Disclaimers in chapter 1
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Protection
by Slayerbelle
Chapter 3 -- The Long Way Home
"Turn right here," Aurora said.
Angel turned the black convertible into the street she mentioned. Five minutes and she was quiet. After a night full of talking -- she hadn't talked to him about it yet. At all.
She was looking away from him, her hair doing flipping things in the wind because the top was down. Her slender arm was casually draped on the car door, almost hanging from it. She looked almost fragile like this, but there was still something about her he couldn't figure out.
"This is where you live?" he asked.
"No, this is where you're dropping me off."
"Aurora, I'm taking you home."
"You can't." She said firmly.
The defiance in her reminded him of other women in his life -- they never seemed to want his help, ever. "Aurora, there are dangerous people after you --"
"I know how to--"
"I know how dangerous they are because you showed it to me, Aurora. I have that in my head now, I'm not going to let you go on alone."
"Believe me, I'm more afraid right now of the people I work for than those out for my blood. They see me with you and they know I broke the fundamental rule that governs us."
"What is it? This rule."
She turned her head and looked at him now. "That our work be completely unknown and thankless."
"If it matters, Aurora, I haven't thanked you yet."
She laughed at this. "It doesn't matter what you think of it, Angel."
"But I don't want you risking your life for... for me."
"Well tough luck because you don't get a say in it." Aurora shook her head. "You shouldn't have found out. There's a reason why we have these rules, you know."
"But I did."
"Yes, you did. How did you know?"
"I don't know. I just did." He didn't want to get into it now, the dreams, what Wesley considered visions.
Aurora thumped her palm against the dashboard. "Stop the car here."
Angel screeched to a halt, the car ending up in front of a seedy bar strip. "What are we doing here?"
"I was just saying that I know what kind of danger I'm in. I know that if this is the beginning of Jenny's family discovering who I am then I'm not supposed to be walking alone at night. But that's not what I'm most worried about now, Angel." She unlocked the car door. "If my family sees me with you it's over for me."
Aurora lifted herself off the seat, ready to get off, but Angel's hand on her arm rooted her inside the car. "Why? What are they going to do to you, Aurora?"
"They won't kill me or anything, they'll just... fire me. I don't want to get fired." And she was pleading now, softly tugging at her arm. "I have to go."
Against his judgment his grip on her softened and she was able to get away. Slamming the car door behind her, she started walking away from him, muttering something under her breath.
He realized she might be doing a cloaking spell and would literally disappear before him. He leapt out of the car. "Aurora! Stop! Please."
She stopped, turned around. "We can talk about this another time." She was hissing now, as if people were watching, listening. They probably were.
"I can't track you down. You can easily disappear on me. Look, what I do and how long I live doesn't matter. What I know is you're putting yourself in great danger continuing this... this job of yours and we can help you. We can protect you, Aurora."
"I have no doubt about that, Angel, but again -- not the point!"
He closed the distance between them until he was towering over her, their eyes locked again in that defiance. "You can't do this. You can't just show me how dangerous your life is and expect me to sit back and let it happen to you. That's not why you let me know that."
Why did she let him find out about everything? He was sensing a cry for help somewhere in her, even as she stared back at him, not moving.
"Excuse me miss, but is this guy bothering you?"
The voice came from Angel's right.
It all happened in a split second, and because everyone involved had extremely heightened senses everything would have been a blur to spectators.
The vampire on Angel's right -- was Ralph, and he recognized him as the same one he had staked and Aurora had healed. But this time he had brought along three of his friends, and it all got a bit ugly.
Ralph nixed the commentary and just lunged at Angel with a stake. Two of his friends grabbed at Aurora each at an arm. An energy rippled through her, Angel could see -- he was in danger and so was she, and suddenly she was in hypergirl mode.
Meanwhile, Ralph's other friend was helping him out in the staking of Angel mission. Angel kicked him into Ralph and jumped in to help Aurora, but could see that she was holding her own quite well.
With the grace of an expert, she kicked and punched at the two vamps after her. One of them lunged at her from behind and tackled her, and she lost her footing and fell. Grabbing on to the nearby parking meter, she pulled herself up.
Angel tossed her a stake from his coat, which she caught without missing a beat, and staked one vamp and then the other.
At the same time, Angel was just finishing off Ralph's friend. As that one turned to dust, Ralph dropped his stake and reached into his pocket. The Feuralian Knife.
"What is that, a breadknife?" Angel taunted. "You pay me back by staking me with a breadknife?"
Ralph paused, annoyed. "I kill fifty monks for this and no one appreciates it. Hell."
Angel braced himself. Aurora screamed.
"Angel, step to the left!"
Ralph made his first strike and Angel, ignoring Aurora's strange instruction, stepped forward to meet him with a punch. He caught a glimpse of Aurora from over Ralph's shoulder for a split second and realized she was running -- running toward them, at an amazing speed. He could feel the disturbance in the air and the heat on the ground and he hesitated.
In the next moment she was there, plunging a stake into Ralph's heart from the back, her speed and strength pushing Ralph into him before he turned to dust -- and the Feuralian Knife lodging itself into Angel's arm.
His scream echoed Ralph's and Aurora's. As Ralph disintegrated on the floor, Angel dropped to his knees.
"Angel. Angel. Oh God." She kneeled next to him, pulling the bloody knife out of his arm. "I told you to move!"
"You told me to step to the left. I don't necessarily hear that in combat, Aurora." It was a small knife but the pain had been unusually sharp and searing. He picked it off the floor and looked at it. "Do you know what this is?"
She shook her head. "No. Maybe Wesley would be able to look it up." Aurora was breathing hard, the adrenaline or whatever possessed her slowly working its way to a calm. There was a cut across her temple. Angel lifted a hand, reaching for her.
"You're hurt," he said. "How effectively do your powers protect you?"
Aurora didn't realize she was bleeding. "It's just a weapon. It's effective if I use it well." She brushed off his hand and instead put pressure on his wound. He saw her concentrate on her palm, and then shrug. "I can't do it again. I can't heal you. I'm not supposed to. What should I do now, Angel?"
"You know how to drive?"
====
And then they were back in the Hyperion Hotel. Angel refused any special attention to his wound, he knew it would heal in a while.
He lay back a while to get his act together, not realizing he had drifted off into sleep for an hour or so. When he came to, he quickly went back into the lobby, where Wesley had papers and books strewn all about.
"What is it?" Angel asked, pointing to the knife, still red with his dried blood.
Wesley looked up. "It's something called the Feuralian Knife. It was supposed to kill you slowly and very painfully."
"Not very effective then."
"But that's not all." Wesley picked up the knife and showed it to him. "Notice the intricate carvings on the blade and the handle."
It indeed was no bigger, or sharper, than a breadknife. The carvings Wesley was talking about were small, very precise designs on the metal. "This is significant how?"
"I didn't really notice it at first, but the dried blood brings out features in the carving probably not normally noticeable in its usual state... anyway, I found some familiar things." Wesley lifted another sheet of paper from the pile. The Scroll of Aberjian.
Angel barely spoke it. "The Scroll."
Wesley's voice was filled with contained excitement. "Several of the prophecies here are of languages totally unknown to us. A lot of them seem to have no documentation in history. I'd always assumed they were existing demon languages, and they may as well be, but Angel, this knife, these carvings... it's like a key. These carvings are representations of the characters... and how to translate them into Ancient Rumaji. Which is a rare but at least documented language."
"Which prophecies will we be able to read with the help of this, this knife?"
"A lot. Almost all of them." Wesley pointed to the particular prophecies, all unrecognizable scribbles on parchment. "It won't be easy, but it'll only be a matter of time. This was a fortunate find, Angel. Very fortunate."
Fortunate indeed.
He remembered something. "Where's Aurora?"
Wesley shifted in his seat. "Um, she left."
"She left? I told her not to-- where did she go? Why did you let her leave?"
"Well, if I was aware she was our prisoner, I might have not opened the door for her." Wesley retorted. "She had to leave, Angel. And I pretty much let her."
Angel shook his head, and a faint pain shot up his arm. "It's dangerous for her, Wesley, I didn't let her go--"
"Angel, she has to do what she's supposed to do. You can't interfere with that."
Angel paused. "Did she tell you where she lives?"
Wesley shifted in his seat again.
"Well, did she?"
"I know where to find her, if that's what you're asking." Wesley answered. "But I promised not to tell you. She'll contact me if she needs help, Angel, and only when she wants it. You're not to involve yourself in her affairs."
"This while she's neck-deep in mine."
"She'll be fine. You just... drink tea."
At that moment, the hotel doors opened and Cordelia stepped in. "Oh, you're up," she told Angel, tossing car keys on top of the Scroll of Aberjian. "I just borrowed the convertible. Nothing happened, no big."
"What do you mean, you took the car?" Angel demanded.
"I just drove Aurora over to --"
Wesley shot her a look, gingerly removing the keys from the top of the important document.
Cordelia quickly caught herself. "--to an undisclosed location which I will not be revealing to you. But the car is fiiiine."
"I don't believe this!" Angel stood up for emphasis, but a pain shot up his arm again and he fell back into the couch. The knife was serious business, he couldn't believe the discomfort he was having over the little thing. "You let her walk out there. A whole family seeking vengeance is out there looking for her, they think she's a traitor, and when they find her they will not treat her kindly."
"But she can defend herself, right?" Cordelia said. "She has that whole magic thing going for her."
"She's not immortal," Angel insisted.
"Angel," Wesley interjected, firmly now. "Aurora has decided not to give up her calling despite this setback. She's fully aware of the danger she is in and Cordelia and I know how to reach her in case of, well, in case we have to. She has expressly asked to keep you out of the loop on this, and we have to respect that."
"Yes, Angel, just let the girl continue stalking you in peace, OK?" Cordelia said, plopping down to sit as well. She nudged Wesley's foot. "So, you told him about the decoder ring thingy? Funny how this all worked out, right?"
Angel shook his head. "Go ahead and tell me what's funny, Cordelia. I can't figure it out."
"Well let's see. My vision led you to Aurora. You see her heal a vampire. You bring her here. You take her home. You get attacked by the vampire she healed, who just happens to attack you with a knife that Wesley here thinks is pretty hot stuff. Isn't that funny? You think it's just a whole string of screw-ups, but you still got the knife."
She leaned back against the seat, satisfied with herself. "So this all happened because of me, and I will accept your gratitude in US currency, thank you very much."
"She's right, you know." Wesley said. He picked up the knife, turned it over slowly in his palm. "I think, in the end, you were supposed to get this. The Powers made sure of it."
Angel chose to stay silent at this, watching the small metal object turn in Wesley's hand. Aurora's anonymity and safety for a knife -- the thing better be as good as Wesley said it was.
send feedback to slayerbelle@go.com
Protection
by Slayerbelle
Chapter 3 -- The Long Way Home
"Turn right here," Aurora said.
Angel turned the black convertible into the street she mentioned. Five minutes and she was quiet. After a night full of talking -- she hadn't talked to him about it yet. At all.
She was looking away from him, her hair doing flipping things in the wind because the top was down. Her slender arm was casually draped on the car door, almost hanging from it. She looked almost fragile like this, but there was still something about her he couldn't figure out.
"This is where you live?" he asked.
"No, this is where you're dropping me off."
"Aurora, I'm taking you home."
"You can't." She said firmly.
The defiance in her reminded him of other women in his life -- they never seemed to want his help, ever. "Aurora, there are dangerous people after you --"
"I know how to--"
"I know how dangerous they are because you showed it to me, Aurora. I have that in my head now, I'm not going to let you go on alone."
"Believe me, I'm more afraid right now of the people I work for than those out for my blood. They see me with you and they know I broke the fundamental rule that governs us."
"What is it? This rule."
She turned her head and looked at him now. "That our work be completely unknown and thankless."
"If it matters, Aurora, I haven't thanked you yet."
She laughed at this. "It doesn't matter what you think of it, Angel."
"But I don't want you risking your life for... for me."
"Well tough luck because you don't get a say in it." Aurora shook her head. "You shouldn't have found out. There's a reason why we have these rules, you know."
"But I did."
"Yes, you did. How did you know?"
"I don't know. I just did." He didn't want to get into it now, the dreams, what Wesley considered visions.
Aurora thumped her palm against the dashboard. "Stop the car here."
Angel screeched to a halt, the car ending up in front of a seedy bar strip. "What are we doing here?"
"I was just saying that I know what kind of danger I'm in. I know that if this is the beginning of Jenny's family discovering who I am then I'm not supposed to be walking alone at night. But that's not what I'm most worried about now, Angel." She unlocked the car door. "If my family sees me with you it's over for me."
Aurora lifted herself off the seat, ready to get off, but Angel's hand on her arm rooted her inside the car. "Why? What are they going to do to you, Aurora?"
"They won't kill me or anything, they'll just... fire me. I don't want to get fired." And she was pleading now, softly tugging at her arm. "I have to go."
Against his judgment his grip on her softened and she was able to get away. Slamming the car door behind her, she started walking away from him, muttering something under her breath.
He realized she might be doing a cloaking spell and would literally disappear before him. He leapt out of the car. "Aurora! Stop! Please."
She stopped, turned around. "We can talk about this another time." She was hissing now, as if people were watching, listening. They probably were.
"I can't track you down. You can easily disappear on me. Look, what I do and how long I live doesn't matter. What I know is you're putting yourself in great danger continuing this... this job of yours and we can help you. We can protect you, Aurora."
"I have no doubt about that, Angel, but again -- not the point!"
He closed the distance between them until he was towering over her, their eyes locked again in that defiance. "You can't do this. You can't just show me how dangerous your life is and expect me to sit back and let it happen to you. That's not why you let me know that."
Why did she let him find out about everything? He was sensing a cry for help somewhere in her, even as she stared back at him, not moving.
"Excuse me miss, but is this guy bothering you?"
The voice came from Angel's right.
It all happened in a split second, and because everyone involved had extremely heightened senses everything would have been a blur to spectators.
The vampire on Angel's right -- was Ralph, and he recognized him as the same one he had staked and Aurora had healed. But this time he had brought along three of his friends, and it all got a bit ugly.
Ralph nixed the commentary and just lunged at Angel with a stake. Two of his friends grabbed at Aurora each at an arm. An energy rippled through her, Angel could see -- he was in danger and so was she, and suddenly she was in hypergirl mode.
Meanwhile, Ralph's other friend was helping him out in the staking of Angel mission. Angel kicked him into Ralph and jumped in to help Aurora, but could see that she was holding her own quite well.
With the grace of an expert, she kicked and punched at the two vamps after her. One of them lunged at her from behind and tackled her, and she lost her footing and fell. Grabbing on to the nearby parking meter, she pulled herself up.
Angel tossed her a stake from his coat, which she caught without missing a beat, and staked one vamp and then the other.
At the same time, Angel was just finishing off Ralph's friend. As that one turned to dust, Ralph dropped his stake and reached into his pocket. The Feuralian Knife.
"What is that, a breadknife?" Angel taunted. "You pay me back by staking me with a breadknife?"
Ralph paused, annoyed. "I kill fifty monks for this and no one appreciates it. Hell."
Angel braced himself. Aurora screamed.
"Angel, step to the left!"
Ralph made his first strike and Angel, ignoring Aurora's strange instruction, stepped forward to meet him with a punch. He caught a glimpse of Aurora from over Ralph's shoulder for a split second and realized she was running -- running toward them, at an amazing speed. He could feel the disturbance in the air and the heat on the ground and he hesitated.
In the next moment she was there, plunging a stake into Ralph's heart from the back, her speed and strength pushing Ralph into him before he turned to dust -- and the Feuralian Knife lodging itself into Angel's arm.
His scream echoed Ralph's and Aurora's. As Ralph disintegrated on the floor, Angel dropped to his knees.
"Angel. Angel. Oh God." She kneeled next to him, pulling the bloody knife out of his arm. "I told you to move!"
"You told me to step to the left. I don't necessarily hear that in combat, Aurora." It was a small knife but the pain had been unusually sharp and searing. He picked it off the floor and looked at it. "Do you know what this is?"
She shook her head. "No. Maybe Wesley would be able to look it up." Aurora was breathing hard, the adrenaline or whatever possessed her slowly working its way to a calm. There was a cut across her temple. Angel lifted a hand, reaching for her.
"You're hurt," he said. "How effectively do your powers protect you?"
Aurora didn't realize she was bleeding. "It's just a weapon. It's effective if I use it well." She brushed off his hand and instead put pressure on his wound. He saw her concentrate on her palm, and then shrug. "I can't do it again. I can't heal you. I'm not supposed to. What should I do now, Angel?"
"You know how to drive?"
====
And then they were back in the Hyperion Hotel. Angel refused any special attention to his wound, he knew it would heal in a while.
He lay back a while to get his act together, not realizing he had drifted off into sleep for an hour or so. When he came to, he quickly went back into the lobby, where Wesley had papers and books strewn all about.
"What is it?" Angel asked, pointing to the knife, still red with his dried blood.
Wesley looked up. "It's something called the Feuralian Knife. It was supposed to kill you slowly and very painfully."
"Not very effective then."
"But that's not all." Wesley picked up the knife and showed it to him. "Notice the intricate carvings on the blade and the handle."
It indeed was no bigger, or sharper, than a breadknife. The carvings Wesley was talking about were small, very precise designs on the metal. "This is significant how?"
"I didn't really notice it at first, but the dried blood brings out features in the carving probably not normally noticeable in its usual state... anyway, I found some familiar things." Wesley lifted another sheet of paper from the pile. The Scroll of Aberjian.
Angel barely spoke it. "The Scroll."
Wesley's voice was filled with contained excitement. "Several of the prophecies here are of languages totally unknown to us. A lot of them seem to have no documentation in history. I'd always assumed they were existing demon languages, and they may as well be, but Angel, this knife, these carvings... it's like a key. These carvings are representations of the characters... and how to translate them into Ancient Rumaji. Which is a rare but at least documented language."
"Which prophecies will we be able to read with the help of this, this knife?"
"A lot. Almost all of them." Wesley pointed to the particular prophecies, all unrecognizable scribbles on parchment. "It won't be easy, but it'll only be a matter of time. This was a fortunate find, Angel. Very fortunate."
Fortunate indeed.
He remembered something. "Where's Aurora?"
Wesley shifted in his seat. "Um, she left."
"She left? I told her not to-- where did she go? Why did you let her leave?"
"Well, if I was aware she was our prisoner, I might have not opened the door for her." Wesley retorted. "She had to leave, Angel. And I pretty much let her."
Angel shook his head, and a faint pain shot up his arm. "It's dangerous for her, Wesley, I didn't let her go--"
"Angel, she has to do what she's supposed to do. You can't interfere with that."
Angel paused. "Did she tell you where she lives?"
Wesley shifted in his seat again.
"Well, did she?"
"I know where to find her, if that's what you're asking." Wesley answered. "But I promised not to tell you. She'll contact me if she needs help, Angel, and only when she wants it. You're not to involve yourself in her affairs."
"This while she's neck-deep in mine."
"She'll be fine. You just... drink tea."
At that moment, the hotel doors opened and Cordelia stepped in. "Oh, you're up," she told Angel, tossing car keys on top of the Scroll of Aberjian. "I just borrowed the convertible. Nothing happened, no big."
"What do you mean, you took the car?" Angel demanded.
"I just drove Aurora over to --"
Wesley shot her a look, gingerly removing the keys from the top of the important document.
Cordelia quickly caught herself. "--to an undisclosed location which I will not be revealing to you. But the car is fiiiine."
"I don't believe this!" Angel stood up for emphasis, but a pain shot up his arm again and he fell back into the couch. The knife was serious business, he couldn't believe the discomfort he was having over the little thing. "You let her walk out there. A whole family seeking vengeance is out there looking for her, they think she's a traitor, and when they find her they will not treat her kindly."
"But she can defend herself, right?" Cordelia said. "She has that whole magic thing going for her."
"She's not immortal," Angel insisted.
"Angel," Wesley interjected, firmly now. "Aurora has decided not to give up her calling despite this setback. She's fully aware of the danger she is in and Cordelia and I know how to reach her in case of, well, in case we have to. She has expressly asked to keep you out of the loop on this, and we have to respect that."
"Yes, Angel, just let the girl continue stalking you in peace, OK?" Cordelia said, plopping down to sit as well. She nudged Wesley's foot. "So, you told him about the decoder ring thingy? Funny how this all worked out, right?"
Angel shook his head. "Go ahead and tell me what's funny, Cordelia. I can't figure it out."
"Well let's see. My vision led you to Aurora. You see her heal a vampire. You bring her here. You take her home. You get attacked by the vampire she healed, who just happens to attack you with a knife that Wesley here thinks is pretty hot stuff. Isn't that funny? You think it's just a whole string of screw-ups, but you still got the knife."
She leaned back against the seat, satisfied with herself. "So this all happened because of me, and I will accept your gratitude in US currency, thank you very much."
"She's right, you know." Wesley said. He picked up the knife, turned it over slowly in his palm. "I think, in the end, you were supposed to get this. The Powers made sure of it."
Angel chose to stay silent at this, watching the small metal object turn in Wesley's hand. Aurora's anonymity and safety for a knife -- the thing better be as good as Wesley said it was.