The foul creature was bucking against its restraints, a furious snarl ripped through its throat. It's face looked demonic, completely altered from the human disguise it had worn earlier. It had tried to plead with its captors at first, but then realized the deception would do it no good, and have reverted to its true self.
Mikael admitted it was strong. It had taken him a while to incapacitate it, and the battle had not left him uninjured. But the steel that bound the monster had been charmed by his wife, and he had nothing but faith in her powers. And he would have to have faith, for what was to come next.
She entered the tent now, and her face was drawn and weary. Her hands were wrapped around a wooden bowl, the kind he had seen her do spells with before. He gathered her in his arms and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.
She relaxed in his embrace, but soon pulled back and examined the creature, dismay and anxiety in her eyes. She turned to her husband. "My love, what we are about to do…."
He cut her off, and said firmly. "Is noble and right. We will be ensuring that our children survive. What better gift can we as parents give them? This is good Esther, never doubt that."
"I know," she murmured, turning back to the monster, still screaming and thrashing in its chains. "But at what cost? Perhaps Ayanna was right. This is… unnatural. There will be consequences for our actions."
"Then we accept them!" Mikael growled, "And gladly!"
"I trust you, Mikael," Esther said, closing her eyes. "Take his blood, I shall do the rest." She handed him the bowl, and he accepted it.
With a nod, Mikael went over to the vampire, drawing his sword from its sheath. Stopping in front of the monster, he raised his blade, swinging down and raking a long, thick line through the creatures neck. The creature gurgled, eyes wide in agony, and Mikael dropped his blade on the ground, quickly placing the bowl near the thing's neck, collecting the blood. When the bowl was nearly full, he turned back to Esther, and handed it to her.
She took it silently, and then said. "I will use this along with the white oak tree. The blood will bind the life-giving powers of the tree to us. We will have immortality, but our souls will not vanish like that of this wretched creature."
"And we will be strong."
"Very. More so than the wolves, more so than this monster. I will prepare the spell. If you would kill the creature, and then please fetch the children."
Mikael nodded, and then picked up his sword again, approaching the monster. With a roar, he swung down, and separated the beasts head from its shoulders, and watched as it turned to dust.
It was nighttime again. Always nighttime, endlessly, until eternity or death. Angel wasn't quite sure what he was doing outside the boardinghouse. He wasn't going towards anything, and he sure as hell wasn't running from anything. He only knew that if he had to spend one more minute inside the claustrophobic confines of the boardinghouse he was going to kill himself.
He was hardly stunned when he saw Stefan Salvatore amble down the road towards him, in fact, it was almost a welcome surprise. Pacing around Mystic Fall's at night at given him nothing else to focus on save for the increasingly enticing necks on the residents of the town, and it worried him to notice just how hungry he was getting. So when he spotted Stefan, it was a relief to have something other than blood to think about.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though Stefan had somehow read his mind, and had decided to torture him. In the younger Salvatore's hands lay an engorged bag of dark blood- fresh and straight from the hospital according to the label stuck on its side.
Angel wondered if this was a clever tactic on Stefan's part; unhinge his opponent, set him off balance. If that was the case, it was working. Angel's eyes tracked the blood bag even as Stefan continued to approach, and began to salivate, remembering the taste of Buffy's blood, and imagining what this blood would taste like, and if it would compare to the Slayer's.
Stefan stopped in front of him, and waited. "Hello, Angelus," he smiled.
The sound of his former name shattered Angel's daze, and he looked up with a deep glare. "Angel," he corrected.
"Of course. Hungry?" Stefan waved the blood bag around in the air, and then suddenly bit off the top, allowing the thick scent to whaft into the air. His face transformed, and Angel forced himself not to reach over and snatch the bag from Stefan's hands, to drink it down and enjoy every single drop of the ruby liquid. He succeeded, but only barely. With a look of mocking disdain, Stefan drank the blood himself, and made a show of slowly licking the rest off his lips. "Don't mind if I do," he said belatedly, showing off his reddened teeth in a feral grin. He tossed the bag onto the sidewalk, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "You still remember, huh?" he asked.
"Damon told you," Angel guessed.
"We share a common goal," Stefan said leisurely, and his smile was gentler, though still gruesome.
"Which is?" Angel asked.
"Killing Klaus," Stefan said simply.
Momentarily taken aback, Angel couldn't help but gape. "Really?" he finally asked, "I thought you were on Klaus' side."
"Oh, I am," Stefan said, "The thing is- I don't want to be. You see, Angelus, Klaus compelled me to follow his orders to the letter, and until he's dead, I'm stuck doing exactly that. I want him gone, just like Damon does, and just like Rebekah does now."
"I remember Rebekah," Angel said, shifting his voice to a menacing purr, the one he knew Angelus preferred. "Specifically, I remember her and Alaric killing Drusilla."
"Don't pout, Angelus. She's dead, so what?"
Angel merely laughed, still playing Angelus. It was the only way to intimidate the other vampire, by pretending to be even more sadistic and dangerous than the ripper was. He couldn't tell if it was working, Stefan still appeared unfazed and even bored, with no hint of emotion in his blank gaze. "Oh, nothing at all. It's just…" Angel stepped towards Stefan, deliberately invading his personal space. He dropped his voice an octave as he continued, "Drusilla managed to tell me one thing before she died. Klaus can't be killed, except with a certain type of stake."
"White oak," Stefan said. "We know."
"Then you know that there are only two of these stakes out in existence."
"And one belongs to Mikael," Stefan completed in a drawl.
Angel stepped back. "You found Mikael."
"Klaus' stepfather. Long story. You wouldn't be interested. But to condense it: Mikael is going to kill Klaus. That's it."
"Then what do you want me for?" Angel asked.
Stefan's lips curved into an unsettling smile, and his cold eyes sparkled with cruel amusement. "Not you, per say, Angel, although we would appreciate your assistance in this endeavor. No, actually Angel, I'd like you to pass along a little offer to your friends."
"Which is?"
Stefan paused, and silently observed Angel with a look of pleased calculation before he eventually replied. "You're already undead, Angelus. But you're friends…. We need backup on this mission, and as humans they aren't very useful. But as my type of vampires… they would be invaluable."
"No," Angel snarled, "Don't even think about it. I will tear you apart before you touch them."
Stefan appeared genuinely confused. "Don't you want them to be strong? Couldn't you at least allow them to choose for themselves?"
"They won't say yes. They value their souls."
"Souls?" Stefan smirked. "Oh, I forgot. You know, Rebekah said you're species had no soul, but I thought she was being… poetic. Figurative." He tilted his head, and smiled again. "We have souls, Angelus. Unlike you, we stay us when we become vampires."
"You want me to believe you have a soul?" Angel asked flatly. "You, the man who slaughtered his way through continental America-"
"Primarily the east coast."
"- and appear to have zero empathy?"
Stefan heaved a sigh. "We can turn off our emotions, Angelus. Flip the switch. No guilt, no pain, no anger, no fear, no remorse. So, I do have no empathy now- but you can thank Klaus for that. He compelled me to flip the switch."
Angel frowned. "So when you were killing, you didn't have any emotions? He forced you to turn them off?"
Something flashed through Stefan's eyes, something that bore a passing resemblance to an actual emotion, one that almost looked like guilt. "I- no. He- hadn't made me. I did those-"
"On your own!" Angel interrupted, disgusted. "You had a soul, and you tore those girls to bits!"
"It's my nature! I can't control my thirst, not in the way other vampires can!"
Angel gave a derisive laugh. "And these other vampires, like your brother? I've seen his work. He kills too. I think you all like it- I think you relish the hunt, the blood, the screams. You may have souls, but they're rotted to the core."
On the defensive now, Stefan lashed out in a growl, "And you, Angelus? You act all high and mighty, but you weren't always so damn virtuous. Katherine told me about you, and I bet you've lost track of all the skeletons in your closet. You mean to say that you've never hurt an innocent- ripped into someone's neck and drained them dry, tasting their fear and screams and laughing as you feel them die?"
Angel waited for the vampire to finish, and then quietly said. "I haven't forgotten. I remember their faces, the way I held them as they died. I've killed, and murdered and left trails of bodies scattered in my wake. But now that I have my soul, I don't kill anymore. Not like your vampires do."
A muscle in Stefan's jaw worked, and in a tight, cold voice, the vampire said, "Give them my offer. And quickly, we kill Klaus tomorrow." Then he vanished.