Chapter 11 Some Fond Remembrance


He awoke to find himself stretched out full length in an alley. There was a rush of wind in the night sky, an icy breath of winter kissing him with sleet. Cold as the grave.

This is where I belong, he thought, the grave. Dead.

He stared into the darkness at the sleeping city. Nothing but alley cats hunting for the rats scurrying in the darkness.
Good hunting, he thought.
He made a leap for a carelessly disengaged fire escape and leapt up the iron stairs for the rooftops.

I'm a creature of the night, right. Evil Nothing's gonna change that, not even the Slayer.
The air smelled of fear. Sweet, and delicious like honey and nutmeg on Christmas morning with a bright tang of old pennies. He fell into the old familiar hunter's stance, tense and focused.

I'm a hunter, he thought. The taste, the power...I remember that. He curled his shoulders and felt the bones of his face shift into the ridged alien profile of the demon inside. The delicious fear. I loved that.

 He inhaled sharply, scenting for prey. There was something in the air. Something familiar. I recognize that. I know that....

There was a sting of Black Magic in the air. Old, dark magic.

Damned if I'm sticking around here. Magic!

He lowered his eyes to the streets, the asphalt rapidly glazing over with a quick patter of ice, turning the asphalt streets to mirrors.

Through a glass darkly, he remembered.

He stood, teasing out his memories from the snarls and tangles of nothingness, trying desperately to fill the gaps. A watery yellow light crawled around the corners and down the pale, cold sidewalks.

Angelus.

Braggart. Always going on about how he'd taken Darla away from the Master. How the Master was so proud of him. The most vicious of us all. Oh yeah, a real prince, he was.

 He laughed a little to himself as the memories began to trickle back. First a rivulet, then faster and faster. Pictures flooded back of of a demon with an angelic face and the lessons in the poetry of pain hellish days and nights; a family of unspeakable cruelty and passion; and blood, hot and red, surging like champagne on his lips. He fell to his knees and clawed at the roof tiles to keep from screaming aloud.

Angelus.

We were raveners and reavers. There were others, too, he thought, two women--one dark, one light. Long years of heaven and hell. Then came the gypsies . A soul, he thought, they cursed him with a filthy soul. He ran from us, his family. Left us alone.

He pieced together his past from half-remembered fragments and bare bones of memories. The rest of Demon kind had stuttered along, finally to the Great Assimilation. The Peace Accords. I was there, he thought with a smile, in Geneva. There were riots and blood sprayed like fountains in the streets.
Last of all had been the vampires, dragged kicking and biting into peace with the world above Only a few outlaws hunted now. Why should they, when they had what they wanted for a price and no fear of retribution?

Fox hunters, he thought, that's what we are now. Chasing a bag of donated blood and butcher's refuse.

Not me, though. I was one of the last ones, a rebel. A Slayer of Slayers. Until the Great Assimilation, the New World Order or whatever the latest name is.

Until I went to L.A. , looking for a trace of my Angel and found the Slayer. Until she asked me for help.

Then a picture burned its way to his conscious mind. A most hideous sight in his long, monstrous existence. A night in Los Angeles when he had seen the last moments of his angel. The night he was freed of his sire's dominion. Free of his hand, free of his will, never to see the beloved, hateful face again.

Her! he thought, It was because of Her. The Slayer! It was all her fault. He caught a hard unnecessary breath and crawled to his feet to roar angrily into the night, a guttural wordless cry of pain and passion.
It's wrong. I shouldn't love her. The bloody be-damned Slayer. She sent me away, made me leave and then it happened. She caused it all! He was working himself up into a rabid fury, snarling with an animal rage.


Footsteps echoed, a single set of high heels tapping tentatively on the icy pavement. His frozen heart sparked with excitement.

Music: Mark Snow, The Dark Waltz from Seduced and Betrayed