CHAPTER THIRTEEN: WOUNDED
I went for a walk that night. In Central Park. I went to this bridge, I forget its name, but it's been in movies and junk. In the spring there's all these ducks and stuff on the pond below it, but it was winter, so there were no ducks. I sat on the edge of the bridge there, my feet dangling over the edge above the water, and just enjoyed the moment. I was good for enjoying moments. I must have sat there for hours, because when I finally opened my eyes again, it was almost eleven, so I started home.
I was walking down a back road to my building when I heard something behind me. I turned. It was a demon. A huge, slimy, blue gray demon with horns and grossness. I pulled out a knife from my backpack and ran towards it. I kicked it hard, and it went flying back into the wall of this building. It ran right back at me, and tried to slam my head with a punch, which I ducked. I did a low spin kick, which tripped it, and made it fall down. It stabbed my arm with its huge, black claws, and I yelled in agony. I regained my strength, and I stabbed it in the gut with the knife. The demon moaned in pain. Purple ooze (maybe it was it's blood) spilled out from the place where I'd gotten it, and was on my knife. Yucch. I stabbed it again to ensure its deadness. Gross. I pulled it into this back alleyway, where I hid it behind a dumpster. No way was I going to do any more dirty work than that. I wiped my knife with my new school's shirt that they'd insisted on giving me, and threw the shirt in the dumpster. I put my knife back in my bag, and went back on my way. Wouldn't Dex be glad to know that now I wasn't just after the demons, but they were after me.
I went into the penthouse. The lights were on, and it was late, so I guessed Laura was home.
"Laura? Hey Laura!"
"I'm in the kitchen, honey." In the kitchen I went. She was sitting there, at the kitchen table, drinking some coffee. Yum.
"Can I have some of that?"
"I thought you hated straight coffee."
"That's right, I do. Mind if I clear this out and make a latté?"
"Not at all." I went over to the latté maker and started to get it together for my drink. "How was the slaying?"
"I actually was forbidden to slay by Dex. So I hung out on the bridge in Central Park for a while-"
"The one over the pond where the ducks are?"
"Yeah. Anyway, I was coming home, and right out of the blue, this gross demon jumps out. So I fight it, I kill it, and I stained my new knife!"
I pressed the button on the coffee maker to start it, and pulled out my knife and showed it to Laura. Sure enough, it was stained purple.
"It's purple."
"I know. I'm going to try and get it off later. But I guess it doesn't really matter, I mean, I'm just going to kill more demons with it, so pretty soon, it'll be like, multicolored or whatever."
"Nasty."
"Yup." I sat down in the chair next to her. "So how was your day Ms. Wall Street?"
"Market's gone down."
"Big surprise there."
"Mmm." She took another sip of her coffee. She was oddly quiet. It seemed like she actually knew something that I didn't know.
"Okay, Laura. What's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're like, all tacit and Buddha and junk. What the hell do you know?"
"It's nothing that you don't know."
"Well what is it?" I was curious as to what was going on.
"Angel." What? She never even met Angel, much less know what happened.
"How did you-"
"He came by looking for you earlier."
"Oh. So you know about-"
"His vampire-ness? Yes. And his soul? Yes again. And about you two, well, that he didn't tell me, but I could figure it out just by how he was talking about you."
"Oh. Are you pissed?"
"About you dating a vampire with a soul?"
"Well, I wouldn't call it dating..."
"Then what?" She was starting to sound a lot like him, actually. I hear if you're around someone for too long, you start to act and talk like them. Wonder if she and Angel had a long talk.
"I don't know exactly. But are you? Mad at me?"
"No. I'm amused. At the irony of your situation."
"What do you mean?"
"A vampire and a slayer in love. Pure irony." She was right. It was ironic.
"And this vampire, where'd he go?"
"Nowhere." Angel stepped out from the door to the living room. Jeez, he scared me.
"So he's been here the whole time?" I asked Laura, who smiled in her own little way.
"Can we talk, Ari?" Angel asked.
"Sure, one sec." My latté was ready. I went and poured it into a mug, added some cinnamon, stirred it in, and went into the living room with him. We both sat on the couch, him on one end, me on the other. I put my right ankle up on the ottoman. It was hurting me again.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"I need you to know something. You're in danger."
"Aren't I always?"
"I'm serious, Ari. There's a demon out there, set on finding you."
"Big, blueish grayish, purple blood, horns, slimy?"
"How'd you know?"
"Attacked me," I showed him my arm. His eyes widened.
"Did any of its blood get on you?"
"Um, on my knife and stuff. I got it off, though. And yeah, I touched its blood. By accident. You know me and my little thing against blood... why?" The look on his face told me that I should not have touched its blood. He stood up, and started to pace a little, rubbing his hand on his neck. "Angel? Should I have not done that?" He didn't say anything. "Angel?"
"Ari, you're going to get what some people call an aspect of the demon." Oh no. This was not good.
"A what?"
"Aspect of the demon, it's when a demon's blood mixes with your own, something happens to you, something usually-"
"Not so good?"
"Well, in short, yeah."
"What do I do?"
"I don't know yet. I was hoping you hadn't already killed it and I could take care of it, but..."
"Hey, it attacked me. As far as I'm concerned I'm innocent."
"Well, as far as you're concerned you're also in trouble."
"Well what are we going to do about it?"
"I need to go home and find a book... it deals with some of this. You just stay here, try to cleanse that wound. Get rid of your knife. I'll be back in a little while." I stood up, and tried to look at him. He looked away, however. He obviously did not want this to happen.
"Hey. Look at me." He looked at me then, a pained expression on his face. "I'm going to be fine. Just go find this book and get the cure."
"Fix that wound. I mean it, Ari."
"Okay." He left.
~*~
I was in my bathroom, scrubbing at the wound. I found that inside my blood was this purple slimy substance, not unlike the demon's blood, and I couldn't get it out without serious pain. And I didn't even get it out! Gross. I put some more antibiotic on the washcloth, and held it on my cut. It stung, and I winced from the sting. There was a knock on the bathroom door.
"Who is it?"
"Angel."
"Come in." He did, a book in his hands. He looked at the cut.
"What are you putting on that?" I nodded towards the bottle. "It won't help much, just so you know."
"Well, you told me to clean the wound, and seeing as I'm not a doctor I'm kinda using whatever I've got."
"Here." He put the book down, and looked through the supplies on the cabinet. He found a bottle, took the cloth out of my hands, and poured the contents straight on my arm. It burned, and felt like acid.
"Ow! What the hell was that, acid?"
"It doesn't matter. It'll help."
"It stings too."
"Stick it out. Has your aspect kicked in yet?"
"Not that I can tell. No horns or slime or anything, right?"
"Well, from the demon that you fought, you won't get physical attributes."
"That's a plus... but what will I get?" Angel picked up the book, looking at it.
"Well, this type of demon gets visions. Of people and missions to kill. The visions are sent down from this sort of demon master, it seems. It's all very unclear..."
"So I'm going to be sent visions from an evil demon master?" This sucked!
"I'm not sure." He put the book down.
"How do I get rid of it?"
"Well-" The phone rang in my room then. Angel went in to get it. "Hello? One minute." He handed it to me. "Someone named Charlie."
"Char?" I asked into the phone.
"Ari, you'll never believe what just came in the mail."
"You're probably right, I won't. Look, Char, I can't talk now, I'm busy."
"Gimme five minutes."
"Charlie, in five minutes I might be a new species, okay? I need to go. Bye." I hung up, and put the phone down on the bathroom counter. "So how do I get rid of this aspect thing?"
"It requires a potion, it says. But it doesn't say anything more. I'm going to need to do additional research. For now you'll have to just-"
"Sit tight and let myself get these vision things? Let this superior demon thing control me?" I was starting to hyperventilate.
"It won't control you. Not if you don't let it."
"Yes it will! I'm not going to be able to stop it-"
"We're going to get this thing out of you, Ari. All right? It's not an apocalypse, it's an aspect. We'll find a way around it. Promise." He kissed my forehead and pulled me close into him. Loosely I put my arms around his waist, and rested my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes. He kissed the top of my head and whispered in my ear,
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
"I know." We pulled away, and looked at each other, but he held my shoulders with his hands.
"Are you going to be okay tonight? I mean, I can stay if you need someone..."
"I have Laura here, thanks though. Just get my cure."
"I will. And call me if those visions start to kick in. I'll come right over."
"Will do." I didn't want him to go, but I knew that he needed to find out more about my aspect thing, so I let him. I put a gauze on my cut, and then went to bed.
~*~
In the middle of the night, I awoke with a start. I didn't know why, but all of a sudden I found that I was wide awake and sitting up. I looked at the clock on my nightstand. Three twenty four. I rubbed my eyes, and sat up a little more, leaning against my pillows.
I didn't get to sit there for one minute long even before I started getting a head splitting migraine. I saw something, in flashes almost, some girl in Central Park, it looked like, and then an axe slashed her in two, right down the middle, and it was over, leaving me with the headache of the century. This must have been a vision. I took off the gauze, and looked at my cut. It had closed up. The demon's blood was stuck inside me. I held my head, and went to my bathroom. I took some tylenol, and then remembered what Angel said about calling him once the visions started. I went over to my phone and dialed his number. The phone rang three times before he picked up.
"Angel, it's me."
"Ari? What happened? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Congratulate me, I just got my first vision."
"I'll be right over there, give me ten minutes."
I hung up, and sat there, waiting. Eleven minutes later, my fire escape window opened, and Angel stepped through it. He didn't even bother to close the window, he just went straight over to my bed, sat down next to me, and held me.
"What happened?"
"I just woke up all of a sudden, and got this vision. It was about this girl, about my age, in Central Park, I'm pretty sure. Then all of a sudden, I slashed her in half with an axe. Came with a pretty bad migraine, too." He pulled away and looked at me.
"You don't look too good."
"I feel so scared. I mean, is this what the superior demon is trying to get me to do, or is it what I'm going to do? Because either way, I don't like this at all."
"I don't either."
"So what did you find out? Any luck?"
"Yeah, I had luck. Mostly bad."
"Oh. So nothing?"
"No, I found something."
"My cure?" I asked hopefully.
"No." Damn.
"Then what?" He looked at me, serious. He obviously was not telling me something.
"It's not important. It won't happen, I'll make sure of it."
"How?"
"I'm not leaving you alone tonight. You're not leaving my sight until we've cured you."
"So no school tomorrow?"
"Unless you want to go with these visions and might put someone in danger." What?
"Put someone in danger?" I repeated. He looked away. "Does this mean that my vision has to come true?"
"I'm not going to let it come true."
"But, this isn't up to you, Angel. This is up to the superior whatever the heck he is and if he wants it to happen it will."
"Ari. You're tired, you're sick, you're not thinking straight. The best thing for you to do is just sleep. Don't worry about anything. Let me do the worrying, okay?" What he said sounded so good. Not to worry. Angel'll take care of it all. Just sleep...
"All right, I'll sleep. Can you stay?"
"That's my plan."
"No, I mean, with me. Here."
"Sure." He settled back onto the bed, and I settled into his arms, which wrapped around me. I lay my head down on his chest, shutting my eyes, feeling his heart not beat, letting it all go.
AN: shut up. wait, no, dont. review. then shut up.
I went for a walk that night. In Central Park. I went to this bridge, I forget its name, but it's been in movies and junk. In the spring there's all these ducks and stuff on the pond below it, but it was winter, so there were no ducks. I sat on the edge of the bridge there, my feet dangling over the edge above the water, and just enjoyed the moment. I was good for enjoying moments. I must have sat there for hours, because when I finally opened my eyes again, it was almost eleven, so I started home.
I was walking down a back road to my building when I heard something behind me. I turned. It was a demon. A huge, slimy, blue gray demon with horns and grossness. I pulled out a knife from my backpack and ran towards it. I kicked it hard, and it went flying back into the wall of this building. It ran right back at me, and tried to slam my head with a punch, which I ducked. I did a low spin kick, which tripped it, and made it fall down. It stabbed my arm with its huge, black claws, and I yelled in agony. I regained my strength, and I stabbed it in the gut with the knife. The demon moaned in pain. Purple ooze (maybe it was it's blood) spilled out from the place where I'd gotten it, and was on my knife. Yucch. I stabbed it again to ensure its deadness. Gross. I pulled it into this back alleyway, where I hid it behind a dumpster. No way was I going to do any more dirty work than that. I wiped my knife with my new school's shirt that they'd insisted on giving me, and threw the shirt in the dumpster. I put my knife back in my bag, and went back on my way. Wouldn't Dex be glad to know that now I wasn't just after the demons, but they were after me.
I went into the penthouse. The lights were on, and it was late, so I guessed Laura was home.
"Laura? Hey Laura!"
"I'm in the kitchen, honey." In the kitchen I went. She was sitting there, at the kitchen table, drinking some coffee. Yum.
"Can I have some of that?"
"I thought you hated straight coffee."
"That's right, I do. Mind if I clear this out and make a latté?"
"Not at all." I went over to the latté maker and started to get it together for my drink. "How was the slaying?"
"I actually was forbidden to slay by Dex. So I hung out on the bridge in Central Park for a while-"
"The one over the pond where the ducks are?"
"Yeah. Anyway, I was coming home, and right out of the blue, this gross demon jumps out. So I fight it, I kill it, and I stained my new knife!"
I pressed the button on the coffee maker to start it, and pulled out my knife and showed it to Laura. Sure enough, it was stained purple.
"It's purple."
"I know. I'm going to try and get it off later. But I guess it doesn't really matter, I mean, I'm just going to kill more demons with it, so pretty soon, it'll be like, multicolored or whatever."
"Nasty."
"Yup." I sat down in the chair next to her. "So how was your day Ms. Wall Street?"
"Market's gone down."
"Big surprise there."
"Mmm." She took another sip of her coffee. She was oddly quiet. It seemed like she actually knew something that I didn't know.
"Okay, Laura. What's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're like, all tacit and Buddha and junk. What the hell do you know?"
"It's nothing that you don't know."
"Well what is it?" I was curious as to what was going on.
"Angel." What? She never even met Angel, much less know what happened.
"How did you-"
"He came by looking for you earlier."
"Oh. So you know about-"
"His vampire-ness? Yes. And his soul? Yes again. And about you two, well, that he didn't tell me, but I could figure it out just by how he was talking about you."
"Oh. Are you pissed?"
"About you dating a vampire with a soul?"
"Well, I wouldn't call it dating..."
"Then what?" She was starting to sound a lot like him, actually. I hear if you're around someone for too long, you start to act and talk like them. Wonder if she and Angel had a long talk.
"I don't know exactly. But are you? Mad at me?"
"No. I'm amused. At the irony of your situation."
"What do you mean?"
"A vampire and a slayer in love. Pure irony." She was right. It was ironic.
"And this vampire, where'd he go?"
"Nowhere." Angel stepped out from the door to the living room. Jeez, he scared me.
"So he's been here the whole time?" I asked Laura, who smiled in her own little way.
"Can we talk, Ari?" Angel asked.
"Sure, one sec." My latté was ready. I went and poured it into a mug, added some cinnamon, stirred it in, and went into the living room with him. We both sat on the couch, him on one end, me on the other. I put my right ankle up on the ottoman. It was hurting me again.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"I need you to know something. You're in danger."
"Aren't I always?"
"I'm serious, Ari. There's a demon out there, set on finding you."
"Big, blueish grayish, purple blood, horns, slimy?"
"How'd you know?"
"Attacked me," I showed him my arm. His eyes widened.
"Did any of its blood get on you?"
"Um, on my knife and stuff. I got it off, though. And yeah, I touched its blood. By accident. You know me and my little thing against blood... why?" The look on his face told me that I should not have touched its blood. He stood up, and started to pace a little, rubbing his hand on his neck. "Angel? Should I have not done that?" He didn't say anything. "Angel?"
"Ari, you're going to get what some people call an aspect of the demon." Oh no. This was not good.
"A what?"
"Aspect of the demon, it's when a demon's blood mixes with your own, something happens to you, something usually-"
"Not so good?"
"Well, in short, yeah."
"What do I do?"
"I don't know yet. I was hoping you hadn't already killed it and I could take care of it, but..."
"Hey, it attacked me. As far as I'm concerned I'm innocent."
"Well, as far as you're concerned you're also in trouble."
"Well what are we going to do about it?"
"I need to go home and find a book... it deals with some of this. You just stay here, try to cleanse that wound. Get rid of your knife. I'll be back in a little while." I stood up, and tried to look at him. He looked away, however. He obviously did not want this to happen.
"Hey. Look at me." He looked at me then, a pained expression on his face. "I'm going to be fine. Just go find this book and get the cure."
"Fix that wound. I mean it, Ari."
"Okay." He left.
~*~
I was in my bathroom, scrubbing at the wound. I found that inside my blood was this purple slimy substance, not unlike the demon's blood, and I couldn't get it out without serious pain. And I didn't even get it out! Gross. I put some more antibiotic on the washcloth, and held it on my cut. It stung, and I winced from the sting. There was a knock on the bathroom door.
"Who is it?"
"Angel."
"Come in." He did, a book in his hands. He looked at the cut.
"What are you putting on that?" I nodded towards the bottle. "It won't help much, just so you know."
"Well, you told me to clean the wound, and seeing as I'm not a doctor I'm kinda using whatever I've got."
"Here." He put the book down, and looked through the supplies on the cabinet. He found a bottle, took the cloth out of my hands, and poured the contents straight on my arm. It burned, and felt like acid.
"Ow! What the hell was that, acid?"
"It doesn't matter. It'll help."
"It stings too."
"Stick it out. Has your aspect kicked in yet?"
"Not that I can tell. No horns or slime or anything, right?"
"Well, from the demon that you fought, you won't get physical attributes."
"That's a plus... but what will I get?" Angel picked up the book, looking at it.
"Well, this type of demon gets visions. Of people and missions to kill. The visions are sent down from this sort of demon master, it seems. It's all very unclear..."
"So I'm going to be sent visions from an evil demon master?" This sucked!
"I'm not sure." He put the book down.
"How do I get rid of it?"
"Well-" The phone rang in my room then. Angel went in to get it. "Hello? One minute." He handed it to me. "Someone named Charlie."
"Char?" I asked into the phone.
"Ari, you'll never believe what just came in the mail."
"You're probably right, I won't. Look, Char, I can't talk now, I'm busy."
"Gimme five minutes."
"Charlie, in five minutes I might be a new species, okay? I need to go. Bye." I hung up, and put the phone down on the bathroom counter. "So how do I get rid of this aspect thing?"
"It requires a potion, it says. But it doesn't say anything more. I'm going to need to do additional research. For now you'll have to just-"
"Sit tight and let myself get these vision things? Let this superior demon thing control me?" I was starting to hyperventilate.
"It won't control you. Not if you don't let it."
"Yes it will! I'm not going to be able to stop it-"
"We're going to get this thing out of you, Ari. All right? It's not an apocalypse, it's an aspect. We'll find a way around it. Promise." He kissed my forehead and pulled me close into him. Loosely I put my arms around his waist, and rested my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes. He kissed the top of my head and whispered in my ear,
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
"I know." We pulled away, and looked at each other, but he held my shoulders with his hands.
"Are you going to be okay tonight? I mean, I can stay if you need someone..."
"I have Laura here, thanks though. Just get my cure."
"I will. And call me if those visions start to kick in. I'll come right over."
"Will do." I didn't want him to go, but I knew that he needed to find out more about my aspect thing, so I let him. I put a gauze on my cut, and then went to bed.
~*~
In the middle of the night, I awoke with a start. I didn't know why, but all of a sudden I found that I was wide awake and sitting up. I looked at the clock on my nightstand. Three twenty four. I rubbed my eyes, and sat up a little more, leaning against my pillows.
I didn't get to sit there for one minute long even before I started getting a head splitting migraine. I saw something, in flashes almost, some girl in Central Park, it looked like, and then an axe slashed her in two, right down the middle, and it was over, leaving me with the headache of the century. This must have been a vision. I took off the gauze, and looked at my cut. It had closed up. The demon's blood was stuck inside me. I held my head, and went to my bathroom. I took some tylenol, and then remembered what Angel said about calling him once the visions started. I went over to my phone and dialed his number. The phone rang three times before he picked up.
"Angel, it's me."
"Ari? What happened? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Congratulate me, I just got my first vision."
"I'll be right over there, give me ten minutes."
I hung up, and sat there, waiting. Eleven minutes later, my fire escape window opened, and Angel stepped through it. He didn't even bother to close the window, he just went straight over to my bed, sat down next to me, and held me.
"What happened?"
"I just woke up all of a sudden, and got this vision. It was about this girl, about my age, in Central Park, I'm pretty sure. Then all of a sudden, I slashed her in half with an axe. Came with a pretty bad migraine, too." He pulled away and looked at me.
"You don't look too good."
"I feel so scared. I mean, is this what the superior demon is trying to get me to do, or is it what I'm going to do? Because either way, I don't like this at all."
"I don't either."
"So what did you find out? Any luck?"
"Yeah, I had luck. Mostly bad."
"Oh. So nothing?"
"No, I found something."
"My cure?" I asked hopefully.
"No." Damn.
"Then what?" He looked at me, serious. He obviously was not telling me something.
"It's not important. It won't happen, I'll make sure of it."
"How?"
"I'm not leaving you alone tonight. You're not leaving my sight until we've cured you."
"So no school tomorrow?"
"Unless you want to go with these visions and might put someone in danger." What?
"Put someone in danger?" I repeated. He looked away. "Does this mean that my vision has to come true?"
"I'm not going to let it come true."
"But, this isn't up to you, Angel. This is up to the superior whatever the heck he is and if he wants it to happen it will."
"Ari. You're tired, you're sick, you're not thinking straight. The best thing for you to do is just sleep. Don't worry about anything. Let me do the worrying, okay?" What he said sounded so good. Not to worry. Angel'll take care of it all. Just sleep...
"All right, I'll sleep. Can you stay?"
"That's my plan."
"No, I mean, with me. Here."
"Sure." He settled back onto the bed, and I settled into his arms, which wrapped around me. I lay my head down on his chest, shutting my eyes, feeling his heart not beat, letting it all go.
AN: shut up. wait, no, dont. review. then shut up.