Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Some might well imagine that it would be difficult to become attached to your customers if you were a barman who served hell spawn. But Willy would be the first to tell you that isn't the case. Demons, like people, could be either good or bad. The vampire sitting down at the bar was definitely of the former and even better the guy looked as if he could drink forever.

Not to mention slip him a little info to pass onto Angel. 'Barney' already looked as if he was drunk enough to be able to pass on CIA secrets if the guy had them. Tonight, Willy decided that he'd hit the mother load that would land him his three hundred.

Three hundred bucks – sweet.

"Hiya Barney! Beer?"

"Beer," the wild-eyed vampire slurred. "No! Make that two, Willy."

"Sure thing buddy," Willy said with a broad smile. "And don't worry about it. They're on the house."

The vampire clasped the first glass feverishly. "You're…a pal Willy!"

"Y'know I'm a little surprised to see you around Barn, I mean with all this 'Master' business."

"Master…" 'Barney' groaned as he finished off the last of his first beer. "Fill 'er up pal!"

Willy shook his head. Things were going to take a while.

***

Angel closed his eyes and leaned his back on the front door of his apartment. It was too late to wrestle with his conscience any further. Tonight he would condemn a girl to something more insidious and terrible than her death. When his sire finally arrived to meet him, the game would begin.

The first of its losers would be chosen.

"Nice move Angel."

Angel's eyes opened without blinking. They saw nothing bar stairs. Whistler?

"I'm not really here kid," the demon's voice went on. "Hell, I'm not even Whistler, I'm just your brain trying talk some sense into that thick old skull of yours."

"Yeah," Angel hrumphed. "Hard work."

His mentor's voice was silent. He'd done too much thinking. What if Buffy comes here? What if Willy or Giles come through for me? What if Darla finds me out? There were far too many things that he'd contemplated and in the end did they all amount to anything?

To that question Angel already had his answer: 'no.'

For months on end, he had tried to stand alone because a badly dressed, junk food eating and downright maddening demon, had once told him that he could either be somebody or something far more worthless to the world. Because he had begun to think that one being alone could still make a difference to it…

"Night,"

Angel looked hard at Darla with her black jumper and kilt. Four hundred years old and she wanted to look like a catholic schoolgirl. She always had liked role-playing. "Kinky, horny school kid. Those spotty highschoolers must lose it."

"Hmm… between you and me," Darla said provocatively. "I think they just like to find out what's under the kilt."

"Takes me back," Angel returned wistfully. "So? Where is she?"

"A couple of miles away," Darla said. "Why? Excited?"

"We'll just have to see," Angel answered with a frank grin.

During their walk through town, Angel said nothing to Darla only passing the occasional smile or wild glance. This time he had to act out his part with greater subtlety. Briefly, his thoughts drifted back to the old days, when it was just he and Darla watching the world burning in their wake. Things had been so much simpler then; actions did not lead to reactions. Nothing was of consequence. He indulged himself daily, indulged himself with most macabre delights of the twilight world that had seemed exciting and fulfilling.

And then there was Darla herself: his guide, his teacher, his parent, his friend, and most preciously, his lover. She had been his everything. The world could have stopped turning and as long as Darla was still there for him, he would have considered it a mere pity. No, perhaps if he were to be truthful, Angel didn't even have a world when he had lived that time – Darla had been his world then. After all, it had been for her that he had given up his very humanity.

Back then, even the malevolent Angelus would have given his life for her.

Paris, 1754

Yvette Dechamps looked unfeelingly at the reflection in her dresser mirror. She was barely eighteen years old and for all the unwanted attention her 'beauty' received from members of the opposite sex, she couldn't help but see the eyes of the most cold-hearted old widow tearing into her heart in front of her. Worse, something inside her knew that to be the truth. How could she of all people be a girl? God himself had decreed otherwise. In the end she was no one at all, she was not a face, nor a heart, nor a soul. She was a sword to be wielded by Englishmen who knew nothing of her and to whom that meant little more than loam.

She was the Chosen One of her generation, how dare she wish to forsake that most hallowed of callings, for a life befitting of a mortal? How could she hope to dare? She sighed. Her time as a 'lady of the night' had never been the happiest, but much as it had threatened her life, she would gladly exchange it for that of the Slayer. Not that she could ever be free anymore; her first night that taught her that lesson well enough.

She had been entertaining a remarkably handsome young man who had even paid for the most exquisite meal before they conducted their business together. Quite why such an individual would require the services of a prostitute had confounded her intelligence at the time. But so accustomed as she was to dealing with middle aged pigs of men, she felt that she should take time to try and salvage some pleasure for her own senses with the man.

And she did. Jacques was the gentlest thing she had ever encountered in the world – for him there had been no need for the usual deception. Yet how wrong she had been.

How very wrong.

Once the act of lovemaking had reached its conclusion, Jacques had started to scratch at her neck, kissing it tenderly. In objection at the disturbance to her rest, she turned to face him. And she screamed. In an instant Jacques place had been taken by the most hideous yellow-eyed abomination. However, she had not been without resources. Quickly, she took hold of the blade she left hidden under her clothing and stabbed him in the back - the monster did not stop.

She was at its mercy and then… she fought back.

Her fear had become anger and that anger had become strength as she pushed the creature away from her. She punched at it and the creature was wounded? She was now stronger than it was. But still it would not fall.

Until another came to her aid.

He barged his way through the bedroom door. Golden crucifix aloft, he ran at the creature that attacked her.

"Back! Back, demon!" he had roared boldly, his long grey hair soaked with perspiration. It was then that she had first noticed the sharp wooden carving in the man's other hand – a stake.

"You think you can stop me?" the creature had laughed mockingly, turning his head away slightly – then it attacked again, charging straight towards her rescuer and knocking him hard into a wall.

Thinking back, Yvette could explain her next move as a product of Slayer instinct. In that moment as she retrieved the wooden stake and plunged it deep into Jacques heart, her own had come to understand what she was before her mysterious would-be saviour first uttered the word.

"Yvette?" a soft voice called in English, freeing her from her reverie.

"I'm home," she returned in foreign tongue. "Did you get it?"

Creaking followed as the Watcher made his way up the stairs to her room. Upon his entrance, the Slayer reflected on how much the old man had changed since their first meeting. While his hair was still long and grey, his beard stubble and his eyes continued to shimmer with quiet brilliance, Mackenzie was no longer the stern authoritarian who frequently served to infuriate her. He now appeared to tolerate her flaws of character, even if he was not fully accepting of them, and she in turn would try to heed his complaints and follow his requests without question (within her reason.). Whatever changes had occurred the Slayer knew one thing for certain: if the old man was intended to remain her mentor then she would do all that was in her power to ensure that things stayed that way, no matter how stuffily the Englishman behaved on occasion! He was her Watcher.

Mackenzie tucked his right hand into his jacket and produced a thin leather bound book. "If nothing else the Council are efficient," he commented. "You appear to have ran into some very interesting and dangerous prey last night." He flicked through the pages of his book for a few seconds and handed it over to his charge.

"The last entry was made only a few months ago," Yvette noted.

"I suggest you read this diary carefully," Mackenzie said grimly. "If the two vampires that you encountered three nights ago are indeed those mentioned within then they are amongst the most vicious that you are ever likely to face."

Yvette brushed her hair away from her eyes and nodded as she read. Vampire activity had been almost non-existent tonight so she couldn't honestly consider herself tired. She took a swift glance at her mentor as he proceeded sluggishly out of her room. Usually, he had the greatest of confidence in her abilities as a Slayer and succinctly considered vampires as being par for the course, paying little attention to them in terms of study. Yet, these foreigners worried him. Once her eye caught the name 'Darla' the more she understood why.

Throughout the past one hundred and fifty years or so many Watchers had made reference to a female vampire of that name, oft describing her as "seductive" and "without conscience." If her reputation was truly deserved she would no doubt take a great many lives whilst she cared to remain in the city – men would all too quickly lose their senses for a beautiful woman, as she well knew.

However, it was the vampire's new companion that was beginning to cause her the greatest distress. "Details have begun to emerge about the deaths of this boy Angelus' mortal family," she read. "…Part of me finds it difficult to comprehend but as I read the alleged accounts I feel sick to the very pit of my stomach. Never have I heard of vampire slaughtering 'its' mortal family and never have I read of such a bloodthirsty slaughter… he tore out their very…hearts…this no animal…no animal will murder…not for sport…this is an act of evil…"

***

Angelus guzzled down his ale. He was angry, very, very angry. His face contorted into its demonic form he had spent the entire night at the same tavern in which he now sat, drowning his every sorrow in the ever-welcoming bosom of alcohol. He had many sorrows to drown. The girl had hurt her, hurt his beloved Darla and that he could not stand; to see the anguish in her eyes as she tried to will her scarred tissue into healing itself more rapidly, to hear her constant and heart breaking growls. He had to get away. Cloaking his face in shadow, Angelus continued to relish his means of escape.

He closed his eyes and snarled a command for her to leave him be. She did not leave - though he had closed his eyes to mask their unnatural glimmer he could still catch her scent, she was little better than a peasant with her greasy skin and ragged black hair. "Leave me be ye stupid woman!" he growled enraged.

The girl gave a muted reply he thought sounded bemused. "You won't leave me alone will ye?" Angelus said to himself. The girl exclaimed something as he took her by the hand and drew her closer to him. She giggled as he tenderly caressed her palm. However, she did not scream as his lips touched the sullied skin of her neck, kissing her as he wrapped his arm around her throat and his hand over her mouth. As Angelus' fangs ravaged her flesh, releasing her blood until even the lantern on his table became one with the darkness that blinded her, she could not scream ever again. Satisfied, the vampire licked his bloodied lips - the best he could manage intoxicated - and sat the girl up so that she looked as if she were only resting at his table before he made his way.

Laughing childishly, Angelus smirked as he caught the sound of a male scream from inside the tavern. "Bloody woman," he muttered elatedly. Then, all-too-quickly he remembered why he had visited the tavern in the first place and started to weep as he collapsed to his knees.

Looking up at the stars, he felt a fire burn his very heart. Darla was his sire, his only friend, his very reason for living and the mortal child had tried to snatch her away from him in the name of the worthless. Humans were nothing compared to him, nothing! Unleashing an earth-shattering roar, Angelus made his vow. He would kill the girl. "Do you hear me Slayer? I'll eat your heart! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Willow lay on her bed allowing the sounds of a hundred loveless, heartbroken, souls to stream from the speakers of her stereo and into her mind. Her spirits were low and when you were down, you did what any other self-respecting young American did – you did your best to feel worse. As of a week ago, Willow had discovered that she had quite a talent for it.

Although Xander had called for her earlier in the evening, she wanted to stay in nevertheless. Her friends had often joked about how there were too many thoughts going around in her head and maybe they were right most of the time, but the thoughts currently doing the rounds inside her were too much for her deal with.

And she had to deal before she could get on with what her mother would call 'a typical' teenage life, before she could go out and have a little fun again.

Shedding the slightest tear, her fingers danced nimbly across her computer keyboard and finished entering the chat room address. If Willow could not go out to the mountain then perhaps the mountain could pay Willow a visit…

"There she is," Darla had said.

The moment Angel had first set his eyes on the window he felt his heart sink. He might not know the girl but he remembered her all too readily.

She had been so terrified the night he encountered her in the dark alley behind The Bronze. Surrounded by three vampires, she and her male friend should have dead, were it not for his intervention. He'd staked two of them and wounded the third severely enough to ward it off and for her rescue there had been the most heartfelt look in her eyes before she turned away and ran as he dealt with her undead assailants. Hers had been one of the first lives that he had saved in his time as a vampire and suddenly it had been for nothing…

"Do you like her?"

No, I don't. She's just a kid, a child. And if there was any other way to do this - But there isn't one, no Slayer, no second chance. If she doesn't die then too many others are going to… damn you Buffy! Damn you to Hell! "She's perfect," Angel replied, his fangs gleaming as he grinned. "Absolutely perfect…"

"So, when…"

"Oh, Darla," Angel frowned falsely. "You can't just rush into a relationship! You've gotta woo them; chocolates, flowers, a little stalking, a dead family member here, friend there…you've gotta find out how they feel about you, turn on the charm, show them how much in love you really are."

"In love," Darla laughed.

Angel patted his heart. "I'm just a sucker for a sweet kid… Gee y'know I feel kinda hungry. You?"

"A little."

"So, where would like to go?" Angel asked. "I mean I've haven't eaten in this town since I got here but there's plenty of self-service places."

"Nothing but pigs blood…I'll let you chose."

Angel stroked his chin. "Veal! I hear the kiddies playground is serving about now, shall we?"

"After you," Darla said graciously.

Once more together, he walked with her through the night, free to feed upon the blood of innocents.

But this time, Angel would never forget…for his soul would never forgive…

***

The world surrounding him was trapped in an all consuming haze as he felt the foot press against his rib cage and though he strived to cough, the ash that filled his mouth resisted, strangling him - the second his skull hit the cheap veneer of the wood, the second that he tasted the thick crimson, he knew.

He knew that he would die. Or perhaps he should have known earlier, the moment he first caught sight of them - four demons of furrowed brow and yellow eye, one packing a wooden stake. He should have known then that he would never stand a chance…

What could he have been thinking? Maybe 'Barney' would stand a chance? Maybe a drunk vampire could still take out others that were perfectly sober?

Willy no longer cared much…as his ears sounded out their last words…

"So die all the heretics…"