Chapter 6: Helhesten

'A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,

As much or more we should ourselves complain.'

William Shakespeare

'How do you top a god of death when it comes to the nastiness stakes?' Buffy stared at Giles. 'I mean, they are supposed to be pretty morbid, right?'

'Apparently, this thing is really terrible and sadistic and all,' Willow supplied instantly.

'And a horse,' Buffy mused. 'Gosh, can this get any more exciting?'

Wesley had stepped up next to Giles, tilting his head so he could squint at the book. Buffy could not understand why he bothered. It was not like he could read the thing anyway.

'What is it then?'

'Have you ever heard of Helhesten?' Giles had his glasses off and were cleaning them agitatedly. But it was Angel's hoarse voice that answered.

'Scandinavian demon and its name roughly translates as 'hell horse'. It is the resentful spirit of a horse haunting graveyards -' he closed his eyes, '- and I can't believe I didn't think of that before.'

From the silence in the room, Buffy knew she was not the only one who was staring.

'Um...yes, quite,' Giles said.

'What does it do?' Willow asked. 'Any special powers and all that so they are much stronger than us and make it almost impossible for us to kill them? Can it be killed?'

Buffy smiled humourlessly. 'Watch it, Wills, or you will de-crown me as the King of un-peppish pep-talks!'

Giles took his glasses off and put them back on again. It made her dizzy to look at. 'I – truth be told, I don't...um...don't really know yet.'

'But you'll look into it,' Buffy stated simply. That part stopped being questionable years ago.

Giles shot her a brief look. 'We,' he said, accentuating the word with great care, 'will look into it.'

'Sounds peachy. Well, I'll just go and get Angel patched up a bit.'

Even Angel stared at her.

'- where after I will hurry down and join the snoring party,' she added quickly. 'Don't worry. You know you can't keep me from this crazy house of fun for long.'

Giles snorted.

Buffy started up the stairs and heard the chair legs scrape along the floor as Angel got to his feet to follow her. She could feel Giles' eyes burn a mark in the back of her neck even after she had turned down the narrow corridor and disappeared from view.

At the fourth door on the right hand, she paused and gave it a soft push. Angel followed her into the bathroom in silence. She heard him sit down at the edge of the bath, as she pulled open the mirror-wardrobe's door to produce a large box with as many different variations of first aid kits as she, Giles and Willow had managed to procure.

A necessity when their little family's rendez-vous tended to involve ambushing, stabbing and beheading and not finding themselves in situations of the same.

Buffy placed the box beside the toilet.

'Is it bad?'

The question was not a necessity since looking at him quite simply substituted an answer but Buffy felt she owed his manly pride a chance to play the hero.

Of course he took it.

'No.'

'Do you need help?' she asked in a voice that she thought sounded far too cold and distant.

Angel's eyes sought hers for a second before he looked down again. He shook his head. 'No.'

'Good.'

She had almost closed the door after her when she paused in her tracks. 'There's a guest room two doors down to the left,' she said, not turning around. 'If - if you need to lie down.'

There came a soft 'thank you' from him and she closed the door. Buffy stood for a moment in the corridor and listened to the slow rhythm of her own heart, while no sounds came through the door from the bathroom.

They were not talking. That was good, right?

She wondered whether she ought to have helped him clean out the nastier wounds, but pushed the thought away. He was a big boy now, head of a law firm and all. He could take care of himself.

She passed the spare bedroom and felt her legs slow to a stand-still. Her fingers had tapped jingle-bells twice on the door's white surface, before she made up her mind and slipped into the room to pull the curtains for the windows.

Three hours passed with researching through books that all looked the same but dealt with a different demon each time, though never the one they were searching for, and it was taking Giles abnormally long to decrypt the texts of the book. Willow had left for work at the computer company and had light-heartedly dismissed Buffy's concerns about her late arrival and the problems she would subsequently run into with her boss.

'They are not all like Giles in cranky mood, you know,' her friend had joked before leaving Buffy with the two watchers as her only company. And to Angel she saw neither tail nor shadow the entire morning.

She was on page three-hundred and twenty-five of book seven when she slammed it shut with so much force both Giles and Wesley jumped.

'I'm taking a short break,' she announced abruptly. 'This is driving me insane.'

Giles mumbled something unintelligible.

'Do you have Svantes Demon Encyclopaedia?' Wesley asked and Buffy pushed her chair out and got to her feet. Giles and Wesley submerged themselves in a discussion of weird sounding ancient volumes and she disappeared upstairs, unable to care less whether or not Giles had that particular encyclopaedia or if they would have to make do with the thirty-five others.

The door to the bathroom had been pushed ajar and the box with the first aid kit had disappeared. Buffy tip-toed down the corridor, pausing outside the guest-room; listening, she heard the floor boards squeak slightly as Angel walked softly across the room.

Her hand levitated an inch from the plain surface of the door in a moment of indecision before she struck it gently. When he did not answer, Buffy pushed the door open and stepped into the room. Angel was sitting on the bed, his back to her, and she glimpsed the red lines that criss-crossed his white skin before he promptly pulled a shirt over his head. He jumped to his feet and turned to face her.

He was not as pale as when she had left him earlier and his lips were no longer blue. That, at least, was a major improvement.

'Buffy,' he said softly though there was a surprised tinge to his voice. She could not help but wonder who he had expected. Maybe Wesley?

'Hi,' she said, feeling stupid for staying there in the open door so she quickly closed it. 'You okay?'

'I'm fine.'

Better yes, but 'Fine', she thought, might just be an exaggeration. He had cleaned up his face and most of the wounds had already healed, though the burns on his cheek and throat was another matter. They still looked raw and inflamed, as though his captors had poured corrosive liquids down his throat. Which, she thought in disgust, they probably had. She suddenly realized he was aware of her staring at him.

'Um...' she clasped and unclasped her hands. 'Are you hungry – cos I can always slip by the butcher when I take a break from my calling as a study buddy?'

Angel had sat down upon the bed again. 'I'm fine,' he just repeated.

It struck her his voice flat, dismissive, almost hostile, and it unsettled her more than it should have.

'You know, every time you say that it becomes less and less convincing.'

He just looked at her, and the strange emptiness in his eyes struck her. There was something uncaring in his glance, a desolation she did not understand.

'Why did you give it up?' She could have bit her own tongue off. She had not intended the words to slip out but now she could not leave it at that. He still had not moved and she stiffened with uncertainty and discomfort. 'Your fight, our fight?'

He looked at her for so long she did not think he intended to answer.

'I didn't.'

She swallowed, looking down. 'Oh.'

Then there was more silence in which she looked at Angel trying not to look at her.

'Then Wolfram and Hart –'

'Was different,' he interrupted brusquely.

'I'd say!' she blurted out, unable to stop herself. Angel flinched slightly. 'Well, you didn't exactly use to strike off deals with shady lawyer-demon types.'

Her disappointment seeped into her voice, and Angel's expression darkened visibly as he picked it up.

'I didn't have a choice.'

It would almost have been better if he had said 'I did it because I felt bored and needed something more in my life'. This pathetic submission made her angry, seeing that, although she would never admit it to herself, it marked yet another step Angel had taken to increase the distance between them.

'There is always a choice.'

Rather than facing her wrath, Angel stood up and walked to the corner of the room. Amid all her confusion and anger Buffy felt a welcoming pang of normalcy, as she remembered how he had always done that. She wondered whether he was aware of how he sought physical support every time he became uncertain or afraid of something. Then he answered and broke off her musings.

'Or an ultimatum.' He looked at her and there was something of the old trust in his eyes, and as the gullible, hopeful, ignorant girl she was Buffy chose to latch onto that shadow of trust as had it been a lifeline.

'One of those 'if you don't do this we will do that' kinda deals?'

'Yes.'

Buffy waited for the continuation but it did not seem like any was coming. 'And what?'

Angel turned from the corner and he arched his neck back to stare at the ceiling before he lowered his eyes again. 'I can't tell you,' he said quietly.

The mannerism was suddenly more reminiscent of his soulless self, and the twinge of hope hat had dwindled hopefully within Buffy's chest moments before was brutally doused by the ice that spread from her stomach.

'Why, is it 'confidential'?' Buffy had not even noticed that she had stepped closer to him. 'Do you have to be a 'lawyer' to understand it?'

Angel did not show it if her anger struck him. He looked down at her and the unfeeling glint was back in his eyes, making them hard. Buffy suddenly found herself missing the hope and trust she thought she had seen in them earlier.

'You don't understand,' he said and his voice was cold.

'No,' she spat back, feeding her anger with the frustration that sped through her as she fought back tears, 'and how could I, when you won't tell me what the hell is going on? Not all people can read minds. Sometimes you have to tell them stuff – it's called 'conversation'!'

This time she knew he was angry too. There was a time he would not have shouted at her but that did not seem like an issue anymore.

'Don't tell me to open up and share my problems when you made it so perfectly clear a few weeks back that you don't trust me anymore!' He stepped closer, towering over her, and his eyes darkened in synchrony with his skin which paled in anger. 'My choices and my decisions are my business, not yours, and I fight my fight as I see fit. You can distrust me if you like, you can hate me if it makes it easier for you, but I'm here on business and I owe you nothing!'

Stunned, Buffy was unable to speak for a moment. Her throat was tight, the heat of anger gone, leaving only an immobilising freezing sensation behind. That, and the tears burning treacherously behind her eyes. 'What had you expected! You don't call, you don't write, and wham! you take over the most evil corporation in the world! I didn't –'

'You told me to work on the second front. I did it the only way I could.'

'Don't you try and blame me for your decisions!'

'I'm not blaming you for anything! They were my decisions and I stand by them. I can't do anything else.'

'Oh, that's right; you didn't have a choice.'

'Exactly. You cannot understand what I fight, so don't try to.'

That was not something he was to decide, Buffy thought heatedly. 'How can you expect me to understand when I don't even know what happened!'

'You don't need to understand!' Angel roared back across the room.

She gave a dry chuckle although she found the scenario anything but funny, the forced laughter at least serving to keep the tears firmly behind their glassy shield. 'No, of cause not, because I'm just a useful tool and why should you bother with me?'

The muscles in his neck were standing out like ropes and his fists were clenched. Buffy was pretty certain he was very close to sock her across the face. She almost wished he would do it because she felt very much like hitting him back.

'You are not unimportant!' he said, and his voice shook with controlled anger.

Or maybe something else.

'Funny, you could have fooled me!'

She thought he would shout again, but he did not.

'I'm sorry,' Angel said. The emptiness was gone from his eyes and they shone with pain and regret.

She cocked her head at him, fuelling her uncertainty into sarcasm. She was good at it by now. She had been doing it professionally so to speak for years. 'Mantra?'

'I'm sorry if you feel you are unimportant because you're not,' he said, sincerity in his voice and face. 'But the last I hear from you, you send Giles' camp underdog to screw me over with the help of an army of your slayers, being quite certain to hammer the message in. That didn't exactly inspire confidence.' His voice was growing slightly thick and he broke off the sentence.

Buffy licked her lips, her mouth uncomfortably dry. Angel blinked, his eyes dropping off her face.

'Angel, I…' But she did not know what to say. There was so much to say, so much to be sorry for that she no longer knew where to begin.

'I'm sorry,' he began, stepping away from her, his head bowed. 'That it should go this way.'

Suddenly, Buffy felt cold, vulnerable and exposed, not wanting to understand what he was saying, unable to deny it. Instinctively she flung her arms around her chest in a protective hug. 'Me too,' she whispered.

Angel almost looked at her but just before his eyes could brush over hers, he swiftly lowered his gaze to his hands. 'I'm sorry that I had to lose your trust and that of all my friends to save a soul. Sorry, for what I have done to my friends and why I had to do it. I'm sorry for the lives I ruin, for the souls I have to sacrifice to save others.' He paused with his back to her and she heard him let out a shaky breath. Buffy could feel her heart thundering against her ribs, the air tasting like ash on her dry tongue. 'In our fight with the Beast,' he began, his voice barely more than a whisper, 'my – someone I cared about, loved, he – he was lost.'

Feeling awkward, Buffy stood watching him, uncertain whether she ought to sit down or not. 'Died?'

Angel turned slowly to face her, and his eyes were dark with sorrow and pain. 'No. He lost his mind.' And suddenly his voice took on a sharper ring. 'My war drove him mad. I destroyed his life. So I struck a deal with the Senior Partners – they altered reality, gave him back his sanity, a normal life, wiped the memory of my friends so only I remember him, and in return I took the tall chair at Wolfram and Hart.' He spat the name out.

Buffy felt her head swim and promptly sat down on the bed, stunned. 'Oh God, Angel...' The full implications of his revelations were only just dawning on her; his reasons, his actions, the consequences… And he had to deal with it all, alone.

She could empathise.

'It's over – it's done.' Angel leant his back against the corner's wall, his gaze lost in some spot between his feet. 'And none of the others can ever know. Not about him, not why I did what I did, not about the true reasons for Cordelia's coma.'

His voice broke and silence descended between them again.

Buffy fiddled with the edge of her turquoise blouse, wondering what to say. Of cause, there was the time honoured classics of 'Oh, how terrible!' or 'Poor thing!' but they just did not strike the right note. So she stayed silent, overwhelmed.

She felt the mattress sag as Angel sat down beside her. Neither of them spoke and Angel had placed himself with the convenience gained with years of practice, a good inch or two separating their bodies. Buffy looked at him through the corner of her eye. An arm rested on each knee and his head was bowed; he was very still.

'Do you understand?' Angel's voice was muffled, and the words were flat, mechanical, as though he had been going over them in his head before speaking. His dark head rose, his face turned to hers.

Buffy met his dark eyes instinctively and felt a pang shoot through her. 'I do,' she answered, her voice quiet. She knew it soothed him though he merely bowed his head again, with no indication of what he felt.

Her skin itched like a full body makeover of pins and needles. It was so typical; the moment she agreed with herself that this deal was strictly no touching that was really all she wanted. The moment she could not touch, the yearning to feel rose powerfully in her chest, unwanted but strong.

The yearning to feel loved again.

To feel Angel again.

She jumped to her feet and took three quick steps to the door. When she turned around, Angel had raised his head and his eyes met hers, silently and questioningly.

'Well, uhm – I,' she flung her arms around her chest and her eyes darted around the room before they found Angel's face once more. 'I better go...'

Angel nodded, lowering his eyes again.

She bit her lip and could not get her legs to turn around. You were there, a small voice screamed in her ear. He opened up to you, now it's your turn.

'There's demon hunting on the programme for tonight,' her voice said instead, 'if you wanna come...?'

'Fine,' he said, not looking up.

She turned and closed the door after her, not looking back.

Angel saw the cold, plain surface of the door shut out Buffy's form as she stepped out of the room. He did not understand why she had come but he was not sure it mattered either. Groaning, he got to his feet and pulled the shirt off again. It was not particular comfortable to have the fabric brush against the healing lash wounds every time he moved.

He sunk back on the bed, ignoring the soreness of his back.

Treasuring it.

The physical discomfort was easier to deal with than the psychological war raging within him.

She had asked him why. She had believed something had made him choose that road, that he had not willingly forsaken his former life. And she had wanted to know what.

She had cared.

Even after all this time she still cared.

Two nights ago, when Angel had dumped into her life again as if they had not been apart for years, Buffy had not noticed how loose the clothes hang on him, how pale he looked. She had been far too busy with not seeing him at all.

That haunted, absent-minded look in his eyes had always been there but now it had been joined by something else. Hopelessness, desolation. It was a look she had only seen once before, on a hill top overlooking Sunnydale, but that was years ago. Angel had moved on, she told herself as she walked slowly down the stairs. He had a purpose now.

And yet, she doubted. The behaviour she had just witnessed was not that of a determined Angel, but of a doubtful one, one that was losing sight of his path.

She knew it from herself. Those despairing moments where nothing she did ever seemed to make a difference, those moments where it did not matter how hard she fought and what she sacrificed. Who she fought, who she sacrificed.

They kept coming. Stronger. More and more of them.

Sometimes private despair and isolation was easier than sustaining a false hope in others.

Neither Giles nor Wesley looked up as she took her position at the table.

She had not expected them to.

The full moon hangs above the sloping roofs of the tall, sturdy buildings, its faint silvery light reflected weakly in the open shutters. Puddles of rainwater lies scattered across the tarmac, caught between the thin strips of water that carve angles between the pavestones of the narrow alleys that winds their way upwards, like a cobweb whose strings are laden with pearls of dew in an early morning of spring.

No light shines from the houses as he passes. The lampposts stand tall, dark and silent, like lonely giants, at every crossroad.

The town is dark.

Silent.

Dead.

He turns down a narrow alley that cuts between buildings like a boundless chasm through a barren wasteland.

He pauses in his path before a house whose door is opening onto the alley, beckoning for him to enter. And from within comes the sound of struggling.

No voices reaches his ears, but a splintering of wood and the heavy thump of bodies colliding with floor and walls makes him peer into the darkened room.

Moonlight reflects fleetingly in strands of blonde hair as a young woman leads a vampire around the room in a strange dance of hits, punches and spinning kicks. He watches silently from the door.

Suddenly the vampire charges at her and they crash against the floor in a flurry of flailing arms and kicking legs; in one of her hands the girl wields a wooden stake, its smooth surface momentarily catching the soft light of the moon before the demon delivers a back-handed blow to her wrist that sends the weapon flying from her grasp.

Angel cries out and charges through the open doorway – but feels his body smash violently against the invisible wall that cruelly denies him entry. Buffy struggles against the demon's firm grip as it calmly positions its body on top of hers, its grasp on her wrist forcing her arms down at her sides. It presses its lower body against hers as it lowers its face, fangs barred in a triumphant leer.

Screaming, Angel flings himself once more at the open doorway and as it strikes back at him with supernatural force, he feels his head swim as though he had been struck across the face with a sledgehammer.

Her face is pale as she turns her head to look at him with eyes that are glossy with fear. He presses the palms of his hands against the wall, shallow breaths surging through his body. And then the vampire's teeth sink into her neck and she goes quiet while he screams, screams until his throat is torn and shredded and his hands are bleeding from pounding against the invisible barrier.

Disorientated, Angel shot into a sitting position, lashing out at the person who was shaking him by the arm and feeling the back of his hand connect with a face before he darted to his feet. Panting hard, he shook his head as a dark, unfamiliar room shifted into focus.

Images sped through his mind, real and imaginary, and he remembered.

Only a dream.

Book.

Helhesten

Giles.

Buffy.

A hand reached up behind the bed and Buffy pulled herself on her feet, her left hand softly massaging her jaw bone.

Oh God, I hit Buffy.

'Ow,' she said, a playful smile on her face. 'Didn't your mom ever tell you it is indecent to punch poor, defenceless women?'

The dying Buffy in his dream flashed before his eyes as he blinked, and he stared intensely at the Buffy in front of him. She looked alive and well and her jaw was not even bruising. He let out a shaky breath of relief.

'Are you okay?' She sounded concerned and his eyes flashed to her face. She looked it too.

'Aah...' he said, struggling to find his voice.

'Okay, not exactly the response I was fishing for here.' She sat down on the bed. 'Do you always sleep so badly?'

'Lately.'

Buffy nodded as if he was telling her something she already knew. 'Must have been some dream, huh?'

There was no denying that.

'God, I think the entire street heard you,' she said and smiled at him.

'I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

'Oh for God's sake!' she cried and Angel stared mutely at her angry face. 'Could we try and have a conversation where 'I'm sorry' is not the only input from you?'

Angel realized he had opened his mouth to apologise and shut it again. 'Yes,' he said instead.

'Right. Well, I just wondered whether you would join me for a nice midnight stroll around this beautiful city's arguably less beautiful cemeteries for a demon hunt.'

He tilted his head and the light that spilled through the half-open door from the lamp that burned in the corridor fell across the side of his face and his dark eyes glowed.

Buffy felt her breath hitch in her throat.

'So,' she said, her voice slightly hoarse. 'You wanna come?'

He shrugged nonchalantly. 'Why not?' He did not sound as utterly lost this time. 'Not much else to do right now.'

'Well, not unless you count the immeasurable joy of mulling through smelly old books with Thomson and Thompson providing truly un-riveting background commentating.'

He smiled. 'I'll take the cemeteries.'

'Wise choice,' she said and bounced to her feet. 'You better put some pants on or someone might start thinking something.'

Even in the sparse light of the room, Buffy could see the flustered expression that crossed Angel's features and she was unable to stop the smile that spread across her face.

It did not take Angel long to pull into his black pants and fling a black jacket over a clean shirt. Buffy was beginning to wonder how he had managed to make room for so many of those and had reached the conclusion that Angel possessed more talent in the art of packing that she was ever likely to; though maybe that did not say much.

It was Friday night and in a rare state of humanity Giles had allowed Willow and Kennedy to take the night off, provided that they would work through the weekend. Seeing that they usually did that anyway, it was not a far stretch.

Wesley had been submerged in some texts on Viking folklore, which had made Buffy suspect he was worming out of his duty as premium researcher; Giles had not looked up from the book in hours, not counting the moment he felt a necessity to shout at Xander for nearly overturning his book-filled closet, and Buffy and Xander had been busily searching for any mentioning of a Helhest, when Angel's scream had cut through the routine and Buffy had darted to his room, glad for the interference.

The room looked as she had left it, apart from the fact that the mug before Giles was now empty, and Wesley had changed the Viking book for another with pictures of wolves, snakes and an eight-legged horse that bore more resemblance to a goat.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and walked to the weapon's cabinet. 'Angel and I are giving the donkey a run for its money,' she announced, earning a hard glare from her ex-Watcher as she pulled the doors open. Surveying the weapons before her for a moment, Buffy pulled out a broad sword and a couple of knives, handing some to Angel who accepted them in silence and proficiently strapped them onto his belt. 'We should be back before dawn. If not, don't come looking for us.'