Dust Thou Art
by Jeanne Rose
Part 16
Angel scrubbed compulsively at what seemed like centuries of grime on the floor beneath the refrigerator, his arms aching. He stopped suddenly. Hadn't he just finished this?
"Pulling out the ice box? Now I know you're desperate."
Angelus. Angel turned away and kept on scrubbing.
"Still determined to stick it out, are you?"
No matter how hard he scrubbed, he couldn't seem to get to the concrete. Layer after layer of black grime clogged the bristles of the brush and splattered his hands with filthy water.
"Makes Doyle's death look easy, doesn't it? Just a moment of fire, and it was all over. But for you, it goes on and on and on."
Still he didn't look up. Angelus finally yanked him back by his hair and tore the brush from his hands. "Do you have any idea how pathetic you are? Do you really think that the Powers That Be' give one fig for a poor vampire who went and got himself cursed?"
Angel waited wordlessly until Angelus released the fistful of his hair.
Angelus crouched beside him, speaking reasonably. "You'll never earn forgiveness. What were you thinking? You can't give back the blood you've drunk from all those poor, helpless creatures."
Anger flared at the truth of Angelus' words. "No, I can't. But you did it, not me. You're the one who should die!"
"But I am you, remember? You know you still want them. Where do I end and you begin?"
He pointed suddenly to the bodies of Wesley and Cordelia, lying side by side like brother and sister with bloody wounds in their necks. "Did I do that, or did you?"
"No," Angel whispered.
Angelus curled his right hand around a stake. It felt solid and real. "You do this and you're free. No more pathetic self-hatred. No more living on the outside looking in. No more running around saving a bunch of ungrateful humans, trying to atone. No more fear of harming them. It all stops."
Angel stared at Wesley and Cordelia's bloodless faces and knew he could not live with these two deaths on top of all the rest. He did not resist as Angelus positioned the stake over his heart. It would take such a small effort. He felt Angelus' hand over his own, strong, immovable. Together they shoved the stake into his heart.
Cordelia hadn't realized she was starting to doze until suddenly the absence of scrubbing sounds brought her awake. She turned quickly to check on Angel. He was asleep again, slumped against the side of the refrigerator, still clutching his scrub brush.
Even in sleep his expression was haunted. She couldn't help wondering what he was dreaming now, who had come to kill him this time. For the millionth time she wished with all her might that she could dash that horrible amulet into a thousand pieces or hurl it into space. This was not the job she had signed up for. It was wrong, and not Doyle, nor any Oracles, nor Angel himself were going to convince her otherwise.
Angel awoke with a violence that startled her. He looked around wildly and his breath caught in his throat like a sob. He did not seem to see her.
Suddenly he lifted his hand and dashed the brush to the ground with vampire strength, splintering it into two jagged pieces. He picked up the longest one and held it pointed toward his heart, and she realized suddenly that the handle was made of wood.
"Angel!" she screamed and scrambled for the tranquilizer gun. She trained it on him with fierce intensity, her heart pounding. What if he struck before she could fire?
"Angel, put that down!" He looked up and saw her for the first time.
"Cordelia, please," he begged, his voice breaking. "Let me go."
"No way," she said, her voice as inarguable as she could make it. But something in his eyes said he was going to do it.
With an agility she didn't know she possessed, she leaped up and kicked the brush from his hand. It flew across the room. He started after it on hands and knees.
"Angel!" she screamed again, her finger tightening on the trigger.
Miraculously he stopped and sat, leaning forward on his hands. He was sobbing in earnest now, a heart breaking sound that made her want to stuff her fingers in her ears and run far away without stopping. Instead she knelt beside him on the spotless floor and put an arm awkwardly around his shoulders.
"Shhh, Angel, it's ok, shhhh."
He hardly seemed aware of her, consumed by the flood of grief and despair pouring out of him. His whole body shook as he wept.
Just when she thought she might scream, she suddenly noticed the weight of the gun she still held in her hand. Would it help? She wasn't sure, but anything was better than this. She pointed the gun awkwardly at the back of his shoulder and fired. He jerked once and slowly wilted into her arms.
Angel floated slowly upward through layers of thick white fog. Voices surrounded him, murmurs of hatred, fear, pleading, and rage, but the fog shielded him, and he couldn't understand them.
He lay in a sunlit meadow dappled with tall blue and yellow flowers. The sun warmed his bare skin. Hadn't there been a girl here? Any moment now Father would be calling, wanting to know if the work was done, though it was never enough, and never good enough. He heard Kathy laughing, skipping gaily through the flowers, and reached quickly for something to cover himself. But she never came, and the sound of her laughter faded.
Lilting strains of flute and fiddle music reached his ears, together with tapping feet and laughing voices, and he was pulled into the dance, joining hands with the others in the circle, stepping and kicking and hopping in the well-remembered rhythms. When it was over, he threw his hands into the air and huzzahed with the rest. A mug of ale was thrust into his hand and he gulped it down eagerly. A warm wind blew through the trees, fresh with the pungent scent of newly planted earth.
Then the fog grew thicker, blocking out the stars. He heard voices again, but now they were quiet. He listened, trying to make sense of them.
"It'll have to be done after sunset, when the sea dragon is strongest."
"Strongest??"
"We'll need its help to break the spell."
"But what if it hasn't taken the cooperation workshop?"
"We'll have to try to stay out of its reach."
"And what about the Wolfram and Hart? They weren't too happy the last time we tried to interfere."
"We'll keep watch.
"Are you sure we can do this alone? Maybe this isn't such a good idea."
"I'm open to suggestions. But we have to do something tonight."
The voices ceased.
Finally Angel's eyes blinked open. It took him a long, slow minute to recognize the ceiling. He was lying on his back on the kitchen floor with a cushion under his head. His face was stiff with dried tears. The amulet was up on the counter, out of sight.
He must have made some small sound because Wesley and Cordelia's anxious faces appeared in his field of vision. Cordelia held the tranquilizer gun at the ready. "Are you going to behave now?" she asked.
Angel nodded. He felt too weak to move, let alone misbehave in any way. Memory leaked back slowly. He glanced again at the gun in Cordelia's hand and found his voice.
"What was that?"
"Enough phenol barbital to take out a bull elephant," Wesley answered him.
"How . . . long was I . . .?"
"Almost three hours," Cordelia said.
The best rest he'd had in days, but it only made him terribly hungry for more. He felt as if he could sleep for at least a week straight. He rolled to his side and got an elbow under him, then made an effort and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Every muscle joined the protest.
"What were you guys talking about?" he asked.
Cordelia and Wesley exchanged a look. "Nothing for you to be concerned with," Wesley answered.
He was far too tired to argue. "OK."
Wesley raised an eyebrow, but turned as Cordelia handed him the gun.
"All right, well, I'll go get the, uh, you know," Cordelia said. She headed toward the door, then turned back. "Be careful. Don't let him – "
"I won't," Wesley replied.