Title: Queen of Darkness

Setting: One year after Season 6, assumes cannon up until 'Wrecked', at which point it takes off into crazyness.

Warnings: I'll probably slip a Willow/Willow sex scene in here somewhere. I just kind of like that idea. Don't count on it, though. Everything else is for language

Feedback: Oh so welcome. Please! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Angel, or even my own soul, so don't try suing me on this one.

Queen Of Darkness

Prologue

The abandoned factory was silent, its walls broken and flaking after so many years of disuse and neglect. Many of the people who had once lived in this town had forgotten the very existence of this building. Moonlight slanted in through the holes that had at one point been glassed-in windows, illuminating a floor scattered with debris and other evidence that the place had been used as a squat-house at least once in the last couple months. In one area there was a faint dusting of a strange purple powder that seemed to glow in the silvery light.

The small side door to the factory burst open and six people rushed in, carefully closing and barring the door behind them. They searched around for a few moments before separating into two groups. Each group went to opposite corners of the factory floor and began setting up, drawing symbols on the cold floor, placing strange artifacts about the symbols and lighting candles and incense. They were preparing to cast a spell.

"We're set up over here," said the tall, dark-haired vampire as he stood up. "Fred, Gunn, start the Soul Restoration spell," he called across the factory. "Faith, do what they tell you to do. We don't have a lot of time here people, we have to do this as quickly as possible."

There were nods all around as the two and a half-century old vampire turned to the other two who stood with him. He was Angel, protector of the helpless and the fulfillment of multiple prophecy's from the ancient times. He was a vampire with a soul, on a mission of atonement for his centuries of evil. He had fought the tides of darkness alongside one of the most famous Vampire Slayers of all time, Buffy, and had successfully defeated the nefarious organization of Wolfram and Heart on multiple occasions. What he was about to do was twice as dangerous as anything that had come before, and the possibility of disaster hung about him like a fog.

The two who stood with him were themselves no strangers to battle. Wesley Windham-Pryce was a former Watcher who had been fired from the Watchers Council for his failure to control Buffy. After that humiliation, he had joined Angel when the vampire had started a paranormal investigations agency in Los Angeles, an agency that Wesley now ran. The other was Spike, himself a vampire who had gained some semblance of a conscience when a government-funded Initiative implanted a chip in his brain that prevented him from harming anything human.

"Are we sure that she won't notice us doing this? She has cast both of these spells before, and would know what they entail," Wesley said, sliding a carefully painted image into place inside the ring of symbols they had drawn.

"If we get it done and get out of here fast enough, she won't have time to hit this place. With the distraction Riley and the rest of the Initiative is making up at the college, she should have her hands full," Angel responded, kneeling once more at the edge of the designs. "We all ready?"

"Just about," Spike said as he settled into place. "Are you sure about this, mate?" He asked. "I mean, I've seen this fight fire with fire business before, and let me tell you, the only thing that came of it was a bunch of crispy-fried people."

"It'll work differently this time, Spike," Angel assured the younger vampire. "Because I know who this girl is, and I know that she will help us."

"Better bloody hope so," Spike said. "Because if you're wrong," he didn't finish the thought, simply shaking his head.

"We all know the risks," Angel said softly. "Now let's get started," He grabbed the small jar of purple powder that was sitting next to him and raised a hand parallel to the ground above the image. "Erishann k'shala mayan," he intoned.

Wesley lifted his hand so that the tips of his fingers were touching Angel's "Deprecht detanla nu Erishann," he said.

Angel brought the jar with the powder up next to his hand, and Wesleybrought his other hand up to grasp the jar as well. A blue shimmering light seemed to suffuse the air between them, lighting their faces with it's glow. "The child to the mother," Angel continued.

"The river to the sea."

"Erishann hear my prayer!"

The light pulsed in their faces, wind screaming in circles around them. Visions of another time and another world began flashing before their eyes, a strange parallel world that was as much a human's hell as it was a vampire's paradise. Angel poured the powder from the jar onto the image, being careful that it fell on nothing else, and prayed that his desperate gamble would pay off. There was an intense flash of light, blinding the three of them, and a sudden force knocked them on their backs.

When the light faded, a new form lay on the ground in the middle of the factory floor. It was wearing an extremely tight leather outfit, and its face was obscured by the red hair that had fallen over it. From what they could see of the form's skin, it was almost too pale to be living, which was exactly the point.

"Gunn?" Angel called out once he saw the unconscious person he had just summoned. In response to his call, the other three completed the spell they had been working on. A light suffused a small glasslike ball, and quickly the ball itself seemed to dissipate as if it were smoke. The form on the ground convulsed violently as the soul-restoration spell did its work. Soon the form lay still, unconscious once more.

"Hey," Spike said, smirking to himself. "It worked. Bloody good light show, that. Now we just gotta hope that sleeping beauty here be as much help as you say she's gonna be."

"She'll do it," Angel assured him, moving towards the girl on the floor. "She's our only hope."

* * *

Her eyes opened slowly, as if she was waking from a deep sleep. For a moment she just lay there on the large bed, trying to remember where she was. For a moment there was a kind of shearing within her, a feeling of duality that went deeper than her usual schizophrenia. It passed quickly, leaving in it's wake a sense of unrest, and sadness. She frowned, she wasn't supposed to feel sadness anymore, that was what she had been promised.

"You're awake," a voice said to her left. She turned her head slowly, her recognition of the voice sending chills down her spine. "I wondered how long it would take you."

"Puppy?" She said, a frown on her face. The feeling of sadness was hitting her with a vengeance now, along with a fair helping of guilt. She didn't know how to react to any of this, it was too unfamiliar. She turned away from the dark figure of Angel, staring at the ceiling and feeling the burning pinpricks of tears forming in her eyes. "Where am I?"

"Your in Los Angeles, but this isn't your world," came the reply. His voice was strangely expectant, as if he had wanted something more.

"Spell didn't work, huh," she said, more of a statement than a question. "Why am I in LA?"

"There's a lot to tell you about. How are you feeling?" There was genuine concern in his voice, and she couldn't help but feel as if it was somehow connected to these feelings that she wasn't supposed to be having.

"I feel weird," she said, her frown deepening. "All sad and clenchy inside," she turned back to Angel, pouting. "You make me feel sad, go away."

"Do you remember everything you've done?" he asked her, moving closer. "Do you remember all the people you hurt?" She nodded slowly, tears sliding down her face. "I want you to think about the worst things you have ever done, the absolute worst, and tell me how you feel about them."

She thought for a moment, her mind was moving much slower than usual, and recalled all the worst of her acts. She thought of the way she had tortured Angel mercilessly for weeks on end, burning his skin with holy water, striping away his undead flesh. She thought of the way she had stalked a twelve year-old girl for a month, driving her over the edge of insanity before chaining her to a wall and leaving her there to die of thirst, screaming out at the waking nightmares which had been visited on her. She thought of all the ways she had come up with to relieve the almost-constant boredom of her existence. She thought of every kill which had sustained her through her vampiric existence, and smiled.

Or, at least, she tried to smile. Just as her lips were curving upwards, a wracking sob tore its way through her, then another, and another. Soon she was weeping openly, curled up on the large bed in a dark room somewhere in LA with only one of her worst victims for company. She wanted to stop crying, wanted to take comfort in the memories of the slaughter, as she had so often before, but she couldn't. Something stopped her, something deep inside, in a place that she had long forgotten existed. Her heart hurt, for the first time in a long time, her heart hurt.

As she cried, Angel went to her. He placed an arm on her shoulder, pulling her head to his chest and letting her hold on to him. She didn't understand this, she had hurt him, tortured him mercilessly, and here he was comforting her. It made her weep all the more to realize that this Angel knew nothing of what she had done to him on her world, and was giving comfort to one who would have destroyed him. She shouldn't be doing this, she knew. She was a Demon, and a damn good one at that.

"What did you do to me?" She asked through her sobs.

"The only thing we could think of," he said, hugging her close. "We gave you back your soul."

She pulled back from him, the flow of tears stopped for the moment by the realization of what he had just told her. She had a soul. She was no longer the Demon who had terrorized so many, and killed so many more. She was no longer the Demon, but she now had to suffer for its sins. Her lips trembled as she looked at Angel, trying to form words. In the end, all that came out was "why?"

He shook his head. "It's complicated. I won't explain it all to you now, it's too early. I can say that we need you, and we need you whole."

She felt anger well up within her, it didn't dull the pain any, but it gave her focus. "'Need me whole'?" She snarled. "Do I look whole to you? Do I look like I needed my goddamned soul? Do you think I wanted it?" Her voice grew in volume as she spoke, until she was almost screaming at the male vampire, though he was only inches away. "I didn't want it when I was human, and I most definitely do not want it now!" Angel pulled away, a look of shock on his face. "I begged the Master to free me from it! Begged! Do you understand! What gives you the right to put it back! Just because you have one doesn't mean that you can just go and force souls back into people!"

"I'm sorry, but it had to be done," he protested. She screamed wordlessly at him, and began beating weakly on his chest. Had Angel been a human, her blows would have crushed his ribcage and probably killed him, but Angel was no human, and her strikes were far too weak to hurt him. He grabbed her hands to stop her anyway, and her feeble struggles told him just how weak she really was. She needed to feed, and badly. "Look, I know your upset, but right now there's nothing either of us can do about it. You're going to have to live with it, and that's all there is to it. I'm here for you, though, if you want me to be. I've been where you are, and it's not going to be easy. You have to be strong to get over the pain of what you've done, but you can do it.

"Come with me downstairs, you need something to eat and I want you to meet everyone else," he let go of her wrists, letting her arms fall to her side. She looked at him with an expression that was filled with anger and self-loathing. She understood what had happened to her and knew that she was going to have to do as he said, and accept it. She slid off the bed as Angel walked to the door, noticing that she was still in the same clothes she had worn since that night at the factory she wondered idly if there was anything to change into.

"I hate you Angel, but I'll go with you, for now," she said. The tears had finally stopped falling, and she knew that she would be able to keep them under control for at least a little while. "But I need to know why you brought me here. Why you cursed me like this."

Angel stopped just before he opened the large double doors to the room. "We need you for the one thing that you alone, in all this world, are capable of," he took a heavy breath, or at least he appeared to, being undead he didn't actually draw in any air. "Willow, we need you to kill, well, you."

She stared at him for a long moment before speaking. "How did I know you were going to say something like that?"

* * *

The dream took her in, enfolding her mind in its shadow and meaning. She stared into the face of darkness, and the darkness recoiled. Her conscious mind only had time to smirk before it was thrust into the bizarre series of images that was the nightmare. She had so much power in the world, so much influence. She could level a continent if she wanted to, bring governments to their knees, scour the earth of all things that crawled, walked or flew. Still, she had no power over her own dreams, and it was there that she was haunted.

In the dream she was running, her legs pumping as fast as they could. She was in her old high school, the one she had helped destroy all those years ago. Indeed, she was her younger self, innocent and terrified of the creature that chased her. She ran, and the hallways seemed to go on forever. She could feel the mocking laughter, so very familiar, yet so very different.

She turned a corner, and there were the doors to the library. She skidded to a halt, feeling her pulse quicken at the sight of those portals. She knew what lay beyond, knew that should she enter that place, that she would die. She stepped forward anyway, the dream taking control of her actions and forcing her to re-live the experience that had haunted her for many years.

She reached the doors and pulled them open, peering inside the place which had once been like a second home to her. It was exactly as she remembered, the stacks of books almost completely untouched by the students that had once attended the school. It was well lit and comfortable, and despite the knowledge of what was to come, she relaxed as she stepped fully into the library, taking a few steps towards the backpack that she had left on the counter.

Suddenly there were arms around her, clutching her in a grip that was inhumanly strong, and horribly cold. She could feel the demon that wore her face staring at her neck. Could almost see the happy smile that her dark red lips would form. "Alone at last," a voice too much like her own purred in her ear. "We could have so much fun together," her doppelganger continued, deviating from her memory of the actual event. "But you already know that, don't you? You already know how to have fun, how to feed a lust that goes deeper than any mortal passion," she felt the demon's tongue as it licked her neck, preparing to bite. "I feel your lust. I feel it just as I feel my own. I'm coming, coming for you, so you'd better be prepared."

The demon behind her unexpectedly grabbed her shoulders and spun her about to face it. She stared into the bright green eyes of the thing that wore her face. She could feel the terror rise within her, threatening to choke her right there. The demon smiled at her mischievously. "What d'ya say?" It asked her in sweetly seductive tones as its face began to shift into the true visage of the demon. "Wanna be bad?"

Willow Rosenberg screamed as she sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring off her in rivulets. The door to her room burst open seconds later to reveal the Slayer who had been her best friend for nearly seven years, in full protector mode. "What is it, Will?" She asked, searching about for some thing to kill.

"It's alright, Buffy," Willow said, raising her hand to the Slayer. "Just a really bad dream. That's all."

Buffy seemed to accept this answer, but she was still concerned. "Okay, Will. Anything you want to talk about?"

Willow shook her head. "No, not now. It was just some old memories come back to haunt me."

Buffy nodded in understanding. "We all get those, Will. After everything we've been through there's no way we couldn't. Still, if you need to talk, you know your friends are here to help you."

"Gee, thanks Buffy," Willow said. "But I think that I'll just go back to sleep now. It was just a nightmare, really. Nothing to get too excited over," Buffy smiled, and with one final visual sweep of the room, closed the door and went back to her own bed. Willow lay back down, breathing deeply to calm her still-racing heart. She knew that it had been more than just a dream. It had been a warning. She was coming, and with her came death. That was, unless Willow was prepared.

Willow Rosenberg, the Queen of Darkness, the most powerful and evil magic-user the world had ever seen sank back into her pillow, and thought of what she would have to do. She smirked as she thought of the carnage to come, and her smile widened into a grin as she felt the thrill of anticipation. She would face the greatest challenge to her power soon, a challenge that would be made all the more exciting by the identity of her challenger. It was going to be an interesting time indeed.

* * *