that he didn't see the humor in her reference to the Initiative. "Or not," she amended quickly. Riley smiled patiently at her. He was fidgeting with a sugar packet. Ill at ease. He didn't like Angel any better than Angel liked him. What is it with boyfriends, anyway? Girls can sometimes be friends with their boyfriends' exes, but guys can never quite put those feelings in a compartment and leave them there. "What have they done?" Riley asked. "Those officers, I mean." "Murdered a drug dealer, for one thing." "There are worse things," Riley replied. "And framed an innocent man for the murder. The dealer may have been involved with the Russian Mafiya. And I think the cops might be, too. So the innocent man was in a lot of trouble, and now it looks like I am." But Angel didn't look troubled about being in trouble. Buffy had always liked that about him; he saved his passion for the real battles, didn't sweat things he knew he could handle. Riley's the same way, she reminded herself. In fact, he's even cooler, cuz it's a lot easier for him to die. "I've heard about those Russian Mafiya guys," Riley said, putting down the packet and taking a sip of his own coffee. "You really don't want them mad at you. They're ruthless." "Most bloodthirsty criminal organization in the country, is what I hear," Angel offered. "And you made enemies of them?" Buffy asked. She flashed her ex a look. "You never did do things the easy way, did you?" Angel shook his head. "Where's the fun in that?" he replied, gracing her with a quick grin. She remembered that smile. Rare as a double rainbow and twice as precious. She almost glanced over at Riley, but she had the distinct feeling she would look guilty. No need, she reminded herself. I'm on board with him. Angel is of the past. "But it sounds like I'm not the only one with a gang problem," Angel continued. "If this Nicky is mixed up with one." "It's looking that way," Buffy responded. "And then, just to make things more complicated, today his sister Salma, Willow's bud, vanished from her house. Poof, just like that." She snapped her fingers, something at which, despite her coordination in all other areas, she'd never been particularly adept. "That's strange," Angel said thoughtfully, scratching his chin in a remarkably human way. "It sure is. I mean, we were all there, and -- " "I know," Angel interrupted. "Poof. I mean, it's strange because I'm working on a similar case. Well, Cordelia and Wesley are, mostly, but I told them I'd look into it." "A disappearance?" Buffy queried. She looked at Riley, who raised a brow. "A teenage girl vanished from right in front of her friends," Angel said. "Multiple poofings?" Buffy asked. "Mysterious." "So it seems," Angel said. "One poof could be a problem, but multiple poofings is more of a situation." "If there are two..." Buffy began. "...there may be more," Angel finished. Riley sighed. No grins there. "We'll need to find out," Angel insisted. "I'll have Cordelia check into it, see if there have been other disappearances reported recently. Especially of teenagers." "This is Los Angeles," Riley pointed out. "How many teenagers run away here every day?" "This is Los Angeles," Angel echoed. "This is where kids run away to. The girl who vanished was a runaway." "And Salma would never do that," Buffy said. "What's she got to run from?" Riley folded his hands together, bringing his two extended index fingers to his chin. Buffy considered him extremely handsome under any circumstances, but this thoughtful thing he did sometimes was especially yummy. His dark blond hair was still in casual disarray from the fight, and his blue eyes flashed with intelligence. "Having money isn't always a sign that there are no problems," he said, looking at Buffy. "Maybe she's running from the money. Didn't you say she wanted to go to college in Sunnydale specifically to be away from the family and the wealth and all that?" "That's what Will said," Buffy agreed. "But she just doesn't seem like the type to take off. She loves her family. She wouldn't have put all this effort into finding her brother if she just intended to vanish. I think it's more complicated than that." "I have to go with Buffy on this one," Angel put in. "The multiple disappearances thing is a problem. We need to investigate further. We should assume that Salma is a victim of the same thing that took Cordelia's friend Kayley." "Wow, Cordelia's got friends and can't keep 'em," Buffy drawled. Angel shot her a stern look. She knew he'd been spending a lot more time with Cordy lately than she had. She thought it prudent to move on. "So, what's our next step?" "We go into the headquarters of the Echo Park Band and we force them to give up Nicky," Riley said. "Nicky'll know what happened to his sister." "That's an assumption," Angel pointed out. "Yeah, but a good one," Buffy chimed in. "We told you it was woo-woo. Nicky's grandmother is a bruja, and she majored in woo down in Mexico." "Still, it may not be a valid assumption," Angel insisted. "I think we should get together with Cordelia and Wesley, and whoever else came up from Sunnydale. Willow's here, you said?" Buffy nodded. "Will's here. At the de la Natividads' house." "We should put all our heads together and come up with a plan," Angel suggested. "Otherwise we're just running in circles, maybe duplicating efforts." "You're right," Buffy said. She glanced at Riley, who didn't look thrilled about being overruled. "Well, he is." "Yeah, he is," Riley admitted, moving his shoulders. The moving the shoulders, also especially yummy. And I am not comparing him with Angel, she reminded herself. I am not trying to focus on Riley because having them both around is wigging me. "Where to?" Riley asked Angel. "Your office, Angel?" Buffy asked. "My office...uhh...kind of blew up," Angel said. "We're using Cordelia's apartment as kind of a tentative headquarters." "Cordelia's. How charming," Buffy said with fake sincerity, sliding from the booth. "Let's go." Riley left a five on the table for the coffees, and they headed for their cars.
"It's been on the radio all night," Wesley was saying. "All-out gang warfare, they're calling it." "Between which gangs?" Angel asked. He sat on Cordelia's couch. They were all crowded into her living room -- Buffy, Riley, Willow, Cordelia, Wesley, and himself. He had felt a touch of smugness for Cordelia's sake when Buffy and Willow had so obviously gawked at her beautiful apartment. Dennis was also around, presumably, though if he hovered, he kept a low profile. It was after three in the morning, and several of the participants had been startled out of deep sleep, but everyone had come willingly. After a few minutes of moderately awkward good-to-see-you chitchat they had settled in and Wesley had begun his report. "Several gangs, apparently," Wesley continued, seated between Willow and Cordelia. The little redhead had been pleased to see him again, her natural friendliness bubbling over at running across someone she hadn't spent time with lately, and Wesley had clearly been flattered. "Primarily Mexican-American gangs battling Russian gangs, it seems. There have been five deaths during the night." "I was afraid of this," Angel said. "Yes, well, there was every indication that things were heating up. The release of Rojelio Flores from prison was taken as an affront by the Russian gangs, they say, as they still hold him responsible for the death of their man Nokivov." "But he didn't do it," Cordelia inserted. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, listening carefully to everything everyone was saying. "That's not fair." "Fairness has very little to do with gang mentality," Riley offered. "They think they're all about fairness, but their version of it is pretty twisted." "What's the Mexican gangs' beef with the Russians?" Angel asked, pondering. He was trying to pay attention, but part of his mind was wandering, thinking about the strangeness of the whole situation. Buffy, sitting so close by, didn't even remember the last full day they'd spent together -- while he'd never forget it. Feeling her, touching her, being with her...Now she was with Riley, who sat on the floor in front of her chair, his head resting against her knees, in a definite possessive-boyfriend way. There was no denying that it hurt. "As far as I can tell, it's primarily economic," Wesley replied with authority. The ex-Watcher had blossomed since moving here; Buffy and Willow had barely taken him seriously back in Sunnydale, but here they listened carefully to every word he said. "These gangs have run large portions of Los Angeles for years, even for generations in some cases. Other gangs have come along, such as the Crips and the Bloods, but the Mexican-Americans have always managed to hold onto their neighborhoods, their ?turf,' as it were." The others nodded. That was the L.A. everyone knew and did not love. "But now the Russians have moved in with considerable amounts of money and muscle, and they don't have any respect for the old rules or the neighborhood boundaries. The Mexicans take offense at this, and they're striking back," Wesley concluded. "But so far, no innocents caught in the crossfire?" Angel queried. "So far, no." Wesley moved his shoulders as he regarded Angel. "Subject to change at any moment, I'm certain." Willow raised her right hand as if she were back in school. "Umm, this is all sad and everything, but what does it have to do with finding Nicky and Salma?" "We don't know yet, Willow," Angel told her, glad to have something to contribute. "But Nicky is involved with one of the Mexican gangs. So there might be a connection there. At the same time, teenagers are disappearing all over town -- Cordelia said she found two more reported cases online, and there might be more that either haven't been reported to the police yet, or that they're not releasing. There may not be any association between the gang war and the disappearances, but the links are there so we need to check it out." Willow nodded. Then she brightened. "Maybe there's some kind of spell I could do to enlighten us." "If there is, Will," Buffy said, "then you should do it as soon as you can. A little enlightening would do us all a lot of good." "A little sleep would do us all a lot of good," Cordelia added. "And can I just remind you all that you're in my apartment, which makes sleep pretty much of a lost cause for me?" "We'll be out of your hair soon, Cordy," Angel assured her, as Willow nodded eagerly, covering a yawn. "We just thought it was important to get everybody on the same page as fast as possible." "Because of the poof factor," Buffy added helpfully. "I'm not even sure we're on the same book," Riley said. "I'm still not convinced that these cases are related at all. Except for Nicky's tie to the Echo Park gang -- " "The Echo Park Band?" Wesley asked, perking up. "That's one of the gangs involved in the war. Apparently they have already made some sort of overtures to the Russians, in hopes of ending this conflict before more lives are lost." "So that's a pretty strong connection right there," Angel said. The rest of the group looked more convinced. "You guys go back to Salma's family's house. See if you can find out any more about what might have happened to Salma. Willow, do your spell. I'll be looking into the gang thing from the streets, while Wesley and Cordelia try to find out what they can about any historical disappearances of kids or teenagers." He wanted everyone to get some rest, but part of him couldn't help wanting Riley to get out of there -- and Buffy too, if they were just going to hold hands and play with each other's hair all night. "Kind of a Pied Piper thing, maybe?" Willow asked. "Maybe," Angel agreed. "Sounds good," Buffy said. "We'll talk again in the morning -- later in the morning, the part where the sun is up -- and see what we've come up with. In the meantime, let's hope no one gets hurt." "I'm sleeping first," Cordelia announced. "I can't even keep my eyes open, much less sit at a computer keyboard and type, type, type, while Wesley leans over my shoulder and breathes all over me." As if on cue, the front door opened. "Dennis, be polite," she admonished. "I do not breathe all over you," Wesley said, as everyone stood and began to drift tiredly to the door. "You do," she shot back. "And by the way, the cinnamon-scented Altoids are definitely the way to go." "Good night," Buffy said. Riley put his hand on her shoulder, and they left. Angel stood at the doorway, and watched her go.
Nicky turned to Che, who pulled his midnight black Porsche Boxter into a parking space on the street. "You sure about this, man?" he asked the leader of the Echo Park Band. "How many times you got to ask me that? The man wants to talk. We talk. We don't get satisfaction or respect, we walk. Simple as that." Nicky opened the passenger door of the little car, unfolding himself onto the sidewalk. Che had stopped in front of a café, closed at this hour and sealed tight with a metal grille. The café comprised the ground floor of an expensive downtown office building, though, and on the nineteenth floor, lights burned despite the hour. "Just seems like if the guy really wants to have a serious talk, he'd meet us in the daytime or something." Che rolled his eyes and moved his shoulders. He stuffed his keys into the front pocket of his tight black leather pants. "You know what these Russian dudes are like, dog. He's just jackin' us around a little, make us come to him, make us operate on his schedule. We let him think he's pullin' the strings until we make our demands, then he'll find out we're serious people. Anyway, dude's kid got killed, macho, he probably ain't sleeping too good these days." Next to the coffee shop, double glass doors led into the building's lobby. They passed through unlocked doors, and a sleepy-looking guard appraised them from behind a deep counter as they entered. "Help you?" he asked. "We're here to see Teodor Nokivov," Che told him. "We're expected." The guard nodded. "Nineteen," he said. "Elevator's right there." Nicky and Che crossed to it, their shoes resounding off the marble floor in the quiet of the predawn morning. As they approached, one of the cars opened up for them. They stepped into the elevator, and the 19 button glowed. "Guard's operating the elevator from the desk," Che said as the door slid shut. "Other buttons probably wouldn't work even if we wanted 'em to." "Let's find out," Nicky suggested. He pressed the button marked 17. Nothing happened. Che fixed Nicky with a dark stare. "You're strapped, right?" Nicky touched the right outside pocket of his windbreaker to answer in the affirmative. He had a 9mm semiauto in there, and three clips on the other side. "That's cool," Che said. "You don't ever want to meet these guys without some protection." The elevator rose and rushed them past the seventeenth floor, stopping on the nineteenth. The elevator door gapped open. Three big men in dark suits waited outside it, hands held behind their backs. One of them met Che's gaze, then Nicky's. "My name is Karol Stokovich," he told them in thickly accented English. He had long dark hair, slicked down and pulled back into a ponytail. To Nicky, he looked like a parody of a Colombian gangster from the eighties, someone he'd seen on Miami Vice back in the day. But the flat expression in his eyes showed no trace of humor. "Mr. Nokivov asked me to meet you." "That's why we're here," Che said. "To pay our respects and see what we can do to make a peace." "You'll have to talk to Mr. Nokivov about that," Stokovich said. "These gentlemen are going to search you. Do you have anything you'd like to warn them about before they do?" "I got a piece which I don't give up for nobody," Che replied. "It's in a belt holster at my back. That's all I'm carrying." Nicky tapped at his pocket again. "A nine," he said. "I keep it." "What if I told you that you can't get in to see Mr. Nokivov with your weapons?" "Then, adios," Che responded. "No talk, no peace. I don't think that's what Mr. Nokivov wants. But we ain't handing over our straps to nobody." "That's what he thought you would say. You keep those weapons. These men will make sure you don't have any others that we don't know about. Fair?" Nicky watched for Che's response. Che nodded, removed his Sig Sauer automatic from its holster and held it in the air, with both hands raised. One of the Russians moved in to pat him down. Nicky followed Che's example, raising his own gun high. The other Russian thug frisked him. After a moment, both Russians stopped, nodded to Stokovich. "Replace your weapons," Stokovich instructed Che and Nicky. "We'll be in the room with you. If you reach for the guns, you're dead." "Cool," Che said, sounding casual about the whole thing. Nicky was impressed by the way he kept his head at times like these. He aspired to the same kind of composure. His Night of the Long Knives had certainly helped -- even though the invincibility of the one-night spell had worn off now, he felt a confidence that he had never possessed before, a certainty of purpose and of his own abilities. He would always remember the way he'd felt, strolling through the oil field fire he had ignited, feeling the heat rush around him, smelling the hair singe off his body, and knowing that he could feel no pain from it, that it couldn't kill him no matter what. Stokovich led the way out of the hall and into a lushly furnished office suite. The blue carpet was thick and welcoming, the wooden fixtures gleamed with polish. Nicky mentally compared this place to the barrio houses the Echo Park Band, and his own Latin Cobras, used for their headquarters, and decided that the Russians were doing something right. This looked like his own father's corporate offices, not like a headquarters for a bunch of gangsters. He was used to wealth and comfortable in such surroundings, but he doubted that Che shared his background. They kept following Stokovich through the office suite. He paused before double doors of a rich dark wood. Then, with a glance back at Che and Nicky, he pushed the doors open and stepped back to let the guests enter first. They went into a plush conference room. A vast table, the size of some of the entire rooms Nicky's fellow Cobras slept in, dominated the room. Leather chairs were arrayed around it, the buttery softness of them apparent even from the doorway. At the far end of the table sat the man that Nicky knew was Teodor Nokivov, head of L.A.'s Russian Mafiya. A legal pad and an assortment of manila file folders littered the tabletop in front of him. As they entered, Nokivov set down the Mont Blanc pen with which he'd been writing something on the legal pad, and rose. "Welcome," he said with a broad smile. A powerful-looking man, his chest was deep and his shoulders wide, straining his expensive suit. His kept his thick, steel-gray hair neatly trimmed and combed back from a ruddy, heavy-jowled face. His prominent, bulbous nose reminded Nicky of nothing so much as a new potato. "Be it ever so humble," he said, spreading his hands as if to indicate the conference room surrounding them. Behind him, Nicky was aware that the other three Russians had entered the room and closed the doors. But he focused on Nokivov, who came around the table, hand extended in friendship. Che took the hand and gave it a quick, nervous squeeze, then released. The Russian continued on to Nicky. Nicky offered his hand, and Nokivov took it in a firm grip, touching Nicky's forearm with his other hand as he shook. "Nice place," Nicky said casually. "Thank you. The beauty of America," Nokivov said. "Back home, when I lived there, only the most influential party members had offices like this." "Were you an influential party member?" Nicky asked him. "Me?" Nokivov shook with silent laughter. "No, not me. Not then. And after, of course, the Soviet Union fell apart. Under the rulers we've had since then, Mr. Gorbachev and Mr. Yeltsin, and now Putin, all the rules are changed. Who knows where I would be if I were back there? Prison? Siberia? Head of the KGB?" Che didn't seem to know what to make of Nokivov's monologue, so he just launched into the speech he'd already prepared. Nicky had heard it twice in the Boxter on the way over, although it had been spoken more forcefully then. "Mr. Nokivov, we're here to express our sorrow for the death of your son, and our sadness that members of your organization, and ours, are now dying in the streets. We want to work out a way that we can both operate and share the wealth that Los Angeles has to offer." Nokivov chuckled once, but without any humor in his laugh. "Sharing the wealth is a concept close to my heart," he said. "I am, after all, a Communist. One who has taken an interest in many aspects of capitalism, but a Communist nonetheless." The smile vanished from his face. "However," he continued, sounding suddenly angry, "you are not here to negotiate a deal. I am a Communist, but I am also a father, and my son has been taken from me. I have reason to believe that he was killed by a Mexican -- maybe the one who was arrested and then, inexplicably, set free, or maybe another one. But his murder is a crime that must be avenged, and if the killer doesn't come forward it will be avenged with the spilling of as much Mexican blood as possible." "I don't care for the sound of that," Che said. He sounded all attitude, and Nicky felt a thrill of fear. "We have apologized, and -- " Now Nokivov threw in some attitude, holding up a hand to silence Che and saying, "If there is anything you'd like to tell me -- " "We don't got nothing more to say," Che said angrily. "Very well," Nokivov said. Behind them, Nicky heard the unmistakable sound of weapons being cocked. "Nicky, go!" Che shouted. He had heard it, too. He dove to the right side of the room, rolling underneath the thick conference table as he did. Slugs tore into the heavy wood and the room was suddenly aroar with the thunderous boom of weapons fire. Nicky hurled himself the other way, tearing the 9mm from his jacket as he did. A burst of pain flared from his arm as he hit the ground. Without even aiming, he rolled himself into a ball and fired his gun toward the door. Acrid smoke filled the air, and Nicky knew he would die here in this close quarters gunfight. He couldn't see or hear anymore, smoke stinging his eyes and his ears ringing from the echoing gunfire. But, blinking away the smoke, he thought he saw Che on his feet, motioning wildly toward the doorway. Che had his Sig Sauer in his fist and he fired it several times at a mound of bodies on the floor. "Run, man!" he thought Che was saying. Then Che threw the double doors open and disappeared through them. Nicky followed. At the last moment, he hazarded a glance behind him and saw Nokivov raising a shotgun from beneath the conference table. Stokovich, on the floor, shoved the corpses of his two thugs off himself and scrabbled for his own dropped weapon. Before the man could locate it, Nicky darted through the big doorway. His left arm burned. A bullet had torn through his upper arm and blood soaked his jacket. He couldn't stop to worry about it, though, and he couldn't take any time to deal with it. Che was already out of sight up ahead. For a moment, Nicky feared he wouldn't remember the way out of the office suite. But rounding a corner, he saw the main doors just ahead, and he knew the elevator waited on the other side of those doors. If there had been anyone outside, then Che would be dealing with them now, and he'd it several times at a mound of bodies on the floor. "Run, man!" he thought Che was saying. Then Che threw the double doors open and disappeared through them. Nicky followed. At the last moment, he hazarded a glance behind him and saw Nokivov raising a shotgun from beneath the conference table. Stokovich, on the floor, shoved the corpses of his two thugs off himself and scrabbled for his own dropped weapon. Before the man could locate it, Nicky darted through the big doorway. His left arm burned. A bullet had torn through his upper arm and blood soaked his jacket. He couldn't stop to worry about it, though, and he couldn't take any time to deal with it. Che was already out of sight up ahead. For a moment, Nicky feared he wouldn't remember the way out of the office suite. But rounding a corner, he saw the main doors just ahead, and he knew the elevator waited on the other side of those doors. If there had been anyone outside, then Che would be dealing with them now, and he'd hear the signs of a fight. So he banged the door open with his left shoulder -- his nine was still clutched in that fist. Che stood on the other side, breathing hard, panic in his eyes. "We got to go, man," Che implored. "I was just about to give up on you. We got to hurry." "You push the elevator button?" Nicky asked. "Stairs, fool," Che said. "Last thing you want to do is get on that elevator. Dude downstairs controls it, right?" Nicky had forgotten. Without Che, he'd have been one stupid dead cholo. Che led the way to a staircase with a green exit sign over it and they ran downstairs, leaping from the fourth or fifth step each time. Every hard landing sent a new jolt of pain up Nicky's arm and shoulder and he thought once that he would faint. But above them, they heard the stairwell door open, and he forced himself onward. A couple of random shots were fired from above, bullets pinging around on the cement stairs, but the shooters fired blindly. In another moment, the ground floor door loomed before them. Che paused for only a second. "We don't know what's out there, mano," he said. Nicky glanced up. "Orale, we know what's up there." Che grinned. He looked manic, but sincere -- like there was some part of him, maybe a big part, that genuinely enjoyed this. "Vaya con dios, baby," he said. "Let's boogie." He and Nicky, weapons in hand, burst through the door into the lobby like Butch and Sundance at the end of the movie, Nicky half expecting to be cut down by rifle fire from a hundred Bolivian soldiers. But no one waited for them -- even the front desk guard was gone from his post. They dashed through the empty lobby and to the waiting Porsche. A moment later they were laying rubber through the streets of Los Angeles, screaming and whooping like maniacs. No, Nicky thought. Like survivors.
Teodor Nokivov was furious. Filthy Mexicans. I should have realized they could not be trusted. He made the necessary phone calls, barking orders into his cell like a drill sergeant at boot camp. He was already comfortably ensconced in the back of a black Lincoln Continental with dark, tinted windows, being driven across town. Within ten minutes of the gunplay -- before sirens even wailed their way toward the office building -- Teodor's crew swept the offices, emptying every desk and filing cabinet and wastebasket, wiping down every doorknob, removing any evidence of who had been using the space. The bodies of the two men shot by Che were on their way to a final resting place in the Pacific Ocean. The KGB had prided itself on the effectiveness of its cleaner crews, and Teodor Nokivov had instituted that same pride in the Los Angeles Mafiya. The brisk efficiency of his people pleased him. He was angry, though, at Che, who had so easily escaped his trap. He was angry at Stokovich's men, who had let two punk gangsters escape them -- if the men hadn't died, he would have killed them himself, or made Stokovich do it for him. He still hadn't decided what to do about Stokovich, but he realized the indecision would work for him -- as long as Stokovich knew he was mulling it over, he'd be on his best behavior. And the next thing Nokivov ordered him to do would be done, without fail. But he really had wanted Che dead before another sun rose, and now that wouldn't happen. The Mexican gangs, he believed, had run the city for too long. Now they were in his way, interfering with business, their petty turf wars and battles over pride and honor getting in the way of his agenda. And Teodor Nokivov's agenda was an ambitious one indeed. He desired nothing less than the restoration of the Soviet Union, with himself, if not at its head, then as the power behind whoever sat there. If the Soviet Union itself proved too hard to bring back, there was one fallback position for which he would settle -- Mother Russia herself, once again under Communist rule. He knew how to do it. All it took was money. And money, the United States had in abundance. It was a matter of directing it to the proper ends. Forty minutes later, the Lincoln pulled up to a modest suburban ranch house in Hawthorne, near the corner of Mount Vernon and Fairway. No one would ever suspect that the key to returning Russia to Communist grandeur lay inside that purely American construct -- the epitome of postwar capitalist society. But it did. Teodor chuckled softly to himself as he walked the flagstone steps from the driveway to the front door. As he approached the door, it swung open, from within. Mrs. Vishnikoff stood there, blond head bowed slightly, eyes cast away from him. He swept inside without breaking stride. As she closed the door behind him, he took the foyer in with a single turn of his head, and spoke the two words that would change the course of human history. "It's time." Copyright © 2001 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation


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Back in her hometown, Buffy finds the doorway through which the monsters are gaining all-access passes to our universe. Renegade scientists have discovered how to open the portals from one reality to the next, which could explain where the teens are hidden. But when you're operating near a hellmouth, opening dimensional portals is tricky business: you never know who—or what—you're going to attract. With the lives of the kidnapped teens and one dangerously talented young woman at stake, Buffy and Angel join forces to do battle in the uncharted dimension...


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