Chapter 2 – Vengeance and Studying
…
While the newly arrived stranger was busy making new friends in low places, farther in town, two people staggered out of the howling storm into a school hallway that was otherwise abandoned due to the late hour. One of the pair was a diminutive young girl wearing a trendy but thoroughly soaked outfit. The other was a taller man wearing glasses and an equally drenched tweed suit.
Despite far outstripping the girl beside him in both height and age, he was still very clearly doing his best to avoid her surprisingly potent glare, and visibly uncomfortable about being subjected to it even so.
"There … is a possibility that my calculations may have been … less than accurate," the man admitted hesitantly in a posh British accent as they walked down the hallway.
The girl continued glaring through wind-blown, waterlogged hair.
"Still," the man continued, a forced cheerful tone in his voice, "better safe than, uh … sorry, you know?" He gave a chuckle. "At least now we know the Anointed will not be rising tonight." His faltering smile crumbled completely under the girl's icy stare. "And, um … I'm sure we have a dry change of clothes for you in the library." Her glare didn't lessen. "And a blanket." Her eyes narrowed. "And, um … hair things, I'm sure. You know, brushes and-and-and so forth." She blinked at him through her tangled mat of hair. "There, uh … might be some scissors, too, if-if you, uh … need them."
Stony silence greeted his efforts.
Lowering his head in surrender, he simply turned and held open the door to the school library for her.
"Hey, you're back!" A petite girl with long red hair and wearing a colorful fuzzy sweater greeted them cheerfully from inside the library, where she was seated at a table strewn with open books. However, one look at the soaking-wet, storm-wracked pair told her that this wasn't exactly cheerful time. "Oh … didn't go so well, huh?"
"Oh, no, it went great, Wil!" the dripping blonde finally spoke up in a chipper tone. "After over three hours of sitting in a cold, dark cemetery enjoying the lovely freezing rain, the howling wind, and the occasional flying branch to the face, we came to the delightful conclusion that the Anointed One will not, in fact, be making an appearance tonight." Bending over sideways, the cold, wet, and irate blonde wrung out her matted hair like a towel, creating a sizable puddle right in the middle of the library floor.
"Oh, darn," a dark-haired boy with a bag of chips and a perpetual wry smile complained as he stepped out from between the library stacks. "And here Willow and I have been stuck wiling away the hours eating snacks, staying dry, and enjoying all the lovely amenities of life indoors and out of the rain." He gave a dramatic sigh. "Some people just have no luck at all."
"Yes, thank you, Xander. That's very helpful," the soaked librarian responded in annoyance that suggested he didn't quite appreciate the boy's glibness, for some reason, though neither was exactly anything new.
"No, no, he's right, Giles," the blonde argued. "I don't think I've quite appreciated just how wonderful my life really is." She picked a muddy twig out of her hair. "I mean, I might have been stuck having fun or flirting with cute boys or staying dry tonight. Man, I dodged that bullet, didn't I? Instead, I got to find out what it was like to be one of those sailors in all those movies where the ship gets caught in some terrible storm before if finally just gives up and sinks. Woo! Now those are experiences you can't buy! And now, I get to go comb mud out of my hair while I see if the outfit I bought just last week with the last of my allowance can actually recover from its tenure as a used mop!"
The tweed-clad librarian sighed. "Don't you think you might be being just a bit overdramatic, Buffy?" he suggested tiredly.
She blinked at him. "Wow, you really haven't spent much time around teenage girls before you landed this gig, have you?"
"Not as such, and clearly, I have been missing out on a novel experience," Giles dryly responded, stepping into the book cage that always seemed full of most anything other than books, returning with a pair of towels, one of which he tossed to the sullen blonde.
"So, this whole Annoying One prophecy was a big ol' dud, huh?" Xander asked as Buffy started toweling her hair and rustling around in the "book" cage for a change of clothes.
"Anointed One," Giles corrected reflexively. "And more likely there were simply issues in its translation and interpretation," he answered as he made his own attempts at getting dry. "Many of the most crucial portents for these matters are cosmological occurrences that are only vaguely defined at best, or else they're based on dates that are holy and venerated only by specific orders and cults, who are less than forthcoming about sharing the respective details with the rest of the world." He sighed tiredly. "I'm afraid that interpreting the whens and wheres of such prophecies requires more than a little creativity, and a fair bit of guesswork on top of that." He grimaced. "And my efforts were clearly insufficient in this instance."
"… Uh-huh," the less-than-bookish teenager responded to the very technical explanation. "You know, when I fail, I usually just say something like, 'I lost the textbook', or, 'My dog ate all my notes'. But then again, for me, failing usually just means flunking my classes, getting a crummy job, spending my life poor and miserable, and eventually dying a quiet and unmourned death in a trailer somewhere surrounded by beer cans and a soon to be well-fed rat population. But for you, it means sitting uselessly in a graveyard while the new Big Bad rises unchecked at some other time and place, who then goes off and kills a whole bunch of people before hatching some doom-the-world scheme with no one there to stop him."
Everyone stared at him as he finally finished.
"Wow, that really puts the test I bombed last week into perspective, doesn't it?" Xander noticed happily.
Giles simply glared at him for a bit before stomping off to his office.
"You know, maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible idea for you to do the quiet-sitting thing," Willow suggested. "You know, where you just sit there not saying things that tick off Giles?"
"Hmm … I'm not sure I can pull that off," Xander replied, demonstrating an impressive level of self-awareness.
"Well, just do your best," Willow compromised.
"Hey, where're my workout clothes?" Buffy asked the room after failing to find them in the book cage.
"Well, remember how you wore them when you were doing your Slayer training here yesterday?" Willow asked.
"Yeah," Buffy answered.
"And do you also remember taking them home to be washed and then not bringing a new set back with you this morning?" Willow continued.
Buffy groaned. "Great. Just more fun to add to the eternal siesta that is my life as a Slayer. Now I get to wander around here looking like a drowned rat while we figure out the whole no-show Anointed Guy thing. But that's okay, because at least I can look forward to escaping my misery by catching pneumonia and dying."
"I think you look great, personally," a male voice suddenly said.
Whirling around, Buffy's eyes looked like they were going to fall out of her sockets at the sight of the tall, dark Angel standing between the book-stacks.
At the table, meanwhile, Willow hopped in her seat with a startled "Eep!" at his unexpected presence, while Xander fell out of his chair with a markedly less delicate shout.
"Okay, seriously! Would it kill you to wear a bell or something?" Xander demanded of the walking shadow.
"You're here," Buffy said, staring at Angel. "Great." She glanced down at her muddy and soaking wet clothes. "That's just perfect," she groused.
"Hey, it's not as if we don't match," Angel pointed out, stepping out from the shadows and revealing that he, too, looked like he had gone a few rounds with a muddy pond, and hadn't exactly come out the winner.
"What's going on out there?" Giles called, striding out of his office at the sound of all the commotion. "Who is this?" he asked upon spotting the newcomer.
"Angel," the eponymous stranger answered.
"Oh," the Watcher drew up short. "So you're him then," he said quietly. "The vampire with a soul."
"Last I checked," Angel replied, somber as ever.
"Yes, I, uh … I've heard quite a bit about you," Giles said, glancing at Buffy. "And read rather a bit more," he added, half turning towards his office, which housed a veritable cornucopia of Watchers' diaries, more than a few of which detailed Angel's impressively colorful past.
"Yeah," Angel said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, knowing the kind of things the Watcher would have read.
For a few moments, uncomfortable silence reigned throughout the group.
"… Don't you love it when two people meet and just start clicking?" Xander finally asked the room. "It warms the heart."
Giles shot him a mild glare.
"See? Told you I couldn't do it," Xander told Willow.
"It's okay. I believe you did your best," she told him, patting him on the hand comfortingly.
"Why are you here?" Giles asked Angel.
Buffy shot him an outraged glare for how blunt and harsh that was.
"Sorry, I didn't mean …," the tense but good-intentioned Watcher backpedaled. "It's just … you haven't come here before, so I assume that something important drew you. Well, other than Buffy, that is." Her horrified face made him backpedal even further. "Not that-that you would be here to see Buffy, of course." At this point, Buffy simply buried her face in her hands. "And that is not to say that you shouldn't be here to see Buffy either. O-o-or that you should be."
Angel simply stood there with raised eyebrows, which for him was the equivalent of open-mouthed staring, while Willow and Xander just sat there in horrified awe of the man's fumbling.
Buffy clearly just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
"Why are you here?" Giles gave up and repeated tiredly.
"It's fine. I know what you meant," Angel assured him, which seemed to make the man feel a bit better, even if it didn't seem to assuage Buffy at all. "I actually didn't expect to find any of you here this late. I was on my way to find Buffy when I saw the lights on here."
"You were looking for me?" Buffy asked quietly, a small smile on her face.
"We were researching the prophecies of Aurelius regarding the Anointed One," Giles answered Angel. "I had calculated that he would be rising tonight. And given that the prophecies referred to him as 'the Master's great warrior' and claimed that 'the Slayer will not stop him, and he will lead her into hell', it seemed best to do what we could to find him and kill him before he could accomplish his task."
"You too, huh?" Angel remarked, mostly to himself.
"I'm sorry?" Giles inquired.
"The Master," Angel explained. "The Anointed was pretty much all he could talk about. I just got back from spying on him."
"Good lord," Giles muttered in astonishment.
"Is that safe?" Buffy asked in concern.
"Definitely not," Angel answered. "But it seems Giles wasn't the only one expecting the Anointed to rise tonight … and he wasn't the only one to be disappointed, either."
"You mean he did not rise? The Master did not collect him?" Giles asked hopefully.
"Better than that. He's dead," Angel replied.
"The Master?" Xander asked in confusion.
"No, the Anointed," Angel corrected. "I think I would have led with 'The Master's dead' if it had been him."
The embarrassed and incredibly mature Xander responded by mockingly mimicking Angel.
"Wait, you're saying this big new whosit we've been waiting out in the rain for since forever is already dead?" Buffy asked in astonishment, and more than a little irritation.
"That's what it seems like," Angel told her.
"How?" Giles demanded.
Angel's expression turned concerned. "The Hunter," he answered quietly.
Giles' brow furrowed in confusion. "The hunter? Who are you–" He froze as he suddenly understood. "You mean …"
"I mean," Angel reluctantly confirmed.
"You mean who? Who are you guys talking about?" Buffy demanded, growing more than a little alarmed at the pale expression of her Watcher, and the look of deep-seated concern being shared between him and Angel.
"You're sure?" Giles asked Angel quietly.
"No, I'm not," Angel admitted. "But the Master sent six of his best to attack a bus that he thought carried his future Anointed. Only one returned, carrying stories of how all the others were ripped apart by some mysterious figure before the bus was burned to a cinder, along with all the corpses they were planning to turn to create their precious Anointed."
"'Five will die, and from their ashes, the Anointed shall rise'," Giles quoted.
"Well there's a bit more than just five in the pile now," Angel told him. "And those ashes don't seem to be the kind that anything rises from. An exploded bus is a bit more final than a drained human corpse, after all, even for vampires. If anything was supposed to rise there, it's nothing but dust and fragments now."
"Then whoever is responsible may have just averted the entire prophecy," Giles interpreted, deep in thought.
"You mean this Hunter guy that you're both still leaving us all in the dark about?" Buffy guessed.
As Giles glanced at her, his gaze grew even more concerned. "And the Master is sure it was him?" he asked Angel, still avoiding her questions.
"The survivor's description apparently fits, and according to the Master's sources, he had last been seen headed in this direction before this," Angel answered. "It might not really be him, but the Master's people are working under the assumption that it is."
"Okay, enough with the crypto-speak!" Buffy interrupted, at the end of her patience. "Those of us in the peanut gallery who, given how things go around here, might end up having to fight whoever or whatever this guy is would really like to know just what in the world you're talking about."
"Yeah, and the rest of us in the gallery who have no desire whatsoever to fight this guy who apparently just blew up a bus and committed an act of domestic terrorism in our quaint little town would also like to know, though mostly just because we're really really curious," Xander chimed in.
"Though that's not to say that we wouldn't fight if it came to that," Willow hastily added. "Buffy's our friend, and we've got her back. Though, I'll admit, it would be pretty helpful if we had some idea of what it was we were having her back against." She paused, looking confused at her own phrasing. "Or, that we're backing her up against. Or that we're having her back for when she goes up against the thing that we're, uh …"
Xander and Buffy stared at the rambling girl.
"Who's the Hunter?" Willow asked more coherently.
Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes before answering. "Honestly, I'm not even sure that's the right question," he finally admitted.
Willow and Xander looked at each other in confusion.
"You mean he may be more of a 'what'?" Buffy caught on.
"Or possibly even a 'them'," Giles told her. "No one's really sure. The Hunter …," he paused, clearly struggling for a way to explain. "It's an enigma," he finally said. "And many don't even believe it's real."
"I didn't," Angel admitted. "Though now I'm starting to."
"Well, let's go out on a limb and say we do believe," Buffy suggested. "Who is it? What is it? And why does it have you and Angel looking at each other like you're trying to figure out how to tell me my grandma died?"
Giles once more seemed to struggle to find his words.
"Just start from the beginning, Giles," Buffy told him in impatient irritation.
"Alright, alright," he said. "For the last several years, rumors have been circulating among the demon world, and among my colleagues, the Watcher's Council. Something had been waging an intense and bloody campaign against the demon world."
"'Something'?" Buffy repeated.
"Well, no one's quite sure what is responsible," Giles asked. "There, uh … don't tend to be many witnesses left, afterwards. Or if there are, they aren't exactly coming forward to tell anyone about it. Well, other than this vampire chap Angel mentioned, anyway."
"Who was less than coherent, and not exactly a pillar of reliability," Angel added.
"But what do you think it is? Or what did the Watcher's Council think?" Buffy asked.
"There are a number of theories," Giles explained. "Some believe it is some demon or other. I've even heard more than a few guesses of what kind, though none of which seem any more reliable than any other, given the lack of information. Others claim the Hunter is actually a series of individuals taking on the mantle of their predecessor when the previous one dies. That seems a bit more probable, but it's still just guesswork. The most prevalent theory I've found, and the one the Council believes, is that it's actually a group operating under the illusion of a single individual, or perhaps using one active field member to carry out the orders of the larger organization."
"An organization?" Buffy repeated. "What, you mean like an anti-Council?"
"Actually, that's precisely what many among the Council seem to fear," Giles told them.
"Not too fond of a little healthy competition, huh?" Xander guessed. "What, there aren't enough demons to go around? They just have to have the monopoly on the monster-killing?"
"I'm afraid it isn't that simple, Xander," Giles replied. "This Hunter, group or individual, is-is-is violent. And dangerous. This isn't simple hunting and slaying such as what we do here. This … this is more extreme. In fact, I've even heard the word 'genocide' thrown about a few times in reference to this figure's possible goals. And it doesn't exactly seem out of place."
The members of the Scooby gang all blinked at that.
"But it's still demons we're talking about, right?" Xander asked. "I'm not exactly sure we should be holding candle-light vigils for the victims here. In fact, if this Hunter guy or gang or whatever has decided to take up shop here in Sunnydale, then doesn't that just mean less overtime for everyone's favorite un-paid and overworked Slayer here?"
"Hey, yeah!" Willow realized. "I mean, you are always complaining about how your slaying cuts into having a regular life, Buff," Willow pointed out to the blonde. "If you can split the slayage between Slayer Buffy and this Hunter guy, then that would leave more time for high-school-attending, Bronze-going, fun-having Buffy. And that's a good thing, right?"
Buffy's eyes glimmered with hope, but only briefly. "If it was, then I somehow doubt that Giles here would be wearing his I'm-a-doctor-and-I-don't-know-how-to-tell-you-that-you-have-an-inoperable-tumor face," she pointed out after glancing at her Watcher.
"But you don't have a tumor," Willow argued, ever the optimist. "Tumors are bad things. You have more of a benign good-luck growth that's actually a sign that everything's great and going to turn out okay." She looked at the librarian hopefully. "Right, Giles? She doesn't have a tumor, does she?"
This time, Giles' hesitation had less to do with his difficulty parsing Willow-speak and more to do with the fact that he simply didn't want to say.
"It's okay, Giles. You can tell us," Buffy said quietly, reading his face like a book.
He sighed. "Not much is known about the Hunter," he repeated, "but we have extrapolated patterns based on his suspected movements. And his … well … his victims."
"And?" Buffy prompted.
"And from what we can tell, up until now, he seems to have been following certain habits," he continued slowly. "Generally speaking, the areas he visits all have some established figure or figures of power in place there—demonic royal bloodlines, exceptionally ancient vampires, the … well, the demon equivalent of a Mafia, I suppose you would call them. But you get the picture."
"Demons have their own Mafias?" Xander interrupted. "Way to appropriate human culture, dudes. Killing us is one thing, but that's just tacky."
Giles glared at him before continuing. "The point is, he, or-or-or they, only seem to pick locations that possess some figure or group of figures that are respected and feared for their power there. In a sense, one could say that the area is essentially their territory."
"And then?" Willow prompted.
"And then," Giles sighed, "he wages war."
Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Now when you say war …," Xander began.
"He … he harasses them. Tactically. Brutally. He slaughters those around them. He tears down the kingdom they've built brick by brick. He does everything he can to disrupt their goals or plans and erode their powerbase in the area, all the while killing his way up the proverbial food chain from followers to allies to confidants. Eventually, all that is left is one broken, beaten, formerly powerful figure. And before he moves on, he finally kills them, too." He grimaced. "And then he moves on to a new territory."
"And now he's come here," Buffy continued.
"Precisely," Giles agreed.
"So what's the big?" Xander asked. "If he's here, he's gotta be going after the Master, right? So that schlub ends up having an even more miserable time than we were giving him. Where's the bad? I say we invite this Hunter guy over and buy him pizza!"
Buffy didn't share his optimism. She was too busy seeing what was hidden in Giles' eyes. "He's not here for the Master, is he," she didn't really ask. "Or at least, not just for him."
Giles met her eyes, but didn't speak. He simply shook his head.
"What? What do you mean? What else would he be here for?" Xander asked.
"Buffy called him 'anti-Council'," Angel reminded Xander. "Giles said that this was exactly what the Watchers fear about this guy, or group, or whatever. There's a reason they think that."
"He doesn't just kill demons," Buffy explained. "He kills Slayers." She turned to her Watcher. "Doesn't he?"
"The reports have never been completely confirmed," Giles quietly hedged. "But … yes."
Buffy nodded slowly. "How many?" she asked just as quietly.
"… unknown," Giles reluctantly answered.
"What? How could you not know?!" Xander demanded.
"Slayers work in the field. Watchers stay behind," Giles answered with a certain amount of heat at the boy's words. "Since the Slayer can't exactly report back … well, after … and the Watcher often isn't there to see it happen, reports on the deaths of slayers are often sketchy at best, and non-existent at worst." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And any reports potentially touching on this Hunter, whether individual or group, are generally murkier than most. Especially since your standard vampire or demon will typically boast to anyone that will listen about having bested a Slayer. This Hunter, however, doesn't. He simply continues with his carnage."
"So you really don't know for sure?" Willow asked quietly.
Giles sighed and shook his head. "He's believed to have been in the area when some have died, so it's suspected that he may have been responsible, but there's almost no confirmed reports saying for sure." He looked at Buffy. "But Slayers would fit his pattern. They're powerful, and it can be easily said that any city housing a Slayer is, in effect, her territory."
"And Sunnydale would be mine," Buffy interpreted with a thousand-yard stare. "But you said 'almost no confirmed reports'. That means there are some."
"One, actually," Giles told her. "Your predecessor."
She finally remet his gaze at that. "You mean this Hunter is the reason I'm a Slayer?" she asked, her expression unreadable.
"It's believed so," he said gently. "The last reports from her Watcher made it clear that he believed this Hunter was responsible. His final word was that he was going to pursue the Hunter himself in an attempt to avenge her death, in defiance of Council orders."
"That was his final word?" Willow reluctantly asked.
"He was never heard from again," Giles replied.
"Oh," Willow said unhappily, clearly unsurprised by the answer, but still regretting having asked.
"Still," Giles quickly added, eyeing his overtly un-emotive charge with concern, "all of this may be nothing. There is still no proof that this Hunter chap has even come to Sunnydale, or even that he's real in the first place. And even if he is and has, there's nothing saying that he is here for the Slayer. Not definitively, anyway. It may even be that Xander is right, and he is simply here for the Master. It's not as if a vampire as old and powerful as him wouldn't be of interest to him, after all."
"Wait, did you just say I could be right?" Xander asked in wonder. "Well, look at Mr. D-Average coming up in the world!"
"Except the Master has been forever," Buffy spoke up, ignoring Xander's boasting. "He's been trapped in this town since the 30s. And the Hunter hasn't come after him before. He only came to Sunnydale after I moved here."
Giles grimaced, clearly having hoped she wouldn't make that connection.
"We'll protect you, Buffy. You don't have to worry," Angel told her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Buffy's eyes hardened. "Oh, I don't need protection," she said, stepping away from his hand. "I just need information. Giles!" she turned to her Watcher. "How powerful is this guy? What can he do? Do we know anything solid?"
Giles pulled off his glasses and began reflexively cleaning them. "Not much, I'm afraid," he told her. "He's strong, though. He's been very regularly going up against numerous or particularly powerful or skilled demons, and coming out the victor. Whether this is due to demonic power of some sort, exceptional human skill and cunning, or the knowledge and resources of a larger organization, he will likely prove a formidable opponent regardless. Should you end up facing him, that is."
"Oh, I'm going to face him, alright," Buffy promised, anger and resolve filling her face. "He may think that I'm just another Slayer to notch in his belt. But he has no idea what he's in for! Because he may have fought Slayers before, but he's never fought me."
"Wow. You've really got a yen to hurt this guy, don't you?" Xander noticed.
"He's the reason I'm a Slayer," she muttered, a light of rage glowing in her eyes. Turning, she headed for the book cage. "He killed the Slayer before me, and that means he's the reason my life is just a constant horror show of demons and graveyards and Principal Snyders." Throwing open the weapon's case, she pulled free a sword with a metallic "shing!"
"Oh, I'm going to hurt him," she swore, inspecting the blade. "I don't care what he is. The last thing he's going to know in this world is regret that he ever came to my town!" She turned to her Watcher. "Grab your pads and put on some coffee, Giles. We've got training to do."
His glasses clattered to the ground as he clumsily caught the sword she tossed to him.
"It's time to find out exactly what a pissed-off Slayer can do," she whispered, holding her sword aloft as everyone there stared at her, fully swept up in the moment.
"… Oh! But wait! Don't you still have to study for our French test tomorrow?" Willow suddenly asked in concern.
Buffy stared at her over the edge of the blade she was checking.
"Willow, I think we have bigger concerns right now than French class," Buffy told her.
"Actually, Buffy, while I'm glad you're taking the situation seriously, and I appreciate your, um … enthusiasm for training," Giles told her, delicately setting down the sword, "I doubt you'll exactly be running across him tonight. Meaning your academic responsibilities still have to be fulfilled."
"What? But Giles! Did you not hear my speech? I am in vengeance mode!" Buffy complained in what sounded rather like whiny teenager mode. "See me holding the sword and ready for the training? This isn't the time for books and studying! Give me some butts to kick, people!"
"Schoolwork first, vengeance later," Giles told her resolutely, collecting her sword and placing them both back in the case. "The butts will still be there to be kicked later." Willow, bookworm and school enthusiast that she was, nodded approvingly with his decision.
Buffy gaped at both Willow and Giles.
"Can you believe them?" she complained to Angel. "I'm ready to be Slayer girl, and they want me to worry about schoolwork!"
"Well, if it makes you feel better, I could probably help you a bit with your studying," Angel offered.
"You speak French?" she asked him in delight, wrapping her arm around his and slowly leading him to the table, quickly appeased like only an infatuated young girl could be.
"Well, I did spend quite a bit of time in Europe," he mentioned.
"I guess that's the polite way of saying, 'I ate half of France back when I was my bad old self, and I might have picked up a few things on the language while I was between meals'," Xander loudly muttered, rather displeased by this turn of events as he glared jealously at Angel's Buffy-wrapped arm.
"Yeah, that's what I was going for," Angel wryly answered while everyone else glared at Xander. "I'm just real big on manners that way."
As Angel joined the Scoobies in helping to prepare the Slayer, scourge of the underworld, for a French test, Giles gave a quiet snort. "A vampire teaching French class," he muttered to himself. "Now I have seen everything."
The Sunset Club
A still, heavy silence reigned throughout the once booming demon club. The only sounds to break it were the faint echoing "plunk!" of dripping liquid and the tired shuffle of now deeply stained boots belonging to the being known as "The Hunter" as he stepped over bodies and gently splashed through deep crimson puddles. Along the way, he reached up and unclipped the sheath slung over his back so he could shrug out of his heavy leather coat, draping it over one of the few dry segments of the bar that still remained before settling back into his seat with a long, weary sigh.
Lifting his recently well-used sword, he set it down with a faint clatter on another part of the counter, ignoring the bloody puddle already there.
Every inch of the blade was already dripping with the stuff anyway.
"Long day," the Hunter sighed, reaching over the counter and grabbing one of the bar cloths. "You don't mind if I borrow this, do you?" he asked the once-chatty bartender.
The man didn't answer, but he would have been more surprised if he had, given that the man was currently draped across the bar next to him staring silently at the ceiling with a bloody gash across his throat.
"Thanks, buddy. Knew you'd understand," he told the man, using the cloth to wipe away the blood that covered his entire face like a mask. Thankfully, it wasn't any of the acidic yellow demon blood that had briefly coated one of his forearms, leaving a wicked burn that he wrapped tightly with the cloth once his face was relatively clear once again.
"Some of your clients really knew how to roughhouse, didn't they?" he commented to the bartender, feeling his pained ribs. As he did, though, another injury made itself known with a sharp throb. "Not afraid to attack someone from behind, either," he added with a grunt as he massaged a knot on the back of his head. "You should be proud."
As he sat there, however, he caught a glimpse of something shiny in the man's shirt pocket. "Oh, I almost forgot about those," he realized. "I'm sure you lot had a strict 'no refunds' policy, but what do you say we make an exception just this once?" Without waiting for an answer, he reached into the pocket and retrieved the gold coins he had paid him.
"Hmm. And what's this?" Behind the coins, he also found a partial pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. "I assume this is the part where I'm suppose to make some joke about how 'These things'll kill you', right?" he asked the thoroughly deceased bartender as he bummed a smoke. "Thankfully, I'm better than that," he remarked as he struck the match against the counter-top to light the cigarette.
He took a long, deep drag, holding it in before finally, slowly exhaling with a groan of appreciation.
After a few minutes of slow, relaxing drags, he grabbed the last shot of Jäger the bartender had poured him, idly noticing in the dark brown alcohol a small, crimson cloud of blood flowing and dancing unmeshed in the liquid like oil in water. Turning in his seat, he leaned back against the bar with his elbows on the counter, the glass in one hand and the cigarette in the other.
The once lavish and thriving club was a scene of beautiful devastation. Everywhere he looked, demons lay strewn about like broken toys—patrons, bar-workers, and guards alike. Several were even draped over the railing of the upstairs balcony that encircled the entire lower floor.
As he watched, one such corpse finally gave up its precarious balancing act and simply fell free, landing with a wet smack on the ground floor below as it fell in one of the numerous brownish-gray puddles of sludge created from mixing demon blood with vampire ash.
As he took another deep drag of the dead man's cigarette, he noticed how demon blood liberally coated every visible surface in an absolute riot of colors, even splattering up the walls like rainbow-hued Jackson Pollock paintings. Sure, deep crimson was by far the most common, as his largely red-drenched attire would attest, but yellows, browns, oranges, greens, and every other color imaginable was present somewhere or another in the mix. In fact, while the upstairs entrance was absolutely packed with demons who had tried to escape in a panicked rush, only to find the door mystically unopenable, the stairs directly across from the resultant pile looked like someone had taken an assortment of different colored paint cans and just dumped them all out everywhere.
As a result, the sharp, metallic tang of blood absolutely soaked the air, even managing to drown out the clouds of cheap cologne that had practically assaulted his senses when he first walked in. But now, even walking across the floor, you practically drowned in the oaky metallic scent of demon blood like you had your nose buried in the stuff. The faint curls of cigarette smoke that trailed through the air around him clouded the smell somewhat, but it didn't do much.
Though that might have been because of the blood-drenched clothes he was still wearing.
He lifted the shot of Jäger to his lips as he continued surveying his latest handiwork.
"It's a start," he decided, kicking back the shot with a grin.
Author's note: Merry Christmas, ya'll! Hope everybody's enjoying their holidays!
Regarding Angel and Darla, while Angel's vampiric and soul-bearing nature wasn't revealed until a bit later than this in the show (in the episode "Angel"), and that revelation involved him killing Darla to essentially prove himself to Buffy and the gang, in this story, it happened a little bit ago, and without Darla dying, as I just didn't really feel the need to drag out the revelation that he's a vampire, since this story isn't focused on him. Plus, I think Darla's interesting, so big no to Angel staking her as part of his coming-out party.
I hope you all enjoy the story!