Author: Ash
Email: aka_jay66@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish. Well, sometimes. Anyway, most things in this story belong to The Buffy People.
Distribution: TPWFLD and anyone who wants it and asks.
Feedback: Would be really appreciated.
Rating: I give up. If it's not PG-13, I'll warn you.
Time Period: Um, I'm arbitrarily setting this during the time of Angelus, when Leather Pants ran free. (And now he's back. Back! Whee!)
Notes: Thanks to all the people who have commented on the Story that Would
Not Die. *g* Remember, it's your comments that... well, remind me about this
story, for one thing. (Bad memory! Work! ) Thank you all, especially Em for
sending me a reminder that had the goodness of comments baked right in.
Part Nine
Willow looked around the Bronze. The music was loud, the place was crowded and
coming there had been a very bad idea.
Someone brushed against the back of her chair and Willow nearly broke her neck
turning around to see who it was. It turned out to be someone with blond hair,
a deep tan and his arm around a woman and a beer respectively. Even so, Willow
watched him until he had disappeared into the crowd.
Coming there had been a very, very bad idea, Willow thought again, turning
back to the table she was sharing with Xander. It had a good view of the bar
and an even better view of Buffy moving on the dance floor, which went a long
way to explaining why Xander hadn't noticed Willow's jumpiness.
It was lucky that he was so distracted, Willow thought, very lucky. So very
lucky. She nudged her water glass with her fingers and was vaguely disappointed
when it didn't fall over and crush Xander's fingers.
In retrospect, it was astonishingly clear that Willow should have gone somewhere
else. Somewhere without people and noise and the constant unwanted physical
touching. Somewhere with locks on the doors and bars on the windows.
Willow frowned. Actually, she thought, there are bars on the windows. I wonder
why?
Okay, not the point, she thought sternly. The point was that vampires could
come in, at least if they had a valid form of ID and paid the cover charge.
She wondered if they really did pay the cover charge. It seemed slightly off
kilter, the idea of the bloodthirsty undead walking up to the bouncer with five
dollars and waiting to get their hands stamped with a picture of a happy dolphin.
Still, vampires probably have to pay for some things just like everyone else.
They can't kill the salespeople and burn down the stores everywhere
they shop. They must have favorite brands, discount cards, all that sort of
thing. After all, stuff wears out. And then you need to buy new stuff. And vampires
live forever, so they must need to replace things all the time...
Willow decided to stop that train of thought right there, before she really
got into trying to figure out how much shopping someone would have to do to
last for all eternity. They would need a really big cart – no! Lack of
focus wasn't good. She should leave. Find someplace with locks and doors.
Or just go find Angelus herself and save him the trouble of tracking her down.
"Willow," someone said close by her ear. The voice was male. The tone
was neutral.
Willow's shoulders slumped and she swiveled on her chair to face Oz, a
bright smile on her face.
"Oz! she said. Hey! "
Wait, she thought, I might have to break up with him. Should I sound that happy?
"I mean hey," she said again, trying to sound unenthusiastic.
Oz looked at her quizzically. Or possibly furiously. It was kind of hard to
tell with Oz.
But whatever Oz was, he wasn't turning and walking away from her. Darn
it, Willow thought when he smiled at her and slid into the seat beside her.
Where were her boy-repulsing skills when she really needed them?
"Hey, Oz said to Xander.
Xander said, and waved at him.
Even though Buffy was halfway across the room, Willow could spot the exact moment
when Buffy noticed that Oz had appeared. Her eyebrows went up. Her mouth spread
into a smile. She looked at Oz. She looked at Xander. She looked at Willow –
and winked.
Oh no, Willow thought. Keep dancing, Buffy. Don't come over here. Your
top is falling off, but that's okay. Keep dancing. Please, please don't
come over here.
"Xander! Buffy said. Come dance with me!" She smiled brightly
at Xander and Willow could see that smile reflected in his eyes. The poor boy
never stood a chance.
Willow was left alone with Oz.
Under normal circumstances, she'd be balancing on the edge between happy and
nervous. Now, even though it still made her happy to see him, the nervousness
was gone. Well, at least the kissing-nervous. The "I can't see you anymore
'cause you might die"-nervous was still going strong.
"When are the Dingoes going to play here again?" Willow said after
a long silence.
"We're not sure, Oz said, pausing, giving thought to it. Devon's
involved in a thing at school."
"What?" How could she break up with him?
"He kind of didn't go for a few months. "
"Oh. That's not a good thing." Look at him...
Oz leaned a little bit in towards her and lowered his tone to a confidential
whisper. "It shows he has priorities. Girls, the band, TV and then school."
He sat back and nodded gravely. "I admire a man with convictions. "
Willow had to grin, she couldn't help it, it wasn't her fault.
A half smile spread across Oz's face in response, slow and unexpected and
entirely too nice to look at. Willow looked at Oz's smile and forgot that
she was going to tell him to go away.
*****
Angelus was on Willow's balcony. And then he was turning the door handle.
And then he was walking inside the room, except that he wasn't. The barrier
was back up.
Angelus stood where the barrier had stopped him, frozen in the doorway, his
eyes fixed on the dark room, his face a blank and empty mask.
The smile that came onto his face was a bleak and terrible thing.
Her scent was gone, Angelus thought absently. She wasn't in the house.
Gone entirely then, and for a moment he thought that she could be on a bus somewhere,
hurtling towards the horizon. His hands were curled into fists and he could
taste blood on his lip.
His blood, he thought. Not hers.
The vision of Willow on the bus dissolved into nothing because she wouldn't
do that, she wouldn't leave her friends. She was out there somewhere, out
from behind the protective barrier and waiting for him to come find her. It
was a game, his game, his favorite game, and she was trying to change the rules.
He wasn't sure whether to be angry or amused.
The first stirrings of a sharper hunger helped him make up his mind. Willow
was defying him, and right at the beginning, too. She should be too frightened
to breathe right now, too frightened to think of anything besides the night
and the pain. He'd been too lenient. His mistake. Too bad for her.
Sunnydale was a much larger place when you were looking for someone. With every
minute that passed, with every flash of red hair that was not her red
hair, Angelus felt his anger grow. He'd wanted to taste her first that
night, see how the sharp edge of daytime starvation added to the taste of her
blood. Like the cherry on a sundae, he thought. Or salt on a burn.
He reached out and grabbed a woman by her not-quite-red-enough hair, pulling
her face towards him for just a second before he let go. It wasn't Willow.
The woman fell to her knees in the street, gathering breath to scream. Angelus
walked past her without looking back.
He heard the first scream behind him a second before he turned the corner into
the alley. A second later he heard running feet coming up fast behind him, and
he smiled and turned around.
The man who came running around the corner was wearing colorful sneakers and
a baseball hat. He nearly ran into Angelus before he stopped short, eyes wide.
It's always the young ones, Angelus said, the words distorted
by fangs and tongue and hunger.
The young man said, and took a step backwards.
First rule in the book, Angelus said. Mind your own business.
It only took one long step forwards for him to be within range, close enough
to grab the boy by the throat, close enough to slam his head hard against the
wall. The boy slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut and Angelus bent
over him, his coat falling over the boys face.
It wasn't enough. It wasn't her.
Angelus left the body in the alley when he'd finished with it, the colorful
sneakers dark in the shadow, the baseball hat crumpled on the ground. Angelus
felt perversely angry with the dead boy for not being Willow, angry with Willow
for not being the dead boy. She'd ruined his plans, forced him to feed
on someone else rather than risk draining her entirely. He'd done it to
save her. He wondered if she'd be grateful.
Angelus entered the Bronze and was buffeted by noise and heat and smell, Willow's
smell, like a splash of color in a black and white photograph. And another scent
too, like the smell of a world on fire. Angelus' eyes narrowed. Buffy was
there too. That complicated things.
It wasn't difficult to find either of them.
The humans in the club were probably aware of it to some degree. They would
feel a prickling heat on the back of their necks, a cold sick feeling in their
stomachs, a need to hold the hand of the person next to them and press head
to chest when dancing to hear the beating heart. All subtle signs, bodies trying
to warn their owners to beware, there were things around. Many things.
Not safe. Not normal.
Even Buffy should be able to pick out the vampires in the crowd tonight, Angelus
thought. All she'd need was a dart and a blindfold.
Of course, there were other ways of identifying them. Looking at the crowd was
like looking at an abstract painting, blobs of color and random faces and then
suddenly a revelation, a resolution into meaning. Because there were so many
people in the crowd that weren't talking or laughing or dancing. And they
were all carefully not looking at the same thing. Their faces were tight with
the effort of not looking at it.
Willow. Sitting at a table with the new boy, laughing at something.
Angelus didn't think she knew that she was surrounded by vampires, all
of whom were completely focused on the sight of her and the smell of her and
the thought of her blood. If she knew, she wouldn't be laughing. She'd
be screaming.
It wasn't hard to locate Buffy, either. The undead population of the club was
clustered in a semi-circle around Willow, but no one was near the dance floor.
Angelus growled sub-vocally to attract the attention of the vampires. He watched
as one by one they reluctantly turned from Willow. He watched their eyes widen
when they saw him standing there. There was a subtle widening of the circle
around her, vampires taking a few steps back to symbolize their acceptance of
his claim. He took one of the eldest aside and muttered a few terse instructions
before he stepped back into the deep shadows by the door.
A few minutes later, ten vampires walked by the dance floor. Each one held a
terrified girl by the wrist, dragging them along behind their captors as they
pushed their way through the crowd to the exit.
Angelus watched as Buffy and Xander stopped dancing and rushed to Willow's table.
Willow and the new guy stood up and followed Buffy and Xander as they led the
way through the crowd. Buffy went outside, followed by Xander, trailed by Oz
and –
The crowd in front of Willow was suddenly a solid wall of people. She was dodging
from side to side, muttering things like, Excuse me, and Could
you? to the throng. They took no notice of her, talking to each other
with blank smiling faces and twitching hands. She was becoming angry and afraid.
She smelled like blood and sex and death.
She was too far away.
And then Angelus' hands were on her shoulders and he was spinning her around
to face him, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arms and surprising a
soft gasp from her. Willow's eyes were wide and frightened as she looked
up into his face and it was almost enough to make him forgive her, but not quite.
He smiled at her, gripping her tighter just to see her wince and he pushed her
backwards, forcing her to walk backwards as he pushed her towards the edge of
the room.
"We need to talk," he said to Willow, and watched the fear
bloom in her eyes.
As they approached the wall, one of the dancers reached out and casually opened
a door, letting it swing open onto a black empty rectangle of space. Angelus
released Willow's arms and pushed her hard, open palmed and vicious, and she
made a small hurt shocked sound and fell into the room and onto the floor.
Angelus stepped in after her and closed the door.
_______
End Part Nine
Tell me what you think?
Ah, the fun. Curse my busy schedule. After Angelus' triumphant return on
Angel all I want to do is sit down and write shiny pretty Angelus fic. I'm
a sick puppy and I know it, but I can't seem to bring myself to care. *g*
(All reviews replied to tomorrow, 'cause I'm sleepy. Didn't think you guys would
want to wait until tomorrow for the new chapter. See? I'm a nice person, occasionally.)