Date written: 10 Mar 2011
Author: Starway Man
Email: theop at hotkey dot net dot au
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel; Joss et al. owns all of that. Those parts of this story taken from the Buffy movie and TV show episodes belong to the various writers in question. Cyril Lasher is from the BtVS novel, "These Our Actors", and so belongs to Dori Kogler and Ashley McConnell. The Tobaic Ritual of Destruction is from the BtVS novel, "Carnival Of Souls", and belongs to Nancy Holder. All references to the "Three Amigos" movie belong to Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Randy Newman, HBO Films and Orion Pictures. Everything else you recognize belongs to their individual owners. I get nothing by writing this, except maybe some kind words of encouragement and a few cheers...well, at least hopefully.
Warnings: Character death, some violence, bad language and sexual references are present in this fanfic.
Rating: R
Symbols: " " indicate speech, ( italics ) indicate thoughts, and / bold italics / indicate translated words
Main characters: Xander, ensemble
Feedback: Yes please!
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Buffyworld for making available the various show transcripts. Thanks also to my beta readers, Mr. Mysterious, Greywizard and Nodakskip! The story could not have been done without you.
Summary: Darla is the vampire with the soul, not Angelus. Xander was raised in Los Angeles, not in Sunnydale. A somewhat different take on BtVS season 2? You betcha.
Title: The Effects Of Wishful Thinking
"Things fall apart, they fall so hard. You can't ever put them back the way they were."
(Tara Maclay, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)
D: "My soul is well past saving. Let the Devil take me if he'll have me. Either way – I die."
M: "No...you will not die. You will be reborn."
(Darla and the Master, ANGEL)
"What if the breath that kindled those grim fires
Awaked should blow them into sevenfold rage
And plunge us in the flames?"
(John Milton, PARADISE LOST)
Part One: Of Wishes And Birthdays
Berner Street, London
March, 1880
Cyril Lasher was running for his life along the dark, gloomy and fog-enshrouded East End street.
Constantly looking behind him, he ran for all he was worth, occasionally stumbling only to regain his feet and push on even harder. There was no sign of the local bobbies, who were all no doubt huddled in the warmth of the local stationhouse; what need did the constabulary have to be out on a night like this? Under other circumstances, Cyril might even have applauded the policemen's actions. Only strumpets and cut-purses would be out on a night like this, or so Mr. Lasher would have previously believed.
Less than a week ago, his life had been utterly normal. Cyril had been the established suitor of Cecily Underwood, the eminently acceptable daughter of an upper-class family that had moved to London a while ago. Everyone had acknowledged his claim to her. Everyone, that is, except that bloody fool William Pratt – who'd harbored nonsensical ideas of claiming Cecily for himself. Then William had vanished after a party at the Underwood house, barely a few nights previously.
Many other party guests had subsequently followed in his footsteps, disappearing without a trace. Less than an hour ago, four male friends of Cyril whom he had shared jokes with regarding William's poetry had somehow gone missing while he'd dithered about in the carriage they'd used to travel to the theatre. Now, someone was hunting him.
Someone that could move with inhuman speed, and that had spooked his horse into running away and leaving him stranded. Cyril had known via that sense of self-preservation all humans had to some degree...someone had been watching him. Someone who wanted him dead.
As Cyril ran, stumbling and falling on occasion, his breathing became worse and his speed slower and slower. Then Lasher turned around, and saw a brown-haired acquaintance in front of him as the man just managed to skid to a stop.
"William!" Cyril shouted in relief, glad beyond measure to see a familiar face. "Thank the Lord. You've got to help me!"
"What are you talking about?" the so-called poet asked. His wardrobe was unkempt and a slight sneer was visible on his face, but Cyril was in too much of a panic to notice or to ask where William had been lately.
"There's someone after me, man! We've got to get indoors!" Cyril grabbed William by the arm and dragged him to the sidewalk. "Do you know a safe place for us to go?"
"You really are a complete vulgarian, aren't you?"
The question took Cyril by surprise as he let go of William's arm. "What?"
"I can't believe now how I actually cared about your opinion so," William seemed to muse. "What was the matter with me? And 'vulgarian', that word reminds me of Cecily far too much. I think I'll call you a...a ponce. Or a tosser. Or even a complete pillock. Has a much better ring to it, don't you think?"
Cyril was starting to calm down a bit, and so his natural arrogance reasserted itself. "Now see here, William, I'll not stand for that sort of talk! We can settle our differences regarding Cecily later, but right now-"
"Cecily," William interrupted. "She's gone, you know. Went to the Underwood house myself. Servants didn't have a ruddy clue where she'd gone off to, only that she'd said she wouldn't be coming back."
"Really?" Cyril looked surprised. "I didn't know. What with the rash of disappearances lately, it's not surprising though. I'd wager that over half our social circle is gone-"
"Into the Thames, mostly. Didn't want the bodies to be discovered, did I?"
Cyril froze, eyes wide. "What? William...what are you saying?" He started to back away.
William's face suddenly seemed to distort into that of a beast. Impossibly yellow eyes with a ridged forehead, and Cyril would swear that he could see fangs within the mouth as well. "William? Is that you?"
"William the Bloody," the male vampire sneered. "That's what you called me behind my back at that party last week, isn't it? I heard some of our old friends mention that you'd rather have a railroad spike driven through your brain than listen to my poetry.
"Well, guess what Cyril?" William asked with an animalistic growl. "Wish granted."
Lasher never even got the chance to scream as the blunt instrument penetrated his skull, and the soulless demon then sank its teeth into the dead human's jugular and drank its fill.
At that moment, the rest of William's undead 'family' came out of the shadows to observe the show. Collectively known as the Scourge of Europe, the group consisted of William's sire, Drusilla; his grandsire, Angelus; and his great-grandsire, Darla.
"I honestly can't help likin' that thing with the railroad spike," Angelus chortled in his Irish brogue, the male vampire enjoying himself as he disengaged his arm from that of his sire.
"You would," Darla smirked at her paramour. "In fact, I'm surprised you didn't come up with it yourself-"
"No, you're not, Grandmother," the insane Drusilla cut her off. "For Daddy's head is too full of you to ever emulate my precious Willy!"
"Don't call me that," Darla said grumpily, as William dropped the corpse and then ferociously kissed Drusilla with his blood-stained lips. "William? William! Enough of that, you fool! Now help Angelus with the body before someone stumbles onto us!" Darla snarled viciously.
Still grinning like a madman, William the Bloody – soon to be known as 'Spike' – grabbed Cyril's legs as Angelus grabbed his shoulders, and the four vampires quickly vanished into the night.
Not far away, two vengeance demons stood in period clothing and then turned to face each other. Had he been there, William would have recognized the human mask worn by the one called Halfrek as the visage of Cecily Underwood; but the female pair had made sure they wouldn't be seen by him or any of his 'family'.
"So what do you think?" Halfrek asked her companion.
"I don't understand," Anyanka replied in confusion, her own face looking human as well. "Why are we here, and why did you engineer all this?"
"Well, today is a very special day, remember?" Hallie replied. "It's not every decade a thousand years of service gets achieved. So happy birthday, Anyanka. Consider this my little hommage to you and your talents."
"You remembered," Anyanka said gratefully, before giving her colleague a hug. "Halfrek, I don't know what to say. Despite our little competitive thing, you really are a friend."
"Of course," the other demoness replied. "We'll always be friends, I'm sure. Anything I can ever do to help, all you have to do is ask."
It was at that point that Anyanka got suspicious. "Hang on. What are you hiding from me?"
"What do you mean?" Halfrek tried the bewildered innocence routine.
"Come on, Hallie, spill! There's more to all this than just a present for me, isn't there?" Anyanka demanded.
The other demoness gave up the act. "I should have known I couldn't fool you. Fine; the man who was courting me – courting Cecily Underwood, anyway – he had an illegitimate child who would have gotten beaten to death soon enough, as the poor thing was such a huge embarrassment to Cyril. That's why I arranged for William to...take care of the situation for me."
Anyanka shrugged, dismissing the whole thing as irrelevant. Unfortunately, however, she was wrong to do so.
Because the consequences from Halfrek's actions tonight would eventually snowball into something NO ONE was expecting.
Borsa, Romania
August, 1898
Eighteen years had passed since that night in the East End, and the illegitimate son of Cyril Lasher – someone who should have died nearly two decades ago and yet hadn't, thanks to Halfrek's machinations – prowled the streets in search of his father's murderer.
It was so ironic, on many levels. The young man's mother had fed him a load of warm manure concerning his father, almost from the day he was born; and Cyril Jr. had never known how the old man had grown to despise both him and the woman he'd used for recreational pleasure during the last days of his life.
If he had known the truth, Lasher's son wouldn't have been here; but he didn't, and so the shit was about to hit the proverbial fan.
Cyril Jr. watched as two vampires – Angelus and Darla – came down the street towards a house within which a gypsy girl was being held captive. Young, beautiful, dumb as a post, but still a favorite amongst her clan; she was a daughter of the local gypsy tribe known as the Kalderash. Still, Cyril Jr. knew nothing about her – all he knew was that two of the four vampires he sought were finally here, and that Darla was putting a blindfold on Angelus to lead him into the house and his 'birthday surprise'.
Making a decision, Cyril Jr. came out of the shadows and fired his crossbow into Angelus's back.
Dust exploded everywhere and the blindfold fell down onto the street, as somewhere upstairs a number of plans likewise disintegrated into oblivion.
"ANGELUS? NOOOO!" Darla screamed in disbelief, as her childe and lover of 145 years was erased from existence right before her eyes. Whirling around, she saw Cyril Jr. and vamped out. "Whoever you are, you're going to PAY for that!"
"I've spent most of my life memorizing your face, demon. As well as that of Angelus, Drusilla and that MONSTER called William the Bloody – the vampire who killed my father," Cyril Jr. snarled back, aiming his crossbow at her. "I know that he and his sire are here somewhere in this city. Tell me where he is, and I'll make it quick-"
"I'm right here, mate."
Too late, Cyril Jr. tried to whirl around – but he was too slow to survive what was coming. His whole life flashed before his eyes before Spike, in full game face, snapped the human's neck and fed greedily on the blood.
Then Darla's fist smashed directly into Spike's face.
"What the bloody-" Spike stammered, stars exploding before his eyes as Darla began punching him in the face again and again.
"He was MINE, you FOOL!" Darla screamed in sheer fury as Drusilla dragged Spike backwards. "DAMN YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU WORTHLESS BASTARD! THE NEXT CENTURY OF THAT MAN'S MISERABLE, GODFORSAKEN LIFE WAS MINE TO TURN INTO A LIVING HELL FOR WHAT HE STOLE FROM ME, AND YOU ROBBED ME OF IT!"
Darla attacked him again, leaving Spike more than a bit fearful of his continued life expectancy. "Now get the hell out of my sight, before I stake you and that crazy bitch of yours – for ever daring to bring you into our lives!"
When Spike took too long to move, Darla reiterated in a shrill scream, "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, DAMN YOU!"
As Spike and Drusilla scrambled away from the enraged vampiress, Darla barely held herself back from following through on her threat, knowing that her pain was indeed entirely William's fault. It was his obsessive need for revenge on ALL who had taunted him as a mortal that had led the quartet to that upper-class ponce nearly twenty years ago, bringing his son to seek revenge this night.
If not for that – she would still have her darling Angelus, her lover and enduring companion, at her side. Now...now Darla felt like she had nothing. Nothing but a gift she could never deliver, and an anger she could never sate.
The 289-year-old vampiress turned around and stormed into her house and, almost without realizing what she was doing, drained her gypsy captive of blood completely as a thoroughly unsatisfactory way of letting off some steam.
The woods near Borsa, Romania
Two nights later
Darla was effectively being dragged through the dark forest, and she growled in helpless fury. The vampiress tried to dig in her heels as SOMETHING yanked her forward, forcing her to run through the woods, but to no avail. One moment she'd been about to bed down in her new lair: the next, an inexplicable compulsion had sent her plunging into the night.
( Some bastard must have cast some sort of spell on me! ) The female demon howled in silent fury, raging at her helplessness and vowing to tear apart the guilty party once she got to wherever it was she was going. Nobody summoned Darla, childe of the Master himself, like some tame lapdog! Whoever was responsible for this outrage, she vowed to make them pay for it with their very lives.
At last, Darla burst forth from the trees, collapsing to her knees as the mysterious hold on her vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Before she could get up and look for someone to kill, though, a burning sensation invaded her entire being. The pain was like nothing she'd ever experienced before and, for the first time since she was turned in 1609, Darla was truly afraid.
The next moment, her eyes glowed orange and Darla's human soul was restored.
The pain ebbed away and the blonde woman blinked, looking up. A man in odd clothing – a gypsy, even though the seventeenth century prostitute wasn't certain how she knew that – stepped forward to stare intently into her eyes.
"It hurts, yes? Good. It will hurt more." The man's calm words did nothing to offset the fury and malice clearly visible upon his face.
Darla looked around in confusion. This place was unfamiliar, and again even though she didn't know how she knew it, the blonde woman was sure that this wasn't Jamestown or even the colony of Virginia. "Where am I?"
The man glared at her. "You don't remember? Everything you've done for three centuries? In a moment, you will. The faces of everyone you've killed...our daughter's face...they will haunt you, and you will know what true suffering is."
"Three centuries...I don't..." Darla didn't understand.
But then the memories all came rushing back: that hooded priest in her room, who was actually the Master; the hard, crushing pain in her throat as he drained her and then fed her his own blood; clawing her way up through the Jamestown cemetery dirt, reborn as a creature of the night; her first victim, and all the others that had followed; alone with Liam in that Galway alley; 145 years of bliss with Angelus; losing him so abruptly and so senselessly a few nights ago; the gypsy girl that had proved to be her downfall; Darla remembered it all.
Slowly she stood up. "You – you restored my soul?" Darla said in disbelief, almost talking to herself.
"Yes. Now you will suffer, demon, as all your victims have suffered," the gypsy snarled at her.
The problem for him and the Kalderash tribe, though, was that Darla wasn't like what Angelus would have been under these circumstances. In her human life, she had seen too many atrocities committed against women; and too many men had used and abused her body to let feelings of guilt dominate Darla's thoughts now.
At that particular moment, the ensouled vampire didn't care about her legion of past victims; she just wanted revenge for what had been done to her.
By noon the next day, the authorities from Borsa had found the scattered bodies and body parts of all the gypsies the semi-crazed Darla had massacred the previous night. Only a few scattered survivors had managed to flee the holocaust; and full of hatred, they began their self-appointed duty of watching the vampire with a soul, to make sure the curse held for the rest of eternity.
17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale
December 12th, 1983
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Alexander – happy birthday to you!" the crowd gathered in honor of Alexander Harris' third birthday sang, as he clumsily attempted to blow out the three flickering candles on his birthday cake.
Halfrek and Anyanka didn't care about that, though. They were here on a double-booked job; namely, Alexander's father Tony Harris. One of the girls was here for what had been done to Tony's son; the other for his wife, Jessica. Under different circumstances, of course, the two vengeance demons wouldn't have been here at all; but then the mortal world had changed a LOT since 1898, and not everything had gone according to the original plans of the Powers That Be.
"What do you say? We do this one together?" Halfrek whispered to her best friend as the crowd started to disperse away from the table.
"What did you have in mind?" Anyanka whispered back.
"Follow my lead," Hallie told her, and the two undercover demons began to subtly work on Jessica. Eventually, the foolish wife and mother uttered the W-word; and not long afterwards, the worm-like Sluggoth demon that used to be Anthony Harris started terrorizing the party.
Somehow, the house caught on fire during the rampage. As all the guests ran for it, screaming, Jessica was knocked unconscious – but no one noticed in all the confusion. The Sluggoth demon quickly grew tired of all the noise and headed underground, never to be seen in Sunnydale again; and Alexander's mother died as her house burned down around her before the fire trucks could arrive on the scene.
"Now that was entertaining! I don't think I've enjoyed myself this much since...1905, that time in Russia," Anyanka said in amusement, as both she and Halfrek watched the Harris residence burn from a secluded spot not far away.
"Oh, yes, I remember that! St. Petersburg, and that revolution you helped get started. Bloody Sunday, I think it was called? I wanted to have some fun, but you were all 'work, work, work'," Halfrek laughed. "Too bad how nearly the entire city burned down, I really liked that Winter Mansion-"
"You two have no idea just how badly you've screwed things up for everyone, do you?"
Anyanka and Halfrek morphed into demon face and whirled around, seeing a tall, silver-armored demon with spikes standing right behind them. "I beg your pardon?" Hallie demanded huffily.
"You heard me, sweet-cheeks. By the way, the name's Skip," the demon introduced himself.
"Fine; nice to meet you, 'Skip'. Now what are you talking about?" Anyanka demanded.
"Lemme tell you two a story. Once upon a time, there was a plan to bring about peace on Earth. Lotta eggs needed to get broken to make that particular omelette, sure, but still – apparently, the end woulda justified the means. But then you two go and upset the apple cart back in 1880, and now the Grandfather has been dust for eighty-five years. The Grandmother has a soul, and those two undead British idiots are making a nuisance of themselves in Europe. And most importantly – the Mother's destiny is now totally up shit creek without a paddle, thanks to your 'entertainment' just now," Skip gestured to the burning Harris residence.
"You're still not making any sense," Halfrek said in confusion, not understanding the allusions to Angelus, Darla and the little girl named Cordelia Chase. The latter being the brunette female that Alexander Harris had been destined to get involved with and betray, in order for her to move to Los Angeles and eventually give birth to a Power That Was – before she eventually died in a coma.
"So why don't you get out of here, before you find out just what a vengeance demon is really capable of?" Anyanka growled impatiently at Skip.
"Um, sweetie, it's 'justice' demon these days," Halfrek reminded her friend.
"Oh, pffft! That sounds so lame," Anyanka said, her face resuming its human mask.
"Lame or not, orders are orders," Halfrek said, her face turning human as well.
"Well, then I've just got to take it up with D'Hoffryn personally, I mean – vengeance is what I do, Halfrek. Vengeance is what I am!" Anyanka retorted.
"Honey, that is so totally not the 'in' thing to say these days-" Hallie started to say.
"Would you two just SHUT UP already?" Skip demanded in exasperation. "And by the way, your boss, Hoffy? He's dead, as of roughly two minutes ago. Finished. Gone. Kaput!"
Both Anyanka and Halfrek stared at Skip in disbelief – before they tried teleporting back to Arash'maharr, the demon dimension they called home, in order to prove him wrong. But to their further shock and horror, their demonic powers weren't working.
"Finally catching on, are you? One of the Powers That Be, it got real pissed off at you two dumb broads," Skip told Halfrek and Anyanka. "The other Powers caught wind of its plans just now, and it's gonna spend the rest of eternity locked up in total isolation, but the boss paid me in advance for some primo payback where you two are concerned. So, au revoir!"
The mercenary demon vanished, as did the two 'justice' demons. Skip reappeared in his home base to grab a bite to eat before looking for new clients; Halfrek and Anyanka, on the other hand, reappeared in a cage about twenty minutes away, screaming in agony from being burned alive.
An agony that would theoretically never end, as the female demons were immortal and the cube of hellfire had no doors or windows to escape from.
Vengeance. What goes around, comes around; not that that mattered to the newly orphaned Alexander Harris right now.
And as an interesting historical sidebar, Jessica's Wish would cause its fair share of problems; but Xander's Wish would have far more reaching consequences.
TBC...
