A Union of Souls, Chapter Twenty-Three
"I don't understand it." Adam watched as Rupert Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He flipped open the old, worn book he had been reading and sighed dubiously. "I can't find any explanation for this in any of these books. The girl should be dead. The spell had begun, the spirit cord had been severed . . . there is no reason that she should be alive."
Adam twitched in response to the older man's words, his jaw tightening. He clenched his fist tightly, fingernails digging into the palm of his hand as he distracted himself from saying the bitter words that lurked on the tip of his tongue. He knew that Mr. Giles was not trying to be callous or insensitive; he knew that the man was still puzzling over the last bizarre moments before they rescued Ami, when Angel had apparently disrupted Giselle's spell. Mr. Giles didn't want Ami dead. He simply wanted to know why Angel's actions, destroying the Orb of Thessulah during the casting, had not killed his fellow Tomorrow Person.
Megabyte, however, lacked Adam's restraint and he glared at the man sitting on the sofa on the opposite side of the office. "Some of us are kind of happy about that, you know. That's she's alive."
Mr. Giles looked up from his reflection at the sound of Megabyte's harshly spoken words. "Oh, I'm sorry, Megabyte," he stumbled over the name for not the first time and frowned. Also for not the first time, it was clear that he wanted to call the redhead American something — anything else — but Megabyte. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded. It's simply that, this puzzle . . . I can't seem to understand it, and I daresay our only hope of helping Ami now is to figure out what happened."
"And be glad that we know what didn't happen." Doyle leaned in the doorway to the other office, Angel's office. The half-demon spent what time he didn't spend researching sitting behind the desk of his friend and boss, staring off worriedly into space. It was easy for Adam to see that Doyle and Cordelia were as worried about Angel as he and Megabyte were about Ami. "Giselle never got her soul." He raised his hand and subconsciously touched the bandage on his forehead. "We stopped that at least."
"Well, you should have done better." Ice flashed in Megabyte's eyes as he stalked across the office and out of the entry door.
Megabyte hadn't added the afterthought, the one fear that hung unspoken in the air between them all. They were happy that Ami was alive, that Angel and his friends had managed to rescue her. However, whether she was truly alive, or stuck in a coma — possibly trapped between planes — and destined to be a vegetable for the rest of her life remained to be seen.
She had been unconscious, her body freezing cold to the touch, when Mr. Giles, Doyle and Whistler had returned, carrying both Ami and the out of commission vampire. Ami was unresponsive, even to telepathic stimuli, although neither Adam nor Megabyte could detect anything that was wrong with her. Halfway around the world, on an uncharted desert island, a millennium old spaceship appeared to be unconcerned. The general feeling from the Ship was that Ami was merely sleeping — deeply sleeping — but sleeping nevertheless. However, it was difficult for he and Megabyte to take the Ship at its word, when her deep sleep so closely resembled a coma.
Gradually, over the next few hours, while everyone traded off hovering over the sleeping Tomorrow Person, and the vampire whom also never awoke, her body had warmed, rising to a normal temperature. Megabyte had sworn that he saw her stir, but an hour of watching her only gave Adam tired, watery eyes.
They were trying not to disturb or upset the others, not until they had some answers. Unfortunately, it didn't look like they would have them anytime soon.
Mr. Giles and Doyle passed the time doing research. They plodded through book after book, reading about spells and magickal vortexes, and Mr. Giles placed a few calls back to Sunnydale and London, but still did not receive any answers. Whistler hovered quietly in the background, refusing to look through any books because as he said, "It's all up to The Powers That Be now."
When questioned about his disappearance and unexpected return. The demon shrugged. "I did my part. I only came back to deliver a message to a certain tall and broody vampire. Then my work here is done."
"Well, that's a little hard when he's like been hit with a whammy and isn't waking up, isn't it?" Cordelia demanded.
"Oh, he'll wake up, sweetheart. You'll see."
He would say no more, and eventually, everyone — including Mr. Giles — gave up asking the demon any questions.
Adam wished that Angel would awaken. Apparently the vampire had been unconscious since interrupting the spell-casting and from the things that Mr. Giles, and Whistler, implied, it was no doubt connected to Ami's current state as well. If Angel woke up, there was a good chance that Ami would — or at least that he might know more than they did. It was a small hope, but it was better than no hope at all.
Adam stared after Megabyte a long moment, studying the closed office door and processing Megabyte's hurt and fear before finally turning back to Doyle. He offered the Irishman a smile of apology, "He's upset."
"Aye, he's worried about Ami. Both of you are. And I understand it." He folded his arms across his chest, his gaze going downward. Not focusing on the floor beneath his feet, but rather on the vampire who slept in the apartment below. "It's funny how carin' about somebody will do that to you."
There didn't seem to be answer for that, so Adam simply sank to the sofa and did what they all had been doing.
He waited. And hoped. And prayed.
Angel awoke to a cacophony of sound and images, feelings, emotions and knowledge that disoriented and bewildered him. On the very edges of his awareness, he knew where he was, he recognized the smell of the leather sofa of his apartment, the familiar shadows of the place he called home. But those thoughts were nearly impossible to hold onto among the chaos that swirled in his head. His mind felt like it had been ripped into a thousand splinters, then shattered and ripped again. The demon fought and lashed out, crying for blood, screaming in hunger and despair, rattling the bars of a gilded silver cage that Angel could picture briefly in his mind's eyes. The picture was brief because it imploded and shattered into a thousand other images, some familiar, some unfamiliar and each and every one beyond his mental grasp. Every feeling he had ever had, every thought he ever voiced, every desire that he ever possessed buffeted and raged against him before being torn away yet again. His relived his entire existence repeatedly, over and over again, superimposed on the kaleidoscope of memory and image that on one level did not belong to him, and on another level did.
A part of him recognized that he should be able to make sense of the pictures, places and faces swirling in the mist and maze that had become his existence, but he could not. Those blurred and swirled around him, buffeting him in feeling and emotion that seemed both alien and a part of him at the same time.
. . . a man's face, kind and laughing . . . the soft cries of a little girl as the face fades from view. . . a woman baking cookies . . . a spelling bee . . . a piano recital . . . a funeral . . . a sandy beach . . . a blonde girl waving . . .
It was the same as it had been forever it seemed like, but he knew it had only been since he lifted the Orb of Thessaluh over his head. He had only been living this maddening and splintered life, which replayed itself as viciously in dreams as it did when he was awake, since he shattered the Orb at his feet and felt the disrupted magickal energies cut him through, searing him to his very soul.
The more alert he became, the faster the images came. Flickering through his shattered brain more quickly than he could even process. The thoughts were not all his, and yet they were apart of him, emblazoned into his memory, his heart and his soul as surely as if he had lived every moment of it himself.
A young woman, blonde very pretty killing monsters . . .a sterile hospital corridor . . . a man wearing glasses reading an old leather bound book . . .an alien environment pulsing blue light . . .Halloween costumes . . . Ancient Egypt . . .
And behind it all, just beyond the images . . . the pain. He had experienced pain before, pain times one hundred. He had experienced pain worse than death during his stay in hell, but it paled in contrast to this. It was but a pinpricking of the finger compared to the agony that knifed at him now. An agony so severe that he would have thrown himself out in sunlight to end it, had he been able. As it was, he could barely force himself to a sitting position, force himself to his feet.
The pain was like fine silver threads cutting into him — not into his physical self, but into his psychic self, into his soul — and into the demon. Which explained the demon's bloodlust and violence, it explained why Angel could feel his demonic visage falling into place, and was powerless to shift back to his human guise. He cried out against the pain, struggling to control the demon, to shove it back in that cage that still flickered and flashed in his mind's eye, but the pain distracted him.
Solace. He had to find solace. His body moved instinctively, half-walking, half-lurching towards the partially open door of his bedroom. He stumbled, once, twice, but still forced himself to keep walking. The closer he drew to that door, the more the pain lessened. It was only a minute lessening, but even that was enough solace from the blinding agony that tore at him as a wild beast tears at its prey.
Solace met him halfway, seeking him as he sought her and they stumbled to the floor together. Meeting her dark shadowed and desperate eyes gave him a few moments of coherent thought; the touch of her hands cut the pain in half.
And it was still not enough. The world continued to splinter and rebuild itself around him, over and over again, an endless black hole that he could not climb out of. The silver threads continued to lash at him, and her half-ragged sobs joined his own.
The demon howled and raged, hearing the beating of her heart, smelling the sweetness of the blood that flowed just beneath her skin. Wave after wave of fire and agony struck at them both while he fought against his baser nature.
Strike, strike.
The demon won, breaking free of the weak hold he kept on it. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, fangs easily breaking into the tender skin. Her life's essence spilled forth, the sweet elixir pouring into his mouth and down his throat. Her hands and nails clawed at his back, his hair — not pushing him away but drawing him in because as he fed, the pain lessened, waning and fading, waning and fading. As her blood infused his body, the splintering of mind and soul stopped and the maelstrom of chaos retreated.
The demon gave a final, piercing howl, thrown back into the silver cage that Angel could now clearly see in his mind. Thrown back as with the last vestiges of strength, a wave of horror and repulsion coming over, he tore himself away from her body, trembling with fear at what he had just done.
Coherent thought and reason soared to life.
"Oh God, no, Ami."
Her eyes met his, her gaze clear and unwavering.
The door to the silver cage slammed shut.
The cacophony of noise and imagery, emotion and memory abruptly ended.
Silence and stillness reigned.
And they were whole.