Disclaimer and stuff in the first part.
The Night Remembers - Part 14
By Jill
Lindsey MacDonald thought of himself as a patient man, or at least that he'd
become one over the past few years. Dealing with demons and vampires and
other immortal creatures had taught him that time was completely different
for them than for a human being. And working for them, with them, meant to
adapt some of their habits, like pulling the blinds in his office, not
hanging up mirrors on the walls or being patient.
Still, patient or not, the vampire that was sitting in his office at the
moment, was about to make his control snap. For more than three hours, it
had been staring at the same ancient roll and hadn't said one word. It was
an ancient vampire, more than eight hundred years old, very powerful, and
obviously not short on time.
Holland had taken him aside and whispered to him to take care of that very
special client, show him the secret prophecy, and to offer any help necessary.
And so there he was, staring out of the window, down onto the city of Los Angeles
and all the people who had no idea, or didn't want to have one, of what was
really going on in this world, where the power really was.
Lindsey couldn't help but feel a little bit proud that he made it. He had
opened his eyes, done the right steps and was earning the profits to show
it. He had a nice, spacious, and sunny, apartment and enough money to buy
whatever he wanted. The thrill of power was intoxicating, addictive, and he
knew that there was no way he would be able to live without it now.
He remembered his short lapse about a year ago, when his conscience wouldn't
let go, but fortunately, he was over it now. He was healed from temporary
insanity and back on track. Of course, he didn't delude himself and think he
was untouchable. He was mortal, a human being and one look at his missing
hand told him that there were many more powerful beings out there - some of
them even his enemies.
Heck, all of them were his enemies. In a position like his, a man had no
friends, not even allies. All you had were people or non-people who were
temporary sharing your goals. Like now.
Lindsey turned around and was startled when he saw the vampire staring at
him, its features betraying its age, the eyes endless pools of emptiness.
There was no soul in them, no conscience, no remorse. The lawyer pulled
himself together, "You're finished," he remarked, slightly nodding at the
scroll laying on his desk.
"I am." The vampire's voice was deep and rich. The timbre was sending
shivers up and down Lindsey's back. Not nice shivers, like when you saw an
attractive woman, no more the kind that made the panic crawl in your guts.
Fortunately, Lindsey was used to clients like that and didn't even blink.
"And may I ask if it's what you were looking for?" he asked, reclaiming his
chair at the other side of his desk.
"It is," the vampire stood, and then walked to the opposite end of the
office, turned and stared at the lawyer. "It proves what we assumed. I saw
it happen once already. Unfortunately for us, there was nobody around who
was familiar with an event like that. Therefore, the attempt failed. The
hellmouth was closed, but we had the satisfaction that it swallowed the
slayer before that. Of course a new one was called - so the effects were only
temporary."
"As Mr. Holland already told you," Lindsey said, "We will be glad to give
you any help or assistance needed."
"My sources tell me, that you have a private interest in the events coming
soon," the vampire's eyes changed its color for a moment, then a smile
crossed its features. It was so cold Lindsey was surprised his office wasn't
freezing. "I see," the creature nodded knowingly. "The one with a soul is
your concern. I have heard about him. He fights and kills his own kind. I
once met him before the tragic events in Romania took place. He was one of
the most magnificent creatures I ever met."
Lindsey coughed slightly. "We came across him quite often during the last
two years and he cost us too much money to ignore him." He tried to shake
off the uneasiness inside of him the moment he realized that vampire was
able to read his mind.
"He won't be ignored," the vampire assured him, and sat down again. "But as
far as I heard there is a way to remove his soul. So one wonders why it
wasn't done already."
The cold, inquiring eyes resting on him, Lindsey was glad not to tremble.
"We tried, but it didn't work. The bastard is stronger than we thought."
Slowly, the vampire nodded. "Then it's settled. You will assist us in our
attempt to open the gate and in return I will help you to get rid of an
inconvenience."
****
The lack of sleep will become an issue at some point Angel decided when he
lay awake on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had always been used to
irregular sleeping hours. In his early times as a vampire he'd only slept
during the day, but now working in L.A. and being around humans he became
accustomed to staying awake during most time of the day and mostly sleeping
the second half of the night.
These days he was having problems sleeping at all. The moment his head would
touch the pillow and he closed his eyes, his thoughts started to run wild.
Pictures of Buffy were flashing through his head and he wasn't able to shut
them out. And even if he slept he'd be dreaming about her and more than once
he'd wake up with her name on his lips.
He knew he couldn't go on like this for long. As a vampire, he could go on
without any sleep or very little sleep for a while and still function
properly, but everybody has limits and he was close to his. It wasn't just
the lack of sleep.
His life during the last months had been anything but a fairytale. There had
been the mess with Darla, and then, after he pulled himself together he
received the news of Buffy's death. He would never forget the moment when he
found Willow sitting there staring at him with tears in her eyes.
It was all he could do not to welcome the sun, but he knew that he couldn't
just let it go. Buffy wouldn't have wanted him to give up and he loved her
too much, had too much respect of all she believed in to just let himself
slip. So he had pulled all the strips of his self-control and held himself
together.
Now she was back. Alive. Miraculously, beautifully alive. Smiling, fighting
and loving him.
Loving him.
She said she loved him. She had told him about the flashbacks, about the
memory of loving him, and had insisted she loved him now. She had said it
from the bottom of her soul, of her heart, and Angel knew she meant it. She
loved him. Well, he loved her too. He had never doubted that they loved each
other, at least not before he left her. And with all the heartache gone from
her memory it wasn't really a surprise that she had fallen in love with him
again.
It was his dreams coming true. True, he had left her for something he
couldn't give her, but a tiny little part of him - okay, so a big part - had
always hoped that she would never stop loving him. That her feelings for him
were as strong as his for her and now that she said those words, he'd wanted
to hear so badly for the past two years. Hearing her say that she loved
Riley had been his worst nightmare.
Of course, he was a hypocrite. He had left her and then here he was, hating
the idea of her loving someone else. And it wasn't entirely true. A part of
him, the rational part, was glad for her. He loved her and he wanted her to
be happy, even with another man. But the moment he closed his eyes he wanted
nothing more to rip apart every man who touched what was his.
And now Willow had offered him the possibility to be with her. There was a
chance to give him his soul for good. He would be able to be with Buffy, to
express his love, the fear would be gone, the guilt that a simple touch
could lead to something nobody would be able to control. He wouldn't, and
couldn't, risk Angelus making an appearance again.
So why was he hesitating. Yes, he gave Cordelia many reasons. And yeah, he
wasn't sure if Buffy was able to see what she was getting herself into. On
the other hand - memory loss or not - she was a grown up woman who said she
loved him. The moment she would hear about this, he knew she would go for
it. And maybe that was another reason he didn't want to tell her.
There were too many ifs in this. What if the new curse didn't work? What if
he couldn't be re-cursed again? Yes, he wanted to be with Buffy, and during
the difficult time with Darla, he even wanted to die, but he didn't want to
die now. Especially not when Buffy was alive and he might be needed to help
her.
And then there was his deepest, private fear. What if Buffy agreed to do it,
then regained her memory and hated him for not talking her out of it? What
if she regained her memory and didn't want to be with him? What if she
suddenly realized she had stopped loving him? Would he be able to survive
seeing all his hopes shattered?
Cordelia and Spike were right. It all came down to one question. Was it
worth the risk?
***
"Xander would you please stop interrupting her!" Giles voice was louder than
usual when he addressed the young man and the other people in the room,
namely everyone who had been there the previous night, looked slightly
startled. The watcher rarely raised his voice but when he did it never meant
something good. It was a lot like hearing him mutter his beloved 'oh dear,
oh dear'.
Xander held up his hands and leaned back on the sofa, "Shutting up now."
"Very good," Giles gave him a last hard stare, and then turned towards Anya
again. "Alright, let me resume this. Last night you remembered having seen
something similar happening in the 15th century. You said the vampire
population in London was increasing due to some changes at the hell mouth."
He gave her a smile and encouraged her to continue her story.
"Yep, that's what I said," she quickly glared at Xander, "before I was so
rudely interrupted. Anyways. As I told you, I decided to punish this very
unfaithful man by getting him into that alley as a meal for the vampires.
And that's when I remembered that I had the idea because there were so many
vampires in town. Unfortunately I've seen so much during the centuries that
I'm probably mixing something up."
"That's okay," Giles assured her, exchanging a glance with Angel who was
standing near the wall. His favorite spot these days it seemed. "Nobody will
blame you for this. We are grateful for any information you could give us."
"Very well," she nodded at him, "Speaking in human terms you would certainly
say the increase of vampires in London that year was scary. A lot of people
disappeared with no traces of their whereabouts, but around the second half
of the year it changed."
She slightly turned her head to look at Angel, as if she wanted him to
confirm the following words. "In my experience, vampires are quite selective
when they chose an individual to become their childe. And it's quite a lot
of work to teach those vampires properly, so a sire cannot have too many
children at the same time."
When she saw Angel nod, she went on, "But in London, the second half of that
year, the older vampires suddenly started to turn humans left and right. And
I'm speaking of quantity, not quality. I had no idea what that all was
about, and frankly, I didn't really care, but then I came across a witch. We
had a nice chat about spells and during that conversation, she warned me to
leave London.
"She'd also noticed the strange behavior of the vampires and found the
reason," she paused for a moment and looked around, enjoying that the
attention was directed towards her. "They needed souls."
"They needed *souls*?" Buffy stared at the former demon, "What the hell
for?"
"Exactly for that," Anya replied, and then since nobody had understood, she
elaborated, "They needed souls. The witch said that the souls wouldn't go
the usual way, you know to... let's call it heaven, for lack of a better
term. Because of the growing energy of the hellmouth they were bound to it
and fed to evil, increasing the hellmouth's power that way."
"They... they were feeding souls to... the hellmouth?" Willow swallowed
hard. Her face was white as a sheet, shock written allover it.
"Can I say this is SO gross?" Cordelia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "The
hellmouth eating souls..." she trailed off.
"Well not literally of course," the former demon said, not understanding the
reaction. "I mean there wasn't the hellmouth chewing..." she broke off
seeing the others stare at her in disgust. "Alright," she threw her hands in
the air, "obviously I'm lost here. But as I said before, I have seen so many
things, it really isn't anything special."
"We... uh... believe you," Buffy managed to say. "We're just... shocked."
"Yes," Giles agreed, "quite shocked." He slightly shook his head to clear
his mind. He had seen a lot in his life too, but this... "So they needed the
souls for the hellmouth, to increase its power. For what? To open it?"
"In a way, yes," Anya answered. She grabbed some potato chips from Xander's
lap where the bowl was resting - untouched - and munching on them, she
continued, "But not the usual way. I mean, every idiot can open the hellmouth.
All they need is some magic and voilĂ ," she emphasized it by
gesturing with one hand.
"Wait a second," Xander yelped and straightened beside her, the chip bowl
flying down in the process, the contents littering Giles' carpet. "Are you
saying that it's that easy to open a hellmouth?"
"Well," Anya looked around, "maybe I've made it seem a bit too easy. Well
they'd need a certain constellation of powers and stuff. But compared to
other things, opening an hellmouth isn't that complicated."
"Oh well," her fiancé closed his eyes and let his head roll back. "Now I'm
really going to sleep like a baby tonight."
"As interesting as this is," Angel pushed himself off of the wall and walked
to the counter, sitting down beside Spike on one of the barstools, "I would
prefer to get back to the matter at hand. Anya," he addressed the former
demon. "You said, they wanted to open the hellmouth, but not in the
classical sense."
"Yeah," she nodded. "Usually you just open up this hole, it's not nice, but
usually if you have a slayer at hand, it's not too difficult to close it up
again."
"Well, thank you very much. I really don't like to remember the two times we
went through," Willow commented and then smiled when she felt Tara's hand on
hers.
"So what was different then?" Angel wanted to know, slowly getting annoyed.
He had a bad feeling and the sooner they knew what they were up against, the
better. Besides, all this soul talk was making him nervous. He didn't want
to talk about souls in general right now.
"The difference is that year they weren't just trying to open the hellmouth, they
were trying to open the gate," she said, her voice suddenly grave.
Angel felt alarm slamming into him. "The gate?" he asked, suddenly feeling
breathless.
"Yes," she confirmed. "The gate to hell. The gate to the inner dimension of
hell or in other terms, they tried to free the heart of evil."
Startled gasps or harshly indrawn breaths were the only noises for a while,
before Giles suddenly muttered, "Oh dear, oh dear."
"Oh no," Willow looked at the watcher. "It's never good when you say this."
"The gate to hell," Angel whispered, seemingly deep in thoughts. Then when
he realized everyone was looking at him, he shook his head. "Sorry, but
Wesley called last night. After our meeting. He told me that Gunn met a
Brachen demon and he was saying the same. And that there was a prophecy
somewhere referring to the hell mouth in Sunnydale." The vampire ran a hand
through his hair.
"A prophecy?" Giles was instantly alert. "What kind of prophecy?"
"I have no idea," Angel said. "There is this law firm in L.A., Wolfram &
Hart. Some time ago I stole an ancient roll from them." He saw Giles nod,
and remembered that Wesley had told him about the discovery.
"What does a law firm have to do with this?" Buffy asked confused.
"Yes, I wanted to ask the same," Dawn spoke for the first time that evening,
"I mean, I know lawyers can be evil, but..." she trailed off, thinking back
to a time when her parents had been fighting over their divorce.
"They're not your average lawyers," Cordelia replied. "They're the evil
kind. Not regular evil, but evil-evil. Their clients are a bit out of the
ordinary. Vampires. Demons. Assassins. All those nice, cozy creatures
everyone of us wants to invite for dinner."
"Plus," Angel continued, "they've got their fingers in almost any shady plan
or organization in L.A. and probably other parts of the country. The idea of
them having this prophecy isn't all too comforting. I wouldn't be surprised
if they're going to be severely involved in all this."
"Oh dear, oh dear," Giles muttered again, earning a sharp look from Willow
for it. "Anya," the watcher addressed the former demon again. "I assume,
from the way you're describing this, it didn't work in London that year."
"No, it didn't," she confirmed. "But I didn't stay to watch it. I left a
week before it was supposed to happen. But I talked to someone who had seen
it. The local slayer managed to close the hellmouth and disturb the plans.
But she died in the process. The hellmouth just swallowed her."
... to be continued
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