Disclaimer: All characters from 'Angel: The Series' and 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer' don't belong to me. So, don't sue me please! The story idea is mine though, so let's not use it without my permission, m'kay?
Story Notes: It's just after the Angel episode "Calvary". But, to recap: Angelus is free, Cordy set him loose, it's continuous night, vampires are everywhere, and Angelus has revealed that the Beast is too stupid to be running this show on his own, he's working for someone. Any dialogue you recognize comes from "Release", "Salvage" or "Home".
Summary: They are being led straight to Cassidy McMillan's tomb, but is it really Cassidy McMillan, and is she alive… or dead? And what does any of this have to do with the Beast?
Songs For This Fiction: "She's lived through too many sleepless nights, she's crying, she's crying… this time it's over, I'm going to make it end." from "Sarah Yelling" by "3 Doors Down"
Warnings: Sex: Yes. Violence: Yes. Language: Yes.
Pairing: Angelus/(?)
Rating: R
Date Started: February 28th, 2003, 6:17pm. Date Finished: June 2nd, 2014, 9:47pm.
The Welcoming
By Delenn
-*-Prologue-*-
It was the pounding beat that drew them, the screaming sound of blood through veins, echoing deafeningly in their heads.
In all truth, the heartbeat had appeared out of nowhere, in a tomb nobody went to. The funeral was long past, all the mourners' hearts passing slowly out of hearing, and no new one had appeared. This wasn't slow then steadily louder until it filled their ears… it was just there.
Slowly they approached young Cassidy McMillan's tomb, the freshest burial in an old family vault, reeking of death. The door was bolted fast, and they were intrigued, intrigued by the pounding of a heart, a living heart, where all should be lifeless.
There was a woman, a young woman, blonde and pretty, much like Cassidy had been, lying on top of the McMillan's sarcophagus. They were more cautious now, in their approach, wary of the waning beat, growing fainter instead of stronger.
Closing in, they surrounded the coffin and body on top of it, prepared to pounce; a beating heart was rare now, too rare.
It was quieting, the pounding in their heads, slowing, dying. Allowed to focus they surveyed the body closer, the chest lifeless and still, the heart beating just below the skin. Then it stopped.
A human heart alive, beating, and then not. Eyes blinked open wide, clouded and unseeing, and a mouth opened as if to cry out.
They were closing in, debating on the kill, when she sat up. Tossing her captors far across the tomb with a motion so fast it was blurred, and pierced the deadened, silent day-turned-night with a scream.
