Dust Thou Art
by Jeanne Rose
Part 3
It was past midnight by the time Angel arrived home. He bathed by candlelight and felt as if he had slipped back into an earlier century. Cordelia must have found enough money for the gas bill though, because the water heater was still working.
Lulled by the warm water, he thought about the giant sea creature winding its way through the deep. It was obviously not a normal inhabitant of the harbor. Were there demons that lived in the ocean? He'd have to check the books.
He carried the candle into the bedroom, towel dried his hair, and slipped into a pair of silk pajama bottoms. He stared at the bed – it looked so very inviting. He usually didn't sleep at this time of night, but the nightmares had kept him awake for most of the day. Wesley had taken the amulet with him to try to locate the reference he remembered. Perhaps in its absence he could finally get some rest.
He blew out the candle and lay back on the pillows. Sleep didn't come as quickly as he expected. He lay in the dark for a long time, listening to the deep silence of the room. Then, very faintly at first, he began to hear water dripping somewhere in the distance. It became a trickle, then a steady stream. Finally he recognized it. It was the fountain in the garden of the mansion.
Someone was out there. He got up to investigate.
The garden was bright with the light of an almost full moon. He saw movement in the shadows behind the rambling vines that covered the walls. He tiptoed soundlessly closer, but to his surprise, Xander stepped out to meet him. He was wearing a green amulet and held a stake resolutely in his hand.
"Xander. What are you doing here?" Angel asked, his eye on the stake.
Xander stepped closer. "I've waited a long time for this." He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. "You're not going to argue with me, are you? You killed Miss Calendar. You're a murderer. You deserve to die."
Angel ducked his head. He could not disagree. "What about Buffy?" he asked finally.
"She's over you. She'll be sad at first, but in the end she'll know it's for the best."
The words pierced him more painfully than a stake. Buffy had loved him once, but he wasn't sure if she still did.
Xander shifted the stake from one hand to the other, hesitating. "You know, I've killed my share of vampires, but it's kind of different when you actually know one."
Angel felt a glimmer of hope. Could Xander be talked out of this?
"I saved your life – more than once. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"Thanks for that, but no. It won't bring back Miss Calendar. And it can't undo what you did to Giles when you killed her."
Angel looked away. The horror of that cruelty still haunted him. And apparently it nerved Xander for his task. He raised his fist with the stake clutched tightly. "I know you didn't have a soul, and some people would use that to excuse you. But I can't. With or without a soul, you did it. And now you die for it."
Xander thrust the stake into Angel's heart. He dissolved to dust.
* * *
Angel awoke with a start and rolled out of bed as if it were full of hot coals. He stood unsteadily in the pitch black room, momentarily uncertain where he was. Finally he remembered and sat down again.
He had waited for a long time for someone to pass judgment on what he had done in Sunnydale when he lost his soul, but no one ever had. But even now if any of them demanded his life, he had no defense to offer.
He fumbled in the dark for matches and lit the candle. Obviously sending the amulet with Wesley had not lessened its influence. He didn't feel much like sleeping any more. Perhaps now would be a good time to look for information about sea demons. He walked carefully with the candle to the study.
Two hours later he found himself nodding. The search was proving more complicated than he had expected. Every civilization that lived along the sea shore apparently had its own tales of monsters rising from the deep, and it was hard to separate fact from myth. Sea-dwelling demons were much more difficult to document than the ones that lived on land.
His eyes burned, and it was becoming hard to concentrate. He leaned his head back on the sofa just to rest for a minute.
When he tried to move he found himself bound. He struggled against the ropes, but they were strong and tight, biting into his wrists and ankles. The ground was bitterly cold beneath him, and a shrill wind pierced his coat.
"What do you think of the accommodations, mate?"
He wrenched himself around to face the speaker. Light from the lantern stabbed his eyes. "Spike. Cut me loose! What is this about?"
"It's about me and Dru, and you keeping out of the way. Can't even trust you to do a simple thing like that, can I?"
"And whose fault is it if she prefers a more seasoned mate?" Angel sneered.
"I can't stake you, see, or she'll get it in her pretty little head somehow and leave me," Spike mused aloud, ignoring him. He fingered the glowing amulet hanging around his neck. "She likes pain, though. Come to think of it, I like pain too, as long as it's not mine." He pulled a pair of needle nose pliers from a pocket of his overcoat and grinned at them. "I'm a pretty inventive chap. I'm sure I can think of something."
Angel changed to vampire form and tried to break the rope. Spike dragged him away from the wall and pinned his head between his knees. He forced Angel's jaw open and grasped one of his fangs with the pliers, then pulled sharply. Pain shot through Angel's head. He choked in horror and struggled frantically to break free.
"There's one," Spike said cheerfully, squeezing harder with his knees. He reached into Angel's mouth again, and soon there were two bloody holes where his vampire teeth had been.
Spike rocked back on his heels and laid the long, pointed teeth carefully in his hand. Angel lay limp with shock, swallowing his own blood. "These will make a nice birthday gift, don't you think?" Spike rambled mockingly. "She can wear them on a little chain and beg me to tell her again how I ripped them out of your skull."
Angel didn't answer. Spike sliced his bonds and rolled him over with a foot. "Be a bit tough for you without em, won't it? But I'm sure you'll manage somehow, a seasoned man like yourself." He sauntered through the door, whistling.
Angel wandered for days in the cold, dark streets, gnawed by hunger. He smelled blood everywhere but could scarcely get a taste. Before long he was too weak to try. Finally he found a broken fence post and impaled himself through the heart.
* * *
Books clattered to the floor as Angel woke with a start. Gingerly he ran his tongue over the unbroken ring of his teeth. Trust Spike to show up with a pair of pliers again.
But dream's semblance of reality went deeper than that. In the beginning, what the gypsies had done to him was not so different. With his soul restored, he could not feed. Ultimately, of course, having a soul meant much more than that, but this twisted version of his past brought back the lifetime of empty years he had spent starving and alone. He had almost forgotten what it was like to live without hope.
The candle was burning dangerously low. He found another in the kitchen and lit it from the first, then went to the bedroom and exchanged his pajama bottoms for pants and a shirt. He was obviously not going to get any sleep until he could figure out how to counteract the amulet's influence.
He went to the study and stared tiredly at the shelves along the wall. There had to be something here that would tell him where the amulet came from, who had made it, and how to put a stop to the disturbing dreams it was causing. He skimmed the titles and gathered an armful of promising volumes.
Sitting upright at the kitchen table did help him to stay awake, but as the candle burned steadily in the stillness he felt as if time had slowed to a crawl. He made himself get up and pace the room whenever he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. There was nothing at all about the amulet in the first book, or the second. In the third he found a spell for plaguing an enemy with nightmares, but it didn't involve an amulet. Near the end there was a tantalizing reference to a thousand deaths, but it was too vague to be useful, and though he forced his mind to register every word on every page surrounding the reference, there was nothing more.
Finally he closed the book slowly and went upstairs to the office. Dawn had begun to chase darkness from the sky. Perhaps it wouldn't be long before Wesley or Cordelia would arrive. Angel carried a double armload of books up the elevator and sat down at his desk to wait for them.
Dawn passed ever so slowly into morning, but no one came. He searched seven more books from cover to cover but could not find anything about the amulet. He found himself staring at the corner of his desk where he had first seen it lying in the box. Its intricate patterns burned bright in his memory.
Thrusting the image from his mind, he turned back to the sea monster. Here there was plenty to read about, but not much detail to go on. He knew what the creature's blood tasted like, but that was not much help. He tried to remember the shape of its head as he had seen it from the pier and the claws that had curled around Wesley's body, to match them with the fanciful etchings on the pages. One huge beast in particular seemed to stare at him from the book with the same kind of look he had felt at the harbor. Old and cunning and very patient, but deadly when aroused. What was it doing here? What did it want? And how could they stop it?
He stood up and stretched, then reached over and opened the window shades as far as he dared. The sun was shining brightly, heralding another warmer-than-average spring day. Once upon a time he had enjoyed sunlight, the way it glowed through the leaves of the trees and enlivened everything it touched. Now fate had made it his enemy, its touch bringing death rather than life. He closed the shades and sighed, turning back to the books. He supposed that a sea monster living in the depths of the ocean would abhor bright sunlight as well.
Before long he began to nod again, and suddenly he found himself stumbling through the morning light, sunlight searing him through the tiny holes in the fabric of a castoff cloak. But he had found her, and he could not wait. After so long, surely she had missed him. He clung to the shadows cast by the elegant porch and pounded on the door. Finally it opened a crack.
"Who's there?"
"Darla! It's me, Angelus. Let me in!"
"Get away from me! Filthy beast! You're not Angelus anymore." The door slammed shut.
He pounded again and pressed himself against the wall. He could feel his flesh beginning to smolder. "Wait! Please. I'll die in the sun. I'm still like you!"
There was no answer. In desperation he stepped back and threw his shoulder against the door. It splintered and burst open. He staggered inside.
She was standing in the hallway, her face twisted with sorrow. But she moved away as he approached.
"I'm so hungry," he said softly, trying not to frighten her. "I don't want to see their faces any more. You have to help me."
She shook her head. "No one can help you. Angelus is lost, and I mourn him. You are nothing but a monster, an abomination. A vampire with a human soul."
"You made me. You taught me. Can't you undo the spell? Make me like I was before?"
For a moment his pleading gaze was caught by a green amulet suspended between her breasts. She stepped toward him, her hand raised tenderly, and pushed the matted hair from his face. But her words dashed his hopes. "No. There's only one thing left I can do for you."
She tore his cloak away and thrust him out into the sunlight.