Inking Angelus

by Larbo

An (unfinished) tale of how Angelus got that tattoo

Inking Angelus

He'd always loved the sun. As a child grinding out a barren, begging existence on the streets of Cork, it had elevated his spirits to gaze up and feel its warmth washing over him. Of course, living where he lived he'd counted himself lucky to see a blue sky more than twice a handful of times a year. Flashes of memory raised themselves – bolting across the fields around the suburbs of the city, an angry storeholder or former wallet-owner usually in hot pursuit. They'd never caught him on good days, when the ground was firm and he could almost fly through the chaff, his heart pounding with exertion and exhilaration.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he said softly.

His companion watcher, standing a few yards distant and shrouded in a pool of shadow thrown by a church steeple, only grunted noncommittally by way of reply. Connor's mouth tugged up in a smile he couldn't stop from surfacing. The sleepy English hamlet on whose outskirts – such as they were – he now stood slumbered still, the witching hour long gone, but sunrise still moments away. It was toward this event that Connor was looking now, toward the swirls and ripples of crimson stretched like blood filament across the pre-dawn skyline.

"Don't try to talk me out of this, my friend," he said, swooping down to gather up a piece of fallen masonry from the church wall. The brickwork crumbled in his grasp. With a flick of the wrist he scattered the remains. "Ashes to ashes…dust to dust."

"You're a big boy," the other spoke, his Irish lilt matching Connor's own with only a few minor subtleties of dialect to discern them. "I'm not your father."

He had to smile again at that. "You killed your father, didn't you Angelus?"

"That I did," the reply came back, tainted with an undercurrent of pride and relish.

"I never knew mine. I killed my mother though."

"She died in childbirth. It's not the same. No bonus points for you."

There was an unmistakable glow to the horizon now, an enflaming of the crimson strands, as if blood was pumping through them once more. Neither man failed to notice it, their senses attuned beyond the comprehension of most. Connor could feel the stirrings of the diurnal insect population around him, taste the wetness of the dew forming across the grass and blooms he stood amongst.

"You'll create a legend for yourself, Angelus. I know it. You have a momentum to you that neither stake nor sunlight will be able to penetrate for many years."

"Famous last words, Connor."

"You don't have the remotest idea why I'm doing this, do you?"

His companion stepped forward enough for the emerging effusion of light to illuminate his face. The copper-tint of predawn settled on yellowed pupils and a protruding, unnatural forehead. "You're a coward," Angelus said simply. Getting no immediate response, he continued, "you're sick of running and hiding from humans, tired of the hatred we receive at every turn. I miss anything?"

The light was noticeably stronger now. England's flat, sweeping arable plains would afford him no screening from mountaintops. Mere yards to his right the shadows reigned still, and would do so until the climbing sun breasted the steeple come mid-morning. Angelus would be long gone by then, of course, back on his merry way across the continent. The ambient warmth was increasing too. Vampires loathed sunlight and detested heat. Connor bathed in the promise of both.

"I was never meant to be turned. You had conflicts, hatreds, resentments. Unfinished business with the world, Angelus, an axe to grind."

"We all do."

"Not all of us," Connor contradicted him softly. "I was born into poverty, alone, without a family to raise me. I relied on the kindness of others to survive."

"You watched people who'd been born into better lives looking down their noses at you, spitting on you for daring to ask them for a handout," Angelus countered. "How was it fair for you to be given nothing, for your mother to be taken from you, and for these people to have so much? Why you, Connor?"

That half-smile surfaced again. "Why not me, Angelus? I was given life, and I survived a difficult childbirth when most in my place would have perished along with my mother. I survived a childhood on the streets," and he paused, "I thought someone was looking out for me."

Angelus sensed the opening. "Aye, someone was – the beast who sired you, took your life away just when it was looking like you'd beat the odds. Your existence was stolen from you…surely that fills you with rage, gives you a purpose?"

"I died that night, my friend," Connor reminded him. "What's left of me now is a shell with a demon rattling around inside with nothing to cling to, nothing to work with. I want my body to join my soul, wherever it is…" he grinned and cast a knowing glance over at the defiant young vampire, "…one day you might feel the same way."

"I doubt that," Angelus shot back.

"You think you know everything…what are you, not even a hundred, hundred fifty?"

"I'm old enough to recognise a coward in wise man's clothes."

"Coward? Where is the courage in killing for the sake of killing? I was called a wise man by our people because I had lived for longer than most of us ever will. I was given kills I never made. I could be in a different continent to a massacre and hear about how many humans I had killed with each blow. That's why you haven't simply left me to die – you can't quite believe that this reclusive, legendary killer you sought turned out to be me; a suicidal, pathetic shadow of a ma – of a former man."

"I wanted to learn from you."

Connor spread his arms. The horizon glow, for the past few minutes building to crescendo, finally burst forth as a shining sliver of the sun appeared, receding the terminator line across the planet, inexorably driving the darkness back in its wake. Angelus flinched reflexively, moving deeper into the safety of the shadow pool, but unable to remove his gaze from the sight before him. Connor gloried in his return to the domain of light, allowing the first advancing rays of the morning to wash over and through him. He drew a long, deep breath of satisfaction.

"Perhaps one day Angelus," he cried, smoke already curling from his ragged, unkempt clothing, "you will realise that you have…"

The last syllable was lost as his body exploded abruptly and completely into flames, the combustion as swift and brutal as any death Angelus had ever dealt himself. For a brief moment he was brighter than the day he had craved to see; a burning cross of searing fire outshining the sluggish dawn light. All too soon, however, his skeletal structure crumbled from the bottom up, so that the ruined figure plunged to its knees. It, he, Connor was gone instants afterward, the fire extinguished since there was nothing left to burn but ashes. As Angelus watched, even those began to be scattered by the resurgent winds.

Stranded in his protective shade, there was only one place to go. Forcing down the usual deep unease settling in his gut with something approaching shame, Angelus strode into the interior of the sanctified building. Vampires, contrary to popular conception, could freely enter houses of God. He'd killed in such places, spilled the blood of the clergy and watched it spatter the altar, an altogether different kind of sacrifice to the one so graphically depicted in such places. Men of the cloth, ironically, had always made for some of the most vicious killers once turned to the ranks of the undead. Angelus put it down to years of starched underwear.

Connor was dead. They'd spent the last week of the old vampire's life together. Tired of hearing of the legend of the greatest Irish demon ever to walk the globe, Angelus had finally tracked him down to this forsaken country, unsure whether his intentions were to rid himself of this frankly irritating albatross around his neck or to learn from a man widely acclaimed as a supreme exponent of –

"Get out."

The crucifix hovered four feet from his eyes, dangling from a set of ornate rosary beads held by the shaking hand of the parish priest. Unable to behold it, Angelus raised his hand and took a step back, feeling his mouth curling in a pre-killing sneer.

"Can't a man have some sanctuary from the cold and the hunger?"

"A man can."

There was barely contained fury in the priest's face. With instincts borne of long practice, the object of his rage sized up the situation. The priest was old; liver spots were spreading across the hand that clutched the holy talisman. With one sweep of a hand Angelus knew he would, could, send the protective device spinning across the sepia-tinted pews.

Where is the courage in killing for the sake of killing?

"You think me an animal."

"Animals have a place in God's plan."

"And we don't? Tell me Father – don't we unite communities? Doesn't fear of us inspire multitudes of your precious flock to swarm to you like the sheep you're bold enough to tell them they are? Isn't that a place in God's plan?"

"Oh and I'm sure that's the real motivation behind your kind's massacres. It's true you can bring out the best in us, but that is not a credit to you – that is a credit to us. Now," and the priest, amazingly oblivious to the danger of his situation, actually bent the odds further in Angelus' favour by taking a step forward, "I have asked you once to remove yourself from this place. I will not ask you again."

You're tired of the hatred we receive at every turn.

Disorientated slightly, inexplicably, Angelus took a step back. The priest, looking as if he wasn't quite believing his luck was holding out this far, advanced a shaky step, never letting the crucifix drop.

"If you put me through those doors," Angelus reminded him, "I'll die."

"I fail to see your point."

"Aren't I entitled to the same rights as any heathen? The right to convert? Sure I know the story well – rape and pillage, maim and kill, then repent on your deathbed and make it sound sincere. One ticket to Paradise, sown up for the takin…"

"Your deathbed has passed. Whether you repented your sins or whether you did not I cannot say. What you are now can show neither remorse, nor mercy, nor pity."

"And if I could, Father?"

They paused in their odd, slow dance backward across the cool tiles of the chapel floor. Confusion and uncertainty flickered across the priest's face, chased all the while by a deep suspicion. The knuckles clutching the beads, however, were markedly less white with the exertion of grip than previously. Angelus absorbed this fact silently.

"I had always been told that only creatures with souls could experience the rites of redemption. Are you honestly asking me to believe you wish to repent your acts?"

Angelus' right hand moved like lightning. There was a blur, a splintering sound from the nearest pew and, almost before the priest had time to register that something had transpired, he found himself now holding a pointed wooden stake where formerly his string of Rosary beads had lain.

"I want to end it, Father."

Stunned with shock, it was all the priest could do to steady himself. The display of Angelus' speed must have brought home to him how close to a violent and agonising death he really had been just seconds ago. Suspicion lay still behind his wrinkled brow – dulled now, perhaps, but still palpable. "Why?" Angelus was asked.

Sinking to rest himself on a pew, Angelus sighed. "What does it matter, why? You should rejoice that the world is free of one more of our number. Strike, Father. I deserve no amount of a second chance, you said so yourself."

The pressure of the stake point was against his chest now. Angelus had not survived this long without learning a thing or two about the weapon. Though the most effective offensive instrument to use against his kind, it had its drawbacks. It was not as easy as it looked to drive what was usually a blunt point through a ribcage, avoiding glancing off ribs all the while, and pierce the heart. Momentum of that magnitude required a sharp backswing and a strong arm.

The Father, of course, knew nothing of this kind.

"I don't profess to know what goes on in the life hereafter…but what you're doing now, I suppose it cannot harm whatever eternal fate awaits you."

Angelus nodded slowly. "I know I'm a monster," he said, struggling to keep a straight face, his muscles tensing, "but this…this at least makes me feel like a man again."

Fingers curling around the wide end of the stake, his eyes half-closed in a silent prayer of reverie, the priest hissed "God be with you th – "

The chapel doors burst open to the world, opening up a shaft of sunlight which raced through the pews and seared through Angel. He screeched in rage and pain and vaulted nine feet straight up to the safety of the shadowed head of a stone statue, remaining there crouched and feral like a scalded cat.

A mob. They were almost a comforting sight after a few years of your vampiric career; you became accustomed to their trademark stupidity and complete inability to realise that not everyone who crossed their path dressed in black and a little pale around the face was a creature of Satan. Angelus rarely ceased to marvel at the innate capacity for casual evil in humanity.

"Father!" the questioning cry went up from the man heading the group as they bore down upon the scene. Unruffled, Angelus descended lightly from the statue to come to a standing stop a few feet behind the priest.

"I'm all right," he assured them. "I know what he is."

Angelus allowed two of the fastest runners to pin his arms back, hanging limp in their grasp. The man who had spoken to the priest made to take the stake from his hand.

"No."

"Stay out of the way, Father."

A murmur of unease went around the mob as the priest stepped between the wielded stake and Angelus' prone body. "I said to stay your hand," he snapped, "will you disobey your priest so publicly, Jack?"

"Strike, I beg you."

"You stay out of this."

"A suicidal demon? Is this the lie we are supposed to digest?" Jack sneered.

"It is no lie. He could have killed me. I don't want him dead…yet."

"Keep holding him," Jack instructed his lieutenants. "If he tries anything, grant his wish, no matter what this man of God…" his voice conveyed how much credence he was currently giving that description, "…may say."

The priest turned to face Angelus. "Before you said you wanted to die, you asked if you could have a chance to convert. I'm at a loss, being but a humble priest, as to how I would even go about it."

"A baptism would be fun to watch," Jack growled. "Father, rumours have been saying for weeks that their kind were spotted in these parts. I heard one man swear that he had seen the demon Connor himself just a few towns from here. Next morning an entire family was found sucked dry on their own farmland."

Angelus found it quite an effort to stop himself licking his lips in sweet remembrance. He had enjoyed that family…lovely daughter…

A new voice spoke up. "Connor is dead."

The crowd turned as one. A young girl had approached the group without being seen. She fixed Angelus with a piercing stare before addressing Jack directly. "I watched it from my doorway no more than a half hour ago. He was caught in the sunrise and burned. He," she tilted her head to indicate who she meant, "was there, in the shadows."

"How would you be able to recognise Connor, Elizabeth?" Jack asked her scornfully.

"I was there in Yarmouth when he escaped his pursuers three years ago, before my family moved here. He stayed in our barn and I discovered him the morning he fled. I would know him anywhere."

"Is this true? Did you kill Connor?" the priest asked.

Angelus did not meet his eyes. "He was given to bragging…about his kills, about what he'd planned for the next time. He saw death as a birthright of all humanity."

"I don't believe this!" Jack exploded.

"I saw it with my own eyes," Elizabeth maintained calmly. She lashed out in temper as Jack placed a crucifix on her forehead. "How dare you!"

"So you're not undead," Jack conceded, "that doesn't mean you're not his whore!"

That remark proved to be unwise. Angelus watched the scene unfold – the priest, outraged that his place of sanctity would be defiled by such accusations and language, fairly marched Jack (a much larger man) out of the building, both men shaking with fury. The remainder of the mob stayed for as long as it took for Angelus' hands to be bound with rope from a local smith's. During the binding he made certain to tense his muscles; once the knots were tied, he would have all the leeway necessary to remove them with a snap of the wrists. The other end of his tether was wrapped around the statue he had sought refuge on.

Ah, well…I had nothing else planned today. Warm surroundings, close to food, nice décor…Darla and I should get ourselves an apartment here. When she's not leaving me for dead from Holtz, that is…

He had acquired himself a visitor already. The priest – a Father Neilands, he had recently learned – had promised to return when his duties for the day were completed. Before then, however, it seemed that there was unfinished business to attend to.

"Hadn't a pretty girl like you better keep her distance from a monster like me?"

The young woman from a few hours previously had returned. She truly was pretty; unlike most of her contemporaries around these parts, she sported long blonde hair that fell from her shoulders in tresses. Quite the ringer for Darla, including the way she could increase the intensity of her stare. He fairly baked under her eyes.

"I know you didn't kill him," she said evenly, leaning in close.

"Do you, now," he replied, beginning to enjoy himself. "And I suspect you wouldn't know Connor from any other man undead."

"That's where you're wrong. He stayed in our barn, just as I said. What I didn't mention was that I was the one who found him the next morning. He was bleeding from the wounds of running from our kind the night before. Not knowing what he was, I helped to heal him."

Angelus nodded in realisation. "And of course, the two of ye got talking."

"He was surviving on rats," she said, distaste spreading across her face, "scrabbling through alleys for enough food to survive, and we repaid him by adding to his legend wherever he went. He told me that he knew of a man, a human, who killed for fun and laid the blame on vampires. It was a much easier truth that way."

"You know I didn't kill him."

"He killed himself, I know. I was the reason he came here; he promised to look me up in a few years time, should he still be alive. I recall he mentioned that there was another vampire travelling with him."

"So honoured he mentioned me," Angelus replied, his mind a little distracted. It had been too long since his last meal, and he could feel the pangs of the hunger beginning to course their seductive, delicious siren call through him. His perceptions began to narrow, his hearing to sharpen until the roaring of the blood through Elizabeth's veins all but drowned out any other sound. This experiment had been interesting, but perhaps it was time to bring it to an –

"The only reason I didn't contradict your story was because Connor told me you had a role to play. He didn't know what that role was, just that it was important," Elizabeth interrupted his thoughts and prolonged her life unwittingly. "Did he ever tell you about the things he saw? The visions?"

"Visions? Visions of what exactly?" Angelus asked, his hunger forgotten for the moment. Such abilities were all too rare, and could be made to be useful.

"Messages," she shrugged. "Garbled mostly. They were a big part of the reason he never fed from us - he saw people in pain, felt their misery, and knew he could never be a part of it. He never understood why he received them. I think it drove him crazy, eventually – how could he help the people he saw, as a vampire?"

"Why should he?"

She glared at him, but her reply went unsaid, for Father Neilands had returned as promised, two of Jack's lieutenants not far behind. Angelus felt his mood change to one of slight concern – these men looked useful, and were armed well with stakes and what looked like vials of holy water. To break free now and tackle them would be too risky, particularly as it remained sunlit outside. Blessed be the meek…

"Elizabeth…?" the priest began, in tones of rebuke.

"I know, Father," she apologised immediately. "I was curious about him. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," he told her. "Unusual though he is, remember at heart he remains a demon, and will always be so. He can never be one of us."

Angelus saw what Neilands did not – the flash of anger in her eyes at this statement. "Yes, of course Father," she mumbled, before curtseying and bobbing away. He watched her go thoughtfully. Yes, that was definitely a work in progress…

Neilands turned his attention back to Angelus, who endeavoured to look suitably unworthy in the face of his stare. "Are you willing to begin?"

"You'll excuse a man for being a little nervous as to what you mean by begin," Angelus replied, nodding toward the armed escort.

"They're here for my protection, at the insistence of Jack," Neilands explained. "I have instructed them only to act if provoked, which I assume they will not be…?"

"No arguments here."

"I think you should know that I have sent word to my direct superiors about this. I imagine they will contact the Watcher's Council and follow whatever advice they give. It could be that they will order us to have you destroyed…an order I will be obliged to comply with."

He had more than enough time, then. Angelus relaxed. No doubt the Watcher's Council would dismiss the case and order his immediate death; had they known his identity – and they might well piece it together from the description Neilands would have given – they would fall over themselves to have the privilege of watching him die as spectacular a death as possible. Demons could scarce dream of some of the executions they had carried out.

"I'm looking for peace, Father, and I'll find it one way or the other."

Connor would be so proud of me.

Elizabeth hurried home, knowing full well that her mother would have strong words – punctuated with exclamation marks from her forearm, perhaps – to say about her absence from her duties for the duration of most of the morning. She tried to care, and found she could not. Connor's death sucked at her. He had been so kind to her those years back, a type of person she had never thought existed, one who saw her as more than a mother-in-waiting, a farmhand minus a husband – a flaw that would be corrected, inevitably, in short order.

She remembered the brief, snatched conversation they'd had only a few nights ago, the last time she'd spoken to him. He had spoken of Angelus more than she had admitted to the cocky young vampire bound in the chapel; told her that there was some strong connection to this place, this town, and the destiny that awaited him. What it was he couldn't say.

"Then why are you doing this to yourself?" she had asked him, tears in her eyes.

"It's my time, Elizabeth."

"It was your time three hundred years ago," she returned, walking away from him. She heard him sigh from behind her. Barely ten minutes earlier she'd offered herself to him, to be her first. He had smiled, and told her that happiness was more forbidden for him than she could possibly realise.

"It's my time," he repeated. "I know that my death here will set – something – in motion. A series of events, linked to Angelus, which must take place. I'm just the trigger, Elizabeth. I have no choice."

"You'll welcome it," she accused him.

He leaned heavily against the entranceway of her family's granary. "I will. I thought it might be possible for a vampire to help those in need, but I was wrong. All we're meant for is killing. That'll never change. Angelus has made that clear to me."

And to me, she thought darkly. Strikingly handsome though the younger vampire was, he was nothing more than a barely restrained predator, an animal. She had little doubt that his innocence play was a stopgap measure to save himself from a staking until he could make his escape. What was she to do about it?

"Elizabeth!"

She smiled. "Hello, James."

Her perpetual admirer from two farms across was even now bounding across the mid-afternoon lanes. Young, quite muscular and handsome in his own way, she'd been fending off his shy advances these three years in the village, images of Connor surfacing unbidden in her mind whenever she thought of another man. James, to give him credit, showed no signs of giving up. She blushed involuntarily.

"They say a beast has been captured in town!" he informed her breathlessly. "I was quite concerned about your safety!"

"I'm fine," she assured him, wondering idly how he would react if she told him about her midnight liaison with another such 'beast' just a few nights ago. He'd probably spontaneously combust. She suppressed a giggle at the thought.

"Even so," and his face was reddening even as he spoke, "I really think I ought to walk you back to your home."

"I feel safer already," she pronounced, just to see the expression of pride on his face.

They walked along the winding country lanes to the entrance to her family's humble land ownings. James, between deep breaths dealing with his own nervousness, showered her with compliments – how radiant her hair seemed, how beautiful her eyes. She knew she should have found it tiresome, but in truth it was quite charming; there were other girls in the area James could easily have chosen as the target of his affections, and yet he had suffered her constant gentle rebuttals to remain her faithful, adoring patron. She felt genuine regret when their shared walk came to its natural end.

"Safe, as promised," he declared, and gave a small bow. His eyes flitted to her house windows. "I, er, I believe you'll be quite safe from here."

You just don't want to have to explain your actions to my father, she thought, a smile betraying her amusement. Her father considered James a flighty dreamer; but then, by her father's standards, anything but a soldier ant in a hive was a flighty dreamer. Elizabeth had often wondered how on earth her parents had managed to stay in the same room long enough for their children to be conceived. Perhaps they'd arranged it via postal messenger.

"Thank you James," she told him, cordially. He took this with a brave face and tried not to let his obvious disappointment show. Before he turned to leave, she placed a hand on his shoulder, revolved him around without protest and left a trace of a kiss on his lips. When she released him he stood there for a moment, eyes almost closed, wavering slightly in the cooling air, a beatific smile on his face. She felt his adoring gaze on her back the whole way to her door and permitted herself to shut out all concerns over this Angelus and, for a moment, simply to bask in the glory of being found desirable.

The hand hit her square in the face, without warning. She stumbled and caught her hip on the wooden dining table, gasping in pain, her knee striking the floor painfully.

"Where have you been!" her mother raged, striding over to where she lay, prone and in pain from both of her impacts. A rough hand grabbed her by the left arm and she was bodily forced into a standing position, her face inches from her mother's own, which was by now twisted into a terrible mixture of anger and deep suspicion.

"In…town…" she replied weakly, trying not to let the rage she was experiencing seep into her tone, for fear of a second blow. "I was caught up…they caught something there, near the chapel…a demon."

That one got through. Her mother released her and crossed herself fervently. She was a God-fearing woman. Elizabeth had long thought that if her mother, of all people, feared God, then God must truly be one of the scariest concepts there was. "Jesus deliver us from the devil's minions," she muttered, before seeming to remember about Elizabeth once more. No apology was forthcoming. Heaven forbid…

"Get yourself busy, there's work to be done," she was told. Her mother vanished into the recesses of the family home. The smell of the communal dinner was already wafting through the rooms. Elizabeth watched her mother's life with a sort of fascinated horror – it seemed to consist of a mixture of slavery, psychological persecution and physical abuse. Not for me, she thought defiantly, fighting the tears stinging her eyes as her hip and knee bruises began to throb. She would not accept the life that so many women around her blindly thought was their due. No matter what.

Neilands' face was flushed with anger. "Jack, you were instructed to leave us alone."

Angelus had encountered man like Jack many times over; the savage loner, with all the discerning intelligence of a rhino with toothache. If vampires and demons had not existed, men like Jack would have found other outlets for violence – blacks, immigrants, wives and children. Looking at him now, Angelus wondered how many times his wife had worn long dresses to conceal her markings.

Jack flashed him a glance of pure malice before turning his attention to Neilands. "Word's been sent to the bishop. We should have the reply within the hour."

Angelus struggled to contain his reaction. An hour? That was impossible…and it gave him little time. By his estimations the sun would still be up by then, though sunset would not be very far away. He could possibly forge a safe passage through the shade offered by the evening rays, ducking from tree to tree; there was always the protective blanket option, though such things made identification as a vampire from afar ludicrously easy. Of course, there was the slight problem of getting outside alive…

Even Neilands was taken aback. "The hour?" he echoed.

"Council have their own methods," Jack shrugged. He strolled past Angelus, relishing every step, eyeballing the vampire with latent hatred.

"I was hoping for more time," Neilands said, almost to himself. "This is such a unique opportunity…we could learn so much from him…"

"Learn?" Jack spat. "All his kind teach – all they've ever taught – is death."

"I don't know," Angelus said breezily, "I could give you some hygiene pointers – "

This proved to be the snapping point for Jack. With a primal roar he launched himself at the bound figure of Angelus, intent on wrapping his arms around the vampire's neck and making all Council decisions moot. His troubles began, therefore, when by the time his hands arrived their chosen target was no longer there. Jack's enraged roar had hidden the ripping noise which heralded the demise of Angelus' bonds. Twisting his body in a pirouette of effortless grace, he was able to avoid the clumsy lunge of the smith, snake out an arm and pin an astonished Jack to the wall.

"First lesson," he hissed.

"Get him!" the cry went up from multiple throats as the crowd surged forward as one. Angelus kept his grip tight around Jack's throat and turned, backing up so the smith was placed between the onrushing villagers and himself. Seeing this, they slowed in their advance.

"One more step now, and you'll be shoein' your own horses this summer," he said calmly, enjoying the expressions on offer. Neilands was the pick of the bunch; his face had drained of colour completely.

"You'll die for this, demon," the priest promised him.

"I'm already there, padre, remember? You tell me what exactly I have to gain from 'converting' – here I was behaving myself and still you were having me killed."

Jack was making gurgling noises. Angelus, curious, released his grip slightly so the words would be intelligible. "…kill…him…"

"How noble," Angelus cooed. "Giving up his life to rid the world of my kind, eh Jack?" and he planted a kiss on the smith's forehead, easily containing his struggles.

"How much of it was lies?" Neilands asked.

"When I told you I knew I was a monster, I wasn't lying."

"Did you kill Connor?"

Angelus laughed. "I had no need to. Connor was your genuine tortured soul. That's what gets me about this whole thing; if he'd come along here instead of me, he would have been for real. And you all, you noble humans, you still would have killed him."

"Let go of Jack and get out," Neilands ordered him, advancing a step beyond the furthest member of the would-be avenging crowd. "Never come here again."

Angelus affected great dismay at this. "What about our discussions, Father? I thought we were getting somewhere."

"So did I," Neilands replied, taking another step.

Something pressed into the small of Angelus' back. He started for a fraction of a second before realising he'd simply backed into the nearest wall. Jack seemed either to have resigned himself to a role as hostage or to have lost enough blood to stop posing a problem. The situation overall, for all his posturing, was not ideal – even if he could trust the baying mob not to rush him and sacrifice Jack, it remained sunlit outside and would do so for another hour or mo…

He was on fire.

Leaping aside from what he now dimly realised was not just a wall, but a wall with a huge carving of the crucifixion scene attached, Angelus threw himself to the floor of the chapel, rolling as he went to extinguish the flames licking agonisingly up his back. Jack, released in the rush, fell in the opposite direction, gasping and clutching at his neck. One or two of the crowd paused by him to ensure he was breathing.

The rest had another direction in mind.

Angelus vaulted to his feet, his back smoking painfully but the flames gone. Two villagers came at him, screaming challenges. He high-kicked the one on the left in the torso, hearing the snap of bone. The scream died abruptly, replaced by a disbelieving gurgle as the man's lungs began to fill up with his own blood. The kick left his head under the wild swing of the man on the right, whose fist sailed through empty air and took most of his lower body along with it through sheer momentum. It was simplicity itself for Angelus to sweep his left foot out and send the man sprawling into a untidy heap of arms and legs, incidentally landing on the prone body of his attacking partner, who took this as his cue to lose consciousness altogether.

The fate of their front men played out in front of their eyes had served to slow the remainder of the mob in their urgency to attack. Regaining his upright stance, Angelus furthered his sudden psychological edge by choosing this moment to adopt his vampiric features, relishing the surge of energy and strength that the change always brought him. The villagers had halted their advance no more than five feet from him, sufficient distance for a few to tend to their fallen comrades. None seemed willing to be the first to join them.

Neilands was kneeling by the man with the chest wound. He nodded to two men in the crowd, indicating the stricken heroes. Trying not to show their elation at being given a get-out clause, the men scrambled over themselves to hoist their fellow villagers up and carry them to safety and, he presumed, medical treatment. Not that it would help in the case of one of them. Neilands watched them go before facing Angelus once more, his previous fury replaced with calm, accepting hatred; Angelus would much have preferred the former outlook. Men in moods like Neilands were capable of anything.

"He won't survive." It wasn't a question.

"He attacked me," Angelus replied, truthfully enough. "What happened to the deal – release Jack and walk out of here?"

"You can't defeat all of us," Neilands countered. "Not at once. Not here."

"That's as may be," he agreed equably, "but by the time we're done, won't there be an awful lot of children tonight missing their daddies, wives without husbands, crops without farmhands to bring them in…and flock without shepherd."

"You revel in the chaos you bring," Neilands accused him.

"Actually I'm kinda bored," Angelus answered his accusations. "Spending all day in a chapel isn't my idea of a good time, no offence. I'd love to be on my merry way out of this place and not have to deprive the good villagefolk of any more of their darling men. The question is, can ye keep the hounds here off the scent of blood till sunset?"

A murmur of deep discontent went through the crowd. Amazingly, Jack had regained enough use of his larynx to make his dissent vocal. Angelus found himself wishing he'd snapped the man's neck when he'd had the opportunity.

"You can't let him go! We'd be responsible for whatever deaths he causes!"

Neilands fixed him with a glare. "And what do you suggest, Jack? Who amongst us would you sacrifice? Harold? Jake? Edward? Myself? We don't have the numbers or the skill to make a stand and not expect death. Without us, this village would die."

"Doesn't God tell us there are things more important than our own lives?"

This one got through. Neilands cast down in eyes, shamed. "Now is not the time," he mumbled. "But we will not forget the lessons that this day has taught us, and if – when – the demon returns, we will be ready for him."

They stood for a moment in silence, Jack's face screwed up in a legacy of his neck pain and no small measure of distaste – much of it aimed at his parish priest and not the marauding vampire. Angelus leapt lightly onto a wooden plinth and sank, cross-legged, into a sitting position, watching the assembled villagers peacefully. Filled with unease and simmering with shame at their own impotence, they stood confused for a few moments before themselves adopting more comfortable positions.

"We can sit here and admire each other until darkness falls, or I can be out of here now," Angelus said, with a calmness he did not feel. "I'll need a covering of some kind – a thick blanket…"

"Jake," Neilands interrupted, "there are spare Christening shawls out back. Quickly."

The volunteer in question, looking glad to be excused, disappeared into the recesses behind the altar. "Now what's that expression over, Father?" Angelus asked.

"You're going to escape a house of God and the judgement of the righteous using a covering designed to welcome new souls into the Church. Given your pretence earlier, I can't help but think it's more irony than I can bear," Neilands replied, eyes dulled and roving over the imagery which perforated his own particular oasis of Christianity.

There should have been a pithy, quick reply to that remark. Angelus prided himself on such ripostes. On this occasion, however, he could think of none; he merely allowed the old priest to wallow in his own guilt. Movement from the back suggested that Jake had located that which he had been sent to find.

"Hello?"

To a man – and to a vampire, though he would never admit it – the inhabitants of the chapel started in shock at the sound of the new voice. It was Elizabeth, approaching from the doors. Even from this distance Angelus could see she had been injured since he saw her last; she held herself awkwardly on one side. A parental infliction, no doubt; he could see the telltale signs of domestic oppression on her face. Little matter though – one form of abuse would change itself for another the day she was unlucky enough to marry one of the oafs who stood before him.

"Leave us, Elizabeth," Neilands told her firmly. "This is a dangerous time."

Eyes wide with fear, she began to comply, her attention rapt at the scene. She was almost gone again when Angelus saw the inevitable happen; the penny dropped.

"Wait a minute," Jack said suddenly. "Didn't she say that she'd seen this demon kill the other one this morning?"

Panic filled the young woman's face and, unwisely, she chose to run rather than attempting an explanation. Jack caught her in a few long strides, his meaty arm clamping around her small wrists, hauling her to an ungraceful halt before she could reach the sanctity of the outside world.

"Don't harm her, Jack!" Neilands called harshly, his voice betraying his feeling that this situation was fast spiralling out of his control. "We'll question her later."

"We will question her now, before he escapes," Jack growled, just as Jake returned from his errand with a large bundle of rags over one arm. In his grasp, Elizabeth struggled mightily and in vain. Angelus couldn't help but be amused at how much satisfaction Jack was getting from her hopeless thrashing in his grip; barely five minutes ago the smith himself had been the subject of superior strength, yet already he seemed to have forgotten.

"Jack! You will do as I tell you!" Neilands roared.

"I take no orders from a coward in a collar!" Jack hollered back.

During this exchange, Angelus moved. In a single smooth motion he was off the plinth and running. An outstretched arm floored the astonished Jake, his cargo of shawls scooped from the air even as they began to tumble. Edward – if, indeed, he was Edward – had enough time to raise his home-made stake before Angelus reached out and snapped his neck in two, sending the man crashing to the ground, his head grotesquely twisted at the most unnatural of angles.

Only the figures of Jack and Elizabeth stood between him and freedom now. Jack had already released the girl and was already in mid-swing of the huge anvil-hammer he'd brought as his trademark weapon from the smithy. Had it connected with Angelus, he would have been spread in a thin red mist across the chapel roof. Had it connected. Measuring his stride, Angelus easily avoided the swing, the hammer passing through empty space.

That, at least, was the plan.

His measured stride began to falter several steps from Jack. The reason for this was that absolute agony was spreading through his hands and down both of his arms. Had Angelus time to cast a glance back in the direction of Father Neilands, he would have seen a thin smile of satisfaction on the priest's face. Christening shawls, he realised, too late. Dipped every single Sunday in a font of holy water…oh, shit –

Jack's hammer caught him no more than a glancing blow to the hip. Somehow keeping hold of the shawls despite the almost blinding pain in his arms and now in his midriff, Angelus stumbled on, his momentum carrying him forward. Not expecting the vampire to remain on his feet, Jack was caught surprised; he tried to twist around for another, killing, strike…and Elizabeth's outstretched foot sent him down.

There was no time to hesitate now. Angelus threw the shawls over his head and burst out into the evening sunshine, racing against time, pain, and the chasing pack…

"James! James, you young fool!"

Pausing in his dreary task of drafting letters to the local administrators – at times he wished he had never been so keen to gain literacy – James wrenched himself from his idle dreams, the vast majority of which involved Elizabeth, a sunlit evening and an illicit rendezvous in a hayloft owned by an understanding local. His father's voice thundered throughout the house; it would have carried a good distance in any cathedral you cared to name.

"What is it, Father?" he called back, mindful to keep any hint of impatience from his tone. Like seemingly all of his peers, his father had considered the leather strap to be the be-all and the end-all in terms of parental discipline.

The man in question bouldered into his study, filling the doorway almost completely. "Get that pen down and get your coat," he boomed. "We're needed in the village."

Despite himself, James felt curious. His father was a regular member of the local vigilante mob but if they were calling him up too…it could only mean that –

"The demon has escaped," he breathed.

"That he has, boy," his father was already lumbering back through the doorway. "So get moving; every man in the village is on alert tonight. There's not a person alive around these parts safe in their beds until that thing is caught and put back where it belongs – in the ground."

James was already scrambling to fit his large cotton overcoat over his shoulders. He'd longed for exactly this type of opportunity for months, years…finally, the chance to show the village, to show Elizabeth in particular, that he was a grown man.

Elizabeth. His fingers fumbled even faster with the fastenings. Where was she? Was she safe? He had to find out, and quickly. If anything had happened to her…she was everything this village did not represent to him – opportunity, beauty, a splash of the panoramic exotic amongst the doldrums of the familiar. He felt queasy suddenly; if it was so obvious to him she was the pinnacle of womanhood in this place, it might be clear to others too…

"Father, wait!" he called, stomping through the foot door and into the night. The fair weather of earlier in the day had not been an accurate harbinger of what darkness was to bring; rain beat down a steady tattoo over the countryside from nocturnal clouds. His father's horse was already ploughing a furrow through the driving downpour, the shape on its back hunched over and urging the animal on.

Typical, he thought sourly. His own horse, a temperamental sort who truth be told scared the hell out of him, was pawing the ground nervously a little way away. He ran to it, his hand raised above his head to block out the stinging droplets from above.

"Calm now, Ebony," he quavered. Ebony seemed about as convinced as he sounded. They'll ask me to stay with the women, James thought to himself, feet scrambling for purchase on the stirrups. Damn them, I won't do it…unless Elizabeth is there…

Ebony whinnied loudly and rocked backwards, almost throwing him off just as he'd found balance upon her broad back. He resisted the urge to dig his heels into her flanks out of sheer frustration with her behaviour, and instead patted her head, dipping his mouth down to her ears and speaking soothingly as his father had taught him.

"Ebony…calm…steady, girl…nothing to…"

She reared up, neighing in sheer panic. James hung on for a long moment before his grip failed him and he crashed to the cobbled stones beneath him, his back and shoulder exploding with pain. He dimly registered through a fog of agony that Ebony had made good her escape; her hooves rattled a fading rhythm to the night. The rain pelted him as he lay prone and gasping, trickling beneath his clothes in rivulets, his body chilled to the bone where white-hot pain failed to prevail.

Someone was there, with him. James, on the precipice of passing out, tried to sit up far enough to see. He howled in agony at the attempt, his head slumping back to the soaking cobbles. The metallic tang of blood was on his lips.

"Can you move at all, man?"

James thanked the good Lord for sending whoever it was now stood over him. He wheezed out a barely comprehensible negative to the question, praying that unconsciousness would claim him before the pain had a chance to go up another notch. He had a dark pit of certainty that at least one of his shoulders was broken.

"Will I take you inside?"

The voice was much closer now. He could make out a shape in the onrush of droplets, feel a hand coming down to help support him. "Yes," he croaked, and passed out.

Angelus smiled down at his cataleptic form. "Now isn't that nice…" he purred.

Seldom had the village seen a night quite like it. The chapel, acting as base of operations for the hunt, was filled to the rafters with the surviving men of the village. The bodies of Angelus' victims from the day's earlier events were laid out in state before the altar, a Jack-inspired move to instil a sense of purpose in his troops. What it was actually doing was generating a deep unease amongst them – the bodies were broken like dolls, a reminder of the sheer power of their quarry.

"We're going to do what should have been done long since," Jack bellowed, "and rid ourselves of this demon. This is a God-fearing village, and always has been. I'm damned if I let this…this thing make us prisoners in our own homes."

Father Neilands stood a little way to the side, leaning against the entrance to one of his confessional boxes. He said nothing, and had been silent for the past while, his expression vacant. No matter how this madness eventually panned out, he was finished in this parish, he knew that. There had even been murmurings of unrest when it was suggested he stay with the women and children in the spacious safehouse chosen a little way away. They didn't trust him enough.

"We'll spread out," Jack was saying, having the time of his life, "three groups of six men each, and circle the village. Search every hayloft and barn you come across, and if you see him, attack without warning or mercy."

Crudely-made stakes were hefted in the air as an answering wave of assent and approval greeted this plan. "Sound thinking," a voice boomed out. Neilands identified the source as Morgan senior, young James' father, freshly dismounted and out of the rain by the looks of him. Neilands had taught his son to read. He doubted if Morgan would ever forgive him for that.

"Is this a private hunt, or can anyone join in?"

The new voice caused an immediate stir. Suspicious hands flew to stakes with a rashness that made Neilands despair of any innocent men out there tonight that this mob should come across in the darkness. The newcomer, however, seemed oblivious to the danger signs. He stood framed against the high, arched doorway to the building, rain steaming slightly from his long coat.

"Who the hell are you?" Jack demanded.

The newcomer stepped forward. He was an imposing figure; Neilands figured him for over six feet easily, and pretty broad of shoulder. Not to be overshadowed by the men of the village was no mean feat, and he was managing it with apparent ease.

"You sent for me," he replied. "I'm from the Watcher's Council. Albert Giles at your service," and he bowed slightly in a way that somehow managed to stamp his own superiority over the mob even more, "I was given to understand you had a captive vampire on the premises but, given this impromptu little party, I'll assume that the situation has worsened…?"

"It has," Jack confirmed, sending a venomous glance at Neilands, as if he could blame the old priest for everything. Neilands felt Giles' eyes flick to him, assessing him and his role here in barely a moment. Whatever this man's exact job was, he had been doing it for quite some time, that much was obvious. "The demon has escaped."

"What makes you think he will not simply leave the area?" Giles inquired. "There doesn't seem to be," and he indicated the ragtag militia, "much of an incentive."

"He has scores to settle…and he may have some friends here."

Giles rested himself against the end of a nearby pew. "Sir, you have my attention."

Watch her. Don't let her out of your sight. And if she tries to leave, stop her. She's got some questions to answer after all of this is over, isn't that right, Elizabeth?

The last words of Jack and his mob before they departed for the meeting in the chapel still echoed in her mind. They'd fairly thrown her into the safehouse interior, mouths twisted in suspicion and hatred, and growled their orders to the senior women present. One of which, inevitably, had been her own mother. As soon as Jack and co. had left she'd received the beating of a lifetime. Her left arm was numb from the elbow down, all feeling gone after repeated blows from any implement her mother could bring to hand. Elizabeth had feigned unconsciousness from a head blow; a trick she'd grown quite skilled at pulling off.

Why had she helped the vampire to escape? She certainly had no love for him – she found him attractive, yes, but he was nothing more than a monster, an animal. And yet…she couldn't shake the feeling that Connor was influencing her actions still, dead though he was. That he would have wanted her to act as she'd acted, to allow Angelus to escape a messy death at the hands of an anonymous mob in a small nondescript village. Saved for the higher purpose Connor had spoken of, no doubt. How on earth could a demon like Angelus serve a higher purpose?

She would pay for her actions, that much was certain. A century ago the villagers would probably have been assembling the stake at which to barbeque her in the morning. In these enlightened modern times, however, she could probably hope to escape with lifelong damnation, perhaps banishment from the village altogether. They'd brand her for sure; Jack would relish that task, as her mother watched her being held down, the red-hot iron descending to her flesh…

Discussion was being held amongst the senior women, while the younger members fussed over the children, alternatively squabbling and bawling in clumps scattered throughout the house. The entire non-male population of the village had been assembled in here, the house of the most affluent family the area had to offer. Only in times of floods or droughts had she seen such fluid co-operation. Angelus was having a uniting effect, unwitting or not. It was something Connor might have appreciated.

A baby girl, no more than a year old, was emptying her lungs with huge whooping sobs a few feet from her. Uncurling cautiously, she reached out to comfort the child.

"Get away from her!"

Her mother, a girl she knew from the opposite end of the village, snatched the girl away, her lip curled in disgust and fear. "Stay away from my daughter!"

"I was just – " Elizabeth began.

"Witch!" the girl hissed, and scurried away, the bawling child dangling from one arm.

She felt her eyes begin to mist over with tears again. No matter how this turned out, her life in the village was finished, that much was obvious. No-one would ever trust her again. What man would want her?

…James. The name arrived unbidden in her mind. Doubtlessly, despite his rather flighty reputation, he would have been conscripted into the militia tonight. How would he react when the rumours reached him about her involvement, her supposed seduction to the dark powers? He was much more intelligent than the vast majority of the rabble in the area – they'd met, after all, at Father Neilands' literacy classes three years ago. If he rejected her too…she would be truly alone.

"James," she whispered, realising that she wanted more than anything right now to see him blush, see him smile at her again. Even checking out her arse would be –

The knocks at the front door were like gunshots. Everyone, even the children, froze.

"Open up!" came the call.

Elizabeth felt her heart lift. The voice was, unmistakably, that of James.

"Young Morgan, that you?" the woman nearest the door asked. "Shouldn't you be out with the rest of the men?"

"Knowing him, he's been sent here with us to stay safe."

That comment came from Elizabeth's mother. It was met with a current of murmured consensus, and more than a little smirked amusement. James was well-renowned around the village as a handsome, but ultimately a rather feminine young man. The doorkeeper unbolted the door. It took her quite a while.

"I've been sent by Jack," James explained, silhouetted against the rain by the flickering lamplight from the interior of the crammed house. His hand rested on the frame of the doorway casually. "He wants me to take the traitor, see if we can use her as bait to smoke out the vampire."

Elizabeth felt the bottom fall out of her world.

"Good idea," the doorkeeper said approvingly. Elizabeth found it hard to hear her words clearly past her own despair. "We have no use for her in here."

"Shall I come in and get her?" James asked. "She might try something."

"No need," Elizabeth's mother said firmly. She marched over in a few strides and hauled the numbed girl to her feet with a hand crooked under each arm. She felt herself being taken to the front door. "Don't get her killed, mind you," her mother added, "I'll be the one to discipline her myself when this is over."

James smiled. "I'm sure you will."

The rain lashed down on her as she was tumbled out of the house, soaking her so abruptly and thoroughly that she gasped with the shock of the cold and wet. James caught her before she lost her balance altogether on the slippery cobbled surface underfoot, supporting her a sight more gently than her mother had done. She heard the door slam behind her and the sliding creak of the many protective bolts being drawn back across the interior.

"Elizabeth?" James whispered.

"Just take me where I'm supposed to go and be done with it," she pleaded, beginning to shiver as the drops soaked through her dress to the skin beneath.

"You can go wherever you like," he replied.

She lifted her head from her chest to frown up at him, puzzled. "But…you said…"

He wrapped his arms around her. "Those fools will believe anything, Elizabeth, you of all people should know that by now. Do you really think Jack would entrust me," and his eyes glittered, "with any sort of mission of importance?"

Hardly able to take in what she was hearing, Elizabeth hugged him fiercely. "This village is full of fools, James," she said softly. "I can't live here anymore, not after tonight. Nor would I want to."

"Then let's leave, you and I," he said excitedly. "Come back with me to my home and we'll take what we need to begin our journey, and slip away this very night. I couldn't face life in this forsaken place without you."

She hesitated. Life here was all she'd ever known. Her entire family was based here, her ancestry. Seven generations of her family lay buried in the chapel graveyard. To give up that sense of grounding for a life of uncertainty on the open road with a man she barely –

"Let's go," she said. "Now."

Neilands lowered the flickering taper, watched it make brief contact with the candle before transferring its flame. He blew out the thin strip of wood and simply stood there for a few long moments, lost in the dancing warmth before him. The building was long empty now, its citizen soldiers swarming through the district, cutting a swathe of self-righteous justice no doubt.

How had the vampire taken him in so easily? How could he have been so foolish? Was it his age? Or was he so naïve that he honestly believed in the capacity for redemption in such soulless beasts? And yet…when he spoke of Connor being a 'genuine tortured soul', I know he wasn't lying. What does that mean?

His faith had been slipping for some time. It was ironic really – most people were meant to experience an upsurge in belief as their years progressed and the scythe of time grew ever closer. Neilands instead found himself with more and more questions left unanswered. The casual brutality of his flock appalled him; domestic violence here was rife, and he knew that child abuse of all kinds went on around him, that at Mass on Sunday he stared into too many pairs of dead, callous eyes.

What would they do to Elizabeth…his stomach tightened at the thought. No matter what reason she'd had for helping Angelus, her punishment would surely be brutal. That girl was one of the few sparks of potential in this place. He remembered the reading and writing classes he'd held a few years back when she'd attended…with the boy with the amusingly obvious crush on her – James, that was it.

James. If anyone could help her, would help her now, surely it was he. He hadn't been here with the rest of the men; knowing village gossip the way he did, Neilands knew it was because of the boy's reputation as an intellectual nancy boy. He could only be in one of two places now.

Mumbling a prayer, Neilands fumbled on his hat and cloak and staggered out into the night. My cowardice is responsible for this, Lord, he thought, let me alone suffer.

From the shadows under the trees, Giles watched him go.

The ride through the twilight lanes had been exhilarating. She couldn't deny it. James, for all his slightly foppish exterior, had somehow developed horsemanship skills surpassing anything she'd ever experienced. The animal responded to his every command as if terrified to do anything else but obey. Rainwater had flown up around them in a mobile cloud as they thundered out of the centre of the village, the black spire of the church steeple receding with every clatter of hooves.

Her companion vaulted from the horse with graceful ease when the animal came to a stop outside his family's home. Though no equine expert, Elizabeth reckoned the beast to be close to collapse with exhaustion. She pushed the thought from her mind as James extended his arms and allowed herself to half-fall, half-roll from the horse's back and into his secure grasp.