by Nancy Holder
Willow looked utterly panicked. “No, no, no! No speaking up. That way leads to madness and sweaty palms.”
* * *
Above them, behind the stacks on the second floor of the library, Darla listened. The Slayer’s young, innocent friend lowered her voice and said, “Okay, here’s something I’ve got to know. When Angel kissed you, I mean, before he turned into … how was it?”
The Slayer got all rosy and dreamy. She said, “Unbelievable.” She laughed softly, the way Darla remembered that young girls in love laughed.
Her friend was impressed. “Wow. And it is kind of novel how he’ll stay young and handsome forever. Although you’ll still get wrinkly and die and ooo, what about the children?” She must have realized she was hurting the Slayer, for she said quickly, “I’ll be quiet now.”
The Slayer cocked her head and smiled sadly. “No, it’s okay. I need to hear this. I need to get over him so I can—”
“So that you can … ?” The girl mimed a staking with her silly fuzzy-topped pen. Darla felt a thrill of anticipation. Implementing her plan was going to be easier than she had expected.
The Slayer shrugged. “Like Xander said, I’m a Slayer. And he’s a vampire. God, I can’t. He’s never done anything to hurt me.” She caught herself. “Okay, now. I’ve got to stop thinking about this.” Resolutely she opened her schoolbook. “Okay. Give me another half hour, and maybe something will sink in. Then I’m going home for some major moping.”
“Okay. The era of congressional Reconstruction,” the Slayer’s friend intoned dutifully, “usually called Radical…”
Darla glided away. She had a lot to accomplish in the next half hour.
* * *
Joyce Summers faced mounds of paperwork at the kitchen table. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip.
There was a slow, deliberate creaking somewhere in the house. She looked up. Hearing nothing more, she settled back to work on the account books for the gallery.
There it was again. It was outside. She stood, a little spooked, and went to the back door. She peered out the window and saw nothing.
* * *
But as the mother of the Slayer turned away, she missed the sight of Darla, her features contorted in her vampiric face, grinning in anticipation of the unfolding of her scheme. Then Darla moved silently from the window.
* * *
Joyce continued to move through the house, growing edgier at the creaks and groans. For heaven’s sake! It’s just the house settling, she told herself, but she started, just a little, when someone knocked on the front door.
It was a lovely blond girl with a very sweet smile. She was carrying schoolbooks, and she was very conservatively dressed. As Joyce opened the door, she thought fleetingly that she wished Buffy dressed like this.
“Hello?” Joyce asked politely.
“Hi. I’m Darla. A friend of Buffy’s?” the girl said tentatively.
“Oh.” Joyce relaxed. “Nice to meet you.”
A pause.
“She didn’t mention anything about me coming over for a study date, did she?” Darla smiled shyly.
Joyce was a little confused, just the tiniest bit alarmed. “No,” she said. “I thought she was studying with Willow at the library.” Back in Los Angeles, there had been so many unexplained disappearances. She hoped all that was behind them now.
“She is,” Darla assured her. “Willow’s the Civil War expert, but then I was supposed to help her with the War of Independence.” Her smile became modest and genteel. “My family kind of goes back to those days.”
“Well, I know she’s supposed to be home soon,” Joyce said. “Would you like to come in and wait?”
Darla stepped over the threshold of the Summers home. “Very nice of you to invite me into your home,” she said.
Joyce smiled, bemused. It was an odd thing to say, but kids were like that. Sometimes awkward, sometimes charming, sometimes both. She liked this girl. “You’re welcome,” she said as Darla came in. She added conversationally, “I’ve been wrestling with the I.R.S. all night. Would you like something to eat?”
Darla said, “Yes. I would.”
“Let’s see what we have.” Joyce led the way to the kitchen, asking over her shoulder. “Do you feel like something little or something big?”
“Something big,” Darla replied, allowing her true self—her vampire self—to be revealed. Soon, now, very soon, Angel would be hers.
* * *
He couldn’t stay away. He had to talk to Buffy.
Angel walked up to Buffy’s front door and raised his hand to knock. He stopped himself and with a sigh walked away. That was what he had to do.
Walk away.
He was almost past the house when someone screamed in terror. He bolted around to the back and flung open the door.
Buffy’s mother was slumped in Darla’s arms. Blood flowed from twin wounds on her neck. Darla’s demon mouth was covered with the woman’s blood.
“Let her go.”
Darla looked at him and laughed. “I just had a little. There’s plenty more. Aren’t you hungry for something warm after all this time?”
Angel hesitated, starting to breathe a little harder as he smelled the tantalizing odor of warm, living blood. It was true; he was hungry for it. He was always hungry for it.
Darla spoke in a sexy, inviting voice, holding Joyce Summers like a rag doll. “Come on, Angel.”
He shook his head, fighting the change, fighting the need. This was a living human being. This was Buffy’s mother.
“Just say yes,” Darla breathed, and heaved the unconscious woman into his arms. He struggled with his burden, fighting hard, struggling but feeling himself losing. He was weakening, too hungry, almost starving for it.
He felt his face change. He slipped easily, too easily, into vampire mode. Darla’s eyes burned with delight as she said triumphantly, “Welcome home.”
She moved toward the door, leaving him alone with Joyce Summers in his grip. Angel stared at the blood on her neck, the fresh, warm blood …
He shut his eyes, trying to control himself. He opened them, moving his head—and fangs—down toward Joyce’s neck. Darla’s bite was shallow. Glistening. Closer…
“Hey,” a voice called. “I’m home.”
Buffy entered from the hallway and froze.
Angel could not speak; the hunger was so fierce upon him. The hunger . . . and the shame.
* * *
Throwing Angel through the large window in the front of the Summers house wasn’t the neatest way to get rid of him, but Buffy didn’t care. Neatness doesn’t always count. Angel landed in a heap on the lawn. But of course he wasn’t hurt; he got to his feet and faced her.
She had never hated anyone as much as she hated him in that moment. She said quietly, dangerously, “You’re not welcome here. You come near us and I’ll kill you.”
He said nothing, only looked at her with his dark, brutal eyes and his hideous face. She turned her back on him and raced into the kitchen, grabbing the phone and dialing 911.
“Mom, Mom, can you hear me?” she asked frantically, and then, into the receiver, “Yes. I need an ambulance at sixteen-thirty Revello Drive. My mother… cut herself. She’s lost a lot of blood. Please, please hurry.” She hung up. “Mom?”
The back door opened. She turned, half-expecting another attack from Angel. Xander and Willow filed in.
“Hey, Buffy,” Xander said, then saw her mother on the floor. “Oh, my God.”
Willow gasped. “What happened?”
“Angel,” Buffy said, and her world shattered.
CHAPTER 4
Giles strode down the hospital corridor and into Joyce Summers’s room. She was resting, a small bandage on her neck. Buffy stood protectively beside her bed, Willow and Xander a slight distance away.
Buffy was saying, “Do you remember anything, Mom?”
Her mother was fuzzy. “Just… your friend came over. I was going to make a snack.”
Filled with guilt, Buffy echoed, “My friend.”
Joyce slurred as she continued, “I guess I slipped and cut my neck on …” She paused. “The doctor said it looked like a barbecue fork. We don’t have a barbecue fork.” She inquired of Giles, “Are you another doctor?”
Buffy interjected, “Mom, this is Mr. Giles.”
“The librarian from your school?” the poor woman said. “What’s he—?”
Giles stepped forward. “I just came to pay my respects. To wish you a speedy recovery.”
She took that into her sedative-filled head. “Boy, the teachers really do care in this town.”
Buffy said, “Get some rest now.” She gave her mother a kiss on the cheek and walked out of the room, her friends following her.
In the corridor, Buffy leaned wearily against the wall. “She’s going to be okay. They gave her some iron. Her blood count was a little …”
Giles could see her fighting for control. He was deeply moved by her plight. Though she was the Chosen One, the champion of mankind against the powers of Darkness, she was also a sixteen-year-old girl in love with the most inappropriate … er, person.
“A little low,” he said, giving her time to collect herself. He wished he could do or say something to comfort her, but he must stand as the voice of reason. The only voice, if necessary. It was his duty to protect her, not to give her what she wanted.
He continued, “It presents itself like a mild anemia. You’re lucky you got to her as soon as you did.” She whipped her head toward him. “Lucky? Stupid,” she said miserably.
“Buff, it’s not your fault,” Xander insisted. Giles was proud of the boy. It would have been easy for him to say, “I told you so.”
“No?” Buffy looked at him with a hard, angry expression. “I invited him into my home. And even after I knew who he was—what he was—I didn’t do anything about it because I had feelings for him. Because I cared about him.”
“If you care about somebody,” Willow offered, with a quick glance at Xander, “you care about them. You can’t change that by—”
“Killing them?” Buffy demanded. “Maybe not. But it’s a start.”
There was a silence. Xander said, “We’ll keep an eye on your mom.”
Giles knew he had to speak up. He wasn’t sure she could beat Angel.
“Buffy—”
She looked up at him. “You can’t stop me. The Three found me near the Bronze and so did he. He lives nearby.”
Giles persisted. “This is no ordinary vampire.” He glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “If there is such a thing. He knows you. He’s faced the Three. I think this is going to take more than a simple stake.”
“So do I,” she bit off.
Giles said no more. He knew her mind was made up. He was very sorry and very worried. But then, he spent most nights worrying about Buffy. What decent human being would not?
* * *
In the darkened library, Buffy loaded the crossbow with three bolts. She tested the resistance of the bow. It was a good weapon.
It would do the job.
* * *
In his apartment, Angel was circled by Darla like a predator as he sat slumped in a chair. In a soft, insinuating voice, she purred, “She’s out hunting you right now. She wants to kill you.”
Angel wanted to kill Darla, do anything to silence her. He only said, “Leave me alone.”
“What did you think?” she pressed, leaning into him. “Did you think she would understand? That she would look at your face—your true face—and give you a kiss?”
She came close enough to kiss him herself. They gazed at one another, man at woman, monster at monster.
Two of a kind.
* * *
Buffy aimed at a poster of a cute guy smoking a cigarette. The caption read, “Smoking sucks.” She let the bolt fly, straight into the cancer-ridden guy’s heart.
* * *
Still Darla pushed Angel. She didn’t see, or didn’t care, that his anger was building. “For a hundred years you’ve not had a moment’s peace, because you will not accept who you are. That’s all you have to do. Accept it. Don’t let her hunt you down. Don’t whimper and mewl like a mangy human. Kill. Feed. Live.”
Her words were the final trigger. He rose and slammed her against the wall, holding her wrists. He spat out, “All right!”
She instantly grew serious, perhaps seeing the animal behind his eyes as it prepared to spring. Breathing hard, she asked, “What do you want?”
“I want it finished,” he said savagely.
“That’s good.” She slid her glance to his hands around her wrists. “You’re hurting me.” She smiled. “That’s good, too.”
* * *
Buffy prowled through town. She walked past a vacant lot bordered with a barbed wire fence. Then she neared the Bronze. It was deserted. A small chalkboard sign next to the entrance read, Closed for fumigation. Opening bash this Saturday.
She heard the sound of glass breaking somewhere above her. She looked up, then moved along the side of the Bronze. A metal utility ladder was attached to the wall.
She started to climb.
* * *
His thoughts on Buffy, Giles sat beside Joyce Summers’s hospital bed, whose thoughts were also about her daughter. “She talks about you all the time,” she told him. “It’s important to have teachers who make an impression.”
He smiled gently and said, “She makes quite an impression herself.”
“I know she’s having trouble with history. Is it too difficult for her or is she not applying herself?”
And here was the predicament of both Slayer and Watcher—continuing to live their public lives because these things must matter, or there was no point in trying so hard to be normal people. He said to her, as tactfully as possible, “She lives very much in the now, and history, of course, is very much about the then. But there’s no reason—”
“She’s studying with Willow. She’s studying with Darla,” Buffy’s mother continued. “I mean, she is trying.”
Giles went on instant alert. “Darla?” he said carefully. “I don’t believe I know—”
“Her friend. The one who came over tonight,” she filled in, not picking up on his anxiety.
“Darla came to your house tonight? She was the friend that you mentioned earlier?” Not Angel?
“Poor thing.” Buffy’s mother flashed him an embarrassed smile. “I probably frightened her half to death when I fainted. Someone should really check and make sure she’s all right.”
“Yes. Someone should. Right away.” He headed for the door. “I’ll do it.”
As he left the room, he heard her murmur, “That school is amazing.”
Moving quickly, he sped down the hospital corridor. Willow and Xander, who had been waiting outside Ms. Summers’s room, joined him.
He said urgently, “We have a problem.”
* * *
Buffy let herself into the Bronze through a broken window. Crossbow in hand, she searched the balcony, then took the stairs one at a time, sweeping the area with her gaze.
As she reached the main floor of the Bronze, she thought she saw the silhouette of a man some distance away. But when she spun around and took aim, there was no one there.
No thing there.
She continued her hunt, moving in the dark stillness. Stripped of lights, people, and noise, the Bronze was an eerie, otherworldly place.
A battleground.
She heard a crash of broken glass and aimed into the darkness again.
“I know you’re there,” she called out, sweeping the area with the bow. “And I know what you are.”
“Do you?” As she zeroed in, Angel spoke again, but this time his voice came from a different location. “I’m just an animal, right?”
“You’re not an animal,” Buffy said. “Animals I like.”
She quickly shifted her weapon. Then her eyes widened as he stepped forward, very close. He wore
his vampire face.
He growled. “Let’s get it done.”
He leaped, moving extremely fast. It took her a moment to adjust to his speed, and by then he had hit the nearby pool table. She brought the crossbow up, sighted, and fired, but the bolt flew across the club and lodged in the far wall as Angel vaulted straight up into the balcony.
Buffy reloaded the bow, crept around the pool table, and aimed up into the darkness. She searched for him, turning slowly. Her heart was thundering. Every sense was on full alert; every Slayer reflex was hair-trigger—
He dropped down behind her, slamming his feet against her neck and sending her flying onto the pool table. Bracing herself against it, she rammed her boot into him with a roundhouse kick, knocking him backward.
While he was out of commission, Buffy scrambled off the pool table and slid onto the floor, reaching for her crossbow. She rolled onto her back and raised up slightly, pointed the deadly weapon at Angel, and kept him in her sights.
He rose, and faced her, presenting her with the perfect shot.
He growled.
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Then Angel’s appearance morphed from his vampire features into the handsome young man who had so attracted her when they had first met. Who had battled beside her against the Three.
“Come on,” he said in a hard voice. “Don’t go soft on me now.”
Buffy let the bolt fly. It missed him by a mile and sank into the post beside him.
“A little wide,” he observed.
They looked at each other. “Why?” she asked quietly, getting to her feet, her voice shaking with anger. “Why didn’t you just attack me when you had the chance? Was it a joke? To make me feel for you and then…” She stopped herself for a split-second. “I’ve killed a lot of vampires. I’ve never hated one before.”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked, also quietly, also emotionally. “Feels simple.”
“I invited you into my home,” she went on, needing to express her hurt, feeling again her shock and despair. “And then you attacked my family.”
“Why not?” he asked almost offhandedly, but his expression was filled with pain. “I killed mine.”
He started closing in on her.
“I killed their friends. And their friends’ children. For a hundred years I offered an ugly death to everyone I met. And I did it with a song in my heart.”