by Nancy Holder
“I’m not good with people.” Doyle said, “Well, that’s the point of this little exercise, isn’t it? Get to know her. If you can help her, you’ll both be the better for it. You game?”
Game?
As in, back in the game?
Thanks to “the Powers that Be,” and an Irish demon with terrible taste in beers?
ACT ONE,
CONTINUED
After Doyle left, the night seemed to speed by. Lights blurred together as Angel tried to make sense of everything that had happened. The sun roared like a volcano into the sky, dawn an explosion which reminded him of the way his kind exploded when they were staked.
He stayed indoors as the day wore on. Sluggish with the need to rest, he found that everything from the night before took on an air of unreality; he half-expected the slip of paper to disappear as he studied it for a long moment, then tossed it on the bed table.
He remembered when he had talked Buffy into getting reinvolved with the battle. He had been the messenger then.
Her Doyle.
Sunnydale, 1997
He had been waiting for her to show. After Whistler revealed Buffy Summers to Angel in Los Angeles, he had been watching for her arrival.
In the brief year that had passed, she looked much older, more mature. Or perhaps that was simply because she was unhappy: She had assumed that with the move from Los Angeles, she would be free of her Slayer duties. But Sunnydale was one of the strongest mystical convergences on earth: There was a hellmouth there, and it drew an enormous, seemingly endless, number of vampires, demons, and assorted other nasties, all itching for a fight with a Slayer.
So Buffy’s last chance for a normal life was taken from her, and she did not let go of it without a fight.
It followed, then, that she was probably itching for a fight the first time she and he actually met.
She’d been walking to the Bronze, and he had been following her.
He had a feeling she knew he was there when she turned abruptly into an alley. He trailed after, only to find the alley deserted.
He was honestly ambushed when she dropped down from a handstand on an overhead pipe about ten feet above his head. She bodyslammed him, and though he was on his feet quickly, she grabbed him and threw him up against the wall. Only when he put up his hands did she leave off her original plan of beating him to a pulp.
“Is there a problem, ma’am?” he’d drawled. He’d been faintly amused, and he saw that she saw it.
He also watched her give him a surreptitious once-over; he could tell she liked what she saw.
Nevertheless, she was all Slayer when she shot back, “There’s a problem. Why are you following me?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” he began. She thought he was a vampire. Well, he was a vampire.
But he couldn’t tell her that on peril of his life.
“But don’t worry,” he continued. “I don’t bite.” There. That was the truth without all the fancy trimmings . . . and complicated explanations.
She backed off, a bit perplexed.
He decided to tease her a little, let out a bit of line and see if he could reel her in.
“Truth is,” he said, “I thought you’d be taller. Or bigger. Muscles and all that. You’re pretty spry, though.”
She kept to the subject, and that impressed him even more.
“What do you want?”
“Same thing you do,” he’d answered.
“Okay, what do I want?”
He had said, very seriously, “To kill ’em. To kill ’em all.”
That was such a simple answer, though. Did he want to kill his own sire, Darla, when she threatened Buffy? To stake her in the back, see her turn in shock, and utter his name before she exploded into dust?
Did he want to kill Drusilla, whom he had driven insane? When she and Spike arrived in Sunnydale, he had told her to go away. He had not tried to kill her. He’d even hid her presence from Buffy.
And when it turned out that what both of them wanted, in addition to the deathdealing and the staking and the beheadings, was each other — how simple was that?
Now he stood and looked at the slip of paper in his Los Angeles apartment. He couldn’t stand by now, just as he hadn’t been able to stand by when Buffy was called.
Damn it.
As soon as it was dark, Angel got into his car and navigated his way down the 10 to Santa Monica. The permanent carnival on the pier was illuminated, the Ferris wheel turned merrily, and the lights cast a sheen on the ocean.
At the red light the Hilton was on his left; he saw a young couple sitting in an SUV in the valet circle. JUST MARRIED was painted in soap on the side of the vehicle.
The couple got out. They were dressed in casual but expensive clothes — linen, cotton, silk — and the woman, a leggy blonde, had on a hat.
She looked up at the young man — her husband — and reached on tiptoe to kiss him, facing Angel. Then her gaze slid past to Angel, and her eyes locked with his.
He looked away, unwilling to disturb their privacy. The light changed. He drove on.
The young woman was still looking at him.
It’s not going to last, he found himself thinking.
Then there it was: the Coffee Spot. It was up-scale, a nice place. That pleased him. Whoever Tina was, at least she wasn’t slinging hash in a rundown diner.
He went inside. It was more properly a coffee-house, not a coffee shop. The employees wore black pants and white shirts and the clientele was sophisticated. Soccer moms. Yuppies.
Angel got a coffee and surveyed the scene, standing to one side. A man — possibly the manager, judging from his air of authority — was talking to a striking girl with shoulder-length blond hair. The girl looked frustrated, the manager mildly contrite.
“Tina,” he said, “I gotta do it by seniority. Everyone wants to work extra hours.”
“I know. I just need . . .” She tried another tack. “I’m good for Saturday nights, if other people want to go out. I’ll double shift, whatever.”
“You’re on the list. Okay?” He was managing her.
She knew it. “Thanks,” she said, deflated.
She grabbed a cleaning rag and headed in Angel’s general direction. He stepped forward, as if he might say something to her.
But when she glanced at him, he couldn’t think of anything to say. I’m rusty. I’m used to being alone.
He looked away and sipped his coffee. She moved on, cleaning a service area a distance away.
Then he spotted a guy with a cute and friendly dog. A couple of young women who’d been passing by slowed to pet and coo over the dog.
Tina was heading back toward the counter. Angel seized the moment, edging toward the dog, holding out his hand to pet him.
“Sure is a cute little . . .” he began.
Tina, moving past him, didn’t hear his opening gambit. Meanwhile, the cute and friendly dog backed away from Angel and lay down, cowed.
“. . . doggie,” Angel finished awkwardly. He felt incredibly conspicuous.
Oblivious, Tina began clearing the table next to her.
Angel screwed up his nerve and tried again.
“Do you, uh, how late are you open?”
She was startled. She looked up at him and asked, “Are you talking to me?”
As she did so, she inadvertently knocked a full mug of coffee off the edge of the table.
“Oh!” she cried.
Angel caught the full cup halfway to the floor and handed it back to her.
“Wow.” She was impressed. “Good reflexes.”
Without speaking, Angel nodded. Man, I’m bad at this, he thought.
She said, “Well, thanks. These come out of my paycheck.”
“So,” he began, “are you . . . happy?”
Good one.
Moron.
“What?” She was obviously confused, as well she should be. But it was too late to turn back now.
“You looked sort of . . . do
wn.”
Now she was edgy. “You been watching me?”
“No. I just, I was looking toward there . . .” He gestured. “And you walked through there. . . .”
Her smile was genuine. Her amusement, more so. “You don’t hit on girls very often, do you?”
“It’s been a while,” he confessed. “I’m sort of new in town.”
Her smile fell. “Do yourself a favor. Don’t stay.” She started to leave.
Angel said, “You never answered my question.”
“Am I happy?” She looked at him. “You got three hours?”
Bingo.
“Do I look busy?”
She paused, considered. “I get off at ten.”
Ten finally came. Angel leaned against his car as Tina showed. She had a nice dress on and a large carry bag was slung over her shoulder. She walked with purpose toward him.
“I suddenly feel underdressed,” he said, feeling somewhat more in control. The old ways were coming back to him. Socializing, riding a bicycle.
Maybe.
He continued, “Did you want to get a drink, or —”
She held up her key ring, menacing him with a tube of Mace. “I know who you are, what you’re doing here. You stay the hell away from me, and you tell Russell to leave me alone.”
The Mace wouldn’t do permanent damage, but it would hurt. Besides, he had a mission. He told her, “I don’t know anyone named Russell.”
She didn’t let her guard down for a millisecond. “You’re lying.”
He said earnestly, “No, I’m not.”
“Then why were you in there watching me?”
“Because you looked lonely.” He paused. “And I figured, then we have something in common.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then lowered her Mace. Clearly, his words had hit home.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really . . .”
“It’s okay.” His voice was soothing. He meant it. It was okay.
“No, it’s not. . . .” She trailed off. “I’m sort of having ‘relationship issues.’ You probably guessed that.”
Enter Batman, he thought. Or am I Della Reese?
But that felt very cynical. This girl was terrified. She needed a superhero.
Or at least a friend.
“Who’s Russell?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He pressed just a little. “I’d like to help.”
“Only help I need is a ticket home, and that wasn’t me asking for money. I’ve taken . . . money before.” That was a humiliation, and he knew it. “Never comes free.”
“Where’s home?”
“Missoula, Montana. Lots of open land, lots of drunk cowboys.” The homesickness in her voice came through loud and clear. “Came here to be a famous movie star, but, um, they weren’t hiring. Met a lot of colorful people on the way, though, which is why I come armed.”
He looked at her squarely. “Fair enough.”
She said, “You kind of remind me of the boys back home. Except you’re not drunk.”
Deadpan, he said, “I’m high on life.”
“Yeah, it’s a kick.” She smiled at him, checked her watch. “Well . . . I gotta go to a fabulous Hollywood party.” She pointed at her outfit. “Hence the glamour. Girl giving it owes me my security deposit.”
She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure what else to say. Finally she came up with a pretty good closer.
“Well, it was nice threatening you.”
Oh, no, you don’t.
“You need a lift?”
She thought a moment. Then she took a step toward him.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Angel.”
He felt as if he’d told her a lot more than that.
It was a classy high-rise apartment building, the kind of good address that went for a lot of money in Los Angeles. People who couldn’t afford to live in places like this often paid mail-drop companies to provide them with the right numbers and street names for their business cards and junk mail, so they could pretend to the world that they’d made it. It worked often enough.
They pulled into the underground parking lot, which was well-secured. Then they got into an elevator that took them straight up.
Tina led the way. When the door opened, a video camera was pointed straight at them. The woman who held it was Tina plus five years of hard living. With her slightly curled brown hair, her delicate brows, and her slender neck, she reminded Angel — uncomfortably — of Jenny Calendar, whose slender neck he had broken two years ago.
Jenny had been the computer science teacher at Sunnydale High. More significantly, she had also been a technopagan who had begun assisting Giles in various battles against the forces of darkness — especially those on the Internet.
They had fallen in love, but that love was strained when a demon which Giles had called up as a young man possessed her. That time Angel had saved her life, forcing the demon to enter him instead. But Angel had taken her life. And as the camera stared at him like a baleful eye, it all came rushing back:
He had been lost then, his soul torn away from him yet again. Jenny, who besides being a technopagan, was a spy sent by her Gypsy clan, the Kalderash, to watch him. To make sure he suffered for crimes he had committed against her people.
For if he experienced even a moment of true happiness, his soul would be wrenched from his body once more, and he would revert to the pure state of demonic vampire.
And it had happened: He had found that happiness — in the arms of Buffy, on the night of her seventeenth birthday. They had given themselves to each other after Angel had put a Claddagh ring on her finger. It was the closest thing to a wedding and a honeymoon they had ever had.
But after the bliss, the Kalderash curse was reversed. One of the most brutal vampires ever created — Angelus, the One with the Angelic Face — was loosed upon the world.
Jenny had tried to restore his soul. She would have succeeded, too, the night he had come calling.
Sunnydale, 1998
Like any good computer person, Jenny Calendar was lost to the rest of the world as she continued working on translating the annals for the Rituals of the Undead. As she sat in her classroom and tapped on the keyboard, she talked to the screen.
“Come on, come on,” she murmured.
The glow from the screen crossed over her face. She stared at the monitor for a few moments, and then she laughed.
“That’s it! It’s going to work. This will work.”
She hit another key, rolled on her chair over to the old-fashioned tractor-feed printer, and watched the characters printing.
Then she raised her line of sight just slightly and jumped up in sheer fright.
Angelus, sitting at a desk with a smile on his face, had been watching her for at least ten minutes.
“Angel.” She struggled not to show her panic as she slowly backed away. “How did you get in here?”
“I was invited,” he said innocently, shrugging as if it were obvious. “The sign in front of the school? ‘Formatia trans sicere educatorum.’”
Jenny said breathlessly, “‘Enter, all ye who seek knowledge.’”
He chuckled and got to his feet. “What can I say? I’m a knowledge seeker.” Holding out his hands, he started walking toward her.
“Angel,” she blurted, terrified, “I’ve got good news.”
“I heard.” He sounded as if he were speaking to a child. “You went shopping at the local boogedy-boogedy store.”
The glow on her desk attracted him. He picked up the crystal sphere and his voice dropped. “The orb of Thesulah. If memory serves, this is supposed to summon a person’s soul from the ether, store it until it can be transferred.”
He held it up. “You know what I hate most about these things?” he asked pleasantly. Then he hurled it against the blackboard, dangerously close to her head. Jenny ducked and screamed as it shattered around her.
He laughed. “They’re so d
amned fragile. Must be that shoddy Gypsy craftsmanship, huh?”
He turned his attention to her computer. “I never cease to be amazed how much the world has changed in just two and a half centuries.”
She was backing away, like he wouldn’t notice. His good hearing picked up the rattle of the doorknob. But he knew the door was locked.
“It’s a miracle to me,” he went on, wide-eyed. “You put the secret to restoring my soul in here . . .” Savagely, he flung the computer to the floor. The monitor smashed against the linoleum and burst into flames. “. . . and it comes out here.” He ripped the printout off the printer. “The Ritual of Restoration. Wow.” He chuckled. “This brings back memories.”
He tore it in half.
Her eyes widened. “Wait! That’s your —”
“Oh. My ‘cure’?” He grimaced an apology as he kept ripping. “No, thanks. Been there, done that. And déjà vu just isn’t what it used to be.
“Well, isn’t this my lucky day.” He held the pages over the burning monitor. “The computer and the pages.” He set them on fire and dropped them. Then he made a show of warming his hands. He crouched low. “Looks like I get to kill two birds with one stone.”
She started edging toward the next door. But then he turned to her, in full vamp face, and drawled, “And teacher makes three.”
She tried to make a run for the door. He sprang up and caught her easily, and she screamed. With the supernatural strength of his kind, he flung her toward the wall. She hit the door, and the force of the impact pushed it open.
Slowly he advanced. Her forehead bleeding, she got to her feet, panting with terror, and flew down the corridor.
“Oh, good,” Angelus said dangerously. “I need to work up an appetite first.”
She raced for her life. Her heels clattered as she reached the first set of swinging doors in the corridor. Then she ran to the right, past the lockers and to the exit.
The door was locked.
She doubled back and saw his shadow looming through the panels of glass in the double doors. She took another exit. Down the breezeway she ran, arms pumping, looking back to see him shortening the distance between them. Light and shadow played on his monstrous features.
Like a quarry run to ground, she was forced to another entrance into the school. For a few thrilling moments, Angelus thought that door was locked too, but it finally gave way under her frantic pushes.