To Pay the Piper
I have him in my sight, the point of my crossbow bolt balanced to strike his heart. The only one with him is a young girl, and she does not look like she will do a thing to stop me. Even if she could, it would be too late. The other one, Darla, is nowhere to be found, she must have escaped earlier. Not that it matters, particularly. There is always time to find her, later.
Somewhere in the rain there is a baby crying. It sounds like my child... no it doesn't. All babies sound alike. Crying for its mother, most likely. This world is so sick, so decadent and poisoned with its own decay that it would not surprise me to find dead babies, dead bodies rotting and children screaming because the living ones are rotten. But the crying babe is a distraction. I can not afford a distraction, not now. Not when I am so very close. And then I can finally rest.
Angelus is turning around now, hunched over like the craven creature he is. Perhaps he senses my presence, behind him with a crossbow aimed for his death. Or perhaps he's merely skulking as he seems to do still. It doesn't matter.
But it does. The sounds of the crying baby are coming from him. He is feeding off the child, who must be the son or daughter of the woman next to him... except... why doesn't she stop him? Why is she standing there. For that matter, why isn't he feeding? Why else would he be hunched over a small child if not to feed? Perhaps to torment; perhaps the other woman is a vampire. Perhaps they are visiting the same horrors on some other poor soul that Angelus and Darla visited upon me. I should shoot.
I do not.
Angelus is staring at me again, with those strange soulful eyes that look as out of place on a vampire as a ray of sunlight. I suppose he is trying to move me to pity, to plead for his life. No pity for him, only confusion; why has he suddenly turned so pitiful and weak? And whose is the child he is so carefully wrapping in a cloak? Why? Who?
His allies are approaching; they must be his allies because he scurries towards them like a dog fleeing for its life with its tail tucked between its legs. I should shoot him now, while his back is turned, while he is fleeing, but that would bring down the others, and at least two of them look as though they would put up resistance. They eluded my fires, they must have some wits about them. I should shoot him now, but I wait. I lower my crossbow.
I can wait. I can find out what is happening, what will happen, what has happened during my long, long sleep. Perhaps Angelus... Angel... whatever it is now is right, perhaps I have been mislead. I do not think so; I remember, more vividly than I want to, how my wife lay on the floor of our house, dead by Darla's fangs. I remember how my child burned to ashes in the sun, still unable to believe that I, her father, would do such a thing to her. I remember all this, and I know that retribution must be forthcoming. Angelus must pay for his crimes, no matter that he repents them now. He has called the tune, and now he must pay the piper.
The demon is behind me now, and I wonder if I truly have turned to evil ways to accomplish my goals. Perhaps that means I, too, am damned. But then, who but the damned could truly appreciate the damned. Set a thief to catch a thief, they say. At least my wife and daughter will be at peace. At least the souls of the murdered will have revenge. And perhaps, when Angelus is dead, I, too, can rest. Perhaps.
Show no mercy.
