Dust Thou Art
by Jeanne Rose
Part 4
When Wesley entered the office of Angel Investigations, having slept rather late into the morning, he found his employer asleep at his desk, slumped over a pile of open books. The cheery greeting he had been about to utter died on his lips, and he stood for a moment wondering what he should do.
If Angel were having another nightmare, the kindest thing would be to wake him. And yet he wasn't entirely certain that he dared to do so – or that it would be wise, even if he did. Best not to interrupt the amulet's magic – who knew how Angel might react?
As quietly as possible he tiptoed over to glance at the books Angel had been reading. To his disappointment, he couldn't see anything that seemed relevant on any of the pages that were in view.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Angel awoke with a start right under his nose. He stepped back and eyed the vampire sharply. Angel's face was marked with creases from his sleeve and for a moment he looked utterly terrified. Then he began to take in his surroundings, and fear drained slowly from his face.
"Wesley. You're . . . here."
"Yes." Wesley looked again at the pile of books and thought of the time. Angel hadn't been sitting here waiting for him. Had he?
Abruptly Angel got up and paced the room, apparently having difficulty putting the nightmare behind him. Wesley watched him anxiously. Finally he sat down again.
"God, I hate sunlight."
"Understandable." Wesley pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. "Long night, then."
"You have no idea." Finally his eye fell on the book tucked carefully under Wesley's arm. "Have you got something?"
Eagerly Wesley pulled out his prize. "I was only able to locate one short reference. But I'm certain this is where I've seen the amulet before."
Angel looked at the cover. "Ancient Amulets and Talismans. Why don't I have this one?"
"Because this is the only known copy. If the council ever notices it's missing, I may be in hot water. But I was the one who found it, and I paid a pretty sum for it too, so I kept it." He opened to the bookmark he'd placed and held it out for Angel to read.
Angel's eyes lit on the crude sketch of the amulet. "That's it." He grabbed the book and started reading. Wesley moved to glance over his shoulder. "Unknown origin. Earliest record in a Welsh monastery in 1240." Angel skimmed the brief passage silently. "Lost sometime before 1600. Effective against all known demon species indigenous to the region." He looked up. "Welsh. So where has it been for four hundred years? And how did Wolfram and Hart get hold of it?"
Wesley shook his head and wiped his nose again. He felt a sneeze coming on. "We may never know," he replied. "There's not much detail about how it operates. And unfortunately not a word about how to counteract its effects."
Angel sighed. "I guess that's not usually a priority. Where is it?" Wesley took the amulet from his pocket and carefully peeled away the layers of cloth in which he had wrapped it, laying it on the desk. Angel stared at it for a long moment, then reached out and picked it up. Wesley started, but no harm appeared to come to him from touching it.
Laying it on the facing page of the book, Angel bent to compare it carefully to the drawing. "Same design, same inscription. This is definitely the same amulet. Well, at least now we have something to go on."
Wesley looked at the books scattered across the table. "Any luck on your end?"
Angel shook his head. "Nothing matching its description, no mention of the phrase. And for some reason occult writers never seem to bother with something so mundane as an index."
They both looked up as the door opened to admit Cordelia. "God, it's hot in here. No need to bother with coffee," she said.
"And it looks to be another hot day as well. I wouldn't open the refrigerator," Wesley advised, an instant too late.
"Ewww, whose egg salad sandwich died in here?" she asked, closing the door hastily.
"I detest egg salad and Angel doesn't eat, so I leave you to solve that mystery on your own," he replied.
"So," she said, cheerily dismissing the refrigerator and all of its contents, "isn't anyone going to ask me how the audition went?"
"How'd it go?" Angel said, much more sincerely than Wesley could have managed.
"Really, really well. This may finally be my big break. I went down this morning to see if they'd made a decision, but no word until tomorrow. But the director said I made the first cut!"
"That's great," Angel said encouragingly.
She looked at him more closely. "You know, you really don't look so good."
"You try dying a thousand deaths."
Cordelia flipped her hair back in an oh-so-Cordelia fashion. "No thanks. I'll leave that to you self-flagellating types."
The sneeze that Wesley had been trying to hold in finally got the better of him. "Achooo!"
"Bless you." Cordelia grabbed a box of tissues from her desk. He plucked one and blew his nose. "How did you catch cold in the middle of this heat wave?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact, while you were at your ground breaking audition, Angel and I not only scouted up the return address on that box, but also discovered some sort of giant sea creature lurking in the bay."
"You mean that's what's been eating all those people?" she said. Wesley and Angel stared at her. She shrugged. "I watch the news."
"Yes, well, it nearly dragged us both out to sea. Fortunately, vampires don't seem to appeal to its taste buds. Nor it to theirs, I suspect." Angel didn't react, but Wesley decided to take this as confirmation of how Angel had convinced the creature to let him go.
"But you wound up with a head cold," Cordelia observed. "You should take more vitamins. Plus, Echinacea and zinc are good for colds." She glanced at Angel again. "Too bad there aren't any herbal remedies for evil nightmare amulets. Did you figure out who sent it?"
"Oh, yes," Wesley replied. "Wolfram and Hart."
Cordelia grimaced. "Figures." She eyed the books piled on Angel's desk. "Any luck figuring out how to stop it?"
Angel sighed. "No, not yet."
"What about the sea monster? Have you found out what kind of creature it was?"
"We were too busy trying not to get eaten to get a good look at it, but I think I caught a glimpse of its head. One of them, anyway." Angel picked up book he'd apparently fallen asleep on. "This is the most likely candidate so far."
Wesley and Cordelia bent over the book together. "Abyssal drakon," Wesley read. "A deep sea dragon. Are you sure? I thought they were pretty rare."
"And they usually live in the deep ocean," Angel added. "But that's the closest match I can find."
"It says they grow to be . . . oh my goodness," Wesley breathed.
"That's longer than my parent's house," Cordelia exclaimed. "This would make a great cable movie."
"Cinematic potential aside, what is it doing lurking in the harbor, snatching people from piers?" Wesley asked. "And how on earth are we going to kill it?"
"I don't know," Angel said, shaking his head. He rubbed his eyes again. "But we've got to do something about this amulet. These dreams are getting old fast."
Wesley cautiously picked up the offending object. It seemed slightly warm – though perhaps that was just because of the temperature in the room. "A thousand deaths," he said thoughtfully. "Do you suppose the words are literal? Perhaps after a thousand nightmares, it will simply stop."
Angel paled at the prospect. "There's got to be a better way than that."
Cordelia shrugged. "Can't you just destroy it?"
"I'm not sure what that would do to Angel at this point," Wesley said. "He's already under its curse."
Angel blinked at his usage, then stared at the amulet, his expression rather haunted. "It's worth a try," he said finally.
Wesley inspected the amulet more closely. "It looks brittle. Perhaps a really good whack will break it."
He looked around for something solid and finally laid the amulet on the floor. Angel took an axe from the cabinet, and Wesley and Cordelia hastened to get out of his way. Angel set himself, swung, and hit the amulet dead on with astonishing force.
It rang with a clear, high pitched tone, emitting a sharp burst of unearthly green light. Angel screamed and fell to his knees, pressing both hands to his head.
Cordelia crouched at his side, her hand hovering near his shoulder. "Angel?"
Wesley picked up the fallen axe and looked at him closely. "Are you all right?"
Angel sat back on his heels without answering, his face contorted with pain, his breathing labored. Finally he squinted at Cordelia. "No wonder you and Doyle complain so much."
Wesley picked up the amulet. "Not a dent, not a crack. I'd say that pretty much eliminates physical destruction as a possible solution."
"And you can add splitting headache to our current list of problems," Angel added, his voice rather shaky.
Cordelia obligingly ticked them off on her fingers. "Taxes. Sea dragons. Conniving lawyers. Evil amulets. Nasty cold. Splitting headache. And a hot, stuffy office. I think I am the only one who is having any luck today!"
It took over two hours for the pain to subside, even with the help of Cordelia's vision headache remedy. Angel sat quietly on the couch with an ice pack on the back of his neck, trying to relax without falling asleep. For a while everything was edged with a faint green light.
Cordelia and Wesley scoured the office and his apartment for books with anything about sea dragons or Celtic magic and made several tall stacks on her desk, where they sat reading and eating chocolate milkshakes and pizza. Despite the annoyance of crunching and slurping sounds, Angel would not have traded it for the silence of the previous hours. It reminded him wistfully of nights spent with Buffy and Giles and the Scooby gang camped out at the high school library in Sunnydale.
When the invisible vise that was clamped around his skull finally loosened its grip, Angel pulled up another chair and joined them, claiming one of the stacks of books. Everything was quiet save for the sound of rustling pages. Three candles burned steadily in the middle of the desk. Wesley leafed through book after book with steady determination. Even Cordelia seemed capable for once of concentrating on the task at hand.
But now that the pain wasn't there to keep his attention, Angel found he couldn't get through more than a page or two without his eyes threatening to close. Knowing what awaited him if he surrendered was barely enough to give him strength to fight it. He could hardly keep the page in focus.
He started, realizing he had nearly fallen asleep without even noticing. Abruptly he pushed back the chair and paced the length of the room. When he turned back Wesley and Cordelia were staring at him. He avoided their gaze as he returned to the desk and sat down again. Didn't humans have drugs they used to stay awake? Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? Maybe he could buy some extra time. Maybe . . .
"I guess there is only one thing to do," Cordelia said.
He turned to her, surprised at the conviction in her voice. "What?"
She ignored him and turned to Wesley. "I quite agree," he replied.
"I promised him once that if he ever turned evil again, I'd kill him dead. I guess it's time to keep that promise."
"What? I haven't turned evil." They ignored his protest. Somehow Wesley had tied him fast to the chair. "Wait a minute. I'm not evil." Then he saw the amulet around Cordelia's neck.
"What are you doing with that – " He stopped, suddenly realizing what was happening. "Oh no."
Cordelia tipped over the candles one by one. The flames licked at the pages of an open book and quickly roared to life, spreading from one book to another. Angel struggled to inch the chair away from the deadly blaze. The rope shouldn't have held him, but it did. He could see Cordelia's face through the flames. She shook her head sadly as his clothing caught fire. Flames enveloped him, and he screamed in agony and turned to dust.
He woke with a gasp and jumped out of his chair, knocking it over sideways. Cordelia and Wesley looked up, startled. He swallowed and found his voice.
"I'm not evil!"
Cordelia sat back, folding her arms. "Right. Instead of getting the world sucked into hell, you're just scaring us to death."
"You said I was evil. You started the books on fire." He heard the edge of panic in his voice and couldn't stop it.
"Angel." Cordelia got up and touched his arm as if to ground him to reality. "It wasn't me. I wouldn't do that."
"But if you thought I'd changed –"
"Look, you are about a million miles from perfect happiness. It wasn't real," she repeated slowly.
He took a deep, shuddering breath and picked up the chair and sat down again. "It felt real. They all do."
"And we're going to find a way to stop it," Wesley said firmly. He scooted his pile of sea dragon books over to Cordelia and took most of Angel's Welsh stack.
"Hey!" she protested.
"Look, even if we find a way to kill this sea dragon, it won't do much good if Angel is in no shape to fight it."
Cordelia nodded. Angel meekly opened one of his two remaining books and tried to focus on the words. Skim the page, turn to the next. Skim the page . . . his eye lit on the word Slayer and he stopped.
Buffy's face flashed through his mind. The passage was just a typical one about the Slayer's mystical powers, but even seeing the word printed on a page opened up the part of him that still belonged to her.
Wesley spied him reading and leaned toward him. "Have you got something?"
"No." Hastily he turned the page. He wondered what if any part of her still belonged to him. His heart ached for her touch, her unswerving compassion, her strength, her wisdom, her forgiveness. But these were things he couldn't have, not if he really loved her. It didn't stop his longing for her head on his shoulder.
Suddenly Cordelia jumped up. "Hey!"
"What is it?" Wesley asked, but in seconds she was writhing in her chair clutching her head and the answer was obvious. Wesley hurried to support her, leaving Angel to grab paper and pen.
"Water . . . eww, it stinks likes dead fish . . . a person, a woman . . . blond, great blouse . . . by a lighthouse . . . it's the sea dragon, in the water, behind her! Watching . . . definitely three heads," she finished.
Wesley opened the bottle of pills already sitting on the desk and poured two caplets into Cordelia's waiting hand while Angel filled a cup with water. She swallowed gratefully. "Well, I guess that one wasn't so bad, as visions go. At least it didn't eat her."
"But it's daylight," Wesley noted. "How could it attack without being seen?"
"There was a lot of fog," Cordelia said. "Of course that may have just been mysterious vision fog."
"We've got to go try and stop it," Angel said.
Cordelia stared at him. "Has that amulet addled your brain? You can't go out in the daylight!"
"I'll stick to the shadows. But the Powers That Be must know I can stop this, or they wouldn't have shown it to you."
Wesley nodded slowly. "I'm inclined to agree." He
stood. "Maybe a few sword thrusts or crossbow bolts won't kill it, but they
might make it think twice about feeding on the locals."