Part III
Duncan reached Angel and backhanded him across the face, knocking him to the ground as the enraged Immortal shouted, "You bastard!" Giles recovered from his momentary paralysis first, his ambivalence over Angel being attacked being quickly resolved in favor of intervening by the sense that something was seriously wrong here. "Now see here, MacLeod, " he began as he grabbed the Immortal's arm and tried to pull him away from the downed vampire. He got no more out as a large fist struck him on the point of the jaw and sent him crashing into unconsciousness. Dismissing the Watcher from his mind, Duncan turned back to his enemy, drawing his sword as he did so. Looking into the eyes of his downed foe, Duncan saw no trace of the sadism and pure evil he remembered, only sadness and resignation. While this puzzled him, he only hesitated a moment before raising his katana to sever the waiting neck. . .
A powerful blow from behind rocked him, and he felt his consciousness begin to slip away. With great effort, he turned around, and his last sight before falling into darkness was Buffy's angry face. He fell face down onto the floor, the heavy crossbow bolt protruding from his back. After watching the fallen Immortal for a moment, Buffy put down the crossbow that Giles' distraction had given her time to pick up, load, and fire. She was utterly infuriated, and was advancing on the still body with angry intent when she heard Angel say weakly, "Buffy, don't."
"What do you mean, don't?" Buffy snarled, glaring momentarily at her love before remembering that he wasn't the one she was angry at. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't dump him in the park for wandering vamps to feed on!"
Angel's next three words stopped Buffy short, bringing back that infinitely unwelcome emotion that she had felt many times since that night when Angel had explained to Buffy who and what he was: "He had cause."
PARIS, FRANCE: 1880
Duncan strolled down the dimly lighted Paris boulevard, whistling a cheerful tune. He was looking forward to seeing the charming young woman who had pressed a paper with an address on it in his hand the night before. He was so pleased with himself that he failed to see the figure in front of him until he almost walked into him. "Excuse me," he started, only to notice that the person in front of him had features that were only remotely human. He cursed inwardly, realizing that a vampire had found him.
The vampire smiled, or so it looked, and commented, "Well, well, what have we here? Oh, I know: you're dinner. The creature advanced on Duncan, only to pause when Duncan drew his katana and interposed it between himself and the now wary vampire. They squared off, and began a probing hand to hand combat that went on for several minutes. Duncan scored with a slash to the right arm .
"Bloody hell!" snarled the vampire, while the demon scored with minor wounds to the body and left arm. A figure watched from the shadows, noting the wounds and that they healed almost immediately. After a few more seconds, the figure stepped into the open, leveled a pistol, and fired.
Duncan gasped as the bullet pierced his heart. The katana clattered to the pavement, and he turned to face his attacker. He saw a young man with a handsome face and endless malice in his dark eyes. He collapsed to the sidewalk and did not move again.
The vampire glared at the newcomer and snapped, "What the bloody hell did you do that for, Angelus? I could have taken him-you just wasted a good kill!"
Angelus looked at Spike for a moment, but his only answer before picking up the crumpled Immortal in a fireman's carry was a cold, enigmatic smile.
------
Angel paused at this point: he looked too overcome to continue. Buffy had removed the crossbow bolt and handed the vicious sword to the still-groggy Giles. She looked over her shoulder and met his eyes, easily seeing the depth of guilt in them. She swallowed and asked, "What did you do to him then, Angel?"
"I can answer that."
Buffy whirled to see that Duncan was sitting up, watching them with a look that seemed more resigned than anything. Buffy was puzzled for a moment, then realized that for a man to live for centuries, he would have to learn to take situations as he found them in order to make the best of them. Unarmed, outnumbered, he would talk rather than fight. . .for now. "All right, " she replied, indicating that she too would be willing to talk rather than fight for the moment, "what did he do to you, Duncan?"
Duncan spoke in an even, flat tone, locking eyes with Angel as he did so: "When I woke up, I was chained to a wall in a room. There were three vampires in the room: the two I had seen, who I found out were named Angelus and Spike, and a beautiful woman who was obviously quite mad. . .I believe her name was Drusilla. Angelus laughed when he saw that I had awakened and said that I would be of great use to them. That is where it began. Every night for six months-they drained me. Over and over again, until they were glutted."
"They gave me enough food and water so my body didn't simply go into dormancy, but no more. I knew no peace, even when the sun came out and they left me alone in the room, for I knew that they would be back again when nightfall came. That was my existence for six months."
Buffy was appalled, as she had not been since she heard Angel tell her about Dru. She looked around at the rest of the room. Willow looked to be near tears, and a grim-looking Oz was gripping her arm. Giles had removed his glasses and was polishing them in a way that clearly was meant to substitute for the need to react to Duncan's account. Even Xander was silent, too caught up in the narrative to think of using it as a way of tormenting Angel. And Angel. . .the guilt of it was naked on his face. She realized how awful this had to be for him. It had been bad enough when the First Evil had tormented him with the shades of his dead victims; now, here was one of those long-ago victims in the flesh to accuse him of unspeakable atrocities.
Buffy walked up to Angel and put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up at her. "Angel, why did Angelus do that? What was the point of keeping Duncan when they could have just hunted normally?"
"Power." The question was answered by Giles, who seemed mostly recovered from Duncan's right cross. He watched Angel intently as he explained, "There is great power in the blood of an Immortal-you discovered that yourself when you fought the vampire that attacked Duncan in the park."
Buffy nodded in agreement, and Giles continued, "If it is only a matter of one feeding, or a few, that power is a temporary matter. However, if a vampire can feed on an Immortal or Immortals for an extended period of time, the increase in power, both physical and paranormal, will be permanent, and will increase as the feedings continue."
The silence in the room was profound. Buffy thought of two dead Slayers, known victims of William the Bloody, AKA Spike. She thought of the threat that Angelus had posed to the very world until Willow had managed to re-curse him. Most specifically, she thought of Kendra dying in her arms, victim of Drusilla's powerful hypnotic abilities and a sharpened claw. How much tragedy was directly attributable to Duncan's victimization by Angelus? She looked at Angel, and could tell that that those thoughts were foremost in his mind, also.
------
THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE, OAKWOOD CEMETERY
Faith drifted through the edges of the cemetery, casually glancing around as she reveled in the sheer joy of being able to patrol again. She was still reveling in the aftermath of the battle with the Hellmouth demon, even if the again dislocated shoulder and the fractured hand had taken a little of the edge off of the enjoyment for a few days. Still, the remarkable healing ability that was the Slayer's birthright had done its job, and she had decided to start here before swinging by the library to check in with Giles and see if she could hook up with Buffy. As much as she reveled in the nightly battles that were a Slayer's stock in trade, she had to admit it was nice to have backup. Plus, Buffy had done her a favor by clueing her in on that stupid Watcher's test that had almost gotten the older Slayer and her mother killed. Those bastards had actually fired Giles! Sure, he could be a pain, but at least he had never crossed her, and that was something she couldn't say about many people, including Buffy. Faith shrugged mentally and thought * We'll see what happens. *
The sound of raised voices distracted Faith from her musing. She moved towards the sound and soon came into sight of two figures standing in a clearing just outside the cemetery. One was a man of medium height with short red hair: he wore a trenchcoat and was wielding what looked like a medieval European broadsword. The other was a tall woman with long flowing blond hair: she wore loose robes and did not have a weapon out, though Faith's keen eyes spotted what looked like a weapon underneath the robes.
"There's no point in evading me further, lady," the man snarled, pointing the blade at the woman's throat a few feet away, "We're no longer on holy ground, and I will have your head."
Well, this is different thought Faith. She considered intervening, but realized that she didn't actually know what was going on. Besides, this might be cool to watch.
"Please, don't do this," the woman pleaded. ". . . I can't do this again, not again. Damn you, I don't want to kill you!"
The man's face narrowed in contempt, and he spat out, "Don't worry, you won't." Then his blade was in motion, speeding for the woman's unprotected throat. . .
...only to be blocked by the blade that was seeming drawn instantaneously into a perfect parrying position. The woman back-pedaled, and the man began a furious series of attacks that seemed calculated to shred her into pieces. However, the attacks were all deflected with an ease that caused chills to go down Faith's spine as she watched. Her blade seemed to float, turning aside the heavy broadsword with barely a whisper of sound. For several minutes, this continued with little variety in pattern, and Faith could see that the red-haired man was becoming increasingly frustrated.
Abruptly, Faith saw the woman's expression change from despair to a cold mask of fatalism and determination. There was a quick blur of motion, and Faith was shocked to see the man's body fall to one side as his head came tumbling to the ground on the other. Her memory, aided by her enhanced senses, allowed her to reconstruct the move moments after it had happened: she had feinted, drawing his guard, then switched hands and did a 360 degree spin, bringing the blade around to slice through his neck from the unprotected flank. It had been an awesomely efficient move that she could not imagine duplicating, and had been performed with a speed that she had never seen anyone but Buffy and herself display.
The woman fell to her knees next to her foe, and wept as an odd mist began to form around the corpse. Electrical energy began to flicker around the scene, and Faith's reflex was to dive behind a tombstone for cover-since the incident with Gwendolyn Post she had had several nightmares about being reduced to a smoking corpse by lightning. Peeking around from cover, she saw the lightning strike the woman over and over again: it did not seem to harm her physically, but after a moment she let out a scream that made Faith wince-it sounded like her soul was on fire. The electricity faded away, and the woman, still on her knees, dropped her face into the grass. Faith could hear her sobbing.
Faith got up and began to walk towards the prostrate warrior. Empathy was definitely not one of her traits, but even she could tell that this woman was suffering some awful torment. She stopped five feet from the sobbing figure and called out, "Hey! Are you okay. . .?"
The woman looked up, and Faith saw madness in her eyes in the split-second before a foot struck her in the chest and knocked her into a tree twenty feet away. She recovered quickly, only to see the crazed woman charging at her to attack with bare hands. *All right, let's see what she's got. *
The experience was not pleasant. Faith tried to go on the offensive, only to find that her blows were being deflected as effortlessly as she had been parrying the deceased swordsman's attacks. Also, she was taking some rather hard punches, reminding her of her recent battle with the Apocalypse demon. She switched to defensive fighting, which reduced the number of bruises for a while, but after a few more minutes, she caught a punch on the point of the jaw, and the world greyed out for a moment. When her vision cleared, she found she was sitting on the grass, looking up at a sword pointed at her throat. She looked at the eyes of her opponent and saw that madness still reigned. Realizing her situation was hopeless, she met her invincible foe's eyes and defiantly waited for death.
Abruptly, the woman's face changed expression-she seemed to be realizing something. She looked intently at Faith for a moment, then muttered a word that Faith didn't understand. After a moment more, she put her sword away and fled, leaving a corpse and a deeply confused Slayer in her wake.
Faith stared after her, then waited another moment or two before starting over to the library in the hope that Giles might have some answers. Still, the moment seemed to require verbal comment, and Faith gave vent to it before leaving the area: "What in the hell was that!"
As always, comments are welcome and desired.
Duncan reached Angel and backhanded him across the face, knocking him to the ground as the enraged Immortal shouted, "You bastard!" Giles recovered from his momentary paralysis first, his ambivalence over Angel being attacked being quickly resolved in favor of intervening by the sense that something was seriously wrong here. "Now see here, MacLeod, " he began as he grabbed the Immortal's arm and tried to pull him away from the downed vampire. He got no more out as a large fist struck him on the point of the jaw and sent him crashing into unconsciousness. Dismissing the Watcher from his mind, Duncan turned back to his enemy, drawing his sword as he did so. Looking into the eyes of his downed foe, Duncan saw no trace of the sadism and pure evil he remembered, only sadness and resignation. While this puzzled him, he only hesitated a moment before raising his katana to sever the waiting neck. . .
A powerful blow from behind rocked him, and he felt his consciousness begin to slip away. With great effort, he turned around, and his last sight before falling into darkness was Buffy's angry face. He fell face down onto the floor, the heavy crossbow bolt protruding from his back. After watching the fallen Immortal for a moment, Buffy put down the crossbow that Giles' distraction had given her time to pick up, load, and fire. She was utterly infuriated, and was advancing on the still body with angry intent when she heard Angel say weakly, "Buffy, don't."
"What do you mean, don't?" Buffy snarled, glaring momentarily at her love before remembering that he wasn't the one she was angry at. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't dump him in the park for wandering vamps to feed on!"
Angel's next three words stopped Buffy short, bringing back that infinitely unwelcome emotion that she had felt many times since that night when Angel had explained to Buffy who and what he was: "He had cause."
PARIS, FRANCE: 1880
Duncan strolled down the dimly lighted Paris boulevard, whistling a cheerful tune. He was looking forward to seeing the charming young woman who had pressed a paper with an address on it in his hand the night before. He was so pleased with himself that he failed to see the figure in front of him until he almost walked into him. "Excuse me," he started, only to notice that the person in front of him had features that were only remotely human. He cursed inwardly, realizing that a vampire had found him.
The vampire smiled, or so it looked, and commented, "Well, well, what have we here? Oh, I know: you're dinner. The creature advanced on Duncan, only to pause when Duncan drew his katana and interposed it between himself and the now wary vampire. They squared off, and began a probing hand to hand combat that went on for several minutes. Duncan scored with a slash to the right arm .
"Bloody hell!" snarled the vampire, while the demon scored with minor wounds to the body and left arm. A figure watched from the shadows, noting the wounds and that they healed almost immediately. After a few more seconds, the figure stepped into the open, leveled a pistol, and fired.
Duncan gasped as the bullet pierced his heart. The katana clattered to the pavement, and he turned to face his attacker. He saw a young man with a handsome face and endless malice in his dark eyes. He collapsed to the sidewalk and did not move again.
The vampire glared at the newcomer and snapped, "What the bloody hell did you do that for, Angelus? I could have taken him-you just wasted a good kill!"
Angelus looked at Spike for a moment, but his only answer before picking up the crumpled Immortal in a fireman's carry was a cold, enigmatic smile.
------
Angel paused at this point: he looked too overcome to continue. Buffy had removed the crossbow bolt and handed the vicious sword to the still-groggy Giles. She looked over her shoulder and met his eyes, easily seeing the depth of guilt in them. She swallowed and asked, "What did you do to him then, Angel?"
"I can answer that."
Buffy whirled to see that Duncan was sitting up, watching them with a look that seemed more resigned than anything. Buffy was puzzled for a moment, then realized that for a man to live for centuries, he would have to learn to take situations as he found them in order to make the best of them. Unarmed, outnumbered, he would talk rather than fight. . .for now. "All right, " she replied, indicating that she too would be willing to talk rather than fight for the moment, "what did he do to you, Duncan?"
Duncan spoke in an even, flat tone, locking eyes with Angel as he did so: "When I woke up, I was chained to a wall in a room. There were three vampires in the room: the two I had seen, who I found out were named Angelus and Spike, and a beautiful woman who was obviously quite mad. . .I believe her name was Drusilla. Angelus laughed when he saw that I had awakened and said that I would be of great use to them. That is where it began. Every night for six months-they drained me. Over and over again, until they were glutted."
"They gave me enough food and water so my body didn't simply go into dormancy, but no more. I knew no peace, even when the sun came out and they left me alone in the room, for I knew that they would be back again when nightfall came. That was my existence for six months."
Buffy was appalled, as she had not been since she heard Angel tell her about Dru. She looked around at the rest of the room. Willow looked to be near tears, and a grim-looking Oz was gripping her arm. Giles had removed his glasses and was polishing them in a way that clearly was meant to substitute for the need to react to Duncan's account. Even Xander was silent, too caught up in the narrative to think of using it as a way of tormenting Angel. And Angel. . .the guilt of it was naked on his face. She realized how awful this had to be for him. It had been bad enough when the First Evil had tormented him with the shades of his dead victims; now, here was one of those long-ago victims in the flesh to accuse him of unspeakable atrocities.
Buffy walked up to Angel and put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up at her. "Angel, why did Angelus do that? What was the point of keeping Duncan when they could have just hunted normally?"
"Power." The question was answered by Giles, who seemed mostly recovered from Duncan's right cross. He watched Angel intently as he explained, "There is great power in the blood of an Immortal-you discovered that yourself when you fought the vampire that attacked Duncan in the park."
Buffy nodded in agreement, and Giles continued, "If it is only a matter of one feeding, or a few, that power is a temporary matter. However, if a vampire can feed on an Immortal or Immortals for an extended period of time, the increase in power, both physical and paranormal, will be permanent, and will increase as the feedings continue."
The silence in the room was profound. Buffy thought of two dead Slayers, known victims of William the Bloody, AKA Spike. She thought of the threat that Angelus had posed to the very world until Willow had managed to re-curse him. Most specifically, she thought of Kendra dying in her arms, victim of Drusilla's powerful hypnotic abilities and a sharpened claw. How much tragedy was directly attributable to Duncan's victimization by Angelus? She looked at Angel, and could tell that that those thoughts were foremost in his mind, also.
------
THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE, OAKWOOD CEMETERY
Faith drifted through the edges of the cemetery, casually glancing around as she reveled in the sheer joy of being able to patrol again. She was still reveling in the aftermath of the battle with the Hellmouth demon, even if the again dislocated shoulder and the fractured hand had taken a little of the edge off of the enjoyment for a few days. Still, the remarkable healing ability that was the Slayer's birthright had done its job, and she had decided to start here before swinging by the library to check in with Giles and see if she could hook up with Buffy. As much as she reveled in the nightly battles that were a Slayer's stock in trade, she had to admit it was nice to have backup. Plus, Buffy had done her a favor by clueing her in on that stupid Watcher's test that had almost gotten the older Slayer and her mother killed. Those bastards had actually fired Giles! Sure, he could be a pain, but at least he had never crossed her, and that was something she couldn't say about many people, including Buffy. Faith shrugged mentally and thought * We'll see what happens. *
The sound of raised voices distracted Faith from her musing. She moved towards the sound and soon came into sight of two figures standing in a clearing just outside the cemetery. One was a man of medium height with short red hair: he wore a trenchcoat and was wielding what looked like a medieval European broadsword. The other was a tall woman with long flowing blond hair: she wore loose robes and did not have a weapon out, though Faith's keen eyes spotted what looked like a weapon underneath the robes.
"There's no point in evading me further, lady," the man snarled, pointing the blade at the woman's throat a few feet away, "We're no longer on holy ground, and I will have your head."
Well, this is different thought Faith. She considered intervening, but realized that she didn't actually know what was going on. Besides, this might be cool to watch.
"Please, don't do this," the woman pleaded. ". . . I can't do this again, not again. Damn you, I don't want to kill you!"
The man's face narrowed in contempt, and he spat out, "Don't worry, you won't." Then his blade was in motion, speeding for the woman's unprotected throat. . .
...only to be blocked by the blade that was seeming drawn instantaneously into a perfect parrying position. The woman back-pedaled, and the man began a furious series of attacks that seemed calculated to shred her into pieces. However, the attacks were all deflected with an ease that caused chills to go down Faith's spine as she watched. Her blade seemed to float, turning aside the heavy broadsword with barely a whisper of sound. For several minutes, this continued with little variety in pattern, and Faith could see that the red-haired man was becoming increasingly frustrated.
Abruptly, Faith saw the woman's expression change from despair to a cold mask of fatalism and determination. There was a quick blur of motion, and Faith was shocked to see the man's body fall to one side as his head came tumbling to the ground on the other. Her memory, aided by her enhanced senses, allowed her to reconstruct the move moments after it had happened: she had feinted, drawing his guard, then switched hands and did a 360 degree spin, bringing the blade around to slice through his neck from the unprotected flank. It had been an awesomely efficient move that she could not imagine duplicating, and had been performed with a speed that she had never seen anyone but Buffy and herself display.
The woman fell to her knees next to her foe, and wept as an odd mist began to form around the corpse. Electrical energy began to flicker around the scene, and Faith's reflex was to dive behind a tombstone for cover-since the incident with Gwendolyn Post she had had several nightmares about being reduced to a smoking corpse by lightning. Peeking around from cover, she saw the lightning strike the woman over and over again: it did not seem to harm her physically, but after a moment she let out a scream that made Faith wince-it sounded like her soul was on fire. The electricity faded away, and the woman, still on her knees, dropped her face into the grass. Faith could hear her sobbing.
Faith got up and began to walk towards the prostrate warrior. Empathy was definitely not one of her traits, but even she could tell that this woman was suffering some awful torment. She stopped five feet from the sobbing figure and called out, "Hey! Are you okay. . .?"
The woman looked up, and Faith saw madness in her eyes in the split-second before a foot struck her in the chest and knocked her into a tree twenty feet away. She recovered quickly, only to see the crazed woman charging at her to attack with bare hands. *All right, let's see what she's got. *
The experience was not pleasant. Faith tried to go on the offensive, only to find that her blows were being deflected as effortlessly as she had been parrying the deceased swordsman's attacks. Also, she was taking some rather hard punches, reminding her of her recent battle with the Apocalypse demon. She switched to defensive fighting, which reduced the number of bruises for a while, but after a few more minutes, she caught a punch on the point of the jaw, and the world greyed out for a moment. When her vision cleared, she found she was sitting on the grass, looking up at a sword pointed at her throat. She looked at the eyes of her opponent and saw that madness still reigned. Realizing her situation was hopeless, she met her invincible foe's eyes and defiantly waited for death.
Abruptly, the woman's face changed expression-she seemed to be realizing something. She looked intently at Faith for a moment, then muttered a word that Faith didn't understand. After a moment more, she put her sword away and fled, leaving a corpse and a deeply confused Slayer in her wake.
Faith stared after her, then waited another moment or two before starting over to the library in the hope that Giles might have some answers. Still, the moment seemed to require verbal comment, and Faith gave vent to it before leaving the area: "What in the hell was that!"
As always, comments are welcome and desired.