Cometh the Hour

COMETH THE HOUR

Part 5/5


We are exhausted. We have searched these forests for over a week, and there is no sign. We have to almost carry Drusilla; she seems to be in a trance most of the time. It is a pity that we can get no sense from her, and that she hasn’t had one of her visions. Or if she has, she isn’t telling us about them. My Slayer is at the point of despair, although she hides it with manic activity. I’m finding it hard to keep up with her.

And now we are lost in the forest. The snow-bound forest. This is very dangerous. Spike thinks he knows where he is in relation to the camper that we have rented for this journey, but he thinks that we will have trouble getting there by dawn. We are looking for shelter.

If all else fails, Ezrafel can take us to his dimension. The problem then would be that, because we do not know exactly where we are, he couldn’t bring us back here to either retrieve the camper or continue the search. So we will leave that as a last resort. We have about an hour. I’m trying to work out what day it is. It’s probably New Year’s Day. I wonder if that will be significant. Only of a change for the worse, in my cynical experience.

And now Drusilla is coming out of her trance, and she is sniffing the air, like a bloodhound. She is struggling against Ezrafel, who is holding her up. I go to help him and we set off in the direction she seems to want to go. It’s as good as any at the moment. I see glances being exchanged between Spike and Buffy. Buffy tells me that they are both sensing something, something weak and frail, a tenuous lead in this tenebrous place.

We see a tiny cave entrance at the base of the hillside. It is blocked by snow, and we would not normally have noticed it, I think, except that some small animal must have used it as a den, and has trampled the snow. Hopefully small. There is a path leading to it, hard to see except from the right angle. Why would he be there? Well, even if he is not, it might serve as shelter for the vampires during the day. Small and not so small animals of the Canadian wilderness should not bother them.

We scramble through the tiny passageway, and come into a larger cavern. The torches we carry serve only to emphasise its size. It is dank, with icy water running down the walls. The floor is muddy and slippery. No wonder the little animal didn’t stay here. Drusilla has collapsed into a weeping heap, again, and Spike is trying to quieten her. He has reason. I think I can hear a voice, chanting a litany, almost too soft to hear, a voice that sounds almost worn out, repeating one word again and again.

“Nononononono.”

At first we can find nothing, but Ezrafel takes Dru back from Spike and pulls her to the side of the cavern, back towards the entrance. Spike and Buffy stand in the centre, trying to hear.

Then Spike gives a cry, and runs to the darkest corner. I turn my torch in that direction, and suddenly see what I take to be a bundle of rags. But it can’t be, because the sounds are coming from it. Dear God, what has happened here?

Spike reaches for the bundle, and then is suddenly pulled up hard against the wall. There is a small, shallow niche there, not large enough for a man to stand up in. Spike is dragged down into a crouching position, although by nothing that I can see. He appears not to be able to move. What the bloody hell is going on here?

Ezrafel sees what is happening, and stays where he is with Drusilla. She is now calling for her Daddy, another never-ending litany. Buffy and I move carefully towards the back corner, where Spike is. He is making himself as small as possible, crouched down, reaching for the bundle on the floor. I can now see that it is about man-sized. He doesn’t seem able to move it because there is no room for him to manoeuvre. Nevertheless, he has seen enough. He throws back his head and howls in grief.

Buffy has reached him now. I try to call her back, but she is too quick. She is crouched down in the corner, and the mysterious force seems not to have affected her.

“Spike. Is it him?” she asks.

He looks at her. “You know it is. You can feel him, too.”

“Let’s get him out of there, and see what’s wrong.” That’s my bright idea.

Spike turns a withering look in my direction.

“I can’t, you pillock. This is some sort of magical vampire trap. There’s a barrier,” and he demonstrates, holding his hand about 3 feet from the back wall, and moving it upwards to a height of about 4 feet, “and we can’t bloody well get out.”

Oh.

Between them, they find that they can turn Angelus onto his back, Buffy from outside the trap, reaching through, Spike from his crouched position. I hear a sharp intake of breath from Buffy. Spike just says, “Shit.” I move closer. I am appalled.

Angelus is haggard and grey, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. He looks as if he hasn’t fed for three months, and I don’t suppose he has. His clothing is soaked from the constant runnel of water, and he is caked in mud. He cannot uncurl from his foetal position. I try to tell myself that it is because of the restricted space, but I suspect he has been in this position for the last three months.

Suddenly, his eyes snap open. That makes it worse. The expression in them is haunted, an expression of madness. He looks as if he has lost his mind. He sees us, and I am sure of it. He can barely move, but he tries to scuttle back, pressing himself as far away as he can, trying to bury himself in the rock. He tries to hide his face against his arm, and the litany of denial takes on a new urgency.

We *must* get them out of there, but how? What is the nature of this magic? And we don’t have Willow.

Whilst I am thinking, Spike is rolling up his sleeve. He thrusts his arm down to the mad creature that is his Sire, urging him to drink. But Angelus becomes even more frantic in his efforts to get away. Eventually, Spike loses patience, and he morphs, then rips his wrist open with his fangs. Awkwardly, because of their cramped positions, he presses the wound to Angelus’ lips. Instinct takes over, and the vampire starts to drink, greedily. But not for long, and judging by Spike’s reaction, not for long enough. Angelus pushes away from his childe, albeit only for a few inches, trying to scrabble further into the wall.

Buffy thrusts her own arm through the barrier, but Angelus starts screaming, a hoarse, pain-racked noise. I pull her back, and replace her arm with my own. I stare at Spike and hiss, “Do it!”

He does, tearing a gash in my inner forearm. Between the three of us, we bring Angelus, who is fighting us but has not the least amount of strength, to a partial sitting position, and again instinct and hunger take over. He has remained human all this time, and his mouth clamps over the wound Spike has made, as he sucks in the flow of blood. And again he stops too quickly. He can’t have taken as much as a pint from the two of us, and he is starved. But now he becomes even more distressed. Spike takes direct action and knocks him unconscious. It’s probably the best thing to do, while we try to work something out.

Hours later, and we are no closer to a solution.

I have asked Spike to try and break away pieces of the rock, to see if he creacreate a tunnel behind the barrier, but he cannot.

Ezrafel has tried to give Spike the little gadget that would open a portal to Hylek, but the gadget will not work inside the barrier.

We have pooled our knowledge of spells for opening things, for removing obstacles, for moving things from one place to another. Nothing works, here.

And we are so very tired now. This cave is an awful place. There is nowhere to sit that is not several inches deep in mud. The temperature is only just above freezing, and you try sitting in several inches of mud in the depths of the Canadian winter, even in a milder spell such as this. Not a good idea. In lieu of anything better to do at present, Buffy and I are setting off down one of the tunnels to see if we can find a piece of rock, anything, for us all to sit on. It looks as if Angelus has been crouched in that mud for three months, and that has been the least of his ills. I begin to feel sorry for him, until I remember Jenny again.

Down the left hand tunnel, we find another, smaller cavern. There are perhaps forty bodies stacked in there, all Kahlavi demons. Apparently Angelus didn’t go out easily. I see Buffy pull something from one of the bodies and wipe it on the dead demon’s cloak. A sword.

“It’s his,” she says tonelessly, and thrusts it iher her belt. They’ve fought together enough, she should recognise it.

This cave is drier, and has clearly been used as a temporary barracks. There is wooden furniture, primitive, but usable. We carry a couple of benches back to the main hall.

Soon, we can all at least sit down. Hunger will soon become a problem, but there is water in this cave – rather an excess of it, if truth be told. Angelus has suffered his hunger for three months. Let’s hope Spike anusilusilla will be okay for another day or so. There is a bigger problem, though. Someone stacked those bodies – perhaps the same someone who has been visiting the cave. When are they next due, I wonder?

Still we keep trying different spells. We try to telephone Willow, but can get no signal. Aren’t mobile phones a wonderful thing? Spike is continually whining that he’s getting a pain in his back from bending and crouching, without being able to straighten up. The rest of us know that really he’s afraid that we will never get them out, so we let him bitch and whine as much as he likes. He daren’t voice his real fear, though. Sometimes we feel that speaking of something dreadful, saying the words out loud, will make it come true. A little while ago, I would have said the words in the hope that they would, but not now. Despite his whining, Spike is trying to massage some feeling back into Angelus’ body. The muscles are terribly wasted, and he tells us the arms and legs have been broken and have only just finished healing. These muscles are even more withered than the rest. He says that the healing process will have hastened the process of starvation. He’s managed to get some flexibility back into the limbs, though.

The Keeper has been silent for a while. When he speaks, it is at the point when I am truly beginning to think that we’re going to have to knock the hillside down. Even that might not work. Buffy has placed one of the benches close to the barrier and is sitting on it, holding Angelus’ hand.

“This force only affects the vampires amongst us, yes?”

“Yes.” That’s from me, Buffy and Spike. Angelus and Drusilla are comatose and in quiet hysterics, in that order.

“What do you know of the vampire barriers in this dimension?”

I answer. “Vampires cannot enter a human’s home uninvited. Vampires are burned by the crucifix. What more do you want to know?”

“Why only the crucifix? Why not the symbols of the other great religions? And why does the cross only hurt vampires, and not demons of other species?”

This has occurred to me before but I don’t know the answer. I say so. Spike simply shakes his head and Buffy says nothing. She just looks at Angelus, and the fear and sorrow on her face make me want to do anything, sacrifice anything, to give this girl, my surrogate daughter, her demon lover back again. I am surprised at myself. And then I notice something else. Even in his unconsciousness and his madness, in the grip of whatever spell has done this to him, he knows her touch. His hand is clinging to hers like that of a drowning man. And I understand things that I have denied because of my own feelings, his betrayal of my friendship with the murder of my lover. Buffy and Angel or Angelus have a destiny together. I think the world may be at risk if they do not find each other again, and live out that destiny. I *must* help them. I must put my own feelings aside.

Ezrafel has seen my preoccupation and waited for me, before continuing.

“It was sorcery. Have both your species forgotten?”

“What?” “Eh?” Buffy still says nothing, but she is listening.

“Christianity is only about 2,000 years old, and at the beginning, the cross was not an important symbol. That place was occupied by the chi-rho, the XP symbol of your Christ. It was other, older symbols that hurt the vampire demons, symbols created specifically to do so. One of your early Christians, Simon the Magus, was a sorcerer, before Christianity condemned magic. He lost his daughter to a vampire. She was his only child, a girl who would have become a powerful sorceress in her own right. He was deranged by grief, and he cast a spell of the most enormous potency to transfer the power wielded by those older symbols to the symbol of the Cross, and to the Christians’ holy writings, so that true Christians might never be hurt by vampires again. He died as part of the casting, pouring his life essence into the force of the spell, so that it would be maintained forever, across the planet. He was powerful, but such a spell must have its limits. He had not enough power to protect against other demons. But his spell holds good almost 2000 years later.”

“How do you know this?” I am amazed. Can this be true? Simon Magus certainly lived – he’s mentioned in the Bible, of course, so perhaps it is true? Why is this not known to the Watchers’ Council? Or is it? Sequestered away, perhaps, as forbidden knowledge?

“We have contacts with the Adraste dimension, where they make much use of magic.” He turns to Buffy. “It was the Adraste that supplied Orbath with the salve for Angelus.”

She acknowledges that with a nod of her head, but she still does not speak. I can see that Spike does not understand the reference either. It isn’t important now, except that Buffy accepts the magical credentials of these Adraste. Ezrafel continues.

“After I first met the Slayer and the Master Vampire, I started to research vampires. The Adraste have supplied me with some volumes, which I have not yet finished reading, but this is a story contained within one of those volumes. The sorcerer Simon knew of the Adraste, and went to them for the spell. They sold it to him, and then they watched, and learned and recorded.”

Spike makes a sound of derision. “Well, that’s one vampire that’s got a lot to answer for.”

There is a pregnant silence, and I just know that Ezrafel has more to tell, and is deciding whether he should answer or not. Eventually, he does.

“The vampire was called Aurelius.”

Ah.

I believe there must be a certain inevitability to history, don’t you think? And a sense of bloody irony, too. No wonder destiny is tangled around Angel, like a snare of barbed wire.

Just for once, Spike, the master of the witty comeback, is left speechless.

Having left that bombshell to hatch for a few minutes, Ezrafel gently continues.

“I raise the matter because of the other sort of barrier you mentioned, the barrier preventing a vampire fromerinering a human dwelling. That was cast in much the same way, you know, before Simon’s spell. It was that which inspired Simon. I do not yet know all the details, but it was cast by a sorcerer who again gave his own life force to power the continuing spell. Could this barrier we face here be the barrier of invitation, twisted to a different purpose?”

Can it be so simple? Do we merely have to invite Spike and Angelus to join us? Invite them in?

Buffy speaks, then.

“Giles, you are the most human of any of us.” My heart aches for her. “You had better do it.”

Perhaps she’s right. If this is a twisted spell, who knows what else might have been twisted into it? Perhaps it’s like one of those wretched money machines that swallows your bankcard if you can’t remember the PIN number. They give you three tries, but if there is a booby trap in this spell, perhaps we only get one go at it, and we’d better get it all right the first time.

I nod my acquiescence, and prepare myself. How on earth can this be considered my home? Or to belong to me in any way? It will have to be in my imagination. I think of this cave as being everything I have ever desired, as being my territory, my home. I try to bring about a cast of mind that makes such an unlikely thing possible.

Then I think of the two vampires. To be safe, I must surely consider them to be welcome guests in this, my home. Angelus is the most difficult, of course. But I think back to a time when he was still Angel. A time after I had overcome my initial suspicion of him, to when I welcomed him as a good friend, a personal friend. A true companion. I cultivate those thoughts, and include Spike, the pitiable, unthreatening stray with the damaged mind. Then I put the pictures together in my mind, and I speak the words. I invite them in, by name.

Spike tumbles through the barrier into the mud at Buffy’s feet. Before anything can change its mind, she and Spike drag Angelus out. Even with the blood that Spike and I have given him, I can see now that he is in even worse condition than he had appeared to be whilst cramped into the niche. Drusilla tears herself away from Ezrafel and throws herself over his body, weeping. I can still make no sense of her ravings, but there’s time enough for that, now. We have been here for the remnants of the night and for most of the short northern winter’s day. It is only just past solstice, so we have almost maximum periods of darkness, thank goodness. We are going to need all the darkness we can get if we are going to have to manhandle two vampires back to the camper. The sooner we get back to Sunnydale the better.

Ezrafel bends down to pull Drusilla off Angelus, so that we can check him for any further injury, and get him out of the mud. As he does so, Buffy flashes him one of those smiles that lights up the world and squeezes his hand.

“Thank you, Ezrafel. Thank you.”

I could swear he blushes, and then he has Drusilla back in his charge. Spike and Buffy lift Angelus onto the bench – he seems to weigh almost nothing, and then they do something I would not have expected. Spike straddles the end of the bench, supporting his Sire’s shoulders in his lap. Buffy straddles Angelus’ lap, then she hits the unconscious vampire. Hard. He starts to rouse slightly, and Spike tightens his grip. Then she hits him again, and again. He struggles, and changes into game face, although he has not yet reached full consciousness. Quick as thought, Spike and she straighten Angelus’ upper body so that his face is against her neck. He drinks. She daren’t give him too much, so when he has taken perhaps a pint or two, they pull him away, and Spike thrusts his own arm back in front of the fangs. Once again, instinct and hunger take over. Surprisingly, those of us watching find nothing dreadful in these acts of love and mercy. I think I’m the most surprised of all at that. I make my own offering, again.

It only stops when we have all given as much as we safely can, even Drusilla. Not Ezrafel, though – demon blood is no use to a vampire. Angelus is still not fully conscious, but there is a little colour in his face and he seems less wasted. He is still gripping Buffy’s hand.

Spike stoops down into the entrance passage and announces that the sun has just set. I think we’ll get out of here.

Spike and Buffy start to lift Angelus between them, when he suddenly regains awareness. Spike supports his weight, and Buffy smiles for her lover, reaching one hand to his cheek. For a second, he looks into her face, then, with a cry of utter anguish, he tears himself away from both of them. He cowers back towards the cave entrance, staring at the ground, unable or unwilling to look at any of us. Buffy turns on him a look of love such as few men, or demons I guess, can ever expect to see in a hundred lifetimes. If only he would look at her, he would be reassured. But he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t make it up to any of you, but I’m so sorry. You’ll never have to see me again.”

And with that, he is gone from the cave, into the Canadian winter.

We are stunned, every one of us, Buffy most of all. No, that is not entirely true. Spike and Drusilla seem to understand something we do not. Buffy races to the passageway, her scream of “ANGEL!” echoing out into the wilderness. Spike catches her, holds her still.

“You’ll never catch him if you get lost in the forest. I’m buggered if I spend weeks looking for you as well. We’ll find him, luv, we’ll find him, don’t worry.” Drusilla is crouched in the mud, howling and screaming.

“Spike!” I say, more sharply than I intend. I have no idea what the hell is happening. “Is Angelus still enchanted? What is wrong with him?”

He gapes at me in disbelief.

“Don’t you know?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking,” I say with some asperity.

He turns to Buffy, who is held tight to his chest. He uses one forefinger to raise her face to look at him.

“Do you know what’s happened, luv?”

She shakes her head. He gives a bone weary sigh, as if faced with particularly obtuse students who should have been much brighter than this.

“Whoever did this to him, they’ve given him his soul back. He’s Angel again.”

Through my own shock, I watch her. Her mouth forms a perfect O of horror, and then she seems to just close down. She says nothing more on the long, dreadful journey back to Sunnydale.

Dreadful is much the most appropriate word for that odyssey. At first, we remain in that hated cave while Spike sets off to search for Angel. He will be able to follow his own trail back. But it starts to snow again. Angel’s trail is lost to him, and he barely makes it back before his own tracks would have been covered.

Despite the snow, we set off to find the camper. It has been stolen. Dear God, how are we to get everyone back? We are not too far from civilization – about 15 miles to the nearest small town, with a reasonable road. We have good clothing, we won’t die – we might even get a lift – but we are such a motley crew, the prospects seem daunting. We decide that Spike and Ezrafel will go ahead, bearing Drusilla. They can travel more quickly than I can. Spike will find shelter – a motel room or something- and come back for us. Buffy and I will continue behind them. Buffy takes no part in these discussions. She is entirely apart from us, locked into her own private suffering. I would have thought she wanted Angel back, although he might take some finding again, and I am worried by her withdrawal when I would have expected her to be urging us to frenetic activity. Still, surely Spike and Drusilla will be able to help her locate him, and we can all help him to heal, to adjust, to come to terms with the things that his alter ego has done. Whilst there’s life there’s hope, even for a vampire, isn’t there?

It takes many days to get back to Sunnydale. Spike takes care of Drusilla, who remains either hysterical or locked away in quiet madness. Personally I prefer the madness. It’s more peaceful.

Ezrafel takes charge of Buffy, who is like an automaton. She does as she is told. She eats when she is told, a little anyway. She goes where she is told to go, and so on. If we do not tell her, she simply stands in silence. This is a quietness I do not prefer, and I am terrified her mind has retreated to some unreachable place, that it has become all too much for her to bear. She is simply not with us in any meaningful sense.

I do the human things, present the human face of our tragic little quintet. Hire the car, the motel rooms, buy the food, and so on. The Canadian wilderness has some advantages in our current predicament. Spike cannot hurt humans, but he can hunt animals, and he keeps himself and Drusilla fed. Not well, we don’t have time for that, but enough.

I drop the vampires off at the mansion, and Ezrafel and I go to face Joyce.

When she answers the door, she gives a little cry of shock. Standing in her hall, I tell her the barest minimum. I’ll tell her the rest later, but all she needs to know now is that we found Angel. In all senses of the word. And that he has run away in shame and guilt.

We help her get Buffy upstairs, where they lie together on Buffy’s bed, the daughter, still fully clothed, wrapped in her mother’s arms. It is then that Buffy gives the first sign of awareness since that terrible day in the cavern.

“Mom? Mommy? He’s gone! Mommy…”

And she breaks down into body-racking sobs. We can only hope that these are healing tears. Ezrafel and I are too tired to go back to the mansion, so we let ourselves out, and Ezrafel sleeps on my couch for the night. At least, I thhe she sleeps. For my part, I lie in my bed, but sleep is a very long way away.

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

I remember almost nothing of the journey back to Sunnydale. I was otherwise…occupied.

My last real memory is after Spike told me that someone had given Angel his soul back. It was then that I understood the barrage of emotion that had been battering at that special link I have with him, with Angelus. Terror, agony, remorse, grief. Not thoughts or ideas. Just sheer, raw emotions. And I remembered how hard I had wished to have Angel’s soul back again; how I had thought that if I could have Angel and Angelus together, my life would be perfect. Foolishness. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

All my fault. It’s all my fault. Perhaps if I had made him wear the Gem of Amara, he would not have been captured? Whatever, it is all my fault. I wished it so. I didn’t understand.

He left me. That was all my mind could think of. He’s Angel, he’s back, and he’s left me. It was a little while before I could comprehend the other tragedy – what has happened to Angelus? – and could understand that the emotions tearing at my heart were from both of them. The angel and the devil. The two beings that I love.

All through that dreadful journey, I had no mental space left even to deal with the everyday requirements of living. Certainly, I could not abandon my link with my lover – lovers – to react to my companions. The pain and the grief from my lost vampire seared through our bond. And I tried to help, to reach those two tortured souls. To soothe and reassure, to return love. I tried to find Angelus. I tried to open myself to Angel and make him understand that he was loved and wanted. But I have failed. And now Angel has cut himself off from me. I have tried and tried to reach him. I know he is still alive, but he has cut himself off. He is alone and in pain. And so am I.

My guardians hand me over to my mother. They help me up the stairs, taking off my coat and shoes, then they lay me down with her. She wraps her arms around me and the pain and anger and loss overtake me.

“Mom? Mommy? He’s gone! Mommy…”

I cry, in great, heaving sobs. She holds me even tighter, as she used to do if ever I cried as a small child. A long while later, I realise that she is crying, too. I think she’s crying for me, and for Angel. I wonder if she’s crying for Angelus. And if she knows that I am crying for all of us, as well as for myself and the beings I love. I think something has gone wrong in the Grand Design of the Powers that be.

I see by the lightening sky that it is almost dawn. And then I know true terror. I only thought I’d known it before. I feel him. I feel my sweet, gentle Angel. I feel the iron grip he has on my demon lover, who is begging, pleading and raging. Who is crying. And Angel is saying goodbye.
e ise is saying goodbye and it is nearly dawn, and I don’t know where he is, and I cannot reach him. I feel my scream echo through the bond. “NO…!” The sun lifts above the horizon. The rest is silence.

**********

‘Call me Ishmael.’ Those are Ahab’s words, that tragic figure from literature. Ishmael. His hand was turned against every man, and every man’s hand was against him. That’s me. I am outcast, and so should I be. I am the vilest, the most despicable creature that ever crawled on the face of this planet.

My name is Angel and I am a vampire. I am anathema. I am accursed. I have my soul back now, and it is as if I had never had it before, as if the Rom had never raised their hand against me. I see with fresh eyes my base and contemptible evil. I don’t know what the man from Wolfram and Hart has done to me, but it is as if it were 1898 again. All those thousands who suffered and died at my hands cry out to me to be avenged. I remember every single one. The acts of casual cruelty play out over and over before my mind’s eye. I am weighted down by thoughts of the harm I have done. I had thought I might be able to win forgiveness, but I see now that I can never aspire to such a dream.

My depraved acts of wickedness in the time before I was first given back my soul will ensure that I burn in the deepest fires of Hell forever. My demon will rejoice at that, I am sure, since he will no doubt have absolute sovereignty over my damned and suffering soul. It is no more than I deserve. But worse, even, than those sins that I committed before the vengeance of the Rom, are the vicious iniquities I have perpetrated during the last year. I have killed and maimed and terrorised. I have murdered Jenny, who tried to help me, who was the lover of the man who called me friend. These are dreadful things.

But oh, the things I have done to the woman I say I love. How could I? How dare I even inhabit the same landscape as she? When they freed me, I could not even look at her, for shame, because I could not have borne the accusation and loathing I would have seen in her eyes. I have raped her, brutalised her and terrorised her. I have shown her some of the darker parts of the demon’s nature though, thank God, not the darkest. But the demon has wanted to show her all those dark desires. He has cozened her with lies of love, but he has wanted to kill her, hurt her, damage her, have her screaming his name in pain and pleasure. And the demon is me. I have wanted all those things. No more. Not ever again.

And, despite the cries for vengeance that have engulfed me for all these weeks, despite the shame and pain and guilt of what I have done, I drank from them. I drank from them all. I drank from my beloved. I can feel them in my blood now. Even the Watcher, who detests me, has offered me his blood, and I have taken it.

Human blood.

Monster.

Buffy, Spike, Drusilla, Giles. I drank from them all. Even though I do not know for certain whether I have visited upon them the horrors of the werewolf’s bite.

Monster.

Those lawyers, Wolfram and Hart. He said they had a use for me. For Angelus. That can’t be good. I cannot permit the demon ever to be free again. I cannot allow him to destroy any more lives.

And Buffy. I cannot allow him near her ever again. At the thought er, er, I can hear him, from where I have him caged. He’s begging and pleading. I believe that he is weeping, and that is strange. I have never before known him to beg, let alone weep. Raging and storming, yes. Dripping depravity, like poison, in my ear. Begging, no. I didn’t think he had it in him. But I cannot ever permit him to harm her again. Since my soul is such a slippery thing, there is only one way to prevent him from being freed the next time I lose control.

I am sitting on a hillside above Los Angeles, which is the nearest I can permit myself to come to her. She used to live here. It is as close as I can get. There is a saying, ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’. Well, if there is any man left in me, it is time for him to step frd ard and put an end to this farce. I cannot permit what has happened to ever happen again. Thoughts of her surround me, envelop me, draw me back to her. Never! There is a bond between her and me from our – their – mating. I have had to close it, so that she will not be corrupted by my misbegotten sin. I have felt her for days, trying to soothe me, to reassure me. Her kind and generous spirit opened itself to me, but I could only ever pollute it. There is nothing good to be got from me or from my worthless carcass. So I ended the connection. I will open it one more time, to say farewell, and to let her know that she will be troubled by me no more. At least my ashes can fertilise next year’s wildflowers, here where they overlook the city that she once lived in. That’s the only good I can ever hope to come to. So I will sit on this hillside, and welcome the sunrise. I will not have long to wait.

THE END
14 September 2003
We find out what happened to Angel in 'Pride', but the next story is an intermission - it's 'Lionesses'.
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