Pride

Pride

February

My name is Ezrafel. You may remember me. I am a demon from Hylek, and I was lucky enough to be the Keeper for the Master Vampire and the Slayer, the Mated Pair, during the Hylekian Games. When I have finished my treatise on them, it will be submitted for review by the Society of Merit. There is no greater academic honour here than admission to that august body. All that is on hold, though. We must first help them survive, we who consider ourselves bound to them.

Our king, Haraeth of the House of Orbath, has many cares in dealing with the aftermath of our civil war, but he does not forget that he owes his throne to Angelus and Buffy. It is more complicated than that, though. On Hylengelngelus is his liegeman, lord of the Hantar estate. Here, heads of Houses have responsibilities to their liegemen. Is it not the same with you?

And to spice the brew a little more, Haraeth feels responsible for what happened. It was his House that persuaded the Mated Pair to fight in the games with promises of information on a new Hellmouth, a Hellmouth that we now know does not exist. Oh, we thought it did at the time. The Seers working for the Royal Household had found it, and they have never been wrong. Until now. We have consulted the Adraste, who found residual magic around the casting. Someone had interfered with the visions, someone of enormous power, but we don’t know who. Our king feels the weight of this turn of events on his shoulders, and he is not inclined to differentiate between Angelus and Angel. He wants to help. But what to do?

He has called a counsel meeting. Not a meeting with his royal council, but a meeting of those who might give counsel to him in this specific matter. It is a very mixed bunch. We have the Watcher, who has brought the youngsters with him, including the witch and the werewolf; Angelus’ servants, the Aventi and the Norags; his childer, Drusilla the Mad and William the Bloody; myself; and the Slayer and her mother. These are the people that Angelus considered to be his pride, his responsibility; at least, they are the ones we know about. These discussions will not be easy.

************

As a Watcher, I have had to do many difficult things, but this may be the most difficult of all. To simply watch. Now that she knows he is still alive, Buffy’s first and only instinct is to go to Angel. At the moment, he is chained in a culvert, where he has been for the last two weeks. Whistler is caring for him, but for Buffy, it isn’t enough.

We are all agreed, though. He ran from her, and in his state of mind, her presence could only make things worse. Spike will go and the rest of us will wait. She’s not happy, but she sees the sense of it.

I was surprised by Orbath. He’s young, of course, but he seems to have a lot of good sense. He’s clearly tied to Angelus and Buffy in some very complicated ways, ties of debt and honour, and I don’t see him letting go of those. I think that might be a good thing. Buffy needs as many friends around her as possible, whatever their species.

Her responsibilities will help her, too. Mind you, they should have helped Angel, but they haven’t. She will remain mistress of the Hantar estate – there was never any doubt about that – but she will also remain mistress of Angelus’ holdings on Earth. She’d fight to the death for the Hellmouth, of course. That, after all, is what she was born to do. But she is temporarily head of his family, his court. It’s a court in waiting, and none of us know how long the waiting will be. Some of us hope the wait will be forever. I for one think that our world will be the better without Angelus. How can something so evil and vicious, so profoundly selfish, ever do any good? At least Angel might achieve something, if he can hold onto that soul.

The Hylekian seers say that the course of destiny is suddenly in flux. They can offer no advice. There are absolutely no beacons in the murk ahead. We must travel on instinct and in hope. They are on their guard now against distorting magic – that will not happen again – but the future is uncharted territory, even to the best of them. One thing, though, and one thing only can they tell us. The curse that has been re-cast on Angelus is the curse of the Rom. It still has the happiness clause. That is why Spike is going. I insisted. Angel would have wanted me to.

So, we will carry on as best we can. And we will watch.

**********

March

I have written as much of my treatise as I can, but there is a great deal still to do, and I have yet to draw my conclusions. I think those will be some time coming. Still we watch and wait. Spike, Angelus’ childe, went to see him. The one called Whistler left them alone together. Events showed that to be a wise decision.

Spike could not restrain himself. He shouted and raged and accused Angelus…Angel, I must learn to call him Angel, now…of abandoning us, of abandoning him. At first, it seems, Angel simply cowered away from him, unable to face him, withdrawing as far as the chains would permit. Then Spike accused him of abandoning the Slayer, of making her into his mate, then destroying her life. Of burying the better demon beneath the weight of the soul. Something seemed to snap in…Angel…then, and he leapt for Spike with such fury that he broke the chains. They fought, and at the end it was Angel who demonstrated his mastery of Spike in the accepted Sire/childe way. They had sex and it involved blood, and the exercise of dominance. Blood, sex and power – the way in which vampires view those things, and use them, is fascinating. Spike told me of their importance on that terrible trip back from Canada, and I see now how those things rule their lives. I wonder how Angel will manage without any of them? At least, Spike and the Slayer tell me that he won’t use them in the way that Angelus is accustomed to. They say that, although Angel’s naturestilstill that of a vampire, he will deny everything about himself that is demonic. Surely that isn’t healthy?

And after all, the exercise of a Sire’s rights over his childe seemed to break a spell that held eld Angel in its grasp since we found him. Our seers now are sure that a great deal of magic was worked on him, including something thant hnt him back to that newly ensouled state of madness that he endured in your year of 1898. Now, I am told, he at least seems to be the vampire that he was before he lost the soul, a little over two years ago. And he’s safe to be left.

It was difficult for Spike to speak of these things to the Slayer, but he did so, in the end. I was there, too, a great privilege. She has appointed me as Keeper of their records. Their Chronicler. Apparently she has no wish for anything to find its way back to the Council of Watchers, an untrustworthy, overly self-aggrandising organisation, it seems to me, and her Watcher concurs. I have his diaries now, for safekeeping. They are fascinating.

The fact that Angel is no longer in the grip of madness was a comfort to her, but she misses him dreadfully. So do his childer. Still, at least he seems safe from self-harm now. Perhaps she will be better to to concentrate on ridding this town of tru truly dreadful evil that has settled here, and is hunting demons. But not to kill. They are whispering about experiments and the military. If so, it’s inhuman. Our word for that is different, of course, but the meaning is the same.

Meantime, we have watched Whistler help Angel find accommodation, and a purpose, and then leave. Cordelia, the cheerleader, has disappeared from Sunnydale – such quaint names your towns have – following a visit from some Government officials to her family. She seemed to leave in reduced circumstances. Something to do with taxes. And we have seen her meet with Angel in this city, Los Angeles. At least he is not entirely alone now.

November

The Seers in Hylek have told us of a great danger to the vampire, both to his body and his soul, although they cannot say what it is. They believe it to be initiated by the one who left him in the cave, or that one’s master. In that case, bearing in mind what happened then, and the power of the magic used, it is a miracle they can see anything at all. Angel has never spoken of his ordeal in the cave, but the Seers have sketched out some very discomforting outlines. What we do not understand at all was the motive. That is a concern.

The Seers say that trying to foresee events now is like gazing into the heart of a star. Destiny is still in flux. Futures are being burned away. They have no landmarks to steer by. But danger seems to threaten him in a way that threatens fate, too. The Slayer cannot be restrained. She has gone to him. She doesn’t care about fate, only him. The Seers were dismayed, saying she would make matters worse. They have gone into a huddle and now refuse to speak to anyone. This doesn’t look like a good sign to me. They have done one thing, and one thing only before going into seclusion – they have given me an address and some instructions, and they say the Slayer will need this if and when things go wrong. I am very confused. The Post Office?

*************

‘If only it were possible to love without injury - fidelity isn’t enough…The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation.’
Graham Greene
‘The Quiet American’ (1955) pt 2 ch 3


I haven’t seen Angel since New Year, since he ran away from me, and I have a fluttering in my stomach. To be honest, I feel sick. I don’t know what will happen when he sees me. Will he leave me again? Will he simply send me away?

I’ve checked into a motel – I don’t want to pressure him by asking to stay at his apartment, and I can’t risk being alone with him, not until things are clearer. Who would I be alone with the next morning, anyway, Angel or Angelus? Would I really mind? See? Too dangerous. Not for me. For you.

And now I’m on my way to see him. I didn’t call to say I was coming. He doesn’t know to expect me. I’m so afraid. I wish I were battling vampires… although I suppose I am, in a way. I can feel myself retreat behind a shield of formality – this is going to be a prickly encounter. It’s probably best that way. Okay, here’s the office door. I can do this.

“Hello, Cordelia. Angel.”

I can’t get any more words out. He’s taken my breath away, as he always does. Physically, I can see that he’s recovered from his ordeal in Canada, but I’m not sure about the rest. He has a haunted look to his eyes – well, it was always there in Angel, when he had his soul, but this is different. Before, it was just the weight of his sins, but bad as that was, it seems worse now - as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. I wonder if I’ve done that, or is it something to do with the work he has here? I wish I knew. He manages to speak.

“Buffy.”

He’s never said my name quite like that before. Longing, and pain, for sure, but he sounds as if he’s given up, as if he’s warding off a haunting dream. All that in a single word. My being here might be a mistake. He looks as if I’d just punched him in the gut. In fact, I think he would have preferred that. I think that I should just have watched, stalked him, kept him safe in secret. No, that would never have worked. He’s better at using the bond than I am yet. He would have known I was there. Well, Angelus would. Surely the same applies to Angel? Doesn’t it?

He’s inviting me down to the apartment. Cordelia is looking at me as if he’s inviting a plague carrier in. Perhaps he is.

It’s very Angel, down here. Not all that different to Angelus, either. Weapons all neatly displayed and ready to hand. Minimal décor, but what there is, is all of the best, deep colours and rich textures, just as he always liked. Soft lighting. It’s easy to forget how sensitive his eyes are. Impossible to forget how much I love him. And I’m babbling because I’m so on edge.

We exchange small greetings, the things you concentrate on when you can’t say the big things, and then I tell him that he is in danger from the one who left him in the cave. I say it very quickly, because I can see what the memory does to him.

“I’m in danger all the time, Buffy.” He stops. I know it’s because he can’t squeeze any more words out through the lump in his throat. Neither can I. Then I can no longer bear it. I close the distance between us and place my finger on his lips. I *know* that we cannot be together here and now; I *know* that he has to find his own place, his own equilibrium; Ezrafel and Giles have told me often enough for me to believe it. In his own way, so has Spike. But I cannot bear that he keeps shrinking back from me, as if by touching me he would pollute me. That simply has to stop. Or perhaps he thinks I might pollute him? No, don’t go there.

I move my hand from his mouth, and stroke his cheek, gently, as if he were a wild creature, about to take flight, and he almost does.

“Angel. There’s a lot to say between us, but not here, and not now. You aren’t ready to hear it, and maybe I’m not ready to say it. Just know this.”

And I kiss him. I don’t have the words, and actions speak louder than words, anyway. He seems to hear me, though. He’s hesitant at first, heartbreakingly shy, and then he’s just Angel, and he’s kissing me, as I’m kissing him, as if our souls could touch, and speak naked words of love. His arms are around me, as mine are around him, and his hands slide up my back as if they had never stopped doing this. Just like mine.

It is me that breaks the kiss. Slowly and gentlye dre drops his hands as I pull away. I look at him, and try to tell him with my eyes what I want to say. Suddenly, I wonder whether my thoughts are being carried to him on my scent. I think that might be true. It gives me an idea.

“And know this.”

We are close to the kitchen area. I take a knife from the block and drag my palm up the blade. His essiession can only be described as anguished. And needy. I press my bloody palm to his lips. His eyes close, but he doesn’t pull away. His tongue, tentative and reluctant, gathers up the blood.

“Yours. I am always yours. No matter what. In this life and the next.”

“Buffy, you should forget about me. I can bring you nothing but pain.”

He pauses and takes a deep, unnecessary and shuddering breath, steadying himself for what he is about to say.

“If you could have your choice, what is the one thing in the world you would wish for?”

His voice sounds harsher, as if he is steeling himself to do something. He knows the answer to this. We used to talk about it sometimes, on patrol.

“A picket fence, kids, a dog. You.”

“And I want you to have all those things. But you can’t. You can’t have a normal life, and me. I’m not human, and I’m never going to be human again. Ever. I would give up everything I ever had to be human for you, but I’m not and I can’t. Forget me. Find yourself a human boy who can take you out in the sunlight. Who won’t do to you the things that I did.”

Oh, my poor demon.

Full frontal attack, then.

“What did you taste in my blood? TELL ME! And tell me the truth.”

He shakes his head. I raise my voice even more. Cordelia will hear, but I don’t care.

“TELL ME!”

He turns away from me, and I really don’t know where this is going to go when the light from the window suddenly darkens and the glass shatters. A body tumbles into the room, in full fighting stance. A demon. And it’s big. It’s all padded up with that quilted armour that samurai use, and a helmet. A battle demon, then. With a very big, curved sword. I remember that the sword is called a katana. Right now? A rose by any other name can still chop your head off. And it’s got a second, short, sword still sheathed. This is going to be fun.

Angel gets to the demon first. Why does he have to do that? I’m the Slayer, I don’t need protection. Since he has, though, I take the opportunity to run to the nearest weapons display to grab a couple of swords. I’m only gone a few seconds, but even so, it’s clear that this is one very strong fighter. Angel has a claw mark on one cheek that’s already fading, but the broken furniture tells me that he got flung across the room – very hard. I toss him a broadsword, one that I remember was always his favourite, just as the demon lunges for him with its own. And, for the second time, he’s in front of me, protecting me from the charge, even though it’s clear that the demon is more interested in him than in me. At least, that’s what I think. This fighter has come specifically for him.

He brings his own sword hard down onto the katana, ing ing his opponent to let go of it. This time, the demon tries to grapple him. I recognise the manoeuvre. It’s trying to break his neck. I charge in from the side while it’s busy trying to get a hold on him, and it certainly seems to want to concentrate on him rather than me. That works well, because he manages to put an enormous burst of strength into a blow to its throat and it staggers backwards, towards me. I simply have to hold out my own sword for the demon to fall on it. And it does.

It’s messy, though, with strings of green goop flowing over the sword and onto my hand. And although it’s very badly wounded, it isn’t dead. It tears itself from the blade, catches up its own weapon and tumbles deliberately backwards through the broken window. We rush over to catch sight of it, both of us at the same time, and for a split second our bodies touch from shoulder to hip to thigh.

My mouth goes dry, and I almost don’t see the wounded demon slip into a sewer entrance. I think Angel almost misses it, too, but we need to focus. We cannot allow a wounded battle demon loose in the city.

“There’s a tunnel entrance here.”

Angel points to a grating in the floor. Well, there would be, wouldn’t there? I go first, grabbing a cloth on the way down to clean the demon goop from my hand. I don’t want my grip on the sword slipping in blood at the wrong moment. And the demon blood is stinging the cut on my palm. The cut that’s almost healed.

Angel clearly knows his way around the underground tunnels by now, and it’s only a matter of minutes before we find traces of green blood. The trail peters out very shortly afterwards, and it seems that the demon has staunched the bleeding somehow. Not much further, and I start to feel very strange indeed. Hot, with ice-cold spiders crawling inside me. That’s the best description I can give. I have to stop for a second with my hand against the wall, supporting me. My arm is trembling. He’s with me in a moment, his arm around my shoulders, concern written all over his face.

“I’m okay, I just feel really weird. It’ll pass. Let’s get going.”

I’m talking big, but I’m not sure it will pass soon at all. I’m beginning to feel really weak, as if I had a sudden attack of flu. You know, where your bones seem hot and not made of bone. Jelly, m, bu, but not bone.

“No.”

He puts that cool hand to my forehead, and it’s like a spring breeze in the desert. I’m burning up.

“Come on, I’ll get you back.”

He bends to pick me up, and I cannot bear that…I remember too many other times when he – or Angelus – has carried me so. I push him away, and hand the sword over.

“Just take me to the nearest entrance, and I’ll get a cab back to the motel.”

He gets the mulish look – one that I know very well – but I forestall him.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I take a deep breath. “Angel, I can’t stay with you – it’s not safe for either of us.”

He knows I’m right, and he takes me to the nearest exit. It’s daylight, so he can’t come with me, but he boosts me up the ladder as far as he can. Something is nagging at me, and I decide to take a chance.

“Angel, he’s you, too. Cut him some slack. Please.”

Before he can reply, I’m gone.

When I get back to the motel, I call Giles. The weird sensations are beginning to pass, but I feel as weak as a baby. I give him as good a description of the demon as I can – big, green-skinned, armoured, Samurai sword, jewel in its forehead like a third eye. And I tell him about the green, glowing blood leaking into my cut, although I don’t tell him how I got the cut. It must have something to do with how I feel. I can think of no other explanation. Then I lie down to sleep. I feel battered and bruised all over.

It’s dark when Giles calls me back. His voice is serious.

“Buffy, you need to come home.”

“Giles, I haven’t finished what I came here to do.”

There’s a silence on the line, and I don’t like the sound of it. Eventually, he speaks again.

“Buffy, we don’t think you *can* finish it.”

“Why? What do you know?”

“Just come home. We can talk about it then.”

“Stop being cryptic guy. What do you know?”

The silence is louder this time.

“We might be wrong, of course, but we think it was a Mohra demon.”

“So what’s a Murray demon?”

“Mohra. They are warriors of darkness, sent to take out warriors from the other side. Warriors like you.”

“But it came for Angel. He was the one it concentrated on.”

“Then it may come back for him. We think this was definitely the danger we were warned of, but you got in the way. Buffy…go and hit something, anything.”

“What?”

“Please – just do it.”
wal walk into the bathroom and hit the tiled wall as hard as I can. For a moment, the pain is all consuming. I think I may have broken my hand. The tiles are untouched. When I get back to the ‘phone, I’m frightened of what Giles will say.

“What’s happened to me, Giles?”

Another one of those silences, stretching from here to Sunnydale.

“Mohra demons can regenerate themselves indefinitely, unless they’re killed in the right way. We think that its blood has regenerated you.”

“Giles, what aren’t you sayin

E

Even over the telephone, I can hear the emotions in Giles’ voice when he eventually answers. Pain. Fear. Love.

“Remember when the Hylekian shaman was examining your blood for traces of werewolf, and he said that your power came from something that wasn’t quite soul and wasn’t quite demon, but demon was the closer of the two? That you have something at the core of you that is…different?”

I remember. How could I ever forget? He goes on.

“We think that something, that power, has gone. We think you’ve been regenerated as a normal human.”

We talk for a little longer. No, that’s not true. Giles talks, meaningless words of reassurance, and I sit in stunned silence. At last I can muster enough reason to ask one question.

“Am I still the Slayer?”

His voice is very gentle, the one you use to a loved one in deep grief.

“You’re human, Buffy. Your powers are gone.”

Human. I no longer have to save the world. That is now someone else’s responsibility. It should be a whole new future opening up for me, but it feels like a loss. Something in which I felt a proper pride has been taken from me, before I was quite ready to let it go. I am no longer what I was. No longer *who* I was. So who am I now?

He insists on telling me one more thing. Giving me an address that Ezrafel has for me. It’s meaningless, but he makes me write it down and put it in my pocket. It was given, ays,ays, for when things go wrong, and perhaps that is now. Under the Post Office? And take a gift? I sit there for a very long time after hanging up the phone. Then I curl up on the bed, although sleep is a million miles away. I stay like that, my body numb, my mind in meltdown, for another very long time. A very long time indeed. Then I realise that there is only one place I want to be. One person to tell. One person who will understand and perhaps comfort me. Angel.

I hadn’t realised how much time had passed. It’s afternoon again. I should be hungry, but the thought of food makes me nauseous.

When I get to his office door, my nerve almost fails me. What will he think of me? Will he feel differently now that I am fully human? Did he love Buffy the Slayer, the dark and light of me, or did he just love Buffy, whoever she was? Angel, that is. I can’t bear to even think about his dark half, and who it was that he might have loved.

When I can muster the courage to walk in, the office is empty. I look in Cordelia’s desk diary. The afternoon section for today contains just two words in large print. ‘StayGone Audition.’ She’s gone for an *advertising audition*? And she’s left the door unlocked on a sleeping vampire? Left him vulnerable to the world. I’ll kill her if any harm has come to him. Perhaps I’ll just kill her anyway.

My heart is thudding against my ribs as I walk as stealthily as I can – less so than I could have done yesterday – down the stairs to his apartment. It’s pumping very human blood around to my leaden limbs. I’m full of fear, making me stiff and clumsy; fear of finding just a small pile of ash.

The bedroom door is ajar. He’s there, unharmed. He’s beautiful. That isn’t a word you can use about many men, but it’s perfect for him. There’s only a blood red sheet and a richly woven coverlet, in clean jewel colours, both of which are pushed down to his waist. He’s lying on his left side, curled into a ball, his fists knotted, even in sleep. His face looks troubled. I don’t think he’s getting much rest, then.

His right shoulder is curved inwards a little, showing his tattoo. I still have the inked copy t ont on my right shoulder, with an omega instead of the ‘A’, the alpha. It’s a reminder of the Games and of what came after. Ezrafel says mine can be removed by magic, but otherwise it will stay, continually renewing itself, fed by the magic that created it and by the magic within us.

The magic within us.

Surely there’s a mirror in the bathroom! If nowhere else, surely he has one there! He does. I tear off my top and turn around. All that I can see in that hateful mirror is skin. Nothing else.

It’s then that I understand what I can only call the silence.

When you’re in a room with a ticking clock, at first you notice it all the time, then it fades into the background and becomes just a comfortable sound that you only hear when you want to. Or when the clock stops ticking. Then the silence is very loud indeed.

It has been the same with Angel’s presence. Our bond means that I am always awof hof him in some measure, but I have become accustomed to it, like the clock. It’s a comfort, and I can focus on it whenever I want. And it isn’t there any more.

The magic has truly left me, and I am less than I was. At least I am in all the ways that have mattered to me in the last 4 years. Still, this is my chance to start my life over, right? To leave the cares of the Slayer behind me and just be a normal girl? Surely I should grasp this opportunity with both hands? Why, then, do I have such a feelin los loss?

It’s as I am putting my top back on that I hear the grate of shifting metal from somewhere in the apartment. I look towards the entrance to the tunnels, and see the Mohra demon hoisting itself up through the opening. A sound from the bedroom tells me that Angel is awake. I realise then, without even taking the time to think, that I know so little about him, as opposed to Angelus. Is he one of those guys who’s up and ready for anything? Or does he take a few minutes to get it together? Angelus had the waking reflexes of a cat, all tooth and claw. Is Angel the same? It might be the difference between life and death today. And I’m not the Slayer anymore, but it seems I’ve still got the job to do this one last time.

Before the Mohra can clear the entrance, I race to the nearest weapons display and pull down a sword and an axe – the first things I can reach.

“Angel! The Mohra!”

And then I’m in the bedroom, with the Mohra closiast.ast. It looks much bigger than last time. Angel is naked. There is no time to drink down the sight of him, so I toss him the axe and turn to face the demon.

I take a practiced swing with the sword – at least my muscles remember their years of training – but even though it feels heavier than my arms will bear for long, I might as well be hitting the demon with a strand of spaghetti. It brushes me out of the way with a blow that lands me outside the bedroom door. Angel fares better – his axe bites into the Mohra’s hip but, in return, that curved sword catches him in the ribs.

The Mohra is still ignoring me, and so I reach for another sword, this one a short, stabbing one, and toss that to my vampire. It’s only left to me then to move out of the way as the fight leaves the confines of the bedroom and moves into the main apartment. Whenevecan,can, I try to get in some stabs from behind, and once, I get a swing at the Mohra’s neck. It would have worked, too, but I’m neither quick enough nor strong enough. The demon simreacreaches behind itself and knocks the sword from my hand. But my effort has distracted it.

Angel buries his axe in that thick neck. As he does so, he tries to fend off the katana with his gladius, although my experience tells me he expects the Mohra to sheathe its own sword in him somewhere. He’s accepted that such a wound will be the price of getting close enough for what should be a killing blow. Warriors need to do that, sometimes.

The Mohra surprises both of us, though. Angel’s blow isn’t mortal, although it does finish this particular combat, because the Mohra staggers back to the tunnel entrance. But not before it has taken a huge swing with the lethal sword it carries, and then hit Angel so hard on the temple with its fist that he lies crumpled and unconscious on the floor. On its way out, it pulls the axe from that place where its neck meets the shoulder and tosses it onto the floor.

As it prepares to leap down into the tunnels, it smiles at me, a smile full of secret, malicious knowledge. Then it speaks.

“Together you were strong. Alone you will be powerless. Both of you.” Then it is gone.

All I have is bes aes and hurt pride. Angel lies naked and unconscious on the floor, bleeding from a slash across his ribs, and his injured right arm cradled across his chest. Part of it, anyway. The rest lies about two feet away. That last swing of the Mohra’s sword has severed it halfway between wrist and elbow.

Can vampires grow new limbs? I don’t know.

It feels as if I’m in a dream. A nightmare. Nothing seems real; I can’t seem to touch anything that feels real, as I crawl on hands and knees over to my lover. The air seems as if it’s solid, though, and I can’t get my breath. My mind and my body seem to be two different people, and the mind person is paralysed by the horror of it.

My body does the next thing on its own. I have no control, I swear. I stand up and woverover to the axe. It is covered in demon blood. I carry that, and Angel’s arm, back to where he lies. I watch myself coat the wounds on both parts with the demon’s blood from the axe, and I hold the parts together. Then my body closes my eyes and my mind prays. I stay like that for several long minutes.

When I open my eyes again, his arm is whole and unblemished. Somehow, I had known that would be the case. But there have been other changes. Angel is regaining consciousness. And he is warm. I can hear his heart beat. My own heart soars at the sound. The future is ours.

***********

The first thing I realise as I regain consciousness is that Buffy is lying with her arms around me, amongst the wreckage left by the fight. The second thing is that I can no longer hear her in my blood. Before the distress of that can really hit me, I understand that, although I can’t hear Buffy, my body is very noisy indeed. The loudest sound is the rush of blood through my veins. My heart is beating. A miracle has happened. I am alive. Just as the prophecy said would happen. The prophecy that I have never dared to share with her, although everything within me has desperately wanted to for weeks, ever since Wesley finished translating it during his brief stay here. The prophecy that, deep down, I thought was just another torment from Wolfram & Hart. Or at best, perhaps, a carrot from the Powers that Be. A lie, concocted to keep me enslaved.

Buffy coaxes me to my feet – I’m having trouble taking all of this in – and she leads me to the shower. We are, after all, covered in sweat and blood, not all of it red. As we shower, she explains to me that blood from the demon, mixing with mine, has regenerated me.

As it did with her yesterday.

I cannot hope to describe the emotions sheeting through me as I begin to understand the changes that have been made to us, and the implications. I am no longer a vampire, she is no longer a slayer, and we have a future ahead of us. One in which it seems possible to include picket fences, kids and dogs. And her.

This is a gift from a demon, though. Nothing will be what it seems, I’m certain of that. Something must remain, a worm in this Eden’s apple, surely? Is this truly the humanity that was prophesied?

But we are here and now. Let the future wait for a few minutes. The hot water from the showerhead prickles my skin quite differently to the way it did yesterday. The feel of Buffy’s hands on my flesh as she kneels to soap my legs – oh, dear God, I never thought this would ever happen again – the feel is different to when my body was cool and dead and demonic. Her hands burned like a welcome fire, then. Now they are like the touch of silk, the whispering wings of a butterfly.

She stands up, soap in one hand, and turns me round to face the wall, intent on finishing off what she has started. I hear her sharp intake of breath.

“Buffy, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She leans against me, her whole body cleaving to me, her arms around me. I have somehow kept myself in check until now, but I cannot, cannot bear it any longer. I am hard and ready for her. More than ready. Then she answers.

“Your tattoo.”

“Yes?”

“It’s gone.”

My ties with the Aurelians, with Aurelius himself, are gone. I can no longer feel my family, my pride, those for whom I should be responsible. They aren’t mine any longer.

I truly am human. Why do I feel such a sense of loss? A sense of being no one and nothing? Of being separated from everything that has defined me for the best part of three centuries. Is that because I am a clean slate? Have all those terrible acts I committed been wiped out? How could that be? If I needed to make reparation yesterday, if I needed to atone this morning, how can my sins be wiped clean today, my life given back anew this afternoon? I am still me. Aren’t I? If not, who am I?

When I came here, I was like the Hired Man. I had nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope. For different reasons, of course, but the effect was the same.

That was me, without point or purpose. The Powers offered me a chance at redemption, but that has always seemed so far away, something that would be hard earned. Then I found the prophecy, that I might one day be in a state of being that allowed me to be with the woman I loved. If she still lived when the time came. The prophecy that I doubted – had to doubt, to keep my sanity. Is this it, though? In the short time since I came here, how can I have done enough to earn a reward?

Then all thoughts of existential philosophy are driven from me as her little hands travel over my body. Every fibre of my being has thirsted for her as a man in the desert thirsts for water, but some parts have made that thirst a little more evident than others. I turn, and wrap my arms around her. Even after a long drought, and even with only human stamina between us, I don’t want this to be over too quickly. After all, I still have two hundred and fifty years of experience. That should count for something. I may have my weaknesses, but knowing how to please a woman isn’t one of them.

As I bend to this most pleasurable of tasks, I want to worship her body, to come to her as a supplicant and show her how much I adore everything that is her. But there is something even more urgent. She has her legs wrapped around my waist, and I could take her here and now, against the tiled wall of the shower, with the cooling water sliding over our skin. I hold her to me with some effort – even one as slight as she is heavier than she would have been when I was a vampire – and carry her towards the bedroom. As the urgency overwhelms me, the bedroom is too far. I sweep all the crockery from the kitchen table and lay her back onto its wooden surface. There is something that I must do, and it has less to do with love than with other emotions. Emotions I had forgotten that humans might recognise and own – a fierce and savage pride of possession. Perhaps it is better to do this here, than in my bed, where I want her to know only love. I am no longer able to smell where he has been, but I know that he has been here, and I want him gone. This woman is mine, and I am going to take her and wipe away from her body and her mind every vestige of the demon she said she loved. Although it’s impossible, I want to sink my teeth into her neck and make sure that his scent no longer taints her blood. Mine.

************

He’s sleeping now. We’ve made love for hours, and we are spent and exhausted. We’re human now, after all. I thought he was going to take me in the shower, but he managed to get as far as the kitchen. The kitchen table was fine by me. His lovemaking there seemed almost…Angelus-like. He made sure that every part of me was screaming for his attention, but there was a hint of savagery, of wildness, of *possession*, that belonged to my demon.

Then he carried me into the bedroom and showed me that 250 years of experience hadn’t been forgotten in the transition to human. I can’t wait to sample all of it. Everything. And we have all the years of our lives to come.

We took a break a couple of hours ago, and sent out for groceries. He says that before, when he tasted human food, it always seemed to lack savour, to be bland and insipid, like a stew without salt and herbs. At least, that’s how he’s always described it. It wasn’t blood, you see. Now? Well, let’s just say he’s discovered a whole new world. And it really is, because most of this stuff wasn’t around when he was last human. Cookie dough fudge mint chip ice cream, for example. So, while there are things he’s going to show me, there are definitely things I can show him.

One of those things is how much I love him. During another brief, quiet period of recovery, we talked about the future. Our future. A home. Children. A life together. No monsters, no curses, nothing but the normal human trials, and those we can deal with, together.

There is only one thing that I regret. Well, a couple, perhaps. Being the Slayer defined who I was, and although it was hard, and separated me from the rest of the world, I mattered. I made a difference. Will I miss that? Will I look for the next Chosen one, and bitch about whether I could have done better? Yes, in all honesty, I think so. Would I trade it for what I have been given? No, never. Everything has a price, and this is one I’m happy to pay.

The second thing? Need you ask? It’s shameful, considering the calling that I have just lost. I will miss my demon. I loved him. He was part of Angel, and I loved him. He may have been vicious and evil, but he had some surprising aspects. And he loved me. How could I not miss him? Neither of us are quite what we were, but it will be enough. We will make sure that it is.

We agreed earlier that I would stay here for a few days, move my things from the motel. A few days in which to start planning the rest of our lives. Then I need to get back to Sunnydale, to college. After all, if I am no longer the Slayer, and he is no longer a champion, we will need to earn a living some other way. Education might actually matter, if I’m going to live long enough to benefit from it.

I’ve left him a note on the pillow to say that I’ll be there and back as fast as the cabs can go.

Cordelia isn’t there. She has been, though; there’s a note on her desk: ‘Angel, a man called from Egypt. He sounded expensive. Wanted to know about you and Buffy. I think he was worried about something, but wouldn’t leave his name or number. If you know him, give me the address and I’ll send him our business terms.’

Someone wanted to know about Angel and me? Who would I know in Egypt? I’ll ask him when I get back.

*************
Continued in chapter 3