Angel felt himself relaxing as Willow traced patterns over the back of his hand. Did she have any idea how nice that felt? Partly soothing, and partly well, it was enjoyable. But the idea of possibly having to share a room with someone... That wasn.t exactly relaxing for him. Who would he be with? Most people would feel at least a little uncomfortable to room with someone that they knew was a vampire.
The idea of sharing a room with an attractive woman that set parts of his mind spinning into interesting and sensual directions. Just because he didn't currently have a lover didn't mean that his imagination didn't work. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that his imagination had been working more. And if that woman was someone that knew what he was and accepted him... Possibilities danced in his mind.
Unfortunately, that Clause made the idea of making them more than a delightful fantasy very unwise. He couldn't get himself into a wonderful relationship that included a passionate and beloved lover. It would cost him his soul. Of course, that was entirely skipping the question of would she want to get involved with him? and moving straight to the lustful imaginations. Maybe it was safer not to ask, not to risk either the rejection or the frustration?
Damn gypsies and their evil clauses.
But even if he couldn't have a complete relationship, that didn't mean that he couldn't have friendships. Or that he couldn't help his friends. Willow looked exhausted from everything, the spells on Faith, the discussion of her nightmares... Everything. Tired to the point where her eyelids were sinking even now, the exhaustion and the warmth of the fire nearly putting her to sleep as she sat.
Over to the side, he could hear Faith and Spike having a soft conversation about the Kalderash Gypsies. He probably shouldn't find it a welcome thought that half the camp had died because his family had been furious. He should probably be thinking that that had been wrong, and violent, and brooding that he'd been the excuse but he wasn't. Instead, it just felt good that they'd cared, that they'd tried to help him.
It looked like he could be of help right now, in a simple, easy way that would take very little effort. Willow needed to sleep somewhere more comfortable than the floor in front of the fireplace. He could carry her to a room. Somewhere that she could sleep peacefully, comfortably. Maybe it wasn't saving the world, but helping Willow was a decent thing to do with his time.
Angel carried Willow up the stairs, and along the hallway while he tried to figure out which room was hers. He found it, eventually, and nudged the door open with his toe, Willow still in his arms. She seemed half asleep already, just sort of cuddled against him, her breath warm against his chest, one hand sort of rubbing over his arm. He carried her into the room, lowering her onto the bed, pulling her shoes off after he'd lain her down.
He sat on the bed beside her, just looking at her. She seemed so peaceful now, caught in slumber. Willow looked almost too fragile to have done the things that she had, but it was obvious that like the tree that she was named after, she was far stronger and more resilient than her appearance would suggest. He reached out, his finger touching a lock of her hair. "Willow you need to rest. You keep trying so hard to help everybody... Where do you find the energy?"
Her voice came, a sleepy whisper. "Angel? Stay with me for a while?"
"Willow, I thought you were asleep." He paused, trying to think of his words, to figure out if he'd said anything that she would get upset about. "Why do you want me to stay?"
"Because," Her words were interrupted by a yawn. "I was hoping you'd keep away the shadow dreams. Rather dream about you..."
Angel felt stunned. She wanted him here to prevent bad dreams? Was he some sort of protective teddy bear? Well, teddy bear might be an improvement from Scourge of Europe. Exactly what sort of dreams about him would she rather have? Dreams of his day? Dreams about his past? Or would just about anything be better than nightmares of being forced to watch some shadowy thing eat people? "I'll stay with you."
He slipped his own shoes off, and allowed himself to lay beside her on the bed. One arm slid beneath the pillow, and sort of wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her a bit closer. He could feel the warmth of her body, and it was a nice feeling. With his other hand, he pulled the blankets over them, not wanting Willow to get cold.
He only intended to close his eyes for a few minutes, to savor the moment. He was all tucked into a bed with someone that knew exactly what he was, the things that he had done, and she still trusted him to be with her as she slept. But the warmth and comfort of the bed was too tempting, and soon, Angel was also sleeping peacefully.
end part 31.
Downstairs, Wesley stared at the phone in his hand as if it was a strange and baffling device. Faith. She wasn't dead, wasn't gone forever. She was here; Willow and Amy had saved her. Maybe there was still... No. It was enough for now that Faith had a chance to live, to continue her efforts to become a better person, to protect people, as was the purpose of a Slayer. And it had to be enough that she would accept him as a resourceful, helpful person again. The idea of the two of them building a relationship based on anything else would be foolish.
But he could sill dream. He could dream that there was a chance that she would look at him not as a reference for how to kill things or identifying artifacts but as a man. As someone with hopes, and passions, and desires. He could dream that there was a chance that she would look at him and see someone that she was willing to take a chance with.
He'd found her desirable from the moment that he'd first seen her. Perhaps not the delicate feminine ideal that his father would have approved of, but a young woman who was confident, beautiful, and had a flamboyantly distinctive style. Faith looked appealingly dangerous, and knew that, it gave her an almost unhealthy appeal. Especially considering that he was several years older than her
He'd tried to convince himself that it was simply an admiration for her, nothing more. To deny that the dreams that he'd had, featuring Faith in and out of those tight leather pants were a perfectly normal part of male sexual appetites, that they had no meaning. That Faith was simply the sort of girl that many people would admire, desire, and want. He'd tried to strangle the feelings, certain that they were NOT anything that a Watcher should have for his Slayer. Certain that he'd like her to be his, even if only for a night.
But... How much did he know of Faith? How much did he know of the woman behind the confident strut and the leather pants? What did he know of her childhood, of the things that she'd hoped or planned to do with her life before becoming a Slayer? Of her tastes in music and food? How much did anyone know of the real Faith?
Maybe they should try to learn more of who Faith really was? In the guise of getting to know Willow's cousin, Caitlynn MacCrary, they could manage that quite well. Or at least without as much suspicion.
Perhaps he should make that phone call. Find out if anyone had found out more of why someone was trying to kill Faith Daniels or Wilkins, until recently an inmate in a California prison. Granted, they'd figured that the Watcher's Council was most likely behind it, but none of them really figured that the Council would know how to pull off the efforts that had been made.
Wesley just wished that his fingers would stop shaking. Maybe if he was near Faith actually, he should probably start trying to call her Caitlynn. She just stirred up everything inside of him, turning his painfully learned self control to something as flimsy and useless as a waterlogged Kleenex.
"Hello, Cordelia? Have you uncovered anything about about who was trying to get rid of Faith?" He almost kept his voice from shaking.
:Apart from the fact that there might have been relatives of Mayor McCrispy s now late annoyances?: Cordelia's voice sounded tired under her sarcasm. :It just so happens, that we did end up with a lead. More like a big, obvious stack of borrowed folders. We sort of borrowed a few folders from a certain law office, and one of them mentioned assigning a couple guys who had welched on their payments a minor matter at a prison. The dates match up. The minions of doom were sent by our least favorite law firm, although we still haven t got any confirmation on who ordered it or why.:
Wesley sighed, leaning his forehead against the wall. Well, that s a little more than we had before, if entirely uncomforting.
:Isn't it against some sort of rule for the bad guys to use lawyers to get things done? Or to use someone in prison as a payment enforcing threat?: Cordelia sounded frustrated.
"Cordelia they are the bad guys. That gives them a tendency to break rules. It's part of the reason why they're called bad." Closing his eyes, Wesley tried to figure out what Wolfram and Hart could possibly gain by arranging Faith s death.
:What has you so snippy, Wesley?: Cordelia sounded almost offended.
"I... it's just that the whole thing is not going over well. I shouldn't be taking it out on you, I'm sorry." He ran one hand over his hair, more in an effort to collect his thoughts than an effort to control his hair. How much could he say, how likely was it that someone from Wolfram and Hart could have tapped the phones at the hotel? Granted that it was illegal, but when had that done more than slow them enough to ensure a clear alibi?
:I know you took the news of Faith's death pretty hard. I'm not going to say that I liked her and all, because we weren't exactly friends, but Faith knew how to wear leather and the girl was direct about things. I can appreciate both.: Cordelia paused, as if trying to think over her words. :We're going to figure out this thing, Wes. I promise.:
"Well, that was a rousing expression of sympathy. There's something else. It seems Willow and Amy, another witch, have been having nightmares. Potentially prophetic nightmares about a terrible, predatory evil. They shared these dreams by firelight. It's left us all a bit shaken, I believe is the best term." He wondered if they would be able to find any information on this shadowy thing.
:What sort of big evil?: Cordelia sounded a lot less sarcastic, and more business like. :And how freaky is it?:
"Some sort of shadowy, non corporeal thing. It appears, to go by the nightmares, to be an ancient evil. Willow doesn't think that it was ever human. It appears to feed on something from humans, possibly emotional, possibly life force, in a more direct fashion than vampires. Angel mentioned stories from his youth about soul eaters. He was quite disturbed." Wesley felt himself shivering. "I have a very bad feeling about this thing."
:Okay, we ll see if we can find anything about hungry shadow things eating people. Wish us luck on that one, it's pretty vague.: Cordelia sounded somewhere between frustrated, and hopeful that this would be more productive than the search for the people responsible for Faith's presumed death.
"Thank you, Cordelia." Wesley stood up, preparing to return to the fire. "I' ll check back tomorrow. Good bye."
End part 32.
"Why can't they include a simple thing like scares everything in the descriptions?" Buffy's grumble almost made Xander smile. She'd been searching through the volumes just like the rest of them, although not for as long.
"They use more formal phrasing. Feared by lower demons or devours demon hearts... generally both mean that the other demons are afraid of them." Giles sounded tired. "If the thing in question has other demons on its menu, they will be afraid. But if it is something like hearts or demon livers, then it probably has a body, and is therefore not what we are looking for."
"Ick." Amy made a small face. "This is the first time that something eating brains or livers or something could possibly be described as good. And that sounds so wrong."
"Right with you on that ick and I'll raise you a that's just disgusting . But there are just who knew there were so many shadowy predatory things?" Xander scowled, frowning at the book. Something about the smell of these books always made him feel a little sick to his stomach. But the idea of that thing that was far worse. The idea of something just sweeping through, devouring everything made his skin cold and shivery, and if he hadn't seen so many disgusting things, he'd be tempted to use the phrase made his skin crawl . Except that he was a bit too nervous that he'd actually see something like that at some point to tempt the Hellmouth.
"But creepy hungry shadow thing. That's wrong all by itself. Why is it so hard to find it?" Buffy glared at the table, snapping shut the thick book and shoving it away from her.
"Because there are a lot of other creepy hungry things." The words came from Spike, and they were short, with a sort of tension that might be anger that wasn't normal for the blond vampire's interactions with the Slayer.
Xander found himself wondering exactly what was going on with Spike and Buffy at the same time that a little part of his mind insisted that he really didn't want to know. There had been clues, and he'd got the feeling that they would not tell him who killed Mister Body and with what weapon. "He's right. There are a lot of evil, scary things. If we even had a geographical region that it comes from..."
"Are you still yourself?" Buffy s near blank stare and the slow question felt almost no, definitely insulting.
"Spend a few years trying to find unidentified scary things, and even I start to notice a pattern to the way the books are done. Most are grouped by either the pantheon of long dead people who are getting wrote about, or by where the people happened to be nearly eaten by things." He tried to keep from insulting Buffy directly. The Buffy of a few years ago would never have questioned him like that, never have challenged his basic Xander-ness. But Buffy wasn't the same since Willow'd brought her back. He couldn't predict this Buffy. "Hey, Giles? Do you have anything on way, way back? If the suicidal demon woman said fear of the shadow helped convince people to make a Slayer Could there be mentions of it in things about the Council? Since we don't have the origin of the Slayer with us."
"You ' need a nice handy chunk of cave wall for that. And an interpreter in pictographs." Buffy's sour mutter carried in the tension filled air.
Giles sighed, slowly rising from his chair. "I think there are a few books on the early history of the Council. I'm not certain that all of them are in English... Council is really something of a misnomer, actually. Groups of educated people trying to monitor and restrain the dark side of the supernatural rose in all parts of the world, and eventually as the areas that they knew about grew larger, the groups sort of spread, and merged with others as their assorted empires expanded. It wasn't until the seventeen hundreds that anything even approaching a world wide organization was even attempted, and that was the British Empire's Council. It's still not the only source of information, and it doesn't really have the complete influence over potential Slayers that some of the Council would like you to believe they hold. They have very little power over the middle or far East, and only small influences and token holds in Africa or parts of Australia."
"So much for the mighty Council of Watchers." Buffy's murmur sounded part way between cold and partly glum, as if she'd actually been hoping for useful information.
"Yes, well with the long trading and military arms of the British Empire, the London based Watcher s were able to gain access to quite a lot of foreign information. We might still be able to find something useful. Giles disappeared for a few minutes, emerging with a slightly dusty box of books. "Spike, if you would be so useful as to help me open this? I'm afraid that I am not quite strong enough to do it without the now misplaced crowbar."
"Just using me for my muscles," Spike's mutter held a slight teasing note. Smiling almost gleefully, the blond vampire knelt down and began to systematically pry open the wooden shipping crate. "Right, one box of old books of Watcher History. I can read them if they're in recent Chinese or Indian."
"I still don't know why Spike's helping. It isn't like there's any reward in it for him." Buffy's voice was cold, as if she was trying to freeze out some sort of anger.
"You don t know?" Spike's incredulous voice hinted at further issues, and more anger. More of those things that Xander refused to let his mind connect. "Let me put it into very clear, very small words for you. Demon lady said all things that move are this shadow's prey. I move. And I don't want to be any damn thing's meal. I want to stand on the top of the food ladder and roar into the darkness that I am Spike. This thing comes, and I'm not the top of the food chain anymore. I become maybe another entree, just like you lot. Hell no, not if looking through some old books will prevent that."
Xander made a half hearted protest, partly out of habit, and partly to try to lower the tension just a little. "Hey, I don t want to be anything's entree either.
"None of us want to be eaten like that." Amy's soft voice was almost a reminder that this wasn't just another night of research and arguments. "This thing is old, and scary. I want it to stay away from us. Can we go back to trying to find a way to do that?"
"Sure thing, luv." Spike grabbed a pair of books and returned to the table, passing one to Amy and opening the other himself. "Like I said, I don't want this shadow to come here. Anything eats you up, I want it to be me."
Xander shivered, absolutely positive that Spike was flirting with Amy. That was something that he didn't want to think about. Ever. Giles passed him a book, and with a sigh, he opened it.
For some reason, Buffy made this noise that was almost a growl before taking a book and stomping back to her seat. It was obvious that something was bothering her, and that it connected to Spike. Xander didn't want to know the details.
"Ancient hungry shadows Awakening Hunters Does this thing have an index?" His murmurs went unanswered in the room, and Xander could hear the soft sound of turning pages, and Giles sipping at his tea.
Buffy's voice broke the calm, but her tone was soft, almost hesitant. "I found something about a legend. Something along the lines of a Slayer or the Slayer being created as part of a barrier? Something about layers of defenses against ancient evils?"
"Well, that is something at least. Perhaps we should look for some more information on what these barriers were supposed to be against?" Giles sounded tired.
"Greater evils and darknesses. Things to powerful to allow the earth. Evils that have no name, and things that send scary monsters quaking into the fire and darkness where they dwell." Amy's words had this odd note to them, as if only a portion of her attention was here. "At least, that's a paraphrase of the words here."
The sound of pages turning seemed somehow more intense, and Xander thought that he could catch the sour-sweet scent of fear. He'd learned the scent when the hyena-spirit had possessed him, and it wasn't something that you could really forget. It was almost as if they were searching desperately for a clue.
"Translating this, there's a legend that in the ages before Heaven's Cycles were mimicked on Earth, the forces of Protection built walls of light and fire to bind back the Most Ancient of Hungers. Something about Shadows of Evil, and the spittle of it's jaws falling like cursed rain and creating demons." Spike was frowning, and there was a muscle at the back of his jaw, just twitching. "Says this Most Ancient of Hungers devours the Essence of Life, and that it mimics the shape of a man, manifesting as the face of your greatest fear or enemy."
Xander had that shivery feeling again. The one that said they were screwed. "I know I m going to regret this what's the Essence of Life?"
"According to this book, the Essence of Life is that which divides thing that swim, crawl, and fly from that which rots and is the spine of the world." Spike's expression was grim.
"Is there any mention of how it could come back?" Giles voice trembled just a little. Was that from exhaustion or fear?
"Nothing that makes sense. Something about the barriers of Heaven and Earth standing firm, and Unity and Balance keeping Order. Pretty mystical blather... except that it could be important here. The key points seem to be that this thing has to stay out, or it will start devouring everything in it's path, leaving the Dust of Desolation something like a wasteland where nothing lives or grows." Spike growled slightly, his eyes flickering yellow at the book.
Xander felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for Spike. The blond vampire was new to the whole find it before you're lunch thing, and he wasn't taking it very well. "So, there are clues written in the cryptic language of confusion?
"More like Chinese, but there s not too much difference at times." Spike rested one hand on the pages, leaning his forehead on the other one. "Damn, but I hope we can keep this thing away."
"I think for once everyone agrees with you, Spike." Giles sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
End part 33.