Pride

Pride


He’s dead. I can’t feel him, so he’s dead. My Sire. Oh, yes, I can always feel him, but I’m only aware of it when I concentrate on him. Are you aware of the blood flowing through your veins? Of the hormones speeding around your body? Of the press of air against your skin as you simply sit in a room? Most of the time, no, you aren’t. That is what it is like with us. I can feel him, a part of me, but it’s at a subconscious level. What I can feel now is…nothing. He’s simply gone. Only death does that.

And Aurelius has just telephoned. I didn’t even know he had the number here. All those months we spent in Egypt, and I never saw Aurelius out of countenance. He was trying to be calm, now, but he’s panicked and full of fear. I can tell. He asked about the Slayer, too. Can he feel her? Are they both dead, my Sire and his mate? They’d bloody well better not be, now that I have this family again. A family that I missed for a hundred years.

I’ve fought against his authority, I’ve cursed him and made his life a misery. But I love him. Him, not that pale and spineless Soul. Him. Let him not be dead.

But I can’t feel him.

If she is involved, though, I had better speak to the Watcher. He needs to be warned. Perhaps we can make things right. When we have tried everything else - *everything* - only then will it be time for mourning.

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

She’s gone when I wake up, but her note tells me she won’t be long. Perhaps not long enough for something I need to do. I am worried that what we have been given will not last, that we will revert to what we were. To what I was. Or that there are consequences that we cannot foresee. The worm in the apple. I know where to go to ask the question – Whistler gave me an address when he first brought me here. Real emergencies only. This might be one. Maybe it can wait a little longer, though, to find out whether this is a poisoned apple. Maybe it will be all right to just enjoy what is. For a little while.

And I need to find out who and what I am. I have been a vampire for so long that I can’t remember how to be human. But perhaps it’s like riding a bicycle – it will all come back to me.

I don’t know what I am, though. I thought I was going to be a warrior for the Powers that Be. I have been, for the last few months. What am I now? I don’t imagine there’s muchl fol for a linen merchant’s failure of a son. And I am such a weak man. I’ve always been weak. I remember thinking often that it was not only the demon in me that needed killing, that the man did, too. Can the man be strong without the demon?

And what about atonement? I cannot have earned peace yet, I am sure of that. There is just too much that I have done. Too much deliberate, selfish evil over too long a time. How am I, a human, to atone for such demonic deeds? Perhaps the Oracles can tell me.

At least, with God’s good grace, it seems I won’t have to deal with her request. That might have been the hardest thing of all. To cut him some slack. After all, he isn’t part of me any more.

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

It’s dark and cold here, and I must keep moving, keep trying to find somewhere – other. I don’t know where I am. Not exactly. My senses are blinded. That’s what this place does to you. But I know what I am. Dead. Not dead as in undead. Not dead as in a vampire. I am simply dead. My mate has killed me. That much I know. And she wasn’t exactly my mate when she did. Still, it isn’t quite the behaviour of a loyal and loving mate, now, is it? I should feel angry, but I don’t. Perhaps it’s something to do with glands. I don’t have any, here. I’m just a wraith, a spirit. A non-corporeal demon.

That doesn’t seem to mean I c I can’t feel, though. I believe that I have been here a long time and – they – have been pursuing me all this time. I have been harried through different lands in this place, wherever this is. Oh, they could catch me any time they liked, I think. They prefer the fun of the chase, allowing me to have a little hope that I may have won free of them, although I know that I have not, really. The Erinnyes. The Furies. I know them. Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera. Three beauties sent from Tartarus to punish wrongdoers, especially those who have killed their kin. Like me. But I’m a demon. I’m *meant* to do things like that. Why do they chase me? I’m not the Soul.

The sound of their wings is the first indication you have that they have found you – those leathery, bat wings, beating through the air. The faint sound of it in your ears, the brush of displaced air on your skin – I’m naked here – these are the things that tell you, warn you of what is to come. You don’t see them here. I’ve told you, it’s dark in this particular place, this special corner of Hell that they have driven me to. I mean dark. Absolutely no light of any sort. Blind.

Then they choose how to harry you. They have snakes for hair. Just like Medusa. If they choose to use those, you can expect to feel those sharp little fangs somewhere on your body. Anywhere. They especially go for the places that are most sensitive, feel the most pain. Do I need to spell it out? There are three of them, so they have plenty of coverage. And it isn’t just the bite. They inject a toxin from all those dozens of little mouths. It’s like fire. They have had me screaming many, many times.

Or they have teeth and claws. They have the heads of dogs, with blackened and savage fangs. Not sharp teeth; that wouldn’t hurt so much as they tear into you. These are big and blunt and stinking with shreds of rotted flesh. It’s probably my own by now. If they choose to use those, they simply rip the flesh from your body; gobbets of it, left bleeding into the muck. I can’t see it here, of course, but I’ve seen it in the other places. They aren’t all dark. I have no real body, you see, but that doesn’t help. I remember the body, and that is quite enough. I don’t know whether I remember the pain or imagine it, but that’s quite enough, too. It heals, of course. Every single time.

Or they simply use those wings to herd me in whichever direction they choose. The last time they did that, I could still see, could still *anticipate* what they were herding me towards. That makes it worse in some ways. It was a lava field, just cooling. Between the smouldering rock and the slicingly sharp edges, my feet were burned and shredded. They still are. I don’t always heal as quickly as I did when I was – alive.

Why have they come for me, these creatures of Hell? What, because they are spoken of in myth, you think that they don’t exist, that they are figments of my imagination? What do you know, human? I can very easily makbelibeliever of you. Come here and change places.

They pursue you humans in life, you know, as remorse, guilt, and shame. Well, most of you. Not me, of course. But here, they are made manifest. Given flesh. And jaws.

And so I must keep moving. They are my own personal Furies, and they have forever to hunt me. I can run. Or I can hide; but I’ve found nowhere to do that. Nowhere they cannot follow. So I run until my legs can no longer bear me, until the agony they have inflicted on me is beyond even my capacity, until I can do nothing but lie as a weeping, shuddering ball of too solid flesh. Then they can have their way with me. They gather around, stroking me, fondling me, using every wile known to woman to ensure that every nerve I have is aflame with desire. I often used to like to do that with my own victims. Make their nerves as receptive as possible. It makes the agony you then inflict even more exquisite. I learned that from Darla. I wonder if these ones taught her everything she knew? If they did, they didn’t teach her everything *they* knew, I can attest to that.

I can’t stay here. Hell is not what it should be. I am a demon, damn it! I should be welcome here. Why am I not? I *must* win back my freedom. Win back my life, my mate. Everything is for sale, even here. The only question is the price. Can it be afforded? And who must pay? But I must keep moving, and find someone, anyone, willing and able to trade.

And I must keep moving, because here they come again.

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

So little to pack. A few clothes – I didn’t intend to be here for long. As for weapons, I only brought stakes; I knew that Angel would have enough of everything else. Before I start, I decide to put in a call to Giles, let him know that I’ll be staying for a fews. s. Let him know what’s happened. He’ll understand.

When I talk to him, though, his voice is strained, and he doesn’t seem exactly pleased to hear from me. No, that’s not right. It’s as if he dreaded hearing from me, but knew it had to be done. He listens to me, though, and is shocked by what has happened to Angel. I can’t bring myself to say that I did it. Not yet. I ask him whether the next Slayer is coming to the Hellmouth. I have to ask him to repeat his reply.

“Buffy, there is no other Slayer.”

“But Giles, there’s *always* a slayer. She muot hot have been chosen yet.” Kendra’s death hadn’t resulted in another Slayer being called. I was the one and only. There must always be one. Mustn’t there?

I can hear his sigh over the phone.

“Buffy, because I’m older than you, and a Watcher, it doesn’t mean that I’m always perfectly right, I’m afraid. I wish it did, that everything I did and said was exactly so. In this case, I was wrong. There *is* a slayer. She just doesn’t have any powers any more.”

He explains, as for the second time in twenty-four hours, I sit incapable of movement or thought. When he has finished, I don’t give him a chance to say more – I hang up with barely a goodbye.

Powers are given to the chosen one to allow her to fulfil her calling, but, with or without those powers, she is still the Slayer. It’s a permanent state of affairs. Only death ends the tenure. There’s no retirement plan. So long as I live, there will be no other slayer. And I’m not enough. I’ll probably die in the first battle. I don’t even have my guardian demon to protect me, my beloved vampire in either of his guises. He’s dead, and Angel is only human. I don’t want either of us to die. I want to live for him. And I want him to live for me.

But I’m what I always wanted to be – normal. So is he. Damn it all to hell.

I stand up to pace – perhaps I’ll think better if I pace. As I do, I thrust my hands into my pockets, and feel a square of pap Und Under the Post Office. Take a gift. What more have I got to lose?

When they let me in, I enter a hall that has doorways that seem to go on forever. Two…beings…Oracles, my paper says, come towards me. They look as if they’ve overdone the blue body paint and gold artwork. They also look unhappy to see me. I offer my gift – best Belgian truffles. Well, how was I to know who I was visiting? What does ‘under the Post Office’ say to you?

Still, they seem pleased. Perhaps they don’t get too many goodies down here.

“What are you doing here, mortal? You have forfeited your heritage and stolen another. What do you think to do here?”

‘Stolen another?’ What do they mean by that? But they seem to know what has happened to me.

“My powers have been taken from me, but I am still the Slayer. Without them I cannot be what I was born to be. I will die. Can you help?” Well, I must have been given the address for a reason.

“What is done is done. The future goes on from the past, albeit a different one. A Slayer dies, another is chosen.”

Enough with the philosophy!

“My Watcher and the Hylekians say that the Mohra demon was sent to take out a warrior for your cause. It came for Angel, but it took both of us. Can you give me back my powers? So that I can fight again?”

“The Mohra didn’t take both of you. You were the one that took your mate’s destiny. You killed the vampire, and did the work of the Mohra. We cannot help.”

I don’t want to think about that.

“You don’t understand! I need to be able to fight. I need to be able to protect my own. And I need my calling back again.”

As I say it, I realise that it’s true. They say that you can never go back. Believe it.

“What of your mate?”

“He’ll understand. I’ll make him understand.”

“You speak of your lover, the human. Liam. I speak of your mate. He is dead.”

My heart screams, but I try not to show it.

“I love Angel. I’ll protect him, if I have my powers back again.” And I will. I’ll just have to forget my demon. I can love the man without the demon. I know I can. And Angel desperately wanted to be human.

“There will be a price for the path you have chosen.”

“I’m sure. I’ll pay it.”

“Death will come…sooner.” That was from the male Oracle, the first time he has spoken.

“Fine!” The answer comes out with more of a snap than I intend.

“Remember. Together you are strong. Alone, you are weak. You and he both.”

Where have I heard that before?

The Oracles turn away, the female simply waving her hand in a gesture of dismissal. I’m thrown back out through the door, and hit the wall on the other side with bone-crunching force. But my bones don’t crunch. I’m back.

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

The Oracles stand gazing backwards at the doorway through which they have sent the Slayer back into her own dimension.

“Have we done the right thing, sister? Her decision takes us further from the path.”

“She will come to understand that. She must.”

“You think she will be back?”

“I have no doubt of it.” She doesn’t. Well, not much. You can never be absolutely sure, with humans.

Her brother smiles. It is a small smile, with a hint of sadness, to be sure, but it is a warm one, nonetheless.

“The price will be higher for the delay, if she returns.”

“In the end the price will be the same. She will pay it, he will pay it, and so shall we. Death comes for us all down any of the roads from here. She just makes it harder, that’s all.”

“Do you think either of them can ever accept that only together can they be strong? Demon and mortal? That they can accomplish nothing if they divide themselves in this way?”

She looks uncertain for a moment. “They are not yet ready to embrace what they are, what they must be, but we cannot help them in that. They must learn for themselves. There should be time enough for that.”

He nods, and the two beings close the door on the temporal diversion they have created, the one that will give the Slayer time to reassess, to learn, to come back and ask to undo what she, in her pride, has done.

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

When Buffy returns, I can see that she doesn’t have her travel bag with her, but I don’t know that she has changed. Not until she tells me. You would think I would have known. John Donne said ‘No man is an Island, entire of it self,’ but it isn’t true. You live your lives so separate from the rest of your kind, at least compared to vampires. I should have known. I should have felt her singing through my blood. The Slayer. My mate. But I feel nothing of it.

She walks into my arms, and holds me tight. Tight enough to almost crack my ribs, and I have to loosen her hold on me. We’re going to have to watch that. We have been so much a match for each other that anything else will be difficult. Even in my mind I’m babbling, trying to avoid thinking about the repercussions of what has happened.

She had been told about the Oracles, and has been to see them. Strange. That was what I was planning to do. She tells me everything – well, I think it’s everything, but how would I know, now? I can no longer smell the truth on her, so I must trust. And I do. I bury my face in her hair, and use all these blunted senses to drink her in. She’s the Slayer again, and I am simply human. Whatever that means. She has told me many times how she longed to be just a normal girl, but she has given that up for me. I wonder if, as a normal human, I’ll be enough for her? I’m suddenly more afraid for the future than I have ever been. For some reason, the picket fence, and kids, and dogs, seem to recede into the distance. I pray that it is just my imagination.

Then, I remember the urges that demanded to be fulfilled in our first human lovemaking. The need to wipe *him* away. Was that human, or demonic?

I have the unfulfilled, impossible desire to renew our bond by taking her blood. Is that just a leftover habit from the demon? Or has he imprinted his urges indelibly on me? More indelibly than the tattoo? Has he left something of himself behind? And have I left something of myself behind in him? I am surprised to find myself hoping not. Unless he has gone to oblivion, then after death, it will be better if he is as much of a demon as he can be. I don’t know what Hell would be like, otherwise.

Whatever the truth of those things, I know that I have only human strength now. It will have to be enough. Enough to fight next to her, to watch her back, to protect her. I hope that my muscles still remember their training.

We stay like that for a little while, until I hear the telephone upstairs ring. It qui sto stops, so perhaps Cordelia has answered. It’s midmorning, after all.

And indeed she has, because she comes running down the stairs now. It was Wesley, back in LA. He got as far as the hospital, it seems. He’s badly hurt. He’d been following a family of battle demons, and they were much too strong for him. They are killers. We have to go and find them, finish the job.

Cordelia doesn’t know anything of what has happened to us, and there doesn’t seem any point in telling her, just yet. But she is right. We have to go. But, how will I protect Buffy now?

So, now we are as prepared for combat as we can get. I have an axe and a sword, Buffy has a sword and her stakes. She says she’s comfortable with those, although I’m not sure how effective they will be on these demons. They are in the sewers, according to Wesley, and if his description is correct, I know roughly where. We are headed there now.

There is *always* a nervous tension about going into battle. Even Angelus was never quite as cocky as he seemed to be. Even the most proficient fighter can have bad luck. And if you fight long enough, you’ll eventually meet someone stronger. Or simply luckier. Today, I am afraid. Today will be the day I meet someone stronger. I just hope Liam will be brave enough when the time comes.

But I’m what I’ve wanted to be ever since I met her – human. Damn it all tol.
l.

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

Angel seems to know where we are going. He leads us straight to the lair. There are five of them, two much bigger and stronger than the others, but all of them are fearsome. They look like a family. We’ll have to take them all.

The male and female charge, leaving the younger demons behind and I move to meet them with my sword. Stakell bll be no use here. I need to be in front of Angel now that he is human and…dammit! He’s pushed in front of me as if he were still the old Angel, and able to take the punishment of the first charge. He has to learn that this is my fight, now, not his.

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

I have made the deal. I really don’t like it, but it’s done now, and there can be no regrets. Time runs differently in this place, and I think I’ve been here for months, years maybe; this was the only one I have met who could restore me. I don’t know how it will be done, but it will be soon, and then I can go back to my mate. I’ll deal with the consequences later. They won’t harm her – that was part of the deal. But there will be a new power on Earth, and I will serve it. I have given my word, and a demon has nothing but their word. So I will serve it. Until I can find another way.

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

The battle is over now, and I’ve managed to get him back to his apartment. The demons are all dead, but Angel is badly hurt. Very badly hurt. Cordelia, may she rot in hell, is off at another audition. Still, that may be for the best. I know what I have to do, and it is better there is no one to witness it.

He will *never* stop protecting me. Not ever. It’s in his bones. If he comes back to Sunnydale with me, he will die. We might both die, if I’m distracted by having another human warrior to safeguard. The Oracles said death would come sooner. Was that what they meant?

If I leave him here, he will continue with his self-appointed mission. And he will die. He’s much too proud to depend on anyone else.

The Oracles said I had stolen another’s heritage, that I had taken my mate’s destiny. Done the work of the Mohra demon. I really didn’t listen to those things at the time. I was focused on my own need to be the Slayer again. But they were right. We are who we are, and perhaps we are that for a purpose. Angel has a destiny, and so do I. We have to see the game out. All I can do is pray that those destinies meet. Sometime. Somewhere.

I’m on my way back to the Post Office. I have a gift. Angel’s axe. I’ll use it if I have to. Things cannot stay as they are.

***********

The Oracles gaze at the fading doorway where the Slayer has just left. Just been ejected.

“Well, brr, sr, she seems to have learned.”

“You judged her well, sister.”

“We are supposed to be Oracles,” snaps the female, with some tartness.

“You are sure that the other will remember, and guide his aim when the time comes?”

“Palestrina? She will remember. I have made sure that she has power enough for that.”

The male still looks troubled – or as troubled as an Oracle can seem, with those smooth features.

“The Balance is still disturbed, and must be corrected if survival is to be a possibility.”

“It will become even more disturbed as these events unfold. But there is time – just. And the one in Egypt understands the Balance, the need for Ma’at. He will help when we no longer can.”

Her bro smi smiles for her. He strokes the battleaxe, admiring its workmanship. “This will come in very useful.”

She smiles back. “I won’t like being dead at all, but I shall see you on the other side.”

He takes a firmer grip on the axe, and they wait for their next visitor.

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

When I get back to the apartment, he’s in very bad shape. I think he has internal injuries. He should be in a hospital, but even if I had done that, they could only have saved him in the short term. I have to think of the future. The future of mankind, that is. Not our future. Not ever again. There won’t be one. There will be him and me, separate for the rest of our lives. I hate the Rom. Oh, not for giving him the soul. Never that. But why couldn’t they have cursed him with boils, or something, if ever he got happy?

I try not to think of my demon lover, my mate, the one who throbbed through my blood until I killed him, as surely as if I had thrust a stake into his heart.

I take him in my arms, as best I can, trying not to hurt him too much. Only a few minutes now. At least neither of us will remember. Neither will anyone else, although the Oracles said that one of us would know what to do when the Mohra came again. I don’t think he can hear me, but I whisper to him of my love and my treachery. Of what I have just done.

They knew I would be back. That I would give up his humanity, his cherished dream. Our future. The one I had fantasized over almost since I met him. The one that he said he would have given everything up for. I killed the demon, now I’m killing the man. I’m his mate. He trusted me, and I’ve killed both of him.

God help me, but there was no choice – there can be no future if one or both of us is dead. They knew that I would be back, that I had made the wrong decisions, not understood that we are what we are, and must make the best of it. That change has consequences, and some of those consequences are too heavy to bear. That perhaps we are given what we have for a purpose, a purpose we cannot fulfil otherwise. I don’t know - I’m sure Angel will understand better. He’s lived longer, after all.

The Oracles said that when they changed me the first time, they put us into some very small dimension. A dimensionette, perhaps. Easier for them to undo later. And they have. They’ve folded time for me, for the world. They said the price would be heavy, but they didn’t say what it would be. Let’s hope it isn’t one of those shops where if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. And they didn’t say just who would be asked to pay. Or how.

He rouses. I don’t want him to speak, so I kiss him. I feel as if I want to swallow everything that is him, so that he will be part of me forever. The Hylekian shaman said that I had something close to a demon at my core. Perhaps it’s a vampire. I remember my dreams, all those months ago after I first released Angelus, when he and his family were away. I dreamed that Angel was in hell, and I had gone to ease his pain, to stop him from crying out. It feels like that now. I wish there were someone to ease my pain.

So I kiss him with everything that is in me, praying that something of both of us will remember, will…

I am standing with a kitchen knife in one hand, and a cut on my palm, already starting to heal.

“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. With a very big, curved sword. A katana.

Angel picks up a short throwing axe from where it had been propped against the wall. Boy Scout motto, I presume. He hurls it at the large red jewel in the demon’s forehead. As the jewel shatters, the demon crumples into death.

“How did you know how to kill it?”

He rubs his forehead. “I…I don’t really know. I seem to remember reading about it somewhere. Buffy…”

He steels himself, and I know something unpleasant is coming.

“Buffy. You need to forget about me. I want you to find someone else. Someone who can take you out into the light. Someone who can offer you more than the freak show that is all that I can give you.”

I can’t find my voice at first. When I do, it is barely a whisper.

“But you are my mate. How can I find someone else?” My throat has closed up and I can’t manage any more, but it isn’t enough.

“I renounce you. You are free of me.”

NO….

“Now go, please. There’s nothing more to say.”

I feel the anger rising in my blood, a red tide of rage such as I have never before felt. A killing rage. It is a long time later that I realise whose rage that is. Angelus’. And I cannot imagine how Angel is staying so calm, with that boiling rage inside him. Oh, I’m angry, too, but it’s a candle to the sun of his rage, the rage that is echoing thr my my blood. His selfishness means that he will never give me up. At least I will have that to hang on to.

But now, when I just feel the rage and have no means of controlling it, I sink one fist into his gut, and as he jack-knifes forward, I hit him as hard as I can on the temple with the other. He drops like a stone. Before I can pick up the axe and finish it, some small, sane part of me propels me back up to the office and out onto the street without a word to Cordelia. I can’t see anything for the veil of tears, but somehow I manage to find a cab and get back to the motel. And somehow I manage to get back to Sunnydale.

***********
Continued in chapter 4