CHAPTER NINE: REVELATIONS
(Lotsa swearing in this chapter. My apologies. Vampires don't censor their language too well…)
"Buffy," the vampire whispered, her name almost reverent on his lips. Buffy felt a pang in her heart, loving the way that he said her name. He'd always said it so softly, as though it were a prayer.
"Angel," she replied, a small smile on her face. "I missed you."
"I missed you too," he replied softly. He put a hand through the bar, reaching out to touch her, but Buffy made no move to touch his hand. Not with what she was about to say.
"It's really you, right?" Buffy asked.
He nodded, keeping direct eye contact with him.
"Then you should know something," Buffy said. She dropped her voice to a whisper that only the vampire and Connor would have been able to hear. "I fucked Spike last year."
He completely snapped, slamming against the cage in a fit of rage. The entire team from AI took a step backwards, their eyes wide and frightened. That wasn't Angel.
"You fucking bitch! I'll kill him! I'll fucking kill him! How could you?!"
Gunn swallowed nervously and looked at the tiny blonde who was standing calmly in front of the cage.
"What the hell did you say to him?" he asked incredulously.
Connor looked at the Slayer with open curiousity. He knew that she'd said it quietly so that no one else could hear, and he wasn't about to ask her who Spike was. He definitely wanted to know what it was all about though.
"Okay, that's not Angel," Fred said quietly.
Buffy took a step back and turned to the AI team. Cordelia scowled angrily.
"The spell worked, that is Angel," Cordelia said. "Buffy just pissed him off. As usual."
"You fucking slut!" Angelus yelled angrily. "The second I get outta here I'm gonna show you who you belong to you, whore! How dare he touch you! Who the fuck does he think he is!"
"That's really not Angel," Lorne said.
The green demon couldn't understand what was going on. The vampire had sung for him, but Lorne had read him as Angel instead of as Angelus. And there was no way that the demon raging inside the cage was the normally gentle souled vampire.
"He's not Angel," Buffy confirmed.
Lorne looked at her curiously. "How did you know?"
"I couldn't feel him. We've always been able to feel each other, no matter what. I felt his soul leave when you guys magiced it out, and I didn't feel it go back in," Buffy explained.
Everyone turned to look at each other while Angelus was still screaming loudly. They tuned him out as they discussed what had just happened.
"Why didn't it work?" Fred asked curiously.
Everyone turned to Cordelia who was looking as puzzled as the rest of the group.
"It doesn't make sense," Cordelia said. "I thought that spell was-"
"Divine intervention?" Lilah suggested. "Trust me, you have more chances of winning the lottery six times in a row. I had the numbers done."
The group looked at her curiously before turning back to each other.
"Now what?" Fred asked nervously. Having Angelus screaming at the top of his lungs was doing very little for her frazzled nerves. She didn't understand how Buffy could look so calm.
"We need to find his soul," Wesley replied. "Restore it the proper way."
"Yeah, but how are we meant to find it? It's in some jar that could be anywhere by now," Gunn pointed out.
"Uh…just a suggestion, but…can we move away from the screaming vampire?" Lorne asked. "He's starting to hurt my eardrums."
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Even upstairs and with the door closed, they could still hear Angelus, though they couldn't make out the words. Or, most of the AI team couldn't make out the words. The way that Connor and Buffy were flinching every now and then suggested that they could hear him just fine.
Gunn sidled up to the Slayer who was standing a little to the side, her arms wrapped around herself. At least now she knew that Angel really hadn't been keeping tabs on her in Sunnydale. It was strange, she knew more about Angel than Angel knew about her. She hated that he had apparently moved on enough to not even check up on what she was doing.
"How you holding up, girl?" Gunn asked.
Buffy just shrugged. "Alright I suppose. Just glad we didn't let him outta that cage."
Gunn nodded his agreement, mentally shuddering at the thought of Angelus loose on the streets of LA.
"What the hell d'you say to him anyway?"
Buffy just shook her head. "It's private."
Gunn nodded, understanding that whatever had pissed off Angelus so much was obviously bad. He couldn't fault her for not wanting to tell a complete stranger about her personal life.
"So, what happens now?" Fred asked again. "How are we supposed to find the Muo-Ping?"
"The what now?" Buffy asked.
"The Muo-Ping," Wesley repeated. "It's the container that's holding Angel's soul in it. Without finding the container, we effectively have no way of restoring his soul. The soul can't leave it unless the container is opened, so even if we tried using the restoration spell again, it wouldn't work."
Buffy sighed. She couldn't believe that they'd been careless enough to lose Angel's soul. It just seemed inconceivable. She was suddenly hit by a quote that under any other circumstance would have had her laughing. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. She sighed and leant against the table, rubbing a hand over her face, carefully avoiding the nearly healed scar on her cheek.
"What about a locator spell?" Buffy asked. "Wouldn't you be able to find a soul with that?"
Wesley could have hit himself. The simplest answer and he hadn't even thought of it. Obviously they were far tireder than they thought they were.
"A locator spell, of course. Why didn't I think of that?" he asked aloud.
Connor scoffed. "More magic?"
Buffy looked at him, understanding his hesitancy about the use of dark arts. But he obviously didn't understand how powerful something like that could be.
"Don't underestimate the power of magic Connor," Buffy said softly. "We may not understand it, but it's pretty damn useful."
"Nothing good has ever come from magic," Connor insisted.
"You'd be surprised at how helpful it can be," Buffy said. "Without magic, I'd be dead a few times over. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for a really powerful spell."
"Yeah, I'm sure Willow's resurrection spell was really white magic," Cordelia said bitterly.
Buffy looked at her, wondering how Angel could work with someone who was so overtly annoying. Even Anya was better than Cordelia, and that was saying something.
"It may have been dark, but it got me back where I was needed."
"Geez, modest much?"
Buffy wanted nothing more than to remind Cordelia that she wouldn't have survived her junior year if it weren't for her, but she decided not to stoop down to Cordelia's level. She stayed silent and looked back at Wesley.
"Anyone here able to do the bippity-boppity-boo for this spell?" Buffy asked.
Wesley was already scanning through books looking for spells that would work to find a soul when it wasn't exactly inside a body. Within minutes he found what he was after, and upon scanning what needed to be done, he knew he wasn't qualified to perform it.
"A lost soul can't be found by just anyone," Wesley said sadly. "They have to have a connection to it somehow."
"Angel and I have a connection," Cordelia spoke up.
Connor rolled his eyes. He was getting really sick of Cordelia speaking of Angel as though they were together, when Connor knew for a fact that Angel had no intention of starting something with the seer.
"What about me?" Connor asked. "I'm his son, would that be close enough?"
Wesley scanned the spell again. He shook his head sadly. "It's fairly specific. Souls will only present themselves to their soulmates."
"See, there! I can perform it," Cordelia boasted.
Lorne looked at the seer as though he was seeing her for the first time. Had you asked the green demon two days ago whether Cordelia and Angel were meant for each other, he would have unequivocally said 'yes', but after meeting Buffy Summers and seeing her interact with Angelus, he was no longer sure. The blonde Slayer had something in her that Lorne had often seen in Angel.
"I don't think so sweetie," Lorne told her gently. "I think this might be a job for our little Slayer."
Buffy looked at him, panicked. "Me? And 'hey!' for that short comment."
Lorne chuckled a little. He walked over to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm, well away that he could be on the end of a severe ass kicking if he offended her.
"I saw you with Angelus, so I can only guess how you are with Angel. You two are bonded. Soulmates. And if I had to guess by looking at that scar on your neck, I'd say you were his chosen bonded mate as well."
The AI team all strained to see the mark on Buffy's neck, the only scar on Buffy's body that had never completely faded. She touched it softly, having almost forgotten it was there. It was such a part of her now that she hardly ever thought about it anymore.
"He bit you?!" Connor cried. He moved closer to her and moved Buffy's hand from her neck, staring at the scar that marred her otherwise smooth skin.
"Yep," Buffy replied. "Kinda stung."
"It doesn't mean anything," Cordelia insisted. "So he bit her. He left the next day!"
"They're bonded Cordelia," Wesley said. "Soulmates, bloodmates and bonded mates." He looked at the Slayer who had brought her hand back up to her neck, playing absently with her cross as well as with her scar, an almost ironic move. "Will you perform the spell?"
Buffy nodded and moved to stand beside her ex-Watcher, curious as to what she had to do. The only spell she'd ever participated in (besides the one where she'd ended up waking up in a box six feet under the earth) was trying to de-rat Amy so many years ago, and that had failed miserably.
"I'll give it a try, but…don't blame me if it doesn't work."
Cordelia didn't look happy at all. This was definitely not going according to plan. She hadn't been expecting the Slayer to turn up, and it had thrown a spanner into the works completely.
Wesley spoke quietly with the Slayer who read over the spell. It didn't seem all that difficult to do. With a few magical ingredients spread over a map, and a small chant, two dots would appear on the map, one showing where Angel's soul was, and the other showing Buffy's. Wesley wrote down several ingredients as well as the chant, which Buffy quickly memorised.
Ten minutes later, Buffy was seated cross-legged next to a large map of Los Angeles and another smaller map that was the floor plans of the Hyperion Hotel. Wesley handed a small jar of mixed ingredients, which the Slayer carefully poured across the two maps in two separate spirals.
"Soul to soul,
Fate to fate,
Blood to blood,
Mate to mate
Reveal to me."
Two bright lights hovered above the maps, separating between the two maps. The four lights were two different colours, two of them bright white, two of them a light blue. Both blue dots divided themselves again and settled easily, two over the hotel on the LA map, one on the fourth floor of the Hyperion Hotel, and one on the first floor where Buffy sat. Connor saw where it settled and raced upstairs, ignoring Cordelia offering to be the one to retrieve it. He was out of sight before Cordelia had even finished her sentence.
The two white dots, however, couldn't seem to settle. One was hovering above the LA map, the other over the Hyperion. Each of the white dots split itself up, separating into four equal parts.
"What the hell is that?" Gunn asked nervously.
Buffy watched the map of the Hyperion. The four white dots settled in four different sections. One was on the first floor and another two on the fourth floor with Angel's soul. The fourth dot hovered uncertainly before settling off the map. Buffy turned to look at the LA map and saw that the white dot had separated as well. Three portions settled over the Hyperion, and the other one floating away from LA. It settled when it was off the map.
"Why is that dot over there?" Fred asked.
Wesley only had one answer. "That's approximately where Sunnydale is," he said quietly.
Buffy looked up at him, genuinely panicked. "Why did my soul split into four parts like that? That can't be natural."
Gunn noticed more movement on the mad of the Hyperion. "Hey, it's splitting again."
Buffy turned to look and saw that one of the two dot's hovering above the fourth floor split itself again, one staying where Angel's soul still hovered, and the other moving to situate itself above the basement where Angelus' cage was.
"That's, uh…rather extraordinary," Wesley commented.
Connor came back down the stairs, carefully carrying the Muo-Ping, taking the stairs slowly so as not to drop the container. Buffy watched as the blue dot and the two white dots situated themselves on the first floor.
"Connor," Buffy said quietly, looking at the young man who was Angel's son.
"Yeah?"
"Can you do me a favour? Leave Angel's soul down here and just go up one floor."
Connor looked confused, but he didn't see why he couldn't do what she was asking. He handed Angel's soul to Wesley and climbed the stairs again. The group watched as one of the white dots travelled over the map of the Hyperion and settled on the second floor.
"Uh…here's a pretty obvious question," Gunn began. "Why is one of them little white dots on Connor? And is that Buffy's soul Angel's?"
"It's mine," Buffy replied. She didn't understand it. She couldn't understand why her soul was split into five different portions, three of them equal quarters and the other two half a quarter.
Wesley was looking at Buffy in disbelief. The Slayer shifted uncomfortably and stood up, breaking the spell. The dots disappeared and Connor came back down the stairs.
"What was that all about?" Connor asked.
"We're not entirely certain," Wesley admitted. "But we'll find out."
He looked as though he was about to hit research-mode then and there. Buffy wanted to know what was going on, but they needed Angel back before they even embarked on a new mystery.
"Shouldn't we put that little sucker back where it belongs?" Gunn suggested, pointing to the Muo-Ping.
Wesley seemed to realise what he was holding. "Oh. Yes. Sorry. It's all just terribly curious."
"Well, we can get curious later. Let's just get Angel back," Buffy said.
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Ooo, long chapter. Yayness.
I know the whole soul spell was awfully confusing. If you had trouble understanding it, email me katters_s@hotmail.com and I'll try and explain it a bit better. I tried to keep it as clear as possible, but unfortunately it's still hard to read sometimes.
SNEAK PREVIEW:
Next chapter, Connor and Buffy friendly bonding, Buffy and Angel cuteness, Cordelia annoyingness, and a shaman with a soul spell.
Toodles.